Stock release

[Steve Davy]

I say that only because I have a feeling that Wills Wing is comfortable with CNC stuff.

[Tad Eareckson]

First look and see what's available that's ALREADY been designed, built, and tested.

When Wills Wing and other manufacturers started getting smart they realized that hang gliders were just modified sailboats and they began ripping off sailboat technology, materials, and hardware.

Wills Wing gliders are lousy with Harken pulleys, for example. They sure don't build their own.

This:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8305428629/


is not perfect for the job. HOWEVER...

- The problems associated with it are manageable. It CAN be used perfectly safely (as I did for about a decade and a half).

- It's probably a better, safer, and cheaper piece of hardware than a really good Joe Machine Shop is gonna be able to get out of his basement.

- It's already been tested to ridiculous capacity (load tolerance - unfortunately the ability to release under load isn't much better than OK) by the manufacturer and is probably certified by national and/or international marine regulators.

- It's WAY better than ANY of the shitrigged crap you're gonna get from any of the Wallaby, Quest, Lookout Flight Park Mafia shops. (Yeah, they use the spinnaker shackle but not remotely in any manner in which the spinnaker shackle was designed to be used.)

So if nobody wants me to punch out my stuff or duplicate the design and until somebody comes up with and makes available something machined better than the spinnaker shackle - hell - go with the spinnaker shackle.

And write something in the glider owner's manual on how to use it so when some other idiot gets Robin Strid creative and some other idiot decides it's OK to hook him up behind a Dragonfly there won't be any questions about accountability and assignment of blame.

I say that only because I have a feeling that Wills Wing is comfortable with CNC stuff.

I hate to say this but Wills Wing has got WAY too much blood on its hands in the towing theater to be able to decide what they are and aren't comfortable with in the way of the technology. There've been some very serious crashes for which they have been responsible and there've been some AT deaths which they - in concert with other HGMA participants - could've EASILY prevented.

[Steve Davy]

I get were you're coming from now. I think I botched this whole thread up and probably insulted you in the process.

What bungee?

I mistook the tensioner for a bungee.

[Tad Eareckson]

Absolutely not. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I'm DELIGHTED that someone - who doesn't even tow - is taking an interest and getting it.
And the cord I was using originally WAS something of a bungee.

[Steve Davy]

Cool.

I'm guessing this thing

http://estore.hanglide.com/Aerotow_Primary_Release_p/14-9004.htm

is hard to open for the same reason as a curved pin barrel release. Is that accurate?

If so then modifying the design to a straight pin style gate would seem to help.

[Tad Eareckson]

I hated that "THING" the first time I laid eyes on something resembling a photograph of it. It wasn't DESIGNED or ENGINEERED. It was just built to look like what Matt and other glider divers thought a release should look like.

However, I loaded it up to 388 pounds direct at the top of the bottom range of my test rig and had to admit that it blew with a surprisingly light pull - despite the bent gate.

But, nevertheless, when they started going into the air everybody - including Zack and Antoine from this forum - and his dog had them failing left and right - I suspect 'cause they weren't "designed" with enough leeway for the barrel to clear the gate. And cable issues NEVER help the situation anyway.

If one DOES opt for a slap-on cable release Joe Street has probably developed something fairly good - simple and cheap and based upon the same straight parachute pin I use for all my stuff.

But these things really need to be permanently or semipermanently built into the glider. When you're routing leechline through pulleys and tubes you KNOW that if you pull fifteen pounds on the bottom end then damn near ALL of that fifteen pounds - times whatever mechanical advantage you wanna build in - is gonna make it up to the release mechanism irrespective of sharp turns. Just as reliably and efficiently as your cross spars come back when you pull on your VG cord.

And it's ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS that the glider manufacturers are doing all that beautiful engineering for the sake of wringing a little more performance - at the expense of handling - out of the glider with the VG system but will do NOTHING to reduce your changes of getting killed on the way up to the altitude where you can start using that performance by building a safe and reliable two point release system.

