instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34140
USHPA

smokenjoe50 - 2016/03/08 00:12:32 UTC

Glenn Zapien - 2016/03/07 21:13:24 UTC

Mavi do you ever shut the fuck up??

2016/03/08 01:12:00 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Glenn Zapien
2016/03/08 04:06:25 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Rolla Manning
2016/03/09 05:16:19 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Rcpilot
2016/03/09 16:24:01 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Mark Webber
2016/03/08 04:25:57 UTC - Sink This! -- Christopher LeFay

Mike Bomstad - 2016/03/08 02:20:10 UTC

Well you can tell when winter has gone on too long and the .org is restless

Yeah. Been over five weeks since the last Hang Two scooter tow inconvenience fatality cover-up. Not much to talk about - what with the fifteen second attention span of your average Jack Show asshole and all.

You guys all know we are all, and I mean all on the same team.

Yep. The Jack's Living Room Team. We're all 100.00 percent on board with everything Jack is. If someone doesn't agree with his principles, then he doesn't need to be involved in our sport.

We may have different paths to get there, but... in the end.... (maybe a day or two later .... we are trying for the same goal

Not speculating about the last negligent homicide and patiently waiting while Mitch Shipley gets to the truth and determines that the pilot suffered fatal injuries and had agreed (via the waiver) that he understood he was engaged in a risky sport that can cause serious injury or death, had agreed that he was personally and individually responsible for his own safety, that when he had the accident and got "hurt", he'd agreed in advance that it would be solely his own fault - no matter what the circumstances might have been. If his instructor had opened up on him with a battery of 88 millimeter antiaircraft guns as he was approaching the old Frisbee in the middle of the LZ the problems would've been his lack of focus and shortcomings in risk management.

Also perfecting our flare timing. Have I missed anything?

2016/03/08 04:26:43 UTC - 2 thumbs up - Christopher LeFay

Davis Straub - 2016/03/08 18:29:46 UTC

Getting new students above 5 feet on scooter tow is inappropriate and unsafe.

- Also...

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

Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 14:04:52 UTC

We had six weaklink breaks in a row at Zapata this year. Russell Brown (tug pilot, tug owner, Quest Air owner) said go ahead and double up (four strands of Cortland Greenspot). He knows I used his Zapata weaklink in Big Spring (pilots were asked to tell the tug pilot if they were doing that).

...for World Record Encampment pilots at Zapata in 2010.

- What the fuck does this incident have to do with NEW STUDENTS?

- Within the first forty seconds of:

http://vimeo.com/116997302
Blue Sky Scooter Towing Method - Ryan Voight Productions


we see two gliders at twenty feet and climbing with the "pilots" upright on the control tubes.
-- Do we know they are:
--- not Day One students?
--- Day Two students old students?
-- Is it possible to lock out and break one's neck from twenty feet? How 'bout five?
-- How is this not inappropriate and unsafe by your definition?

- Is "inappropriate and unsafe" the same "inappropriate and unsafe" weak link you decided you were happy with several years ago because it never increased the safety of the towing operation?

This has been thoroughly discussed and examined at length over the years in the Oz Report.

- By the best minds seriously brain damaged...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25015
Zippy pounds in

Davis Straub - 2011/09/02 18:37:09 UTC

Concussions are in fact very serious and have life long effects. The last time I was knocked out what in 9th grade football. I have felt the effects of that ever since. It changes your wiring.

...Davis Dead-On Straub permits to say anything in his bricked-off-from-the-public Dedicated Sycophants colony.

- If things were so fucking obvious / black and white then why did they NEED to be thoroughly discussed and examined at length over the years in the Oz Report? We don't have Day Two students doing Assisted Windy Cliff Launches in strong, switchy, thermally, gusty conditions, right? I'm pretty sure that even in hang gliding nobody would be advocating or defending such a practice. Do we need to thoroughly discuss and examine at length over the years that issue in the Oz Report?

- Any chance we can see the database that was being thoroughly examined at length while this issue was being thoroughly discussed at length over the years in the Oz report? Anything anecdotal? Or was it just the usual flock of total douchebags pulling whatever they felt like outta their asses and proclaiming it to be sacred scripture?

- We've been thoroughly discussing and examining at length over the years in the Oz Report what kind of fishing line makes the best bacon saver. Have we reached a conclusion on that yet? About where are we in relation to the 130 pound Greenspot which was the perfect bacon saver for the first couple decades of aerotowing? Slightly stronger? Can you link me to any insightful points that don't involve lengths of track records?

To have a new pilot who is very likely unaware of all the reflection and good thinking that has been done by the hang gliding community on this issue is not helpful.

- Good point.

- Was there supposed to be some connection between those two sentences? I was expecting to hear something about a massive consensus having been reached after years of pouring over every punctuation mark in u$hPa's twenty terabyte accident report database.

- Is that second sentence really a sentence? If you strip off all the obfuscatory verbal diarrhea you're spewing it reads:

To have a new pilot is not helpful.

