wires

General discussion about the sport of hang gliding
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Tad Eareckson
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Re: wires

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35187
Nicopress corrosion - is this what it looks like?
Rcpilot - 2017/03/21 05:46:10 UTC

What did the folks at Wills Wing have to say about your concern of the issue of work hardening of stainless cable due to performing the side wire load test, red?
OK, people of varying ages, watch carefully the way this evil stupid little worm pretends to respond to Rc's explosive question and TOTALLY DOESN'T.

Wills Wing, of course, is totally painted into a corner here. Option:

- Goddam Red! You're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! This is a potentially lethal issue we hadn't foreseen before we distributed fifty thousand gliders with this potentially lethal misinformation. Gawd only knows why we alone in the global field of glider manufacturers included this procedure in our manuals. We're immediately gonna:

-- edit all of our manuals accordingly

-- put out a global advisory in thirty-four different languages

-- spare no effort to track down first, second, third, forth hand owners and alert them to this issue

-- advise all pilots foolish enough to have flown our gliders in accordance with our preflight procedures to replace their Work Hardened sidewires with the copies we'll provide and ship free of charge

-- pray no one slips through a crack and pays the ultimate price for our negligence and incompetence

-- establish a fund to support the widows, children, pets of any of our victims

We all thank you from the bottoms of our hearts and can tell you right now who the winner of the 2017 u$hPa/NAA Safety Award will be. (And don't be too surprised when the UPS truck pulls up to your driveway with a handpicked 2017 T2C strapped to the top.)

- "You're totally full o' shit, Red. Do the sport and human gene pool a big favor and take a bath in vat of hot battery acid." And thus alienate the dickhead market upon which Wills Wing's survival is totally dependent. (Rob Kells, a friend to every pilot he ever met, being the corporate model here.)

This is a Mutual Assured Destruction scenario if ever there was one. And every involved motherfucker knows it down to his core. So maybe try repeating the question so's we can all see his next...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34277
"evidence of that silliness"
Ryan Voight - 2016/04/21 20:53:49 UTC

Why should it seem unreasonable to expect a demonstration? Who are you, exactly? Why would it be reasonable? You're the guy getting free information and knowledge, and you're basically demanding MORE free work from the guy spending (wasting?) hours trying to inform and educate. No. It is not reasonable. If I had the video already, of course I'd share it. But I haven't gone out to video-document a theory that I already proved to myself to be true. What would be the point? Why would I spend the time? I care enough to share the info here, and I care enough to even go rounds with you (thus far, but I'm done)... but I guess I don't care enough to go spend a couple hours setting up a glider, running around, filming myself, editing, posting, and then explaining myself to you? If you don't care enough to go outside and try it... then yes, it's unreasonable to expect me to. Don't ya think?
...squirming maneuver.
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Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9161
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: wires

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35187
Nicopress corrosion - is this what it looks like?
raquo - 2017/03/21 09:36:03 UTC

Thanks all of you for the insightful answers! Image
Huh... So "ALL of us" have provided "insightful answers". I find that expression of gratitude a bit confusing given that SOME of us are maintaining that OTHERS of us are totally full o' shit.
I'm ordering new wires of course...
I never had the slightest doubt. You discovered some trivial cosmetic oxidation issue and have your head so far up your ass as to believe you're the first individual in a century's worth of this technology's application in all manners of environments - largely marine - to have identified a likely critical issue.
...but it's still good to know what amount of discoloration is acceptable...
By whom? You get a brand new Sport 2 from Wills Wing that's been test flown ONCE. You leave it in the bag and put it into storage at a carefully climate controlled museum facility alongside some crated da Vincis. The owner's manual says you've gonna replace the wires after a year. So please define what "ACCEPTABLE" is and how the standard is determined.

This is EXACTLY the same bullshit we've been fed for decades about "APPROPRIATE" weak links - in particular the standard aerotow weak link which becomes unacceptably safe/inconvenient after ten tows, regardless of flying weight.
(I have other wires with just a couple black dots on their nicos). I've emailed Mike as NMERider suggested asking for advice on this, we'll see what he says.
- You're not the least bit curious to hear what he says about the stomp test Work Hardening issue that Red raised? How come?

- You've obviously decided that he and his colleagues are all totally full o' shit on the stomp test issue. So why would you give half a rat's ass about anything else relevant to glider materials and structural integrity?
Red, I cut off the shrinkwrap and tried rubbing off the black stuff with a piece of cloth dipped in alcohol like you've suggested - no result, still there, hard as metal. The nico on the other side wire had grey discoloration, after cleaning with alcohol that discoloration became black just like the photos that I've posted.
Well then, it was a really great payoff you derived for the cost of cutting off the shrinkwrap.
And no, I do not land in salt mines or anything like that, just grassy fields in a valley. Image
Bullshit. Everybody and his dog knows that fifteen to twenty percent of hang glider landings are executed in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place (discounting, of course, the data from girls and fags).
I did not do the stomp test because I'm sure that the nico will hold the ~50 lb force of this test, it's the higher loads that can happen in flight that I'm concerned about.
- Wow! RAFI didn't do the stomp test because HE TOO was sure that the nico would hold the ~50 lb force of that test. It was the higher loads that can happen in flight that he was concerned about. Image What a coincidence! (Unfortunately the wire vaporized in smooth air immediately after launch with the nico doing just fine so what would've happened under the higher loads that can happen in flight that we're all concerned about will forever remain a total mystery.)

- Right. You span a wire between to points separated close to the length of the wire, load the center of the wire to 75 pounds, and the nicos are only feeling about fifty pounds. What's your day job?

Image

Civil engineer?

