Exhaustive trial period complete.davisstraub wrote:Spoke with Oleg Bondarchuk today. He said he used a very similar system when he worked with Gérard Thévenot at La Mouette. He now uses the standardized barrel release with a bridle.
When first learning he used the Russian Mouth Release. Doesn't like them.
Fuckin' gold mine.Tony Russo - 2016/08/14
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I made the trip to Virginia Hang Gliding in just under an hour. I was visiting the airfield as part of my whirlwind tour of the Eastern Shore of Virginia (ESVA). Mostly, I wanted to get photos of different places, because Virginia's Eastern Shore is one of the great underestimated destinations for lazily driving around looking at scenery and poking into the different shops and attractions to be seen in the tiny out of the way towns. As I was planning out my day, though, I thought it was important to build it around a particular destination. After all, if you want peaceful, meandering country toads and 19th century style down towns, there are no lack of them here in Worcester County, nor in Southern Delaware. But what if there was something ESVA had that we didn't? What attraction would be worth the drive?
Virginia Hang Gliding was the quick and easy answer. It already is a massive attraction for people visiting Virginia Beach, which was what first clued me that there was something unique about the experience. People in Virginia Beach were crossing the Bay Bridge Tunnel just for the opportunity to participate in hang gliding, there probably was something about the flight that made the ride worth taking. So I charged up my camera and headed down.
Bill McCarter, one of the owners, met me at my car. We talked about the ride, which had been uneventful. It is a straight shot down Route 113 to Pocomoke and then a left at mile 103 in Virginia along Route 13, three turns between my office and his. He showed me around the grounds, which consisted of a hangar with a kind of lean to for relief from the sun, and plenty of space for the gliders to take off and land.
I met Jean-Gui and his 11-year-old niece, Eva, who had just finished their morning flights. Jean-Gui was a return customer. Although he doesn't have use of his legs, Jean-Gui is an extreme sports enthusiast who includes skiing, handcycling and aerosports like hang gliding in his repertoire. He had been to Virginia Hang Gliding the year before and wanted to come again. This summer he was taking his niece to Disney, road-tripping down the coast from their native Canada and he wanted to make certain she had a chance to try. She had done well and Donnie Guynn, Bill's partner, presented her with the tow line that had been used in their flight. It had the look of baker's string but was tested well above 1,500 pounds.
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Eva holds up the string used to tether the hang glider to the tow-plane. It's tested to above 1,500 pounds.
Non-traditional hang gliding
Virginia Hang Gliding uses a couple of different planes that look a little like ultra-lites, to tow people up to 8,000 feet in the air. It may sound improbable and, before he got into the business, towing hang gliders to cruising altitude sounded more than a little improbable to Bill, who already had been a veteran flier. Like many of us, Bill thought of hang gliding as something that required the right wind and cliffs from which to jump. Once he saw the possibilities that came with tow hang gliding, though, he knew he had to get involved.
It works like this:
Every hang glider is set up for two people, a pilot and a passenger. Each gets into a black nylon apparatus that looks like a cross between a sleeping bag and overalls. The passenger is strapped in above the pilot and the two hang separately from the glider superstructure. The glider is towed along on its three-point wheels behind the plane and, after only seconds of taxiing, is airborne. I saw several take-offs and landing and never ceased to be amazed at the ease with which the whole thing occurred.
Once airborne, the plane spirals upward with the hang glider in tow until it reaches the pre-agreed upon altitude. Some people go as high as 5,300 feet, some just around 2,000. Once detached the pilot guides the glider to the ground in a tightening spiral and lands in the massive field from which the excursion began. The entire flight is filmed from start to finish including what amounts to a commentary track of the banter between the pilot and the passenger.
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A family hang gliding trip is the perfect way to put an exclamation point on your vacation.
A perfect family day trip
The Berlinski family had driven up for the day to knock around the Shore and to spend the morning hang gliding. They were in the middle of the safety training that accompanies every flight. Mark Frutiger, an experienced pilot and long time hand glider operator, took the family through what to expect from their flight and explained the safety protocols Virginia Hang Gliding puts in place to keep everyone safe and happy. By the time they each had taken their turn and had their photo taken in front of the hang glider, the assemblage was abuzz with stories comparing experiences.
