http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=26557
Failure to hook in 6/29/12
zamuro - 2012/07/18 21:17:39 UTC
Most pilots that I know of that launched unhooked had quite a number of years of experience and except for that moment of distraction/idiocy or whatever you may call it they were quite good pilots.
ALL "pilots" of whom I know who launched unhooked ALWAYS skipped hook-in checks. See if you can't get that issue to start registering.
Alex - 2012/07/18 21:48:03 UTC
A good pilot would never launch unhooked; an incompetent or poorly focused pilot could.
Bullshit. It has zilch to do with quality of focus - and everything to do with what the focus is on.
A pilot who has forgotten to hook in and then learned from their mistake can become a good pilot.
Right. By doing more hang checks or becoming Aussie Methodist zombies. You can probably count the number of survivors who started incorporating hook-in checks on one hand.
So, there's no shame in realizing you've done something really stupid (what pilot hasn't) and then admitting that you need an honest review of your own competency.
And perish the thought you should conduct a halfway intelligent review of your own procedures and start listening to the people with the best records who make the most sense.
This whole conversation has been about making the pilots who have failed to hook in feel good and provide them a crutch (Aussie Method) instead of discovering the true reason for their critical mistake.
Which, of course, is NEVER skipping hook-in checks. Idiot.
NMERider - 2012/07/18 21:58:05 UTC
The conversation is about preventing pilots from launching unhooked. Period.
Agreed. So let's drop the crap about backup loops, locking carabiners, bar clearance, twisted lines, helmets, chest buckles, and any bullshit about ANYTHING that happens more than five seconds before launch - the only time anything matters.
There is nothing else even worth discussion unless it pertains to preventing another unhooked launch. The only thing we should be focused here is how we can insure a 100% hooked-in launch rate from now on.
The ONLY thing you assholes should be focused there is how you can insure a one hundred percent compliance with the USHGA regulation which states:
With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.
You could start by reporting yourself to USHGA and getting your rating revoked.
100% hook-ins, and that's it.
What a novel and bold idea, Jonathan! I wonder why nobody's ever come up with something like that before. Oh wait...
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1166
Thoughts on responsibility...
Scott Wilkinson - 2005/10/05 14:10:56 UTC
We visited Steve Wendt yesterday, who was visibly choked up over Bill's death. For Steve, it all comes down to one thing: you've got to hook in. Period.
If you morons start enforcing one hundred percent hook-in checks unhooked launches will disappear.
Cops don't ticket people who fly through windshields. They ticket people who they see driving without seatbelts. When they do that people stop flying through windshields.
zamuro - 2012/07/18 22:14:45 UTC
A good pilot would never launch unhooked; an incompetent or poorly focused pilot could.
Well...would you be surprised to hear that I saw no other than Larry Tudor launching unhooked. It was a slope launch so he let the glider go and was unhurt. The glider however took off and crashed on another glider in the setup area.
A pilot who has forgotten to hook in and then learned from their mistake can become a good pilot.
Sure... but most pilots don't get another chance. That is the whole point of the discussion.
Bullshit.
Look at the incident which 2012/06/29 incident which touched off this discussion ferchrisake. Look in that link at the Phill Bloom incident at the same launch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mX2HNwVr9g
Hang Gliding Fail
andyh0p - 2011/04/24 - dead
03-0325 - 06-0511
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18-0919 - 21-1025
The OVERWHELMING majority of unhooked launchers get second, sometimes third, chances.
No the discusion is to find better procedures so that failures to hook-in are minimized or eliminated.
Have you considered:
With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.
Just kidding.
I am within the group that consider the Aussie method a more fool-proof alternative. Aussie method and a hang-ckeck prior to launch.
Idiot.
NMERider - 2012/07/18 22:24:46 UTC
And hang check! A friend told me about an Aussie who got into his harness using the Aussie Method and then launched and fell to his death. His reserve bridle was attached to his caribiner but his harness bridle was not. The only thing holding him up were the Velcro straps that held the reserve bridle against the harness bridle.
And, of course, a hang check on the ramp would've been the ONLY way to identify that issue.
So, it's more than merely being hooked-in.
IT BLOODY WELL IS *NOT*!!!
Alex - 2012/07/18 22:26:06 UTC
And competency doesn't have anything to do with the failure to hook in?
Someone has already given a real world example of a pilot, using the Aussie Method, who launched hooked in but who failed to attach their leg straps.
So you can do the Aussie method, be hooked in, and still not be not safe to fly.
Competency is the whole issue, like it or not.
Yeah Alex, it is.
But we're not having thirty page discussions every couple of months on how to make sure your carabiner is engaging the harness suspension as well as the parachute bridle. And we're also not having a statistically significant problem with people launching with the carabiner linking only the parachute bridle and hang strap.
