I don't advocate anything.
I use what we use at the flight parks. It's time tested and proven... and works a hell of a lot better than all the other bullshit I've seen out there.
130lb greenspot (greenspun?) cortland fishing line.
In stock at Quest, Highland, Eastern Shore, Kitty Hawk Kites, Florida Ridge, and I'm pretty sure Wallaby, Lookout and Morningside.
Not sure what Tracy up at Cloud Nine uses, but I'll put bets on the same.
Did I miss any?
...and pull a few yards off the spool. And if that doesn't pan out just drop me a line. I'll be MORE than happy to get a fifty yard spool sent to you for under ten bucks because I really wanna make sure you - along with a good number of your friends - have an optimal Industry Standard focal point to your safe towing system on EVERY flight.
The accepted standards and practices changed.
I still won't tow people with doubled up weaklinks. You don't get to "make shit up". I don't "make shit up" for that matter either.
We all play by the same rules, or we don't play.
Morningside decided that they were happy with 200lb weaklink. They changed their tug's link and they don't just pass the stuff out either. If you'd like to know more about it... go ask them.
The law of the land at comps was 130lb greenspot or you don't tow. Seriously. It was announced before the comp that this would be the policy. Some guys went and made their case to the safety committee and were shut down. So yeah, sorry... suck it up.
...an ACCEPTED STANDARD. 130 or 200 hundred - nothing more, less, or in between. You don't get to "make shit up". We all play by the same rules or we don't play.
Leave them that length or cut them in half if you'd rather something shorter at half the price.
Then again, Russell Brown had us double up behind him after six breaks in a row at Zapata. We couldn't figure out why we had so many breaks so quickly. Maybe just coincidence.
...so getting 60 or 120 can last a long time without having to buy hundreds of feet of line.
I'd go with the hundreds of feet of line if I were you.
Sawnoff - 2013/05/19 07:48:50 UTC
Western Australia
Hi,
In Western Australia we used "#8 Builders Line". I weigh around 155lbs + harness + Glider. Worked great for me.
Worked great to do WHAT for you? Idiot.
GroundEffect - 2013/05/19 13:13:31 UTC
Hi, here is a source for Woodstock Dacron green spot. 130# 100 yards $12.00. Though there is some controversy over weak link breakage you might want to look into. Just my opinion.
I don't want any of these off the scale stupid motherfuckers looking into any of the "controversy" over weak link breakage. Some of us have been screaming grade school arithmetic at them for years and we just had Zack Marzec illustrate our point for us about as clearly as humanly possible at the beginning of February.
But this is hang gliding and we probably need about a dozen more Darwin cases smashing into the runway to really make some progress. And I'm gonna be doing my utmost to lead the cheering section with each and every lethal impact.
Thanks Max. The more accessible this stuff is the merrier. Even if we don't get any kills out of it we're almost certainly gonna get a fair number of really entertaining videos.
Wow! I've never heard of a tumble coming off a tow right after lift-off!
Wow! Neither have I, Marc. Probably just a one-off, I wouldn't really worry about a similar incident with this tow configuration.
What seems to be missing in the report is the rather crucial information on the vertical positioning of the glider relative to the tug during the transition of tug and glider through the spike of lift.
Good point, Miracle Ass Hole. How can we ever hope to understand what really went wrong on this one without the rather crucial vertical positioning of the glider relative to the tug during the transition of tug and glider through the spike of lift?
Lacking a profound vertical sheer of some sort, I find it hard to conclude that anything else other than a near complete stall could have initiated a tumble if the glider is normal in all other respects.
You're absolutely right, Marc. There was probably a profound vertical shear - sorry, SHEER - of some sort. Really hard to conclude that there was a near - or totally - complete stall which occurred as a consequence of a weak link breaking at the worst possible time...
Donnell Hewett - 1981/10
Now I've heard the argument that "Weak links always break at the worst possible time, when the glider is climbing hard in a near stall situation"...
...when the glider was climbing hard in a near stall situation.
And do keep that pseudo-intellectual bullshit flowing, Marc. There must be SCORES of Davis Show assholes you can trick into believing that you can understand aerodynamics better than a garden slug. And, hell, even if you don't get away with it you can count on Davis to lock down the thread before anyone gets a chance to really gut you.
Yesterday was a light and variable day with expected good lift. Zach was the second tow of the afternoon. We launched to the south into a nice straight in wind. A few seconds into the tow I hit strong lift.
Zach hit it and went high and to the right. The weak link broke at around 150 feet or so and Zach stalled and dropped a wing or did a wingover, I couldn't tell. The glider tumbled too low for a deployment.
Prop wash 250 feet behind the tug and ABOVE its level - and the lift has conveniently become a dust devil.
A deep stall or whip stall at any altitude would create the opportunity for a tumble.
Who gives a flying fuck? Can a tumble kill you any deader than the deep or whip stall that could trigger it?
Thanks to Paul for the followup.
- Fuck Paul.
- WHAT "FOLLOWUP"? He:
-- gave us some facts of the incident which told us virtually nothing of importance that...
Paul Tjaden - 2013/02/07
I do want to warn you in advance that there will be no great revelations from what you already know.
...we already knew from Mark Frutiger's first post
-- said NOTHING about the weak link in terms of Gs and whether it or not it had squeaked up into the bottom of the legal range
-- fed us some total bullshit about a possible dust devil
-- never offered a SINGLE contribution to or comment on any of the hundreds of posts in the postmortem discussions
-- gave us ZILCH in the way of recommendations to prevent a rerun
Marc Fink - 2013/02/08 05:33:10 UTC
True--I've just never heard of one off of a tow coming off the ground.
