Releases

[deltaman]

Tad,
Thanks to participate.
I read you this time (not all the time as you are often too long and full of hate)
Is this tone really necessary ? shade cause you ve got some relevant things to share

[bobk]

I agree with Deltaman here.

I've read lots of what Tad has posted and I've had long conversations with him on the phone. I think Tad has really spent a lot of time looking into towing issues and I believe he knows an awful lot. I also believe Tad is willing to dedicate immense amounts of his time investigating and testing towing equipment.

Unfortunately, Tad's efforts have not been appreciated by the "establishment" of the sport, and I believe that he's been mostly ignored by them. That's a frustrating position - which I know from experience. When people find themselves being ignored, they generally take one of two directions. If the topic is not that important to them, they may just let it go. But if the topic is important to them, then they will work harder to be heard. That second option often results in ratcheting up the volume and language. When they're still not being heard, both their volume and frustration will increase. It's just like flying a hang glider. If you want a right turn, and the glider is going left, then you add increasing control inputs until you get the response you want.

The really unfortunate problem here is that people in power recognize this, and I believe they purposely ignore certain people and hope they follow that pattern of ratcheting up the volume and showing greater and greater frustration. They hope for that pattern because that makes it easy to say the person is just a "complainer" or a "nut". It's like punching someone in the nose and filming only their response ... and then pointing to the film and saying "look how bad this person is".

I don't know Tad's history and there may be more going on than I know. But I believe that a large component of Tad's response is based on being ignored for a long time ... and watching people be killed during that time.

Tad, I believe this forum (and the US Hawks forum) were both created by people who want to listen fairly to everyone. I think you will be heard in both places, and you'll do much better in both forums with a little less of the harsh language. I think that will make you more effective at communicating the knowledge that you have and the knowledge that we'd like to hear.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for all that you've contributed.

Sincerely,
Bob Kuczewski

[bobk]

Ooops. One more thought ...

There are people who study engineering.
There are people who study people.

Guess which group designs better towing systems.
Guess which group controls which towing systems people actually use.

What you say is important to having better towing systems.
But how you say it is important to having those better towing systems actually saving lives.

[Tad Eareckson]

Hallelujah. We just boosted our numbers of active participants by twenty percent.

Antoine,

I read you this time (not all the time as you are often too long...

Define "too long". Too long for what?

Is fifteen hours too long? I know an aerotow pilot who needed fifteen hours of surgery to get her face put back together 'cause no one was interested in reading something for a minute and a half and acting on it.

Is the rest of your life too long? Yeah, I know that's a pretty fluid figure but for three pilots I've known very well that was just about fifteen seconds from when the towline tightened.

And I spent a lot of time with another tow pilot who will probably have the usual number of decades of lifetime but the second half of them will be without gliders and a couple of extremities that needed to be amputated.

Have I gone on too long already or are you still with me? How much time would you be willing to waste reading some long boring post if it meant not breaking one of your wrists?

The book "Towing Aloft" is 374 pages long. Obviously THAT'S too long - so which pages would you recommend not reading? Towing Aloft is half crap so it ACTUALLY IS way too long (and way too short) but you have to actually spend some time reading and thinking to figure out what's what.

My personal feeling is that this is a very dangerous aspect of a very dangerous sport run by very stupid, dangerous, and evil people and it's not terribly suitable for people with short attention spans - but if it's short, shallow, clueless posts you're looking for there are plenty of other fora in which you're more than welcome to participate.

...and full of hate)

Yep. Maybe you should be wondering a little just why that is. Maybe I'm just a sociopath. Maybe I have some damn good reasons. Maybe both.

Is this tone really necessary...

In my opinion - YES. Your mileage may vary but hang gliding is chock full of people who really hate other people and some of them have REALLY GOOD REASONS. And lot of people I hate in this sport would've been legally imprisoned and/or executed by legitimate governments for pulling the kind of shit they have were it in conventional and military aviation.

So still with me?

...cause you ve got some relevant things to share

So do you want to discuss any of them? 'Cause that's what I'd REALLY prefer to be talking about.

[Tad Eareckson]

Bob,

I also believe Tad is willing to dedicate immense amounts of his time investigating and testing towing equipment.

Not so much now. I've already dedicated those immense amounts of time, effort, and expense and I'm not all that interested in documenting the shittiness of every piece of crap that some moron wants to bend and solder together when all you need to do is look at for half a second. We've already developed excellent equipment and a new idea has gotta be as good or better before I'm gonna blow the dust off the test rig.

Unfortunately, Tad's efforts have not been appreciated by the "establishment" of the sport, and I believe that he's been mostly ignored by them.

Nah. My efforts have been mostly brutally suppressed by the establishment.

It's just like flying a hang glider. If you want a right turn, and the glider is going left, then you add increasing control inputs until you get the response you want.

And sometimes you gotta pull a defective spar out of the airframe, take a tubing cutter to it, find a new job for it as lawn furniture, and replace it with something appropriate for the task.

They hope for that pattern because that makes it easy to say the person is just a "complainer" or a "nut".

It's a little tougher to do that after the Chairman of the Towing Committee has asked said complainer or nut to help him revise the USHPA aerotowing SOPs.