But we're having a HUGE fucking problem with people launching with dangling carabiners and getting mangled and killed. And YOU are not one of the people competent enough to follow the rules and deal with it.
NMERider - 2012/07/18 21:58:05 UTC
The conversation is about preventing pilots from launching unhooked. Period.
THE CONVERSATION IS ABOUT PREVENTING PILOTS FROM LAUNCHING UNHOOKED. PERIOD.
You wanna have a discussion about some bozo (sorry) who isn't competent enough and/or can't be bothered to:
- reassemble his equipment properly after a repack or modification;
- check the configuration in his living room at the time; AND
- preflight his equipment in the equipment in the setup area
then start another conversation and don't derail this one.
THIS conversation is about people like Gregory Jones, Phill Bloom, and other Greblo victims who think they've hooked in but haven't and have hooked in but forgotten they've unhooked.
It's about the integrity of the pilot's suspension system from the integrity of the hang strap and spreader all the way down to the leg and chest strap buckles and everything in between.
Those are PREFLIGHT ISSUES and FUCK THE CHEST STRAP BUCKLES.
Wasn't there a recent video of a Tenax harness who's suspension rope broke, dropping the harness down until the backup bridle was engaged? How many hours did that harness have on it since the pilot inspected his suspension rope?
Who gives a rat's ass? THAT'S NOT WHAT WE'RE HERE TO DISCUSS.
It's EVERYTHING from the hang straps all the way down. We want 100% suspension system integrity here. Not just a guaranteed hook-in. That alone is not sufficient.
Why are we stopping at the suspension? Why aren't we checking locknuts and tubing dents and bends? Hell, why don't we send the fuckin' glider back to the fuckin' manufacturer and have them repeat the certification tests just to make sure?
Preflight the fuckin' glider in the setup area, do a goddam hook-in check on the ramp, and stop trying to solve all of mankind's possible problems in the two minutes before launch.
NMERider - 2012/07/18 22:33:39 UTC
I think the word, Reliable may be a better choice.
We require 100% reliability from our equipment and from ourselves. How each of us gets there may vary, but 99.9% isn't enough. It's an arduous and not always pleasant process bur our lives are at stake.
Check that last sentence, Jonathan. I've got you down at a bit under 93 percent.
zamuro - 2012/07/18 22:38:36 UTC
I agree wihn the hang check. The problem that you describe is a tough one that may even defeat the aussie and the hang ckeck depending on the harness. I have a Raymond single supension harness (CG1000 like) where the parachute bridle and harness suspension are inside a protective sheat all the way up to the carabineer. So it is hard to see unless that you pay attention that both loops are hooked to the carabineer.
Yeah. That's what you're supposed to be doing during the preflight.
A half-ass hang check (i.e. one that your full weigth is not hanging from the glider) which is not that uncommon may miss a problem in which the main loop is not attached to the carabineer.
Big fuckin' deal.
- ANYBODY can detect that problem a helluva lot easier by looking at it than hanging from it.
- Plus...
1991/11/03 - Leonard Rabbitz - 55 - Intermediate - Several years - UP Comet I - Elizabethville, Pennsylvania
Improper hook-in. Pilot was ready to launch into ideal conditions, did a hang check, and launched. At about thirty feet altitude, there was a loud snap, the pilot fell to the basetube and was holding on to the basetube with his armpits. The glider pitched down and descended into the trees at the top end of the launch slot. On impact, the glider was ejected from the glider and fell forty feet to the ground. He died four hours later in the operating room of uncontrolled bleeding from his pelvic fractures.
Investigation showed that instead of the standard hang loop arrangement, both the primary and backup loops were draped over the keel. To keep the loops positioned, he had tied them together with light cord. This resulted in four loops that had to be hooked through the carabiner for the system to work.
Evidently the pilot only hooked through two of the loops, and the cord held his weight during the hang check. But with the launch pull-out, the small extra G force resulted in the cord breaking (or the loops pulling through) and the loops being no longer attached to the glider. Later inspection showed the carabiner was firmly locked to two intact hang loops.
...not all problems which would be obvious with a visual inspection show up at one G.
Looking and thinking is ALWAYS superior to hanging.
This may happen for example if you forgot to put it back after the last service or your harness or chute. Scary!!
Sorry. This one doesn't scare me AT ALL.
zamuro - 2012/07/18 22:44:20 UTC
No method is perfect including the Aussie one. However IMHO is a superiorr alternative to cliping at the last minute or waking around wearing your harness.
93 percent really isn't all that bad.
NMERider - 2012/07/18 22:49:47 UTC
That is why we need... redundancy!
