Releases

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=29491
Best Aerotow release system?

michael170 - 2013/07/11 02:08:00 UTC

The best I've seen is the design engineered by Tad Eareckson.

2013/07/11 17:41:09 UTC - Sink This! - Brad Barkley

You disgusting little Rooney caliber piece of shit. I SO hope you become a data point in the not too distant future.

Why don't you throw one in there too, Jonathan? Seems to give people who never have anything of substance to say on an issue some degree of amusement.

Davis Straub - 2013/07/11 16:02:52 UTC

I proposed asking Rhett as he has an aerotow operation near Scott.

https://www.facebook.com/HangglideNewEngland

Good idea, Davis. The closer one lives to an aerotow operation the more valuable the opinion of the stupid tug driver will be.

And it's not just linear - it conforms with the inverse square law.

- Rhett's recommendation will be four times better than that of another tug driver twice the distance away.

- So let's put Scott of Western Massachusetts 75 miles away and deltaman near Paris at 3500. That would make Rhett's recommendation of a Quallaby Release 2177.8 times as valid as Antoine's recommendation of Joe Street's release.

- And just think about the kind of recommendation for a Davis Mini Barrel Scott could get if he lived...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=21033
barrels release without any tension except weight of rope..

Bart Weghorst - 2011/02/25 19:06:26 UTC

I've had it once where the pin had bent inside the barrel from excessive tow force. My weaklink was still intact. The tug pilot's weaklink broke so I had the rope. I had to use two hands to get the pin out of the barrel.

No stress because I was high.

...in Jackson Hole.

Fuckin' asshole.

Un fuckin' believable.

- Even in the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden they made a pretense of including a set of release performance standards. Yeah, everybody, most notably the sleazebag authors, totally ignored them and went merrily about their business using and peddling their bent pin crap but at least it was in the text - and, until five days after Zack Marzec's impact the USHGA aerotowing SOPs.

- Now it's ENTIRELY about:
-- opinion
-- popularity
-- fucking geniuses
-- accepted standards
-- lengths of track records
-- what Davis hasn't found to be a problem
-- Rooney's personal definition of funky shit
-- geographical proximity of tug drivers

Gawd I'm gonna enjoy the next fatality - unimaginably so if I get lucky on the particular individual.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=29491
Best Aerotow release system?

Andrew Stakhov - 2013/07/11 20:25:23 UTC

I own one, but I hate it, it's super bulky and both levers get stiff under tension...

- Pressure.

- No, you don't understand...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=29491
Best Aerotow release system?

Adi Branch - 2013/07/11 13:03:30 UTC

Again, the tow pressure on the line seems to make no difference to its operation.

It's immune to the laws of physics (like everything else in this idiot sport.)

...so unless you hold the other one with finger it will double release when you pull the first stage lever.

- What the fuck does two stage have to do with aero?

- Hey Scott... You started this idiot thread. Would it be too much to ask that you participate in it a little? I solved the problems for you and Antoine and Joe have certainly done their bits. How 'bout behaving a little more like an interested participant and a little less like a fucking potted plant?

I'll ask around what are good two stage.

Why the fuck don't you just do THIS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il3YPp3Rfq8


It's dumbfoundingly simple and brilliant. And - although I wish I could say I thought of it myself - I didn't. I give you my word that I didn't even consider it. So why not just fucking use it?

Or are the simplicity and brilliance themselves the problems?

If that's the case you can solve them by using short curved lever arms. It won't work as well but it'll still work better than what you're doing now. Isn't that a reasonable enough compromise?

If not just use a three quarter G weak link and install an extra hook knife on your harness.

[MikeLake]

Why the fuck don't you just do THIS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il3YPp3Rfq8


It's dumbfoundingly simple and brilliant. And - although I wish I could say I thought of it myself - I didn't. I give you my word that I didn't even consider it. So why not just fucking use it?

Another way of achieving the same thing but with more effort. The only slight advantage I can see is there are shorter dangly bits.

The action of first release, a time when flying with one hand, takes 10 times longer then just having the two lines connected from the start.
I would not want to be fiddling with a clasp and ring during rowdy conditions.
Or am I missing something?

[groundeffect]

Hey, I didn't know Dan Zink left LMFP. What's with that I wonder?

[Tad Eareckson]

Mike...

I like it because:

- I don't hafta hear a lot of whining about the jolt to the fucking weak link.

- There's no possibility of getting the under line too short and having something like THIS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMsIkAOeJ0I


happen.