They just let the Flight Park Mafia goons keep putting people up on dangerous junk and telling them that they'll be OK using dangerous weak links to compensate and showcase the assholes like Marc Fink on the rare occasions when two wrongs actually DO make a right.

"Well, I was driving too fast on a wet road with bald tires and lost it on a curve. Good thing I was thrown from the car when it bounced off a tree! If I'd been wearing a seat belt I'd have ended up in the river with the car and drowned. So always remember, kids, when you're driving too fast on a wet road with bald tires...

...and always have a lit cigarette between your lips in case you have trouble lighting a signal flare after rolling the car into a ditch."

[Steve Davy]

There must be some way to get high quality releases out to glider drivers.

[Tad Eareckson]

Doug Hildreth - 1982/03
-
1981/01/18 - Dan Cudney - 32 - Intermediate - 100 winch flights - Seahawk - Yarnall winch - head, chest, thigh - Spout Springs, North Carolina

Low-level lockout. Release was on downtube, difficulty in locating.
-
1981/04/12 - Joel Lewis - 31 - Advanced - Seagull, 10 Meter - Atlantic Ultralight Mini-Hill winch - Columbia, South Carolina

Low-level lockout. Hands on downtubes, release on basetube, missed on first attempt. Hit head first.

Doug Hildreth - 1991/06

Good launch, but at about fifty feet the glider nosed up, stalled, and the pilot released by letting go of the basetube with right hand. Glider did a wingover to the left and crashed into a field next to the tow road.

This scenario has been reported numerous times. Obviously, the primary problem is the lack of pilot skill and experience in avoiding low-level, post-launch, nose-high stalls. The emphasis by countless reporters that the pilot lets go of the glider with his right hand to activate the release seems to indicate that we need a better hands-on way to release.

I know, I know, "If they would just do it right. Our current system is really okay." I'm just telling you what's going on in the real world. They are not doing it right and it's up to us to fix the problem.

Luen Miller - 1996/10

I am strongly recommending formal review and analysis of releases and weak link designs for all methods of towing by the Towing Committee, and that recommendations on adoption or improvements be generated.

I believe that from preflight through release we should have more standardized procedures in towing.

Good freakin' luck.

I cannot understand how these people can be so dumb. How do they manage to feed and clothe themselves?

They're damn near ALL like this and the controllers of this cult - who are even more like this - are heavily invested in making sure NOTHING positive EVER happens.

The best we can do - I'm afraid - is keep trying to get people with functional brains over here, help them understand the science, math, and history, work to get a few people up on solid equipment, and establish a reputation of competence.

And, of course, keep doing as much damage as possible to assholes like Rooney and Davis. There are probably a few downsides to using lock buttons on hot topics with scores of posts and thousands of hits too many times.

[Steve Davy]

I took a close look at the VG line on my new Sport 2 today. It exits out of the TOP of the down tube. Perhaps no drilling is required.

[Tad Eareckson]

I did an installation on a U2 160 - which is the same hardware and configuration - and drilled. I had to pull up some manuals (the T2 was the one that did it) to recall why but...

You need to redirect the lanyard routing a rather hard angle forward to a point substantially below the bottom of the keel.

The VG configuration routes the line high out the top of the downtube to a cheek pulley on the side of the keel. There's no way you can redirect the lanyard to where you need to from a port side mirror of that exit point.

I do not like drilling and avoid it like the plague but:
- this one's a necessity
- it's:
-- not that big a deal
-- only an eighth inch
-- just a downtube that you're probably gonna trash anyway

But thanks for looking, thinking, questioning. That's the only way we move forward. Versus...

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

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/25 04:55:25 UTC

It always amazes to hear know it all pilots arguing with the professional pilots.
I mean seriously, this is our job.
We do more tows in a day than they do in a month (year for most).

We *might* have an idea of how this stuff works.
They *might* do well to listen.
Not that they will, mind you... cuz they *know*.

...deferring to professional pilots who fancy themselves applied physicists and engineers and devote all their spare time inventing lunatic justifications for the lunatic mistakes they or their predecessors made twenty or thirty years ago.