landing

[Steve Davy]

The ocean isn't wheel or foot landable. Amazingly even glider drivers have figured out that it's not a real good idea to land in the ocean. Given a few more decades I suspect glider drivers will figure out that landing in fields of Star Thistle or boulders isn't such a good idea either.

[Tad Eareckson]

The problem is that the industry is smart enough to have figured out that it can make more money on lessons, clinics, and downtubes if it convinces the student that landing in a field of Star Thistle, boulders, or both is inevitable and that he therefore must dedicate every landing of his career preparing for that moment but too fucking stupid to figure out that in the big picture it's making less money because huge numbers of students and flyers are consequently being crashed, injured, crippled, and killed out of the sport and the landing it's mandating is so...

Gil Dodgen - 1995/01

All of this reminds me of a comment Mike Meier made when he was learning to fly sailplanes. He mentioned how easy it was to land a sailplane (with spoilers for glide-path control and wheels), and then said, "If other aircraft were as difficult to land as hang gliders no one would fly them."

...difficult and...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26379
Landings

Jim Rooney - 2012/01/21 04:49:59 UTC

It's fun as hell. Up hill, down hill, into wind, with the wind, cross wind... who cares? You're on wheels. Over and over and over.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27415
Friday the 19th with Hawks & Friends!

NMERider - 2012/10/24 21:47:05 UTC

I have to say that landing on the wheels is so much fun it's not funny.

...stressful that people are electing not to fly hang gliders at all.

The ONLY reason people fly hang gliders is to have fun. Make the sport safe, easy, and fun and more people will fly and fly longer careers. Make every return to earth a dangerous emergency drill which requires a lifetime of dedicated practice and...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=25536
Whoops! Snapped another tip wand :-O

NMERider - 2012/03/14 15:17:14 UTC

His one-technique-fits-all attitude espoused on the Oz Report Forum has become tiresome to read. It does not work in the fucked-up world of XC landings and weary pilots.

...reading hundreds of posts worth of crap from Rooney...

[miguel]

one of these



one of these



Start at a low level. Run, launch, land. Repeat until you feel it and can do it consistantly.
Move up a level and repeat, repeat, repeat.
If you know the basics, you do not need an instructor.
Simple repetition until it is muscle memory.
A prudent pilot will have good foot landing skills.
Afraid of spiral fractures?

[Tad Eareckson]

Where are most of the cameras located that take the landing pics?

Everywhere. Nowadays there's hardly anything interesting that ever happens with a hang glider that isn't recorded by at least five cameras.

Did you guess the lz?

Plus the two or three on the glider.

Why would anyone with a video camera, hang out in a star thistle field or a landing area where wheels will not roll, waiting to take a picture?

When they can get totally awesome shit like THIS:

http://vimeo.com/15736239

B crash @ Pack 10/11/10
password - red

about every third or fourth flight just hanging out in the primary? You're right. That would be totally insane. Even with the added attraction of somebody being impaled in the thistle field because his flare timing was a bit off one way or the other the primary would still be the right call. And, hell, there's always the chance that someone will fly into the windsock pole...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBMDjomY2Mw


32-1901

...and snap an arm in half.

At McClure most all of the videos are taken in the lz, near the beer.

I like that - even more incentive not to land in stupid places. I'm thinking that we should institute an SOP mandating a big cooler of beer and maybe an ounce or two of medicinal marijuana along with a windsock in all USHGA Chapter controlled primaries.

You never see the landings in the upper lz or lakebed.

1. So I'm assuming that an attempt to wheel land in the upper LZ would spell certain death. So what's the attraction that makes it worth the extreme risk?

2. Lakebed. Can't imagine anybody doing a wheel landing in a lakebed and living to tell about it.

You never see landings, in Coulterville, or any of the landable areas on the way to Yosemite, Mariposa, Fresno or Sonora.

Many of those landing areas are not wheel landable.