Did you spray so much shit on that thing that you forgot to include a chunk? Like?:

To have a new pilot who is very likely unaware of all the reflection and good thinking that has been done by the hang gliding community on this issue presenting his viewpoint on scooter towing based on one low and slow flight which resulted in a single broken neck and a bill for the equivalent of five topless superships is not helpful.

- Hey people of varying ages... The total fucking asshole a great many of you fingered as a self serving sociopath at the dawn of The Jack Show has proclaimed something (can't quite figure out what) to be not helpful. So make sure none of you are helped by whatever it is.

- Yeah. Too bad we don't have experienced pilots like:
-- 2009/01/03 - Steve Elliot
-- 2009/09/19 - Bill Vogel
-- 2011/04/09 - Yossi Tsarfaty
-- 2011/05/20 - Eric Mies
-- 2011/06/06 - Tim Martin
-- 2012/04/05 - Dave Seib
-- 2012/06/16 - Terry Mason
-- 2013/02/02 - Zack Marzec
-- 2013/05/30 - Grant Bond
-- 2013/07/21 - Luis Rizo
-- 2014/08/30 - Adam Parer
-- 2014/09/29 - Joe Julik
-- 2015/01/24 - Trevor Scott
-- 2015/03/27 - Kelly Harrison
-- 2015/05/09 - Markus Schaedler
-- 2015/06/20 - Bertrand Delacroix
-- 2015/06/26 - Trey Higgins
-- 2015/08/23 - Rafi Lavin
-- 2015/08/24 - Craig Pirazzi
-- 2015/09/24 - Thibault Demange
-- 2015/10/09 - Darren Rickertt
-- 2015/10/11 - Jesse Fulkersin
-- 2015/11/01 - Uli Blumenthal
-- 2015/11/08 - Karen Carra
around no more to help tell us all about what's what and who's who and set this stupid muppet straight.

- So he's VERY LIKELY unaware of all the reflection and good thinking that has been done by the hang gliding community on this issue? But you're not sure. So if he IS aware of all the reflection and good thinking that has been done by the hang gliding community on this issue and thinks you're all total morons and totally full of shit would you be OK with that assessment? I can hand you a fairly substantial list of individuals who'd be totally on board with him.

- Is there someplace we can find a summary of all the reflection and good thinking that has been done by the hang gliding community on this issue so we stupid muppets can better understand why fast and high tows that get people to eight hundred feet without hitches and give the students lotsa practice controlling the glider on tow and in free flight setting up approaches and landings are unacceptably dangerous compared to low and slow mush flights which lock out and crash gliders and break the necks and wipe out the memories of students? (Damn this aviation stuff is counterintuitive.)

- Your shitty rag has been blighting the hang gliding cybersphere for close to two decades now. Point to ONE THING in this sport that's better off for its existence.

- Kite Strings has been around for a bit over half a decade and my objective has been to destroy the u$hPa / Davis / Aerotow Industry model of hang gliding. And it's currently crumbling. I particularly wanted Highland Aerosports wiped off the face of the planet. It's been wiped off the face of the planet - permanently. No more ECC. I don't know how much credit I can take for what's happening but I've made a point of doing everything Mark G. Forbes has implored the membership NOT to do. So if his fears are well founded then I've had a significant impact on getting your insurance pulled, flying sites lost, members having to fork over a couple million dollars. And nobody's been talking much about 130 pound Greenspot or listening to Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney run his mouth on AT issues for a several years now.

2016/03/08 18:55:15 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Christopher LeFay

Figures. What a contemptible little scumbag you are, Christopher.

[Tad Eareckson]

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

Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 14:04:52 UTC

We had six weaklink breaks in a row at Zapata this year. Russell Brown (tug pilot, tug owner, Quest Air owner) said go ahead and double up (four strands of Cortland Greenspot). He knows I used his Zapata weaklink in Big Spring (pilots were asked to tell the tug pilot if they were doing that).

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/26 17:34:33 UTC

Do NOT skip this little bit...

pilots were asked to tell the tug pilot if they were doing thatpilots were asked to tell the tug pilot if they were doing that

See, Russel knows what's up.
He knows that you're changing the equation and because of this, you need to ask the tug pilot.

Tad Eareckson - 2011/08/27 08:13:19 UTC

So Russell...

- What good is that information gonna do you - or anybody else?

- Gonna beef up your front end weak link every time a double looper gets on the cart so you can stay a hundred pounds over him? Like it says in the regulations you've never read?

- Then you're gonna swap it back out to stay just a hundred over the nice safe singler?

- Or maybe what you SHOULD be doing is to lighten your weak link to the same degree he beefs his up - in order to preserve the safety balance?

- Are you gonna take off and fly more safely with a doubler to reduce the probability that he'll lock out and/or break his glider?

- Keep a better eye on him in the mirror?

- Have the runway foamed in case he gets dragged?

- Wait until you get to a safe altitude before you pull a really hard turn?

