http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27396
Scooter tow faillure... or Never Land On Your Face
Mitch Shipley - 2012/10/22 19:04:16 UTC
Quest Air
Greetings all,
Mitch Shipley here. My apologies for not posting sooner.
Points for showing up - not sure that you really had a whole lot of choice though.
Davis...
Your good friend Davis. Tireless supporter of everything Quest - regardless of the number of people it kills. Nah - BECAUSE of the number of people it kills.
...sent me the link of PJ's outstanding report a while back...
And it's not worth giving these forums a scan every now and then to keep abreast of some of the shit that goes on? Especially one of these in which it was you on the other end of the string?
...but my first attempts at registering / logging in on the forum resulted in just frustration...
Yeah. I never could get on as Tad Eareckson - that's why I was AeroTow.
Much easier to get off though - just start making Jack and some of his pet ass kissers look like the morons they are. But you don't need to worry about that any - YOU'LL always be plenty welcome.
I'm on now.
We can tell.
OK, I am the anonymous tow operator to take my full share of the responsibility here in the incident and offer my lessons learned.
Maybe people would like to come over here instead. All the lessons you needed to crash somebody to learn were emphasized a few hundred times over in these threads well before your little clusterfuck.
I brought my ElektraTow (ET) system to the Team Challenge for some landing clinic training.
Good job, Mitch. People flying in the Chattanooga area might as well slash their wrists as launch without highly polished foot landing skills. Ditto with respect to Quest and Ridgely.
Ever consider putting your energies into advancing issues that would make this sport better and safer instead? Just kidding.
I've developed and operated the system over the last two years at Quest Air flight park in Groveland FL.
Did Shannon Moon ever get to take it for a spin before being crippled out of the sport? If so, how was her flare timing?
I have hundreds of all sorts of tows on the system (dolly launch, foot launch, hang gliders, paragliders, tandem, solo, and even towed canoes and kayaks across our lake at Quest). I am a believer in the training utility of a scooter tow type approach, as well as advantages that an electronic tow system brings to the table over gas driven systems.
What are your beliefs about:
- weak links which meet the FAA legal minimum and are proportional to glider capacities?
- releases that can be used in emergencies to abort tows?
- wheel landings?
- hook-in checks?
Following the failed attempts to use the Henson's LZ as a training site, ET very successfully operated over the next three days out of the Galloway grass airstrip doing dolly, foot launch (330 Condor and 195 Falcon) and tandem paragliders.
First, PJ was very gracious in his response throughout this whole unfortunate incident. His "personal responsibility" view throughout his posts says a lot for his future success in hang gliding. We are the ones that hook in and say "Clear!!".
Yeah Mitch. That's EXACTLY what we do. Hook in, skip the hook-in check, and say "Clear!!"
http://ozreport.com/9.201
Unhooked
Dean Funk - 2005/10/02
Bill Priday, a pilot from Richmond, launched unhooked yesterday (Saturday) from the Whitwell site here in Tennessee. Whitwell is a cliff launch with a mixture of trees below, extremely steep terrain, and multiple cliff bands. The pilot separated from the glider at tree level and did not survive the fall.
This terrible accident happened on the first day of our Team Challenge.
But I guess after what happened on the first day of the Team Challenge seven years ago people in that neck of the woods have really got their shit together on this issue.
No amount of finger pointing changes the fact that we personally will suffer the majority of the consequences.
I have this theory that if a lot more instructors, tow operators, and meet heads suffered a lot more consequences the percentage of pilots who suffer consequences would go WAY down. (By the way... How much did you chip in to help out with Paul's medical expenses?)
All great hang glider pilots I know have that attitude and so does PJ.
Name some. I don't know of a lot of people who fly hang gliders who impress me all that much - and it's pretty much a no brainer that there's not a lot of overlap on our lists.
Second, PJ's analysis is right on. It speaks volumes for his awareness and understanding of the issues, as well as his willingness to take, give and hear input on his flying.
What flying? He never got airborne.
In general the whole TTT flying community is very "pro-learning" and does a great job in that regard as I witnessed during the TTT Team Challenge.
World leaders without a doubt. One would hardly expect anything less with damn near all of them being nurtured by the great program Matt runs.
So while PJ was pilot in command...
Bullshit.
He had no control over his thrust, ability to abort the tow, or landing gear to allow him to safely stop the glider. And if he HAD been able to get airborne there was an element in his tow system which would've left him hanging by a thread. If there was a "pilot" in command of that pooch screw it was you - hands down.
I failed him in three significant ways as instructor/operator.
I can come up with a few more than that no problem.
PJ hit the most of these points and I'll reinforce.
1) Casual/non-skeptical approach to two significant "first time" flying situations. First time the ElektraTow (ET) system had been used in Henson's main LZ.
