http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=811
FTHI
Bob Kuczewski - 2011/10/25 06:28:43 UTC
Tad, Joe Greblo is a very conservative instructor, and he teaches a physical hook-in check
just prior to launch. He does not mandate a lift and tug. If you go to Joe's web site:
http://windsports.com/
you can find contact information for him. Joe knows far more about hang gliding than I probably ever will. If you can convince him that he should be teaching "lift and tug" instead of "turn and check", then you'll get my vote of support.
But the truth is, you already have my vote of support for "lift and tug". I think anyone who feels that it's the safest choice in any circumstance should be free to use it. And if they don't feel it's the safest thing to do (in
their opinion and in
their circumstance), then I feel that's
their choice as well. I think this is the place where we differ the most. You want the right to mandate what people should do according to what YOU think they should do. That's where we part company. You seem to want a "nanny state" where someone tells us what we can and can't do. I'm fundamentally opposed to that kind of tyranny ... regardless of how well-intentioned it might be.
Tad, Joe Greblo is a very conservative instructor...
Goddam right he is.
Here's how my New American Oxford defines "conservative":
holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion.
Damn good summary of just about everything that really and totally sucks in this sport:
- hang checks
- standup landings
- spot landings
- Quallaby, Lookout, bent pin releases
- standard aerotow weak links
- Davis, Rooney, Jack, Matt...
Absolutely toxic to change and innovation, heavy into politics and religion. Main reason for the existence and necessity of Kite Strings.
...and he teaches a physical hook-in check just prior to launch...
You mean like you do? In the staging area before you stroll down the slope into launch position, trim, and go? A mere forty-five seconds all told? Yeah, that was the intent of...
George Whitehill - 1981/05
The point I'm trying to make is that every pilot should make a second check to be very certain of this integral part of every flight. In many flying situations a hang check is performed and then is followed by a time interval prior to actual launch. In this time interval the pilot may unconsciously unhook to adjust or check something and then forget to hook in again. This has happened many times!
If, just before committing to a launch, a second check is done every time and this is made a habit, this tragic mistake could be eliminated. Habit is the key word here. This practice must be subconscious on the part of the pilot. As we know, there are many things on the pilot's mind before launch. Especially in a competition or if conditions are radical the flyer may be thinking about so many other things that something as simple as remembering to hook in is forgotten. Relying on memory won't work as well as a deeply ingrained subconscious habit.
In the new USHGA rating system, for each flight of each task "the pilot must demonstrate a method of establishing that he/she is hooked in, just prior to launch." The purpose here is obvious.
...the 1981/05 rating revision. Bullshit.
He does not mandate a lift and tug.
Duh. Neither he nor any of his students have ever even heard of lift and tug.
If you go to Joe's web site you can find contact information for him.
If I go to Joe's web site I should be able to find something of substance from him. I don't.
Joe knows far more about hang gliding than I probably ever will.
1. A fuckin' kite flying ten year old kid with a reasonable dose of common sense has the potential to know far more of the essentials of hang gliding than you'll ever be able to absorb. So that statement doesn't really impress me all that much.
2. Joe either doesn't know squat compared to what I do or he doesn't give a rat's ass about anybody's safety and fixing any of this sport's really deadly problems. Either way I have no use for him.
3. There is NOTHING important for the participants of this sport to understand that can't be explained by someone with a functional brain to someone with a functional brain in ten or fifteen minutes.
4. Any amazing gems of insight that someone attains after ten million hours of hang gliding and teaching hang gliding that can't be explained to someone with a functional brain in ten or fifteen minutes are worth shit.
5. Anybody who claims to have attained amazing gems of insight after ten million hours of hang gliding and teaching hang gliding is full of shit.
6. Joe and his Windsports school is responsible for most of the state of hang gliding in Southern California. Southern California is a fucking disaster area.
- Nobody can even conceive of the idea of deliberately putting a glider down on the wheels and people break arms at the Happy Acres putting greens like they're going out of style.
- Nobody's got a fuckin' clue about the differences and functions of preflight suspension checks and hook-in checks.
- He's got people launching unhooked next to him at Dockweiler while he's doing lessons.
- He's got people launching unhooked next to him at Dockweiler while he's doing clinics on how the climb into the control frame after launching unhooked.
- Guys with his signature on their Four cards launch unhooked at Sylmar.
- And does he ever SAY ANYTHING on the issue?
- And how many of his students ever say anything right on the issue?
- Motherfucker collaborated in that despicable Paul Voight video USHGA's using to try to erase all evidence of the hook-in check.
- Motherfucker's pumping these accidents waiting to happen into circulation and I'm trying to patch them up with zilch in the way of help.
- Motherfucker signed you off ferchrisake.
If you can convince him that he should be teaching "lift and tug" instead of "turn and check", then you'll get my vote of support.
Ya know, Bob... The reason this sport stinks is 'cause it's infested with brain dead assholes...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?
Steve Davy - 2011/08/31 10:11:32 UTC
Zack figured it out. Well done Zack! Enjoy your vacation.
Kinsley Sykes - 2011/08/31 11:35:36 UTC
Well actually he didn't. But if you don't want to listen to the folks that actually know what they are talking about, go ahead.
Feel free to go the the tow park that Tad runs...
