launching

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGNY8OcXE3c
Aeros Combat decollo traino - Hang glider towing

AerosItalia - 2021/01/01

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGNY8OcXE3c


Decollo al traino, volo invernale (Tow launch, winter flight)

http://ozreport.com/25.001
Foot Launching
Davis Straub - 2021/01/01 23:20:02 UTC
In the new year

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- 01 - chronological order
- 01 - seconds
- 08 - frame (30 fps)
http

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No launch cart. Magnitudes simpler and thus magnitudes safer.

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Single point bridle. Fuck that Rube Goldberg crap with an UPPER connection point and a release that can trigger it.

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Foot launch. The way the pioneers of this sport intended hang gliders to get airborne.

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Time to start thinking about shifting to prone.

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And we're safely airborne.

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Sweeeet!!!! Looks good to me. Nicely done! Elegant solution! As in most cases, the simplest designs work best.

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Maybe we should do a little touch-and-go here. Log two flights outta this effort.

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Poetry in motion.

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Hard to get a release within much easier reach than this one.

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Hope you're using an appropriate weak link with a finished length of 1.5 inches or less.

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Gear up.

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Good job bracing yourself against being pulled through the control bar. The bad habit pilot just lets the tug pull him. This pulls him through the control frame with the same effect as the pilot pulling in... a LOT. I've seen gliders go negative while still on the cart this way. The results are never pretty.

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(Large insect appears above port wing.)

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Remember to keep bracing yourself. Looks like you're getting pulled through a bit much at this point.

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That's a little better.

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Nope. Letting things slip a bit at this point.

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---
2021/01/05 02:45:00 UTC

When doing these projects I'm selecting frames very carefully for optimal quality, composition, aesthetics, information content... Just noticed that my 36-1126 is the same frame AerosItalia selected for his video's title shot. We both must be looking for similar qualities and thinking along similar lines.
---
2021/01/05 03:00:00 UTC

And we'll note that he conspicuously DIDN'T select 14-0504.

[Tad Eareckson]

From Steve's 2021/01/09 02:44:50 UTC find:

http://www.kitestrings.org/post12190.html#p1219

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH2qfFDHaJU
hanggliding towing incidents

Youngdon Lee - 2019/06/10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH2qfFDHaJU

South Korea, Imja-do, 35°06'41.35" N 126°05'11.62" E, launching to the NE, excellent quality video.
Aeros glider, Combat probably, Infuriatingly stupid low factory set spreader. Woody Valley tenax 4 pod.
Camera rotated counterclockwise ever so slightly so there's zilch ambiguity concerning the glider's heading at any moment.

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- http

Note absence of launch assistant, strong steady left cross (telltale) off the water (Yellow Sea). Trike tug first appears with upwind wing high.

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Wings level.

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Upwind wing low.

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And let's not bother with a bridle connection to the keel. Those things are for fags.

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Head nod to signal tug for go.

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Level. Glider starts rolling. And look at that. We're aimed directly at the tug.

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Remember to brace yourself against being pulled through the control frame. That has the same effect as the pilot pulling in... a LOT. I've seen gliders go negative while still on the cart this way. The results are never pretty.

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Last frame in which we get to see the glider flying level until 58-04925.

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Watch how fast the glider goes sideways.

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Camera shadow.

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Might wanna give a thought to stuffing the bar. Actually not all that important (a common incorrect understanding leads to much confusion on this issue) but it makes the pro toads look really cool.

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And let's keep rolling that baby to port to keep that nasty sea breeze crosswind from blowing sideways and out of proper position behind the tug - the proper position from which we started.

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I don't see him do anything to initiate port roll. Must have something to do with being pulled forward in the crosswind. But he sure as hell is perfectly happy to stay with that bank until the tow's no longer sustainable.

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It's been at least a couple decades since anybody acknowledged there could be any possible benefit to putting a two point bridle on any glider beyond a new Two level trainer.

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Trike's airborne - but not a lot - and has moved upwind to the water's edge... But for the purpose of the exercise this is a surface tow.