What part of:
While pushing up on the leading edge between the nose and the crossbar junction, step on the bottom side wire with about 75 pounds of force. This is a rough field test of the structural security of the side wire loop, the control bar and the crossbar, and may reveal a major structural defect that could cause an in-flight failure in normal operation.
are you having such ENORMOUS DIFFICULTY understanding, dickhead?
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Tad Eareckson
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Re: wires

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35187
Nicopress corrosion - is this what it looks like?
Red Howard - 2017/03/21 15:03:30 UTC
Rcpilot - 2017/03/21 05:46:10 UTC

What did the folks at Wills Wing have to say about your concern of the issue of work hardening of stainless cable due to performing the side wire load test, red?
Rcpilot,

I just looked in some WW owners' manuals on-line, and I did not see this cable "stomp test" in them.
- What the fuck does that have to do with the question of Rc's you just quoted? ("What time is it?" "News 4 says we can expect up three inches of snow by Saturday afternoon." "So about quarter after three. Thanks.")

- Meaning you've never ACTUALLY READ a Wills Wing owner's manual and lack the third grade reading skills to have just done so with any significant level of comprehension.
Can somebody quote a WW owners' manual (or any WW source) calling for that "stomp test?"
- Is there any semi or better literate hang glider person out there who CAN'T?

- "Stomp test" is MY term. Originates from:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=13864
My new wing
Tad Eareckson - 2009/10/03 16:09:38 UTC

Do the preflight load test - stomp on the side wire, push up on the leading edge 75 pounds - as described in all the Wills Wing manuals. Most important glider check you can do.
And "dickhead" is a term I originated...
2009/10/04 16:40:48 UTC - Sink This! -- Chris Valley
...at about the same time in order to more effectively deal with Chris Valley and his ilk.
I'd like to see what they ask you to do there.
- Get your mommy to read it to you while you try to figure out what's going on by looking at the pictures.

- So how many years have you been campaigning against this procedure you still haven't either bothered or been able to actually read - dickhead?
You can download new manuals for your WW glider at their web site.
No shit.
From a technical standpoint, if a cable is rigged straight and tight, deflecting the cable by a handspan can put enormous loads on the cable.
Bullshit. Didn't you bother to read Nikita's assertion in the previous post that a stomp test isn't worth doing because it can't simulate any significant fraction of a halfway serious in-flight load?
A cable rigged slack can be deflected by a handspan and that will put a relatively small load on the cable. It's a function relating to trigonometry.
Is "trigonometry" a word you learned in a math class many decades ago?
A weak "stomp test" may tell you nothing useful.
- But always do a "hang check" in the setup area so you can be one hundred percent positive you're safely hooked in as you commit to launch on the ramp five minutes later.

- And a weak pull on the trigger at the clearing container...

Image
...may not tell you that you still have the capability of blowing someone's head off. So here's a thought... DON'T DO INADEQUATE TESTS WHEN YOU'RE DEALING WITH POTENTIAL LETHAL SITUATIONS. READ THE FUCKIN' MANUALS AND DO WHAT THEY SAY - DICKHEAD. And if that's beyond your capabilities then find another hobby.

- Cite an incident of a wire failing in the air after someone did a weak stomp test.

- People have gotten killed after doing weak launch runs - which are WAY more demanding in terms of effort and execution. But one doesn't hear much in the way of condemnation of the launch run exercise at mountain sites.
A strong "stomp test" can work harden your cables.
- Your dick too if you have zilch in the way of a social life.

- Do you have the slightest fragment of a shred of evidence to support that bullshit claim of yours? The first thing that happens to an overloaded cable in airworthy shape is that thimbles get elongated. And the only time this happens is in a hard crash which otherwise does some serious glider damage. I don't think we get elongated thimbles even in blown aerobatics which blow up the gliders (but I stand to be corrected). If the thimbles aren't elongated and the wire isn't kinked then the cable doesn't have any issues related to overloading.
If the cable deflects far enough to let you grind the cable underfoot against the ground, one "stomp test" can damage an otherwise good cable.
- Good. Wills Wing tells us to chuck our worn out year old cables anyway so the price of the damage is an even safer cable than the one we'd have if we hadn't ground it into the sharp rock.

- Good. Anybody stupid enough to do that... ("Oops, ground my wire into the sharp rock doing the stomp test. Didn't break too many strands, air's pretty smooth, should be OK.") ...has no business flying anyway and there will be a distinct benefit to the sport and gene pool if he does and takes himself out as a consequence. It was a major tragedy for the sport when Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney survived his unhooked launch at Coronet Peak on 2006/02/21.

- But even in hang gliding with its low double digit average IQ you can't cite a single instance of anybody stupid enough to have done this. And this is a sport in which the most highly respected flight schools are teaching students that putting weak links on both ends of one point bridles doubles the max tension to which you could be subjected with a weak link on just one end.

- And...
Luen Miller - 1994/11

After a short flight the pilot carried his glider back up a slope to relaunch. The wind was "about ten miles per hour or so, blowing straight in." Just before launch he reached back to make sure his carabiner was locked. A "crosswind" blew through, his right wing lifted, and before he was able to react he was gusted sixty feet to the left side of launch into a pile of "nasty-looking rocks." He suffered a compound fracture (bone sticking out through the skin) of his upper right leg. "Rookie mistake cost me my job and my summer. I have a lot of medical bills and will be on crutches for about five months."
Note that neither red nor any of his douchebag ilk has never cautioned against doing a stupid useless preflight check on a ramp.
These "variables" make the "stomp test" unreliable, and maybe risky, in my opinion.
Fuck you and your idiot opinions, Red.
YMMV.
They do, asshole. There's a not insignificant percentage of the hang gliding population that reads the fuckin' manual and adheres to it. And there has not been ONE SINGLE REPORT EVER to substantiate ANY of this rot you keep pulling outta your stupid ass.
Image
Suck my dick.
---
Cheers,
........Red.........................
Pssst! New pilot? Free advice, maybe worth the price,
http://www.xmission.com/~red/
H4, Moyes X2, Falcon Tandem, HES Tracer, Quantum 'chute
Wills Wing glider, hasn't ever read a fuckin' manual.

