For a couple of years I have flown with a doubled weaklink because, flying with a rigid wing glider, I have found that there is little reason to expect trouble on tow, except from a weaklink break. Am I wrong in this?
Of course not, Davis. You've never been wrong about anything. And when you are you just ban the guy who pointed it out so what's the problem anyway?
A doubled weak link... Well yeah, as long as you're flying a RIGID wing glider there is little reason to expect trouble on tow, except from a weak link break. But for us flexies of course we're locking out low left and right and our only hope for survival beyond two or three weekends is a single which will break before the pressure of the towline reaches a level that compromises the handling of the glider.
No, that really doesn't make sense. I guess what I really mean is we WOULD BE locking out low left and right if we weren't using a single which will break before the pressure of the towline reaches a level that compromises the handling of the glider. The towline pressure is constantly increasing as we climb out and without that weak link doing its job our handling of the glider will be so compromised that we won't be able to handle it.
Tad doesn't agree, but the rest of us no doubt do, that we are in a partnership with the tug pilot, and that he needs to be protected also, and therefore our weaklink has to be less than his.
I can tell you that I fly with a 200lb weaklink on one side of my 750lb pro tow bridle. I am happy with it.
Yeah? At the 2014 Big Spring Nationals three weeks ago you were flying a T2 144. That's not a rigid - so how can you be happy with a Tad-O-Link? What happened to the trouble you were implying that you were having on flexies that your single was taking care of?
How 'bout?:
14-0614 - 18-0801
23-1020 - 24-1117
The Tad-O-Link on that one, two Augusts ago, doesn't do anything - same as you and Bobby. And the tow's able to continue just fine anyway. So what's the scenario in which you're happier with your Tad-O-Link than you would be with a loop of thousand pound Spectra?
Also... Why does your pro toad bridle need to be 750 pounds? Isn't that at least half a ton towline? Your weak link is gonna blow at four hundred - along with the tow mast according to Quest. What's your point? Why should we give a rat's ass if it holds to four hundred or better?
Funny we don't ever seem to be hearing about VG setting prior to Balado two weeks ago after Oliver's happened to get kicked off on launch. I guess it was such an obvious issue those prior three decades that nobody ever dreamt it would ever need any discussion. Along the lines running in the direction of the high wing...
...to level the glider through weight shift alone with your hands resting effortlessly on the control tubes. (Is there a VG setting you're recommending for that scenario on launch, Ryan?)
Getting pilots into the air quickly is also safer as it reduces the stress that pilots feel on the ground and keeps them focused on their job which is to launch safely and without hassling the ground crew or themselves. When we look at safety we have to look at the whole system, not just one component of that system. One pilot may feel that one component is unsafe from his point of view and desire a different approach, but accommodating one pilot can reduce the overall safety of the system.
Weaklinks of 140 and 200 pounds will be available and provided by the organizers. Weaklinks provided by the organizers must be used by the competitors.
The weak link is no longer the focal point of a safe towing system. We've advanced enough to understand that the VG setting is actually the focal point of a safe towing system. And the one size that fits all is the setting that the individual pilot works best for him on his particular glider for pro toad AT launch.
200 is actually a reasonable one-size-fits-all. But we can offer 140 (which is actually 130 (Davis is easily confused by numbers greater than zero) because:
- Weak link strength is no longer a safety issue. We just use whatever we're happy with - like sail colors.
- If we suddenly went full cold turkey that would mean weak link strength actually is an important issue and 65 percent of what we're mandating now had issues beyond inconvenience.
- When a Jeff Bohl gets killed in a low level pro toad lockout we don't mention weak link strength to hopefully deprive Team Kite Strings of the data and illustrate its irrelevance to the public. Could've been the old 140 stuff or the new 200 that many of us became happy with post Marzec. (Which is actually mostly true.)
Include the Skyting bridle in Towing Aloft - a decade and a half after everybody figured out that it did absolutely nothing that a two point wasn't doing way better. It makes the book a lot heavier and helps con the pilot into believing that he's purchasing something of positive value.
was absolutely historic. Yeah, you'd have been absolutely fine if that VG hadn't popped off. As it was you nearly killed the tug. Not to mention having to have a tow aborted that would've otherwise gone off like clockwork regardless of conditions.