Tad, I believe this forum (and the US Hawks forum) were both created by people who want to listen fairly to everyone.

With respect to Kite Strings... Depends upon what you mean by "fairly" and "everyone". If someone's just beaten a fourteen year old black kid to death on the allegation that he looked sideways at a white woman I don't wanna discuss anything fairly with him. If I know that the "justice" system isn't gonna do anything about it and I know I can get away with it I'm gonna shoot the sonuvabitch in the back of the head and feed him to the alligators.

There are people who study people.

Hitler, Stalin, tobacco executives, flight park operators...

Guess which group controls which towing systems people actually use.

Albeit not many - but people ARE actually using my tow equipment. And how I say things has absolutely no bearing on the number of users. The people who control the runways are the people who control what gets used on the runways. And I don't control any runways.

But how you say it is important to having those better towing systems actually saving lives.

I'm not THE LEAST BIT INTERESTED in saving the lives of people who give a rat's ass how I say things. Quite the contrary in fact.

I had Zack get in touch with Antoine to get him to contact me at the beginning of the month to save him from himself and assholes like Davis, Head Trauma, and Jim Gaar. They can pretend to be competent, rational, intelligent, reasonable people 'cause they've created environments for themselves in which anyone with half a brain or better who challenges them on anything is permanently eliminated from the conversation.

With respect to the current topic - one point aerotow - those aforementioned assholes and their ilk have about nine ways to kill somebody on their shitrigged bridle/release systems that Steve Kinsley and I have eliminated or never built in in the first place. So I would LOVE to help Antoine but he's free to do whatever the hell he feels like and I'm not gonna lose a wink of sleep if he gets bit.

I've got a magic wand. I can save Zack or a hundred Davis, Jack, Peter Birren, Adam, Head Trauma, Tracy, Matt, Steve Wendt, Paul Hurless, Brian Horgan, Richard Bryant sorts of people. How many gliders do you think are gonna be strapped to racks this evening?

(Hint: I'll take quality over quantity any day.)

[bobk]

"uncle"

[Warnarr]

"uncle"

"Brothers" not uncles..

Sometimes you got to let off a little steam.
Tad wasn't always this way.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14221
Tad's release

Tad's release - 2008/12/13 13:32:27 UTC

Davis,

Howdy and a zillion thanks for what you've done to establish and maintain this remarkable resource. It's been a real gold mine for researching equipment, it's problems, and accidents trends amongst about anything else one can name.

Also really appreciate your concern for the planet that we, as humans in general and gas guzzling American pilots in particular, are trashing at such a sickening rate. The stuff with leaves, scales, fur, and feathers is all infinitely more important than this stupid sport and a very big motivation for me in pushing some of this technology on which I've been working is to give us our biggest bang per fossil fuel buck and cut down on the ambulance and helicopter rides and wrecked gliders.

I couldn't help myself..
Warren

[Tad Eareckson]

Yeah, thanks Warren.

I always meant to go back and edit that but got banned before I got around to it. That's back from when I was too stupid to realize that the reason that the Oz Report was such a gold mine for researching shitrigged equipment and crashes was that Davis and his cult members were all working overtime to perpetuate the use of shitrigged equipment and deadly procedures and would never be anything but a brick wall with respect to making things better.

Also didn't really consider that it was entirely possible for someone with an apparent concern for the environment to be a slimy Nazi scumbag.

P.S. You only get to drag four more skeletons out of my closet before I ban you.

[Warnarr]

I always meant to go back and edit that but got banned before I got around to it.

Nothing is ever forgotten on the interwebs.. Eschelon is not a conspiracy 'theory' anymore.
Now we just take it for granted that everything is being tracked and traced.
We've just been conditioned to accept it because we've always been at war with Eastasia..

Also didn't really consider that it was entirely possible for someone with an apparent concern for the environment to be a slimy Nazi scumbag.

Hey, I'm with you 110% on straight pin releases but you seem to be bamboozled by the likes of Al Gore and the Cas Sunstein enviornmentalists of the world. These 'enviornmentalists' for profit and genocidal eugenics are the slimy Nazi scumbags and Davis Straub sells the same slimy snake oil.
Makes me wonder what else you might have wrong?

Didn't mean to interupt but you did bring up slimy Nazi scumbags..

P.S. You only get to drag four more skeletons out of my closet before I ban you.

There's more?

[Tad Eareckson]

We've just been conditioned to accept it because we've always been at war with Eastasia..

Double edged sword of the internet. We can find out everything about everything with a click or two but everybody else can find out everything about everything with a click or two as well.

Hey, I'm with you 110% on straight pin releases...

I don't wanna turn this forum into a battlefield over global warming but I was a lot happier when there was less in the way of asphalt, nothing in the way of hang gliders, and more in the way of Kestrels and Screech Owls around. But lemme focus on this little branch of science here 'cause it's real simple and real easy for me to disembowel people who get in my way.

There's more?

No. Of course not. I was joking. I really don't wanna ban you so I just set four as an impossibly high number. Think no more about it.

(And gimme everything you've got on Jim Gaar.)