Bob Kuczewski - 2017/10/26 05:10:52 UTC
Third, I don't know a lot about aero towing, but I do know that there are two ends of a tow rope, and there's a pilot with his life at stake on either end. That means there's a negotiation about everything from cost to weak link strength. I'll bet if you were paying $10,000 per tow, you could use any weak link you wanted ... someone would take that risk. But if you offered a $10 "strong weak link bonus", and no one would take it, then you can bet they have a legitimate safety concern that they're willing to favor over hard cash.
Yeah, I know I already beat this one up at the time...
http://www.kitestrings.org/viewtopic.php?p=10700#p10700
...but it's so fuckin' outrageous that it needs a second pass. (I've tried to eliminate or minimize redundancy.)
Third, I don't know a lot about aero towing...
Yeah, it IS a bit difficult to learn much about aerotowing with one's head perpetually inserted a foot and a half up one's ass.
...but I do know that there are two ends of a tow rope...
Funny you should mention that. 'Cause the FAA safety rules under which the aerotow exemption which hang gliders have flown since 1984 have MANDATED those two locations as the points for legal range weak link installations. And I can make a pretty good argument that if you have weak links installed on both ends of a bridle passing through a tow ring at either end of the towline you're in full compliance 'cause you can either consider the bridles as extensions of the towline or the bridle assemblies themselves as weak links.
...and there's a pilot with his life at stake on either end.
Any "pilot" at any end of a towline who's counting on a weak link to save his life doesn't deserve to have his life saved and the gene pool will suffer if it is. I can't even IMAGINE going up with a mindset that if I get into serious trouble the weak link will have already broken or that I'll be able to just push out abruptly to actuate my instant hands free release and just fly away. Please enlighten me as to what you'd be thinking and/or give me a scenario in which a weak link will do the tug the least bit of good down where it matters. And you're gonna hafta invent something for the tug scenario 'cause nothing remotely suitable has ever happened in the REAL world.
And I'll tell ya sumpin' else... Those motherfuckers go up with a finger on the trigger and both ears on the engine. 'Cause they're scared shitless of the same thing we are...
Power failure on takeoff. And they're not gonna sit around waiting for the Infallible Weak Link to increase the safety of the towing operation in one of those scenarios.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skysailingtowing/message/4633
Weaklinks and aerotowing (ONLY)
Steve Kroop - 2005/02/10 04:50:59 UTC
To: Davis Straub; Tow Group
Cc: Rohan Holtkamp; Paris Williams
Weak links are there to protect the equipment not the glider pilot. Anyone who believes otherwise is setting them selves up for disaster.
And to expand on the comments of this Questie douchebag... It only protects the "EQUIPMENT" from being overloaded while its rolling or fully airborne. It doesn't do SHIT to prevent the "equipment" and/or "pilot(s)" from getting totaled after it finishes protecting the equipment from being overloaded.
Furthermore... The safest and longest track record aerotow weak link ever developed will only prevent you from getting fatally slammed in if you have a good...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Marc Fink - 2011/08/28 21:11:09 UTC
I once locked out on an early laminarST aerotowing. went past vertical and past 45 degrees to the line of pull-- and the load forces were increasing dramatically. The weaklink blew and the glider stalled--needed every bit of the 250 ft agl to speed up and pull out. I'm alive because I didn't use a stronger one.
...250 feet of air below you when it finally gets around to increasing the safety of the towing operation (which you've been totally unable to do with your Industry Standard easily reachable release). And from that height and situation you'll be way better off tossing your chute. And do note that 250 feet is the exact same figure your buddy Rick Masters gives for either getting a collapsed paraglider reinflated or a reserve popped.
That means there's a negotiation about everything from cost to weak link strength.
That's not what the FAA says. The FAA says there's a MINIMUM legal weak link strength for the glider and the tug's needs to be STRONGER. And since virtually all Dragonflies pull tandems and never change their weak links to pull solos I wouldn't need to negotiate SHIT if these motherfuckers were flying LEGALLY.
And while we're on the subject of COST...
http://www.thefloridaridge.com/pilot-services/
Florida Ridge Hang Gliding :: Pilot Services
Flight Services
Solo Pilot Aero-Towing
Member/Non-Member
- $30/$50 - over 2000
- $20/$30 - 200 or less
http://ozreport.com/13.238
Adam Parer on his tuck and tumble
Adam Parer - 2009/11/25
Due to the rough conditions weak links were breaking just about every other tow and the two tugs worked hard to eventually get everyone off the ground successfully.
Two launches in rough conditions for every successful tow to altitude. Twice the costs in time, crew effort, wear and tear on tugs, glider forced/emergency landings, danger to flyers and planes on both ends, wasted soaring window, 130 pound test fishing line. Where's the benefit to anyone, Bob?
http://ozreport.com/13.003
Forbes, day one, task one
Davis Straub - 2009/01/03 20:50:24 UTC
Forbes Airport, New South Wales
Steve Elliot came off the cart crooked and things went from bad to worse as he augured in. He was helicoptered to Orange and eventually to Sydney where the prognosis is not good. I'll update as I find out more.
Why do you think his weak link didn't work when it was supposed to, Bob? Didn't quite make it up to the 250 foot minimum required altitude?
I'll bet if you were paying $10,000 per tow, you could use any weak link you wanted ... someone would take that risk.
