If the flight parks insist on the use of a standard, each pilot still has the ability to blow the pilots weaklink with more tow force or less tow force just by increasing or decreasing the length of the shoulder to shoulder pro tow bridle.
The shorter the pro tow bridle the less tug force it will take to blow the standard weaklink.
The longer the pro tow bridle the more tug force it will take to blow the standard weaklink.
For those of you that were not aware of this or would like to either confirm or refute this claim to your own satisfaction I can direct you to a website with a moving diagram that will explain why this works far better than I can explain it here.
Send me a personal message and I will send you the link.
I'm doing it this way since I do not wish to be banned from the OZ report.
Gerry Grossnegger - 2013/02/13 20:25:27 UTC
We don't mind relevant links to other sites, go ahead. You must be thinking of some other more restrictive forum.
Wow, finally dropped off the 1st page.
I was working up some harmony for Rooney Tunes.
Jim Rooney - 2011/09/10 03:10:04 UTC
C'mon, sing it with me!
...
Trollin trollin trollin... keep those wagons trollin... trollin trollin trollin... raw-hiiiiide!
YA!
...
Seriously though, my guess is he "got a talkin to" by Davis or Scare.
He didn't seem all that bad... we've had far worse for sure... he was just a zero on the productive discussion scale.
That one liner stir-the-pot shit was for the birds.
Maybe he'll come back and play nice with the other kids.
Who knows?
Davis Straub - 2011/09/10 04:47:32 UTC
Nothing from me or Scare. I did lock down two threads though. One had a link to a Tad thingy.
which was Ridgerodent's sabotaged attempt to have a discussion about Quest's bullshit lunatic illegal dangerous weak link policies which lasted for 131 posts and is currently sitting at 8430 hits on Page 55.
and was locked down immediately because the link was to my article on unhooked launches. Currently 674 hits immediately before/below the Quest/Bailey/Davis/Rooney Link thread.
Subsequently we've had a really spectacular fatal unhooked launch that was big news on a global scale and a very popular pro toad killed at the beginning of the month AT QUEST on AND BECAUSE OF a Quest Link.
The link which Bill subsequently posted was to Bob's:
which is, for all intents and purposes, just another Tad thingy. Bob has absolutely no interest whatsoever in towing equipment or keeping anybody alive in any environment. He barely acknowledged the cut-power death of one of the loyal members of his tiny cult early last season and there's been no mention whatsoever over there of Zack Marzec "passing away" as a consequence of his 130 pound Greenspot safety increaser.
And - as I had told Bob when he developed it - it's a nice little toy but pretty much totally useless.
- The load on a one point bridle weak link is always gonna be too close to half towline to make any difference worth mentioning.
- The apex angle of a two point bridle is always gonna be close enough to sixty degrees so's that the load will be about 0.575 towline.
- Anybody who would attempt to "fine tune" a weak link by varying bridle length is a total moron.
- Anybody who would attempt to fine tune a weak link by ANY means a total moron because there's absolutely nothing you can fine tune a weak link to do.
- We're dealing with a population too fucking stupid to understand:
-- what a weak link is
-- that weak link strengths cannot be altered by the opinions of tow park operators
-- why strength should vary proportionally to glider capacity or at least flying weight
-- that anybody who's even hoping that a weak link will do him any good in a low level lockout has no business whatsoever hooking up to rope
-- that there is no foundation for the:
--- recommendation of one G
--- quaint custom of forcing everyone up on 130 pound Greenspot
I could go on but I'd have needed to start earlier in the week to get things wrapped up by Friday afternoon.
So anyway, the first time the gif is referenced in a mainstream discussion it, of course, becomes an IMPEDIMENT to the discussion because Bill thinks that by doubling the length of a one point bridle you can double the towline tension the Rooney Link will allow.