You have now - asshole.
I've had my share of "tows gone bad" including a lock-out and couple of violent pitch ups which were more or less vertical lock-outs that ended in some flavor of stall but the worst that happened was a vertical dive for speed recovery.
- Good thing you always had...
The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, Inc. - 2012/06/20
Standard Operating Procedure
12. Rating System
02. Pilot Proficiency System
12. Hang Gliding Aerotow
-A. Aerotow
05. The candidate must also demonstrate the ability to properly react to a weak link/tow rope break simulation with a tandem rated pilot, initiated by the tandem pilot at altitude, but at a lower than normal release altitude. Such demonstrations should be made in smooth air.
...enough altitude to recover, wasn't it Marc? Did you ever do any little thought experiments and consider what might've happened if you hadn't? Just kidding.
- So you - a single Rooney Linker - have had a couple of violent pitch-ups which were more or less vertical lockouts that ended in some flavor of stall and it surprises you that with all those monkeys and all those typewriters we eventually got a tumble out of the deal?
And a tug presumably is moving forward at 30-35 mph. I'm just guessing of course--and I'm not casting any doubts on the pilots of either craft.
There were no PILOTS on either craft. Just a couple of bozo plane drivers with no fuckin' clues what they were doing. And let it be noted that the results they achieved were WAY south of what THESE guys:
This suggests to me in a "everything seems otherwise normal" tow could possibly involve a tumble if encountering some turbulence? That's a scary thought.
Ya know what's an even scarier thought, shithead? That if a piece of fishing line blows at either end of the line or your driver is some asshole...
Whatever's going on back there, I can fix it by giving you the rope.
...ready to fix whatever's going on back there by...
Dennis Pagen - 2005/01
Analyzing my incident made me realize that had I released earlier I probably would have hit the ground at high speed at a steep angle. The result may have been similar to that of the pilot in Germany. The normal procedure for a tow pilot, when the hang glider gets too high, is to release in order to avoid the forces from the glider pulling the tug nose-down into a dangerous dive. However Neal kept me on line until I had enough ground clearance, and I believe he saved me from injury by doing so. I gave him a heart-felt thank you.
...giving you the rope that you don't need anything else beyond strong smooth thermal lift to kill you.
That's why I'm interested in the vertical positioning of the craft.
And I SO hope you maintain that interest in the vertical positioning of the craft - and keep ignoring the issues of one point towing and Rooney Links.
I once locked out on an early laminarST aerotowing. went past vertical and past 45 degrees to the line of pull-- and the load forces were increasing dramatically. The weaklink blew and the glider stalled--needed every bit of the 250 ft agl to speed up and pull out. I'm alive because I didn't use a stronger one.
Zack C - 2011/08/31 02:45:17 UTC
A stronger weak link would have still broken, just maybe not as soon. But what if this same incident happened when you were fifty feet lower? Jim says you're stacking the deck in your favor using a lighter weak link, but I'd rather not have to rely on luck to save me. So why didn't you release?
Marc Fink - 2011/08/31 08:11:05 UTC
This all happened in a few seconds--in a lock out the line/bridle will likely be caught in your corner bracket further complicating things. I was actually in the process of reaching for the release and just about to pull it when the weaklink blew. If procedures were amended to "insist" on stronger weaklinks I would simply stop towing.
Zack C - 2011/08/31 17:38:50 UTC
To me, that is the problem. Not only does it take time to reach for a release, you can't fight a lockout with one hand. I stack the deck in my favor by refusing to use a release I have to reach for.
I'm a little confused by the sequence of events--but it sounds similar to a couple of experiences I've had when transitioning a strong thermal out of synch with a tug.
The glider type and bridle rigging may have more influence than you might think. I've done some protows on low to intermediate performing gliders (not advisable in general) in a similar out-of-synch transition where once the line of pull got to a certain angle I was basically in a vertical lock-out and there wasn't anything I could do to prevent climbing at an accelerated rate of climb and increasing AOA. Very hard to do a real bar pull--in instead of what becomes essentially a push-up off the basetube.
Marc Fink - 2013/02/13 16:20:07 UTC
I've been aerotowing since 1996, and have had more than my share of tows gone bad, including a couple of for-real genuine lock-outs that resulted in a glider stall. In every case I never felt that I wished the weaklink had instead not failed when it did. If a requirement for stronger weaklinks were promulgated for all solo aerotowing--I'd immediately stop aerotowing.
Kinsley Sykes - 2013/02/17 16:04:16 UTC
Right now, you are advocating solutions based the sole premise of;
- We say they are better
- We looked up FAA regs (please see point one on applicability to HG) and folks are using might not be compliant with that in all cases...
Zack C - 2013/02/18 02:37:19 UTC
I only pointed this out when Miracle Pie Hole said he'd stop flying if regulations required stronger weak links.
Marc Fink - 2013/02/18 08:00:53 UTC
I didn't say I'd stop flying Zack--I said I'd stop aerotowing if required to use a stronger weaklink when I did not want to. Please try to be accurate in your statements.
Zack C - 2013/02/18 13:07:31 UTC
My apologies. That's what I meant. I've edited the statement.
Right Marc. Everybody interpreted what Zack said to mean that if you were required to fly anything heavier than a Marzec Link you'd no longer run off the ramp at Henson.
So, anyway, let's review/summarize your positions...
- A Marzec Link will keep you from getting killed by a lockout - that you're resisting with one hand - at 250 feet or over.
- You can't beat a Marzec Link with whatever Industry Standard crap you're trying to use for a release.
- If you ever lock out below 250 feet you're fucked - but you're totally OK with that.
