http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34390
Tragedy at 2016 Quest Air Open
Davis Straub - 2016/05/26 23:20:57 UTC
Jonathan, the pictures I linked to were all three mouth release. Hands free all of them. I was at the time very simply asking which one you preferred. Innocently asking about how you reacted to them.
Nothing you've ever done dating back at least to your first spoken word has been innocent.
Sorry, I assume that my links were obvious.
Also blindingly obvious what you're NOT linking to.
NMERider - 2016/05/26 23:43:03 UTC
I never saw this link. Please paste it in. I have a really bad sinus infection and my head feels like it's going to explode so I'm a bit limited beyond my already limited reading and sleuthing skills. Thanks.
W9GFO - 2016/05/26 23:46:48 UTC
I don't agree that the important part is being "hands free". I think what is important is not needing to remove your hand from the control bar to activate a release.
Ex fuckin' zactly. What's important is keeping your hand in control position and being able to hold the bar back.
NMERider - 2016/05/26 23:53:35 UTC
If your release hand is in the wrong place during a lockout there is a good chance that the instant you release your hand or even just your grip in order to go for the release you will soon find your hand even further from the release and the lockout will become significantly worse.
1. If your landing hands are in the wrong place during a landing approach and execution...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27086
Steve Pearson on landings
Steve Pearson - 2012/03/28 23:26:05 UTC
I can't control the glider in strong air with my hands at shoulder or ear height and I'd rather land on my belly with my hands on the basetube than get turned downwind.
...your chances of a crash - minor, serious, fatal - go through the fuckin' ceiling. But guess what one hundred percent of u$hPa instructors force their students to do in order to be able to land "safely".
2. Releasing your hand? Yeah. Big fuckin' deal. Jeff obviously understood that during the final few seconds of his flying career. And you might wanna tell Davis to go fuck himself when he's implying that Jeff's problem was that he didn't release his hand SOON ENOUGH and having a bullshit Quest Air Open Risk Mitigation Plan based on rewarding pilots who release their hands and themselves soon enough in a lockout with a trip back to the head of the line.
Even just your grip in order to GO FOR the release? Show me the release that necessitates releasing your grip but not your hand in order to blow tow.
You don't really need a GRIP on the control bar to make the glider...
29-04323
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1477/25841370092_8bcac4c904_o.png
32-04618
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1699/25936277096_888ed2c692_o.png
43-13529
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1464/25841361702_a25ac7c28a_o.png
55-15702
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1532/25936264316_45447c8ccf_o.png
...do what you want it to. Most of the time you just need a bit of push or pull. And in a lockout you can bank on it being pull.
If you don't believe me feel free to try it for yourself and see. Be sure you have at least 1,000' AGL before you attempt to find out.
Jeff would've probably been OK with a couple hundred. And that was pretty extreme.
Better to have a few K AGL and a fresh repack too.
I've put at least a hundred times more quality work into AT releases than any other human ever has or ever will. I'm not gonna tow one point in soaring conditions and there's no way in hell I'm gonna put a two point release actuator in my teeth. It's a miniscule advantage over what I have and what I have is overkill. The limiting factor with what I have is gonna be human reaction time.
In the case at hand it's a total no brainer that he'd have been fine with one of Joe Street's releases even if it had been used in a one point configuration.
Don't go nuts pushing hands free. Hands free means bite controlled/actuated, bite controlled/actuated has minor downsides and if the advantage is only miniscule people won't use them. Steve Kinsley flew a bite controlled one point and I flew a bite controlled secondary. And both of us would toss the option after clearing the kill zone.
Another point that needs to be made...
The release system I built into my glider kicks the shit outta anything else you're ever gonna see - which, of course, is why it gets studiously ignored and pissed all over by The Industry and its hordes of pet cocksuckers. Likewise all modern automobiles have astounding braking systems and capabilities. Anybody who puts himself into a situation in which more than a quarter of those capabilities is NEEDED is a fuckin' MORON.