- Keep one hand on the parachute handle in case the lever on the joystick doesn't work?

- Hold a little tighter squeeze on the lever for that extra millisecond of safety edge?

- Make sure you have enough fuel to get to release altitude instead of just enough to make it to probable weak link level?

- Maybe in addition to getting the weak link information you should make him hand you a card with his blood type, emergency contact information, and organ donor status?

- What special extra precautions do you take and different procedures do you follow when you tow a tandem glider with a dangerous double loop on it?

- Have you ever asked anyone how many G's he's flying and gotten an answer other than "one"?

- Have you ever towed anybody who has half a fucking clue how to determine the Gs he's flying?

- Do you have the slightest fucking clue how to determine and calculate G ratings?

- And, if so, how come none of the other Quest bozos do?

- Under what towline tension does your front end weak link blow?

Towing Aloft - 1998/01

I witnessed a tug pilot descend low over trees. His towline hit the trees and caught. His weak link broke but the bridle whipped around the towline and held it fast. The pilot was saved by the fact that the towline broke!

You got weak links both above AND BELOW the tow ring?

- If somebody decides to fly without wheels is he required to inform you?

- What special precautions do you take for people who fly Wallaby, Quest, Lookout, and Bailey releases?

What a load of crap.

Zack C - 2011/08/31 02:45:17 UTC

Why? Because the tug can see higher line tension with the stronger link? Isn't that the same weak link typically used by tandems? Isn't it the job of the tug's weak link to limit the tension the tug can see anyway? What is the tug pilot going to do differently armed with this knowledge?

Also...isn't it is not so much the magnitude of the tow force that endangers the tug (and glider) pilot but rather its direction? As a tug pilot, would you rather have 500 lbs pulling straight aft or 240 pulling straight up? Could not even a glider using a 130 lb Greenspot loop put the tug pilot in danger?

And, of course, no response from Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney 'cause, obviously, he's painted himself into several dozen corners.

But, actually, this statement:

See, Russel knows what's up.
He knows that you're changing the equation and because of this, you need to ask the tug pilot.

is pretty close to being right - despite Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney's "understanding" and intentions.

Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 14:04:52 UTC

Russell Brown (tug pilot, tug owner, Quest Air owner) said go ahead and double up (four strands of Cortland Greenspot). He knows I used his Zapata weaklink in Big Spring (pilots were asked to tell the tug pilot if they were doing that).

Motherfucker's lying. Big surprise. When ISN'T the motherfucker lying? He's obviously suggesting to the reader that the tug pilot needs to know because he'll need to fly twice as carefully and safely - for the benefit of BOTH pilots - because there's a deadly Tad-O-Link in the system. But they're can't be any NEED to tell the tug pilot IF a pilot has gone Tad-O. He's just TOLD *EVERYBODY* to go Tad-O.

And...

http://ozreport.com/12.081
Weaklinks - the HGFA rules

Davis Straub - 2008/04/22 14:47:00 UTC

Here is the requirement from the 2007 Worlds local rules (which I wrote) for weaklinks:

Pilots must use weaklinks provided by the meet organizers and in a manner approved by the meet organizers. All weaklinks will be checked and use of inappropriate weaklinks will require the pilot to go to the end of the launch line to change the weaklink.
Weaklinks will consist of a single loop of Cortland 130 lb Greenspot braided Dacron Tolling line and should be placed at one end of a shoulder bridle. The tow forces on the weaklink will be roughly divided in half by this placement. Pilots will be shown how to tie the weaklink so that it more likely breaks at its rating breaking strength.

Getting pilots into the air quickly is also safer as it reduces the stress that pilots feel on the ground and keeps them focused on their job which is to launch safely and without hassling the ground crew or themselves. When we look at safety we have to look at the whole system, not just one component of that system. One pilot may feel that one component is unsafe from his point of view and desire a different approach, but accommodating one pilot can reduce the overall safety of the system.

Ya can't have an individual pilot feeling that one component is unsafe from his point of view and desiring a different approach because accommodating one pilot CAN reduce the overall safety of the system. (Or maybe not. Who the fuck really knows for sure?) So...

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

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

The accepted standards and practices changed.
I still won't tow people with doubled up weaklinks. 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.

We all play by the same rules, or we don't play. So yeah, sorry... suck it up.

So what Russell...

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.

...has obviously done is given flyers THE OPTION OF going Tad-O. And only one out of five tops has ACTUALLY GONE Tad-O. We know who all these pin bending morons are and they're all scared shitless of lockouts 'cause they know they're Industry Standard releases stink on ice and if they get into a low level lockout the Davis Link will transform it into a low level luckout.

So why were the pilots being asked to tell the tug pilot IF they were doing that?

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3661
Flying the 914 Dragonfly

Jim Rooney - 2008/12/06 20:01:49 UTC

You will only ever need full throttle for the first fifty feet of a tandem tow. Don't ever pull a solo at full throttle... they will not be able to climb with you. You can tow them at 28 mph and you'll still leave them in the dust... they just won't be able to climb with you... weaklinks will go left and right.