Wanna do something NOT counterproductive, Bob? If we can get 250 pound weak links on ALL bridles - one and two point - for ALL solo gliders and get the fuckin' Dragonflies to comply with FAA aerotowing regulations our weak link problems will totally disappear.
Marzec, 27, died Saturday while hang gliding in central Florida, said Bruce Weaver, vice president of recreation and manager for the school.
Witnesses told Lake County Sheriff's deputies that they saw the glider spinning and tumbling to the ground, according to a sheriff's report. The cause of the accident remains under investigation, but one witness said that a gust of wind appeared to cause the glider to release from the plane prematurely.
Good call, Lauren. Reminds me a lot of this one:
1990/03/29 - Brad Anderson - 24 - Novice - Flight Designs Javelin - platform tow - McMinnville, Oregon - head injury, ruptured thoracic aorta
"Strong novice" pilot with a lot of flying and some truck tow experience. With instructors present launched and rose to fifty feet over truck. Pushed out hard enough to release and continued to push out after release. Whip stalled and dove into the ground. Died instantly.
There is a good chance that from now on, for every incident and fatality caused by insufficient weaklinks or sub-standard release mechanisms, a hyperlink trail will lead back to Tadtriedtowarnyou.com ... where all the evidence can be found.
A further link could then go to a list of all the people and the role they played in the suppression of those safety issues...
Who would like to be on that list?
How many are already on it?
You can start by counting up all the assholes conspicuously absent from this conversation.
Tormod Helgesen - 2013/02/27 05:53:48 UTC
Oslo
I just recently "had" to aerotow with little previous experience. I suffered a lot of weaklink breaks...
You "SUFFERED" a lot of weak link breaks? How could you possibly "suffer" anything that's increasing the safety of the towing operation?
...using the greenspot 130lbs...
Which was JUST PERFECT for YOUR flying weight - which you're not specifying. Which tells me that you're an idiot - as if that hadn't been confirmed many times before.
...and pro-tow.
Lessee... You "had" to aerotow with little previous experience and were popping Rooney Links left and right because you couldn't stay in position - but, nevertheless, you were a pro. Is this a great sport or what!
Most of the breaks was mildly annoying at worst and in one case, possibly life-saving, at least saved me from severe injury.
And that was a GOOD thing for the sport and gene pool?
I was going into a lockout...
EXACTLY. You WERE GOING INTO a lockout - you weren't blown into one.
...and I didn't try to release because I didn't recognize the danger before to late.
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.
...take a hand off the controls and go fishing around for an actuator.
- You:
-- "had" to aerotow with little previous experience
-- were trying to use some piece of shit for a release
-- were popping Rooney Links left and right because you couldn't stay in position
-- flew yourself into a low level lockout
-- were unable recognize the onset of a low level lockout as a potential problem
but you were still a "pro".
So what total fucking asshole allowed you to get on a launch dolly? Davis?
The weaklink broke despite all the claims that it wouldn't.
Quote ANYBODY claiming that a Rooney Link WON'T break in a lockout.
We had six weaklink breaks in a row at Zapata this year.
Davis Straub - 2013/02/09 16:45:39 UTC
I am more than happy to have a stronger weaklink and often fly with the string used for weaklinks used at Wallaby Ranch for tandem flights (orange string - 200 lbs). We used these with Russell Brown's (tug owner and pilot) approval at Zapata after we kept breaking weaklink in light conditions in morning flights.
Name some circumstance in which a piece of crap that blows six times in a row in light morning air can be counted on to hold - asshole.
A Rooney Link WILL *EVENTUALLY* blow in a lockout. HOWEVER, it may not blow:
- until after a lethal impact
- soon enough to make a lethal impact anything but inevitable
A stronger weaklink would have worsened the situation.
Kinda depends on how one defines "worsened". I'm running the math on how your getting taken out of the gene pool could go anywhere but into a plus column - and I'm not coming up with anything.
I belive that too strong weaklinks...