I drive in a manner such my use of the brakes is gentle and minimal. When I drive through high deer likelihood situations I slow way the fuck down. When we hear somebody using one hundred percent of his braking capability two assumptions are pretty safe.
- We're gonna be hearing a violent crash in another fraction of a second.
- The person using a hundred percent of his braking capability is a major asshole.
Ditto for release systems. Pick an incident from the entire history of modern hang gliding - the past three and a half decades - to show me where a bite controlled release would've yielded a better outcome than a hand-slide release. This scenario is totally fictional. It doesn't exist in the real world.
The motherfuckers running that bullshit at Quest on 2016/05/21 should all be stood up in front of a wall. They were running a takeoff pattern with a very thin safety margin with gliders with blatantly illegal placebo releases. With ANY release that didn't totally stink on ice what they were doing would've been totally acceptable. They would've been able to afford putting a few gliders into lockout mode 'cause aborting the tows would've been brain dead easy. The risk would've been the same as for a normal glider landing approach. But as they actually WERE operating any glider unable to hold that turn was already dead.
You didn't NEED the best release engineering could produce and money could buy. You needed ANY release that would allow the pilot to continuously operate as a pilot with both of his hands in constant contact with the control bar.
Andrew Vanis - 2016/05/27 00:00:51 UTC
I'd be in for a mouth release -
We've bent over backwards to make them available for years with zilch help from people like you. If there had been more of them in circulation before two Saturdays ago there'd have been a lower likelihood that Jeff would've died on and because of Quavis's mandatory cheap bent pin shit.
I would like the mouth release that releases on jaw opening rather than closing. it releases if it falls out of the mouth or if the pilot screams
Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974
"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release."- Richard Johnson
If the pilot screams? BULLSHIT. PILOTS don't SCREAM. When somebody at the controls of a plane screams it's for one of two reasons. He's about to eat it because he's:
- not a pilot and doesn't know what the fuck he's doing
- in a situation in which being a pilot is no longer of any use or relevance and he's got nothing better to do
Show me a video of somebody who knows something about glider control screaming. I've got a collection of hundreds of classic glider disaster videos and I don't recall one of them in which the guy about to get his life majorly altered for the worse saying so much as "Oh shit!" let alone screaming. Jeff didn't scream or say anything immediately before or after his New and Improved Quest Link increased the safety of the towing operation.
Check this one out from fuckin' idiot Bill Bryden on another in our long list of pilots too stupid to make the easy reach to his release at the beginning of his fatal lockout:
Bill Bryden - 1998/12
Unfortunately, we suffered a fatal towing accident earlier this year but only recently received some details about it. Richard Graham, and advanced pilot with 24 years of experience, was fatally injured in a towing accident on May 15, 1998 near Grover, Colorado.
Rich was platform-launch towing in strong (25-30 mph) winds crossing 35-40 degrees to the tow road. Thermal activity was also reported as moderately strong. The launch sequence commenced with the "go to cruise" command, and the glider cleared the tow vehicle. Approximately 300-400 feet of line unspooled, and according to the data memory in the vario the glider reached about 80-90 feet AGL. The pilot then radioed to the vehicle driver to stop, and a few seconds later the VOX on his radio transmitted the words, "Oh no." The glider impacted in a steep nose-down attitude and then inverted.
It is suspected that no attempt was made by Rich to release since the towline was still attached after impact, and the release and winch were determined to be functioning properly before and after the accident. The event was not witnessed directly so it is unknown precisely what happened. It is suspected that the very strong and crossing conditions were a primary factor in this accident.
No scream, no "Oh SHIT!", just "Oh no." with the realization that his effort at a recreational flight would be costing him his life in a couple seconds and there wasn't a goddam thing he could do to alter what was about to happen.
W9GFO - 2016/05/27 00:01:35 UTC
What I was describing required no movement of the hand, no releasing of grip to activate the release. Instead of the clothespin thing in your mouth, it is between the bar and your forefinger.
1. What's stopping you from obtaining a Kaluzhin and using it in that configuration?
2. So it's pretty fuckin' obvious you're talking about one point. So apparently there's no danger worth talking about related to towing one point.
