Kite Strings

Tad Eareckson - 2015/10/02 14:30:21 UTC

Thanks, Steve, but give yourself a break. I'm a little bummed out by this but it's not anything that's keeping me awake with worry.

Knew I could find something better if I just tried harder and/or waited long enough.

Monday / On our Happy Fifth I was heading up towards Massachusetts for my housemate's family's Thanksgiving gathering. Stopped by the Brandywine River (Wyeths) Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and then got to Edison, New Jersey as the sun was setting for an overnight at the pet friendly motel.

My little Quaker (Monk) Parrot of about fifteen years rides on the cage while we're rolling and I secured her, brought the cage inside and plopped it on the washbasin counter. Then I grabbed her out of the cage in preparation for snacks and a bit o' quality time. Tossed her towards the top of the cage so's I'd have both hands at my disposal.

But she didn't land on the cage. She did a 180 and landed on my housemate's left shoulder - just as he was opening the door for another trip to the car.

I screamed, "NOOOOO!!!!!" He almost froze in terror but continued, instinctively I guess, opening the door and moving forward - at a dramatically reduced rate. I again screamed, "NOOOOO!!!!!" - hoping for better results and getting more of the same. One more "NOOOOO!!!!!" And she was out and airborne.

Got a look at her disappearing in the fast failing light and figured that she'd gone into some conifers a bit away to roost for the night - which is what these birds do in failing light. Hopes of quickly locating her didn't pan out.

This in itself probably wouldn't have been a disaster - I'd lost her before, once for three days. I'd have probably been able to get her back within an hour of sunrise. But... She'd plucked her breast almost completely bare and the air was crisp and clear, the wind was out of the north and swaying branches a bit, and the overnight temperature was headed down to a very unseasonable 27 degrees.

I'm about 220 pounds and was dressed reasonably well and my periodic short forays were pretty unbearable - and not just 'cause of knowing the utter futility of the exercises.

Lay awake all night, chilled still fully dressed and under a light blanket with the thermostat at 72 watching a zillion hours of "Saints & Strangers" to keep my mind off a bit of what I knew was happening / had to have already happened out there. Heart pounding, feeling a horrible numbness through fourteen hours of darkness that lasted years.

No response to my calls after sunrise - big surprise. Lotsa little House Sparrows milling about just fine - but they'd had their full sets of plumage. Even a Rufous Hummingbird with a body mass of under three and a half grams will have zilch problem getting through a night with temperatures way the hell below what we had.

She was an obnoxious little pain in the ass who'd done major permanent damage to my hearing about ten years ago and come close to punching another hole in one of my fingers defending her home cage Monday morning. And I'd need to threaten to kill her about a dozen times a day to keep her under control. But she knew whose neck to bite when she wasn't getting her evening pretzel fast enough and who'd retrieve her from the kitchen after a Cooper's Hawk had taken a shot towards the living room window where her cage was parked. And she'd let me know how I was doing on the rare occasions when I was nailing a piece on the ukulele.

She was a HUGE part of my mostly empty, isolated, miserable life and now she's another memory that my system will have to erase because the reality of it is too terrible to live with.

Towards the end of my hopeless search I'd thought I MIGHT have heard a promising call from the direction of Northside Imports, a huge warehouse facility across the road a bit to the ESE. Got nothing but Robins when I investigated though.

Thought I should give it one last shot from the car on the way out and swung by for a few calls. Attracted the attention of a worker who asked if I'd lost a dog. I came apart at the seams and managed to tell him what the situation was.

He was very concerned and kind, said that he'd get the word out to all his coworkers and relevant friends, and took my cell phone number. I thanked him but told him not to knock himself out because the situation was pretty much totally hopeless at that point. Got a "God be with you" or something similar upon parting.

