In flying sports it seems the problem are not the shock loads (much less than in climbing) but the repeated flexing within the limits of gate play.
There is no problem. The carabiner bottoms out at fairly light loading. If you want repeated flexing use it for climbing.
Dan Harding - 2013/07/17 16:36:02 UTC
ANSI/ASSE Z359.1-1992 (R1999)
Safety Requirements for Personal Fall Arrest Systems, Subsystems and Components- (Historical Document)
Establishes requirements for the performance, design, marking, qualification, instruction, training, inspection, use, maintenance, and removal from service of connectors, full body harnesses, lanyards, energy absorbers, anchorage connectors, fall arresters, vertical lifelines, and self-retracting lanyards comprising personal fall arrest systems for users within the capacity range of 130 to 310 pounds (59 to 140 kg).
I would not use anything that does not meet or exceed this rating.
We have a legal / FAA defined range for weak links.
- The bottom end is no way safe for sailplanes.
- It's no way in hell safe for hang gliders.
- We violate the crap out of the bottom end all the time and crash a lot of gliders as a consequence.
- You can get killed just as dead by a weak link blow as you can by a carabiner failure and the likelihood is a lot higher.
- We just killed somebody five and a half months ago because he was near or below the bottom end.
- So how come nobody seems very interested in this range?
AndRand - 2013/07/17 17:21:54 UTC
Poland
Are there any cons of using double biners - one spare, i.e. bigger to hang loose in case of failure of main?
Yeah.
- It's stupid.
- Not that it can't happen but nobody's ever been killed because of a hang glider carabiner failure.
- A lot of people have been seriously fucked up and killed or drowned because they couldn't free themselves from gliders when they needed to.
- It's enough of a bitch to free yourself from a glider with just one carabiner.
Excessive wear would be an issue?
Wouldn't help - and you're mashing one carabiner up against another.
If you wanna fix stuff there's plenty you can do instead of fixing something that ain't broke by making the system more dangerous.
Dontsink - 2013/07/17 20:30:49 UTC
Not defending aluminum biners but first failure was at 7300 lbs, which is about 25 G's...
Do not think my glider, harness, or body can take that anyway.
Carabiners are susceptible to hair-line fractures if they are dropped. These fractures cannot be seen by the naked eye, but can drastically weaken a carabiner. So NEVER DROP YOUR CARABINER. If you do, it is best to discard it immediately and replace it with a new one.
First, the "grain" of the aluminum runs parallel to the stock, not perpendicular, so undetectable hairline fractures spontaneously causing carabiner failure just isn't true. Steve Nagode, a quality assurance engineer with REI, conducted an experiment in which carabiners were dropped six times from a distance of 10 meters onto a concrete floor. The breaking strength of the carabiners was then determined with a 50-kN load cell. The results: no reduction in strength was observed when comparing the dropped carabiners with carabiners that had not been dropped.
Black Diamond's website says this:
It's best to inspect dropped gear for dings and significant trauma. If only light scratching is visible and gate action is still good, there is a good chance it is fit for usage.
When you are hooking in in strong wind, left hand on flying wires holding nose down, right hand on caribiner reaching back to hang strap, you want everything as simple as possible.
Sorry, I don't see the logic in trying to save a couple bucks on equipment that I am litterally entrusting my life to. "Pacifier"? may be... but there's an old saying out there... "You never need the backup, until you need the backup".
I know of at least one pilot out there that flies with two caribiners. His logic makes more sense to me... you can't have too many backups.
...Rooney says...
Just one caribiner.
...despite the fact that you both spell "carabiner" the same way.
Just one hang strap (e.g. backup and main combined.)
You need one carabiner but two hang straps?
I have decided to forgoe the backup hang strap in such a situation.
Then what's the point in EVER having a backup strap?
The worst is getting the hang strap webbing pinched in the caribiner gate.
No. The worst is ASSUMING you have the hang strap webbing anywhere NEAR the carabiner.
Then you are not really hooked in, but you are restrained by the hang strap so you are not free to lean forward hard on the nose wires to keep the glider on the ground. A bad spot to be in on a windy hill or dune.
Could be worse. You could think you've got the hang strap fully engaged on a windy dune, make a few passes, and only find out that you've got the webbing pinched in the gate after you've landed when you go to unhook.
Speaking from recent experience...
Speaking from distant past experience...
This situation is probably unique to laminar coastal dune environments, which is about the only place you would choose to delay hooking in till you are close to the limit of being able to keep the glider on the ground while hooking in... but it is a real hazard in such a case!