- You can use a bite controlled one point aerotow release until you're high enough not to have any use for a bite controlled one point aerotow release.

- Then you could switch to a light, cheap, twin barrel, one point aerotow assembly.

- Thus you can:
-- lose all that heavy, draggy, overbuilt hardware most of which is needed for safe two stage operation
-- stop listening to the endless "chest crusher" crap

- The winch driver doesn't have any reason to ease up and thus you're gonna get a more efficient / higher tow.

- There are shorter dangly bits.

- It's a clever idea - and I'm so overloaded and disgusted with watching things just get stupider and stupider over the course of the past quarter century.

The action of first release, a time when flying with one hand, takes 10 times longer then just having the two lines connected from the start.

But...

- That's elective. You choose the time or - at worst - abort the tow.

- At the most dangerous phase of the tow I can do THIS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh3-uZptNw0


if necessary.

Somebody capable of THINKING came up with this idea, it evolved from something simpler, cheaper easier, and it STUCK. That's the precise opposite of the usual pattern we've been watching in hang glider towing for the past third of a century.

The usual pattern is how we wound up with - for example - bent parachute pins, fishing line, and hook knives in place of quality two point bridle/release systems.

If they weren't finding this approach to be substantially advantageous it would've gone extinct after two or three dozen tows.

ground...

How well do you know Matt?

[groundeffect]

Tad,
We know one another. I have spent a few dollars there. Why do you ask? I will definitely ask someone about Dan on my next trip.

[MikeLake]

- I don't hafta hear a lot of whining about the jolt to the fucking weak link.

Fairly well sorted by a slight winch back-off and/or a pull in prior to first release.
Well that solves the issue but not the whining of course.

- There's no possibility of getting the under line too short...

Answer to problem. Dump the threader and shoot the guy making them. (That would be me in our club).

- You can use a bite controlled one point aerotow release until you're high enough not to have any use for a bite controlled one point aerotow release.

- Then you could switch to a light, cheap, twin barrel, one point aerotow assembly.

I'd look at that in more detail. But first impression is ... better up to first release (for sure) but inferior thereafter, Nothing quicker than quick slap of the chest.
So, on average??

- That's elective. You choose the time or - at worst - abort the tow.

Well certainly in my case I'm flying fast up to first release ('cos shitting myself that a link is going to fail). I want the absolute minimum time with only one hand and don't want to divert attention to anything but my flying.
I've seen the results (and no doubt you have too) of someone fiddling with their vario or VB on the way up.

If they weren't finding this approach to be substantially advantageous it would've gone extinct after two or three dozen tows.

Refreshing to see someone taking a different approach and as you say shows they are thinking. However, there are one or two (or three or four) things out there that people doggedly stick to 'cos "that's what we do". I'm sure you need no examples.

I'm not deriding this approach ('cos I haven't tried it) it just seems a longer contrived way of achieving the same thing.

I think the problem with the mechanical twin release is it got to the point where it was good and, like so many things, got stuck on good enough.
I think a smaller, less chunky version possibly with a flat back, maybe padded and with a velcro cover to streamline would not be too much of a technical challenge for someone.

[Tad Eareckson]

I DESPISE Matt - and myself even more for allowing myself to be conned and fucked over by him a bit over four years ago.

Rewind the tape...

Later 2008 / Earlier 2009 I had some momentum going and optimism that I could nudge USHGA aerotowing in a positive direction.

Then Towing Committee Greg Ludwig asked me - with little advance notice - to attend a BOD meeting in Chattanooga and address the Committee about towing problems - particularly weak links.

I seriously considered it and started organizing my thoughts and gadgets for a presentation but:

- Gregg couldn't be bothered to follow up on my communication about the possibility; and

- my radar was telling me that the big guns - whomever they were - would do what they could to humiliate me by leaving me sitting in a corner while they discussed the best ways to shield themselves from FAA regulations and accountability.

After Greg couldn't be bothered to get back to me I figured no fuckin' way I'd ever allow myself to be pulled into a BOD meeting more than half an hour's trip from the driveway but he asked me to help him rewrite the SOPs.

Lifetime dream come true.

I submitted revision proposals for commentary for weeks on The Peter Show and found little in the way of signs of intelligent life forms but had every indication from Gregg that things were on track for the revisions to go through at the next/upcoming BOD meeting.

I sat by the phone that weekend while the Committee did to my work what they would've done to me in person and - after about six weeks of that useless goddam motherfucker (sorry Gregg, but a spade's a spade) not doing me the courtesy of telling me that nobody had bothered to so much as skim my weeks/months/years of work on this I went ballistic and drafted a letter to the FAA which scared USHGA and its sleazy serial killing lawyer shitless.