For any given flyer you can predict that the landing he does out in the thistle and boulder fields will - on the average - be worse than the one he does in the familiar, flat, well groomed, windsock and ribbon festooned primary. If he ends up on his face one landing out of ten in the primary he's gonna end up on his face two landings out of ten in the thistle and boulder fields - and he's gonna go down harder.

Most of the XC pilots are not Youtube stars.

Fuck XC pilots. If they wanna push their luck landing in dangerous terrain they can knock themselves out. But they've got no business controlling the rating requirements and brainwashing all sub Hang Ones into believing that XC is the ONLY way ANYONE can TRULY enjoy hang gliding and...

Zack C - 2012/03/29 04:49:14 UTC

Conventional hang gliding wisdom says that you need to develop good foot landing skills because otherwise you'd be severely restricting the places at which you could fly (and XC would be out of the question). Tad has gotten me to question much of hang gliding's conventional wisdom. So far in my hang gliding career, I've landed in 27 LZs. Two were at lakes where I landed on floats...the rest were all places I foot landed. Sixteen were at mountain/hill sites. Three were at the end of XC flights (i.e., not predesignated). Locations ranged from SoCal to Florida, Mexico to Utah. I would not hesitate to land in ANY of them with 8" pneumatic tires. In fact, after last weekend I wouldn't hesitate to land in the vast majority of them with my minuscule plastic wheels. Even tall grass may not be an issue...I think you could do a hard push out and belly flop just fine in tall grass without any wheels. So far, the warnings I've been hearing throughout my career appear to be unfounded.

...that XC is totally out of the question unless/until foot landings have been perfected.

NMERider is no way in hell a typical hang glider pilot. The VAST majority of participants are quite content doing ALL their landings over their entire careers at the McClure, Kagel, Lookout, Woodstock, Funston, and Torrey primaries and back at the airports whence they were pulled up. And Jonathan's getting hurt and tired of doing what he's doing.

XC is no more a necessary goal in hang gliding than aerobatics and it should be no more emphasized in the training and rating programs than aerobatics. And if a few testosterone poisoned Hang Threes are just so bored out of their skulls landing at the McClure primary at the conclusions of their two or three hours of thermalling they should feel perfectly free to start perfecting their standup landings and/or loops on their own and/or by attending Ryan Fucking Voight clinics.

And DO note that while USHGA has Restricted Landing Field Special Skill signoff for demonstrating the ability to land in a square football field and an XC Special Skill signoff for demonstrating the ability to recognize a SAFE landing area from the air and determine and execute a safe approach and landing, accounting for wind direction, rotors, obstacles, power lines, ground slope, vegetation, etc. there are no Special Skill signoffs for demonstrating the ability to land in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place or fields filled with seven foot high corn, four foot high wheat, or two foot high thistle or cocklebur.

And the thought now occurs to me that there's a pretty good argument to be made that people who DO land in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place or fields filled with seven foot high corn, four foot high wheat, or two foot high thistle or cocklebur should have their XC signoffs revoked so that WHEN these assholes break their ankles, arms, and necks the program will be able to document that it acted in a responsible manner and attempted to warn the Darwin cases of the probable consequences of continuing their behaviors.

But just for you, I will put in a word with the leprechauns and ask them to take a pic of the next hang glider that lands in one of the glens.

You don't really need to. More:
- wheel landings in wheel friendly fields - less carnage
- foot:
-- landings in wheel unfriendly fields - more carnage
-- landing practice in wheel friendly fields - more carnage
-- spot landing practice in wheel friendly fields - WAY more carnage

Any disagreement with any of that?

Simple repetition until it is muscle memory.

So then how come on The Davis Show there's a Rooney dominated sticky on the issue currently 173 posts long that Jonathan says is a load o' crap?

A prudent pilot will have good foot landing skills.

So then it's physically impossible for a paraplegic pilot - like Chris Starbuck - to be a prudent pilot? How 'bout folk like Doug Prather and Bob Grant with lesser physical issues that they feel make it imprudent to foot land?