When we get another 2004/08 near fatal Pagen or 2013/02/02 actual fatal Zack Marzec it'll be 'cause of an unspecified inappropriate VG setting. So take a bunch of hops to really get it right and use the landings to get your flare timing perfected. Two birds...
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. Come on - do some pushups this winter. See if you can advance up to some one-arm pushups.
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.
If you teach them how to pull the glider with the harness they'll learn to steer the glider through weight shift simply by running toward their target.
Everybody knows that. Just one of those things that nobody's ever been able to actually capture on film. Also a bit odd that a demonstration of the technique has never been a requirement for an AT rating. Just think of all the lives that could've been saved over the decades.
Or maybe the problem is that our Infallible Weak Link will have already kicked in well before we get to that point. And thus you wouldn't even be able to perfect the technique at altitude unless you were stupid enough to launch with a Tad-O-Link.
Something else we've never been able to capture on film... A Standard Aerotow Weak Link safely defusing a lockout down in the kill zone. We don't even have a legitimate ACCOUNT of that happening.
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.
Yeah, I can believe that one. We should all use the one-size-fits-all Standard Aerotow Weak Link 'cause if we lock out at 250 feet we might have just enough air to be just clipping grass when we're bottomed out. (And note the usual failure of the Pilot In Command to fix whatever was going on back there.)
Bullshit, Brad. The only thing a glider responds to by way of pilot input is TORQUE - fore/aft and/or lateral.
If you're flying pro toad you've already thrown away the torque you'll need to counter a vertical lockout and if you have your glider properly trimmed on two point it's a nonissue. So we don't need to talk about pitch.
Roll... The nanosecond you take a hand off the control bar your ability to effect resistive torque goes to ZERO.
That's a free flight thermal induced lockout at altitude. And he's doing everything he or anyone else can to resist the roll and ride through the situation. He's up against the wire and steroids wouldn't have been of any use in pushing over through it. The only thing he'd have been wishing for in a situation in which anything mattered would have been ballast and/or a smaller glider.
Never once in world hang gliding history has there ever been a report of an incident in which things went south because someone lacked the STRENGTH to effect a max possible control input. Ditto with respect to any other aircraft you wanna name. Yeah, we're always happy to reduce the effort and increase the effectiveness of our control inputs - French Connections, taller control frames, kingpost suspension, spreader, loose VG - and we DO get fatigued on long duration thermal flights... But when the shit hits the fan in a situation that matters nobody's EVER had the slightest problem instantly snapping to the stops.
But congratulations, Brad. Good job on pulling such an original solution outta your ass without ever catching the slightest degree of flak from any mainstreamers.
P.S. u$hPa Certified Instructor Marc Fink...
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.
How come you didn't just swing your body way outside the control frame so it stayed up there while you reached out with one hand and released? Trick the glider for a critical moment into thinking you were still holding max roll input? Wouldn't that at least have taken fifty feet off of your recovery altitude loss? Maybe also a good idea to use a fifteen percent safer weak link. That's another one that's generated a really astonishing total absence of discussion - even for little girl gliders.
Also... Davis and the Flight Park Mafia started giving people the option of flying two hundred pound Tad-O-Links the better part of a decade ago and we know - thanks to Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney - that a million comp pilots would've immediately jumped on that choice. Where'd all the words of caution and incident reports suddenly disappear to? New Zealand maybe?
I'm pretty sure I've posted this before, but Ian's '94 Hay pics prompted me to find it again. That year was a comp of attrition for some. This is Pete Lehmann under chute, one of at least two that day at that comp. From faulty memory the car is John Silver's (name could be wrong). It drove on to the chute and prevented Pete from being further trashed, although I don't think that much was salvagable of his gear.
Phil Shroder
I thought the windmill downwind of the tow paddock stopped the chute from dragging him further. He came close to getting dragged into the dam if not for the windmill. He also dropped his GPS in the tumble but it was found later and still worked.
William Olive
You're right. He landed in the dam, which very much softened his landing. You can see the windmill on the right of the pic.
Ian Duncan
There was also the US pilots horrific lockout. The guy who had designed and built a new vario. He got hit by a strong thermal on tow. His nose pitched up severely and he lost the base bar, leaving him hanging behind and out of reach of the A-frame.
