http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35737
repetitive landings in turbulent areas continued from another thread
Robert Moore - 2017/11/29 16:29:02 UTC
Some folks get very involved in promotion of specific HG equipment, due to experiences of their own, and others. For example (and as you know) I've been very vocal in helmet safety promotion, and in Kali helmets in particular. My motivation? I don't like seeing my fellow pilots severely injured by ineffective equipment. I don't think you're an "imbecile" because you use a Lubin, but we will disagree on helmet choices.
I'll bet Jon feels the same way about drogues. It doesn't mean you can't have a different opinion about your choice in drogues - if you like yours, fine. I'm not saying your feelings about your drogue are wrong - it it's been working for you, that's great.
Does Jon's extensive experience using and testing drogues make him an expert? Does that experience give him the right to an opinion, and to share that opinion? I think he's as close to an expert on drogues as we have in the HG pilot community, and his opinions on the subject should be considered legitimate.
Some folks get very involved in promotion of specific HG equipment...
Since u$hPa, the manufacturers, schools, instructors, meet heads won't do shit in any positive directions.
...due to experiences of their own, and others.
Why should anybody's experience be a factor in this game?
For example (and as you know) I've been very vocal in helmet safety promotion, and in Kali helmets in particular.
Based on what? Do you have the slightest scrap of data from hang glider crashes to justify advocating their use over anything else?
My motivation? I don't like seeing my fellow pilots severely injured by ineffective equipment.
- How 'bout killed? That OK? (I'm assuming it is 'cause I don't hear you doing anything after any of the fatals that happen left and right in this game.)
- You don't get severely injured BY ineffective equipment. You may crash BECAUSE OF ineffective equipment or sustain more serious injuries than you might have otherwise with effective equipment. But basically what you're getting severely injured by is the ground.
I don't think you're an "imbecile" because you use a Lubin, but we will disagree on helmet choices.
Hang gliding helmets are bullshit. They're all tradeoffs and a quality or feature that might save you in one situation might kill you in another. Pick whatever you feel like and then put your efforts into staying out of situations in which a helmet might come into play.
And now that I think about it... Have we ever had a single hang glider crash survivor walk away smelling like a rose and proclaim, "Boy am I glad I was wearing a Brand X helmet. Anything less and two thirds of my IQ would've just vaporized!"? People like Paul Vernon, Bob Buxton, Ron Keinan get their brains mushed and there's never any discussion about helmets 'cause even in this sport there's enough vestigial common sense for people to instinctively understand that no helmet would've been likely to make enough of a difference to be worth talking about.
I'll bet Jon feels the same way about drogues.
A drag chute can be used / brought into play every flight and you can predict what it will do pretty well. It also might save you in one situation and kill you in another. A lot like glider design in which there's a performance/handling tradeoff.
It doesn't mean you can't have a different opinion about your choice in drogues - if you like yours, fine.
Fuck different opinions about choices in drogues. Drogues don't give rats' asses about opinions. They create drag and perform in predictable manners.
I'm not saying your feelings about your drogue are wrong - it it's been working for you, that's great.
If they're feelings they're wrong by definition. And if a drag chute has been working for one person it'll also work for anybody else.
Does Jon's extensive experience using and testing drogues make him an expert?
Fuck experience and experts. All we need to know about is the testing and its results.
Does that experience give him the right to an opinion, and to share that opinion?
No. That experience gives him the right to share his findings.
I think he's as close to an expert on drogues as we have in the HG pilot community...
And until 2013/02/02 everybody thought that Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney was as close to being an expert on aerotow weak links as we had in the HG pilot community. Outside of the HG pilot COMMUNITY - not so much.
...and his opinions on the subject should be considered legitimate.
Any opinions on any subject should be considered total crap. We don't certify aeronautical equipment based on opinions.
NMERider - 2017/11/29 17:22:05 UTC
I currently don't earn one penny from the sale of the new FFE drogue that's in production. I have no stake in the deal. It's strictly between Rotor Harness USA (Dustin) and FFE. I want to see pilots using safe and effective drogues so I can have more HGs to fly X/C with and not have to rely on going X/C almost exclusively with PGs. Apparently all this effort and concern for safety makes me a despicable and deplorable character in one pilot's mind. Very sad.
Join the club. 'Cept Yours Truly was (and is) a despicable and deplorable character in all pilots' minds. Which I take as a compliment because hang gliding has virtually no pilots who are actual pilots with any actual character.
NMERider - 2017/11/30 03:57:54 UTC
What I care about is getting a 3:1 glide angle at 38MPH with unfettered control over the glider in every aspect of flight.
'Cept glide performance and sink rate. But what the hell.
With the new FFE drogue my Sport 2 155 or T2C 144 turn into gliders that handle the same but come out of the sky like a Falcon will do.
Yep. And with an even better drag chute you can come out of the sky like a 1972 standard.
Even my Falcon when equipped with a new FFE drogue becomes a much better RLF glider.
So there's even less call to develop RLF skill proficiency.
NMERider - 2017/11/30 03:57:54 UTC
So I'm glad you asked these question because it helps me help all the other pilots who are more interested in their personal safety and flying pleasure extract the most from each from their soaring experiences.
Isn't coming done with a drag chute pretty much of the opposite of a soaring experience?
It's unfortunate that some pilots become so brand-loyal that when their favorite manufacturer sells a product that is defective or unsafe they are reluctant to call or write the that manufacturer and say, "Hey. This product you sold me is giving me grief. What's up with that?".
It's got a much longer track record than anything else out there and we don't like test pilots.