- You have absolutely no interest in equipment that allows you to blow tow faster than a Marzec Link while continuously resisting a lockout with BOTH hands.
- Towing one point is perfectly OK on higher performance gliders.
- You're totally cool with going up with a configuration which can and will whipstall and tumble you from 150 feet if you hit a monster thermal leaving the field.
Review/Summary of the review/summary:
- You're totally cool with life and death aerotow dice rolls but your tolerance for the odds just happens to perfectly match those given by Industry Standard equipment.
What an absolutely amazing coincidence! Must be an Intelligent Design thing.
What kinds of total fucking morons...
Marc Fink - 53522 - H4 - 1994/01/13 - Rob Millman - AT PL ST TAT TFL TPL TST AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC
...sign total fucking assholes like you off on ratings?
And isn't it just great the way you never get kicked out of aerotow operations, banned from forums, or attacked during discussions.
The sleazebags who control this sport absolutely ADORE shitheads like you. You make their jobs SO much easier.
Yeah, I gotta struggle a bit to come up with good, clear cut examples of hang glider weak link kills. But do I hafta actually kill someone to properly scare you? Can't I just crash him hard enough to merit some expensive repairs or cite examples at altitude in which people end up a couple of hundred feet lower than they started out?
Zack C - 2012/06/03 18:09:54 UTC
I talked to Gregg about the article yesterday. He hadn't received the magazine yet and thus hadn't read the article, though he said Tracy had contacted him for information when writing it. When I told him about the loop-of-130-breaking-at-260 thing, he seemed as surprised and upset as I was.
Nothing terribly surprising about finally getting a good, clear cut example of a hang glider standard aerotow weak link kill - other than the length of time it took - but Gregg doesn't seem to have been upset enough about about the issue to have gone public about either the bullshit article or the bullshit fatality.
The frustration of a weaklink break is just that, frustration.
And it can be very frustrating for sure. Especially on a good day, which they tend to be. It seems to be a Murphy favourite. You'll be in a long tug line on a stellar day just itching to fly. The stars are all lining up when *bam*, out of nowhere your trip to happy XC land goes up in a flash. Now you've got to hike it all the way back to the back of the line and wait as the "perfect" window drifts on by.
I get it.
It can be a pisser.
But the "other side"... the not cautions one... is not one of frustration, it's one of very real danger.
Better to be frustrated than in a hospital, or worse.
No exaggeration... this is the fire that the "other side" is made of. Best not to play with it.
Five solo aerotow launches:
2004/06/26 - Mike Haas
2009/01/03 - Steve Elliot
2009/08/31 - Roy Messing
2011/10/28 - Lois Preston
2013/02/02 - Zack Marzec
All protected by a Rooney Link or BHPA equivalent, all dead.
If we go to the "other side" - the not cautions one, the one of very real danger, the one made of fire - and triple the strength of our Rooney Link, how much more burned do we risk getting? Could we get killed three times as dead as these guys?
Hi Tormod.
Oh, not at all.
I think what you're picking up on is my lack of willingness to discuss this with people that have already made up their minds.
Tad loves to have things both ways.
First weaklinks are too weak, so we MUST use stronger ones. Not doing so is reckless and dangerous.
Then they're too strong.
I have no time for such circular logic.
I had it with that crap years ago.
Then you won't hafta address any actual points or issues they raise. You can just make up what they're saying and soundly defeat their arguments.
Sorry for that, but it's just the nature of the beast.
I have no issue with discussing this with people that don't have an agenda.
Meaning the stupid pigfuckers who buy everything you say - regardless of how idiotic - because the best they can do with their stunted little brains is assume that anybody who just does one menial task over and over and over must really know what he's talking about.
It saddens me to know that the rantings of the fanatic fringe mask the few people who are actually working on things.
...the things that are being worked on by the few people who are actually working on things (whatever they are).
Am I "certain" about anything?
Of course not. You're a total moron with total ignorance of, inability to grasp, and contempt for...
Jim Rooney - 2011/08/26 06:04:23 UTC
As my friend likes to say... "Sure, it works in reality... but does it work in theory?"
Hahahahhaa... I like that one a lot
...THEORY - and hatred and fear of people who understand it.
All you have to go on is your vast and useless EXPERIENCE and the OPINIONS of your idiot friends and colleagues. So you can't predict that if one of your idiot friends who's decided that he's enough of a pro that he has no need of a two point bridle to properly trim the glider and can use a Rooney Link to compensate for releases which become inaccessible/inoperable in an emergency hits a powerful enough thermal coming out of a field he WILL kill himself.
Nope.
See? Toldyaso.
REAL pilots, for example, are one hundred percent CERTAIN that a one and a half G weak link WILL fulfill its sole purpose of...
Tost Flugzeuggerätebau
Weak links protect your aircraft against overloading.
...preventing an airworthy glider from being bent or broken by tow forces - and that attempts to use a weak link for ANY other purpose...
Anyone who believes otherwise is setting them selves up for disaster.
...WILL, every now and then, result in disaster.
However, some things get real obvious when you're doing them all the time. One is that weaklinks do in fact save people's asses.
Yeah?
- So how come we've never heard you cite a SINGLE actual INCIDENT?
- Where's the grateful testimony from all of your muppets about how they owe their lives to the Rooney Links on which you've forced them up?
- And, no, a comment from some single digit IQ asshole like Marc Fink who eats up all of his 250 feet after his Rooney Link blows while he's reaching for his bent pin barrel release with one hand while fighting a lockout with the other doesn't count. REAL pilots don't do dumb luck.
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. You're not the only one on the line. I didn't ask to be a test pilot. I can live with your inconvenience.