Note statements from both Wills Wing principals on the landings they specify in all their owners' manuals:
Gil Dodgen - 1995/01

All of this reminds me of a comment Mike Meier made when he was learning to fly sailplanes. He mentioned how easy it was to land a sailplane (with spoilers for glide-path control and wheels), and then said, "If other aircraft were as difficult to land as hang gliders no one would fly them."
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.
And:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22176
Paragliding Collapses
Jim Rooney - 2011/06/12 13:57:58 UTC

Most common HG injury... spiral fracture of the humerus.
But nobody suggests we just go to wheels. We've gotta spend our careers working at training hills and landing clinics working on perfecting our flare timing so's we'll be able to safely land in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place at the conclusion of any given flight.

But being able to put our hands on the middle of the inboard leading edge spar and push down with a foot hard enough to break a one G Rafi wire but light enough to not break a ten G factory spec wire while not grinding the relevant wire into a sharp rock is simply too much of a demand for your average recreational glider pilot. Gotta be able to hit three consecutive stunt landings within a sub two wingspan spot to score our threes but we can't spend a few weekends at stomp test clinics gaining the skill we need to comply with the preflight instructions in the Falcon 4 owner's manual.

Really astounding that the largest glider manufacturer on the planet has yet to comprehend the absurdity of the demands it's making of its customers and specify that they do nothing to load test the aircraft on which they're about to go airborne the way all the other manufacturers do. And think how happy that would make Red - whomever the fuck he is.
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Tad Eareckson
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Re: wires

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35187
Nicopress corrosion - is this what it looks like?
Rcpilot - 2017/03/21 15:25:34 UTC

http://willswing.com/wp-content/uploads/manuals/Alpha_June_2015.pdf
While pushing up on the leading edge between the nose and the crossbar junction, step on the bottom side wire with about 75 lbs. of force. This is a rough field test of the structural security of the side wire loop, the control bar, the kingpost, and the crossbar, and will likely reveal a major structural defect that could cause an in-flight failure in normal operation.
And CAUSE a major structural INsecurity when I grind the bottom sidewire into a sharp rock. Fuckin' morons.
2017/03/21 16:24:12 UTC - 3 thumbs up - NMERider
2017/03/21 16:49:32 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Brian Scharp
NMERider - 2017/03/21 16:37:59 UTC

Image
Image

The same illustrations appear in multiple manuals.
- ALL Wills Wing gliders that aren't museum pieces.

- I can't believe I've been this stupid:
Tad Eareckson - 2017/03/24 04:39:11 UTC

- If it were humanly possible to trash something on a glider by doing a stomp test - and I'm far from sure that it is - it wouldn't be a wire. Note that Wills Wing tells you to only stomp a T2 wire with two thirds of what they tell you to stomp a U2. That's not because they're using lighter wires on their toplesses.
...for this long. But Wills Wing doesn't win any awards on this one either. I've never understood WHY they have you doing a substantially lighter test for toplesses. On a kingposted glider it's impossible to torque your wing to negative dihedral due to the restriction from the top sidewires. Duh. So you're not getting as good a preflight wire load test on your T2C - the glider you're gonna be more inclined to loop. Thanks bigtime for making that clear, Wills Wing.

But the good news is that none of the authors of all the Jack Show sharp rock grinding and Work Hardening drivel have picked up on this actual valid concern.

I've never stomp tested a topless but I strongly suspect that anyone doing so is gonna be able to operate in common sense mode and limit the force based on what he's feeling and seeing. And if this were not the case it's a no brainer that we'd have heard from somebody who's overenthusiastic stomp test had put him out of a comp day and set him back a grand or two.
This simple test could have easily saved a life recently lost at a NorCal coastal site.
WOULD have. No question whatsoever on that one. Fuckin' textbook. What Zack Marzec was to pro toad bridles and standard aerotow weak links.
It's your lives people. Would you rather rely on urban legend and old wives tales that permeate this sport like a stench...
By stench he's referring to you, red - just in case you had any doubts.
...or facts...
Not a fan of facts? Get some alternate ones from the members in good standing of the Jack Show Mutual Masturbation Society.
...from the people who manufacture and test your gliders?
- The people who refuse to wade into these discussions, defend what they're saying, deal with anonymous stinking little worms like red.

- Notice that in this sport wherever anything smacking of competence rears its ugly head it gets attacked regardless of the source. Doesn't really matter whether it's some convicted paedophile saying people using standard aerotow weak links and bent pin barrel releases are all morons or the most respected and successful glider manufacturer on the planet telling their customers how to preflight their seven thousand dollar gliders. If it's anything that "WE" haven't already been doing and/or using for the past few decades anybody who advocates anything new, sane, and/or different can go fuck himself.
The choice is yours. It would be nice if the manuals all showed illustrations of the simple Lift & Tug Hook-in Check too.
Instead of calling - as they do - for the hang check that none of the Wills Wing crew members ever do - as Rob revealed in his 2005/12 post-Priday magazine article.
2017/03/21 16:47:58 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Brian Scharp
Brian Scharp - 2017/03/21 16:55:16 UTC

Not found in any manual.
Mike Lake

Squeezing the front wires together is also a quick and easy test. This is something I've done since the days of bulldog clamps.
A friend watched me do this last year and made it part of his preflight.
Just in time it would seem as his rear wire failed at the keel while still on the ground instead of over a volcano in Lanzarote!
http://www.kitestrings.org/post8427.html#p8427
2015/09/20 22:10:30 UTC

