Weak links

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31811
Weak link material

Mike Lake - 2014/09/16 13:54:59 UTC

Brian Scharp - 2014/09/12 14:51:59 UTC

Is there a place using stronger weak links that we could use to compare data? Or is there nothing more substantial than inexplicable happiness when trying to determine weak link strength and its effectiveness as a release?

It appears that in most instances, at least until quite recently...

2013/02/02:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRrpHNa68iY/UQ6Pv9gRZyI/AAAAAAAAjTg/Hc22bx5122Q/s2048/20943781_BG1.jpg

a 'one size fits all' weak-link was deemed an ideal solution, regardless of the all up weight of the pilot.

And glider.

Smaller pilots have been effectively testing 'strong links' for years.

Decades.

I can't say I've read reports of smaller pilots suffering any more then their larger 'light link' counterparts!

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37786
Joe on plowing

Joe Schmucker - 2014/06/12 12:51:42 UTC

I use a 200lb three strand weak link or they break every time.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31811
Weak link material

Brian Scharp - 2014/09/16 15:38:12 UTC

Thanks. What about low altitude breaks and possible stalls? Have smaller pilots been experiencing fewer of those?

C'mon Jack Showers...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=12682
Landing on your feet (for AEROTOW)- So Dangerous

Jack Axaopoulos - 2009/06/29 14:26:26 UTC

OMG!!! You dont even have wheels!!?!?!?!?
YOURE GONNA DIE FOR SUUUUREE!!!!

I have a brilliant idea. People who cant land for sh*t.... LEARN TO LAND That way when a weak link breaks on you, ITS A NON-ISSUE. Genius huh???

Set this asshole straight on the Rooney Link issue.

Whatsamattah, Jack? Come down with a nasty case of Smart Ass Comment Deficit Disorder a couple Februaries ago?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31811
Weak link material

Mike Lake - 2014/09/16 19:09:56 UTC

Our tow group logs show it is generally the heavier pilot likely to experience a link break (given the same link strength).

Bullshit...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/04 19:31:36 UTC

You don't get to "make shit up". I don't "make shit up" for that matter either.

We all play by the same rules, or we don't play.
Morningside decided that they were happy with 200lb weaklink. They changed their tug's link and they don't just pass the stuff out either. If you'd like to know more about it... go ask them.
The law of the land at comps was 130lb greenspot or you don't tow. Seriously. It was announced before the comp that this would be the policy. Some guys went and made their case to the safety committee and were shut down. So yeah, sorry... suck it up.

Everybody uses the same weak link, everybody has the same lockout protection and likelihood of being inconvenienced.

This of course stands to reason and I don't think many would argue otherwise.

Nobody who hasn't been banned from The Jack Show anyway. (Sorry Jim, Ryan, Bob.)

So, a lightweight pilot with effectively a stronger link has fewer aborted tows meaning a reduced chance of a dangerous link break.

A DANGEROUS weak link break?! That's like saying a DANGEROUS parachute deployment.

26-0902


34-1209

At the same time they are not seen to be disadvantaged and are happily towed up without any further to do.

Yeah? Well...

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

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/31 09:25:57 UTC

Oh how many times I have to hear this stuff.
I've had these exact same arguments for years and years and years.
Nothing about them changes except the new faces spouting them.

It's the same as arguing with the rookie suffering from intermediate syndrome.
They've already made up their mind and only hear that which supports their opinion.

Only later, when we're visiting them in the hospital can they begin to hear what we've told them all along.

It's just a matter of time.

On the other hand the heaver pilot with the same relative link strength is somehow seen to be working with a different set of rules and is perceived to be in additional danger.

Especially to the tug pilot...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15716
weak links

Davis Straub - 2009/04/26 22:05:31 UTC

Tad obviously completely lacks social intelligence and probably a few other forms of intelligence. Also, he obviously has other mental health issues.