The car stopped but they had no lockout release on the line so the thermal just kept pushing him up. Eventually the glider rotated to the left putting him in a dive like a kite doing a loop. Luckily he was high enough to clear the ground after the first dive and he went straight back up still hanging behind the A-frame.
Nearing the top of the second climb the base bar came back into his hands and as he came to the top of the climb he pushed out and the weaklink finally broke but this left him fully stalled. The glider pitched down into a dive which he only just managed to pull out of just short of the ground. He then did a perfect cross wind landing a few lanes to the right of us.
Horrific to watch the whole thing happen at my first ever flatlands comp. I think we had a driver operated lockout release on our car and I never car towed without one after seeing that happen. John Trude had an horrific accident the following year because they also didn't have a lockout release.
Davis Straub - 2021/02/01 13:22:21 UTC
Australia 1994
It's Pete's story that got me to go to Australia.
What an incredibly lucky break for Australia! Or maybe the US.
William Olive
I'm pretty sure I've posted this before, but Ian's '94 Hay pics prompted me to find it again. That year was a comp of attrition for some.
Often the case with tow launch comps.
This is Pete Lehmann under chute, one of at least two that day at that comp.
Here's another shot of Pete:
Shortly after a Davis Link increase in the safety of the towing operation. (And the guys who came down under silk that day didn't need to be hauled off to the emergency room.)
From faulty memory the car is John Silver's (name could be wrong).
Probably needs a "Long" in front of it.
It drove on to the chute and prevented Pete from being further trashed...
Pete was born trashed.
...although I don't think that much was salvagable of his gear.
Phil Shroder
I thought the windmill downwind of the tow paddock stopped the chute from dragging him further. He came close to getting dragged into the dam if not for the windmill. He also dropped his GPS in the tumble but it was found later and still worked.
William Olive
You're right. He landed in the dam, which very much softened his landing. You can see the windmill on the right of the pic.
Ian Duncan
There was also the US pilots horrific lockout. The guy who had designed and built a new vario. He got hit by a strong thermal on tow. His nose pitched up severely and...
...he lost the base bar, leaving him hanging behind and out of reach of the A-frame.
But not out of reach of his easily reachable truck tow release.
The car stopped but they had no lockout release...
A LOCKOUT release? What's a lockout release and how does it differ from an everything-is-going-fine release?
...on the line so the thermal just kept pushing him up.
- How horrible that must've been for him.
- Guess the US pilot didn't have a lockout release either. Or perhaps he was OK with the thermal just keeping pushing him up. Go figure.
Eventually the glider rotated to the left putting him in a dive like a kite doing a loop.
A lockout.
Luckily he was high enough to clear the ground after the first dive and he went straight back up still hanging behind the A-frame.
- What would've happened if there'd been a lockout release at the front end and somebody had used it at or a bit before the end of the first dive?
- Must've been using a Tad-O-Link. A proper weak link will break before you can get into too much trouble.
Nearing the top of the second climb the base bar came back into his hands and as he came to the top of the climb he pushed out and the weaklink finally broke...
FINALLY broke? Was there an HGFA investigation that looked into the reason it didn't break when it was supposed to?
...but this left him fully stalled.
Bullshit. It left him in a situation in which he could commence recovery.
The glider pitched down into a dive which he only just managed to pull out of just short of the ground.
You're the one advocating change here, not me.
I'm fine.
These are only questions if you're advocating change. Which I'm not. You are.
You're the one speculating on Zack's death... not me.
Hell, you've even already come to your conclusions... you've made up your mind and you "know" what happened and what to do about.
It's disgusting and you need to stop.
You weren't there. You don't know.
All you have is the tug pilot report, who himself says he doesn't know... and HE WAS THERE... and he doesn't know.
He then did a perfect cross wind landing a few lanes to the right of us.
No problem then. No need to evaluate equipment and/or procedures and see if anything could've been done any better.
Horrific to watch the whole thing happen at my first ever flatlands comp. I think we had a driver operated lockout release on our car and I never car towed without one after seeing that happen.
Seeing as how it would be totally fucking absurd to consider equipping the glider with a pilot operated lockout release.
John Trude had an horrific accident the following year because they also didn't have a lockout release.
And was ALSO obviously flying with a Tad-O-Link / trading off safety for the sake of convenience.
An experienced, very skilled, and well loved tug pilot has died when the Dragonfly that he was flying in with another pilot clipped a tree on landing and spun in. The other pilot is in the hospital.