Because of its position on the peninsula, Virginia Hang Gliding can offer people the opportunity to see both the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay at once during the flight. It gives you a great sense of place and, even though you are thousands of feet in the air, helps solidify your connection to the nature and beauty of the Shore.
It wasn't quite noon and the family had the rest of the day ahead of them. There would be lunch, probably some swimming and sightseeing. They weren't quite 20 minutes from Wallops Island and Chincoteague and could visit both and still be home in plenty of time for a nap before a late dinner. By then the adrenaline would have worn off, but the memory of the experience together is something that surely would help define their summer and spur conversation and reminiscing for decades to come.
For more information about Virginia Hang Gliding visit:
http://www.virginiahanggliding.com/
Do GUY passengers also get to hold on tight to their male pilots the whole flight? Do you charge extra for that extra level of thrill?
- Is the release...From our own 25-acre facility, we use a specially designed light-sport airplane called a Dragonfly...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skysailingtowing/message/4633USAFlytec - 2001/07/14
Steve Kroop - Russell Brown - Bob Lane - Jim Prahl - Campbell Bowen
The tail section of the Dragonfly is designed so that it can accept in-line as well as lateral loads. Furthermore the mast extension, which is part of the tow system, is designed to break away in the event of excessive in-line or lateral loads. The force required to cause a breakaway is roughly equivalent to the force required to break the double weaklink used on the tail bridle. More simply put, the mast would break away long before any structural damage to the aircraft would occur.
What's the current "thinking" on that?Steve Kroop - 2005/02/10 04:50:59 UTC
On the tow plane we use 1-1/2 loops (3 strands) of 130# line. The weak link is placed in the top of a V-bridal which would yield a maximum nominal towline tension of around 780#. However, due to the fact the knots (two are required since there are three strands) are not "buried" the maximum towline tension is greatly reduced. I do not know the exact tow line tension required to break this weak link but the value is somewhat moot since the weak link is not too strong so as to cause any damage to the tow plane and it is not too weak to leave the glider pilot with the towline.
Can't you just tow the tandem glider to two thousand feet, release, then soar up to 5300 feet?...to tow the tandem glider to altitudes between 2000 and 5300 feet.
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467The Dragonfly climbs at only 30 mph, so your powered ascent is both peaceful and breathtaking.
Jim Rooney - 2007/08/01 19:49:30 UTC
It's more of this crappy argument that being on tow is somehow safer than being off tow.
...and paid in advance for...At your selected...
...the passenger......altitude, the glider with you...
...makes the easy reach to his Industry Standard bicycle brake lever firmly velcroed onto the starboard downtube......and your pilot...
06-02914...and releases...
- Soars? So you only do this in soaring conditions? And if you sled out you get a full refund?...and soars...
- But you can't actually SOAR....above the Eastern Shore, with Virginia Beach/Norfolk/Hampton Roads to the south and Chincoteague to the north. You can float peacefully or opt for heart-pounding aerobatics...
What if you have to land in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place? Shouldn't you be prepared for a foot landing and work on getting your flare timing perfected?...and then land softly and slowly back at Painter Field on the glider's own landing gear.
- Wasn't there supposed to be another quotation mark somewhere following the one before "float"? Do you practice your aeronautical business with the same competence and care you exercise grade level school English?You can "float through the sky like a bird in the way you might have imagined but never dreamed was really possible.
I'll bet you can find people at both of those figures who know enough to use a period at the end of a sentence.We fly ages 4 to 104
- Yeah. PASSENGERS. Not a shadow of a ghost of a pretense of INSTRUCTION - which was/is the only justification for the FAA's granting of the tandem exemption.Our glider is rated for passengers up to 250 pounds.
Fifteen hundred pound weak link on the top end of a two point bridle, over twenty-six hundred pounds towline, four and a half Gs MINIMUM.She had done well and Donnie Guynn, Bill's partner, presented her with the tow line that had been used in their flight. It had the look of baker's string but was tested well above 1,500 pounds.