Partial hook-in is a real and occasionally fatal hazard in any environment. NEVER turn back around until after you've seen/heard the carabiner click.
Rushed flight. Not a lot of time to acclimate to this wing's higher speed handling. Too-big input for turn onto final @40mph-- along with not enough pitch coordination results in out of control oscillation, followed by more too-big inputs which only make matters worse. Lucky save as the right wingtip drags in the dirt and straightens me out. Bought the wing, and have been enjoying it. Lesson learned!
Paul Walsh
Proper pilot for sure.
Bullshit.
Kept your focus when it hit the fan.
Nothing hit any goddam fan. The situation was entirely of his own making and he damn near flew himself into a very serious crash on a brain dead easy approach onto the Andy Jackson Happy Acres putting green.
- Brian Scharp
- Jason Boehm
- Fletcher
- Mailman777
- Dan Johnson
- gluesniffer
- Paul Hurless
- Guest
- Dave Boggs
- piano_man
- mrcc
- Mike Bomstad
- Brian Horgan
- Matt Christensen
- Red Howard
- Tom Galvin
- Jack Barth
- Terry Strahl
- flybop
- redtail
- Dontsink
- NMERider
- Andy Long
NOBODY has a comment on the fact that he's using his spreader bar to keep his shoddy extension webbing from being crushed - that he's doing the opposite of what it says in his goddam owner's manual:
Wills Wing
U2 145 and 160
Owner / Service Manual
Verify that the main hang loop spreader bar is positioned just below the bottom surface.
to the maximum extent possible.
Proper pilot for sure.
A PILOT reads the fuckin' manual and understands how his plane works. Fuck everybody who can comment on that video and say nothing about the spreader bar.
And great job, Wills Wing. Reflects really well on your customers and dealership/school system. And I guess you can't be bothered to put out an advisory on your website or in the magazine 'cause that would be an admission that your dealership/school system sucks - and has forever.
Matthew Hendershot - 2013/08/27 22:43:02 UTC
The last oscillation caused my control frame to come within inches of the dirt at over 30 mph.
Goddam right, dude - your control frame with no wheels on it. If that corner had caught you would've been seriously fucked up, maybe killed.
And let's say that you were in a situation similar to that courtesy of Mother Nature - rather than your own doing - and needing every available ounce of control authority you could muster to keep that corner from catching. And by your idiotic positioning of that spreader bar you've already flushed a lot of ounces down the toilet before you've launched.
Until now I've been thinking that the spreader bar issue wasn't that big a fucking deal - just an extremely visible symptom of general incompetence - but there are a lot of almost-pulled-it-outs and really close shaves in this sport and I'm now wondering if there haven't been a few very serious incidents that:
- wouldn't have been if things had been done right
- weren't because things WERE done right
- The carabiner DOESN'T open and partially unhook in flight.
- All it does is rotate a bit towards minor axis. Big Fucking Deal.
- You don't worry about launching without the carabiner not being connected AT ALL enough to either do or advocate hook-in checks so why the hell do you give a rat's ass about something like this?
Mike Bomstad - 2013/12/24 18:43:29 UTC
Wow, talk about testing your biner.
Wow, ya might be pulling as much as 350 pounds. Probably one of these things:
And make sure you've got some idiot fucking quick link rotated full idiot fucking minor axis. That way when your seven and a half ton carabiner doesn't fail the quick link can take the load when your parachute blasts open. Then after the idiot fucking quick link fails the load will be taken by the seven and a half ton carabiner backup - assuming, of course, that the parachute bridle hasn't been cut too much by the jagged ends of the broken idiot fucking quick link.
Mel Torres - 2013/12/26 02:20:10 UTC
Irvine
Sorry guys, but I disagree... I watched the video one second at a time on a large desktop monitor with a four inch magnifying glass. The carabiner never opened.
Why would / How could it?
It was an optical illusion. What you saw was the carabiner at and angle with the leading 40-50% of the white hang strap is riding the lower half of the locking ring, causing the illusion of it being open.
What illusion? It always looked fully closed to me.
Ken Howells - 2013/12/26 03:51:59 UTC
San Bernardino
Side-loading a carabiner is a bad idea anyway.
How good an idea is it to use carabiners with locking barrels or sleeves that snag and rotate carabiners, complicate assembly before launch and distract from critical issues at launch and complicate and delay separation from the glider in emergencies both prior to launch and after landing or crashing in high winds, dust devils, trees, powerlines, water?
Far weaker.