...million comp pilots whom you're forcing up on Rooney Links is there not a single sane voice saying, "Guys, I owe my life to a Rooney Link. I'd have come back from Zapata in a body bag last summer if I'd used a stronglink. Trust me, Jim really knows what he's talking about on this one."?
(3 tows/year) The crux of everything Tad says here.
He is the ultimate sideline quarterback.
Yet he is constantly insulting and condescending to anyone that doesn't agree with his assumptions and conclusions.... which are based on a horrible lack of experience.
It baffles me that people even listen to him.
...a horrible lack of experience has always been able to beat a Rooney Link with his homemade equipment - while a top notch professional tug pilot...
You're 100% onto it... relying on the skill of the pilot is a numbers game that you'll lose at some point.
Really?
- Just how good do you need to be to blow a release faster than it takes for MG's Rooney Link to kick in?
- So what you're saying is that everyone who aerotows WILL, at some point in his flying career, INEVITABLY find himself in a situation which he will only survive because of his single loop of 130 pound Greenspot.
- Don't we all rely on skill to approach and stop in fields? Isn't that also a numbers game we'll all inevitably lose at some point? Shouldn't we all fly with parachutes that randomly fall out of their containers about one out of four or five landings to ensure our survival?
- Why is hang glider aerotowing the only flavor of aviation in which the death of the pilot is inevitable unless his decisions are routinely superseded by a piece of fishing line - and some asshole flying a totally different and reliably powered aircraft from the safety of the other end of the string?
I find that so many people do not appreciate how fast and furious lockouts can happen.
Really?
- Given that at least once in everybody's flying career his life is saved from a low level lockout by a Rooney Link I'da thunk that virtually EVERYBODY - through personal experience, observation, video, word of mouth - would FULLY appreciate how fast and furious lockouts can happen.
- I'da thunk that everybody would fully appreciate how fast and furious lockouts can happen as a consequence of the totally excellent instruction...
Towing Aloft - 1998/01
Lockouts do not just magically happen to snatch a glider from the sky. They are generally progressive events originating from situations that can usually be terminated. The pilot and tow team must recognize these situations and the potential for acceleration into full lockout conditions so they can take appropriate corrective action prior to occurrence.
...all you flight park professionals provide.
- Can't lockouts be totally prevented just by knowing how to stay inside the Cone of Safety and using a fin?
- Kinda the way a pretty good percentage of foot launchers can expect to fall out of a glider at some point in their careers.
There isn't one sure-fire answer.
If there was, we'd all be doing it already. This thread I think makes this obvious... every single thing people have put forth as "the way", someone else has show how it can fail. Every single one. Argue about the details, but every single one fails.
Argue if you will about the examples (whatever), the trick of it isn't the method to me, it's how using new things doesn't work (and actually causes problems) in strange ways (like when going back to "normal" flying after getting used to the new method/device).
Enough about what doesn't work though... what does?
Since we don't have a plug that only fits one way, we fall on lesser methods, but some are better than others...
In particular... Third Party Verification.
You won't save you, but your friends might.
Not always, but they're more reliable than you.
Why do you think that airline checklists (yes our lovely checklists) are check-verified by pilot AND copilot?
That's all I got for ya.
The other topics have been beat to death here.
If there was an answer, we'd all already be doing it.
After all, if it's happened to you with your professional background, vast experience, and keen intellect what chance do we mere muppets have - especially muppets like me who don't have any friends?
They're exponential in nature.
Twice the time doesn't equate to twice the "bad"... it's four times the "bad"... then 16... it gets dramatic fast.
So, for example, a lockout that takes four seconds to roll me to eighty degrees is four times as bad as a lockout that takes two seconds to roll me to eighty degrees? Seems to me like, if anything, it should be just the opposite. But, hell, I have a horrible lack of experience and my intellect is only a tiny fraction as keen as yours.
Is a weaklink going to save your ass?
OF COURSE IT IS!!! You JUST SAID:
...relying on the skill of the pilot is a numbers game that you'll lose at some point.
Without the Rooney Link to kick in during one of our low level lockouts that will be beyond our capacity to handle with our skill and Industry Standard releases, our asses WILL BE toast.
Who knows? But it's nice to stack the deck in your favour.
Oh. So it's NOT a sure thing. Well let's take a look at some incidents...
Muppet. Allows glider to fly him into a lockout. Industry Standard release doesn't work for a while, Rooney Link allows him to get rolled to beyond ninety degrees on a glider for which the placard limitation is sixty degrees. How much farther the Rooney Link would've allowed him to roll had he not been able to pry his Lockout Mountain Flight Park release open is anybody's guess. And even this muppet understands that if this had happened low the consequences of landing with the glider rolled perpendicular to the field probably wouldn't have been pretty.
Muppet. Flies himself into a lockout. Looks like his Rooney Link very clearly provides protection from high bank turns for that form of towing - just barely. Fails to very clearly provide protection for one of his leading edges and his nose.
Muppet. Lets himself get flown into a lockout. Rooney Link very clearly provides protection from high bank turns for that form of towing - but he sure eats up a lot of air before he gets flying again.
Jamie Shelden. Tandem Aerotow Instructor, USHGA Director at Large, rock star. Turbulence induced lockout. Rooney Link is ready to very clearly provide protection from high bank turn for that form of towing but when she's rolled 75 degrees to the left she figures what the hell and releases anyway.
DocSoc. Tandem Aerotow Instructor, rock star. Rooney Link very clearly provides protection from excessive angle of attack for that form of towing but just barely. Probably has the knot hidden from the main tension in the link and excluded altogether from the equation a little too well.