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Eva holds up the string used to tether the hang glider to the tow-plane. It's tested to above 1,500 pounds.
Jim Rooney - 2011/08/28 10:40:24 UTC
Is a weaklink going to save your ass? Who knows? But it's nice to stack the deck in your favour.
Now flip the argument and you start to see the devil.
A glider can take a whole shitload more force than a weaklink can.
So, if you're of the "sole purpose" cult, then you see no issue with a LOT stronger weaklink.
Well, it won't take long with that system before we've got a lot more dead pilots out there.
So they can stuff their philosophical purity bs... cuz I have no desire to tow someone to their death, no matter how willing they may be.
I'm not playing with this stuff in my head and just dismissing it. There's been a lot that's gone into this system.
I've seen too many people walk the "strong link" road only to find out the reality of things.
Fortunately, they've been unscathed, but there have been a lot of soiled underpants in the process.
I'm happy to discuss this stuff.
But I'm sick to death of arguing about it.
And for the love o' gawd don't put another weak link on the BOTTOM end of the bridle... That'll double the max towline tension to well over nine Gs and that can stall the tug.Dr. Trisa Tilletti - 2012/06
If tandem operators think that, practically, a 520 lb. double loop weak link is too much for a tandem, it is way too much for a solo pilot.
2013/02/02 Zack Marzec inconvenience fatality... Definitive end of the standard aerotow weak link Ponzi scheme. But, of course, hang gliding being hang gliding it just plunged everybody another thousand feet into the depths of stupidity and insanity.Zack C - 2012/06/02 02:20:45 UTC
I just cannot fathom how our sport can be so screwed up.
------------- 2,000 ft -------------_-------------- 3,500 ft ---------------_-------------- 5,300 ft ---------------_
--------------- $179 ---------------_----------------- $299 -----------------_---------------- $399 -----------------_
...to be) well over fifteen hundred pounds - right in line with u$hPa's recommendation for a weak link that will break consistently in accordance with one's expectations. (Remember that in hang glider aerotowing...Dr. Trisa Tilletti - 2012/06
We could get into details of lab testing weak links and bridles, but this article is already getting long. That would be a good topic for an article in the future. Besides, with our backgrounds in formal research, you and I both know that lab tests may produce results with good internal validity, but are often weak in regard to external validity--meaning lab conditions cannot completely include all the factors and variability that exists in the big, real world.
...it doesn't matter whether the weak link is on the end of a towline or bridle. Well over fifteen hundred pounds - everybody's doing everything right and by the book.)Quest Air Hang Gliding
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.
And everybody be sure to keep flying the same cheap pro toad easily reachable bent pin crap along with the appropriate weak link that enabled Jeff to die doing what he loved two days shy of five months ago. He'd have most assuredly wanted it that way and to do otherwise would be to dishonor his memory.Ttsjeff - 2016/10/17 14:10:13 UTC
This past weekend we had 28 pilots attend the xc clinics hosted by cowboy up in Wharton TX. Robin Hamilton and Zac Majors were available to discuss topics of lift, weather, xc skies etc. We set tasks for both Sat and Sunday and saw multiple pilots out enjoying the Texas xc weather! Great turnout Saturday evening to celebrate Jeff Bohl and have a great party with the night capped off with fire dancing! Zac brought a nice mix of demo gliders (went home with two less than he showed up with) from wills wing.
There are discussions of making this an annual event. Fall flying in Texas is wonderful. Look for details next year and come down and fly with is!
Meanwhile, back in REAL world...Ryan Voight - 2010/09/07 02:50:00 UTC
Weak link in truck towing WILL (read: should) still break in a lockout situation... but as everyone has already pointed out, it takes a lot longer because the glider can continue to pull line off the winch.
There is a limit to how fast line can come off the winch though... so the forces still build up, and the weaklink still fails.
20-25912THE SKYTING CRITERIA
2. CONSTANT TENSION
The tension in the towline must remain essentially constant throughout every phase of the towed flight.
