Kite Strings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_tab
Trim tab

Elevator trim frees the pilot from exerting constant force on the pitch controls.

That's how it's done in real aviation. Hang gliding...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meaneyman/130742003/

Jump to next post:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11607.html#p11607

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oerbPQ7KgmQ
Three Tows at Dynamic Flight

Harrison Rowntree - 2013/02/09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oerbPQ7KgmQ


My brother and I just brought this Fun 190 from Dynamic Flight. It's been two months since I last flew. I stuck all the landings pretty well (although they were all nil wind).

Rohan gave me three tows to get back into the swing of things. It was about 10AM and there were weak thermals around. Enough to just maintain height and slowly climb, but I need to work on that a lot more.

Spin-off from a "suspension" topic discussion which began at:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11598.html#p11598
in which Brian introduced this video.

Primary mission... Illustrate what's going on with this chintzy surface tow bridle/release configuration. Also illustrates launch, approach, landing issues. Three hops - A, B, C - into straight in SSW light easy air (note windsock where it appears). Rohan Holtkamp, Dynamic Flight, Trawalla, Victoria in the vicinity of 37°26'51.07" S 143°27'29.78" E. Gotta be a powered stationary winch.

I'm guessing he means SOLD and BOUGHT.

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- 01 - chronological order
- -0 - minutes
- 03 - seconds
- 26 - frame (30 fps)

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Real safe bet they're not doing hook-in checks of any kind. Note lower bridle leg pressuring control bar up and forward at start. Granted, a fairly negligible issue - but that's not what you want happening at that stage.

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Airborne.

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Lower leg losing contact.

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Control bar centered between lower and upper legs.

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Control bar beginning contact with upper leg.

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Pulled in to kick into stirrup. Reducing climb efficiency.

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Effecting easy reach to bridle apex release lanyard.

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Right hand high, blown off tow. (Towline aligned rather well with port sidewire.)

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Slack upper bridle leg draped over helmet.

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Fully upright 26 seconds prior to stopping the glider.

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Pulling himself back through the control frame to try to get some approximation of safe approach speed.

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Slow trim to full flare to get the nose way up and stop the glider.

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Brings his body forward again to get the glider flying again.

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Couple steps to bring it to a stop.

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The patterns are all pretty much the same in the subsequent two flights. This guy's a customer, client of Rohan's and was/is very probably his student. So we know that Rohan's fine with these landings. Easy air, they don't change, Harrison doesn't comment on them.

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Releases stirrup.

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Deflecting upper leg.

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Easy reach.

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Blown.

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Pitched way down. Mount Buangor on horizon under aft keel.

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Fully upright 36 seconds prior to stopping the glider.

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Construction for the A8 / Western Highway. I wonder if it's something one could soar.

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Blown.

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Accidentally loses stirrup.

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Fully upright 48 seconds prior to stopping the glider.

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Windsock.

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Jump to top:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11606.html#p11606

Nice flare, a little high.

Yeah, kinda dangerous looking.

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Wanna do things right, like the pros...

http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4174/34261733815_bfb41c49d8_o.jpg


Keep it low and hold the bar back as far as possible.
---
P.S. - 2019/07/10 16:05:00 UTC

If you watch Harrison later in, possibly at the end of, his career... His approaches and landings aren't bad.

Stays semiprone and fast onto base way low....

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Nice enough turn onto final still one up / one down...

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Ground effect skim...

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Still has a hand planted on the control bar about six seconds before he's gonna get the glider stopped...

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Holds the flare until the glider's stopped as much as it needs to be...

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Pretty good job of overcoming a fair chunk of his training.

Party trick - preferably with a halfway intelligent five to ten year old kid.
---


This is a kite with a fishing sinker tied into its string four inches below the wing. It's flying into the wind and we're looking at it from behind. The guy on the other end of the string flying it runs to the right. Hell, you get on the other end of the string, fly the kite, and run to the right. We'll stay here and watch from behind with our cameras rolling.