Relevant how?
First time PJ had foot launched any hang glider by scooter type tow. My instructor radar should have been screaming "Danger Will Robinson, Danger!!" and it wasn't.
There are several reasons (none of them good...) for this that are worth pointing out. The most significant and insidious is that as instructors/experts...
What are your "expert" qualifications?
http://ozreport.com/16.078
The Rob Kells Meet
Davis Straub - 2012/04/18 15:02:09 UTC
Mitch Shipley (T2C 144) crashed at launch after a weak link break. He tried to stretch out the downwind leg and then drug a tip turning it around and took out his keel (at least).
How many tows do you have under your belt and how come you don't seem to be able to stay airborne behind a Dragonfly long enough to get to a comfortable approach altitude?
...we have to be very careful to view our training situations through the lens and abilities of the people we are helping fly and not our own.
Paul's glider stayed in a lot better shape than yours did.
I was excited to tow in the Henson's LZ. The LZ is a potato chip in shape and elevation, which brings in new elements (both good and bad) to such a towing operation. Not only a new place, but one with 75 feet or so elevation of the launch above the turn-around pulley. That offered some cool possibilities. Foot launching down a shallow slope that you could easily foot launch without a tow seemed like a risk reducer to me.
A lot of gas at the right time - for similar reasons - would seem like a risk reducer to me. How 'bout you?
It would have been a risk reducer that made the flight very doable for me, even in no wind or light tail, but I wasn't doing the flying! PJ was and for his first foot launch tow!
Which brings up the next casual/non-skeptical approach mistake...
Back up a little. Why was he foot launching?
...I didn't know anything about PJ's abilities/skills/strengths/weaknesses other than what he told me there in the LZ...
You had a pretty good idea that he was at least a Hang Two by virtue of the fact that he had just landed in one piece in the Henson primary.
...and his enthusiasm for wanting to foot launch tow his glider was contagious.
All the stupid shit in this sport - hang checks, backup loops, Skyting Theory, Quest Links, Quest releases, hook knives, "pro towing", standup spot landings - is contagious. And the good stuff - hook-in checks, Newtonian physics, legal weak link configurations, built in releases, runway wheel landings - is avoided like the plague.
Now PJ is a very self-aware hang gliding pilot and represented his experience well to me, but that very well could not have been the case. I should have viewed the situation through a more skeptical filter and crafted an approach (i.e. try a Falcon first as has been suggested)...
How 'bout the fuckin' dolly?
...that had better safety margin while trying these new things, as well as doing it in a place similar to all my experience - flat grass air park.
Sounds like a really great place for taking off and landing on wheels.
2) Aero-Tow bridal arrangement and mountain foot launch muscle memory.
a. I know the proper bridal arrangement...
What's a bridal arrangement?
- Something from the florist's for the reception?
- Where the maid of honor is positioned for the group photo?
- Wedding plans for six year old girls in India?
...and missed it completely. The two pilots before PJ launched off an aerotow cart, as is my approach in 90% of my ET towing and I failed to mentally shift to the foot launch approach.
So why even shift to the foot launch approach? I haven't heard the justification from either Paul or you.
His three point tow bridal...
Fuck you, dude.
- Mike:
-- has gone to a lot of trouble, REPEATEDLY, to explain to the Jack Show morons why the two flavors of towing are one - pilot only - and two - pilot and glider - point.
-- was an important part of the development of modern towing. If the job had been left to a pile of you Quest caliber assholes we'd all still be towing off the control frame and listening to you talking about how you'd been busy perfecting aerotowing for two decades and that if there was a better way of towing everybody would be doing it already.
-- doesn't send people to Jim Rooney to benefit from his keen intellect like lambs to the slaughter.
-- knows what a weak link is. None of you assholes has a fucking clue.
-- can spell "BRIDLE".
- Lemme quote ya sumpin' from Page 25 of excellent book, Towing Aloft - 1998/01, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden:
HANG GLIDING BRIDLE TYPES
After discussing bridle materials, we begin with two-point bridles. They are classified as two-point because they route to both the pilot and glider and divide the forces between the two. We then discuss single-point bridles which route only to the pilot.
That's the sacred text endorsed and sold by your national organization and it's got a track record of going nearly a decade and a half now without needing so much as a revision of a single punctuation mark.
...(and it is three point...
And you obviously read what Mike said or you wouldn't be writing this rot in contradiction.
...one on the glider taking 50%+ of tow force and one on each shoulder splitting the remaining 50%+ tow force at 25%+ a piece.
So the stuff on the end of the towline takes more force than the tension of the towline delivers?