The pilots were doing touch and goes and Paul was assisting the other pilot from the rear seat. The approach was apparently too low and slow.
We send our consolations to Paul's friends and family.
And here I was thinking that the only real threat to a Dragonfly was a Standard Tandem Aerotow Weak Link - double loop of 130 pound Greenspot - on a solo glider. Near the surface with inadequate power/airspeed. Who'da thunk?
1.5 dead tuggies - one of them well loved and the survivor not even identified, a probably totaled Dragonfly... Zero public response - as far as I can tell - from one single individual in that wonderful hang gliding community out there. Don't even have a date on this one.
in the course of working on a follow-up post on the incident based upon what I was hearing from several newspaper reports and the total crap from Davis and wasn't hearing from The Industry I had myself convinced that this was a power failure on takeoff issue being disguised as an approach fuckup precipitated by the lunatic passenger in the back seat. Really hard to go wrong focusing on what's not being said but in this instance pretty much everything WAS being said but was being rather poorly excerpted by the mainstream.
was at 43°19'00.41" N 072°22'23.40" W (my best call) 'cause it looks like we're shooting back east towards the mountain and I couldn't match the powerlines. (That's a telephoto shot from the road looking SW and the nearest "tree" is out over 130 yards from impact.) It wasn't until I checked out the powerlines crossing Claremont Road and traced them south that things finally started falling into place.
It doesn't say but this has gotta be a left approach pattern.
My thinking on this one... We have a plane that can do:
no problem. When we're flying power in critical situations like takeoff and landing we should be flying like we're gonna lose it a second and a half from now.
During the third circuit in the traffic pattern, while on final approach, the airplane was too high...
As far as I'm concerned there's no such thing as being too high on final unless we're also so far down the runway that there aren't any good options left.
...and the pilot-rated passenger (instructor) told the pilot (student with a Commercial ticket getting checked out on the Dragonfly) to perform a go-around...
Great practice for handling a less than ideal situation in one of the more critical phases of flight. What if we instead worked on a response for a situation in which a go-around wouldn't have been an option? And this is a 2300 foot plus runway we're dealing with. That would've been a pretty good XC distance in the earlier days of hang gliding.
And as the game was played and with the power issue the go-around WASN'T an option.
...which he did.
And we all know how that worked out.
Too high turning onto final. Grass strip, no tower, no traffic. We're looking at the runway while we're on base (not to mention downwind), we already know we're high. So why not just overshoot base a little and come back? 'Cause we gotta do a perfect DBF every time? (Get our flare timing perfected?)
With the record of the 914 Rotax on the Dragonfly tug we need to always be considering scenarios more serious than not acing all of our numbers on the standard approach pattern. Good thing they didn't have an old Frisbee planted at the runway's midpoint. At least on this one they had one survivor and a fair chunk of the plane should be salvageable.
Still in the "Weak links" topic? Why not. Bad inconveniences often happen to planes when they lose the power they'd been counting on. And knowing some of the history of the 914 Rotax in this application through my experience with the Ridgely operation...
Which brings us to the reason to have a 914 in the first place... you need one.
Something made you get a 914 instead of a 582. 914s are horribly expensive to own and maintain. If you own one, you need it... it's a safety thing. Short runways, tall trees, whatever. You've got a 914 to increase your safety margin. So when it comes down to my safety or having a conversation, we're going to have a conversation. Wether you chose to adjust is then up to you.
P.S. And keep watching the response from the hang gliding mainstream. Good thing Paul was so well loved. Otherwise even those five bullshit sentences from Davis would never have made it to press.
Obviously not. Donchya think that if there were equipment for safely defusing clusterfuck situations like this available we'd all be using it already?
What a gem. 2560x1440 resolution, 60 fps, razor sharp focus. Needs a book but it'll be several weeks before I'll be able to start serious work on it. (See below.) Astounding the way the sport's managed to evolve backwards. Even in the mid Seventies through to the beginning of the Eighties when everyone was still towing frame-only we wouldn't have seen that degree of shoddiness and incompetence at any mainstream operation.
Launch is about 60°52'50.55" N 011°40'04.83" E, undoubtedly a stationary winch. The release should've been a Kaluzhin, a Koch two stage would've done the job. But the main problem was...