1 - What's the kite do?
2 - And does it really matter whether or not we have the weight on the string underneath it?
---


We've built a bigger kite with a frame built in below it. We're running paired wires from the two bottom corners up to the nose, out to the wings, back to the tail to make it stronger. And the weight is now a person - you, to be precise. We now have a hang glider and you're the pilot. That's all a hang glider is - a big strong kite with a frame bracing it from below and somebody hanging under the wing in a harness. You're not doing anything with your hands beyond just resting them on the bottom tube of the frame. The string is now a rope and there's two guys at the other end flying you in the wind just like the little kite. They're running to the right.

3 - What's the big kite do?
---

Donnell Hewett - 1982/09

In addition to the above mentioned roll and yaw tendancies, there is some sideways force on the pilot due to the body line. This is illustrated below:



As can be seen, this sideways force tends to pull the pilot over to the correct side to make the glider turn naturally in the proper direction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvhzoVC1UqM
Simple Progression for Teaching Hang Gliding

Ryan Voight - 2015/02/22

If you teach them how to pull the glider with the harness they'll learn to steer the glider through weight shift simply by running toward their target.

069-25104-(reversed)
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Bonus questions...

4 - What do you think you need to do to get his your wing back down and the kite rolled and pointed back towards the rope and the guys pulling on it?

5 - How many hands are you going to use to do it?

6 - What does it look like Ninja Matt's doing with his hands to get his high/right wing back down?

7 - What do you think will happen to the wing when Ninja Matt lets go of the control tubes to allow him to run harder to the right in order to pull the right wing down faster and harder?

8 - On a scale of one to ten how would you rate the stupidity of the individuals who insist that the kite will roll to the right when the string is pulling it to the right?
-- (a) 15
-- (b) 25
-- (c) 50
-- (d) all of the above - cumulatively - times five
-- (e) Tad loves to speak of himself as a scientifically minded person. Yet he ignores a data pool that is at minimum three orders of magnitude higher than his. It is thus that I ignore him.
---
Answer Key:
1 - Rolls hard the other way.
2 - See above. No significant difference.
3 - Exactly the same thing. And I hope you've got me up really high.
4 - The same thing Ninja Matt's obviously doing with his hands in 069-25104 - preferably while proned out with my hands on the control bar (they call it that for a reason) and not making an easy reach for anything with even one of them.
5 - All of them. More if any are available.
6 - Left torqueing the crap outta the control frame to roll the wing to the right while running to the right and desired heading.
7 - I have no freakin' clue 'cause nobody's ever been stupid enough to actually do this. But whatever it is it's gotta be pretty ugly.
8 - D.

If you open in new window this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/48631247211/

you can use your right and left arrow keys to jump forward and backward through the three images. And you can blow your screen up a bit to lose the junk below the images.

Jonathan...

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...applying mild left torque to the control frame and sidewires to move his weight to reduce load on his port wing, increase load on his starboard wing, raise and lower angles of attack port and starboard respectively (exactly like ailerons), roll his glider out of its left bank, bring his heading back towards starboard.

P.S. It's just now dawned on me that Donnell has his pilot center of mass below, outside of the control frame. Astounding that he was able to get one thing fairly right ahead of everybody else on the planet outside of Sussex and package it with such astonishing loads of crap.

Donnell Hewett - 1980/12

Now I've heard the argument that "Weak links always break at the worst possible time, when the glider is climbing hard in a near stall situation," and that "More people have been injured because of a weak link than saved by one." Well, I for one have been saved by a weak link...

If that's true - and I rather doubt it is 'cause you've never provided us with a punctuation mark's worth of an account of this alleged near fatal incident, let alone the formal report you should've submitted to R.V. Wills - that was the single biggest disaster in aviation history. Modern towing would've evolved from the common sense Brooks Bridle foundation rather than this ultra lethal lunatic fake physics cult base of yours.