Yeah. The strength of the glider versus six times the strength of the glider. So many tragic deaths in hang gliding each year because carabiners have rotated minor axis. And no end to this holocaust anywhere in sight.
Asshole.
NMERider - 2013/12/26 05:52:07 UTC
Good eye Mel. Let's call you Hawk-Eye from now on!
Dis you happen to notice that what's causing the severely angled beener is the line that holds up the aft end of the powered harness is pulling from the middle of the rear side of the beener?
that little loop of fishing line you total fucking assholes insist upon using as the focal points of your safe towing systems which ACTUALLY drops people out of the air...
Failed to squat hang check just before launching. Reason being flying the glider walking up to launch. Goes to show Never deviate from own system.
Yes. That would've detected and/or fixed the problem. There's no fuckin' way you could've ended up minor axis - or launched unhooked - if you'd have stuck to your own system.
weighs a fraction of what steel does and does eighteen hundred pounds - over seven Gs for a 250 pound hook-in - minor axis. And it won't go minor axis.
Krassimir Kaltchev - 2013/12/26 23:23:14 UTC
This same thing happened to me recently. I made a hang check, everything OK, then by the time I moved to the takeoff place, the hang loop got loose and moved just enough to get caught by the carabiner's door lock.
- No it didn't. You didn't deviate from your own system so it was physically impossible for the hang loop to get loose and move just enough to get caught by the carabiner's door lock.
- If the carabiner hadn't had a door lock would the loop have been caught by the door lock?
- You made a hang check and everything was OK. And then by the time you moved to the takeoff place you were still sure that everything was OK? Granted, your glider was floating to the stops when you launched in that steady strong wind, but do you know how many people have had really bad days because by the time they'd moved to the takeoff place everything wasn't OK and they were still assuming it was?
I took off and after twenty seconds felt a sudden shake and then nothing.
It can get a lot worse, dude. You could've started running on a ramp and after one second not felt anything in the way of your suspension going tight.
After watching the video of my GoPro, I realized what have happened.
Thanks god the carabiner is a steel one, the 5 tones one, it holds 1kN in the other direction.
- Yeah, there's no fuckin' way an ALUMINUM climbing carabiner would've withstood either being loaded or jolted like that.
- It holds a lot more than that. It holds a lot more than it's ever gonna see unless you've really blown an aerobatic maneuver and are on the verge of or way to breaking the glider. And at that point all bets are off on your survival anyway.
I think that rubber device is a very good thing, I will probably make one myself.
- What do you think of the door lock? Under what circumstances do you think it would be of value?
- What do you think of spreader? What purpose do you think it's supposed to be serving?
- Why do you think glider and harness manufacturers are shipping crappy equipment with serious problems that their customers are having to waste a lot of time talking about and dealing with?
Mel Torres - 2013/12/27 02:51:06 UTC
Yup... Use it the way it was designed to be used, or pay the consequences.
Do the fuckin' math, ferchrisake.
Mel Torres - 2013/12/27 03:08:03 UTC
After watching the videos NMERider and Krassi posted and looking at the picture hs posted I made an important observation... If the hang strap continues to catch on the locking barrel of the carabiner, the knurls on the locking barrel may cause wear that could lead to hang strap failure in flight!!!
Bullshit. The locking barrel increases the safety of the suspension system. PERIOD. It decreases the probability that you're gonna fall out of your glider. How could it possibly INCREASE the probability that you're gonna fall out of your glider?
And how could it provide a distraction at launch...
Luen Miller - 1994/11
After a short flight the pilot carried his glider back up a slope to relaunch. The wind was "about ten miles per hour or so, blowing straight in." Just before launch he reached back to make sure his carabiner was locked. A "crosswind" blew through, his right wing lifted, and before he was able to react he was gusted sixty feet to the left side of launch into a pile of "nasty-looking rocks." He suffered a compound fracture (bone sticking out through the skin) of his upper right leg. "Rookie mistake cost me my job and my summer. I have a lot of medical bills and will be on crutches for about five months."
...which would result in a devastating crash and injury?
PLEASE INSPECT THE INSIDE SURFACE (the surfaces that come in contact with the carabiner) OF BOTH YOUR HANG STRAP AND HARNESS LOOP FOR WEAR AND TEAR!!!
- Or you could just use hardware designed for the job it's supposed to do.
- HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT WOULD TAKE TO WEAR THROUGH THE WEBBING TO THE POINT THAT THE STRAP WOULD BLOW BEFORE THE GLIDER?