He called me that afternoon to check out the connection - as I'd hoped he would just so's I'd know who he was better than some guy in the parking lot - and talk a bit more. Assured me that, "Everything happens for a reason." Like maybe some little girl will find her and have some happiness brought to her life. (Or hell, maybe God was just killing my little bird in a horrible fashion to punish me a bit more for being an unrepentant child molester.)

Nope. In those miserable hours of that night there was a temptation to believe something along the God's Plan lines and get myself off the hook a bit. But it was just another case of everything lining up just right, my failure to assess and deal with the risks and inability to turn the clock back a second or two, and major life altering and ending consequences.

And if there is a God running things according to some plan of his then he's as big a dickhead as anything u$hPa or commercial hang gliding have to offer.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3600
Weak link question

Jim Rooney - 2008/11/24 05:18:15 UTC

Well, I'm assuming there was some guff about the tug pilot's right of refusal?
Gee, didn't think we'd have to delve into "pilot in command"... I figured that one's pretty well understood in a flying community.

It's quite simple.
The tug is a certified aircraft... the glider is an unpowered ultralight vehicle. The tug pilot is the pilot in command. You are a passenger. You have the same rights and responsibilities as a skydiver.
It's a bitter pill I'm sure, but there you have it.

BTW, if you think I'm just spouting theory here, I've personally refused to tow a flight park owner over this very issue. I didn't want to clash, but I wasn't towing him. Yup, he wanted to tow with a doubled up weaklink. He eventually towed (behind me) with a single and sorry to disappoint any drama mongers, we're still friends. And lone gun crazy Rooney? Ten other tow pilots turned him down that day for the same reason.

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

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

Ok, keyboard in hand.
I've got a bit of time, but I'm not going to write a dissertation... so either choose to try to understand what I'm saying, or (as is most often the case) don't.
I don't care.

Here's a little bit of bitter reality that ya'll get to understand straight off. I won't be sugar coating it, sorry.
You see, I'm on the other end of that rope.
I want neither a dead pilot on my hands or one trying to kill me.
And yes. It is my call. PERIOD.
On tow, I am the PIC.

Now, that cuts hard against every fiber of every HG pilot on the planet and I get that.
Absolutely no HG pilot likes hearing it. Not me, not no one. BUT... sorry, that's the way it is.
Accept it and move on.
Not only can you not change it, it's the law... in the very literal sense.

So, you're quite right in your thinking in your example. The person you have to convince is me (or whoever your tuggie is).
I've had this conversation with many people.
We've had various outcomes.
I can tell you what my general ideas and rules are, but you do not need to agree with them nor do you get to dictate anything to me... if I'm not happy, you ain't getting towed by me. Why I'm not happy doesn't matter. It's my call, and if I'm having so much as a bad hair day, then tough. You can go get someone else. I won't be offended. Each tuggie is different, and I've had someone ask me to tow them with some stuff that I wasn't happy with and I told him point blank... go ask the other guy, maybe he'll do it.

I can tell you that for me, you're going to have a hell of a time convincing me to tow you with *anything* home-made.
"But I love my mouth release! It's super-delux-safe"... that's great, but guess what?

I've towed at places that use different weak links than greenspot. They're usually some other form of fishing line. Up in Nelson (New Zealand), they don't have greenspot, so they found a similar weight fishing line. They replace their link every single tow btw... every one, without question or exception... that's just what the owner wants and demands. Fine by me. If it wasn't, then I wouldn't tow for them and I wouldn't be towed by them. That's his place and he gets to make that call. Pretty simple.

Up at Morningside, they're using that new orange weaklink. It's a bit stronger and it has to be sewn or glued so it doesn't slip when unloaded.

If you're within the FAA specs and you're using something manufactured, then you're going to have a far better time convincing me to tow you.
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.

So I hope that sheds some light on the situation.
But again, every tuggie's different and every situation is different.
What doesn't change however is that it's my call, not yours.
And it's my job to be the "bad guy" sometimes.
Sorry. It's just the way it is.