So they could take off SAFELY at FULL THROTTLE instead of trying to limp into the air at half a mile per hour over stall speed they way they were doing when they were losing those six gliders in a row in the light morning air - plus all the ones before that streak that Davis Dead-On Straub didn't tell us about.

And notice that one of the back-enders in involved in that fiasco has ever posted anything publicly about it 'cause they all know they'd be retaliated against by the Flight Park Mafia thugs running this show.

Also notice the lack of complaints about and reports of problems with the Tad-O-Linked Mach 5 takeoffs. Also doesn't sound like Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney and his pigfucker buddies were spending as much time visiting muppets who only then were beginning to hear what they'd been told all along.

[Tad Eareckson]

Tad Eareckson - 2016/03/12 03:20:40 UTC

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

Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 14:04:52 UTC

We had six weaklink breaks in a row at Zapata this year. Russell Brown (tug pilot, tug owner, Quest Air owner) said go ahead and double up (four strands of Cortland Greenspot). He knows I used his Zapata weaklink in Big Spring (pilots were asked to tell the tug pilot if they were doing that).

you think, "How the FUCK can Davis be STUPID enough to ADMIT that for all the public to see?

Nah. That was a carefully planned and thought out Industry strategic move. The Standard Aerotow Weak Link Ponzi Scheme had finally started its inevitable collapse. Three decades worth of Hewett based snake oil down the drain and hundreds of reputations turned irretrievably to total shit. Hundreds of emperors running naked for the bushes. (That was on my birthday. Maybe there really is a god.)

And then six hours, six minutes, and four seconds later...

Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 20:10:56 UTC

Oh, and BTW, Tad is clueless as well as being a child molester (no kidding).

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/26 23:12:32 UTC

Just to back Davis up on this, cuz the person that let's the cat out of the bag always gets flack for it...

So we're clear as a bell on this.
Tad is a convicted paedophile.

This is not rumour, this is not speculation. This is straight from the horses mouth... I asked him about it.
Believe it or not, a paedophile can have no issue with telling you this stuff as they see what they do as "normal".

He was 30 years old when he had his 13 year old "boyfriend", as he puts it.
I don't know if that's the one he got locked up for, but I know the one he got locked up for was not his last.
I believe the other one(s) was younger.
I didn't have the stomach to delve into further detail.

He has been banned from every flying site he's ever set foot at and some he hasn't.

And yes, he is a deranged megalomaniac.
I had the displeasure of having to put up with him before he was kicked out of one of the flight parks that I was working for.

Good riddance.

OK, people of varying ages... Show of hands. Who thinks that this wasn't an Industry strategic move?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6904
Highland Aerosports 2016 Season News

Joe Gregor - 2016/02/25 03:16:37 UTC

I strongly urge anyone seriously thinking of flying the Dragonfly as an occasional club tug-pilot to contact Jim and Adam and have a long conversation with them on the subject.

They're not gonna be around long enough for a long conversation. And notice that while you guys are agonizing over desperate measures to keep Highland afloat they've been in total clam mode?

The Dragonfly may have two wing, a tail, and 3-axis controls. But, it is still a unique beast. Close enough to being a GA airplane to suck you in; far enough away to give you a nasty surprise if your not on your game. It's not crazy, but I wouldn't describe it as docile, either. Excellent stick and rudder skills together with a high level of currency should be the call of the day if you want to avoid bending stuff shouldn't be bent. And then there is the towing aspect...

Yeah. If you're significantly off your game you might expect to bend something. Probably on landing, possibly something expensive. (Although as far as I know bonks of functional Dragonflies are statistically nonexistent.) So please explain to me how Keavy Nenninger, who had legitimate conventional aeronautical credentials coming outta her ass, and about whom we never heard so much as a punctuation mark's worth of criticism, abruptly ended her career as a pulp in the middle of a flattened heap of 914 Dragonfly wreckage?

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4979
Very sad news from Ridgely : Keavy Nenninger

Petr - 2011/07/26 03:25:41 UTC

It is now only a little more than a week ago that I met Keavy at Ridgely and took an early morning tandem flight with Adam, being towed up behind her small plane. After a couple of years, returning to a hang glider for what I though would be one flight was really exciting and I was happy to see that my old HG flying instincts were coming back. Nevertheless, what really changed my mind so that I signed up for more after landing was the good vibe I got from people at Highlands, the sense of camaraderie, joy of flying and professionalism that exuded from all of them.

Although I spent just short time there that morning, I could see that Keavy was a huge part of that atmosphere and in some sense a central one. Everyone obviously relied on her flying skills and hard work (she told me that about a week earlier, she had towed over 80 HGs in one day) but it was also noticeable that when she was not in the air, everyone could and did rely on Keavy's easy smile and positive attitude. That is what helped me calming down before my first flight in years and I can see that there were probably many other pilots, beginners or not, who benefited from her generous and joyful spirit as I did.