NMERider - 2016/05/27 00:12:31 UTC
Hands move around during tow.
Not mine.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8306300488/
Never once had the slightest inclination to move either hand an inch from proper flying position from the beginning of the cart roll to workable lift, wave-off, or lockout - whichever came first.
When all hell breaks loose the release hand may not be near enough to the release lever to activate in time to avoid crashing.
1. You're only in any danger of crashing for the first couple hundred feet. If you can't commit to having your hands in proper control position for the first couple hundred feet then find another hobby.
2. Having all hell break loose shortly after the beginning of an aerotow launch doesn't bode all that well for survival. Ditto for any other kind of launch.
3. In the case at hand:
- Jeff commenced, flew, and finished the flight with his release hand glued to control position - undoubtedly because he wasn't sure that Davis would honor his promise to move him back up to the front of the line for a relight if he released early.
- All hell breaking loose was a consequence of the tug making an aggressive starboard turn thirty feet off the deck.
Now there may be reliable alternatives to a mouth release that are hands-free.
There aren't any.
It's not something I've researched.
It's something I have. There aren't any.
Alternately there may be a way to attach a type of release directly to the pilot's hand so that no matter where the hand is, the release can still be activated.
Please describe all the great other places the pilot's hand needs to be when launching and climbing through the kill zone. Video examples would be greatly appreciated.
So I suggest imagining or making drawings or building mock-ups of ideas for some type of device that is attached to the hand in some way that would allow immediate release no matter where the hand is or what it's doing.
1. And make sure not to use any PVC tubing in any mock-ups...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8318603266/
...because the kinds of low double digit IQ...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15571
Pro/Tow release from base tube
Chris Valley - 2009/04/11 05:46:55 UTC
PVC T2
What is nice about Tad's illustrations and photographs is they directly relate to the PVC construction of my Wills Wing T2...
Did Wills Wing finally switch from PVC to 7075 aluminum on the new T2C?
...shitheads that Jack and Davis cultivate on their dumps will have no ability to comprehend any of what's going on.
2. And while we're waiting for the next twenty years for all these brilliant, creative individuals with which the hang gliding community so teams to come up with all these solutions to nonexistent problems let's make sure to keep ignoring all the bulletproof existing solutions to all the actual problems that are already up and flying.
Meanwhile I have idea where this linked sets of images is that Davis was referring to.
That sentence needs work, Jonathan.
Can somebody please point this out?
Why waste time checking out anything that Davis links to? Your attention should be focused on the stuff that he's NOT linking to.
W9GFO - 2016/05/27 00:18:41 UTC
I'm obviously not being very clear. You move your hand, and the tow is over - just like the mouth release, when you relax your jaw - it releases.
Exactly what was it about:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8306300488/
that you didn't like? Too many parts? (Notes?)
If you are being thrashed around so violently that you can't keep your hand in place then yeah, it would release and the tow would be over.
And you'd obviously be perfectly safe. 'Cause you'd be...
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links
Jim Rooney - 2007/08/01 19:49:30 UTC
It's more of this crappy argument that being on tow is somehow safer than being off tow.
...off tow. Just like Jeff was perfectly safe after his Quavis Link increased the safety of the towing operation.
Is that a real thing? I don't recall ever not being able to keep my hand position, even when being thrashed about.
Andrew Vanis - 2016/05/27 00:21:09 UTC
isn't it crazy that out liability laws and resulting fears prevent one of us making a small production run of the mouth releases?
Didn't stop me, motherfucker. It DID, however, get me blacklisted out of the sport - while total useless motherfuckers such as yourself lifted not a finger in protest and let the reign of terror of Davis Dead-On Straub, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney, and Ryan Instant-Hands-Free-Release Voight continue unabated.
i wonder if a corp that would close after the delivery of the releases might provide enough protection
Get your shift key fixed. Also... Get fucked.