Wills Wing / Blue Sky / Steve Wendt / Ryan Voight Productions - 2007/03
NEVER CUT THE POWER...
Reduce Gradually
Increase Gradually
...the bozo on the upwind end was determined to err on the side safety.
Sorry to be a bit slow in responding - didn't see the post until after 17:30 UTC yesterday afternoon. There's so little likelihood of new Kite Strings posts now that I often don't check for days at a time.
Also... I'm presently trying to get prepped for a Wednesday evening departure for a trip to Italy which won't conclude till the last day of the month. My sister's daughter is doing a wedding in Lucca which was originally supposed to fly a year and a third ago - but the bug...
And I'm still in rotten physical shape. Tons of pain and other unpleasantness from my shoulder infection. Robs me of sleep, energy, ability to stay on tasks. My goal for the trip is survival and I'm expecting little in the way of enjoyment and fond memories. But I'm packing my 95 scope assembly and hope to do some birds and planets. And while the shoulder doesn't seem to be getting distinctly better it also doesn't seem to be getting distinctly worse.
More than a few weeks... Over three months now. Where to even begin? What's the point?
I survived Italy, near all in Tuscany, in pretty good shape - ignoring exhaustion issues. The infection had dialed down to minor annoyance level for the duration but there was lotsa driving, I had to do all of it, and most of it was extremely demanding. There are fair approximations of US Interstates for longer hauls but otherwise narrow windy two-lanes and we were in the mountains a lot.
99.5 percent of the drivers are EXCELLENT - natural selection thing. I did my best to stay the hell outta their way. Shoulders virtually nonexistent but reasonably frequent pull-offs to which I could race whenever I picked up a bandit in the rear-view. Courteous too - but excellent drivers are. No leaning on horns on the occasions I'd get myself into a bit o' trouble. A tap or headlight flash to announce presence. Brake lights don't come on 'cause they know how to manage energy and what downshifting is and why and how to use it. And whenever I DID see brake lights I knew I was dealing with one of the 0.5 percent - probably an American tourist in a rental - I'd find a pull-off and check out the view for five minutes.
Didn't see much in the way of birds and didn't identify much of what I did see, 'cept I knew they'd be real close to North American counterparts - like Grey versus Great Blue Heron. But a good chunk of what I'd see was raptors which means that there was tons of stuff there that I wasn't seeing in forest and ground cover - so a much healthier ecosystem than I'd been expecting.
Was out virtually every evening with the scope and Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, Moon as primary or frequent targets. Also the Sun and its spots provided a lot of entertainment. Evening of 2021/09/17 had dinner in the Piazza Santo Spirito - a shortish walk from the hotel - in Florence and evaluated it for station potential. Returned afterwards with gear, set up near the SW end, soon had people lined up for shots at the two Gas Giants. Had to keep backing up as buildings started getting in the way. Would start breaking down after lines had had their fills and new lines would start forming. It wasn't until 03:30 that I was finally able to bag it. (I think the Italian word for "WOW!!!" is the same as the English. (Found a Euro coin in my tripod bag a couple days later.)) Key card got me back inside the hotel building but not into the rooms area on the second floor so "slept" on a couple of doormats I arranged together until party members began stirring and searching. (iPhone which had previously been talking to the network had subsequently gone inert.)
Shortly thereafter saw Galileo's original scopes and other amazing instruments at the Museo Galileo on the other side of the Arno about 0.7 kilometers from my Piazza.
Scope subsequently saw tons of action most every evening for wedding party folk, hotel staffers and guests, passersby. And stations were often high up on SW facing slopes so good skies.
During the main wedding phase of the trip we were camped at an agritourist B&B - Forestarìa Azienda Agricola at 43°54'44.41" N 010°35'13.74" E - and on about 2021/09/23 late morning the three of us were parked at the table out front when a paraglider appeared overhead. Then several more. Watched one sled out and land in town (Lucca). Then three Atosses (and no conventional hang gliders). Everybody save for the first was working and staying up in light clear blue sky stuff. Launch is at 43°56'03.00" N 010°35'04.49" E.
Got within spitting distance of the Tyrrhenian a couple times (got a maybe Eleonora's Falcon on the first one at a fantastic overlook above the Lago di Massaciuccoli preserve) and tasted a fingertip's worth of the Adriatic on one eastern excursion.