Might as well Work Harden all your flying wires symmetrically.
Red Howard - 2017/03/21 17:00:48 UTC

Rcpilot,

I just stepped on a scale for "about 75 lbs. of force."
Good thing you didn't step on an actual sidewire for "about 75 lbs. of force." You might have Work Hardened it and/or ground it into a sharp rock.
Given the slack cables of the Alpha, you may not hurt anything, but you may not learn anything useful, either.
And you'd be one of hang gliding's foremost experts on not learning anything useful.
It's a rather low-stress test, as described for the Alpha.
So we can just disregard the manufacturer's statement that:
This is a rough field test of the structural security of the side wire loop, the control bar and the crossbar, and may reveal a major structural defect that could cause an in-flight failure in normal operation.
They're obviously totally fuckin' clueless on gliders and relevant load issues.
I believe that a lot of pilots will overdo it, "just to be safe."
- Starting when? Wills Wing has been specifying this procedure in its manuals for six weeks shy of three decades now. What's changing or likely to in the future that's gonna serve as the catalyst to cause hundreds or thousands of pilots to go from never doing stomp tests at all just to be safe to always overdoing stomp tests just to be safe?

- I ALWAYS overdo stomp tests just to be safe. I started out never doing them 'cause the idea creeped me out 'cause I was afraid I'd be damaging my glider. Then one sunny day around the turn of the century it occurred to me that Wills Wing MIGHT POSSIBLY know what they were talking about better than I did and I started doing it. And then the lightbulb came on.

- I can't possibly hurt anything that isn't on the verge of vaporizing.

- If something IS on the verge of vaporizing I'd much rather I vaporized it in the setup area than at a hundred feet over the runway. That way I can swap in a new something and still get a shot at a good flying day instead of killing myself and the rest of the glider along with me.

And I quickly fell in love with the procedure and stopped worrying about 75 pounds and went to "I'm now loading this wire and structure to over anything that's gonna happen in the air. And from that point on I was able to fly without that nagging fear that I might be needing an open parachute to end my day's recreational flight.
I also believe that some pilots will postpone replacing their cables, as long as they can pass the "stomp test" as described.
Spot fucking on, dickhead. If they weren't broke I had zero interest in fixing them.
Neither option (I believe) is a good one. YMMV.
It does - vastly.

Everybody remember the days when Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney was warning us of all the death and destruction we'd start experience within seconds of shifting from standard aerotow weak links to Tad-O-Links? And remember when the strength of the focal point of a safe towing system abruptly ceased being a factor in fatal inconvenience stalls and lockout crashes seconds before Zack Marzec's impact on the afternoon of 2013/02/02? Pattern look familiar?
My take: I believe that we are safer by avoiding cable kinks and avoiding the sharp bending of cables...
No shit, red? I've always believed I was safer deliberately kinking and sharply bending my cables as much as possible. You've just about convinced me to modify my game plan.
...and with changing cables on a schedule (or as better judgment may require).
Once a year like it says in the Wills Wing manuals? Or just "A" schedule? (Just running his mouth to hear himself talk and appear as an outstandingly wise old Jedi Master to the Campers.
Kinking a cable is a "just cause" for replacing that cable immediately.
Wow! That was pretty profound. Good thing you pointed that out for the benefit of us muppets.
No level of inspection can spot the internal damage done, when a cable is kinked.
If a cable is kinked then what would be the point in spotting internal damage? If a downtube is kinked do we try to scope the interior to verify whether or not it's still airworthy?
WW might appreciate me saying, every pilot should have a new set of bottom cables on hand, in case there is any accidental damage done to these important cables.
How 'bout the case of deliberate damage to these important cables? What should our response be then?
An old set of undamaged top cables can replace your damaged top cables for a few days (if necessary), while you order and wait for the new top cables.
Just make sure you don't shock load them. 'Cause while old cables will handle strain just as well as new cables it's a well established fact that they'll fail at much lower shock loading ratings.
Then, you may miss out on one flying day for a bad cable, but you will not need to miss two.
C'mon Red. Tell us all a bit more about Work Hardening.
NMERider - 2017/03/21 17:27:05 UTC

If Mark Smith had done a simple stress test on the wings of his Wanderer, ultra-light powered sailplane after he'd repaired it, George Worthington may very well be alive today some four decades later.
- Probably...
1920/05/19-1982/09/10
...not.

- A simple stress test wasn't really doable on a bird like that:

Image

Cantilevered wing. We're very fortunate to have a configuration astoundingly easy to substantially stress test - any time we feel like it in the setup or breakdown area.
What in God's name is the matter with pilots and their absurd excuses for not using simple and readily available and utterly harmless methods of insuring they don't join Rafi Lavin among many others in the hereafter.
Exactly the same thing that's the matter with them when they launch with three hundred dollar helmets, thousand dollar parachutes, and cheap junk excuses for aerotow releases with a buck and a half's worth of materials built around a bent parachute pin - with a few pennies worth of precision fishing line to increase the safety of the towing operation.
If you aren't smart enough to avoid grinding your side wire into a rock with the sole of your shoe then please find another sport because you don't belong in this one.
I dunno... I've pretty much come to the conclusion that hang gliding is the PERFECT sport for people who aren't smart enough to avoid grinding their sidewires into rocks with the soles of their shoes. What else are ya gonna do with them? They’ve earned the sport they have and I'm now content to sit back and enjoy the snuff videos.
Hang gliding isn't for everyone. Image
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=14230
pro tow set-up
Jack Axaopoulos - 2009/11/12 14:49:58 UTC

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
Red Howard - 2017/03/21 17:39:19 UTC

Campers,
Yes, outstandingly wise old Jedi Master? You have the undivided attention of us muppets.
75 lbs. (34kg) of foot pressure...
Pounds aren't units of PRESSURE.
...on a slack-rigged wire probably won't hurt anything.
Got that, Wills Wing? Red says you're PROBABLY OK telling your customers to stomp 75 pounds as long as it's a slack rigged glider. You really need to make the distinction between your slack and tight rigged gliders to get this Work Hardening situation under proper control.
You need to have good confidence in what you fly.
- Goddam right. If there's a one in a million chance of Work Hardening a sidewire by stomping 75 pounds the risk simply isn't worth taking. Now make sure to nail that old Frisbee in the middle of the LZ with one of your perfectly timed flares.