I might consider creating these if each order came with a notarized statement from the buyer that was hand written in front of the notary that says the buyer won't sue and if he does then he covers my attorney fees no matter the outcome plus in advance deposit $100K into escrow to cover said attorney fees even if he wins and if he wins he assigns the proceeds back to me and if his heirs sue (in addition to all the same purchaser stuff), they forfeit any share they have in the estate of the buyer.
Get fucked. What we SHOULD be doing is everything possible to help Jeff's family, estate sue out of existence ten times over everyone who had so much as a finger in the circumstances which had him up in that lockout with that cheap bent pin shit and the Quest Air Open Risk Mitigation Plan to keep him safe.
Andrew Vanis - 2016/05/27 00:22:36 UTC
I've had my hand ripped from the basebar before
Was it injured in the process? Is that why you're unable to operate shift and punctuation keys?
Wow Davis. You do a really amazing job of linking to things. Hard to imagine where this sport would be without you and your totally excellent links.
W9GFO - 2016/05/27 00:23:39 UTC
During a tow?
Of course during a tow. People get their hands ripped off of basebars all the fuckin' time during tows.
And if so, would you want to remain on tow?
Of course not. Remaining on tow at any time is totally insane. Why else would we have used one-size-fits-all Rooney Links for two decades and benefitted from all those inconvenience crashes when we could've been climbing out to workable altitude?
NMERider - 2016/05/27 00:25:17 UTC
W9GFO - 2016/05/27 00:18:41 UTC
If you are being thrashed around so violently...
Ah so desu ka! You mean a dead man's switch like they have on...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8306300488/
...many powered sporting craft like snowmobiles and jet skis. At least they did when I was a kid. Yes, the Russian Mouth Release is in fact a dead man's switch and if the pilot tended to clench his jaw when in fear then it really would be a dead man's switch but of a different sort.
'Cept that never happens 'cause actual pilots who actually equip themselves with actual towing equipment aren't ever faced with having to make the choice between dying because they:
- didn't make the easy reach to their Industry Standard release
- did make the easy reach to their Industry Standard release
Sure. why not! I don't see why a reliable dead man's grip device can't be fabricated so that all the pilot has to do is relax his grip or such (sort of like opening his mouth with the RMR) and the release is activated. I like the idea and don't see why the cable housing can't be routed along the pilot's arm for cleanliness too. I like it!
Great, Jonathan! How 'bout fabricating something for us? Or get Paul Hurless to post a sketch.
Fuck you, Davis.
Davis Straub - 2016/05/27 00:38:39 UTC
I look forward to ordering a dozen mouth releases as soon as I get a good connection in Russia (from Zena) and selling them at my cost.
ALL HAIL DAVIS!!!
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14903
New Lookout Release--preliminary test
2016/05/27 01:22:46 UTC - 3 thumbs up - NMERider
FUCK YEAH! Davis da MAN! Constantly pushing this sport forward and making it safe for people of varying ages regardless of any personal considerations!
Maybe a thumb or two up as well for Jeff Bohl and the really great wake-up call he gave us a couple Saturdays ago. And honorable mentions for Tomas Banevicius and Nancy Doe for their 2016 calendar year contributions.
Andrew Vanis - 2016/05/27 00:43:22 UTC
if that happened on tow, I'd probably be toast already and not writing here.
Why? You DO always us an appropriate weak link with a finished length of 1.5 inches or less, don't you?
It is about before-the-fact prevention than after it happens.
Like Davis's Quest Air Open Risk Mitigation Plan.
Hope you aerotow many a times without it ever happening to you and if it does, come back to report how it turned out for you.
Anybody ever heard of anybody ever having a hand ripped off the basetube in any kind of tow ever?
It is close to saying, since most tows don't have to be released in an emergency, we don't care how cumbersome or slow it is to release.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=14312
Tow Park accidents
Jack Axaopoulos - 2009/11/12 14:49:58 UTC
gasdive,
One of the stated goals of this site is to promote HG. MOST views on this site are NOT from members but from visitors, they have no ignore button.
Having Tad run around every day giving the impression that there is a massive weekly slaughter of pilots at tow parks due to their horribly dangerous devices surely doesnt promote HG. Especially when the safety records are quite excellent.
