Kite Strings

Why is it that 99.9 percent of participants in this idiot sport never seem to question any of the ways anything's being done? Even when they KNOW the assholes in whom they're trusting their lives are running in shoddy mode?

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?p=404386#p404386
I can not keep quiet any longer.

Mark G. Forbes - 2018/08/13 21:11:49 UTC

For example, towing operations, which in the past were a significant portion of our losses, are now carefully underwritten and analyzed before becoming insured. Operators unwilling to comply with the best practices of towing are not approved for coverage.

Shoddy modes are now carefully underwritten and analyzed before becoming insured. And operators unwilling to comply with the best practices of shoddy modes are not approved for coverage. Problem solved. Thanks, Mark.

Success or failure will likely involve a definition of "our losses".

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35916
I can not keep quiet any longer.

Mark G. Forbes - 2018/08/13 21:11:49 UTC

Fourth, the insurance policies written by Recreation RRG have some exclusions and limitations for the kinds of risks that can lead to very large claims. For example, towing operations, which in the past were a significant portion of our losses, are now carefully underwritten and analyzed before becoming insured. Operators unwilling to comply with the best practices of towing are not approved for coverage. These operations are reviewed on a regular basis, and accident/incident reports from the field are used to help refine the guidance we provide to tow operators.

So what are these "best practices of towing", Mark?

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27736
Increase in our USHpA dues

Mark G. Forbes - 2012/12/20 06:21:33 UTC

There are also numerous legal issues associated with accident reports, which we're still wrestling with. It's a trade-off between informing our members so they can avoid those kinds of accidents in the future, and exposing ourselves to even more lawsuits by giving plaintiff's attorneys more ammunition to shoot at us.

Imagine a report that concludes, "If we'd had a procedure "x" in place, then it would have probably prevented this accident. And we're going to put that procedure in place at the next BOD meeting." Good info, and what we want to be able to convey. But what comes out at trial is, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, my client suffered injury because USHPA knew or should have known that a safety procedure was not in place, and was therefore negligent and at fault." We're constantly walking this line between full disclosure and handing out nooses at the hangmen's convention.

All the solid, sane, fuckin' obvious standards and procedures you motherfuckers have spent decades suppressing? Or...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=32681
Tandem crash in LV (speculation thread)

Mark G. Forbes - 2015/03/30 23:29:59 UTC

Please, no speculation

Meanwhile, please refrain from offering speculation or opinion on what might have happened, what might have been theoretically done to prevent it and so on. Emotions are raw, people are hurting, and uninformed speculation doesn't help anybody. News reports are of little use since they're written by people who have no idea how our sport works or what is typical.

...how "OUR" sport works and what is "TYPICAL"?

Who are the motherfuckers you motherfuckers are designating as qualified to determine the "best practices of towing"?

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=32681
Tandem crash in LV (speculation thread)

Mark G. Forbes - 2015/03/30 23:29:59 UTC

Hi folks,

I understand the interest in learning the cause of this, but could we please not speculate on the forum? We have a very experienced tow administrator (Mitch Shipley) headed to Las Vegas to do an accident investigation, and when we learn what really happened we'll convey that information to our members. He'll be working with two of the local instructors there to get to the truth.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27396
Scooter tow faillure... or Never Land On Your Face

Mitch Shipley - 2012/10/22 19:04:16 UTC

We engage in a sport that has risk and that is part of the attraction.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22660
What can be learned from this "scooter" towing accident?

Mitch Shipley - 2011/01/31 15:22:59 UTC

Enjoy your posts, as always, and find your comments solid, based on hundreds of hours / tows of experience and backed up by a keen intellect/knowledge of the issues when it comes to most things in general and hang gliding AT/Towing in particular. Wanted to go on record in case anyone reading wanted to know one persons comments they should give weight to.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRrpHNa68iY/UQ6Pv9gRZyI/AAAAAAAAjTg/Hc22bx5122Q/s2048/20943781_BG1.jpg


http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5315/29962431842_1b260f7a81_o.png
09-20

Who's "WE"? Who's a "tow operator"? Where can one of us regular muppets or the parent of an eleven year old prospective hang gliding "student" go to find out what these "best practices of towing" are? Can you at least tell us what an appropriate weak link is and what it's supposed to be doing for us nowadays?