Also his reasoning is circular and when cornered breaks out in outrageous jumps, pulling dead rabbits from flatten hats.

But on the reasonable level I think that we can all agree that weaklinks should be as strong as possible without compromising their function which is to keep the hang glider from being broken by tow forces (and therefore hurting the pilot).

Tad doesn't agree, but the rest of us no doubt do, that we are in a partnership with the tug pilot, and that he needs to be protected also, and therefore our weaklink has to be less than his.

I'll check my weaklinks once again, to see if they are about 1.5 G.

Unless, of course, he hooks another person into his glider - then he's no risk to the tug pilot whatsoever.

This is illogical.

Since when did logic...

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

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/26 06:04:23 UTC

Troll

Hahahaha.
That seriously made me chuckle.

I get what you're saying Christopher.
Please understand that I'm not advocating professional infalliblity. Not really sure where I mentioned that, but I can understand where you might have drawn that assumption. None the less, I simply refer to "us" as the "professional pilots" as a term to describe the pilots that do this for a living. Yes, we're just humans... bla bla bla... my point is that we do this a whole sh*tload more than the "average pilot"... and not just a little more... a LOT.

We discuss this stuff a lot more as well. We vet more ideas. This isn't just "neat stuff" to us... it's very real and we deal with it every day.

It's not "us" that has the track record... it's our process.
We're people just like anyone else. And that's the point. THIS is how we do it... normal, fallible humans... and it bloody well works.

So I don't give much credence to something that someone doesn't agree with about what we do for some theoretical reason.

Take this weaklink nonsense.
What do I "advocate"?
I don't advocate shit... I *USE* 130 test lb, greenspun cortland braided fishing line.
It is industry standard.
It is what *WE* use.

If someone's got a problem with it... we've got over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND TANDEM TOWS and COUNTLESS solo tows that argue otherwise. So they can politely get stuffed.

As my friend likes to say... "Sure, it works in reality... but does it work in theory?"
Hahahahhaa... I like that one a lot

...start having a place in hang gliding?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31811
Weak link material

Brian Scharp - 2014/09/16 20:15:43 UTC

How about the fear of being an additional danger - as in to the tug operator - is that also illogical?

It must be. For the vast majority of the history of hang glider aerotowing USHGA SOPs and, since 2004/09, FAA regulations have stated twice flying weight and twice max certified operating weight as the upper limit for the glider weak link and something heavier - up to 25 percent - on the front end. And there has never been one single peep of a call from one single douchebag tug driver to specify anything one percent lower. And USHGA could easily do that. Nothing says it couldn't specify a narrower range within the legal range - which is exactly what all sailplane manufacturers do when they specify 1.3 to 1.4 G weak links for their birds.

Mike Lake - 2014/09/17 00:03:40 UTC

Tug operators seem happy to tow tandem gliders, the equivalent the biggest fattest solo pilot you are ever likely to encounter, so yes illogical.

Well yeah, but, as we all know...

http://ozreport.com/3.066
Weaklinks

Davis Straub - 1999/06/06

During the US Nationals I wrote a bit about weaklinks and the gag weaklinks that someone tied at Quest Air. A few days after I wrote about them, Bobby Bailey, designer and builder of the Bailey-Moyes Dragon Fly tug, approached me visibly upset about what I and James Freeman had written about weaklinks. He was especially upset that I had written that I had doubled my weaklink after three weaklinks in a row had broken on me.

The problem with strong links (neither Bobby Bailey nor I was aware at the time of the US Nationals that pilots were doing this) is that they endanger the tug pilot. If the hang glider pilot goes into a lock out, and doesn't break the weaklink (because there isn't one), they can stall the tug.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links

Jim Rooney - 2007/07/22 22:30:28 UTC

I've heard it a million times before from comp pilots insisting on towing with even doubled up weaklinks (some want no weaklink). I tell them the same thing I'm telling you... suck it up. You're not the only one on the line. I didn't ask to be a test pilot. I can live with your inconvenience.