Afraid of spiral fractures?

God Fuckin' Damn right I am. I know about way too many people who've permanently disappeared from the sport with permanent disabilities because of them.

Reminds me a lot of this one:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hhpa/message/11517

Dave Susko - 2010/11/05 02:07:47 UTC

Does it bother you that you can't engineer away all sources of danger? It does? Then I suggest you sell your equipment and take up a safe activity like checkers.

(The guy's a major asshole, by the way.)

And lemme tell ya sumpin' else...

I've punched a lot of flares a little early in no wind LZs, held them, and come down to nice crisp stops with my back arched. And I remember my lower back getting compressed and hurt and thinking that that probably wasn't doing me a lot of good.

And for a couple of years now after I walk about a hundred yards I'm REAL numb from the waist down. And If I push it beyond that I'll start staggering like I'm drunk. And if I were stupid enough to push it beyond that I'd go down.

And that means that there's a long list of things I can add to hang gliding in the would-really-like-to-do-but-can't-anymore category. And that also means that I have to spend a lot of time in a chair - and you can count on that not doing much for my life expectancy.

one of these

Those gliders, by the way, are parked on one of the Ridgely setup lines. When those 130 pound Greenspot bent pin motherfuckers opened up shop on 1999/05/28 I was there thinking a nineteen year dream had finally come true. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine that Jim Keen-Intellect We-Know-What-We're-Doing Rooney would within a few years emerge from Highland Aerosports' anus as the pinnacle of its achievement. May they all rot in hell for all eternity starting yesterday.

Your example of Ridgely is an extremely poor one because - aside from it triggering a lot of massively painful memories - the place is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the Delmarva peninsula and there aren't a whole lot of hang glider flying sites on the planet where standup landings - back at the airport or XC - are less necessary. Probably around a hundred thousand flights by now and you can do the math as well as I can on the number of whacks and broken downtubes and arms attributable to standup landings and nothing else.

P.S. That photo is by Bill Garrison.

http://www.mobydisk.com/mobydisk/hanggliding/aerotowing.html

Here's my 2002/09/08 flight log entry for my second contact with him:

Bill Garrison demoed Falcon 2.0 195, broke weak link at 100'.

And on my first flight on their first day of operation I made it all the way up to 125 before I was blown off straight and level. I suggested stronger weak links but Chad explained to me how I was already stressing the glider to 520 pounds and going up from that wouldn't be a good idea. Fuck all those slimeballs and the horses they rode in on.

[miguel]

I picked the photo off google images. Sorry it brought up bad memories.

I went hiking Sat and saw some rocky areas that would be easily foot landable but dangerous to wheel land unless you had some of these wheels

[Tad Eareckson]

I picked the photo off google images.

I know.

I went hiking Sat and saw some rocky areas that would be easily foot landable...

With a fair to strong smooth breeze blowing in down the runway EVERYTHING is easily foot landable.

If the air is:
- nil
- light
- switchy
- thermally
- gusty
- turbulent
- rotory
then NOTHING is.

...but dangerous to wheel land...

If it's dangerous to wheel land it's dangerous to foot land - PERIOD.

If you're gonna foot land then foot land like Steve Pearson...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27086
Steve Pearson on landings

Steve Pearson - 2012/03/28 23:26:05 UTC

I can't control the glider in strong air with my hands at shoulder or ear height and I'd rather land on my belly with my hands on the basetube than get turned downwind.

Prepared to belly in if things don't go as well as hoped for. And if even if you're NME Freakin' Rider and staying on your feet...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26517
Upcoming shoulder surgery

NMERider - 2012/02/02 03:27:29 UTC

And this is exactly why I don't get too upset about sacrificing a downtube if I blow a landing. This is also the same way I got the worst injury I've ever sustained in this sport. A broken big toe. I was running out a landing when I should have flared hard. Instead I stubbed my toe on a rock.

...landing in rocky areas is dangerous.

