suspension

[Tad Eareckson]

Allen Sparks - 2012/05/13

U2 Day at Lookout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL2HLhWihyE
Sparkozoid - 2012/05/13
dead

Wills Wing
U2 145 and 160
Owner / Service Manual

U2 Set-Up Procedure

Verify that the main hang loop spreader bar is positioned just below the bottom surface.

Notice that it says JUST below the bottom surface? Notice that it DOESN'T say eight inches below the bottom surface?

Do you know what the purpose of the spreader bar is? Can you watch your video and figure out the purpose of kingpost suspension and the spreader bar?

P.S. Speaking of "JUST"...

With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in JUST prior to launch.

I didn't see it. And every video you put up depicting a foot launch minus that procedure sends out a very dangerous message to EVERYONE - participant or public - who watches it.

Sixteen days after Lenami ferchrisake.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1qe-XW_bR8


After reveling in the hook-in check note what the damned backup loop is doing to the carabiner alignment. Also note how the how the useless backup loop wouldn't be rotating the carabiner were it not for the useless locking mechanism.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1079
$15 pacifiers

Jim Rooney - 2005/09/20 13:11:43 UTC

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.

[miguel]

There are two discontinuities in the video from the initial scene to the actual launch. Couldn't he have done a hook in check during the second discontinuity?

Good call on the spreader. I do not think there is any awareness of where the spreader is supposed to be positioned.

[Tad Eareckson]

Couldn't he have done a hook in check during the second discontinuity?

Yes, he COULD have. There's even a chance that he DID. BUT...

If you're doing hook-in checks JUST PRIOR TO LAUNCH and understand how astronomically critical that procedure is - which...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1153
Hooking In

Allen Sparks - 2005/10/03 15:33:32 UTC

In 1976 I launched unhooked during a windy assisted cliff launch. By some miracle, I walked away from that idiotic mistake without more than a few bruises. It is something that I am not proud of, and I occasionally wonder why I survived.

The feeling of terror and helplessness that arises while you are hanging below the basetube by your fingers ... is something you don't ever want to experience.

...Allen SHOULD - you DON'T edit it out of the video.

Let's say that Allen (like Zack) is incapable of doing lift and tug unassisted in light air.

THIS:

Wheel Landing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPkfO52cjQg
Sparkozoid - 2012/04/30
dead

if done at launch position EVERY time IMMEDIATELY before you pick up and, preferably, within five or ten seconds of launch is a good enough Plan B to virtually guarantee that the practitioner will never launch unhooked.

Allen picks up at 0:12 and commits within three seconds. If he had knelt and tugged IMMEDIATELY prior to pickup - which he easily could and should have - it would've added no more than three seconds to the video and helped towards preventing the next Kunio or Lenami.

And note that, in the "Wheel Landing" video, after having knelt and tugged he DOESN'T pick up and launch. He looks to the right, probably to check for traffic, probably sees some, leaves it in park, and mellows out on the downtubes.

Then there's a delay long and boring enough for Allen to chop it out of the video before our flight gets off the ground.

It's an ABSOLUTE NO BRAINER that this regulation:

With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.

is being violated.

This:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=18876
Hang glider Crash

Allen Sparks - 2010/09/07 01:03:18 UTC

I am a firm believer in 'lift and tug' and the mindset of assuming I am not hooked in.

is what he's SAYING but THIS:

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=802
AL's Second flight at Packsaddle how it went

Rick Masters - 2011/10/19 22:47:17 UTC

At that moment, I would banish all concern about launching unhooked. I had taken care of it. It was done. It was out of my mind.

is what he's doing and how he's setting his mind.

Good call on the spreader.

Sticks out like a sore thumb. I break out in a rash whenever I see something like that.

I do not think there is any awareness of where the spreader is supposed to be positioned.