Matt then engaged me in some fairly extensive correspondence, started saying all the things he knew I wanted to hear, and lured me down to his lair under the pretense of wanting to help fix things so he could size up the enemy and do exactly to me in person what I knew I'd have had done to me in person if I had been stupid enough to show up at a Committee meeting.

It was an interesting trip as far as me seeing that neck of the woods and what was going on - but I of course left smoldering.

It'll probably never happen but he sure better hope that if he's lying in the middle of a field having his intestines ripped out by coyotes there will be someone other than Yours Truly to try to shoo them away.

Do not trust this motherfucker any more than absolutely necessary - and send as few dollars his way as possible. And anybody who's had a falling out with him is very probably a much better bet.

[Tad Eareckson]

But first impression is ... better up to first release (for sure) but inferior thereafter, Nothing quicker than quick slap of the chest.
So, on average??

OK, use a Koch one stage for under the bar. But, of course, the higher you are the lesser the chances of anything really nasty happening to you. Once you're on the second stage you start looking a lot like a platform launch tow and it's pretty hard to get fucked up on a platform launch tow even just using a three-string.

I want the absolute minimum time with only one hand and don't want to divert attention to anything but my flying.

Yeah but it's a lot easier, quicker, less problematic to abort a nonessential operation and get a hand back on the basetube than to let go of a basetube while the nose and/or a wing are starting to do something undesirable and use the hand to go somewhere else and perform an extremely critical operation.

I've seen the results (and no doubt you have too) of someone fiddling with their vario or VB on the way up.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3391
More on Zapata and weak link

Paul Tjaden - 2008/07/22 04:32:22 UTC

The lockout Lauren mentioned was precipitated by my attempt to pull on more VG while on tow. I have done this before but this time the line wouldn't cleat properly and while I was fighting it, I got clobbered and rolled hard right in a split second. There was a very large noise and jerk as the relatively heavy weak link at the tug broke giving me the rope. I recovered quickly from the wingover and flew back to the field to drop the line and then relaunched after changing to a normal weak link. I have never had a lockout situation happen so quickly and dramatically and had no chance to release as I have always thought I could do. Had the tug's link not broken, things could have gotten very ugly very fast. I still don't like weak links breaking when they shouldn't, but the one I was using was way too strong.

But, of course, it was the Tad-O-Link that caused the lockout and almost killed poor trusting misguided Paul before Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney brought him back into the 130 pound Greenspot fold.

But...

- A VG requires muscle and a vario concentration / diversion of attention - and this operation none of the former and a negligible dose of the latter.

- It's not a great idea to let an uncleated VG cord fly if you suddenly find you need to start flying the glider again.

- Not that it mattered in the least in this situation but Sander does a sloppy inefficient job of making the connection. He should be swiping from the side rather than coming up through the middle. And that ring shouldn't be a ring. It should be a heavy quick link - oval/narrow so it resists rotation a lot better.

However, there are one or two (or three or four) things out there that people doggedly stick to 'cos "that's what we do". I'm sure you need no examples.

The one that drives me absolutely berserk is this bullshit about turning the carabiner around backwards when you're using it as the two point release anchor so the force transmitted by the Rooney Link won't blow the gate open from the inside (and ignoring what the locking mechanism would do to the parachute bridle in a deployment).

But this is entirely different.

- The foundation of the configuration and procedure is NOT one of unfathomable stupidity and/or religious zealotry.
- It's a perfectly well understood issue of tradeoffs - similar to VG off/on.
- Nobody thinks he's gonna die if he reverts to the conventional configuration.

I'm not deriding this approach ('cos I haven't tried it) it just seems a longer contrived way of achieving the same thing.

If they're smart enough to come up with this approach they're way more than smart enough to abandon it if it proved to be problematic or cost ineffective.

Oh, what the hell, it's such an elegant solution that I'd stick with it even if it were a bit problematic and cost ineffective. It's just so totally cool. And look at all the downtubes, arms, and necks that get broken solely because of hang gliding's religious fanaticism about doing "cool" standup landings on the putting greens it always maintains and uses as LZs ferchrisake.

I think the problem with the mechanical twin release is it got to the point where it was good and, like so many things, got stuck on good enough.

It got to that point no later than 1985...

(June:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post2658.html#p2658
1985/06-03
Can you move it back any?)