Too strong, of course, meaning anything over 130 pound Greenspot - regardless of glider capacity or weight or bridle configuration. How 'bout talking Gs, shithead?
...will have severe negative consequences...
Yeah, let's base aviation policies on the BELIEF system of some asshole of unspecified flying weight with zilch experience who can't aerotow worth shit, uses shit equipment, and had a lucky break ONE TIME.
...much larger than the problems with the weaklinks we use today.
- Who the fuck is "WE"? Not EVERYONE who aerotows is a total fucking moron who uses or is under the control of some total fucking moron who forces 130 pound Greenspot. Morningside has been using 200 since at least last summer. So where are all the people getting smashed up because their weak links aren't breaking when they're "SUPPOSED TO"?
- Define "TODAY". I one hundred percent guarantee you that starting within eighteen hours of Zack Marzec being declared DOA a lot of Rooney Links were being quietly doubled and a lot of flight park operators were clicking orders for two hundred pound fishing line.
You could have done a one handed pushup, swinging and holding your body outside of the control frame so it stays there while you reach out with one hand and release.
Brad Gryder - 2013/02/21 23:25:31 UTC
Be ready for a weak link failure at any time, and also EXPECT your release to not work.
Expect your release not to work because we live in an imprecise world of known unknowns.
The release probably won't work and the weaklink will probably fail, we just can't say when.
Tormod Helgesen - 2013/02/27 08:14:54 UTC
As I said in the post, I didn't try to release because I didn't see the danger before it was to late. Why don't you read a post before you try to make fun of it?
What was in your post NOT to make fun of for ANYONE who had read it?
As I said in the post, I didn't try to release because...
Go and ask WHY you are not aware of critical situation ? unconsciousness of lockout process ? Instruction defect ? Weaklink false theory -confident ? release 1 hand actuation -not confident ?
Why don't you read ??:
A WEAKLINK CAN NOT BE A LOCKOUT PROTECTION NEAR THE GROUND where we should care of it.
and A WEAKLINK FAILURE CAN KILL YOU (high AoA, banked turn in correction)
still do not understand what an incipient lockout announce and still do not know the speed with which the following occurs, still do not recognize critical situation before it is too late ..and you will die soon.
Lois Preston, with same weaklink as you, didn' try to release early because..
and Weaklink never broke
and late release didn't save her ..the opposite.
BBC News - 2012/05/09
The hang glider lifted off and started deviating to the left, taking up a left banked attitude. The instructor on the ground, now positioned behind the hang glider, made a radio call to tell the student pilot to "shift right" but, as he did so, saw that a weight shift correction had already been made. However, he noted that the correction was not sufficient to level the wing of the hang glider and that the left turn continued and increased.
He radioed to the student pilot to release. The towing pilot and then the student pilot released the tow line; the hang glider then went into a steep nose down, descending left spiral and struck the ground. The instructor later commented that he had been startled by the speed with which the accident had happened and his impression was that the situation was not recoverable.
The world is a whole lot different in the driver's seat.
Oh, thank you SO much for telling us what it's like in the driver's seat - especially those of us who started hooking up before you were out of diapers and actually did stuff to contribute to the evolution of this sport.
It's just so damn easy to sit back at the keyboard and explain theoretical situations and reactions.
And it's a little more difficult to cite fatality reports and survivor accounts going back into the Seventies, give accounts of personal experiences, post videos, and use actual numbers - but that's what some of us do.
Actually doing it, well that's just a whole other thing.
Fuck you.
One of the most interesting parts of doing "Lockout training" with people is watching reality hit them square in the face.
Oh it happens.
I have, all the guys I work with have.
(Our average is 1 in 1,000 tows)
Oh yeah... an other fun fact for ya... ya know when it's far more likely to happen? During a lockout. When we're doing lockout training, the odds go from 1 in 1,000 to over 50/50.
...the more critical the situation the more likely their cheap shit Industry Standard equipment is to become totally useless - or worse.