...heavier weak links on solo gliders are a hundred times more dangerous to the tug than they are on tandem gliders.

Look at what can happen to Dragonflies with just Rooney Links holding the glider in position:



http://ozreport.com/forum/files/2_264.jpg

Can you even begin to imagine how much more seriously they would be stalled with Tad-O-Links?

Sailplanes...

Dr. Trisa Tilletti - 2012/06

You and I have flown sailplanes for almost as long as we have flown hang gliders. We own two sailplanes and have two airplanes that we use for towing full-size sailplanes. In all the time that we have flown and towed sailplanes, we have not experienced or even seen a sailplane weak link break.

It's not that it doesn't happen, but it is a rare occurrence. Russell Brown, a founder of Quest Air in Florida and a well-known Dragonfly tug pilot, is also a sailplane pilot, tug pilot, and A&P mechanic for a large commercial sailplane towing operation in Florida. He told us that, like us, he has never seen a sailplane weak link break, either.

...never break weak links. That means that you could replace their 1.4 G weak links with twenty G weak links and nobody would notice the difference. Wanna make things safer for the tugs?

http://ozreport.com/13.238
Adam Parer on his tuck and tumble

Adam Parer - 2009/11/25

Due to the rough conditions weak links were breaking just about every other tow and the two tugs worked hard to eventually get everyone off the ground successfully.

Use one and a half G weak links that never break so they only hafta do ONE takeoff and landing cycle per glider and use a release that doesn't stink on ice so's you can terminate the tow BEFORE things go to the kind of hell...

15-2421

11-1814


12-1915

...a Rooney Link will allow before it decides to start saving anyone's bacon.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31811
Weak link material

Brian Scharp - 2014/09/16 20:15:43 UTC

How about the fear of being an additional danger - as in to the tug operator - is that also illogical?

We ARE an additional danger to the tug operator. A tug with a glider behind it is ALWAYS more compromised than a tug without a glider behind it. Tough fucking shit. That's its goddam job. That's what WE *PAY* IT to do. That's why it and its operator exist.

Its job is NOT to go joy riding on OUR dime - as damn near all tug operators seem to think. Its job is to tow us SAFELY, LEGALLY, and EFFICIENTLY to altitude. A goddam tug without a glider behind it isn't a tug - it's a Light Sport Aircraft or ultralight.

Our job is to equip our gliders for safe towing, stay in position behind the tug, and release if/when we can't - not to worry about the safety of the goddam tug beyond that and dangerously dumb down our weak link because that MIGHT make that asshole better off at our expense in some ridiculous scenario that's never actually happened.

These pieces of shit don't give rats' asses about OUR safety. They:
- happily tow unqualified "students" cleared for solo by THEIR operations who are incapable of staying in safe position
- prevent gliders from flying SAFE LEGAL equipment
- force gliders to fly with DANGEROUS and blatantly ILLEGAL:
-- CRAP they sell as equipment
-- understrength weak link configurations

Go to The Davis Show and review Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney's "contributions" to the Zack Marzec postmortem discussions. Screaming obscenities at all us muppets suggesting that we use releases we can actually use as releases, weak links to protect against overload, and bridles that transmit the thrust through the center of gravity/drag and allow us to hold the nose down; tripping all over himself trying explain away all the contradictory lies he'd been ladling out over the course of the past decade.

And pay particular attention to the way not a single other tug driver or Industry person called him on anything. (And I one hundred percent guarantee you that if Lauren Eminently-Qualified-Tandem-Pilot Tjaden had bought it instead Zack would've been equally outspoken.) That should give you a pretty damn good appreciation for the degree to which the front enders care about people who fly hang gliders for something other than a buck.

[Tad Eareckson]

P.S. Videos of glider's getting lethally compromised on aerotow...