Zack Marzec. Tandem Aerotow Instructor, rock star. Rooney Link very clearly provides protection from excessive angle of attack for that form of towing but not quite soon enough. However...
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.
If you're going to start pretending that you're discussing his accident you need to remember that Zack was a very light pilot. So we probably shouldn't count that one because the circumstances really weren't fair to the Rooney Link.
But anyway... In order for the focal point of your safe towing system to keep proving itself as an effective pitch and lockout protector it sure seems like you really need a lot of air under you - so much air that it doesn't seem like a couple of hundred extra pounds of tension would make a whole lotta difference.
deltaman - 2012/05/25 19:45:39 UTC
I miss opportunity to be aerotowed in my mountains but 2 months ago we spent 4 days teaching AT to 12 pilots in 2 points. All had 190kg weaklink (220kg on tug side).
One of them oscillate and start to lockout. I said by radio : (time to) release, he did it (JoeStreet release), but 1ms to late.. the weaklink was just blowed.
and no unexpected wl failure in 90 AT.
I'm confident in this way to think wl..
Wouldn't you agree?
Now flip the argument and you start to see the devil.
A glider can take a whole shitload more force than a weaklink can.
...then you see no issue with a LOT stronger weaklink.
Yeah. Looking at those videos I'm really not seeing much of an issue.
Well, it won't take long with that system before we've got a lot more dead pilots out there.
A lot more than:
- 2004/06/26 - Mike Haas
- 2009/01/03 - Steve Elliot
- 2009/08/31 - Roy Messing
- 2011/10/28 - Lois Preston
- 2013/02/02 - Zack Marzec
?
What kind of change in recovery altitude should we expect to have if we all switched from Rooney Links to 1.5 times max certified operating weight weak links? Should be pretty simple arithmetic.
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.
Did you talk to Arlan Birkett, Bobby Bailey, or Mark Frutiger about towing people to their deaths? None of them recommended any changes in the relevant procedures and equipment so maybe towing people to their deaths isn't nearly as big a fucking deal as you seem to think it is.
And, hell...
The Press - 2006/03/15
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is urgently pushing for new hang-gliding industry standards after learning a hang-gliding pilot who suffered serious injuries in a crash three weeks ago had not clipped himself on to the glider.
Extreme Air tandem gliding pilot James (Jim) Rooney safely clipped his passenger into the glider before departing from the Coronet Peak launch site, near Queenstown, CAA sports and recreation manager Rex Kenny said yesterday.
However, he took off without attaching himself.
In a video, he was seen to hold on to the glider for about fifty meters before hitting power lines.
Rooney and the passenger fell about fifteen meters to the ground.
I don't recall you getting all wrapped up in guilt trips after you dove your tandem passenger into the powerlines.
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.
Brian,
While I appreciate your quest for the perfect weaklink, didn't we cover this already? (Again?)
Are we to go down the road of debating the quality standards of greenspot again?
Ok, for review, it doesn't matter.
Why?
Because you have nothing else.
Do I have to review why we don't tow handmade gliders?
Listen we're all perfectly aware that greenspot is not laser calibrated to 130lbs. It's bloody fishing line. Get over it. Are you flying below your perfect numbers as a heavy guy. Yes. Yes you are. Get over it.
Why?
Because it's all you've got.
Why lower numbers? Because your choice is lower or higher... and higher is more dangerous than lower.
Plain and simple. Janni, 1G, but please stay.
Now, my turn.
Name one commercially available strength rated material that can be used as a weaklink OTHER than greenspot.
What are we gonna do? It's all we've got.
Fortunately, they've been unscathed, but there have been a lot of soiled underpants in the process.
You've not heard about strong-link incidents.
Uh, yeah... cuz we don't let you use them.
Right.
I'm happy to discuss this stuff.
But I'm sick to death of arguing about it.
OK, Mister Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney, let's see what we can agree on...
- You're not "certain" about anything.
- It IS possible for a Rooney Link to, in fact, save some bozo's ass once in a great while. Kinda like if you pour enough sugar into enough gas tanks you'll eventually be able to keep some drunk from accelerating into a telephone pole. (But, of course, there will be a lot of carnage on the beltway resulting from engines that suddenly cut out that you'll need to ignore when you're pointing towards the successes you might have once every decade or so.)
- I don't know that a weak link is gonna save my - or anyone's - ass. I've never had or seen it happen.
Now...
- Lockouts happen for TWO reasons:
-- Muppets fly into them.
-- Competent aerotow pilots get slammed by thermal turbulence.
- A muppet flying into a lockout is ENTIRELY the fault of whatever idiot signed him off without properly training and qualifying him. Those incidents are rare and of zero concern to any halfway competent weekender.
- ANYBODY can get violently/instantly/severely locked out by getting slammed and no level of skill, release system, weak link, or response by anyone at either end of the towline can prevent them from happening or limit the response of the glider to something survivable without a healthy allowance of altitude.
- But the good news is that low level lockouts are rare because:
-- vertical air movement is greatly suppressed at the surface by the surface
-- we can use visual clues - windsocks, streamers, grass, dust - prior to takeoff to avoid most of what significant vertical air movement there is
- So, for example, in the entire history of Ridgely's operation, fourteen years this weekend, something in the ballpark of a hundred thousand tows, the number of reported conditions induced low level lockouts has been ZERO.
- And lockouts at altitude are never of any consequence - regardless of equipment.
So the threat that these Rooney Links are supposed to be protecting all of us muppets from is statistically nonexistent.
BUT... Let's buy the crap that you're trying to feed us which is:
- All of us WILL, at some point in our aerotowing careers, find ourselves in a low level lockout situation in which our lives will be dependent upon a Rooney Link blow.