I guess the twenty plus year old excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden must still be the first and last word on everything towing 'cause you're still selling it for thirty bucks a pop to the general public and thus it must be consistent with all the safety stuff you only spoon out to individuals you deem appropriate on a need-to-know basis. It would be totally insane to just publish this stuff in your Standard Operating Procedures, make it publicly available, get everyone on the same right pages for all these issues.

And anybody wanna know the precise second when the u$hPa motherfuckers realized they needed to lock their Pilot Proficiency System SOPs down out of public view? The stuff that had been freely available since the beginning of time?

http://www.kitestrings.org/viewtopic.php?p=10823#p10823
2018/02/04 18:34:58 UTC

Now nonmembers - the individuals these u$hPa motherfuckers can't intimidate and retaliate against for "acting in a manner contrary to the interests of the corporation" - can't even see a list of U$HPA Award winners. 'Cause:

1992 - NAA Safety - Pat Denevan

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One thing we know for sure regarding these "best practices of towing"... Hell will freeze over before Infallible Weak Links, Dragonfly tow mast breakaway protectors, Birrenators, easily reachable bent pin pro toad releases are excluded from the equations and the Kaluzhin release is recognized as having the slightest safety value in any flavor of towing operation.

Аэробуксировка дельтаплана в Ростове
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WihICDKh0w


Got tuned into this one Saturday by Jan. Couldn't resist a stills project - for whatever it's worth. Have a previous one of Violet Black's at:

http://www.kitestrings.org/post7976.html#p7976

Kaluzhin release in platform launch application.

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The translation says Rostov - which is about 120 miles NE of Moscow - but I've so far been unable to match the patterns with anything in the area. I imagine Aleksey could get us sorted out straight away if he drops by.

At the time of release he jerks his head down a couple times for reasons neither of us can figure.

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- 01 - chronological order
- -0 - minutes
- 03 - seconds
- 09 - frame (25 fps)

Good look at the release on his left shoulder.

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One of those guys who thinks he looks cool walking around in his harness and doesn't treat and preflight it as part of his aircraft - PERIOD. (Right, Wonderboy?)

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Another shot (and last good look) at the release.

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Substantial and unnecessary wheelie.

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One point, bar stuffed by the time the trike's getting airborne.

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Note that the bar's fully stuffed for normal release in glass air and the tug way the hell below the horizon and that in one point configuration fully stuffed don't get your nose down all that much.

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Off.

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http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/31 09:25:57 UTC

Oh how many times I have to hear this stuff.
I've had these exact same arguments for years and years and years.
Nothing about them changes except the new faces spouting them.

See, you don't get to hook up to my plane with whatever you please. Not only am I on the other end of that rope... and you have zero say in my safety margins... I have no desire what so ever to have a pilot smashing himself into the earth on my watch. So yeah, if you show up with some non-standard gear, I won't be towing you. Love it or leave it. I don't care.

But of course using a two point bridle which allows the pitch control range to be able to keep the glider level with the tug in a Zack Marzec situation has absolutely no bearing on the tug's safety margins - EITHER. Right...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22233
Looking for pro-tow release

Davis Straub - 2011/06/16 05:11:44 UTC

Incorrect understanding.

...Davis?

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Off. (Chute's just inflated. (Just visible over his left shoulder.))

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Undoubtedly a sled. Sky's uniformly blue and the video ends.

Jump to top:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11062.html#p11062

Found this little gem searching for material with which to continue ripping Bart No-Stress-Because-I-Was-High Weghorst a new asshole.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PpKA8nw23I
COWBOY UP XC BOHL DAY 1 / Hang Gliding VLOG #21

Wolfgang Siess - 2017/11/04

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PpKA8nw23I

Pisses me off this asshole (sorry) gets immortalized with a major annual AT fly-in event when his only contribution to the sport was demonstrating, yet again, what can happen when one violates the crap outta every sane AT operating standard and FAA reg one can list and reduces all his safety margins to tissue paper thin - while one hundred percent of the individuals who've worked and fought their asses off to get all the problems fixed get nothing but marginalized, pissed all over, exiled, written out of the history books.

Interesting the contrast between the ways the last two Quest Darwin cases were dealt with.