Jump to next post:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11900.html#p11900

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVeI7oiwRwM
Wills Wing Demo Days at Cowboy Up

Thermal Cowboy (Tyson Taylor) - 2016/04/12

Some footage from April and some of the 2016 Cowboy Up Wills Wing Demo Days

mirageg4
Looks like you handled the weak link break like a pro.

Tyson
Thanks Mark, I couldn't remember if I pulled in or not when it broke. THat was my first WL break and I guess all my training took over

http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3601
angle of attack

Craig Muhonen - 2019/11/15 17:36:39 UTC

Here is a statement to me at age 13, by my father, who was teaching me how airplanes worked, and why they worked. He said "a nose heavy airplane is hard to fly, but a tail heavy airplane....flies once". He taught me all about 'trim', and angle of attack. Later on when I went for my rating as a pilot, my instructors had practiced with me over and over, about these things. Although I was a bit nervous when I 'soloed' and flew my first cross country, I knew that my step by step training would serve me well, so I "stepped" myself into the atmosphere. Flying "wings level" and "turning" at some altitude is remarkably "easy", but close to the ground, getting ready to land, and take off, brought AOA and trim to the forefront.

http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2434
Rethinking towing

Bob Kuczewski - 2019/11/18 11:04:16 UTC

This video from the Houston Club shows a weak link break during an aero tow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVeI7oiwRwM


The tow starts at about one minute and 30 seconds (1:30) into the video. The weak link break isn't easily visible, but happens shortly after 2 minutes into the video.

The glider's mild response to the weak link break reminds me of the static tow weak link break demonstrated in one of Bill's videos. It seems obvious that the glider's undesired response to a weak link break will increase with the strength of the weak link.

Massive pain-in-the-ass stills project on a rather interesting video - low, medium, high performance gliders and we get to see them launching two and one point from the same camera in the same position. The pre Wills Wing Demo Day day is highly likely 2016/04/02 or 03. There's some crud on the lens which results in a rather unfortunate smudges - a prominent one lower center and a less obnoxious one to its lower left - of all the earlier sequences but they're mildly useful in establishing that all those launches are occurring on that single day.

Major harvesting pain. Early in the sequence you get the frame Final Cut told you that you're getting. Then you start realizing that you're getting the frame after the one you were selecting. So you back up one and save. Then it goes to two. And by the end you're having to back up nine frames under target. Later I find that I'm getting splatterings of turquoise and/or magenta that don't exist in the video frames. Good news - they're virtually always in the sky and those reasonably easy to clean up seamlessly with Photoshop. But what a fuckin' nightmare. I sure hope this is an issue with this particular video and not a consequence of the latest Final Cut upgrade.

Also had a couple of software crashes that cost me a lot of work on this post. I know I'm the only one here who still does extensive posts but for the record the "Save draft" button on this forum software is a feature that shouldn't be overlooked. And - fun fact - on the Dvorak layout the adjacent QWERTY comma and period keys are W and V. Command W - Close Window. Command-V - Paste. Hit the wrong key and there's no "Are you really sure you wanna do this?" warning. An hour's worth of work instantly forever vanishes. That one got me - again - last evening. And being exhausted, eye strained, target fixated doesn't help matters any.

P.S. I'm almost constantly using Shift-Option-Command-V to Paste and Match Style. Hit the wrong letter on that one (with or without the Shift) and ALL your Safari browser windows close.

Wharton Regional Airport a bit southwest of Houston. All launches Runway 32ish. 2018/12/01 Google Earth shot shows a hang glider and yellow Dragonfly in the relevant area. Hangar on that end of things that wasn't there at the time.

29°15'13.01" N 096°09'13.51" W - 7613'
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29°15'06.95" N 096°09'07.50" W - 2631'
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29°15'14.23" N 096°09'09.56" W - 1798'
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Houston club hangout...

Zack C - 2010/11/23 05:23:34 UTC

In September of 2010, hang gliding safety activist Tad Eareckson entered a discussion on the Houston Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association's discussion group that would result in his being banned from the group within two months. But despite the controversy over Tad's 'arrogance' and 'condescending tone,' I was impressed by his knowledge, logic, and respect for science, which included a great deal of his own research and experimentation. My attempts to carry out a rational discussion with him were continually sabotaged and eventually aborted by other group members, many with little interest in or comprehension of the discussion.