All their wonderful theories get blown right out the window...
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.
No shit.
probably the #1 reaction.
Yeah. You hafta do simulation drills at altitude to understand that. You can't just read the accounts...
Bill Bryden - 2000/02
Dennis Pagen informed me several years ago about an aerotow lockout that he experienced. One moment he was correcting a bit of alignment with the tug and the next moment he was nearly upside down. He was stunned at the rapidity. I have heard similar stories from two other aerotow pilots.
that just surprised them. Like really surprised them.
Yeah. I'll bet it did. Especially after they've swallowed all the industry crap assuring them that their Rooney Links will break before they can get into too much trouble.
Not just newbies btw... the near universal reaction is "Damn that happens fast!" (Because... it does!)
So apparently you're not using...
Towing Aloft - 1998
Of course, your weak link should break before the lockout becomes too severe, but that assumes a properly applied weak link.
...properly applied weak links in these exercises? Sounds a little dicey, dude. What if you get into a lockout shortly after takeoff?
No, I'm not being nice. No, I do not feel the need to be nice. You're trying to convince people to be less safe. I don't want to be on the other end of the rope when someone listening to this drivel smashes in.
I've heard it a million times before from comp pilots insisting on towing with even doubled up weaklinks (some want no weaklink). I tell them the same thing I'm telling you... suck it up.
MILLIONS of them. It just baffles me why the glider pilots won't listen to the professional tug drivers and do exactly what they're told.
...that *they* will of course do the "right thing" in the time of pressure...
Zero percent of them will even have the option of doing the right thing...
...with kind of Industry Standard crap you assholes force them to tow with.
...yet so many are surprised...
Really? NAME SOME. Give me some quotes.
aka, their theories were off... their mental image of how it would be and how they would react were wrong... yet... they would risk their lives on these incorrect theories?
I'm really having a hard time understanding this, Jim.
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.
Zack C - 2011/08/31 02:45:17 UTC
No one seems to address the fact that with everyone using 130 lb Greenspot weak links, light pilots are capable of seeing significantly higher G loadings than heavy ones, and yet among the lighter crowd we aren't seeing the dead pilots Jim says we'll see with stronger weak links. In fact, I have yet to see a single account of an incident attributable to too strong a weak link (and I know of several incidents that could be attributed to too light a weak link).
Jim Rooney - 2011/08/31 09:25:57 UTC
But you see... I'm the guy you've got to convince.
(or whoever your tug pilot may be... but we all tend to have a similar opinion about this)
You've not heard about strong-link incidents.
Uh, yeah... cuz we don't let you use them.
You keep telling us about all these people who've scared themselves shitless because they've been using home made releases and stronglinks but you're also telling us there ARE NO stronglink incidents because NONE OF YOU ASSHOLES...
BTW, if you think I'm just spouting theory here, I've personally refused to tow a flight park owner over this very issue. I didn't want to clash, but I wasn't towing him. Yup, he wanted to tow with a doubled up weaklink. He eventually towed (behind me) with a single and sorry to disappoint any drama mongers, we're still friends. And lone gun crazy Rooney? Ten other tow pilots turned him down that day for the same reason.
...are irresponsible enough to tow anybody stupid enough to use a stronglink - or anything else that doesn't have a huge track record.
So where are you getting the data upon which to base these statements you're always making?
It all sounds so good... when you're sitting on the couch.
Better sitting on a couch than behind some asshole like you - or about to fly into a monster thermal at 150 feet being pro toad on a Rooney Link.
Everyone's natural instinct on tow is to fight.
You're wrestling that F'er and you will win! You have to have spirit boy! Stay on the ball!
When what they SHOULD be doing is the PRECISE OPPOSITE.
As for being in a situation where you can't or don't want to let go, Ryan's got the right idea. They're called "weak" links for a reason. Overload that puppy and you bet your ass it's going to break.