- Yeah, I guess so. If I use a five hundred pound weak link on the back end that'll overwhelm the four hundred pounder on the front end.
http://ozreport.com/3.066
Weaklinks
Davis Straub - 1999/06/06
During the US Nationals I wrote a bit about weaklinks and the gag weaklinks that someone tied at Quest Air. A few days after I wrote about them, Bobby Bailey, designer and builder of the Bailey-Moyes Dragon Fly tug, approached me visibly upset about what I and James Freeman had written about weaklinks. He was especially upset that I had written that I had doubled my weaklink after three weaklinks in a row had broken on me.
And also render the front end release inoperable. I'd want AT LEAST 10K to risk my life with snowball's-chance-in-hell odds like that.
- The Lockout Mountain Flight Park tandem weak link...
1-2602
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5549/13995699911_14ebe6da3f_o.png
...is its two thousand pound Spectra bridle. What do you think their tuggies make per tandem pull?
- So you're saying that a tuggie would be perfectly willing to seriously endanger two lives and two aircraft for 10K? Yeah, you're undoubtedly right. I'm guessing any one of those sleazy goddam motherfuckers would slit your niece's throat for fifty bucks if he thought he had a half decent chance of getting away with it.
By the way... 914 Bailey-Moyes Dragonflies cost several tens of thousands of dollars a copy. Highland Aerosports totaled two of them along with their pilots. Neither was towing a glider anywhere significantly near the time of the crash. The problems were assembly and maintenance - in that chronological order. And neither of those crashes did anything for the long term survival of the operation.
- If this SHIT:
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
Jim Rooney - 2007/08/01 13:47:23 UTC
Whatever's going on back there, I can fix it by giving you the rope.
has any degree of legitimacy then why:
- does anybody at either end ever need a weak link for any reason whatsoever?
- do the FAA and u$hPa mandate minimum weak link ratings?
And I flew behind that individual motherfucker scores of times and untold scores more behind the assholes who trained him and signed him off. And just what do you imagine that feels like...
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
Jim Rooney - 2007/07/22 22:30:28 UTC
I've heard it a million times before from comp pilots insisting on towing with even doubled up weaklinks (some want no weaklink). I tell them the same thing I'm telling you... suck it up. You're not the only one on the line. I didn't ask to be a test pilot. I can live with your inconvenience.
...when you're trying to clear the kill zone?
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Bart Weghorst - 2011/08/28 20:29:27 UTC
Now I don't give a shit about breaking strength anymore. I really don't care what the numbers are. I just want my weaklink to break every once in a while.
Yeah, these are the assholes in whose hands we wanna be trusting our lives.
But if you offered a $10 "strong weak link bonus", and no one would take it, then you can bet they have a legitimate safety concern that they're willing to favor over hard cash.
Well, let's take a look at the REAL WORLD, Bob...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 14:04:52 UTC
We had six weaklink breaks in a row at Zapata this year. Russell Brown (tug pilot, tug owner, Quest Air owner) said go ahead and double up (four strands of Cortland Greenspot). He knows I used his Zapata weaklink in Big Spring (pilots were asked to tell the tug pilot if they were doing that).
Don't just gradually dial up with a single loop of 150.
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
Marc Fink - 2007/05/19 12:58:31 UTC
Tad,
The simple fact is that hundreds of thousands of tows using weaklinks in their present configuration successfully bely your contentions that we're all crazy for towing that way.
Simply put, your statements are irresponsible and are based on your personal interpretations.
I am a tow operator--as well as a "towee." I also do aerotow tandems. Using greenline or similar line, which generally tests at 125 lbs +- 50 lbs is widely accepted because it simply works well and relatively predicatably for the enormous range of conditions and applications in towing. If this weren't true, then accident rates would be much higher and these kinds of weaklinks would have been abandoned along time ago.
A 400lb load limit for a solo tow is absurd.
Fuckin' DOUBLE IT.
And let me edit Davis Dead-On Straub's post a little to properly reflect your take on how AT operations should be working.
Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 14:04:52 UTC
We had six weaklink breaks in a row at Zapata this year. Russell Brown (tug pilot, tug owner, Quest Air owner) said go ahead and double up (four strands of Cortland Greenspot). He knows I used his Zapata weaklink in Big Spring. (Pilots were asked to tell the tug pilot if they were doing that - and pony up an extra ten bucks per pull to compensate him for the increased risk to which he'd be exposing himself.)
Or who knows? Maybe the comp pilots were getting reimbursed for tow fees 'cause it's a lot cheaper to get six gliders to altitude in six tows than it is to get zero gliders substantially off the runway in six tows.
Let's take a look at the bullshit operation at which you got one hundred percent of your AT experience - TANDEM.
http://www.wallaby.com/aerotow_primer.php
Aerotow Primer for Experienced Pilots
The Wallaby Ranch Aerotowing Primer for Experienced Pilots - 2019/04/11
If you should have a weak link failure close to the ground, it will be important to immediately lower the nose of the glider, due to the relatively high angel of attack while under tow and the sudden loss of energy upon release.
High angel of attack, sudden loss of energy. That's a STALL, Bob. And it's problematic in ideal glassy smooth conditions. But those aren't the conditions Threes and up ever fly in. So we can't afford to be flying with weak links which will break before we can get into too much trouble 'cause if we do it enough times we're gonna get seriously hurt or worse.
The SMARTER sleazebag assholes started shutting the fuck up on weak links shortly after the 2013/02/02 inconvenience fatality.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=36170
Weak Links?
But go ahead keep yourself aligned with Donnell's near four decade old Infallible Weak Link lunacy - if you think that's still gonna work to your advantage.