Kiss my ass and suck my dick as I, Pilot In Command command. Trust me, I know what I'm doing and talking about. Don't question my judgment or bring up issues of math, science, logic, common sense. Do things my way, the way they've been done since the beginning of time - or you don't fly and won't have anywhere to fly.

Note the stunning similarities? Rooney with a God complex or God with a Rooney complex? Who gives a rat's ass? Fuck both of them.

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.

In case I haven't repeated this recently enough... Fuck you, the horse you rode in on, and the culture that makes you possible. And DO take your time updating the information indicated by those preliminary reports via telephone on God's planned execution of Karen three Sundays ago. It's really important that we get stuff like that right so's we can keep properly in step with God's plan as well as possible.

P.S. Housemate's recollection of events as recounted to his niece tonight was that he was bringing more stuff in from the car and she just flew out over his head when he opened the door. My throat's still sore from the three evenly spaced terrified full volume screams while, true to pattern, he continued doing the opposite of what the situation called for. (Bird's on my shoulder riding along to the outside and certain death. Solution: Walk outside slower. Weak link broke at the worst possible time, with the glider climbing hard in a near stall situation. Solution: Use a lighter weak link that won't permit a hard climb into a near stall situation.)

I don't think he's lying. I think his brain automatically overwrote the memory of the actual event to protect him from having to come to grips with knowing that all he needed to do was to stop walking out the door with the bird on his shoulder. Probably a lot of the same dynamic going on in this train wreck of a sport.

I don't imagine that there is anything that I can write that will help you feel any better about your bird committing suicide.

I can only hope that you are able to get over this and not beat yourself up about it. I hope.

Thanks, but please don't characterize what happened as the bird committing suicide. More like birdslaughter at the hands and shoulder of someone totally devoid of common sense and the willingness to try to develop any in a lot of areas. She didn't fly out through the doorway - she was carried. Suicidal birds do not respond with terror to Cooper's Hawks charges towards the living room window.

She wasn't trying to kill herself any more than the millions of night migrating birds who fly into lit skyscrapers or the poorly trained glider student who's flying too slow and gets turned back towards the mountain and responds by trying to slow down and turn back away. All are responding to tens or hundreds of millions of years of genetic programming to respond in a manner "normally" most likely to keep them alive.

The migrating bird steers away from the dark mass on the horizon 'cause that's gonna be a mountain made of rock and towards the brightness 'cause that's gonna be the most open sky. We monkeys who've learned to fly execute the counterintuitive responses of stuffing the bar and maintaining heading until maybe the last possible instant and then snapping a turn back into the wind / away from the mountain.

My little bird after selecting a safe, comfortable, familiar landing spot was carried out into the "natural" environment into nearly failed evening light. Gotta go to the densest cover possible IMMEDIATELY and sit tight till morning or run a very high risk of getting picked off by an owl. There is no wiring for flying back into the warm, lighted monkey cave to spend a safe comfortable night.

And, like I said, she'd have been fine if she'd had her plumage intact. But a lot of human environment parrots pluck for reasons nobody understands or is able to do anything about.

Since my mother died 2010/10/30 (breast cancer (father 2007/11/29 (eight years ago yesterday) (Alzheimer's))) I've been going up with HouseMate for his family's Thanksgiving get-together.

Two issues have been wearing me very thin.

- Car

His driving majorly sucks normally and totally sucks in the hundreds of miles of bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go post Thanksgiving nightmare return stuff. Dead stop, traffic opens up in front, floors it, traffic in front grinds back to a stop, maintains speed until the last possible second, slams on brakes. 'Stead o' just idling along at twenty and forcing all the thousands of like-minded assholes behind him to do the same.

And I'm supposed to just sit there for ten hours like some stupid little twelve year old kid 'cause it's his car and he enjoys "driving" and the thought of me driving would be totally preposterous.

- Bird

I bring The Bird (never named her 'cause I didn't know her gender until she started laying eggs and I suck at naming stuff that breathes) home and HM decides he's gonna take control of her.