You can tell me till you're blue in the face about situations where it theoretically won't let go or you can drone on and on about how "weaklinks only protect the glider" (which is BS btw)... and I can tell ya... I could give a crap, cuz just pitch out abruptly and that little piece of string doesn't have a chance in hell. Take your theory and shove it... I'm saving my a$$.
They should be pitching out abruptly so that that puppy doesn't have a chance in hell and saving their asses.
Well damn if that just ain't 100% contrary to hitting that release isn't it?
When Jim got me locked out to the right, I couldn't keep the pitch of the glider with one hand for more than a second (the pressure was a zillion pounds, more or less), but the F'ing release slid around when I tried to hit it. The barrel release wouldn't work because we had too much pressure on it.
Anyhow, the tandem can indeed perform big wingovers, as I demonstrated when I finally got separated from the tug.
I'm willing to put the barrel release within a few inches of my hand.
...to be willing to put a barrel release within a few inches of your hand.
- Gee Jim, I'da thunk that anyone who'd been through any of the fine training programs like the ones at Quest, Wallaby, Florida Ridge, Lookout, Foothills, Manquin, Ridgely, Cloud 9 would've been trained on at least a couple of the proper, tried and true responses to low level lockouts...
-- wait for your Rooney Link to increase the safety of the towing operation
-- pitch out abruptly to blow your Rooney Link and increase the safety of the towing operation even faster
-- use your razor-sharp cutting tool to slash through the lines in an instant
Brad Gryder - 2013/02/21 23:25:31 UTC
There's also a way to swing your body way outside the control frame so it stays up there while you reach out with one hand and release.
-- swing your body way outside the control frame so it stays up there while you reach out with one hand and release
How come some of these operations are signing people off on their AT ratings before they're hardwired for proper responses instead of foolishly attempting to use Industry Standard releases or insanely trying to engineer better solutions?
Have a think about this one as well... if you lock out... if you get to the point where you've lost authority over your glider... you're betting on the fact that you're 100% on your game?
I've actually thought about that one, Jim.
- I'VE BEEN violently locked out - behind Sunny - at altitude flying at 320 pounds using home made amateur-tow equipment and a Rooney Link.
-- And even with the enormous time it took me to figure out what was happening and what I should be doing about it I was able to beat the Rooney Link.
-- And I was thirty feet lower when I finished than I was at the moment the shit hit the fan.
-- So if that had happened at twenty-five feet instead of twenty-three hundred feet I'd have been dead.
-- And if it had happened at twenty-five feet and I'd waited for my Rooney Link to do my job for me I'd have been even deader.
- If you lock out, if you've gotten to the point at which you've lost control authority over your glider near the ground, YOU ARE FUCKED. The chances of a bulletproof release doing you any good are a bit slim and the chances of a Rooney Link making any difference are ZILCH. So you might as well be using a weak link that WON'T kill you in a Zack Marzec scenario.
- But the good news is that low level lockouts are virtually ONE HUNDRED PERCENT AVOIDABLE. And cite me one that WASN'T - motherfucker.
You're in that situation because you probably weren't 100% on it...
- You're in a low level lockout either because:
-- nobody checked the streamers prior to committing to launch; or
-- somebody let you get on a dolly when you weren't qualified to fly.
- If you get hit by something - I don't give a rat's ass who the fuck you are - you can be one hundred percent on it and one hundred percent on your ear before you can blink. And something like that is gonna eat up a lot recovery altitude even if you do blow off using your release or get blown off by a Rooney Link in the next millisecond. And if you don't have that altitude you're fucked.
- And as far as I can tell, non pilot induced low level lockouts at aerotow operations are statistically nonexistent.
yet, you're going to bet your life that your reaction will be correct?
Yeah, why do that when you can bet your life on waiting for a Rooney Link to blow before before you can get into too much trouble? Just 'cause it didn't work for Mike Haas, Steve Elliot, Roy Messing, or Lois Preston doesn't mean it won't work for you.