Which gives you some idea of just how:
- interested:
-- glider jockeys are in Reading The Fuckin' Manuals for the aircraft they're flying
-- Wills Wing dealerships, instructors, schools, flight parks are in Reading The Fuckin' Manuals for the aircraft they're selling
- much of a rat's ass Wills Wing really gives about its Dealership Requirements/Guidelines

We at Wills Wing feel that the most important role of the dealer is to insure the safety of the retail customer and promote the safe growth of the sport by offering quality instruction and service. It is primarily on our determination of your ability to do that that we grant dealerships and corresponding discounts.
The responsibilities of a Wills Wing HANG GLIDER DEALER include:
- Offering competent, safe instruction in the proper and safe use of hang gliding equipment.
- Being able to access all relevant technical and support information regarding Wills Wing products.
- Familiarizing each customer with the proper use of each product that you sell to that customer.

At Ridgely - which is a Wills Wing dealership - everybody who got to or near the front of the launch line got checked out by an employee before moving out onto the runway. I was the only person there saying anything about spreaders but got treated like an annoying pest enough times that I finally said fuckit.

Spreaders aren't that big a fuckin' deal but if, after a quarter century of kingpost suspension, tens of thousands of flights a year are going off with the advantages partially neutralized by spreaders halfway between the keel and carabiner then how much hope should we have for getting any of the deadly crap fixed?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.johnolson.blog.com/

John Olson - 2012/06/25

Just before I came to this clumsy inept stop the wing keel failed under a side-load and eighty pounds of wing plopped atop me. I was dead... NO! I was ALIVE! But I could hardly move!

Now I would like to convey to SkyWriter's readers, what a horrible sensation it is, to be sprawled across a burning piece of desert, ambient air temperature about a hundred degrees, the desert surface itself somewhat hotter, while you are dressed in flight gear for the clouds about three miles above you, and you are still connected to this apparatus by means of your hang loops.

I hope I paint an uncomfortable picture...

I am galvanized into action though - what action I might take - because it appears that I have not killed myself. In fact, it appears that I have broken nothing at all and, while I can't be certain I am not bleeding somewhere, I want the fuck out from under this thing!

I turn my attention to the "D" ring and the hang loops by which I am held captive but for some reason there is a lot of tension there. I can get the gate open just fine, but I cannot get enough slack to unhook. I try grunting and I try groaning and I get nowhere. This goes on for a minute or two - Time seems to have stood still - and then I start bleating for help. I imagine myself sounding like a weak, helpless little lamb maybe; "hehehehehehehelp!" I bleat, "hehehehehelp! hehehehelpme!

But no one comes for the poor little critter.

Finally, I heave at the hang with what strength I can summon and get a little slack. I can disconnect from my backup now - it's an inch longer than the main - but I am still stuck until I heave one or two more times and finally get unhooked. I crawl out from under my bitchin' wing... Which is now wreckage...

FUCK!

Oh well...

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

Jim Rooney - 2011/09/02 23:09:12 UTC

Yeah, damn those pesky safety devices!

Remember kids, always blame the equipment.

The important thing is that if your main suspension had failed before you got down you'd have been OK.

(Can anyone envision a scenario like that 'cept with some surf or a dust devil or gust front thrown into the equation where the backup could determine the difference between walking away and having one's life ended?)

[Tad Eareckson]

Speaking of which...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=26688
DO or DIE (HOOK-IN)

sbrian2 - 2012/07/20 22:33:13 UTC
San Jose

I know pilots who don't lock their carabiners when coastal soaring - the risk of not being able to get free from the glider during a possible water landing outweighs, in their eyes, the risk of a hang loop coming free of a carabiner with a strong spring on the gate...

What exactly IS, in their eyes, IS the risk of a hang loop coming free of a carabiner with a strong - or extraordinarily weak - spring on the gate? In the entire history of the sport has this EVER ONCE ACTUALLY HAPPENED? Has anyone EVER ONCE been able to simulate a failure?

...in mild conditions...

What the fuck do conditions have to do with anything?

What do people think?

On The Jack Show? You'll be lucky to find someone who CAN think.

I've flown both ways on the coast.