She starts out flying to my shoulder to ask for treats at the end of the day. He identifies just about all the treats she likes and puts ten times what she could eat in a week in her cage at the beginning of each day. So what the fuck does she need with me anymore? "Stay the hell away from me, my cage, and my candy - motherfucker. Or I'll open up your carotid artery."

Also, with the choice of unlimited "ice cream" made available along with the broccoli 24/7... I'd be dead inside of four weeks tops in a situation like that.

Every day about a hundred times the food of her consumption capacity and what's left over from the previous gets tossed out back for whatever finds and wants it. Waste as much food as possible just like gas on the drives.

At the ends of winters she goes into brooding cycles. Clears a little "nest" on the bottom tray and sits on four or five eggs. HM doesn't wanna have her inconvenienced with moving off the clutch and up to her dish so pours a few tons of food around her in the tray each morning. She develops a bed sore on her brood patch which I find out about one evening when there's blood all over the eggs. I'm seriously afraid she's gonna bleed herself to death by picking at the injury and stay up the whole night holding her wrapped in a paper towel getting the bleeding to stop and scabbing to begin.

When she wants the one evening treat in which HM DOESN'T bury her at the beginning of the day - unsalted pretzel - she flies to my shoulder and maybe bites me in the neck to try to get me up to desired speed. If HM's around she stays glued to her perch and starts this really obnoxious loud repetitive nagging call until he ignores my glare and rewards/reinforces the rotten behavior.

Think five-year-old kid who gets ice cream when and only when he throws a tantrum.

I threaten to kill her but she knows I won't while HM's around 'cause of the major scene that will ensue. "DISCIPLINE the BABY for obnoxious behavior??? You MONSTER!!!"

Two Thanksgivings ago it was bumper to bumper all the way back from New England with nonstop three G ac- and de-celerations and The Bird nagging damn near nonstop. One of the most miserable experiences I'd had in years.

One Thanksgiving ago on the way out of the neighborhood HM informed me that I'd once again be doing zero percent of the driving. And I knew what The Bird would be doing. So I opened the passenger door nice and wide to discourage any notions of continuing, told him to turn the car around, and unloaded my self, bags, and bird back in the driveway. And I don't get out much so that really wasn't all that much fun - but it was definitely the right call.

By the end of this summer the nagging behavior had become so intolerable that even HM was unable to take much more. Around the beginning of October he was on his way to shut her up with another treat and I told him, "DON'T FEED HER WHEN SHE'S DOING THAT!" To my amazement he turned around and with immeasurable relief I began a program to rewire her to behave all the time like she does with me after he's been away on a trip for a week - reasonable, polite, fun to be with.

A week later he made a move to reverse that week's progress and there was a really ugly and loud confrontation which left my throat sore for six days - but the line held.

So last Monday at about 11:30 EST we roll out of the driveway with Yours Truly at the wheel.

And you know the rest up through 2015/11/26 07:49:48 UTC post time.

Temperatures even way the hell up in Massachusetts got newsmakingly balmy. Moths out at night, nighttime lows not much lower than what I set the house temperature to overnight.

Drive back from the last stop at Tarrytown was pretty smooth - 'cause I was at the wheel for that leg too. Might have been even smoother the couple hours after sunset if I'd remembered I was wearing sunglasses. (The restaurant where we stopped for dinner was also pretty dark. It wasn't until I went to the restroom and saw myself in the mirror...)

And now what I knew was gonna happen is happening. Every time I come through the doorway I look to see her on her cage. Whenever I grab something to eat I start to break off a little piece for her. Then my brain kicks back in and I remember.

I can only hope that you are able to get over this...

Nope. That'll never happen. Lotsa happy memories now forever overridden by one unbearably horrible one. And I really didn't need anything more in that department.

Thanks, but please don't characterize what happened as the bird committing suicide.