- Fuck that, Red. Nobody ever got scratched as a consequence of having too little confidence in something he was flying. The last time Rafi carried his glider to launch he had great confidence in what he was about to fly. It was greatly misplaced and he'd hadn't bothered to perform the brain dead simple and easy procedure that he needed to find out the cheap and painless way.
raquo - 2017/03/21 22:47:40 UTC

Mike Meier got back to me, here's what he said:
Hi Nikita,

That does look like corrosion, and I don't recall seeing that type of corrosion on nico sleeves before.
Probably hasn't ever seen a glider more than three months old.
I'm not sure what would have caused that, but my guess would be that at some point moisture got inside the heatshrink tubing and was trapped there.

I think replacing the wires is prudent, though I suspect that in the condition shown in the photos they would still test to their full rated strength.
- I'd bet a thousand bucks in a heartbeat.
- What about shock load capacity? That really depreciates with age. Everybody knows that.
I don't have any way to ascertain or estimate how much corrosion of the nico sleeve would cause the wire assembly to be weakened below its rated strength. I've never seen a wire failure where the nico itself failed - typically the wire fails where it exits from the nico...
You mean like:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33308
Funston Accident
Steve Morris - 2015/08/24 23:10:39 UTC

Here is the photo of the damaged wire.

Image
...and this is the normal failure mode even on a brand new wire that tests to full rated strength.
- What are shock loading failure modes?

- While we're on the subject... What's the full rated strength of an appropriate weak link for a Wills Wing glider and how did you make that determination?
Wire failures in the field are most often the result of a wire that has been severely kinked, often because the wire was tensioned with the thimble cocked on the tang, and then the wire has been weakened by repeated loading after having been kinked.
Best not do stomp tests of wires that have been severely kinked. Those would just further shorten their useful life expectancies.
A wire with a severe kink can lose half of its strength after 100 loadings to the equivalent of a one G flight load. Even considering the generally lax maintenance that most hang gliders receive, wire failures in the field are fortunately relatively rare, though they can be catastrophic when they do occur.
I really doubt it. If they really tended to be catastrophic when they occurred wouldn't everybody be doing the stomp test you specify in all your owners' manuals? As far as I can tell they're mostly just harmless inconveniences.
Sincerely,
Mike Meier
Wills Wing
What? No comment on Work Hardening due to normal and overdone stomp tests?
I'm replacing the wires with most corroded nicos - side wires and top front wire, as well as the sweep wire which only has a couple black dots on the nicos but is otherwise old even if it looks good. Nicos on some other wires also have a couple small black dots on them, but it seems like overkill to replace those right now.
All this bullshit you're doing is stupid needless overkill.
I will re-evaluate those nicos in (the sooner of) three months / 10 hours airtime.
Do tell us to how many pounds they test.
NMERider - 2017/03/22 00:47:08 UTC

Thanks you for following through and then following up with information from the source. This is what all pilots should be doing before canvassing the community at large.
Yeah, but Mike said absolutely nothing about the shock loading and Work Hardening issues. So I guess red wins on those by default.
Tom Lyon - 2017/03/22 03:50:32 UTC

Here is a somewhat-related question. I have a Falcon 4 with only 30 hrs total, but it's 3 years old now (I know I need to fly more).
And talk less.
I am meticulous about how I handle the cables...
And what you use for aerotow equipment - only what passes the scrutiny of Dr. Trisa Tilletti.
I do this stress test, and the lower side wires are in great shape.
How do you know they're not critically Work Hardened?
My glider is stored indoors with low humidity in the off-season, etc.
Well then, your wires must be in much better shape than the stuff serving as rigging on all those sailboats docked in the San Francisco Bay area.
I was told...
By whom?
...that in situations like mine where the replacement schedule is long overdue...
Whose replacement schedule and how was it determined? ANYTHING you hear about flying wire replacement schedules is pure unadulterated bullshit. If the wires aren't abused they'll be totally solid for the life of the glider and an eternity beyond.
...but the part is still in great shape and all other factors are considered, that it's an acceptable decision (if I wish) to leave the part (wires in this case) in service.
'Specially when the replacement schedule is just a figure some manufacturer pulled outta his ass for the sole purpose of covering same.
Replacing would certainly be fine, but not necessary simply because of the time that the part has been in service.
See above.
The logic is not based on cost savings...
What's wrong with cost savings. Why should we have the right to stupidly squander finite resources in tribute to totally and obviously fake safety issues?
...but on the possibility of introducing a problem that didn't exist (e.g. installation error on my part)...
Or starting out with a pin that's ALREADY bent for your aerotow release.
...because I was solely honoring time-in-service over other factors. I read a study of aircraft maintenance in WWII that pointed to this as well.
Did you find anything on the Work Hardening of stainless steel cables?
Thoughts?
Nope. Read the forum rules.
I haven't replaced the lower side wires yet, not because of cost, but because I can inspect them so thoroughly, and they are still in nearly new condition.
And you don't know anything from the stress tests you just said you do?
NMERider - 2017/03/22 04:29:55 UTC

JB - Lives have been saved or lost by either incorrectly servicing a part that didn't really need it or by correctly servicing a part that really did need it. Statistically, the world's pilots will probably live longer by replacing their flying wires with new ones at the manufacturer recommended intervals than by relying upon the "If it ain't broke--don't fix it" mentality of bush pilots who have a shorter life expectancy than their air frames. YMMV.
Since it's pretty fuckin' obvious just from this thread alone that wire integrity has absolutely nothing to do with time and absolutely everything to do with physical abuse incidents which occur in fractions of seconds why are we giving these manufacturer specified maintenance schedules the slightest degrees of consideration or respect?