It was total hell dealing with the Final Cut noise issue to prep these stills of this fubar aviation attempt and I already had all the depression I needed. But it sorta needed documentation anyway. Gotta give Henrik Kindem credit for posting it but take away a fair bit for not participating in the discussion - which is a mix of competence and outstanding glider jock cluelessness. So let's see what's actually going on here.
Maybe a Russian mouth release could have made a difference?
Or a Koch two stage. But not for anything having to do with the tow until a bit beyond the dope's attempt to blow - I only realized in the course of prepping this post. The line is slack during and a bit after the release effort. And things only started going really south when the bozo at the upwind end of the tow - which could've been close to a kilometer away - fixed whatever was going on up there.
When Henrik attempts to release his starboard piece o' shit Bailey bent pin he can't cause they can't function unless the tension is Momma Bear and everything else is going right. In a slack line situation there's gotta be a snag, à la 1991/06/09 Harold Austin or 2011/01/15 Shane Smith, or a pull à la 2015/03/27 Jean Lake.
- carabiner installed backwards
- dolly hold-downs drooping
- hands on the control tubes at shoulder or ear height where he can't control the glider
- twin cheap shit Bailey placebo releases
- no:
-- landing gear
-- radio communication with the winch
-- focal point for the safe towing system - but that matters about as much as a parachute in this situation
Hot looking Moyes double surface. And helluva harness to go with it. (I've always despised knee hangers - bend forward during a launch run and your feet are off the ground.)
The guy visible upwind is filming - nothing to do with crew. Good bet that the guy on the winch is primarily or largely sailplane. And if he does hang then he's not competent - just for allowing a configuration like that to hook up if nothing else.
This is a job for a Koch two-stage. But with such zilch interest in airspeed it doesn't matter. The towline is never being deflected the least bit down by the control bar...
We're topped out. Right after this point the driver is gonna have the glider's wellbeing as his priority and abruptly make a good decision in the interest of his safety.
Better get to one of them fast. Wanna hit that sweet spot between too much and too little tension for success. Also need to hit a window when you can afford to fly the glider with just one hand.
It works best in a lockout situation... if you're banked away from the tug and have the bar back by your belly button... let it out. Glider will pitch up, break weaklink, and you fly away.
During a "normal" tow you could always turn away from the tug and push out to break the weaklink... but why would you?
Have you never pondered what you would do in a situation where you CAN'T LET GO to release? I'd purposefully break the weaklink, as described above. Instant hands free release
But you'd first need to get the bar back by your belly button for it to work properly. And it might have taken a while to get it there at this point anyway.
This (the following) is Henrik's title frame - one click after the above I selected and an add-on. (I almost never remember to check as I'm doing the harvest and publishing Version 1.0.) We can typically see from these the issues the subject feels are most important. In this example:
- finally proned out and pulled in a bit
- downwind and still connected and too low to do anything about either issue
- towline pulling straight aft
We can see the sailplane's towline in the shadow of the hang glider's starboard wingtip at this point. Before really looking at this one I'd been assuming that Henrik was overflying his own towline but things weren't adding up very well. (Freakin' obvious down at 72-1455 though.)
Also no parachute but this would've been a sled in sled conditions so I'm not seeing that as a particularly BFD. But I'll say that if you're gonna get high enough to do any good you should be packing one.
He's being pulled backwards under winch power at and well before this point. This is contributing to the severity of the impact. That's why nobody who was present at the operation is talking about this one. This is a mild version of what happened at Jean Lake. Long range, zilch or shit communications between launch, reel, glider.
And do be sure to check out the worlds largest hang gliding community. No incident discussion in over two years now. And nothing at all ever for those unable to log in. So little challenge, risk, demand that it's hard to imagine why the worlds largest hang gliding community has so few participants.
This whip stall ocurred on the beaches of Mexico a few years back. This was the first flight of my trip which turned into an eye opening moment. Many mistakes were made on launch but the extreme tension from the tow (done by truck) was enough to rocket me into the air. When I tried to transition the bridle just blew apart. After the disorienting whip stall I managed to get the glider level and land. Phew! Close one.
This one was MAJOR. Reasonable facsimilie of / prequel to the 2013/02/02 Zack Marzec fatal we didn't get to see.
- Dolly launched one point tow - nothing to trim the nose down.