Sorry for the very poor wording there, Tad. I didn't mean suicide as in aim to die, but rather, this action (flying away) will result in.

That still leaves her in the same category as Zack Marzec. He most assuredly didn't aim to die either. He aimed to go up and boat around for a couple hours then come down and hang out with his cute girlfriend and cool professional pilot colleague buddies. But he ELECTED to decertify his aircraft and thus violate common sense FAA safety regulations at least two different ways and inconvenience himself with the safest pitch and lockout protector the sport has ever been able to get away with.

She made the best call possible given the brain and wiring she had to work with. It was just the precise wrong call given the artificial elements this human had introduced and imposed on her and failed to adequately compensate for.

And she wasn't trying to fly "away" from anybody. She was trying to fly TO safe cover. And she would've flown back in the morning when it was "safe" again if she'd been able to survive the night.

And lemme reiterate that I don't wanna be or enjoy being a critically important person in this sport. I believe I am based largely on all the crap people are very conspicuously not saying about T** at K*** S****** and Tad's Hole In The Ground on all the Industry cult leader controlled rags anymore - on a graph that's an excellent match for what they're very conspicuously not saying about the tragic losses of all their beloved fellow pilots and their beloved fellow pilots' eleven year old tandem students. One of the major fringe benefits is a loneliness that I was barely able to handle BEFORE the evening of 2015/11/23.

Yeah, doesn't trigger anything on the Board Index page or move up on a list with a new post. I myself have missed new posts for a bit. And no little orange flag for new posts unless one is registered and logged in. Also not the sorta topic that draws lotsa attention. Hit counter tends not to rocket up very quickly.

For awhile after missing previous activity on this thread, I would check the post date. Then after another stretch of inactivity I obviously stopped.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Dead stop, traffic opens up in front, floors it, traffic in front grinds back to a stop, maintains speed until the last possible second, slams on brakes.

I can't stand that.

For awhile after missing previous activity on this thread...

And knowing, obviously, that this topic was hot, I still managed to miss your post - with its little "" flag - on the General page until looking back about a half hour later.

I can't stand that.

Tell me about it. I can think of at least four other individuals (including my late mom) who've had me as a passenger who pull(ed) that shit. You see a light turn red, brake lights come on, traffic stop, your driver maintains speed like nothing has happened, and you think, "*WHAT* ARE YOU SEEING, THINKING, *DOING*?!"

Two Thanksgivings ago the return trip was all day hell. I seemed to have some luck getting things moderated a bit by grinding my teeth a little louder as the bumper in front loomed closer. But then I doped off at one point in the afternoon and my body was almost immediately hurled against the seatbelt and the cage and bird were hurled against the back of my passenger seat. At that point I SAID SOMETHING. Seemed to have helped a bit for the next hour or so.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Thanks. I'm not doing well. I think she's still here literally hundreds of times a day in tenth of a second bursts. Every time I...
- look up or walk through the doorway.
- go near her cage I brace for getting cussed out and maybe attacked.
- get something to eat I start to break or tear off a little piece to give to her.

Just before six this morning I had a vivid and horrible dream. It was summer and I was wading in something resembling the cove behind my parents' house. She flew out of a tree from about fifty feet up and landed on my shoulder. I wrapped my hand around her and started walking up the slope to the house - feeling relief beyond description. But I was also feeling that this was too good to be true and asked somebody who appeared on the path, "Is this a dream?" twice - and got some strange answer from the jerk. But everything was so vivid and real and seemed to be checking out. The travel cage was just outside the back door, I picked it up and was trying to get through the door when I abruptly woke up. Brain readjusted back to reality within the next two seconds.

I have no friends I can visit or pick up the phone and talk to and can't see how I'm gonna make it through the next day.