They are LYING to us. If they weren't they'd explain to us how they derived their figures. And that obviously CANNOT be done.
WA6BD - 2017/03/22 04:56:42 UTC

i miss Rafi, when i am at the fort ~
Don't go to the Fort then. Problem solved.
fly safe ~
Wasn't really a flying issue, was it?
---
T2C 154
Predator 142
Saturn 167

YHGA
USHPA # 59216
So had you ever said anything to him about what's in the owner's manual of the first glider you listed relevant to the critical issue? Just kidding.
Rcpilot - 2017/03/22 05:16:28 UTC

I miss him as well. He was a super fun guy to know and interact with.
Well, there is at least a hint of a small silver lining to this one. Now at least at this one flying site there's a healthy awareness of the issue and the locals are all extremely conscientious about doing, looking for, insisting on stomp tests. It's not like his death was just a total senseless waste.
NMERider - 2017/03/22 05:53:57 UTC

I never knew Rafi but I'm certain that I'd have been equally fond of him. I was going through my gmail contacts today and found five entries for fellow pilots who died since I last did an edit which wasn't that long ago. Only one was due to old age. Image
I don't know shit about Rafi beyond the manner of his death and the relevant issues. But experience tells me that if we could bring him back from the dead or he'd survived with just a good bruising he'd become a Born Again advocate for annual sidewire replacement and give us ZERO help on stomp test advocacy.

http://www.flyfunston.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1733
Wires
Doug Doerfler - 2015/09/21 23:37 UTC

Did you notice the moron in the video rubs his wire on a big rock when he steps on it, then the second time actually comments to make sure the rock isn't sharp
Tom Lyon - 2017/03/22 16:47:03 UTC

Thanks for your input, NME, and I received a very helpful PM from another experienced .org member as well.
- Experienced .org member. Well practiced at jerking off other experienced .org members.
- Tell me what the fuck EXPERIENCE has to do with ANY of these issues.
I just ordered my new side wires so that I will have them available whether I decide to replace immediately or not.
Good job, Tom. And good luck with your top notch Cloud 9 aerotow equipment and Wrapped and Tied 130 pound Greenspot weak links.
---
Edit - 2017/03/26 21:30:00 UTC

Regarding:
I can't believe I've been this stupid...
above...

Goddammit. I'd already figured that out:

http://www.kitestrings.org/post8412.html#p8412
2015/09/19 09:53:18 UTC

a year and half ago and forgotten I had. Brain's getting seriously fried.
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Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9161
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: wires

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35187
Nicopress corrosion - is this what it looks like?
David Botos - 2017/03/23 17:01:59 UTC
SouthWest Virginia

Do the sleeves have the Nicopress roll mark on the side? On their website, if you go to oval/duplex compression sleeves and select stainless steel as the wire rope material, they have sleeves that are:

1) copper with tin plating
2) straight stainless

The tin-plated copper ones appear to have the roll mark on the side, whereas the stainless did not (which makes sense since it's be much easier to roll mark the softer copper without distorting the rest of the part). Of course, maybe they make special ones for Wills that are copper with nickel plating.
Yeah, right.
Passivated nickel plating would be a good match with passivated stainless wire, galvanically. Passivated stainless on passivated stainless is even better, but would probably take more force to crimp.
Are we having a documentable galvanic corrosion issue with what we've been using since the beginning of time?
Raquo - wanna take a drill bit to one of your old sleeves and see if you hit copper?
raquo - don't bother. They're copper.
David Botos - 2017/03/23 20:51:55 UTC

I emailed Mike at Wills. He said they are using zinc-plated copper sleeves. Which, on the Nicopress site shows as being compatible with galvanized wire.
Yeah.
I thought most glider wires were stainless.
No, ALL glider wires are stainless. The ones that are preflighted in accordance with the Wills Wing owners' manuals are Work Hardened stainless.
I'm wondering if the zinc plating on the sleeves has a trivalent conversion coating over it. I came across some instances online of "black spot" corrosion when testing trivalent-coated zinc platings.
2017/03/23 20:53:24 UTC - 1 thumb up - raquo
Rcpilot - 2017/03/24 05:46:52 UTC

PM from Red:
Rcpilot,

It may seem like I am standing on both sides of the fence, on the Stomp Test. FWIW, I have exactly the same view of Wills Wing, there. They obviously know about Work Hardening of cables...
Obviously. Great Jedi Master red hath proclaimed Work Hardening to be an actual issue and obviously they know about it - despite never having uttered a single relevant syllable in the past three decades and before.
...and they have seen enough pilots "stomp test" their cables that they know nobody will listen to them, if they yell STOP IT.
- Exactly the same way they obviously know if they write the relevant preflight procedure in all their owners' manuals 99 percent of their customers will each have half a dozen off the scale moronic reasons to ignore it.