Keep up the stellar work guys. And long live Tiki. (Pity Bart's no longer around to help keep us up to speed on AT weak links.)

Two point:
- 001-00415-A
- 011-01419-B
- 036-04914-F
- 045-10105-G
- 116-30904-J
Pro toad:
- 023-03209-D
- 065-12909-H
- 125-33321-L
- 132-40516-O

065-12909-H - Tyson Taylor - gets an asterisk 'cause he's not on the cart cam - his own regular keel mount. Also privileges us with a smudge - against the undersurface a foot and a half east of his keel. I'm including the reference here but will be dealing with that one in Weak Links. To save bandwidth I'm only displaying the first and third stills of the sequence but have left the full rez 1920x1080 image links in the sequence. The increase in the safety of the towing operation occurs between 094-20529-H and 095-20600-H (consecutive frames). Dedicated post will before you'll be able to read this be up at:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11827.html#p11827

All pro toads are having to nearly or totally stuff the bar shortly after coming off the cart - big...

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

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

Incorrect understanding.

...fuckin' surprise. Compare/Contrast the two pointers. That's where this video really shines like no other I've yet to stumble across.

These goddam pro toads are - for all intents and purposes - tail heavy gliders. See Craig's Bob Show post above. Each one is launching with a cinder block hanging off its tail and are having to go full pitch control down in order to deal with it. And AT starts out being the most dangerous flavor of non foot launched towing 'cause of the all-or-nothing nature of tension regulation and the driver/observer needing to fly his own plane.

It's a total no-brainer that every single one of these assholes is using a single loop of 130 pound Greenspot precision fishing line as the focal point of his or her safe towing system. We can't see any of the "equipment" employed by any of the pro toads but we can see the weak link in every two point launch - A B F G J. And for a REALLY good look at what they're are using check out 046-10115-G.

All launches with easily reachable releases save for 036-04914-F and 116-30904-J. (No, we can't tell for sure with the pro toads. But...)

Amber - 045-10105-G - comes off the cart early/slow, wallows hard to port just off the cart, is still oscillating as the sequence fades out. Great job, Houston AT instructors and culture. Good thing her release was within such easy reach - seeing as how her Rooney Link didn't increase the safety of the towing operation and her driver failed to fix whatever was going on back there by giving her the rope. 054-12019-G is a really excellent crappy argument that being on tow is somehow safer than being off tow.

Table of Contents:

Previous Weekend:
001-00415-A - Eduardo Fonseca - Falcon - Wallaby release - starboard downtube
011-01419-B - Eduardo
021-02916-C - scooter
023-03209-D - Ingo Heilmann - T2C
033-04513-E - scooter
036-04914-F - Benjamin Sands - Falcon - spinnaker shackle release - probable lever, possible loop - starboard control bar
045-10105-G - Amber Atkins - Falcon - Wallaby release - port downtube
065-12909-H - Tyson Taylor - Wills Wing double surface kingposted
114-25626-I - sunset - scooter - cart set
Demo Day:
116-30904-J - Benjamin - double surface kingposted demo rigged for two point - Wallaby release - starboard control bar - windsock
123-32318-K - scooter - approaching Amber - spinnaker shackle - port downtube
125-33321-L - LJ Omara - topless
130-34420-M - 116-30904-J demo - black helmet
131-35808-N - Tyson Taylor prepping 116-30904-J demo - tug landing in background
132-40516-O - Tyson
Previous Weekend:
139-41821-P - Amber - note pre Demo Day day smudges

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Jump to top:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11826.html#p11826

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9335
V-bridle nose-over on cart - Prone & Supine

Supine Pilot - 2007/09/01 17:41:58 UTC

Pitch-over Concerns When Towing from a Cart Using a V-bridle (Especially if Supine)

I am reposting this from the "Leaving the Cart" thread as it was a bit off-topic there.