REALLY?
Better you than me.
I'm trying to think of someone or something that ISN'T better than you. Nothing's coming to me.
But, by all means... please continue.
I think we will, Jim. And I think you're gonna start seeing a big shift to 200.
And that's gonna cause at least a few people to start wondering why 200 is suddenly the perfect standard aerotow weak link if 130 was the perfect standard aerotow weak link for over two decade's worth of Cortland Greenspot hell. And a few of those people are gonna start understanding what a weak link is - and what it can and can't do.
And if things keep moving it the direction they are a lot of people are gonna start understanding what a bunch of miserable lying shits you and your buddies were and are. They're gonna start realizing that 130 pound Greenspot was NOT a solution derived through trial and error over the course of quite literally HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of tows. It was just a piece of fishing line that Bobby pulled out of his ass - derived the same way everything else he's ever put into the air. He grabs whatever technology is closest at hand and welds it into some form that'll work for what he wants to do a fair amount of the time.
I thought we'd already solved the world's problems...
"WE", motherfucker?
Jim Rooney - 2013/02/13 19:09:33 UTC
It was already worked out by the time I arrived.
You haven't ever even had an original bad idea that's made it into circulation. You're just a parasite on other parasites on other parasites.
...but apparently not.
Yeah, you and your douchebag buddies - like Bobby, Russell Brown, Steve Kroop, Paul and Lauren, and Mitch - have solved the world's problems. And yet you've just killed another pro toad Rooney Linker, fewer people are listening to you, and some of the rats jumped ship to 200 well before the latest iceberg was plowed into.
Do let me know when you've got all this sorted.
Don't worry about a thing, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney. We'll keep letting you know how things are going.
Thanks
Jim
Don't let this asshole get away with ignoring Zack's questions about...
Jim Rooney - 2013/02/22 02:56:08 UTC
Um... If you're going to start pretending that you're discussing his accident you need to remember that Zach was a very light pilot.
...what 'very light' is and how that's relevant. If he answers them he's dead and if he continues to dodge them he's dead - win/win.
Go and ask WHY you are not aware of critical situation ?
First tow since 1994 maybe?
Right Tormod, no fuckin' way could anybody recognize an incipient lockout as a potential problem if he hadn't towed for twenty years. Kinda like a six year old on a two wheeler wouldn't recognize a tree coming at him as problematic if all his previous experience had been on tricycles.
I sorted out my problems and got comfy with the tow after a while...
I'm seeing a whole shitload of problems with that...
- Anybody - even if he isn't some asshole using total shit for equipment and counting on lucky Rooney Link breaks to keep him healthy - who thinks he's sorted out his hang glider towing problems is just begging to get killed. We wouldn't be having this near month long discussion if the problems we're capable of sorting out had been sorted out amongst any significant portion of the population. And some problems CANNOT BE sorted out - EVER.
- Great. Get comfy with the tow. Watch the videos of Zack Marzec and all his asshole Quest buddies. They were/are ENORMOUSLY comfy with the tow. The survivors are STILL so comfy with the tow that they're quite content to write Zack off as a fluke accident and continue using junk equipment, axing safety margins, and not participate in discussions 'cause the way they do things has an extremely long track record.
...clearly you haven't so maybe you should just stop towing.
- He DID stop towing - the way Zack and the rest of you assholes have been doing it. He went to the trouble of learning and understanding hang glider towing theory and implemented the best available technology to optimize safety and performance.
- Comfiness is another word for complacency. And it was PRECISELY comfiness/complacency that got Zack killed in the Groundhog Day clusterfuck at Quest. Anybody who aerotows and isn't scared shitless from a couple of minutes before he hooks up to the point at which he clears a couple of hundred feet has no business aerotowing.
As I said in the post, I didn't try to release because I didn't see the danger before it was to late. Why don't you read a post before you try to make fun of it?