- Really hard to discount ironclad logic like that, red.
So, what I see instead is that they give a test spec that is essentially meaningless. A glider that fails a 75 lb. cable pressure (which is what is in the manual) tells me only that the pilot was really lucky to survive the last flight on that glider. The realities of Work Hardening (and the resulting loss of Shock Load capability) make any such testing a two-edged sword. This is a case where excessive testing can cause the failure that you wish to avoid.

There really is no one great answer. I wish there was.
Case closed. By a Jedi Master who at the 2017/03/21 15:03:30 UTC point in his flying career had never read the procedure in any Wills Wing owner's manual and was unable to find it in the one open in front of him at the time.
Aren't we lucky to have Red standing as the last barrier to the deadly misinformation circulating today in fifty thousand Wills Wing glider owner's manuals. Can you imagine the absolute Work Hardening carnage we'd be seeing otherwise? I'd estimate around fifteen or twenty times the zero incidents we've seen to date.
This guy is totally certifiable beyond all description.
2017/03/24 07:17:39 UTC - Sink This! -- raquo
2017/03/24 14:16:55 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Brian Scharp
Brian Scharp - 2017/03/24 14:48:16 UTC
Rcpilot - 2017/03/21 15:03:30 UTC

What did the folks at Wills Wing have to say about your concern of the issue of work hardening of stainless cable due to performing the side wire load test, red?
Red Howard - 2017/03/21 15:03:30 UTC

These "variables" make the "stomp test" unreliable, and maybe risky, in my opinion. YMMV.
Red Howard - 2017/03/21 17:00:48 UTC

...I believe...
...I also believe...
...(I believe)...
...My take: I believe...
...WW might appreciate me saying...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Jim Rooney - 2011/08/31 09:25:57 UTC

Your anecdotal opinion is supposed to sway me?
You forget, every tow flight you take requires a tug pilot... we see EVERY tow.
We know who the rockstars are and who the muppets are.
Do you have any idea how few of us there are?
You think we don't talk?
I'll take our opinion over yours any day of the week.
Faith based aviation. (Good luck with your Risk Management campaign, u$hPa.)
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TheFjordflier
Posts: 74
Joined: 2015/03/07 17:11:59 UTC

Re: wires

Post by TheFjordflier »

Tad Eareckson wrote:Whose replacement schedule and how was it determined? ANYTHING you hear about flying wire replacement schedules is pure unadulterated bullshit. If the wires aren't abused they'll be totally solid for the life of the glider and an eternity beyond.
As a side note. (for what it's worth)
Back in the days when I worked on the heavy maintenance on the Sikorsky S61N's, and the helicopters came in for their 12000 hours inspection.
Everything removed, just an empty shell left of the fuselage.
The flight control wires was sent to the component shop for inspection.
If found OK, (no kinks, wear, corrosion or other damage) they were preserved, and installed once more, to fly for another 12000 flight hours.
No life limit.
User avatar
Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9161
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: wires

Post by Tad Eareckson »

I can no longer even IMAGINE what it would be like to operate in an aviation environment in which standards and procedures are based on sound engineering principles rather than the beliefs and opinions of insider dickheads.

The sport was already rotten when I first entered it a couple weeks shy of 37 years ago and it's only gotten worse with each passing season.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35187
Nicopress corrosion - is this what it looks like?
David Botos - 2017/03/24 16:57:07 UTC
Red Howard - 2017/03/21 15:03:30 UTC

From a technical standpoint, if a cable is rigged straight and tight, deflecting the cable by a handspan can put enormous loads on the cable. A cable rigged slack can be deflected by a handspan and that will put a relatively small load on the cable. It's a function relating to trigonometry.
Yes, if you wanted to know how much tension you're putting on the cable, you'd need to know the deflection angle from a straight line connecting the end points in addition to the force applied. The attached example assumes a perpendicular force at the midpoint of the cable's length. With less of a deflection angle (tight rigged cable), you get a much higher tension for a given force.

Image
Without attempting to relearn the relevant trig from scratch I'm gonna say that's wrong.

As the apex angle approaches zero / wire ends approach a perpendicular angles away from the glider (the wire would need to be a mile long) the wire tension / pull on the attachments should drop down to half the foot stomp effort - his F, 75 pounds for a kingposted glider. You're distributing the stomp force evenly between two attachment points - 37.5 pounds apiece. He's got it so that at zero degrees apex both attachments are feeling the full load. (You could probably produce a really good perpetual motion machine on that model. Produce enough energy to fulflill of our needs and sell the surplus back to the sun.)

Rotate his diagram ninety degrees counterclockwise (the other way would also work) and you've got the model for our two point - pilot and keel attachment - aerotow bridle. Go down to sixty degrees - the figure we use for our bridle apex angle (yeah, his theta angle is at the pilot rather than at the bridle apex but ALL the angles are sixty degrees (equilateral triangle) so it doesn't matter) and you see the force multiplier factor of 1.155. That coincides with what you'd get for half Force. That's how we determine load on weak link / release. Half the towline tension plus fifteen percent.

He needs to halve all of his figures.

But looking at the diagram something occurs to me regarding Red's Work Hardening total lunacy. If it WERE happening it would/could ONLY be happening at its midpoint where it's being bent around the pilot's foot and would be glaringly obvious the first instant the wire was slackened during breakdown at the latest. The compromised inches would be stiffer than the undamaged runs and the wire wouldn't bend/coil evenly. Then you'd know you needed to replace it before next weekend and wouldn't have to find out by breaking it during the next stomp test or having it fail a hundred feet off the runway.

And in any case this has absolutely never happened in the history of the sport and one couldn't MAKE it happen with a gun to his fuckin' head.

Gawd what a lot of work it is to solidly definitively debunk the absolute lunacy that permeates the sport and discredit its key perpetrators.