Yeah, when you start moving bridle attachment points apart there will be increased loading on them but that's not increased tow force. If the tug is pulling 150 pounds straight ahead the pilot/glider system will - as a result - be feeling a forward vector of 150 pounds and nothing more, less, or elsewhere.
Important points worth mentioning about being a 3 vs 2 point system are that tow bridal angle can significantly increase bridal tension above tow force and the two weak links - one at keel and one on shoulder - experience different tensions by a factor of two...
Lemme fix that for you...
Due to the wide apex angle - approximately sixty degrees - of the TWO point / primary bridle the strain it feels is half the towline tension plus fifteen percent.
The secondary bridle feels a strain of half that figure plus a little more but since the attachments (on the pilot's shoulders) are so close together and the apex angle is so acute - especially at Quest where we assholes use a bridle six times longer than it should be - this increase is negligible.
When a cheap Quest bridle wraps at the tow ring during release - over fifty percent of the time in higher tension situations - or when some moron like Lauren uses a weak link six times longer than it should be and it welds itself to the tow ring during a normal tension release, the system becomes one point and the strain on the one point bridle is a negligible bit over half the towline tension. This is a good thing because it's a real bitch to pry open a Quest bent pin backup release under any kind of load.
Because a Quest two point bridle can wrap it's important to have a weak link below the tow ring as well as above.
But, although a Quest one point bridle can wrap just as easily as a two point, NEVER use weak links on both ends because that will result in a doubling of the towline tension required to blow.
A Quest link is a loop of 130 pound Greenspot installed on the bridle with the knot positioned such that it's hidden from the main tension in the link and excluded altogether from the equation and blows - obviously - at 260 pounds direct or 520 pounds towline.
Installing a weak links on both ends would - obviously result in a towline blow tension of 1040 pounds and that force is high enough to tear the wings off the glider. This is no exaggeration... it can be done.
With a proper Quest configuration if the 260 pound Quest Link on your left shoulder blows and the bridle wraps, just dump the resultant 520 pounds with your Quest bent pin backup release real fast before the loads build up any more - you'll be fine
...but I digress ....)...
No. Please continue. I'd like to hear the important points worth mentioning about two versus one point systems.
Also...
Important points worth mentioning about being a 3 vs 2 point system are that tow bridal angle can significantly increase bridal tension above tow force and the two weak links - one at keel and one on shoulder - experience different tensions by a factor of two...
WHY is it an important point worth mentioning that a two (three) point tow bridle (bridal) angle can significantly increase bridle tension? What are we supposed to do with that information?
Should we use a fifteen percent heavier weak link for towing two point than we do for one? Or should we follow Dr. Trisa Tilletti's lead and use a fifteen percent heavier weak link for towing one point than we do for two? Maybe it's a latitude thing - or something in the water.
This is all so confusing to me. It sure is a good thing we've got brilliant PhDs like you and Trisa to explain all this stuff to us. I'd really hate to have to be taxing Jim Rooney's keen intellect all the time with these endless questions.
...had the keel attachment point set to moderate the bar pressure of a 30+MPH aerotow. As mentioned, the attachment some six inches ahead of the downtube junction on the keel made his trim speed on tow well above what he could generate running.
Likewise, if you feel like it on a free flight foot launch, you can tilt the nose down to an attitude which would necessitate a 40 plus mile per hour no wind takeoff speed.
That said, I have towed that way in foot launching and it is easy to push out to establish what ever Angle of Attack (AOA) is required to fly the glider.
Yes.
That said, however, the tow position on the keel required PJ to push out on the downtubes to get the required AOA.
b. As PJ mentioned, we talked about the importance of controlling AOA during the launch and the fact that it would be a higher AOA than mountain foot launch.
BULLSHIT. The PITCH ATTITUDE is higher. The ANGEL OF ATTACK is THE SAME.
That said, requiring a pilot to overcome recent muscle memory in launching a new method does not have a high percent chance of success - we all revert to recent successful techniques as the adrenaline goes up and I think that was a contributor to PJs failed launch. Both his "pull in" TTT ramp foot launch muscle memory and the transition from a grapevine to bottle grip on the downtubes right as he got the wing flying and tow tension was increasing...
Yeah Mitch. Right as he got the wing flying - when he was running flat out - and YOU *FINALLY* increased the tension.
Paul Edwards - 2012/10/17 15:41:42 UTC
I run. I run some more. Still running. Just as the glider starts to lift off my shoulders I feel the line tension increase and it's as if the hand of God grabbed me by the chest and pulled me through the control frame.
Great timing dude.
...conspired against him.
On a dolly launch you could've gotten away with that shit.
The video...
WHAT VIDEO?
...shows he had perhaps half a second after getting his hands to a bottle grip to push out, maintain/raise AOA and get flying at a lower than aerotow trim speed, but the point is he had to push out to get that AOA - something he would not have to had to do at all (or at least much less) had the upper bridal tow point been placed on the carabineer.