- A Rooney Link blow is no guarantee of low level lockout survival but it stacks the deck in our favor.
Let's say that the:
- US aerotowing population is one thousand
- average aerotowing career is ten years
- effectiveness of a Rooney Link in protecting against a low level lockout fatality is 75 percent
We will expect to have one hundred potentially lethal low level lockouts per year.
Seventy-five pilots will have their lives saved by Rooney Links.
Twenty-five pilots will die.
So Jim... Where are we burying these twenty-five pilots every year?
Or do you wanna claim that Rooney Links are 99 percent effective in safely defusing these inevitable low level lockouts - so we're just killing one person a year?
We still don't have anywhere near enough bodies to make the arithmetic work.
It's been close to nine years since since the last conditions induced aerotow lockout fatality.
- And that's worldwide. (No, German pro toads who can't hold their noses down don't count.)
- And there's a reasonably good chance Mike Haas was killed by, rather than despite, his Rooney Link - working in conjunction, of course, with his inaccessible Industry Standard release.
It's just occurred to me how similar the issues of Rooney Links and standup landings are.
People are taught that both increase the safety of flight ops from Day One, Flight One. The new student has an initial instinct to fly with something that...
...roll his landings in. But he is immediately conned into believing that his long term survival is dependent upon always flying with something that's constantly on the verge of dumping him into a stall and always landing with a whipstall to bring his glider to a dead stop. And he is rapidly so hardwired.
It seems that this sport is totally in love with the approach of...
I think stalls near the ground are among the most dangerous things that can happen to a fixed-wing aircraft.
...using stalls near the ground to enhance safety.
The foremost factor in landing safety is ensuring that you are always in range of and come down in a safe field. Yet I'd estimate that over half of hang gliding training is dedicated to teaching people how to whipstall gliders to dead stops in benign environments in benign conditions to delude them into believing that they'll be able to safely land in dangerous environments in dangerous conditions.
Landing in dangerous environments is irresponsible piloting and is pretty much a sure ticket to injury if done on a regular basis.
Don't take MY word for that - Just listen to one of the most accomplished XC flyers and standup landers in the game:
There have been a number of bad landing incidents in the wash by a variety of experienced pilots because it is a dangerous bailout, period. It is NOT the club's landing zone either. It is a bailout and when it's hot on the surface it can and will bite you in the ass.
Landing in dangerous environments is a losing proposition, practicing for landing in dangerous environments is...
Most common HG injury... spiral fracture of the humerus.
...the leading cause of crashes and serious injuries and one of the leading causes of deaths in the sport. And the percentage of landings which occur in environments which require whipstalled standup landings is...
Zack C - 2012/03/29 04:49:14 UTC
Like Tad said...it's tough to find a video of someone landing in a place that isn't wheel landable.
...statistically insignificant.
Landing in dangerous conditions is pretty much all we do 'cause we tend not to be able to soar in benign conditions. So we really need to optimize our landing field selections and procedures for safety - instead of doing the precise opposite on both counts.
A weak link in REAL aviation...
Tost Flugzeuggerätebau
Weak links protect your aircraft against overloading.
...protects your aircraft against overloading. But a third of a century ago Donnell Hewett comes along with and easily and very successfully sells a packet of mostly and totally insane ideas about hang glider towing, the most dangerous of which is...
Donnell Hewett - 1981/10
A properly designed weak link must be strong enough to permit a good rate of climb without breaking, and it must be weak enough to break before the glider gets out of control, stalls, or collapses. Since our glider flies level with a 50 pound pull, climbs at about 500 fpm with a 130 pound pull, and retains sufficient control to prevent stalling if a weak link breaks at 200 pounds pull, we selected that value.
...that a piece of fishing line can prevent a towed glider from getting out of control and stalling. And he pulls an idiotic figure out of his ass that virtually guarantees stalls ten, thirty, fifty, and up percentage of tows and can and will guarantee the death of the pilot when...
Donnell Hewett - 1981/10
Now I've heard the argument that "Weak links always break at the worst possible time, when the glider is climbing hard in a near stall situation"...
...the shit really hits the fan.
Things are plenty bad enough at the time when all towing is from the surface and tension can be adjusted by the speed of a tow vehicle or stationary winch or held essentially constant with a payout winch.
But when aerotowing starts rearing its ugly head a few years later things REALLY go to hell.
- Aerotowing is, by definition, static / fixed length towline.
- And an aero towline needs to be short to keep the planes from getting out of sync - two or three hundred feet versus the two or three thousand you'd often have out for surface. And short fixed towlines are dangerous towlines.
- Tugs can only drop their speed so much before falling out of the sky and, for all intents and purposes, can do NOTHING to moderate tension in real emergencies.
- And since tugs can do NOTHING to moderate tension in real emergencies, light aero weak links are even more dangerous than light surface static tow weak links.
- But the lunatic strategy is to keep the weak link as close to normal tow tension as possible (while ignoring what happens during thermal induced spikes) and, since aero is constantly forward pulling / more efficient and thus lower for any given climb rate, weak link strength, which is in desperate need of jacking up already, is dropped even further.
Donnell Hewett - 1984/04
AEROTOWING UPDATE
The towline is 180 ft of 3.5 mm nylon shroud line with a 185 lb weak link tied to each end.
Note that with Morningside's long overdue movement in the direction of sanity the one-size-fits-all weak link on a BRIDLE end is fifteen pounds heavier than the one-size-fits-all weak link on Donnell's TOWLINE end. And for a two point bridle we've got an 88 percent increase.
Beyond training there is no reason to aerotow in smooth air. Beyond training we are doing nothing but launching into dangerous air on aircraft which are very dangerously roll unstable on tow and...