Anyway, back to the real world...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=13785
Old cables
Tad Eareckson - 2009/09/26 16:58:49 UTC

The Wills Wing manuals all tell you to stomp on middle of the side wire and push up on the middle of the inboard leading edge section 50 pounds topless or 75 kingposted. This - Mike Meier tells me - loads things up to something in the ballpark of a couple of Gs.

Pushing 75 on my HPAT 158 I measured only 116 side wire tension. Those cables - 3/32-7x19 - are good for close to a thousand - so you've got some leeway.
And we can now see just how well that sunk in seven and a half years ago.

Using Comet's "somewhere in the 800-lb range" for sidewire strength with which NO ONE took the slightest issue we're talking under fifteen percent of breaking load. Big fucking deal.
Steve Davy
Posts: 1338
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Re: wires

Post by Steve Davy »

http://www.johnheiney.com/glider_design/design_considerations.htm
Glider Design Considerations
My personal Predator 142, the "Trapezoid Wing" (made in 1999) has many hundreds of set-up / fold-down cycles and loops in the fourteen years I have flown it. I have left the original bottom side wires on it to demonstrate the validity of Dick's invention. I have made test specimens from old Predator BS cables and tested them to failure. They have always failed at loads above the rated strength of the cable, even those manufactured in 1995. All of this is due to the most innovative corner fitting concept in history. This obviously excellent idea should be on every hang glider manufactured.
User avatar
Tad Eareckson
Posts: 9161
Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC

Re: wires

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.johnheiney.com/glider_design/design_considerations.htm
Glider Design Considerations
ImageImage
ImageImage

The connection between the bottom side(BS) cable and the control bar corner fitting has been a problem for hang glider designers since the beginning. The cable end should be able to rotate at the corner fitting in the proper direction, so it does not bend each time the leading edge spars are folded out and in for set-up and fold-down. Many thousands of production gliders have been manufactured over the years by small and major manufacturers without a proper BS wire connection at the corner fitting resulting in a small number of failures of cables due to short-life fatigue. Knowing they have a fundamental design problem; typically, the manufactures just recommend that their customers replace the BS wires anually.

The bottom side cables, along with the cross spar restraint cables(haul-back cables) are the most important cables on the glider. The BS cables see the highest flight loads, by a wide margin of all the wires on the glider. If any of these wires should fail in flight, its time to throw your reserve. If you are too close to the ground for a parachute to deploy, you're out of luck.

Some manufacturers have figured out adequate BS wire conections to the control bar that prevent excessive stress.

Not being satisfied with the status quo and in his on-going effort to improve ultralight / hang glider hardware, Dick Cheney designed a corner fitting that solves this problem in an elegant fashion. He did this in 1995 for the Predator. This fitting is on every one of the several hundred Predators and Saturns manufactured, and there has never been a cable failure on one of these gliders. After seventeen years of proof, not one other manufacturer has noticed this superb idea and incorporated it into their own corner fitting design.
- Bullshit.

-- Sidewires don't fail due to "short-life fatigue" as a consequence of set-up/breakdown cycles on gliders with conventional hardware. They fail as a consequence of getting abused, bent, kinked, damaged.

-- There's no PROOF of anything in this anecdotal rubbish.

Not to say that this isn't a superior design making the procedures more idiot resistant and SHOULD be incorporated by other manufacturers.

- Gee, thanks for all the help you've given us getting assholes like Red Howard properly silenced.

- And not a word on the Rafi Lavin fatality and the stomp test. Obviously nothing can go wrong with a wire with this hardware (also makes them corrosion proof) so why fix something that ain't broke.
These are just two examples. Dick Cheney is a design genius with many innovations to his credit. He works at his thriving business in his cnc machine shop and sail loft in Kaysville Utah with more ideas for airplanes and gliders than time to build them all.
So dude who definately knows towing...
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=463
Davis Straub's "Oz Report" Conflict of Interest
Bob Kuczewski - 2011/02/11 16:13:44 UTC
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 12:40 AM
To: Pagen, Dennis; Tate, Lisa
Cc: USHPA Regional Directors
Subject: Re: aerotow SOP complaint

Third, I'm not an expert in towing, but I consulted someone who knows the topic pretty well. His comment was that while it might be good for USHPA to make recommendations in this area, there is still plenty of room for innovation. For that reason, he doesn't think USHPA should mandate any kind of obligatory system that would stifle that innovation - whether Mr. Eareckson's or any other.
He obviously hasn't done SHIT with respect to release systems / towing equipment in which there's still plenty of room for innovation - as evidenced by all the really spectacular related fatalities we've been getting at a fairly steady rate since the beginning of time. Hasn't even bothered to comment on existing available stuff - solid or total crap. And since Tad and his SOPs proposal got vaporized back in early 2009 what is it that's currently stifling his efforts to fill up some or all of that empty room?

And now that I think of it... How was it possible for him to have designed this corner fitting that solves the problem in such an elegant fashion and get it up and flying on several glider models under the burdensome, innovation stifling strength and performance mandates of the Hang Glider Manufacturers Association?

P.S. Anybody else think these designs of Dick's look a bit Rube Goldberg? 'Specially given that we already have proven systems that work with long track records?
Steve Davy
Posts: 1338
Joined: 2011/07/18 10:37:38 UTC

Re: wires

Post by Steve Davy »

Seems to me that the design would be better if it allowed the side wires to lie parallel (without bending) to the down tubes during transport.
The cable end should be able to rotate at the corner fitting in the proper direction, so it does not bend each time the leading edge spars are folded out and in for set-up and fold-down.
I'm not buying that. The leading edge spars pivot about the nose plates, thus the side wires become totally slack when the wing is folded.
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