Robert Seckold - 2012/07/22 12:00:39 UTC

I spoke to Steve Moyes about the pros and cons of escaping a water landing.

What did he say about the cons of escaping a water landing? You might get sunburned?

He said they did a test in a swimming pool and no one could get the harness disconnected from the carabina, before effectively drowning.

It's a CARABINER, Robert. You'd think that for someone who's written so many volumes about always launching under the assumption that it's connected to the hang strap...

No, actually, that DOES seem to fit the pattern.

He said the only ones that got out were the ones who unzipped their harness before they hit the water and swam out of their harness after they hit the water.

What happened to the ones who swam out of their harnesses before they hit the water?

Steve Seibel - 2012/07/26 20:22:16 UTC

I have been there and done that. In mild-medium surf.

I've been there and done that too - in chest deep water with substantial swells. It's a very very very BAD feeling.

One of those single hang straps that incorporates the main and the backup. I tried my hook knife first but my hook knife was choking on the thick (double) webbing...

Mike Meier - 2005/08/~18

Years ago we didn't even put backup hang loops on our gliders (there's no other component on your glider that is backed up, and there are plenty of other components that are more likely to fail, and where the failure would be just as serious), but for some reason the whole backup hang loop thing is a big psychological need for most pilots.

Really appreciate you guys caving to glider diver stupidity when making your engineering decisions. Do you understand that that one could've killed this guy just as dead as your Chattanooga dealership's aerotow "release" killed Roy Messing?

...so I unhooked the caribiner.

Hey aeroexperiments. It's a CARABINER. Ya think it might be worth running a spell check every now and then?

It took several tries. The glider was floating in such a way that my head was above water more than fifty percent of the time. I probably would have drowned if I had been underwater the whole time doing all this with just the air that was in my lungs when I first hit.

Getting out of the harness seemed out of the question. The Z5 has leg loops that do not unbuckle.

For somebody who refuses to do hook-in checks...

http://vimeo.com/11287752
Harness error at CLO-- pre-launch
Steve Seibel - 2010/04/28 12:51
password - check harness
dead

...that's probably a big plus anyway.

After I was separated from the glider, the harness contributed a great deal of flotation and warmth. The water here is VERY cold.

These fuckin' plastic Jack the Ripper hook knives...

Lockout Mountain Flight Park

http://estore.hanglide.com/Hook_Knife_p/2-107.htm

Another back up and a part of your safety system.

The hook knife comes with a snap to attach to your harness and an extra blade is within the handle.

Give yourself one more back up when aerotowing, or have the equipment to disconnect from your hang glider in an emergency situation.

...that everyone and his dog flies with are almost as useless for webbing as they are for emergency tow releases.

The body flexes, the blades separate...



...and the webbing slides neatly into the gap to protect itself.

But hey, it helps lull the student/customer into a false sense of security and that's the primary purpose of ninety percent of the hardware - Quallaby, Lookout, and backup releases, standard aerotow weak links, parachutes, backup straps, locking carabiners - sold for tidy profits in this sport.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28835
Emergency deployment after a stall practice

Hgyzv - 2012/08/11 13:26:45 UTC

Emergency deployment from yesterday

The pilot has about five years of experience. He flies every week about two flights and is very active in the last three years.

He owns the U2 for at least two years.

He starts the maneuver with three quarters VG, at 900 meters MSL after finishing a short cross country flight from Mount Tavor to Kfar Haruv at the Golan Heights which is around 250 meters. (The lake in the film is the Sea of Galilee.)

He reports that he feels that he pulled in too much and that was the cause for flipping forwards.

As far as my experience goes it looks a quite unexpected flip forward and not something i would expect to happen so easily.

The guy reports -7.4 meters per second sink rate during the inverted flight and he was waiting to see if something would change for the better before he finally decided to throw the parachute. Then the sink rate reduced to 4.3 meters per second and he was lucky to finish on top of a friendly bush just at the edge of the ridge. (There are many unfriendly cactuses there close by.)