- Excessive tow tension - courtesy lead footed truck driver versus monster thermal blast.
- Once the glider starts rocketing up a safe release is off the table. (This driver had the ability to slow down and defuse the situation though. Mark Frutiger didn't.)
- Glider whipstalls when the weak link increases the safety of the towing operation. (For HGPilot the weak link was the "bridal" which blew apart, for Zack it was the intended Standard Focal Point of his Safe Towing System.)
- Both gliders pitch to negative. HGPilot's glider stalls severely, starts to tuck, stabilizes, and recovers. Zack's glider probably tail slides then tumbles twice to impact belly down. And it's as absolute no-brainer that HGPilot's weak link was at least twice as dangerous as the Standard AT one that worked six times in a row at Zapata before Russell Brown tired of the coincidences and had everybody double up.
Think you have adequate airspeed at this point? (Maybe hold onto the cart a little longer.)
10-0811
11-0823
See 12-0906-C1 below for full frame width. We can see the truck up ahead. (WAY up ahead. We can probably see him a lot better than he can see the glider he's pulling. (This is almost certainly fixed line - no winch involved - it just now occurs to me. That would make this situation much easier to understand.)
12-0906
13-0926
14-1022
15-1116
16-1224
The safety of the towing operation has increased by about this point.
OMFG i am NOT tow-launching from a static groundpoint. that must have been terrible to experience... too low for parachute and almost upside down:all bad..thank god you are ok
jwm239
...whoa...looked like a very high AOA on tow, plus a too-fast (?) tow speed, plus a rising air bubble (?)...adding up....whoa....promptly used superior skill to escape unscathed.
Dennis Turner
Anybody got a weaklink.
logmeindangit
Do you think you were pushing out too far?
fatboycrash
So, what did you learn from this?
HGPilot Canada
I wasn't pushing out at all.
George Hunter
Did tow bridle rig fail in some way and cause the severe nose high tow angle?
You were very lucky the glider didn't veer off to one side, but instead climbed straight up into ground clearing altitude.
HGPilot Canada
Ironically I did have a weak link attached.
HGPilot Canada
Agreed. If you're too low to use a parachute you might as well try. You've got nothing to lose.
HGPilot Canada
The glider did save my butt. The dive recovery on the Falcon 2 170 is what pulled me out of the dive and got me level. It was very difficult to pull in as the bridal blew apart. The force of the stall pushed my legs and body weight so far forwards that is was nearly impossible to pull in at that angle. My legs did hit the keel on the downward swing of the whip stall. Thankfully I was still holding onto the base bar as my legs hit. May have saved the tumble.
Chris The Other
The Falcon is known to be tumble resistant and boy this is a great demo of that. You did your part by hanging on.
Chris The Other
The Falcon is known to be tumble resistant and boy this is a great demo of that. You did your part by hanging on.
George Hunter
Being high in the air at the stall saved your life. Altitude gave room for recovery. A whip stall at low altitude would result in death or severe injury.
If you lost the control bar you would most definitely have tumbled. With the bar loose at the whip stall dive you probably would have gone inverted. You almost did. Bar loose the whip stall energies would have initiated a tumble looping series ending in ground impact.
I witnessed a pilot let go of the control bar unsure what to do at the top of a stalled loop attempt. Big mistake. After hanging inverted and motionless for a while the glider entered a dive on its own flinging the pilot out front of the control bar frame. This was the beginning of three consecutive tumble loops with control frame shattered and the pilot being violently flung around like a heavy sack of potatoes. It was the gliders luff recovery that would pull the glider up through into the next sequence tumble loop. Incident altitude started at 200 feet above ground level. From about 125 feet altitude pilot and glider impacted near cliff edge in a shallow inverted dive. The cliff edge had been groomed with four plus feet of tan bark. Pilot bounced on the bark, came to, unhooked, and walked away. The visual violence and fury of the tumble loops was astounding to see. Sounded like hell. Never lose the control bar.
HGPilot Canada
You're right. I should have been dead after that. Thank god I'm not and lived to fly again.
HGPilot Canada
@jwm239 I think all of the above contributed to the outcome. To be honest I went into instinct mode when it happened.
HGPilot Canada
@NMERider Thanks for commenting!