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If you fail to maintain the correct tow position (centered, with the wheels of the tug on the horizon), the weak link will break before you can get into too much trouble. (Must be using a Tad-O-Link. (Ditto for the tug end.))

And look where the tug is and where the glider's aimed.

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How very odd. From everything I've ever heard the tug should've been nosed in and fatally crashed long before reaching this point. Yet it seems to be climbing out normally. Go figure.

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And up to around this point the control exercised has been absolutely stellar. But now things seem to be going abruptly and severely south for no apparent reason. Totally baffling.

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Good thing you have an easily reachable release at this point.

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Lose control... Now would be a really good time to fly the glider with one hand while you're fucking around with your cheap shit excuse of a release with your other.

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Oops. Looks like Tuggie beat you to the draw.

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Not really fair. He has a foot pedal and can keep using both his hands to keep flying his plane. (Glassy smooth air tow lasted a bit under eighteen seconds.)

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Lost control and WERE released.

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Hang glider landings are things of such incredible grace and beauty...

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I watch sailplane landings and they make me wanna puke.

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Two days prior to posting this one he'd posted:

이영돈 - 2019/06/08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW7WeDri1u8

Imsa island towing hangglider

and:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Ekn1QkXtA

Imza island towing hangglider 2

Two virtually identical launches to the SW, opposite direction, single surface glider, one point, similar or same 90 cross sea breeze, comes off the cart (which immediately diverges to port), holds the glider level, other than getting and staying fairly high above the tug they're textbook. One would like to think that "hanggliding towing incidents" was a prior/first effort.

[Tad Eareckson]

No, after closer examination, they're not textbook. But not totally horrible either.

이영돈 - 2019/06/08
30 fps

Single surface glider with a pro toad connection, camera offset a bit to starboard.
At the beginnings of both videos telltale showing substantial sea breeze 90 cross.

Prequel 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW7WeDri1u8

Imsa island towing hangglider

The guy up ahead to the immediate port of the runway is relaying go command from glider to tug. (And carrying a little kid. (Starting to pick her/him up in this first frame.))

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Commences roll.

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Coming off the cart rolling into the crosswind - I'm guessing a bit slow.

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He's hanging up a little on the starboard cradle. Asymmetrical thrust on the cart sends it into a hard port turn as he's leaving it behind. Glider tracks to starboard.

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Not as bad as it looks.

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Level. Just keep it level and everything will straighten out fine.

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That sand disturbance area is the project on which Launch Assistant and Kid are working between flights.

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Getting high.

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You can see the tug just over his left shoulder. Too fuckin' high. Doable... Yes. Efficient tow.... No. But I'm thinking that a low tow angle DOES make it easier to hold the bar back / nose down.

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Pretty crappy and expensive substitute for a sane bridle configuration. (And totally lethal when things line up just right. (Right - Zack, Mark, Lauren, Paul?)

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Prequel 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Ekn1QkXtA

Imza island towing hangglider 2

Commences roll.

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03-1720
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50833616061_0568db5a6d_o.png

04-1808
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50833702337_d44c613797_o.png


Better - but still substantially rolled. I don't know what he's thinking, what he's been told, why he isn't keeping it level.

05-1817
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50833616036_c97d6e0eab_o.png

06-1825
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50832879378_79d73afdea_o.png

07-1903
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50832879368_0bab65b8fd_o.png


Back level, bar nearly stuffed, too high.

08-1927
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50833702267_2999b2dcde_o.png

09-2022
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50833702242_24b76b7f41_o.png

10-2123
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50832879348_80176f69d1_o.png

11-2217
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50832879333_0621ef9234_o.png


We can still see the tug's port wingtip between his arm and harness/body. (Distinctly not on the horizon.)

12-2514
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50832879328_677cd55ff2_o.png


I think we're seeing an experienced mountain flyer being introduced to towing - and not having the principles communicated to him very well or at all. The three videos we have from him show the launches going from less than stellar (sarcasm) to not bad to unsustainable. And I hope he went back and got things sorted out somewhat properly after that last one.