36-05224
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2857/11425450323_f9659e0462_o.png


...are a dime a dozen. Videos of tugs being the slightest bit fazed during these events are nonexistent.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec

Mark Frutiger - 2013/02/08 19:12:21 UTC

Zack hit the lift a few seconds after I did. He was high and to the right of the tug and was out of my mirror when the weak ling broke. The load on the tug was not excessive as with a lockout, but I was not surprised when the weak link broke. I was still in the thermal when I caught sight of Zack again. I did not see the entry to the tumble, but I did see two revolutions of a forward tumble before kicking the tug around to land. The thermal was still active in the area that I had just launched from so I did a go round and landed on a runway 90 degrees cross to the direction we were towing in.

There are ZERO quotes from tug drivers saying, "THANK GOD that Rooney Link blew when it did! THANK GOD he wasn't using a Tad-O-Link!"

When the fuckin' Dragonfly tow mast breakaway broke away and fatally inconvenienced William Woloshyniuk and Victor Cox on 2002/08/17 there was no report that the tug was the slightest bit fazed.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31811
Weak link material

Davis Straub - 2014/09/12 01:00:16 UTC

Wills Wing T2C 144.
200-210 lb. hook in weight.

Glider - 71 pounds, flying weight - 281...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31747
Lockout

Davis Straub - 2014/09/01 15:22:41 UTC

I can tell you that I fly with a 200lb weaklink on one side of my 750lb pro tow bridle. I am happy with it.

...200 pound happiness giver / bacon saver on one side of your 750 pound pro toad bridle - 1.4 Gs. 1.5 if we use your lower hook-in figure.

Davis Straub - 2014/08/29 14:50:20 UTC

From the link to the Oz Report forum above: Jim Rooney - "The "purpose" of a weak link is to improve your odds of survival when things go wrong."

Didn't see anything about a weaklink preventing a lockout. It obviously didn't prevent one in this case. (He had a "1.5G" weaklink.)

Pretty fuckin' close to the bacon saver translation you now find yourself happy with.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35257
The student on tow

Jim Rooney - 2013/12/21 21:51:46 UTC

Thank you for seeing the wisdom in an actual "weak" link.
I'm sorry you had to learn it the hard way.
Thank you again for posting this so that people can understand the severity of the decision to fly with stronger "weaklinks".

Jim Rooney - 2013/12/22 00:03:46 UTC

The "purpose" of a weak link is to improve your odds of survival when things go wrong. Yes, preventing the glider from folding up in one thing it does do for you. Please don't try to convince me that that's all it can do.
A bit lower and this guy would have died.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4cTQH743E
Hang Gliding Aerotowing Lockout

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4cTQH743E


47-05508
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7353/11414310093_ddeecbcbfa_o.png


A one and a half G bacon saver will decrease the safety of the towing operation to the extent that you'll be totally upside down before you start recovering and any pro toad flying UNDER 267 pounds will be flying with a bacon saver OVER one and a half Gs. What kind of bacon saver is this? Reminds me of a parachute that only opens two seconds after you've hit the runway. Did we learn NOTHING from Harrison's foolish sacrificing of safety for the sake of convenience?

Why are we suddenly reinventing a perfectly good wheel here?

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links

Jim Rooney - 2007/07/22 22:30:28 UTC

Hahahahahahahahaha
Oh that's just rich!
Riiiiiight... it's my attention span at issue here....
and I'm the one that's arrogant!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA

No, I'm not being nice. No, I do not feel the need to be nice. You're trying to convince people to be less safe. I don't want to be on the other end of the rope when someone listening to this drivel smashes in.

I've heard it a million times before from comp pilots insisting on towing with even doubled up weaklinks (some want no weaklink). I tell them the same thing I'm telling you... suck it up. You're not the only one on the line. I didn't ask to be a test pilot. I can live with your inconvenience.

Please tell me again what's wrong with the wheel? Why you keep trying to reinvent it?