...and, yeah, it's so good that it legitimizes using releases that require a hand to come off. I may not be able to point to any nasty crashes that were a consequence of that issue with that release but I:
- would be astonished if there weren't any
- could point to scores in which if you swapped in a Koch for what was being used the results would've been the same

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=29415
Holy Crap

Lin Lyons - 2013/07/03 18:16:20 UTC

At Hollister, with the surface tow, on a foot launch, one can get up a bit over a thousand feet.
With the cart, one can get up another two to four hundred and sometimes even more.

However, typically the advanced pilots use the cart, because it's so much easier.
Maybe if they did a foot launch, they'd come closer to the normal cart launch altitude.

Ain't it great the way all these schools start you off forcing you to do and use a lot of stupid, dangerous, demanding crap that will never be of any use in a real flying career - especially at the stage of a beginning student...
- towing foot launches
- upright flying
- upright only training harnesses
- easy reach releases
- beginner strength weak links
- long final legs
- dead stop standup spot landings in field centers
...and then, assuming you haven't been discouraged, crashed, injured, killed out of the sport you may be permitted:
- dolly launches
- prone flying and harnesses
- funky shit releases
- legal range weak links
- prone wheel or skid short field runway landings

Tom Lyon - 2013/07/03 19:24:05 UTC

Lin Lyons - 2013/07/03 16:38:14 UTC

Yeah, I know I can do it, but when I looked over the edge, it does cause some consternation.

Lin, I had this same feeling when I looked at the ramp at Lookout Mountain in Georgia. However, by the time I finished with all of my flights on the two different sized training hills, my fear of the ramp...

And of:
- launching unhooked
- seeing one of your friends launch unhooked

...was mostly gone. It was the progression through foot launch training that gave me the confidence.

I can't begin to tell you just how happy for you I am.

When I made my first mountain launch, some of my fear came back, but not too much. I knew I would have a successful launch if I just did what I had been trained to do.

- preflight in the setup area
- hang check at the back of the ramp
- wait for previous glider to get a good cycle
- use wait time to (re)check radio, vario, helmet strap, camera
- move to launch position
- brief wire crew
- check:
-- streamers
-- traffic
-- pitch an roll trim
- yell clear
- keep nose down and run it into the air

By my third mountain launch, the fear was gone...

Bill Priday's was too on about his twelfth mountain flight on 2005/10/01 at Whitwell.

...and I just had the required (tremendous) respect for the importance of executing a good, strong launch.

And no respect whatsoever for the USHGA regulation for all flights for all ratings which states:

With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.

Although I'm a licensed sailplane pilot, I'm actually less comfortable with towing.

First halfway intelligent thing you've said.

Although towing hang gliders is relatively safe...

Relative to WHAT? Mother Grizzly taunting?

...and very well established now...

The more very well established it gets the less accountable and the more insanely dangerous it gets.

...it's not quite as simple/failsafe as the Tost...

...or Schweizer...

Like Bobby has on his Dragonfly.

...tow hooks for regular sailplanes.

Oh. So you're saying that highly engineered, certified, built-in systems which allow the pilot to blow tow without control compromise are safer than velcroed-onto-the-downtube crap coat-hangered together from whatever off-the-shelf parts that first come to the mind of some stupid Dragonfly jockey and failsafed with a:
- bent pin backup;
- couple of inches of 130 pound test fishing line;
- hook knife; and
- parachute?

How would you account for the difference?
What the fuck have you done in the way of looking into and supporting better systems?

I guess what I'm saying is if you have an interest in foot launching, I'd go for it with proper instruction. I absolutely love it now.

He WAS foot launching on 2013/06/15 when one of his flights brought him international fame.

He HAD...

Pat Denevan and his instructors at Mission Soaring Center have been teaching hang gliding for forty years. Pat is a leader in the hang gliding community - he has been instrumental in developing the teaching standards for the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (USHPA). He is currently the Flight Director for the Wings of Rogallo, the largest hang gliding club in the US. Mission Soaring LLC is recognized world-wide for safety and customer satisfaction.

...top notch professional instruction that damn near got him killed.

I don't think this has been working too well for him.

P.S. There is NOTHING "SIMPLE" about a Tost sailplane release. Take a good look at one and see if you can figure out how it works in less than the three days it took me.

It's also about a hundred times as bulletproof as a Schweizer which is something even Bobby Fucking-Genius Bailey was able to figure out and duplicate. So do everybody and yourself a big favor and drop the "simple/failsafe" bullshit.