And I don't wanna talk via phone to the friends I hope I have here. I think there's a chemistry that happens and works with everything in writing and all but a little Personal Message traffic fully public. And I fear tampering with it. Of the 21 other individuals who've posted here I've only ever spoken to three - in person, Dave a million years ago on the dunes and Allen in the course of my DC area flying career and, on the phone, Bob. And we all know how that last one worked out. (I wonder how long it'll take his cult members to start getting the picture. (No I don't. If any of them were capable of getting pictures they wouldn't be cult members in the first place.))

Come to think of it... Bob insists on telephone contact with one hundred percent of the individuals he admits to his cult. Hard to go wrong doing the polar opposite.

Tell me about it.

An old boss I commuted to work with drove like that. He could not handle stop and go traffic, no patience. It was like a futile attempt to get the traffic moving.

Following too close and delayed reaction time is what causes stop and go traffic.

I was driving once with an impatient, nail-biting, chain-smoker that rolled the window down, leaned out looking up and said "I thought there must be a plane 'cause you're leaving enough room for one to land. If we'd all just tighten up these gaps we'd be home by now."

Yeah.

I've always felt guilty about pouring more CO2 into the atmosphere - 'specially just for another fix for our fake "fly like a bird" addiction - but when I was flying Ridgely I figured that I could greatly REDUCE CO2 emissions by inserting myself into the weekend beach traffic mess.

Thought I was the only person on the planet thinking and behaving this way until I heard an NPR piece a couple years ago.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=211025038
An Engineer Beats The Physics Of Traffic : NPR

http://trafficwaves.org/trafexp.html
TRAFFIC WAVE EXPERIMENTS

William Beatty - 1998
Electrical Engineer

It was dusk, the headlights were on, and I was going down a long hill to the bridges. I had a view of miles of highway behind me. In the other lane I could see maybe five of the traffic stop-waves. But in the lane behind me, for miles, TOTALLY UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION. I hadn't realized it, but by driving at the average speed, my car had been "eating" traffic waves. Everyone ahead of me was caught in the stop/go cycle, while everyone behind me was forced to go at a nice smooth 35MPH or so. My single tiny car had erased miles and miles of stop-and-go traffic. Just one single "lubricant atom" had a profound effect on the turbulent particle flow within the "tube.

He also discusses being courteous/altruistic in allowing cars from adjacent lanes to merge in ahead - something else that isn't in HM's vocabulary - to make life less hellish for the few people to the sides and the tens of thousands behind.

I eliminate the "solid wall" of traffic at merge areas, and I let people merge without slowing down and creating traffic waves behind them.

I remember some of my earlier life when I was operating under the assumption that the more and longer people were engaged in a particular activity the better at it they'd become.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5926135
The Physics Behind Traffic Jams (smartmotorist.com)

seanp2k2 - 893 days ago

When I try this, most other people have no idea what I'm doing and/or are stupidly greedy and go "OMG A GAP" and rush into it. I'll also typically have people behind me honking / flashing their headlights at me, as they're equally clueless. I've had one dude and his wife, in a Harley Davidson edition F150 actually roll down their window and scream at me for "not knowing how to drive".

I drive a 6spd stick too, so the stop/go is even more painful. I try to be that "lubricating atom" both for my sanity and to ease the jam, but the collective inability of other drivers to think beyond "OMG MAKE AS MUCH PROGRESS AS SOON AS I CAN" greatly inhibits my efforts.

TL;DR traffic jams are caused because people are greedy and short-sighted in their greed. It's not really different from all of the other big problems with humanity.

Maybe a glimmer of hope there. It seemed to me that the number of aggressive assholes surging by to plug the buffer I'd opened up was a bit on the light side. And maybe/hopefully there was a bit of intelligent life within range seeing, thinking about, understanding what I was doing.

Big trucks smooth out the waves pretty efficiently. I don't try to eliminate the waves unless the gaps are very small. Otherwise the resulting madness of abrupt lane changes and increased road rage potentially make it worse.

...being courteous/altruistic...

Probably the best we can do.