We need redundant systems and components for equipment reliability and we need redundant procedures for personal reliability.
We need to make ourselves 100% reliable and that means tasks will be duplicated and double-checked before lift-off. It adds time and effort when we are Jonesing to fly but this is our insurance that we will be able to fly again on the next day, every day.
I think you're on to something there, Jonathan. We're currently doing two preflight and zero hook-in checks now, so let's double both categories.
zamuro - 2012/07/18 22:59:42 UTC
I agree fully. My routine would include:
1) Hook the harness to the glidser first. Check that everythin is OK (bridles and main hook to the carbineer etc)..
Then unhook the harness from the glider, hook it back in, and recheck that everything is OK (bridles and main hook to the carabiner, etc.).
2) Get into the harness.
Then get back out of the harness and back in.
3) Do a hang-check and ask the person who is helping you if he sees all the lines OK. Look back for yourself too,
Then do another hang check with a different person helping you and ask him if he sees that all the lines are OK. Might as well ask him if your helmet's buckled too, 'cause we might have missed that the first time. And look back for yourself again too.
4) Do another hang check previous to launch.
Then do another hang check with a different person helping you and ask him if he sees that all the lines are OK. Might as well ask him if your helmet's buckled too, 'cause we might have missed that the third time. And look back for yourself again too.
Then skip the hook-in check twice 'cause, Christ, you've just done FOUR hang checks.
5) Take off.
Twice, to make sure you get safely off the ramp.
If I am the last at launch I could not do 4 and perhaps not even 3. But if conditions allow I would still fly.
Yeah, if there's no one there to help you do a hang check there's just no other way to check and verify your suspension. So just launch - you'll probably be fine.
Moron.
michael170 - 2012/07/18 23:13:33 UTC
Rob Kells - 2005/12
Following a recent fatal accident caused by the pilot launching unhooked, there has been a discussion on how to guarantee that you are hooked in. The two main methods are:
1. Always do a hang check before launch, and/or
2. Always hook your harness into the glider before you get into the harness.
Interestingly, NEITHER of these methods GUARANTEES that you will not launch unhooked some day. Let's add a third one:
3. Always lift the glider vertically and feel the tug on the leg straps when the harness mains go tight, just before you start your launch run. I always use this test.
My partners (Steve Pearson and Mike Meier) and I have over 25,000 hang glider flights and have managed (so far) to have hooked in every time. I also spoke with test pilots Ken Howells and Peter Swanson about their methods (another 5000 flights). Not one of us regularly uses either of the two most popular methods outlined above.
Careful Jonathan. No posts or links about Tad Eareckson and related people or their material - even when their material is already on The Jack Show and is just a quote of the late Rob Kells who was a friend to every pilot he ever met.
Robert Seckold - 2012/07/18 23:35:51 UTC
Just one comment about flying for years and years and not having a problem.
Tell that to one Tandem instructor who used to post here who never had a problem for 27 years before he launched unhooked luckily only ending up up in hospital not the cemetery.
Just because it has never happened does not mean it won't happen.
As long as you keep assuming it's about to it won't.
Lastly the red herring about leg loops is also thrown up during these threads on the Aussie method.
The Aussie method prevents launching unhooked it doesn't protect you from any of the other hundreds of ways you can hurt yourself.
CORRECT. No matter what you do you need to PREFLIGHT the glider IN THE SETUP AREA. BUT...
- A hook-in check:
-- routine is a way more effective strategy for keeping yourself alive than your idiot Aussie Method is
-- of some kind is ALWAYS EASILY doable
- Lift and tug is virtually effortless and confirms your leg loops.
But keep on skipping anything resembling a hook-in check 'cause your cult doesn't recognize it as being an element of your religion.
Larry Howe - 2012/07/19 05:43:47 UTC
No method is going to keep everybody from being stupid and it's uaually not the rookie that makes mistakes, he/she is carefull about everything, it is the pilot with hundreds of hours or the skydiver with hundreds of jumps and the firm belief that his/her method will save his/her tail, then complacency creeps in, the need to launch/jump faster or show off, then the fieces hit the rotary oscilator.
Bullshit. Cite some incident reports that support that crap.
If we really want a fool proof method, we have to take the people out, kidding ourselves that one method works for everybody is just silly.
Name someone:
- in some set of circumstances for whom some form of hook-in check wouldn't work
- who's ever incorporated a hook-in check in his procedures who's ever launched unhooked
zamuro - 2012/07/19 12:00:36 UTC
Correct but that doesn't mean that perhaps there are better procedures out there (I said better not fool-proof) that the one you are currently using.
Yeah, anything and everything but a hook-in check. Asshole.