Yes, please fall back on the "I'm just saying they could be stronger" bull when you've made it quite clear that anything lower than cable (1200lb) is acceptable.

The simple fact is that you're not improving the system.
You're trying to make it more convenient and trying to convince yourself that you should be towing with a stronger weaklink.

Enjoy your delusion.

Why are we suddenly so blatantly disregarding a decade's worth of the wisdom of Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney? We're jumping from 130 right to 200 just because many of us have suddenly decided we're HAPPY with this new bacon saver figure?

[<BS>]

Many of us love bacon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZGr1PkpDVU

x: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YYcQitVp6E

[Steve Davy]

I'll see your bacon comedy, and raise you one walkie talkie comedy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOOkH-bZQyk
Brian Regan - Walkie Talkie
NordJager - 2013/03/05
dead

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec

Jim Rooney - 2013/02/15 06:48:18 UTC

Davis has been at an around all this plenty long enough to understand what's what and who's who.

Dr. Trisa Tilletti - 2012/06

Based on several decades of experience and hundreds of thousands of tows conducted by numerous aerotow operators across the county, the de facto standard has become use of a 260 lb. weak link made as a loop of 130 lb. green spot IGFA Dacron braided fishing line attached to one end of the pilot's V-bridle.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec

Jim Rooney - 2013/02/13 19:09:33 UTC

It was already worked out by the time I arrived.
The reason it sticks?
Trail and error.

Every now and then someone comes along with the "new" idea of a stronger weaklink. Eventually, they scare themselves with it and wind up back with one that has a very proven track record. I mean really... no exaggeration... hundreds of thousands of tows.

Say what you will, but if you want to argue with *that* much history, well, you better have one hell of an argument... which you don't.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec

Kinsley Sykes - 2013/02/11 17:46:12 UTC

Because this has been beaten to death - google Tad Eareckson and try to read the mind-numbing BS. Most of the folks who have been towing for decades have worked this stuff out.

Anybody who's been at an around all this plenty long enough to understand what's what and who's who - as both Davis, I, and untold scores of others still on the scene have and Rooney and Rodie haven't - knows bloody well that nothing was ever "worked out" and there never was the slightest pretense of any period of "trail and error", that the "standard aerotow weak link" was entirely the spawn of THIS:

http://www.questairforce.com/aero.html
Quest Air Aerotow FAQ

Weak Link

The strength of the weak link is crucial to a safe tow. It should be weak enough so that it will break before the pressure of the towline reaches a level that compromises the handling of the glider but strong enough so that it doesn't break every time you fly into a bit of rough air. A good rule of thumb for the optimum strength is one G, or in other words, equal to the total wing load of the glider. Most flight parks use 130 lb. braided Dacron line, so that one loop (which is the equivalent to two strands) is about 260 lb. strong - about the average wing load of a single pilot on a typical glider. For tandems, either two loops (four strands) of the same line or one loop of a stronger line is usually used to compensate for nearly twice the wing loading. When attaching the weak link to the bridle, position the knot so that it's hidden from the main tension in the link and excluded altogether from the equation.

IMPORTANT - It should never be assumed that the weak link will break in a lockout.
ALWAYS RELEASE THE TOWLINE before there is a problem.

off the scale moronic lunatic crap from the total assholes involved in getting commercial aerotowing rolling. But notice how conspicuously silent Davis and his ilk always are in quashing this bullshit whenever it's spewed forth in these discussions.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31717
Weak link?

Davis Straub - 2014/08/20 19:48:26 UTC

Many of us are now using 200 lb test line from Cortland.

I predict we will NEVER AGAIN hear a single peep from any assholes about anybody having worked anything out or any periods of trail and error. From this phase of our warped history on anybody stupid enough to try to define a weak link as anything other than:

Tost Flugzeuggerätebau

Weak links protect your aircraft against overloading.

will be quickly and easily torn to shreds.