I wonder if the V-bridle, pilot to keel, tow method especially if combined with a poorly rolling cart may increase the probability of another type of potentially serious launch accident, the on-cart pitch-over.

Beware carts that shimmy or have high rolling resistance for any reason. If one is towing with a v-bridle, three point system (actually a two point system), the resultant of the pull force vectors are at an elevated point that gives a significant lever arm. This lever arm tends to rotate the nose down around the fulcrum (control bar base tube). Be especially careful not to pull in. Stay about at the trim point.

I roughly calculate that a 200 pound prone pilot using shoulder tow requires 400 pounds plus of pull (from cart drag) to tip over. The weak link should go first. When using a V-bridle attached about at the hang point on the keel, the resultant vector of the pull force (roughly half the distance from the pilot CG to the keel) provides about a 2.5 foot lever arm to help crank over the glider. Assuming that the anti-rotation force is 400 foot pounds (200 pound pilot CG 2 feet behind control base bar fulcrum point), the required tip-over force calculates to be 160 pounds of cart drag?? Granted, that would be a lot of cart drag, but wheel shimmy, rough ground, or high ground speeds could up the cart drag. Don't pull in. The two point method has been used mostly successfully for decades but more often with beginning or intermediate gliders that fly off the cart at lower speeds and may have more aerodynamic pitch stability at slow speeds?? Is the V-bridle a concern for the smaller, less twisted wings combined with bad carts?

If one were to tow a supine glider from a cart (would require elevated control bar brackets and tail bracket), the tip-over force would be even less. The pilot CG would be only 1 foot behind the fulcrum (due to the rearward rigging of the supine base bar). The hold down torque would be only about 200 foot pounds. The lever arm is again about 2.5 ft. The calculated tip over force is only 80 pounds of cart drag. Foot launching would be much safer.

I am reposting this from the "Leaving the Cart" thread as it was a bit off-topic there.

With as much total crap being spewed over there as there is what could it possibly matter?

Beware carts that shimmy or have high rolling resistance for any reason.

There are no carts that shimmy or have high rolling resistance for any reason. Shimmy is a fundamental design issue that can't be tweaked out. And rolling resistance? The bearings are shot and nobody's doing anything about it? (Or maybe the tires are flat - like they always were at Ridgely. Until Yours Truly would do those douchebags' jobs for them.)

As shoddy, incompetent, negligent as all these AT operations are launch carts are never issues. They're doing high volume launches and the carts have to be performing adequately.

If one is towing with a v-bridle, three point system (actually a two point system)...

Then why dignify and empower these assholes bringing up "three point" at all. Call it what it is. Nobody's stupid enough to refer to pilot only as "two point" so there won't be any misunderstandings

...the resultant of the pull force vectors are at an elevated point that gives a significant lever arm. This lever arm tends to rotate the nose down around the fulcrum (control bar base tube). Be especially careful not to pull in. Stay about at the trim point.

Rubbish. This is a total nonissue. You're proned out in certified flying configuration and even if something were to start happening, which it never does, you'd instinctively push out and shift your CG aft - just like when you're fully airborne.

And the wing starts out nose high and rotates down to trim very shortly into the roll. And then you have aerodynamic pitch stability working for you.

I roughly calculate that a 200 pound prone pilot using shoulder tow requires 400 pounds plus of pull (from cart drag) to tip over. The weak link should go first.

'Specially when you're behind a 914, stay on the cart too long, slam into that brick wall of propwash.

Foot launching would be much safer.

Yeah, when was the last time we've ever heard about AT foot launching being the slightest problem.

Jim Rooney - 2007/09/01 18:09:04 UTC

Yeah, this seems like a better place for this.

You just entered the conversation. Good luck with that.

The limited experience I have with supine and suprone towing...

Thinking, writing coherently...

Mainly Rhett and Jason down at Quest. Both very experienced pilots.