Why do you useless motherfuckers...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27909
Dragonfly Accident at Lookout

Jim Rooney - 2012/06/09 03:05:22 UTC

BTW, you have no need or use of reminding me of the other tug pilot that we lost.
She was a friend of mine and an exceptionally close friend of my mates.
You will likewise not be able to inform me of anything regarding her accident.
Allow me to inform you.
She was a rookie and it was a rookie mistake made under duress and extremely low.

...allow this obnoxious incompetent clueless lying little SHIT to get away with proclamations like this?

Believe me, I understand the angst. Highland IS my only flying site.

It WAS my only flying site. Now it WAS your only flying site too.

First thing I did when I saw the post was to fall off my chair reaching for the phone to extend an offer to drop hang gliding entirely and commit to flying as a weekend tug pilot until Adam and Sunny could figure something out.

They'd already figured something out at that point.

But make no mistake, this was a panic move. Even though I have flown a variety of airframes both fixed and rotor; even though I had once upon a time trained and tugged at Ridgely with the Dragonfly; the learning curve to get back into that particular saddle would have been, well, intensive. And in the end all I could have realistically hoped to accomplish any time soon would have been to get in good enough shape to pull up a highly experienced tandem pilot under benign conditions in the mornings and evenings.

I don't buy it.

That might have been enough to help Highland - short term. It would never serve for a club operation. Solo pilots want to get pulled up when it's soarable.

Why?

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

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/28 19:39:17 UTC

Weak links break for all kinds of reasons.
Some obvious, some not.

The general consensus is the age old adage... "err on the side of caution".

The frustration of a weaklink break is just that, frustration.
And it can be very frustrating for sure. Especially on a good day, which they tend to be. It seems to be a Murphy favourite. You'll be in a long tug line on a stellar day just itching to fly. The stars are all lining up when *bam*, out of nowhere your trip to happy XC land goes up in a flash. Now you've got to hike it all the way back to the back of the line and wait as the "perfect" window drifts on by.

I get it.
It can be a pisser.

But the "other side"... the not cautions one... is not one of frustration, it's one of very real danger.
Better to be frustrated than in a hospital, or worse.
No exaggeration... this is the fire that the "other side" is made of. Best not to play with it.

What would be the point?

Go figure. And THAT would require a whole 'nother level of tug pilot skills and experience - to be done safely over the long term.

Yeah. You'd hafta like never fly a solo hang glider when it was soarable. Like Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney. But on the plus side you'd be able to spend all your spare time telling solo thermal soaring hang glider pilots what clueless incompetent morons they are and that their only hope of surviving the next launch is to use a loop of max 130 pound Greenspot on a bridle end and live with whatever inconveniences happened to come their way.

We have been remarkably spoiled by the level of operations at Highland.

That's OK. Those motherfuckers got astronomically spoiled at their operation too. Started acting like they owned everything within sight of the airport from target release altitude.

They make it look much, much, much easier than it is.

They made it pure fucking hell and responded to every effort to make it easier with a vicious counterattack.

I hope for safety's sake that they can find a way to keep it going.

Good freakin' luck. They're selling all their capital for its scrap value as we speak and that action's gone forever as far as any of us middle agers and up are concerned - at an absolute minimum. And good freakin' riddance.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6904
Highland Aerosports 2016 Season News

Jim Rooney - 2016/02/25 22:04:23 UTC

Hi Joe.
Yeah, she's a squirrely little demon isn't she ?

Yeah. 'Specially if you can't climb out in the early morning with a tandem, wave it off, climb to a couple hundred feet back over the middle of the runway, and make a rookie mistake - nobody ever identifies specifically.

But then, if it was easy then it wouldn't be fun would it?

Nah. So if it ever gets easy try adding an ounce of water to the fuel tank so you can practice inconvenience takeoffs - like we do. Try to do it just in thermal conditions to make it even more fun.

I do love flying that crazy little plane.

Yeah, it's a pity you don't love it enough to fly it for the 2016 season, keep Highland Aerosports from imploding, support the flying community that Highland exploited to get itself off the ground in 1999.

I got to fly a King Air with Rick once (thanks!!!)...

Fuck Ric (Niehaus).

...he clued me into an old aviation truism...

Screw over to the maximum extent possible anybody whom you think you can take advantage of.

I was a bit hesitant about taking the yolk of such a beast...

I would be too. Gets your hands pretty gooey.

...when he said... The bigger they are, the easier they fly.

And the smaller the penis the bigger the engine.

True to his word...

...which is worth total shit as far as I'm concerned...

...that thing cut through the air like butter... it was like flying a Cadillac.

Great. Just what I always wanted in hang gliding. Cut through the air like butter. Then I don't shockload my Rooney Link and have a chance of getting up to 2.5 K for a relaxing evening sled ride.

Like many things in aviation...

Oh...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=939
Weak link breaks?