- We'll never really know what happened with Zack Marzec. Total mystery. Not one ghost of an idea about anything that could've been done differently at either end of the string. Did everything right yet was still DOA. Totally innocent victim. Could've happened to the best of us and did. And after five and a half weeks of violent mainstream forum wars in which all the Industry dickheads were getting cut to ribbons all the threads got locked. And immediately afterwards nobody ever heard from him again.

- Jeff Bohl took his hand off the control bar for a second and a half to secure a camera he hadn't properly stowed at preflight. Tad-O-Link increased the safety of the towing operation a millisecond before his Pilot In Command fixed whatever was going on back there to keep her 582 Dragonfly from being steered into the trees. No argument from any quarter. Screwed the pooch, bought the farm. Let's immortalize him - right up there with Rob Kells who was a friend to every pilot he ever met. (Lotta dead ones he never met 'cause he never did shit to fix the issues that were killing them - which would've necessitated him becoming an enemy of damn near every pilot he ever met.)

Title shot:

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Seventy percent reduction of full resolution frame. Tells us pretty much everything we wanna know:
- Wills Wing
- Cowboy Up
- Jeff Bohl
- Easy Flyer (approximate frame 44606)
- Kool Kid comp pilot:
-- no:
--- weak link at the end of the towline - as per FAA AT regs (better look below at 14-14603 (and elsewhere)
--- wheels/skids
-- easily reachable bent pin barrel release
-- long thin:
--- pro toad bridle
--- Standard Aerotow Weak Link serving as an emergency and backup release

01-12716
- 01 - chronological order
- -1 - minutes
- 27 - seconds
- 14 - frame (24 fps)

Wolfi. Wills Wing pilot.

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Bent pin crap pro toad release on the starboard end of the long thin wrap-proof bridle, 130 pound Greenspot extremely long track record emergency release between the port bridle end and the tow loop. And the launch monkey to help get the cart rolling 'cause you don't want the focal point of your safe towing system increasing the safety of the towing operation before you get airborne.

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Thanks for the nice illustration of the two pieces o' crap that precipitated the last two Quest fatalities, Wolfi.

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Appropriate and with a finished length of 1.5 inches or less. What more could one ask for? One on the other end of the bridle so that WHEN you get a wrap you've still got something to limit the load?

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Nah, if you did that you'd double the tow pressure required to blow off and endanger the tug by neutralizing whatever the fuck it's using for a weak link.

Check out the frame below and backtrack above. Note how Wolfi's instrument pod has rotated down as the cart's been jolted along down the runway.

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Pretty hard up against the port control tube just off the cart.

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See? It's a total myth that you need TWO hands to fly a glider on tow - even pro toad.

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http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1143
Death at Tocumwal

Davis Straub - 2006/01/24 12:27:32 UTC

I'm willing to put the barrel release within a few inches of my hand.

Me too, Davis. That's WELL within easy reach. Besides, that's the only configuration that qualifies as an "appropriate bridle" for u$hPa sanctioned comps. So it's not like I've got an actual choice anyway.

Video title shot:

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Pity we didn't get to see the easily reachable release blown on this one. But I imagine it was as much of a nonissue as all the other ones we see an know about.

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Yeah. Bent pin. (Bobby's a fucking genius when it comes to this shit.)

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A foot off the deck. Shouldn't you be upright with your hands on the control tubes at shoulder or ear height where you can't control the glider at this altitude?

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Don't you know enough not to do any turns below two hundred feet? And since you bottomed out at under two feet on your downwind you're dead at least a hundred times over.

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(A little ghost of a glory effect around the camera's shadow in the following final and landing frames.)

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Note that this is a run out landing in easy conditions by a guy who's got experience, airtime, skill coming outta his ass - not the classic Ryan Instant-Hands-Free-Release Voight "Perfect Landing" with the perfect flare timing that all Day One, Flight One students are assured will be the only thing keeping them alive down the roads of their flying careers.

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Doesn't seem to be the typical narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place we prefer to utilize for our LZs either.

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And here we go again with the Easy Flyer...

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...'cause Wills Wing won't ever acknowledge that their conventional CERTIFIED gliders can be landed like:

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Velcroed-on Wallaby release 'cause Wills Wing uncertified gliders aren't designed to be motorized, tethered, or towed...