Like Jim said, theyve gone a decade with no fatalities at their tow park. Pretty damn good I say.
Yet listening to Tad, you would think guys were dying all over the place
He's been nothing but misleading and negative and ignored multiple warnings from me. So He's GONE
W9GFO - 2016/05/27 00:46:06 UTC
For the record, I am saying exactly the opposite. It is of the highest importance that releasing is as easy and quick as possible.
Rubbish. It's of the highest importance that pilots know that they'll go to the head of the launch line if they release in a lockout. That way they'll be less inclined to stay on tow attempting to correct a misaligned tow.
Rodger Hoyt - 2016/05/27 01:38:42 UTC
Davis Straub - 2016/05/27 00:38:39 UTC
I look forward to ordering a dozen mouth releases as soon as I get a good connection in Russia (from Zena) and selling them at my cost.
Awesome Davis.
Hold off a bit on sucking his dick. You only get to go to the head of the line if you release instead of trying to fix a bad thing or have the safety of your towing operation increased by a weak link inconvenience.
NMERider - 2016/05/27 01:43:17 UTC
Davis Straub - 2016/05/27 00:23:17 UTC
Check here for three different configuration of how mouth releases are used in protow setups...
Thanks. I'll look at these after I get home from urgent care. Too much desert X/C gives me sinusitis and this bout is particularly nasty.
All that nastiness help acclimate you to the sleazy motherfucker who's been doing everything in his power since the beginning of time to keep decent equipment from impinging on the circulation of the total shit that...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24534
It's a wrap
Davis Straub - 2011/07/30 19:51:54 UTC
I'm very happy with the way Quest Air (Bobby Bailey designed) does it now.
...he and his cronies sell?
Tom Lyon - 2016/05/27 04:55:16 UTC
Where I fly at Cloud 9 in Michigan, every pilot flying a double surface glider is required to fly with a vertical stabilizer/fin. While I certainly understand that high performance gliders can be towed well without a fin, I do wonder if a fin might help delay lockout just a bit longer so that the pilot can release.
Assuming there isn't a medical condition that incapacitates a pilot before an accident like this tragedy, the most likely explanation is that the pilot either didn't think he was near lockout, or it just happened so fast that he didn't have time to react. It seems to me that a fin would at least help slow down the progression of lockout.
I don't suppose that comp pilots would be very amenable to discussing the idea of requiring a fin (assuming that there is agreement that they make a glider more stable on tow), but I don't ever plan to fly without one when I move up from my Falcon.
Fuck you and where you fly at Cloud 9 in Michigan, JackieB. Fuck everybody who tolerates total shitheads like you and lying Industry scumbags like Tracy and Lisa. And note the conspicuous absence of any comment by the latter on yet another one of these.
peterc - 2016/05/27 05:07:24 UTC
Sydney
Good job Davis. I've tried a couple of times over the last year to get one from Russia, but with no luck.
GOOD job? TOTALLY FUCKING *AMAZING* JOB!!!
I really like the idea of being able to get off the tow, without moving hands at all.
I'll bet Jeff Bohl would have, too. Unfortunately for him, under the rules of Quavis's Quest Air Open Risk Mitigation Plan the idea of being get off the tow, without moving the hands at all, no implementation of the idea of being get off the tow, without moving the hands at all was possible. What they had in its place was the idea that a port lockout induced at thirty feet by a Dragonfly making an aggressive starboard turn would be survivable flying the cheap pro toad bent pin shit that Quavis sells and mandates.
Cheers.
Pete
Fuck you, Pete.
Everybody watching the dynamics here? Davis, more than any other single individual, sets up an airline pilot to be killed at one of his pecker measuring contests. And here on The Jack Show in less than half a dozen days later he's being praised for his outstanding leadership in our never-ending campaign to advance the safety of the sport. And ya wonder how the dangerous useless shits upon whom u$hPa bestows annual u$hPa NAA Safety Awards are designated to receive annual u$hPa NAA Safety Awards.