HGPilot Canada
@timmay301 Launching from a static ground isn't so bad if it's done right. In my case I had too many factors go wrong.
logmeindangit
@prithg76 So what was the problem? I've towed, down at Wallaby Ranch, and I was always pulled forward, not like that. Please explain what went wrong, and what should have been done that wasn't. So far, I don't see that in this thread.
David Humble
have you punched the truck driver yet ? your winch speed was to fast and weak link failed but you had luck on your side
Jove Lachman-Curl
prithG76, I'm a H1 Pilot getting close to H2 and I've done a little bit of towing, by static winch. can you tell me at what point you managed to release the towline? maybe giving me a time stamp in the video would be best. Thanks and congrats on making it.
HGPilot Canada
Hi MrJlcurl, the towline was release between the 12-13 second mark when you see me feet kick out in front of me. Within that time I climbed to 600ft but had enough altitude to recover... thankfully
onecheman
Is the pilot safe?
HGPilot Canada
9Alive and well
onecheman
Thanks of "God"
Jove Lachman-Curl
Thanks for the info, my glider just arrived today so I'm starting the adventure.
HatCreekRimPioneer
At 46 seconds your arms are fully extended as your glider is nearly vertical and stalled. As a pervious poster mentioned, your recovery was due to design, not pilot input. The same conditions can occur getting spit over the falls of a strong thermal - pulling in is you best chance of recovery. Awesome footage and a great lesson for all of us. Thanks for sharing.
Leo G. La Plata
A great example of the importance of -1- the skills of the tug pilot/driver and, -2- the luff lines+sprogs+battens profiles... This time the wing design saved your life. Kill the driver.
Bill Cummings
76, Climb rate too fast. A climb restricting "V" bridle to the keel gives more pitch control to the pilot than a ProTow. Can't see which is being used here. Pilots, don't fall into the trap/lie about using strong weaklinks. The pilot left the dolly with lots of speed which is the best way. If PIO/DIO happens at any speed within your gliders VNE us a vertical stabilizer.
MrFalcon195
Why wait to pull the bar in for so long????
MrFalcon195
Why wait to pull the bar in for so long????
Abbas Yari
So what happen last?
Mokele Mbembe
Stupid video! What happend next? How did he make it? Why putting such unended crap on youtube?!
80hitultracombo
What happened with the weak link?
zpridgen75
A whip stall is performed under power in an air frame
pepersorte
I only ever did one stall like to that the sliding backward start the worying. I have never stalled since. After that I soon learn to know when the stall is coming and how to avoid it, Thanks for showing that one great to watch. Cheers, Pete
SVSunnyJim
Why am i watching hang glider crashes..??
Don Hill
looks like all kinds of things went wrong there.
do you think lifting the cart 3ft and dropping it thus reducing the wingload instantly had anything to do with that extreme climb rate? How fast was that truck going? Did he think he was on a beer run and forgot all about you.
glad to hear you walked away with little more than shitting your pants:)
helicart
2 morons here. the driver and the idiot on the glider who trusted him.
Matthew Holevinski
is there any other way to fly? soaring is boaring
ugenia Raimbekova
What happened further? Maybe you can post the full video? How many meters did you loose before normal flight (if it was)?
Bekas Murtkay
I think didnt happen anything cause last tome could be stright fly
Ellenor Bovay
You almost met your maker there. You could see a disaster was coming because you were flying almost straight up, it looked like the Space Shuttle taking off.
Christian Singhoff
Ja ... wenn man Bubi fliegen läßt ...
blastman8888
Can't that go into a tumble with negative G
Whispering eagle
Looked to me as if to much AOA and agressive tow speed for the falcon. Dam you were lucky and did everything right when you briefly went neg. I fly soaring trikes now not quite the light wingloading but my airtime p/0 has greatly increased and no need for a driver or tow. If i cant find lift i throttle up and search some more. But iam not having too much trouble finding usable po lift. Great video thanks for posting
Frank Moore
Reversed Pitch
Mark Tompkins
Thats a moment! Was this a fast tow or combo tow & pilot error? Would love to know more about why this happened..
BLiF
Neat. I'd sure would have like to see the full recovery from that stall.
Just Hangin I
Think you were lucky you were in a falcon
Emiliano Ibanez
Any particular reason for not showing the recovery? No wonder you have 33% thumbs down
See if you can advance up to some one-arm pushups.