I asked the dealer in Israel to forward the video to WW in order to get their input.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nkEQtj08us


Forget the tuck...

Look where he's got his spreader bar. That's gotta be a new world record. Gawd only knows what he's thinking the function of that thing is supposed to be.

Here's what it says in his owner's manual:

Verify that the main hang loop spreader bar is positioned just below the bottom surface.

And what's he do instead? Positions it about as far away from the bottom surface and as close to the carabiner as he can possibly get it.

Tell a glider jockey:

With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.

and what's he do?

http://www.kitestrings.org/post2203.html#p2203

A preflight check of his suspension in the staging area.

Let's see if this strategy does any good...
- Hey gnuvim... Position the spreader bar as close to the carabiner and as far away from the bottom surface and as you can get it.
- Hey Bob... Skip the hook-in check just prior to launch. Just carefully preflight your suspension in the staging area.

[Steve Davy]

Ramon mumbled something to me about my backup hang loop being the same length as the main. I pointed out that I don't have a backup and waited in anticipation for him to flip out. He just quietly asked why not. I told him that I also don't have backup side wires or a backup keel and that my hang strap could withstand a few thousand pound load. I was a bit surprised when he looked at me, nodded and said "Yeah, that's not going break."

[Tad Eareckson]

A trace of long repressed common sense breaking out in hang gliding. Who'da thunk?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28169
Maybe a stupid question about flying over water

pegasus - 2013/01/27 00:29:50 UTC
Central Valley, California

I will not be a fan of a quick release for the carabiner as it may be prone to unexpected activation... or at the very least, one more preflight item to check and worry about...

Yeah? And that would...

Rob Kells - 2005/12

Each of us agrees that it is not a particular method, but rather the fear of launching unhooked that makes us diligent to be sure we are hooked in every time before starting the launch run.

...necessarily be a BAD thing?

Chris Kelcourse - 2013/01/27 01:05:36 UTC
krizz9 - Atlanta

Thanks Red, I haven't said it yet, so I will now. You have given me a lot of good advice...

Along with some astronomically bad advice.

...while I learn a sport that doesn't come with many books.

- And the ones that it DOES come with tend to totally suck.
- Which tells you something about the quality of instruction the sport's establishment offers.

I really appreciate what you do for HG and hope others do too.

Sorry, not all that impressed.
- Mixing a little bad advice with a lot of good advice can be - and usually is - a lot worse than no advice at all.
- If you're offering good advice across the range and sticking to it you're gonna take some hits. And Red never takes any hits.

Harald Steen - 2013/01/27 11:52:33 UTC
Norway

Forget opening a carabiner when wet they tend to stick after loaded.

But let's keep using locking carabiners 'cause they increase the safety of the flying operation - PERIOD.

Allen Sparks - 2013/01/27 14:01:59 UTC
Evergreen, Colorado

Raptor hook knife (dakine)

http://www.safetyknife.com/Raptor.asp

Chris Kelcourse - 2013/01/27 14:48:44 UTC

How effective are those knives? Most of us have a backup strap to cut through as well as the main.

Yeah, most of us are total idiots.

That is a lot of thick strapping to cut, behind your back, while holding your breath and getting rocked around.

But let's not consider eliminating that crap. You just never know when your main is gonna blow.

Dave Hopkins - 2013/01/27 15:57:55 UTC

Getting out of the harness is the best bet. I had a friend that unhooked but the biner hooked a wire and he almost didn't make it. If it can go wrong it will.

Ever look at any hang glider "release" systems, apply that thinking, and make any recommendations? We kill A LOT more people because of crap that's built into release systems - often deliberately - than we could ever hope to in drownings.

Allen Sparks - 2013/01/27 16:21:39 UTC

The all-aluminum (doesn't flex when twisted) Raptor will cut main and backup nicely.

So let's not consider eliminating the idiot backup.

An el-cheapo plastic hook knife is highly likely to jam.

Yes. Count on it.