There's a reason you're describing what's on the video instead of posting it so we all can see what happened. And it's not to difficult to figure out what it is. (Hope you didn't hafta swallow the memory card after watching it.)
Also... That's the same way Davis mangles the spelling of carabiner. Really love the way the Quest Cult feels so comfortable rewriting language, math, aerodynamics, physics... in its own image.
3) Conditions were poor. No wind or switchy cycles of 5 MPH or less, with nothing coming straight in well. Just not the conditions for a first time foot launch of a double surface glider. Had PJ had 5+ MPH in the face as he launched, I bet he would have been fine.
Yeah, it's amazing how well one is able to overcome ramp launch muscle memory when one isn't running twenty miles an hour waiting for the bozo on the winch to crank up the tension.
A classic incident where several things conspired and resulted in a terrible outcome.
No. THINGS didn't conspire - PEOPLE did.
It is a tough dance that we do.
Bullshit. You stupid arrogant assholes MAKE it a tough dance with your crap equipment and creative English and math.
We engage in a sport that has risk...
The vast majority of which you create.
...and that is part of the attraction.
FUCK THAT.
- NOBODY, despite all the macho crap one here's from brain dead Hang Threes on the forums, is attracted to risk. Yes, buzzing ramps is fun. But NOBODY does it in conditions in which he thinks there's a one percent chance that he's gonna fuck up and clip a tree with his left wingtip 'cause that'll make it MORE fun. Just like Chris Muller wasn't thinking two seconds before his fatal impact, "Gee, snatching a goodie bag off a traffic cone going seventy miles an hour is really fun 'cause I might hit the cone, plow in, and break my neck." He was doing what he was doing 'cause the was confident that he was good enough to have eliminated one hundred percent of the risk.
- Anybody who signs a Hang One on a student who's taking lessons 'cause he's attracted to the risk of the sport instead of calling the appropriate authorities and helping him get committed needs to have his certification permanently revoked.
- Were either you or Paul thinking, "Let's see what we can do to make this tow a little riskier. It would be a lot more fun if we could increase the likelihood of a faceplant."?
Too cavalier and you don't survive.
Cavalier attitudes - as pertaining to Paul, you, and everyone present - had absolutely NOTHING to do with this incident. You were easy on the throttle and Paul was low on the nose because you and he were trying to keep the tow as safe as possible. Unfortunately, both of those actions were the wrong call - especially in combination.
If you want the best chance of survival, don't fly.
Or don't fly behind total fucking assholes who make statements like:
Whatever's going on back there, I can fix it by giving you the rope.
A few years ago, I started refusing to tow people with home made gear.
And yes, get behind me with a "strong link" and I will not tow you.
It's more of this crappy argument that being on tow is somehow safer than being off tow.
See, the thing is... "we", the people that work at and run aerotow parks, have a long track record. We know what we're doing.
Enjoy your posts, as always, and find your comments solid, based on hundreds of hours / tows of experience and backed up by a keen intellect/knowledge of the issues when it comes to most things in general and hang gliding AT/Towing in particular. Wanted to go on record in case anyone reading wanted to know one persons comments they should give weight to.
Our buddies/friends/instructors can, should and do help us, but the cold hard X-Ray table only has room for one.
When ya pull off two-fers ya just get an extra X-ray table for the postmortems.
- 1996/07/25 - Gates Field
- 1998/10/25 - Groveland
- 2002/08/17 - Fort Langley
- 2005/09/03 - Cushing Field
Shortages were never problems in any of those.
People make poor judgments.
The ones you focused on aren't our big problems.
I feel I did in PJ's case and I am not the first or last buddy/friend/instructor to do so.
Don't feel too bad. Pretty much all buddies/friends/instructors in this sport totally suck.
I absolutely could have been the one to say no, let's not try this and pushed back more against his enthusiasm.
His primary objective was to practice his stupid foot landings. How crushed do you think his enthusiasm would've been if, instead of just saying no, you'd suggested he use a dolly?
I also could have done better at the attempt. I feel terrible about the outcome that I was a significant part in creating, however gracious PJ has been. I can guarantee it will make me a better instructor - I owe PJ that much at least.
It'll make you better at doing things wrong. But in the big picture / long run you'll continue to suck as much as you always have and do your bit to leave the sport - on the balance - a good deal worse than you found it - even if your work on your ElektraTow system is of some value.
OK, my input. I gotta go fly now.
Mitch
Gonna take a break - not, unfortunately (thanks to your douchebag buddies), to go flying. But I'm not done with this one.
)The angle of the line would be to great to not touch the bar and cause issues.