...who base their endorsements, equipment, procedures, actions, reactions on what someone else is saying, teaching, using, doing instead of...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hhpa/
Houston Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association
Zack C - 2010/10/15 13:25:50 UTC
Speaking of which, while I can fault Tad's approach, I can't fault his logic, nor have I seen anyone here try to refute it. You may not like the messenger, but that is no reason to reject the message.
Sunday I performed a hang check at Pack, stepped onto the ramp, and proceeded to wait for a lull in which to launch. Due to this discussion I realized at this point how dangerous it was for me to assume I was hooked in. It's like assuming it's OK to lock your car because you remember putting your keys in your pocket a few minutes ago, only the consequences of being wrong are much worse than a call to AAA.
...logic, numbers, understanding - like a REAL pilot (something you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever becoming).
So fuck you and your vote of support and anyone else who bases his endorsements, equipment, procedures, actions, reactions on what Joe, Dennis, Bobby, Malcolm, Davis, Rooney, Steve, Paul, Lauren, Tracy, Lisa, or Tad is saying, teaching, using, doing.
But the truth is...
What the hell does someone like you know about truth?
...you already have my vote of support for "lift and tug".
1. I can't begin to describe the amount of joy that brings to my heart.
2. Just not enough to ever actually do one yourself under any conceivable set of circumstances 'cause...
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=822
US Hawks Hook-In Verification Poll
Bob Kuczewski - 2011/11/09 18:34:13 UTC
Your five second time limit between hook-in check and launch is unreasonably short - especially when attached to the consequences that you've listed. This would preclude, for example, the "turn and look" hook-in check that Joe Greblo teaches because five seconds would easily elapse between that check and getting the glider back into position to launch.
...Saint Joseph taught you to do the "turn and look" preflight check and skip the hook-in check. (Gawd it would be cool if you did for the Greblo hook-in check what Terry did for the Kellner platform tow system.)
I think...
Bullshit.
...anyone who feels that it's the safest choice in any circumstance should be free to use it.
1. I'm sure the Tea Party is glowing with pride at your support for individual freedom of choice.
2. You also give your vote of support to Joe Greblo, Rob McKenzie, Matt Taber, and Steve Wendt who FEEL it's perfectly OK to totally disregard the 31 plus year old USHGA requirement for all ratings which states:
With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.
...regardless of how many times their students start runs with dangling carabiners.
And if they don't feel it's the safest thing to do (in their opinion and in their circumstance), then I feel that's their choice as well.
So do I, Bob.
And I also FEEL that when someone deliberately violates the most fundamental and critical of all hang gliding rating regulations because of what he FEELS his certification should be revoked.
And I also FEEL that when someone mushing downwind watching a mountain coming at him at 35 miles per hour FEELS that slowing down is the safest thing to do (in
his OPINION and in
his circumstance), then I FEEL that's
his choice as well.
But I also FEEL that - within twelve hours of his body and the wreckage being removed from the slope - the instructor who signed him off on his last rating should have his certification permanently revoked.
Zack C - 2010/11/10 06:18:31 UTC
One more thing I'll add...I don't think of this sport as 'an art and a science'. Music and paintings are art. Aviation is pure science. I'm not saying feel and intuition aren't important - in fact I believe they are, but ONLY because they compensate for a lack of understanding of the science.
Flying is unintuitive and a reliance on intuition is dangerous. This is one of the main points of Langewiesche's "Stick and Rudder".
I'm not a big fan of basing aviation actions, responses, policy on people's FEELINGS.
I think this is the place where we differ the most.
Ya know where else we differ a lot, Bob?
- I don't encourage total shitheads to participate in Kite Strings discussions.
- I discourage total shitheads from engaging in flight operations.
- Nobody on Kite Strings has slammed in vertically as a result of screwing the pooch on the safest hang glider launch technique currently known to science in the last few weeks.
- Nobody on Kite Strings is burying fatality report information ('cause I banned the motherfucker off the forum a bit under a month before the lockout).
- I don't lock myself in a soundproof room when someone in this sport gets hurt or killed.
You want the right to mandate what people should do according to what YOU think they should do.
Nah, I want hang gliding taught, conducted, and regulated the way sailplaning is - based on science, numbers, engineering. I don't want it run by a bunch of stupid pigfuckers with opinions based on fifty plus year degrees in barnyard technology.
That's where we part company.
The more company we part the better, Bob.
You seem to want a "nanny state" where someone tells us what we can and can't do.
We've got stuff that tells us what we can and can't do - Newtonian physics, stall speeds, trees, the ground, biology, history...
I just want a system where people with the mental capacities to understand these limitations create rules for the people without so that they won't get the kinds of nasty surprises that Terry got half past last month (Terry Mason. You remember - used to be the Vice President of the Southwest Texas Hang Gliders. Talk to Sam if nothing's coming to you.)
And in this particular focus it's been pretty fuckin' obvious to people with functional brains for DECADES that any hook-in verification procedure which relies on MEMORY is gonna do the precise opposite of what it's intended to. Should be a pretty easy concept to get across but the flight schools have universally focused on making sure that that never happens.
I'm fundamentally opposed to that kind of tyranny ...
Of course you are Bob. A quick look at the structure and history of US Hawks is all we need to get a good feel for your fervent and highly principled stand against ANY kind of tyranny.
...regardless of how well-intentioned it might be.
What the hell would someone like you know about good intentions?