What weak links are they flying nowadays?

Jason flies suprone and Rhett supine.
Rhett just flies off the cart... it's nearly identical to prone, you're just sitting. No worries.
Jason switched from towing off high chalks and went back to footlaunching due exactly to the concerns you note. He felt that the usual concerns of footlaunching were outweighed by the problems associated with high chalks.

High chalks. Like the White Cliffs of Dover. 350 feet. Why not just skip the AT altogether?

http://santacruzflatsrace.blogspot.com/2013/09/steve-pearson.html#comment-form
Santa Cruz Flats Race - Mark Knight Memorial 2018: Steve Pearson

2013/09/17 09:16

Steve Pearson

It's so cool to have Steve Pearson here competing with us this year. Steve is kind of the godfather of hang gliding here in the US - one of the founders of Wills Wing, designer of everything from the HP to the latest T2C and everything in between, a pilot for 300 years or so (maybe closer to 40 and just a general, all around great guy.

I don't know that Steve has ever competed, other than the Morningside glider angle contest, but he's impressing everyone making goal 2 out of 2 days so far. It's great to have him here!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2lk6hbjuJ-c/Ujh-ENPLQrI/AAAAAAAA3IQ/vh46chqQX4M/s1600/JRS_0542.JPG

JG - 2013/09/17 11:05

Sure is great to see the designer in a meet, flying what he designs! Maybe some day we'll see Gerolf and Steve flying in the same comp!

Jump to next post:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11945.html#p11945

My day 4 tow at the 2019 Dalby Big Air hanggliding competition..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQwK027uLMw

Col Rushton - 2020/03/27

From leaving the launch dolly, until releasing from behind the tug. The views just get better of the Darling Downs around Dalby ..

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=63023
The world needs this change..
Col Rushton - 2020/06/14 15:44:31 UTC

Yet another one of...

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

Zack C - 2011/06/16 03:14:35 UTC

I've never aerotowed pilot-only but it is my understanding that this configuration pulls the pilot forward significantly, limiting the amount he can pull in further.

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

Incorrect understanding.

Col's head is entirely chopped off for damn near the entire tow. Compare/Contrast at 42-50904 after we've been off tow for half a minute, cleared the VG cord, started flying in normal certified mode. But never allow any taint of reality to begin to interfere with any of your opinions.

Col Rushton / Charlie Romeo... Says all the right stuff at the right times on environmental issues. Disappointing to see him getting hauled up on the usual stupid cheap crap - three mile long Standard Aerotow Weak Link on the port side, nothing on starboard. Et cetera...

We've evolved enough to be using straight pins on the barrels but not enough to use off-the-shelf symmetrical:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease//8312399698/


instead of custom made offset junk (31-43908) 'cause the physics of the second class lever will forever remain beyond the grasp of hang gliding culture.

Flying on or a bit after 2019/04/11 out of Dalby Aerodrome. Good bet there's a Dragonfly at the other end of the string. Launch from the patch centered around 27°09'40.63" S 151°15'45.15" E and to the ENE as best as I can tell. I've provided coordinates for distinctive surface features, visible in and/or between stills, to aid in tracking the flight path - which is a wide clockwise circle. (Or maybe 'cause this is the Southern Hemisphere it's counterclockwise.)

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In the middle of the speed bar as we're climbing through the kill zone in totally benign conditions.

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27°08'28.71" S 151°15'53.47" E
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27°09'16.31" S 151°18'19.02" E
27°09'05.68" S 151°16'41.26" E
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27°09'13.77" S 151°17'27.28" E
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27°09'34.26" S 151°19'21.14" E
27°10'28.08" S 151°17'16.71" E
27°10'04.16" S 151°16'15.95" E
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And look at the length of the bridle as it clears the tow ring.

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Jump to top:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11944.html#p11944

Still, I believe there should be more people like Colin Rushton in the HG pilot's pool, at least in the US.
Four more years with Il Duce at the rudder, I don't see much hope on your side of the dam