You're gonna have your lowest crash and injury rates wheel landing with your hands on the basetube on the Happy Acres putting green. And crash and injury rates WILL go up with:
- bare basetubes
- standup landings
- spot landings
- grass length
- rocks

This ain't rocket science.

...unless you had some of these wheels...

Was looking at one of those birds from pretty close by while doing the Lower Kent Christmas Bird Count on the Eastern Shore yesterday. Only had one of them on my territory, which was surprising and disappointing, but there was no shortage of them whatsoever in the count circle. (Redtails - à la Jonathan's video.)

[miguel]

If it's dangerous to wheel land it's dangerous to foot land - PERIOD.

Landing on wheels requires a longer, lower approach and also extended roll out distance.

Any argument with that?

I watched Doug make a perfect touch down on his landing. Unfortunately, he touched down very close to the setup area. He put on the maximum amount of braking and ended up stopping inches from a parked glider.

Fly on the wall Landing.

I was flying a new site. I came in high over the lz and decided it was not an lz. Approach was over a muck pond and the lz was a small clearing in some pine trees on the shore. Alternate lz was too small.
I saw a small clearing in a fairey ring of pine trees on a hillside. I dove into it and snapped a flair for a perfect fly on the wall, no step landing. The clearing was about 2 wingspans in diameter.

Cannot be done with wheels due to long low approach and roll out requirement.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PZqVK21Pm9k/TughPak1wfI/AAAAAAAAAIE/r_QWGBf-itc/s2560/Image+1_Moraines.JPG


Easily foot landable. Good luck with the wheels.



Wheels going to help you here?

If you're gonna foot land then foot land like Steve Pearson...

Steve Pearson - 2012/03/28 23:26:05 UTC

I can't control the glider in strong air with my hands at shoulder or ear height and I'd rather land on my belly with my hands on the basetube than get turned downwind.

Most pilots around here can fly a glider from the downtubes because out here, you learn from day 1 to control the glider from the downtubes.

Steve is entitled to his opinion, however.

Prepared to belly in if things don't go as well as hoped for. And if even if you're NME Freakin' Rider and staying on your feet...

Sorry, but if I am headed for bad landing, I do not want to lead with my head. Ask anyone who has had their bell rung.

NMERider - 2012/02/02 03:27:29 UTC

And this is exactly why I don't get too upset about sacrificing a downtube if I blow a landing. This is also the same way I got the worst injury I've ever sustained in this sport. A broken big toe. I was running out a landing when I should have flared hard. Instead I stubbed my toe on a rock.

...landing in rocky areas is dangerous.

He said "I was running out a landing when I should have flared hard."

No stepper, no injury, no wheels wanted or needed.

You're gonna have your lowest crash and injury rates wheel landing with your hands on the basetube on the Happy Acres putting green. And crash and injury rates WILL go up with:
- bare basetubes
- standup landings
- spot landings
- grass length
- rocks

This ain't rocket science.

Most pilots do not fly at Happy Acres. We fly in the real world which includes all of the above and more.
We also know to let go of one of the down tubes before an unplanned impact.

Was looking at one of those birds from pretty close by while doing the Lower Kent Christmas Bird Count on the Eastern Shore yesterday. Only had one of them on my territory, which was surprising and disappointing, but there was no shortage of them whatsoever in the count circle.

What is the terrain like on the eastern shore? Open fields, forests, swamp etc.

[Tad Eareckson]

Landing on wheels requires a longer, lower approach and also extended roll out distance.

Any argument with that?

Goddam right I do.

- Granted, for any given airspeed, you come in at a steeper angle upright than prone. But a proner can easily eliminate that issue with a drag chute or, hell, by making the approach upright and going back to prone a couple of seconds prior to touchdown.

- Big fuckin' deal. So what? If you really want a high short approach get a Falcon or a paraglider.

- A bit of wind can make the issue completely irrelevant.

- If you've pushed your luck a bit you might want every fraction of a glide point you can get.

