I took the opportunity to get Betinho's and Ollie's computers operating on the Internet. In return I got some copies of a few of the photos that Ollie took last year at Hay. Ollie hadn't made an electronic version of his most famous photo though.
This is a classic shot of a pilot flat on the ground (he was unconscious for a few seconds). He had just come off the dolly and broken a weaklink. The glider is nose down on top of the pilot with its nose planted on the pilot's helmet.
Ollie was strongly discouraged from ever publishing this photo, for obvious reasons.
The link will take you to a website that is mostly the raintings by a couple of outspoken, ill-manndered individuals who denounce everyone else as idiots.
A weak link is often fitted to the rope to ensure that any sudden loads do not damage the airframe of the tow-plane or the glider. Under extreme loads the weak link will fail before any part of the glider or plane fails.
It's a really good system Greg. I like the fact that it stays attached all the time, automatically resets it's position when you break down the glider, is easy to access and stow away from the hooked-in-ready-to-launch state, and of course completely disappears when you tuck it under the nose cone causing no parasitic drag. I think I will put something like that together for myself.
Stephan Mentler - 2013/10/10 18:12:06 UTC
Pensacola
My reason for researching this is that I believe that there has to be a better way to land a hang glider than a full flare tailslide, yet that seems to be the only method accepted as legitimate to be a hang glider pilot. The obsession with the flare landing is so great that I have witnessed pilots make the terrible decision to kick out of their harness and rapidly grab the downtubes and do a full flare foot landing, as they have been trained to do, only to crash when the situation and conditions called for something different. In all of the cases the pilots would have been better off to belly land. At least one of the pilots gave up hang gliding.
The psychology that the only acceptable landing is a full flare no-stepper is definitely poorly considered, and has indeed caused more than its fair share of damage. The goal is to land your aircraft safely with no damage to yourself or the glider or to property.