- WHAT KIND OF TOTAL MORON DO YOU THINK IT WOULD TAKE TO NOT NOTICE SIGNIFICANTLY WORN WEBBING IN THE COURSE OF EACH HOOK-IN?
- WHAT DO YOU THINK A KNURLED LOCKING BARREL COULD DO TO THE BOTTOM END OF A PARACHUTE BRIDLE AFTER SOME TOTAL FUCKING MORON LISTENS TO HIS TOTAL FUCKING MORON OF AN AEROTOW INSTRUCTOR WHO TELLS HIM TO TURN THE CARABINER BACKWARDS...
Well, the inspection of the hang loop is mandatory anyway. The problem is that door lock is having this obstructive bump/edge that catches the hang loop.
I used to have a simple rubber band around the biner at the harness loop in a figure-8 shape and this never happened to me before. Fixing the biner with the rubber band should solve the problem.
You're not solving the problem. You're engineering workarounds for the problem.
Mel Torres - 2013/12/27 16:47:58 UTC
For the newbies and not so newbies, can you post a picture of they way you placed the rubber band on and around the harness loop and carabiner?
For the newbies and not so newbies, can you post a picture, video, report, hypothetical scenario of a locking barrel serving any useful function? Can you quote me somebody saying:
"Thank GOD that carabiner was locked! I'd have been SO DEAD if it hadn't been!"
or
"If only he hadn't forgotten to lock his carabiner. Well, at least he died doing what he loved."
You people are SO STUPID.
---
2016/07/28 14:30:00 UTC
That was me flying... The carabiner was not open at any point during the flight but the hang strap was caught in an awkward way. Fortunately nothing happened and upon inspection I have not seen any signs of wear on the hang strap.
How did this happen??? The Mosquito comes with an elastic band that keeps the hang strap to the top of the carabiner thus eliminating the problem. It makes hooking in a bit of a struggle but protects you from such situations.
On my first Mosquito (bought 50-50 with another pilot) I had a round-top carabiner, one that looks like a pear, so this problem could not occur. Then I bought my own Mosquito that came with this square carabiner with the elastic band.
However by then I was flying an Aeros Combat that has a hang strap that is sewn all the way down leaving just a tight loop at the bottom of the hang strap.
Tad Eareckson - 2010/12/01 21:27:01 UTC
Get a needle and some dental floss and stitch the eye of the harness suspension closed to the point at which installing the carabiner starts becoming a pain in the ass. It'll never accidentally rotate minor axis after that.
First post in this thread.
Once again this problem could not occur because the tight hang loop did not allow anything thicker than the carabiner to get through, definitely not the thicker screwing bit. So I flew a few more years without the elastic band.
Then I changed to the T2C which has a nice big hang loop that allows the whole carabiner to go through and end up the way it did. However after five years of flying Mosquito without that little elastic band, it never crossed my mind that with the T2C I need to reinstall it, thus the problem you witness on the video - which was also the first time I realised it myself.
I have since reinstalled the elastic band making my carabiner safe again (and hooking in is once again a royal pain in the ass).
NMERider - 2013/12/27 20:45:40 UTC
Many of us are glad you posted that video as it draws attention to a commonly overlooked safety issue.
Jonathan, you wouldn't recognize an actual safety issue - or have any fuckin' clue how to deal with it - if it swam up behind you and bit you in the ass.
I have a T2C with a longer DHV length hang strap and I wrap about six turns of good quality, two inch wide gaffer's tape around the webbing leaving a fairly small loop at the bottom for the carabiner to pass through. I put another wrapping of gaffer's tape farther up the hang strap in order to prevent the webbing from buzzing or vibrating at high speed. I need to remember to do this on my Sport 2 now. Thanks again for posting the video and the follow-up information.
Great, Jonathan. We've fixed the deadly rotating steel carabiner problem with a solution I came up with something like fifteen years ago.
Any chance you have a bit of time left over to start addressing this one:
Stay away from lockers - regardless of how clever and beautifully engineered they are. In hang gliding they do NOTHING but INCREASE risk. You're adding complexity, expense, weight to solve nonexistent problems and create real ones.
Stay away from carabiners for extended flights. They're not designed for use with webbing. They're designed for use with rope. And they're also not designed with aerodynamic drag in mind.
BUT...
If you're flying scooter, training hills, dunes, beaches, high wind coastal, any circumstances in which speed, ease, convenience, safety of connecting/disconnecting is an issue... Fine. Go with a carabiner.
For the newbies and not so newbies, can you post a picture of they way you placed the rubber band on and around the harness loop and carabiner?