Actually, my comments were aimed at the previous post, (quoted) that I thought (at first) was written to be funny.
You don't know these guys as well as I do.
Doing one handed pushups to place your body outside the control frame, to trigger a release that you can't expect to work in the first place? Is this humor or is this the sad revelation of how crazy the science of aero towing has become?
This is what you wind up with after the national organization has spent several decades honing the skills it needs to absolve tow operators of anything remotely resembling accountability. It's an extremely fertile breeding ground for sleazeballs and lunatics of any and every description.
It's not very funny to keep writing off pilot's deaths as something that happens because there are 'no knowns', as Donald Rumsfeld once said, only known unknowns. We can't make a release that works without taking a hand off the base tube and doing a one handed pushup, so we dumb down the weaklink to cover that little (big) problem?
Welcome to Hewett based aviation.
This is not humor. It is insanity.
The pilot should make the decision to stay or get off the towline.
No. If that were the case we wouldn't be using little loops of fishing line as the focal points of our safe towing systems.
One handed acrobatics, maldesigned releases, and dumbed down weaklinks are the bad joke.
Everyone's natural instinct on tow is to fight.
You're wrestling that F'er and you will win! You have to have spirit boy! Stay on the ball!
Well damn if that just ain't 100% contrary to hitting that release isn't it?
Have a think about this one as well... if you lock out... if you get to the point where you've lost authority over your glider... you're betting on the fact that you're 100% on your game? You're in that situation because you probably weren't 100% on it... yet, you're going to bet your life that your reaction will be correct? REALLY?
Better you than me.
Zack wasn't "sitting on the couch" when a cheap piece of string made the decision to dump him at the worst possible time.
Who was betting his life on that decision?
I say, better him than you.
I don't think you really understand how this works...
Jim Rooney - 2013/02/16 05:05:41 UTC
Ok, keyboard in hand.
I've got a bit of time, but I'm not going to write a dissertation... so either choose to try to understand what I'm saying, or (as is most often the case) don't.
I don't care.
Here's a little bit of bitter reality that ya'll get to understand straight off. I won't be sugar coating it, sorry.
You see, I'm on the other end of that rope.
I want neither a dead pilot on my hands or one trying to kill me.
And yes. It is my call. PERIOD.
On tow, I am the PIC.
Now, that cuts hard against every fiber of every HG pilot on the planet and I get that.
Absolutely no HG pilot likes hearing it. Not me, not no one. BUT... sorry, that's the way it is.
Accept it and move on.
Not only can you not change it, it's the law... in the very literal sense.
So, you're quite right in your thinking in your example. The person you have to convince is me (or whoever your tuggie is).
I've had this conversation with many people.
We've had various outcomes.
I can tell you what my general ideas and rules are, but you do not need to agree with them nor do you get to dictate anything to me... if I'm not happy, you ain't getting towed by me. Why I'm not happy doesn't matter. It's my call, and if I'm having so much as a bad hair day, then tough. You can go get someone else. I won't be offended. Each tuggie is different, and I've had someone ask me to tow them with some stuff that I wasn't happy with and I told him point blank... go ask the other guy, maybe he'll do it.
I can tell you that for me, you're going to have a hell of a time convincing me to tow you with *anything* home-made.
"But I love my mouth release! It's super-delux-safe"... that's great, but guess what?
I've towed at places that use different weak links than greenspot. They're usually some other form of fishing line. Up in Nelson (New Zealand), they don't have greenspot, so they found a similar weight fishing line. They replace their link every single tow btw... every one, without question or exception... that's just what the owner wants and demands. Fine by me. If it wasn't, then I wouldn't tow for them and I wouldn't be towed by them. That's his place and he gets to make that call. Pretty simple.
Up at Morningside, they're using that new orange weaklink. It's a bit stronger and it has to be sewn or glued so it doesn't slip when unloaded.