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...'specially the ones they demo at fly-ins in Texas memorializing pilots killed in low level lockouts in Florida. (Good thing ya got California, Wills Wing. Probably the only place on the planet where your gliders AREN'T getting airborne by being motorized, tethered, or towed.) Note that the appropriate weak link with the finished length of 1.5 inches or less is a single loop of 130 pound Greenspot with a finished length of 3.0 inches or more engaging the spinnaker shackle that was banned (at least for a short while) from the Worlds at Hay after killing Robin Strid on 2005/01/09.

(The short while ended up being three days - which the Safety Committee found to be well more than adequate for the issue to fully resolve itself ('specially with all the ultra-safe weak link they implemented to make sure there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of any glider getting into too much trouble) - and the Wallaby release was back up and doing fine from 2005/01/13 through the conclusion of the comp on 2005/01/20. (Other geographical areas were not affected and the mechanism has racked up an extremely long track record in the near decade since.))

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Easily reachable bent pin backup release on the port side of the swing seat harness.

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Dontchya just love the cup holder and plastic water bottle. I guess when you've got all that Easy Flyer crap in the airflow to begin with you're not much worried about performance anyway. (Do any of you other dinosaur guys remember the period before humans became incapable of drinking any water that didn't flow from a plastic bottle?)

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And also in this configuration one hand is more than enough of what's need to keep an aerotowed glider under safe control at all times. So the two easily reachable releases provided here are really just screwball overkill.

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And AT issues - the weak links one in particular - are much too complex to be explained on a glider forum. So go back to your friendly neighborhood AT operation - particularly if your neighborhood is Wharton, Texas - and take a course from a highly experienced AT professional so's he can bring you up to some minimal level of understanding, something that won't overwhelm your limited intellectual capacity.

Thanks Bart. But we can see for ourselves the best of what's going on there - which is pretty much indiscernible from the worst of what's going on there. Not to mention exactly the same as what's going on everywhere else. And we've got:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=21033
barrels release without any tension except weight of rope..

Bart Weghorst - 2011/02/25 19:06:26 UTC

But I've had it once where the pin had bent inside the barrel from excessive tow force. My weaklink was still intact. The tug pilot's weaklink broke so I had the rope. I had to use 2 hands to get the pin out of the barrel.
No stress because I was high.

...and...

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.

...which you've let stand for the past seven plus years without further comment or any update in position. And not one of your fuckin' Flight Park Mafia colleagues has whispered a single word of caution concerning Cowboy Up professionalism or competency. So as far as I'm concerned a new AT person is gonna be way better off reinventing AT for himself from scratch. Or can you explain to me how that wouldn't be the case?

(Note the cool post designation below.)
---
Edit - 2018/09/30 19:45:00 UTC

Amended with the video title shot and the frame from which it was composed. Give it a skim.
---
Jump to top:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11111.html#p11111

http://ozreport.com/22.214
Notes from USHPA Meeting Fall 2018

Calef Letorney

Accident review
-There were 2 HG fatalities this year. One was a heart attack in flight. The other was a very experienced pilot performing in an aero-show who was unable to (or otherwise did not) release from tow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHRWFpcYTck

The to operator started the rewind and turned the tow vehicle around and dragged the pilot towards the ground. When the mistake was made the rewind motor was killed, but the pilot was not able to recover the wing.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/latest-news/75wk4m/picture212425869/alternates/FREE_1140/Airshowdeath.jpg


Now where have we seen something like that...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8819/18267685796_64156e9c91_o.png


...before? (Also platform, a little over three years earlier, next state down, a wee bit over five hundred miles almost straight south.)

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=36306
Is it possible for me to build my own hang glider factory

Doug Marley - 2018/12/23 16:38:43 UTC

These are not merely units slapped together with some simple metal tubing, some fabric stitched together, some wire rope and a few fastenings. Nope.

You mean like these slapped together units, Doug?

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Ten thousand dollars worth of HGMA certified comp glider plus a ten million dollar airline pilot neutralized by five bucks worth of cheap crap some incompetent total douchebag slapped together and proclaimed to be an AT release. If the Infallible Weak Link doesn't kill you the weak link in the elements of the glider assembly that AREN'T supposed to fail will.