[Steve Davy]

Hang glider landings are things of such incredible grace and beauty...

Hard to top this one on the grace and beauty scale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufTo633py5M

[Tad Eareckson]

Ya notice that nowhere in mainstream hang glider culture anywhere on the planet is staying prone all the way down and is recognized as even a legitimate emergency procedure for any conceivable situation?

The only emergency situation in which it will be possible for one to legitimately find oneself is to suddenly through no fault of one's own end up having a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place with totally dead air and have everything riding on his skill in executing a perfectly timed landing flare for a no-stepper in the bedroom floor sized safe zone all narrow dry riverbeds are required to maintain for such events.

There will never be any situation in which staying prone until down and stopped could offer the least advantage and wheels are only of the least value to incompetent fags who should've stayed home playing checkers anyway.

http://www.tapatalk.com/groups/sonomawingsbb/hard-landing-at-hcr-t6301.html
hard landing at HCR

Grant Hermann - 2017/06/29

On May 20th I crashed at Hat Creek, resulting in a moderate fracture of my C7 vertabrae, I have been in a c-spine collar ever since. Very lucky to have walked away, let alone be alive. I see the ortho again on July 6 to get an xray and see how I have been healing and hopefully loose this collar.

It was my second flight at HCR and my longest to date 1:14, having only logged 17 minutes the previous evening. From what I can remember, while setting up for final I got turned crosswind toward a tree (dont look at the tree). I almost got around it but my right wingtip caught it and down I went from about 12 feet up. Scott Hermann drove me to the ER in Fall River Mills.

It has been a pretty awful experience, and a hardship on my family. The question I am asked the most, is will I continue? I want to fly, I love to fly, I don't know. The wife and kids would like to see me give it up. The thing is, I could have sustained this injury falling off a ladder or out of the back of my pickup or my bike (Fred). I can only assume that at some point or another, every pilot has had a scare that would cause one to hang it up or rethink flying at the very least.

For now I am focused on a full recovery.

Career ender.
---
2022/04/03 00:20:00 UTC
P.S.
- Ireland.
- Gotta give this guy beaucoup kudos for posting.

[Dave Gills]

I can't figure out why people want to make AT such a workout.
The WW Eagle was the slowest glider I've ever towed with and the bar was extremely heavy w/ a 2 point setup.
(I don't remember how far forward I had the upper attachment...Maybe 18"???)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpYdb-aIn6I


My S2 is like cruise control w/ 1/2 VG & 2 point bridle (upper tow point 12" forward of hang strap).
I could probably mix a drink on the way up.

Wish I had the video of my low abort.
The tug barely moved much but my right wing & nose got smacked.
The Kaluzhin saved my ass.
I heard "ping" and thought the link had broken only to find out that it was still fine after landing. I don't remember releasing.

[Tad Eareckson]

Wow, a post from someone who isn't me. Last time that happened was 2021/05/12 16:57:46 UTC - six and a half weeks ago. Sorry for the late response and recognition - didn't check for traffic between 2021/06/22 13:05:54 UTC and 2021/06/26 12:39:07 UTC.

I can't figure out why people want to make AT such a workout.

I can...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25321
Stop the Stupids at the USHPA BOD meeting

Mark G. Forbes - 2011/09/29 02:26:23 UTC

We can establish rules which we think will improve pilot safety, but our attorney is right. USHPA is not in the business of keeping pilots "safe" and it can't be. Stepping into that morass is a recipe for extinction of our association. I wish it were not so, but it is. We don't sell equipment, we don't offer instruction, and we don't assure pilots that they'll be safe. Even so, we get sued periodically by people who say we "shoulda, coulda, woulda" done something that would have averted their accident.

Aviation should be easy, efficient, safe, fun - at all stages. And recreational aviation should be fun to the max seeing as how that's its primary - arguably sole - purpose.

To Tim and Mark the sole purpose of hang gliding is to support and protect Tim, Mark, u$hPa. If there's a better, safer, more effective and efficient way of doing ANYTHING they WILL kill it.