If you're within the FAA specs and you're using something manufactured, then you're going to have a far better time convincing me to tow you.
My general rule is "no funky shit". I don't like people reinventing the wheel and I don't like test pilots. Have I towed a few test pilots? Yup. Have I towed them in anything but very controlled conditions? Nope. It's a damn high bar. I've told more to piss off than I've told yes. I'll give you an example... I towed a guy with the early version of the new Lookout release. But the Tad-o-link? Nope.
So I hope that sheds some light on the situation.
But again, every tuggie's different and every situation is different.
What doesn't change however is that it's my call, not yours.
And it's my job to be the "bad guy" sometimes.
Sorry. It's just the way it is.
Jim
See, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney is BETTER than anybody in HANG GLIDING because he's got a MOTOR on HIS plane.
So that qualifies him to:
- be the Pilot In Command of our planes
- enforce whatever laws he feels like inventing and declaring
- override our decision to fly a mid safety/legal range weak link
- illegally neutralize our weak link with his weak link
- force us to fly a Marzec Link off the bottom of the safety/legal range
- appoint himself as an engineering standards administrator
- subject us to whatever whims he fancies at the moment
- refuse to tow us if we ever call him on the lunatic crap he's always spewing
- tell us there's not a goddam thing we can do to regain control of the manner in which our tows are conducted
We NEED to destroy this motherfucker. We have to get control of this sport back into the hands of hang gliders and away from the powered ultralight drivers we've been subsidizing while they've been hijacking it away from us.
Zack wasn't "sitting on the couch" when a cheap piece of string made the decision to dump him at the worst possible time.
Like the rest of us, you have no idea what really happened on that tow.
We probably never will know.
Look motherfucker...
You don't get to speak on behalf of anybody with an IQ up into double digits or over. There has never in the history of hang glider towing been one more blindingly obvious than this. And the guys on both ends of the rope knew EXACTLY what the problem was THE INSTANT one of them abruptly ceased being on an end of the rope.
And what you're saying by telling everybody that this was an indecipherable mystery that nobody will ever really be able to get to the bottom of is that if you had been in the driver's seat when Zack plowed into that monster thermal - that you had hit seconds before and were still going up in - is that if had he been on a weak link rated to do the job of a weak link instead of a Rooney Link designed to do the job that the Industry Standard "releases" can't you'd have seen NO PROBLEM with squeezing the dump lever at the instant the Rooney Link would've blown.
Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974
"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release." - Richard Johnson
"A bad flyer won't hurt a pin man but a bad pin man can kill a flyer." - Bill Bennett
There is NO WAY IN HELL an asshole like you has any business driving a tug and having the power of life and death over other individuals.
And the fact that you haven't been ripped to shreds in the time since posting says quite a bit about the state to which hang gliding has degenerated since the Seventies.
P.S. And another thing you're saying is that it's possible for a highly skilled and qualified pro toad to hook up behind a Dragonfly on a typical thermal day and go into a fatal whipstall and tumble for reasons totally beyond our ability to understand and remedy.
...or, for that matter, ANY OTHER aerotow operation, is currently up and running, and advertising equipment, lessons, recreational opportunities for established pilots, and tandem rides for...
Either this is an easily and immediately fixable problem or we're just rolling dice with every flight we send up.
And !!!
The industry motherfuckers like Quest, Cloud 9, USHGA are OBVIOUSLY gonna try to pass this off as a freak accident rather than admit that they were violating the weak link minimum or declare that the existing weak link minimum is dangerously understrength.
But WHEN they do that I can go to the FAA and make the case that hang glider aerotowing is just too inherently dangerous to be allowed to continue as it's being practiced with members of the public signing up for two hundred dollar joy rides.
So pick one - motherfuckers. Can we get the weak links up to one and a half Gs - like I tried to do four years ago and got nothing but attacked and blacklisted for my efforts? Or do we risk coming under a lot of unwanted scrutiny from the FAA?
!!!