- How much runway is he eating up?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIBX6HZovK8


11:35
12:08
12:35

Three or four yards? Big fuckin' deal.

I watched Doug make a perfect touch down on his landing. Unfortunately, he touched down very close to the setup area. He put on the maximum amount of braking and ended up stopping inches from a parked glider.

And I've watched spot foot landers start onto final high over the first third of the field and fly off the end of it. Doug ended up stopping inches from a parked glider because he squandered tons of usable runway - not because he ate up another five yards of stopping distance.

I was flying a new site. I came in high over the lz and decided it was not an lz.

You came in high over *THE* LZ and decided it was not an LZ? "Landing Zone" implies an established field at an established flying site. None of them are marginal 'cause if they are people get hurt at unsustainable rates.

Cannot be done with wheels due to long low approach and roll out requirement.

1. How many more landings did you make there?

2. So what you're saying is that if someone fails to dive into it and snap a flare for a perfect fly on the wall no step landing and isn't lined up within half a wingspan of centerline he's fucked.

3. If you can encourage others to make sure their cameras are rolling when they use that LZ I'd really appreciate it.

Easily foot landable. Good luck with the wheels.

This strip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaTu5Y4WBdY


18-3704

is easily foot landable. Good luck getting the unpleasant foot landing efforts down to the level you'd have if everyone wheel landed.

Wheels going to help you here?

No. They might not do you much good HERE:



or HERE:



or HERE:



either. Gliders that come down in fields with rocks, corn, wheat, tall grass, lions, and molten lava in them tend not to come out with statistics as good as those who come down on putting greens.

Steve is entitled to his opinion, however.

I don't give a flying fuck about his opinion. I give a flying fuck that what he's saying is consistent with logic, physics, video evidence, statistics, and my personal experience and is a lot closer to the way conventional aircraft land...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=25536
Whoops! Snapped another tip wand :-O

NMERider - 2012/03/14 15:17:14 UTC

I like what Steve Pearson does when he comes in and may adapt something like that.

...than the crap he advises in his owner's manuals.

Sorry, but if I am headed for bad landing...

I have absolutely no interest in heading for bad landings - or what I refer to as "crashes".

The best way to avoid a bad landing is to maintain optimal control of the glider until it stops flying. And you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT maintain optimal control of the glider with one or more of your hands not on the CONTROL BAR.

...I do not want to lead with my head.

Come in with your hands on or moving to the downtubes and your odds of having a bad landing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-36aQ3Hg33c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuMxK9PadzA

17-4117
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3682/14088396670_62d49cbf36_o.png


http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2932/14295179433_313938b3f9_o.png
23-4810
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkElZMhpmp0


...and getting your head pounded go through the goddam ceiling. Find me a video of someone fucking up a deliberate wheel landing.

Ask anyone who has had their bell rung.

Screw a lot of these people who've had their bells rung.

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.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1238
NZ accident who was the pilot?

Lauren Tjaden - 2006/02/21 20:37:39 UTC

I thought I should post this since the phone keeps ringing with friends worried about Jim and wanting information. Here is what I know. Yes, the Jim in the article is OUR Jim, Jim Rooney. It was a tandem hang gliding accident, and it involved a power line. I have no more information about the accident itself. The passenger apparently was burned and is hospitalized, but is not seriously injured. Jim sustained a brain injury. He was and is heavily sedated, which means the doctors don't know and can't test for how serious the brain injury is. He is in critical but stable condition. Tommorrow (which should begin soon in NZ) the doctors will begin to reduce his medication, and they will have more information at that time. There are no neck or spinal injuries. This information has been passed on to me through a chain of several people, so while I think it is all accurate, I am not sure. Lisa from Quest is in contact with Jim's family and also with Jim's employers in NZ. She will send hospital information so you can send good wishes. She will also keep us updated on the most current news about Jim. In the meantime, please do not call NZ or Lisa at Quest. This is a difficult time as many of us love Jim very much, and I know you are all anxious for news, as we are.