Jim Rooney - 2005/08/31 23:46:25

As with many changes in avaition, change is approached with a bit of skepticism. Rightfully so. There's something to be said for "tried and true" methods... by strapping on somehting new, you become a test pilot. The unknown and unforseen become your greatest risk factors. It's up to each of us to individually asses the risks/rewards for ourselves.

You finally learned to spell it. Did you use a dictionary or just a lot of trail and error?

...that was counter-intuitive. Like the higher you are, the safer you are.

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

Jim Rooney - 2007/08/01 19:49:30

It's more of this crappy argument that being on tow is somehow safer than being off tow.

For more control, go faster.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3661
Flying the 914 Dragonfly

Jim Rooney - 2008/12/06 20:01:49 UTC

You will only ever need full throttle for the first fifty feet of a tandem tow. Don't ever pull a solo at full throttle... they will not be able to climb with you. You can tow them at 28 mph and you'll still leave them in the dust... they just won't be able to climb with you... weaklinks will go left and right.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9230
Departing the launch cart

Jim Rooney - 2007/09/01 02:39:53 UTC

I don't tow solos under full power... you could't keep up with me if I did. I wouldn't be going faster horizontally, but my accelleration and climb rate would be so extreme that most pilots couldn't keep up the timing needed to make it work. (I think Bo's the only one I've successfully towed at full boost)

Which brings us to the reason to have a 914 in the first place... you need one.
Something made you get a 914 instead of a 582. 914s are horribly expensive to own and maintain. If you own one, you need it... it's a safety thing. Short runways, tall trees, whatever. You've got a 914 to increase your safety margin. So when it comes down to my safety or having a conversation, we're going to have a conversation. Wether you chose to adjust is then up to you.

To prevent plummeting at the earth, point your nose at it.

09-00628
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1517/24907340511_e0696ea696_o.png


http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1461/24882605932_14a37e9798_o.png
15-00921
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRrpHNa68iY/UQ6Pv9gRZyI/AAAAAAAAjTg/Hc22bx5122Q/s2048/20943781_BG1.jpg


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

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/05 19:42:58 UTC

My god my head hurts.

Wow...
So you know what happened then?
OMG... thank you for your expert accident analysis. You better fly down to FL and let them know. I'm sure they'll be very thankful to have such a crack expert mind on the case analyzing an accident that you know nothing about. Far better data than the people that were actually there. In short... get fucked.

There's a lot of backwards things in aviation.

Like allowing some vile little brain damaged gas guzzling parasite to get into a position of control of a recreational glider soaring sport.

The dragonfly is the other side of the "bigger" coin. If the bigger they are, the easier they fly... then the smaller they are, the harder they fly.

And a tandem glider with passenger is pretty hard to fly for a Pilot In Command dangling from the basetube. So you just land it as safely as possible in whatever stretch of powerlines happens to be most readily available.

Now, it's just a rule of thumb...

Like:

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

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.

the dragonfly isn't impossible to learn...

But close. You really need someone oozing Righteous Stuff outta all his orifices to make it work right. Plus a really good tow mast breakaway protector.

...but it does catch a lot of GA guys out. "Oh, that little thing?"... "Yeah, I can fly that.. hold my beer, watch this".

Yeah, I'm sure that happens all the time. It's amazing that Bailey-Moyes is able to maintain enough production to handle the replacements.

Fortunately there's (a lot of) guys like Joe out there too who "get it" and approach the dragonfly with the right mindset (lets see what this thing's gonna do).

The others - like Keavy Nenninger, Charles Matthews, Mark Knight - are all dead.

There are some fantastic GA->TugPilot converts out there. It's a pre-requisite these days.

What was it like back in the Great War when you guys where pioneering their ways into the skies?

But yeah, it's not an overnight process either. And yeah, as Zach puts it, it's a "perishable skill".

Good. It can perish along with Highland Aerosports and as many of the other operations we have a chance of taking out.

Let's get Windsor out of retirement
Jim

And/Or Chad, Les, Keavy.

Well, it's been another week now. Guess we weren't able to get Windsor out of retirement.

P.S. Fuck Windsor.

[Tad Eareckson]

Tad Eareckson - 2011/08/15 15:08:37 UTC

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4979
Very sad news from Ridgely : Keavy Nenninger

Ward Odenwald - 2011/07/25 02:53:43 UTC

When she wasn't towing us aloft, she was making sure that we had a safe start.

Did she make sure everybody:
- had the Quallaby release lever snugly velcroed to the starboard downtube?

Or, what the hell...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/download/file.php?id=1146&mode=view


PORT downtube.

No Ward, from the first day, 1999/05/28, to the last, 2015/11/08, nobody had a single safe start at that dump. Dangerous incompetent personnel and training and crap equipment deliberately designed to be dangerous. Lives were trashed, destroyed, and ended there and they left hang gliding in way worse condition than they found it. Fuck 'em all and the horses they rode in on.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34145
USHPA BOD meeting

Richard Palmon - 2016/03/12 05:50:11 UTC

I would like to take into consideration the nature of the claims?