...fairly dangerously roll unstable even when not on the string.
And if we get hit hard enough before we've got a lot of air under us we're fucked. No degree of skill, control authority, speed of reaction, or quality equipment or flimsiness of fishing line can prevent us from fatally smashing in.
But hey, big surprise. The same is true coming off a ramp in the mountains in thermal conditions (or coming off the runway in a 737 at Denver International in a gust front). We're not AS roll authority compromised without the string but Mother Nature will have no problem whatsoever generating something that can lock us out, turn us around, and slam us back into the rocks and kill us just as dead - if not considerably more so - as the same thing can at the Hang Glide Chicago runway.
The good news is that - in both launch environments - we're all perfectly capable of detecting the warning signs that Mother Nature WILL do us the courtesy of providing and selecting parcels of air which will allow us to get safely clear of the surface.
Landing analogy...
We can safely fly locally or XC over endless square miles of injun country as long as we always keep a football field sized patch of something sane in easy range at all times.
But the bullshit that Hewett, Pagen, Davis, Rooney, Ryan, Trisa, the Flight Park Mafia, USHGA is feeding us is that this magic loop of fishing line will make it safe(r) to launch into a thermal washing machine by functioning as an instant hands free release. And they will focus on the one case in ten thousand when everything lines up such that it actually does - if they've got that much - and studiously ignore the 9999 cases when the results are what one expect from...
Wills Wing / Blue Sky / Steve Wendt / Ryan Voight Productions - 2007/03
NEVER CUT THE POWER...
Reduce Gradually
Increase Gradually
...a catastrophic power failure on takeoff in normal, challenging, dangerous, or potentially or inevitably lethal circumstances.
Zach, you can nit pick all you like, but I'll put a 100,000+ flight record over your complaints any day of the week.
Let me see if I can clear up a few things for ya.
A lot of this I sent to Steve btw...
The "purpose" of a weaklink is not in question. Your semantics are.
The "purpose" of a weaklink is to increase the safety of the towing operation. PERIOD.
The PURPOSE of the weak link is to protect your aircraft against overloading.
For all practical purposes that protection will only be required when the pilot has allowed the situation to go totally tits up.
The costs of that protection WILL BE:
- irreversible loss of any ability to climb or power out of a situation
- abrupt increase in angle of attack
- forced landing
A very probable cost of that protection is a substantial stall and significant rapid loss of altitude.
A quite possible cost of that protection is a whipstall into the ground.
And the better protected from overloading your glider is the more frequently you're gonna hafta pay at least some of the costs of that protection.
- So if your glider's in danger of being folded up at two Gs you definitely wanna use a weak link at the very bottom of the FAA's legal range and expect to pay the costs - which may be as bad as or worse than having your glider fold up.
- But if your glider's good for six Gs or more you can protect it EXTREMELY well with a weak link in the middle or top of the FAA's legal range and probably go through an entire aerotowing career without EVER having to pay ANY costs of that protection.
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$$.
The motherfucker tows people up on inaccessible Industry Standard "releases", they get into lockouts at altitude where nothing matters, the three quarter G Rooney Link blows in the same millisecond that a one and a half G Tad-O-Link would've, and the glider...
...drops like a fuckin' brick for a while and eventually pulls out of the stall. And Rooney then says that the Rooney Link saved his ass - and implies that if the lockout had happened at thirty feet the glider would've come out smelling like a rose.
He's *LYING*. EXACTLY THE WAY HE'S LYING when he says:
is EXACTLY the kind of lockout protection you can expect from a Rooney Link. The only thing that's gonna save your ass when you're locked out enough for ANY weak link to kick in is ALTITUDE.
And Rooney again accidentally helps us out on the "stronglink" issue by saying:
As they often say here on the internet....
Pics or it didn't happen.
...literally/totally NONEXISTENT.
Rooney pulls this:
However, some things get real obvious when you're doing them all the time. One is that weaklinks do in fact save people's asses.
crap like he's God's Gift to Aviation and has seen so many muppets' asses saved by Rooney Links that he lost count half a dozen years ago. But the truth of the matter is that HE HASN'T SEEN *ANY*.
If he could produce a SINGLE LEGITIMATE INCIDENT - first, second, or third hand - in which somebody's ass was saved by a Rooney Link from low level lockout he'd get a death grip on it and shove it in our faces at every opportunity.
Instead he pulls this nonspecific bullshit in the fine sleazeball tradition of...
Towing Aloft - 1998/01
Three recent aerotowing accidents have occurred--one fatal. The common thread in all three was a lockout and the use of a much too heavy weak link. Tandem gliders are much less responsive than smaller gliders and the pilot in command often has a less than ideal position on the control bar. The situation shouldn't be compromised by an over-strength weak link.
...Pagen.
As sure as the sun rises in the east - or thereabouts - there's gonna be another another Rooney Link battle...
Oh how many times I have to hear this stuff.
I've had these exact same arguments for years and years and years.
Nothing about them changes except the new faces spouting them.
...right after the next victim gets slammed in hard by one. And WHEN that happens we're gonna be able to pin the motherfucker down A LOT better.
However, some things get real obvious when you're doing them all the time. One is that weaklinks do in fact save people's asses.
Yeah? Cite ONE incident.
- Where and when did it happen?
- Why did he lock out?
- Who was it? What rating did he have and who signed him off?
- What was he using for a release? How come he didn't blow it?
- Did you resume towing him or insist that he first get some remedial training?
- What glider was he flying and what was his flying weight?
- What were the conditions? Why were you launching him in them?
- Didn't he know how to stay inside the Cone of Safety?
- Was he using a fin?