I prefer to talk to people capable of reading the fucking manual well enough not have had their bells rung - and cracked.

He said "I was running out a landing when I should have flared hard."

I know what he said. He said that he was landing in an environment in which the penalty for not being able to stick a no stepper could've been a broken toe.

Reminds me of the evening of 1992/06/20 when I was starting a launch run when I should've been checking the ribbons to make sure it hadn't just gone katabatic. I'll be in pain paying for that mistake the rest of my life.

But if we had done a better job preparing the new Woodstock launch on 1989/11/18 or improving it in the thirty-one months prior to my ground loop I could've committed my pilot error and gotten away with just the broken downtube I was expecting.

What I wouldn't give to be able to hop in a time machine with a chainsaw and cut up and remove that White Oak trunk on the left side of the slot that had been concealed by all that fluffy green undergrowth that day.

We need to use equipment and operate in environments that don't demand perfection from us all of the time.

No stepper, no injury, no wheels wanted or needed.

Right.

- Now land fifty gliders on that strip of narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place and see what happens.

- And let's throw in a little switchy air to make it even more interesting.

- And as long as we're losing the wheels let's also lose the long pants, helmet, and parachute 'cause perfect pilots virtually never need any of that stuff either.

Most pilots do not fly at Happy Acres.

MOST PILOTS BLOODY WELL DO.
- The vast majority of pilots never land anywhere other than designated LZs.
- Pilots who:
-- fly XC are always looking for and usually landing in fields better than their designated LZs
-- push their luck and come down in places which require textbook standup landings sooner or later tend to pay really high prices

We fly in the real world which includes all of the above and more.

1. Who's "WE"?
2. Don't even THINK of excluding Yours Truly as one of the Hallowed We who flies in the real world.

I pushed my luck as much and landed in as ugly environments as anybody else.

Then one evening I went down in a clearcut on the side of the ridge north of McConnellsburg. No wind near the surface, stuck a textbook no stepper, but twisted my ankle a little on a four inch limb in the slash. Didn't even know I was hurt until I stood back up and tried to take a step.

I could've put it down in the Mother of All Happy Acres Putting Greens off the end of the ridge but didn't feel like landing out and took a chance on having to land in the clearcut. Trust me...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=26847
Landing Out

NMERider - 2012/08/10 17:09:10 UTC

Be glad you don't fly XC where I do. It really sucks here in the LA Basin and I'm tired of all the hazards.

...it wasn't worth it.

We also know to let go of one of the down tubes before an unplanned impact.

1. But you hold onto it like Grim Death for planned impacts?

2. EVERYBODY knows to let go of the downtubes before impacts. The problem is that they break arms and dislocate shoulders 'cause they don't know the impacts are coming and/or are doing the right things with their hands in the wrong places trying to avoid impacts.

3. (For the hundredth time...) I don't give a rat's ass about what y'all do before impacts. This thread is about how to most safely and effectively stop a glider without having an impact.

Open fields, forests, swamp etc.

Yes. And flat as a pancake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAvvo0VKqg0


10-12926-800

Land in the open fields, pastures, airstrips, and lawns and avoid the forests, swamps, highways, etc.

Also avoid flying into paved taxiways, taxiway signs, ponds, parked gliders, and mature corn and wheat fields. The ace instructors of the Ridgely crew seem to have a bit of trouble getting that point across to their ace students.

If you wanna pinpoint Paul Vernon in the above video and watch the last ninety-three seconds of his hang gliding career - and life as he knew it - go to:

http://www.kitestrings.org/post3031.html#p3031

[Tad Eareckson]

From:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post3437.html#p3437
this is the URL:
http://www.crazyaviation.com/images/CA_tundra.jpg
for this image:

If you open the URL in a new window the post makes a good bit more sense. (But my response to it will make a whole lot less sense.)
---
Edit - 2016/04/05 12:00:00 UTC

The site's dead. I've restored the images so's things look like they did originally.

[miguel]

http://www.crazyaviation.com

Interesting Site