Right. The way those stupid geese struck US Airways 1549.Tyson Taylor - 2016/10/31 06:34
We all couldn't believe what we were seeing! Sir Rich's cart tangled to his harness.
Yes. If ever there was a stills set of an AT pilot doing the right thing...He did the right thing...
Since making the easy reach to his pro toad barrel release wasn't an actual option - even if it WAS a straight pin....and flew it all the way up to altitude...
...and demolished......got his hook knife and released...
Yes. Always DOUBLE check. All his lines were properly stowed at the time of the FIRST check....the cart. Always double check for loose lines while on the cart!
Totally righteous stuff.Jeff Kannard - 2016/10/31 06:42
What. Good flying sir Richard!
Nah, in was some of the Rube Goldberg crap flowing off of Tad's "release" system.Was it the vg?
- I'm gonna let you slide on that one. Inserted text error.Richard Thorp - 2016/10/31 07:06
I will post a write up on the HHGA emai later this eveningl...
Oh. So we should PREFLIGHT obvious critical stuff before committing to launch?- but the 2 most important lessons are: 1. Check for loose lines...
- How 'bout if we're NOT...- and 2. if you are flying and climbing,,continue - it gives thinking time and if needed parachute opening time
Great job, Tiki. Obviously a high class operation. And what is it your cart monkeys check for prior to signaling the tug? Inappropriate weak links?Richard Thorp - 2016/10/31 07:10
But I do want to say a heartfelt thank you to Tiki for the smoothest tow ever and giving that thinking time
The org's already got all the knowledge worth having.Janica Schmanika (Lee) - 2016/10/31 07:19
Lifted for a share to spread knowledge on the org.
Thank you for sharing + glad you are safe.
Any thoughts on the cart? Did it deserve to get turned to scrap for the offense of tangling to Richard's harness? It couldn't have been let off with a warning?William Smithson - 2016/10/31 07:24
Holy smokes! Glad you're okay Richard Thorp
Instead of WHAT? Name a single cart dragger from the entire history of AT fuckups who's done something else.Rich Diamond - 2016/10/31 08:51
i am so glad cool head prevailed and you made a good decision to FLY the GLIDER, then cut the line away.
Good ol' Bart n Tiki. They can both suck my dick.thanks to Bart n Tiki
Yeah, terrible pity that Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney is still down in Queenstown recovering from back surgery and assisting the CAA in another Coronet Peak tandem thrill ride crash investigation instead of up here pulling us off of runways and telling us how well he's got everything sussed out.carts can be replaced, people Cant
Hey Bart & Tiki, if you need any help with telling your cart monkeys what to look for before signaling the tug gimme a call. Or hell, just gimme a call anyway so's we can chew the fat for a while.Rich Diamond - 2016/10/31 10:21
Bart & Tiki, if you need any tubing to rebuild the cart, let me know.
Dickhead.Tom Lyon - 2016/10/31 10:58
That is so scary. Incredible composure. Thank goodness.
Yeah, this is a great wake-up call for AT preflight. Reminds me of the great wake-up call we got from Rafi Lavin regarding sidewire stomp tests.Tom Lyon - 2016/10/31 11:01
Tracy Tillman, please review for our safety briefing when we get started again next spring. Zipper line on a harness caught the cart.
And posting a report where only HHPA dickheads will be able to see it. Keep up the great work.Eugene M Bumbacco - 2016/10/31 12:20
Glad your talking about it.
Me too - after harvesting, cropping, uploading, grabbing image addresses for, cataloguing the low rez crap from the above URL. (What's here now is the good stuff.)Davis Straub - 2016/10/31 13:54
Saw the high resolution versions.
Keep up the great work, guys. So who was it who...George Longshore - 2016/10/31 08:27
Good call Tiki! He certainly needs a hug after that and I am sure you do too!!!
...signed Richard off on his AT rating?Richard Thorp - 79628
- H2 - 2002/08/09 - Christian Thoreson
- H3 - 2015/05/02 - Michael Howard
-- AT FL CL FSL RLF TUR XC
20Takeo Eda - 2016/10/31 10:36
Glad you guys are ok!