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

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/28 19:39:17 UTC

Weak links break for all kinds of reasons.
Some obvious, some not.

The general consensus is the age old adage... "err on the side of caution".

The frustration of a weaklink break is just that, frustration.
And it can be very frustrating for sure. Especially on a good day, which they tend to be. It seems to be a Murphy favourite. You'll be in a long tug line on a stellar day just itching to fly. The stars are all lining up when *bam*, out of nowhere your trip to happy XC land goes up in a flash. Now you've got to hike it all the way back to the back of the line and wait as the "perfect" window drifts on by.

I get it.
It can be a pisser.

But the "other side"... the not cautions one... is not one of frustration, it's one of very real danger.
Better to be frustrated than in a hospital, or worse.
No exaggeration... this is the fire that the "other side" is made of. Best not to play with it.

Fuckin' u$hPa poster child.

Wish I had the video of my low abort.

Go back up and fake it.

The Kaluzhin saved my ass.

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

Jim Rooney - 2008/11/24 18:54:27 UTC

Is a weaklink going to save your ass? Who knows? But it's nice to stack the deck in your favour.

Notice how abruptly after 2013/02/02 Zack Marzec and the Industry shift to the Tad-O-Link we stopped hearing claims about weak links of any description saving people's asses.

I heard "ping" and thought the link had broken only to find out that it was still fine after landing. I don't remember releasing.

Like a foot going to a brake pedal when a squirrel tries to kill himself.

Notice the way Wills Wing will go to the trouble to design and produce a glider (uncertifiable) that isn't and can't be foot launched and/or landed...

http://www.willswing.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/1000x667_easy_flyer_news_1.jpg


...but won't budge a millimeter towards either incorporating or advising use of an AT release that doesn't stink on ice - not to mention defining what an appropriate weak link actually is for a particular glider - à la sailplaning.

By the way... Go to Wills Wing's website and try to find an acknowledgement that their "Easy Flyer" ever came into existence.

[Dave Gills]

Go back up and fake it.

Nope...That one took about a year off my life.

One thing I was wondering about though is that I don't pop off the cart like others do.
I can feel the glider rotate and just get lighter until it gently lifts off.
My concern is that there might come a time when I want to separate quickly from the cart and it could be harder.
I suppose I could move my upper attachment point further back but my pitch down control authority would be diminished.

[Tad Eareckson]

Good thing that wasn't the inevitable point at which...

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

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/28 10:40:24 UTC

You're 100% onto it... relying on the skill of the pilot is a numbers game that you'll lose at some point.

...your skills abruptly failed you - as is nearly always the case in such situations.

I'm gonna say that the glider should be trimmed (via the upper bridle attachment point) such that a little pull-in / back pressure is required to stay down level with the tug through normal climb to altitude.

I want to make things as easy as possible for the cart retrieval assholes without compromising the safety of the launch.

I start pulled in a bit - despite the danger of:

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9230
Departing the launch cart

Jim Rooney - 2007/08/24 12:20:06 UTC

Bad habit #1, not flying the glider... just letting the tug drag you around by the nose, combines with the fact that pro towing REQUIRES the pilot to do something (not let that bar move). So instead of holding the bar where it is, bad habit pilot just lets the tug pull him. This pulls him through the control frame with the same effect as the pilot pulling in... a LOT.

I've seen gliders go negative while still on the cart this way.
The results are never pretty.

Granted, not as serious as when you're pro towing, only half as much, but still.

Glider rotates pretty early in the roll. When I think I have adequate speed I ease out a tiny bit to make sure the glider's flying. It always is and I just gradually let the hold-downs slip through my grip and start leaving the cart behind.

Compare/Contrast:

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=64603
Your Launching Angle of Attack

Funny the way a Russian novel's worth of explanation needs to be written for foot launching - what with all the advantages of its superior margins of simplicity rooted safety. Really simple aviation for extraordinarily simple pilots.

Everything I was really afraid of for AT launches was beyond the front end of the towline.