But it works fine in all circumstances in which one DOESN'T need it to - literally hundreds of times for Davis - so what the hell. If that piece o' shit killed five people a month I doubt it would be taken out of circulation. Maybe after six consecutive tows in light morning conditions at Zapata... Launch with your hook knife in your teeth - but be sure to let the tug pilot know if you are doing that.

http://ozreport.com/23.98
Trike tow release

Davis Straub - 2019/05/15 14:07:36 UTC

I love towing behind Gregg

Gregg Ludwig

We are working on a new style aerotow release for through prop hub application on trikes. A cable release will release a large pip pin that's rated at 5,500 pounds of force. (Pin has 4 balls) Work continues.

I love towing behind Gregg

Why? 'Cause he's got a release that'll hold to two and a quarter tons? And here I was thinking that...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Davis Straub - 2013/03/06 18:29:05 UTC

You know, after all this discussion I'm now convinced that it is a very good idea to treat the weaklink as a release, that that is exactly what we do when we have a weaklink on one side of a pro tow bridle. That that is exactly what has happened to me in a number of situations and that the whole business about a weaklink only for the glider not breaking isn't really the case nor a good idea for hang gliding.

I'm happy to have a relatively weak weaklink, and have never had a serious problem with the Greenspot 130, just an inconvenience now and then.

I'm thinking about doing a bit more testing as there seemed to be some disagreement around here about what the average breaking strength of a loop of Greenspot (or orange) weaklink was.

I'm guessing about four thousand pounds - judging by whom it is you're happy towing behind.

We are working on a new style aerotow release for through prop hub application on trikes.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec

Jim Rooney - 2013/02/16 05:05:41 UTC

My general rule is "no funky shit". I don't like people reinventing the wheel and I don't like test pilots. Have I towed a few test pilots? Yup. Have I towed them in anything but very controlled conditions? Nope. It's a damn high bar. I've told more to piss off than I've told yes. I'll give you an example... I towed a guy with the early version of the new Lookout release. But the Tad-o-link? Nope.

08-19
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A cable release will release a large pip pin that's rated at 5,500 pounds of force.

That's totally meaningless. A large pip pin doesn't produce or exert any force. So what are you talking about? Shear, Tensile strength? I'll tell ya one thing fer sure though... It's NOT designed to unleash a two and a quarter ton load when somebody pushes the little button on the top. It's designed to let those four little balls recede into the pin so's it can be pulled out after any shear and/or tensile loads are dropped to zero.

But do as you like. I've got my end configured with releases and weak links that can handle anything that can be thrown at me - other than some idiot fucking tug driver or his tow mast breakaway protector making a good decision in the interest of my safety.

P.S. Do be sure to tell Davis to go fuck himself for me next time you see him.

Jump to next post:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11610.html#p11610

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il3YPp3Rfq8
Traplieren bij de Buizerd in Moergestel

Sander van Schaik - 2012/11/22

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il3YPp3Rfq8


Traplieren bij de Buizerd in Moergestel op 7 oktober 2012 (2012/10/07)

JerrySuneagle

Very interesting. Do you use a weak link?

sanderdelta

Yes, I use a 160 kg weaklink. The less heavy hanggliders use 145 kg weaklink.
The weaklink is made of alluminium.

De Buizerd, Lierveld, Moergestel
51°31'05.72" N 005°09'42.62" E

Long overdue stills project.

01-01909
- 01 - chronological order
- -0 - minutes
- 19 - seconds
- 09 - frame (25 fps)

Tost weak link assembly - 350 pounds. Could/Should go substantially heavier.

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Never hurts to use a dolly.

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Under-stage assembly dangling.

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Well into launch run. Koch two stage knockoff.

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He's got the red halyard ball gripped up with the snap hook. That's not making things any easier.

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Cinches up the under connection.

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Blows the over connection.

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Minimal transfer jolt.

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Still connected.

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This is a step tow.

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Still on tow.

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Probably off tow after the above sequence.

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Nice approach, could be a lot lower.

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---
Amended my previous post - in "bridles":
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11608.html#p11608
---
Edit - 2019/07/12 13:05:00 UTC

The final shot above - 68-93906 - is actually from the launch sequence and should actually be catalogued 08-03906. It's from a tail camera sequence that runs 0:38:21-0:41:14. Leaving it in place in the video video sequence doesn't add anything relevant and just serves to disrupt continuity.

Jump to top:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11609.html#p11609