- What kind of bridle was he using? One point or two? Or three?
- At what altitude did he lock out?
- How much air did he eat up during the recovery?
- How come:
-- you didn't fix whatever was going on back there by giving him the rope?
-- he didn't post anything about how he'd have been dead save for his Rooney Link?
-- you didn't post anything about this narrowly averted fatality to help the rest avoid getting into such a critical situation?
- Was there an incident report submitted to USHGA? Why not?
There ARE NO INCIDENTS of Rooney Links saving anybody's ass from a low level lockout because:
- when you're locking out you're dangerously rolled
- by the time the Rooney Link blows to limit the lockout you're REALLY dangerously rolled
- after the Rooney Link blows you're gonna drop like a fuckin' brick for a while
The best you can hope for is to survive the ensuing/inevitable crash - and the historical record on that ain't great.
We have this motherfucker right where we want him. His pathological lying has gotten him totally checkmated.
Its purpose is not to protect the pilot as every ranches are saying but just to protect the glider from overload.
Davis Straub - 2013/02/08 16:57:42 UTC
All the flight parks that I am aware of are quite aware of this. They tell their pilots that the point of the weak link is save the glider from overload and that they should not rely on the weaklink to save them.
USHGA Accident Report Summary
Pilot: Holly Korzilius
Reporter: Steve Wendt, USHGA Instructor # 19528
Date : 5/29/05
Summary: I observed the accident from a few hundred yards away, but could clearly see launch and the aero tow was coming towards my area so that I had a full view of the flight. I was at the wreckage in a few seconds and afterwards gathered the information that helps understand the results of some unfortunate poor decisions of the injured pilot.
The pilot launched at 12:15 while conditions were just starting to become thermally, with just a slight crosswind of maybe 20 degrees with winds of 8 to 12 mph NNW. The pilot had flown here via AT more than 50 times.
Holly immediately had control problems right off the dolly and completed 3 oscilations before it took her 90 degrees from the tow vehicle upon when the tug pilot hit the release and Holly continued turning away from the tow in a fairly violent exchange of force . Holly pulled in to have control speed and then began rounding out , but there was not enough altitude and she hit the ground before she could do so. She was barely 100 feet when she was locked out in a left hand turn. At that time, she was banked up over 60 degrees.
The basebar hit the ground first, nose wires failed from the impact, and at the same time she was hitting face first. She had a full face helmet, which helped reduce her facial injuries but could not totallly prevent them. The gliders wings were level with the ground when it made contact with the ground.
First aid was available quickly and EMT response was appropriate .
Now, why did Holly not have control? Holly has two gliders, a Moyes Sonic, and the Moyes Litesport that she was flying during the accident. She has flown here in much stronger conditions before. and has always flown safely , on both of her gliders, but usually chooses her Sonic if air is questionable, or if she hasn't flown in a while.
Holly for some reason chose to fly her Litesport, she has always towed it with proper releases and weak links and usually seeked advice from me when unsure of something.
This time she couldn't find her v-bridle top line with her weak link installed for her priimary keel release. She chose to tow anyway, and just go from the shoulders, which to my knowledge she had never done before, nor had she been trained to understand potential problems. This could have been done with a short clinic and if we thought it a possibility, been done under supervised conditions in the evening air. Our dollys have check lists for many things, one is that you have a proper weak link installed. She had no weak link as it was normally on the upper line that she couldn't find, and we can only assume that she didn't even consider the fact that she now didn't have a weak link.
These mistakes caused her to have too much bar pressure, farther in bar position, she was cross controlling, and had no weak link. She hadn't flown that glider in a while and changed these towing aspects that I believe all combined to make a violant combination. The pilot also stayed on tow too long. She should have released after the first, or even the second oscilation when she realized that things were not correct. Failing to do so put the glider in a locked out situation that she could no longer control.
- Everybody at Blue Sky flies a 130 pound Greenspot "standard aerotow weak link".
- A standard aerotow weak link on a two point bridle limits the towline tension to 226 pounds.
- Steve's never heard of a bridle wrap before so Holly has no secondary weak link.
- But that's OK 'cause under FAA aerotowing regulations Tex can use a weak link no more than 25 percent over the glider's - 283 pounds.
- And Steve is ABSOLUTELY RABID about safety issues so there's NO QUESTION WHATSOEVER that he'd compromise on an issue this critical - one concerning the very focal point of a safe towing system.
- If Holly had been towing one point deliberately or as a result of a primary bridle wrap with a secondary weak link she'd have been limited to 260 pounds.
- 23 pound spread. Big fuckin' deal.
- The glider was a Moyes Litesport 4. 310 pounds max certified operating weight. 283 pound tug weak link - 0.9 Gs. Under FAA aerotowing regulations the max allowable weak link for that glider is 620 pounds.
- So why does Steve refer to the absence of Holly's weak link in an overcontrol/oscillation/lockout/stall incident FIVE TIMES? Was he worried about a 0.9 G weak link blowing a min six G glider apart in the course of a tow that maxes out at a hundred feet behind a tug that's doing just fine the whole time?
All the flight parks that I am aware of are quite aware of this. They tell their pilots that the point of the weak link is save the glider from overload and that they should not rely on the weaklink to save them.
The safety weak link is a very important part of the system. Its purpose is to disconnect the hang glider from the tug at any time the tow forces rise above a certain level. There's one at the hang glider end of the rope, and another slightly stronger one at the other end, on the tug. A pilot experiencing a challenging flight, as a result of inexperience or turbulence, will likely break a weak link before the tow is complete. This "accidental" release often prevents a rough ride from developing into a dangerous one, and the glider returns to the launch area and lands.