Independent or Large school. In the history of hang gliding instruction. Has there ever been a claim while a student is earning their HG1 or 2? In 30 years of teaching. I myself haven't heard of any claims coming from the training hills or against instructors. Yet the financial burden is going to fall on the instructors who do our best to keep interest and growth within our sport.

There was one incident where there may have been a claim? It was on a tow system.

Well, not really...

http://www.ocala.com/article/20160219/ARTICLES/160219707?p=1&tc=pg
Hang glider had dreamed of flying solo from a mountain | Ocala.com

Austin L. Miller - 2016/02/19 16:13 EST

Donovan said they cut the power and the nose of the glider may have popped up.

He HAD been on tow but they fixed whatever was going by cutting the power so it was, for all intents and purposes, a free flight incident precipitated by inadequate landing skills.

I also received word of mouth info (grain of salt). That the incident after the fact was treated extremely poorly.

What? Ya think there might be some degree of disagreement about this issue?

Ryan Voight - 2016/03/12 14:38:40 UTC

Just a month or two ago...

Just a month or two ago... Not a big enough fuckin' deal to bother with the actual date. (2016/02/02)

...there was a H1...

...without a name...

...training towards H2...

Tomas Banevicius - West Harrison, New York - 97154 - H2 - 2016/01/29 - James Donovan - FL FSL - Exp: 2016/10/31

His SECOND Hang Two. You can't have too many backups.

...fatally injured...

He wasn't FATALLY INJURED, motherfucker. He was KILLED - by a Voight Twins Enterprises spinoff operation.

I don't know if litigation has or will be involved...

Takes a while to know whether or not it WILL BE involved.

...but surely the potential exists

And it's a pretty good bet that Ryan Instant-Hands-Free-Release Voight knows that the incident after the fact WAS treated extremely poorly 'cause he's offering no comment to the contrary. Probably left a bit to be desired BEFORE the fact too - but that's just speculation and we're not permitted to do that.

Brian Scharp - 2016/03/12 16:21:06 UTC

Wasn't he a new H2?

Probably not. Ryan said he was a One training towards a Two and if anyone would know it would be Ryan.

Ryan Voight - 2016/03/13 04:52:59 UTC

possibly? I don't think he had done his first mountain flight yet...

And you've gotta do your first mountain flight - in a forced upright training harness - before you're allowed to get your Two. It's in the SOPs.

Fuckin' asshole.

The rest of this thread... Pretty good evidence that we're watching the collapse of US hang gliding. Losing altitude at an ever increasing rate, flight not sustainable. How could things possibly be otherwise just with what we've just seen from highly positioned u$hPa player and operative Ryan Voight?

[<BS>]

There was one incident where there may have been a claim? It was on a tow system.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=30306
Non-fatal crash in Tres Pinos, CA

[Tad Eareckson]

Picking up from Brian's:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post9139.html#p9139

Yep. Totally nails it. And the more I see of that asshole and his groupies the more I'm reminded of Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney and the groupies he used to have before he out-Drumpfed Drumpf to the extent that even the assholes who infest hang gliding developed enough of a critical mass to identify the naked emperor.

The similarities are so stunning that it's almost impossible to believe that hang gliding's version wasn't cloned from a cell harvested from Donald's ass.

Further thoughts on:

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30912
Death at Quest Air

Jim Rooney - 2013/02/03 10:57:17 UTC

I hate getting "that" phone call. I got it this morning.
I'm considering becoming an asshole. With all the nice people dying, it just seems safer. So kiss my ass.

I met Zach up at Morningside.
Zach was hard not to like... and hard not to like instantly.

He will be sorely missed.

Somebody tell me he detects a molecule's worth of genuine feeling for another formerly living thing - that there's room for one after he's done with the self promotion.

I hate getting "that" phone call. I got it this morning.
I'm considering becoming an asshole. With all the nice people dying, it just seems safer. So kiss my ass.

I met Zach up at Morningside.
Zach was hard not to like... and hard not to like instantly.

He will be sorely missed.

Thanks for finding the time to insert a couple of boilerplate comments about Zack - and coming reasonably close (75 percent) to spelling his name right - in addition to telling us all about yourself.

I'm a great person 'cause I got "that" phone call this morning while all you muppets had to find it on the wire late in the afternoon. (And is anybody stupid enough to think that there was no discussion about the cause of the "fluke accident" and the implications that are about shake the industry to its core, destroy the reputations of thousands of snake oil salesmen and supporters, change the course of hang gliding history.)

Gee. I wonder why *I* didn't get "that" phone call. Everybody and his fuckin' dog knows what I'm gonna be doing...

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

Kinsley Sykes - 2013/02/09 23:49:42 UTC

I am very hard pressed to come up with a scenario where I would want my weaklink not to break when it's loaded up. Conversely, I can think of several times on tow where I was glad it did. Usually I was just about to release cause things were going from bad to worse and POP, I was flying myself and things worked out.