Unfortunately we often allow our loyalties obscure our vision and by looking at our gear through a filter of blind devotion to a brand or to an individual we may either deprive ourselves of a better experience or even place ourselves in harm's way.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=16265
weaklinks
Kinsley Sykes - 2010/03/18 19:42:19 UTC
In the old threads there was a lot of info from a guy named Tad. Tad had a very strong opinion on weak link strength and it was a lot higher than most folks care for. I'd focus carefully on what folks who tow a lot have to say. Or Jim Rooney who is an excellent tug pilot. I tow with the "park provided" weak links. I think they are 130 pound Greenspot.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRrpHNa68iY/UQ6Pv9gRZyI/AAAAAAAAjTg/Hc22bx5122Q/s2048/20943781_BG1.jpg
There comes a point where this turns into a moral and ethical issue.
Nah, that point is there IMMEDIATELY when some motherfucker manufactures, endorses, fails to speak out against dangerous, defective crap in circulation ANYWHERE.
Sport 2 135, 155 and 175 Owner / Service Manual
The Sport 2 has been designed for foot launched soaring flight. It has not been designed to be motorized, tethered, or towed.
But...
http://ozreport.com/pub/images/fingerlakesaccident2.jpg
http://ozreport.com/pub/images/fingerlakesaccident3.jpg
http://ozreport.com/pub/fingerlakesaccident.shtml
Fingerlakes accident
Davis Straub - 2004/09/05
I was flying a Wills Wing Sport 2 demo glider provided by Rob Kells at the National Fly-In.
...
I was flying the Wills Wing Sport 2 with a double V- bridle with both a shoulder and keel attachment. The shoulder attachment is my normal Pro V-bridle with a barrel release (found at any flight park). I normally just tow with this attachment. I rarely use a bridle attached to the keel, as I find that I can handle/tow any glider just towing off my shoulders.
The second V bridle goes from the center of my shoulder bridle and to the release attached to the keel. It is released using a bicycle brake handle and cable release that Rob Kells had attached to the keel and right downtube.
Rob supplies the glider, the easily reachable Industry Standard crap release with a well documented history of killing people, and puts him on an unstable cart.
As difficult as this is we need to forget the fact that it was Davis getting his fucking face rearranged and note that neither Rob nor any of his Wills Wing colleagues ever lifted a single goddam finger to address any of the relevant issues. So fast-forward to a bit over a decade later and we get another Wills Wing product...
KSNV-CNN-1-1916-c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5788/23461251751_e98b9c7500_o.png
...not designed to be motorized, tethered, or splattered all over the desert with its total crap tow "system" and...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7597/16975005972_c450d2cdda_o.png
...two passengers and not a single finger lifted after that one either. (And do note the Wills Wing wheel extension configuration over which the bridle snagged a bit prior to impact and try and find a Wills Wing advisory on the issue.)
I personally choose to do what right for the greatest number of peers in this sport as well as for myself.
What's that mean? Depending on one's concept of peers in this sport you may not have any. You fly your brains out XC in the LA basin where XC landing options tend to totally suck. Name some other people who do what you do where you do it. And of that subgroup name some who need and are going to use a drag chute to dive several hundred feet to a landing option to sync their arrivals with stable sink cycles.
There are hang glider products and parts that I have discovered to be defective and were likely to result in serious accidents.
LIKELY?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRrpHNa68iY/UQ6Pv9gRZyI/AAAAAAAAjTg/Hc22bx5122Q/s2048/20943781_BG1.jpg
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7077/27082298482_cda1aba01b_o.png
WESH2-05
And that's just the last two fatalities at Quest - both professional pilots by the way.
In every case I have approached the manufacturer or distributor with my data or evidence.
Steve Kinsley - 1996/05/09 15:50
Personal opinion. While I don't know the circumstances of Frank's death and I am not an awesome tow type dude, I think tow releases, all of them, stink on ice. Reason: You need two hands to drive a hang glider. You 'specially need two hands if it starts to turn on tow. If you let go to release, the glider can almost instantly assume a radical attitude. We need a release that is held in the mouth. A clothespin. Open your mouth and you're off.
Gone to any release manufacturers and told them the crap they sell for releases stinks on ice? 'Cause pretty much nothing has changed in the US over the course of decades.
It takes moral character to do this.
Well, if you have some that sure as hell takes you out of any significant hang gliding peer groups.
In life this is often referred to as having a spine or as having a functioning set of male reproductive organs.
I only have half a set of the latter. And the former isn't much to write home about either.
I'm confident that in the best case you've read about this once or twice and fancied yourself as having been similarly endowed.
OP was apparently very well endowed (if you listened to him) but look where he is now.
NMERider - 2017/11/30 20:29:55 UTC
It's no secret that there are HG pilots who dispense advice as though were experts with personal knowledge of their own experiences when in fact they are merely pretending to know and embellishing their actual experiences.
What? Outright obvious undeniable lying doesn't count?
Anyone who fails to recognize this and disregard such fallacious reporting is looking at winning their own personal Darwin Award.
Yes. The whole fuckin' sport is going extinct. It's never had zilch in the way of moral character and the less it gets the less it gets.
I have been around this sport since 1973 and could write a very long article about how pilots have been killed or crippled due to misinformation and misconceptions.
And I have no doubt whatsoever that u$hPa would be more than happy to publish it in the magazine and promote and reference it almost as much as they do the 1998/09 Mike Meier "Why Can't We Get A Handle On This Safety Thing?" article. u$hPa's world famous in the spine and male reproductive organs departments and would leap at such an opportunity to start getting this sport on the right track. But failing that maybe the Jack, Davis, Grebloville, Bob Shows.
Or you could publish it here where only the choir, insurance companies, a couple of u$hPa operatives would read it.
I did make a contribution to the fund.
