100% foolproof hang loop and harness buckles
1. The ONLY way the buckles could POSSIBLY matter would be in the event of a high speed parachute deployment. There've been zillions of people (Yours Truly included) who've launched zillions of times with unclipped buckles and ZERO resulting incidents. You've got a solution in search of a problem.Mikkel Krogh - 2012/07/14 18:45:57 UTC
100% foolproof hang loop and harness buckles
I believe it is possible to develop a technical solution that would ensure you would never forget to click in your hang loop or the harness buckles. (I have thought a lot about this problem and have come to an idea that seems fairly simple and very practically.)
The question is though:
Would you pay for eliminating this risk completely? And if - how much? $50, $100, $200?
How many of us do you think would buy it, if the cost would be e.g. $100?
BR
Mikkel
2. People who develop technical solutions to the unhooked launch issue INVARIABLY ignore and/or reject the procedural, training, mindset strategy for addressing it. You don't do hook-in checks 'cause if you did you'd have been posting on the "Failure to hook in" thread.
3. Although I appreciate your motivation and efforts on this issue I wouldn't spend a dime on or endorse the option because...
- It doesn't solve any problems I have.
- It doesn't do leg loops.
- It will inevitably add complexity and weight and probably drag as well to the system.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25550
Failure to hook in.
- It will be just one more justification - along with the moronic hang and turn and look checks and the despicable Aussie Method - for the assholes who participate in this sport to continue to omit the hook-in check from their launch procedures.Christian Williams - 2011/10/25 03:59:58 UTC
What's more, I believe that all hooked-in checks prior to the last one before takeoff are a waste of time, not to say dangerous, because they build a sense of security which should not be built more than one instant before commitment to flight.
Good freaking look. In a dozen years I've been almost totally unable to get these off the scale stupid motherfuckers to switch to straight pin releases from the more expensive bent pin garbage they've been using.Mikkel Krogh - 2012/07/14 19:20:06 UTC
I know for sure there is no money in it - the market is too small to make any real money on it. My motivation is to improve safety for our sport. But before investigating further I need to know if it will be worth the effort.
Sorry Steve. That's insanely dangerous. You need to connect your harness to your glider first and then climb into it so you won't launch unhooked. Haven't you heard ANYTHING Adam Parer and his fellow brain dead thugs have been trying to tell us?Steve Seibel - 2012/07/14 21:04:28 UTC
Willamette Valley, Oregon
a simple hook-in is good
Does it work when you kite your glider up the sand dunes in strong winds, so strong that you can barely hold the nose down as you reach back and hook in at the last moment, and you are happy that you aren't wearing your other harness where you have to take that extra wrap around the caribiner? Because that's too complicated to deal with in the wind while holding the nose down? Wind so strong that your biggest concern is that you might accidentally lift into flight before the caribiner gate is correctly closed (might get snagged on the hang loop)? Wind so strong that you are hooking in with one hand only because you need to keep the other one on the down tube to hold the nose down?
Hey Steve...Just some thoughts. Those aren't normal conditions for me but I encountered them a few weeks ago, at the beach. I ended up flying away hooked into the main but not the backup hang strap because I didn't want to risk opening the gate a second time, didn't want to get risk getting lifted into the air with a hang strap snagged on the caribiner but the gate not correctly closed.
In the course of your aeroexperimentation, what was your conclusion about the purpose of the backup?
You don't have a clean and simple system. You're using a dirty and stupid backup strap.In other words does your system not interfere with a clean and simple hook-in?
Any possibility your locking carabiner or backup strap could've interfered with that?I once had to unhook in the surf. Would your system have interfered with that?
Idiot.There's a lot to be said for a clean and simple hook-in arrangement. Ideally the back-up and main combined into one clean loop. Though that can be hard to cut with a hook knife.
Spoken like a true brain dead waste of space who's never had an original thought in his entire useless life - let alone actually put anything in the air.Paul Hurless - 2012/07/14 21:13:37 UTC
NOTHING is fool proof.
Good points, JJ. I was recently thinking along the same lines and got rid of my battens, leading edge inserts, luff lines, VG system, parachute, and wheels and took the batteries out of my vario, GPS receiver, radio, and cell phone.JJ Coté - 2012/07/14 23:28:41 UTC
I'd happily pay at least $100, provided I saw the solution and had confidence in it. But I'm having difficulty imagining that you have in mind a solution that's going to substantially increasing the safety level that I have now. In particular, the more expensive it is, the more complicated it's likely to be, and the more complicated it is, the less likely it is to be foolproof. (Anything that uses electricity is just about guaranteed to be useless.)
Yeah Alan. A hang check behind the ramp - like they taught you at Lookout. Never a couple of seconds before launch - like I was trying to get pounded through your thick skull.Alan Wengren - 2012/07/15 00:25:17 UTC
Nothing wrong with wishful thinking but there's still one thing that has to happen.
The pilot still has to hook *something* up (your idea) to the hang loops no matter how easy it might be.
I mean he can't just stand under his wing and something is going to connect to him automatically and lets say this is the case, it still has to be checked by the pilot so there's no mistake that your hooked in.
Pilot will still have the final look and still need a solid routine before every flight to make sure he/she is hooked and ready to fly.
You are ABSOLUTELY ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CORRECT, Robert. In fact every goddam single one of them has launched quite confident of the precise opposite.Robert Seckold - 2012/07/15 11:35:31 UTC
What ever your idea is, if it still relies on the memory of the pilot whilst standing on launch to attach himself to the glider, it is no different to what pilots who walk around in their harnesses do now.
I am sure no pilot who has launched un-hooked has done so thinking I am not hooked in but I will launch anyway, their memory tells them they are hooked in.
THEREFORE, it would stand to reason that if you (tell Bob to go fuck himself and) override your memory and tell yourself you are NOT hooked in - EVERY SINGLE LAUNCH - and verify that you actually ARE *IMMEDIATELY* PRIOR TO EVERY SINGLE LAUNCH your chances of launching unhooked are hundreds of times lower than they are for people doing that pain in the ass bullshit you guys are.
Yeah, just a long as it includes an assumption of being hooked in at launch and excludes anything along the lines of a hook-in check.I am though, always open to new ideas that have the possibility of saving lives, so good luck.