I get pretty torqued up at the "strong weak link" advocates who come out of the woodwork when something like this happens and use it to say "see, this proves my/our point". This, in spite of not being there and only having second hand information to make this point. If you believe that fine, knock yourself out, but don't use BS like "this wouldn't have happened if only you had listened to me".

I have the greatest respect of Paul and Mark and their willingness to share what they know. I have zero respect for those who are using a tragedy to advocate a particular position, particularly when there is no proven link between their point and this accident.

...the nanosecond after the story breaks. I wonder why nobody called me up to get me straight on what really happened, to the best of everyone's knowledge at that point, and help me understand why the Rooney Link inconvenience had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the outcome of this mysterious fluke accident.

I'm so devastated by the fifth death of one of my, quite literally, hundreds of thousands of close friends that I'm going to do a full 180 from my life's progression and become a total asshole. I can't see any other way to free myself from the oppressive shroud of unrelenting grief. So kiss my ass.

I'm going to write, "Zach was hard not to like... and hard not to like instantly." because I like hearing myself talk.

With all the nice people dying, it just seems safer.

To become a total asshole - in order to spare myself from all the unpleasant feelings associated with all the deaths of all my close friends. Nothing about transforming myself from the mega asshole I already am and doing shit to understand why all the nice people are dying and start doing things differently to achieve different results.

Also... Note we're totally onboard with:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=32681
Tandem crash in LV (speculation thread)

Mark G. Forbes - 2015/04/01 03:46:29 UTC

Among ourselves, we agree (via the waiver) that we understand we're engaged in a risky sport that can cause serious injury or death. We each agree that we are personally and individually responsible for our own safety. If we have an accident and get hurt, we agree in advance that it is solely our own fault, no matter what the circumstances might be. We sign at the bottom saying that we fully understand these things, that we accept them, and that we know we are giving up the right to sue anybody if an accident happens.

Those are fundamental tenets of our sport. We are all individually responsible for ourselves and our safety. We need to see and avoid all other pilots, avoid crashing into people or property and use good judgment when flying. If someone doesn't agree with those principles, then they don't need to be involved in our sport.

With the notable exception of the one at hand 'cause he was one of the Kool Kids. So we've already determined that we'll never really know what happened.

I met Zach up at Morningside.

That's it, people of varying ages. Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney crossed paths ONCE - up at Morningside. This sociopath is selling himself as being the center of the hang gliding universe and wants to paint a picture of himself as intimately and extensively knowing everything about everyone who's anyone and everything that halfway matters. Didn't even engage with him in any conversation of any significance. We know this 'cause we know if he'd had anything to trot out and use to inflate his relevance he would have. And there's zero documentation of any contact beyond what we just heard.

And if you can't even spell his four letter name right it's unlikely that you've even bothered to watch or review any of his videos to get a feel for who he was (And his videos are pretty good videos - artistically speaking.)

Zach was hard not to like... and hard not to like instantly.

And if you're not onto Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney game you'll assume that he's saying HE liked him... and liked him instantly. But since the contact didn't endure an entire instant...

Care to go into any detail of WHY "Zach" was hard not to like instantly? Just kidding. And let's not forget that anyone Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney would find hard not to like instantly would be in serious need of having a stake driven through his heart immediately. Look no further than every other surviving individuals Rooney's advertised as friends and who haven't disavowed him - Straub, Kroop, Shipley. I'll amend if I can come up with other names.

He will be sorely missed.

But not by me, obviously, 'cause I only met him one time and just long enough to realize that my efforts to not like him were cutting into my efforts to promote myself and silence all the people with functional brains who've been screaming for years that a Rooney Link pop at the worst possible time, with the glider climbing hard in a near stall situation, may not do all that much to increase the safety of the towing operation.

Perhaps at some point after your grief has faded enough for you to talk about Zach without dissolving into tears you could tell us about one of the magical times you had together in which you were trying hard not to like him instantly so we muppets will know something about him beyond what we've seen in his videos.

You wanna see some posts by actual human beings expressing actual human thoughts, feelings, emotions, reactions in response to the sudden death of an individual who actually meant something to them?

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34002
Fatality reported at McClure--Ken Muscio

There's some very genuine shock, sadness, pain, grief, depression being expressed over there. And NONE of it bears the slightest resemblance to the crap we're seeing from this asshole. I've got no great love for the McClure crowd and if Ken did anything to advance the sport, help fix a problem I haven't heard about it. And if I haven't heard about it I can one hundred percent guarantee you that people who might benefit haven't EITHER. But I do tear up reading the posts of the people who were actually hit hard by that one.

Jim Rooney - 2013/02/03 10:57:17 UTC

I hate getting "that" phone call. I got it this morning.
I'm considering becoming an asshole. With all the nice people dying, it just seems safer. So kiss my ass.

I met Zach up at Morningside.
Zach was hard not to like... and hard not to like instantly.

He will be sorely missed.

[<BS>]

particularly when there is no proven link between their point and this accident.

Probably should've gone with association.