landing

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31776
Mitch's landing clinic

Paraglider Collapse - 2013/04/11 07:17:23 UTC

Body vertical, hands high, hard flare - perfect form!

Jim Rooney - 2013/04/13 11:26:56 UTC

Strange.
I have kinda the opposite approach to others out there when I teach landings.

In keeping with your opposite approaches to everything in conventional aviation, math, logic, common sense...

Better? Worse? I have no idea.

Hard to wrong with "worse" when it's anything you're involved in.

I have nothing but respect for what Ryan, Paul and Mitch are doing out there.

Like I said.

This is by no means a critique of their styles.

That's OK, I'll handle this one. Fuck all three of them - in addition to you and anyone in this sport who tolerates you.

While I agree that a good landing does indeed start with a good approach, I don't start there for a landing clinic.

No shit.

I like to focus on one thing at a time and then build on each thing.

The most useless and dangerous thing - per usual.

So, if I were to focus on a landing approach, then I wouldn't be focusing on those last critical moments of a landing.

People get killed because they're focusing on those last "critical" moments of a landing instead of the approach. Tony Ameo (2009/11/15 - Wallaby) is fuckin' textbook.

In the grand scheme of things, I find that you can't really "focus" on the landing approach if you're (at best) "concerned" about the actual touch down.

Compare/Contrast contrast with Steve Pearson:

Steve Pearson - 2012/03/28 23:26:05 UTC

I can't control the glider in strong air with my hands at shoulder or ear height and I'd rather land on my belly with my hands on the basetube than get turned downwind.

He stays geared for the approach all the way in and doesn't give much of a rat's ass about those last critical moments of the landing.

Instead, I back things up.
(the scooter tow system allows me to teach this way)

Good. You should spend a lot more time with scooter and a lot less with aero.

I like to start fully on the ground... no scooter... just you and the glider.
I work backwards through the landing. I start with the last moments. I start with the flare. Fully on the ground.
Then back to just 5ft off the ground.
Then 10 (the roundout)
Then 20 (the "dive into ground effect)
ETC

Yawn.

It's a long time before I allow anyone to bother with their landing approach.
Learn to touch the earth softly first.

Shouldn't you be teaching them in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place so they'll be in the only environment in which what you're teaching them could possibly matter?

My clinics can be annoying as they are the not "quick fixes" that people desire.
It's a process and it's a slow one.
But at the end, you know how to land and how to land well.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=25536
Whoops! Snapped another tip wand :-O

NMERider - 2012/03/14 15:17:14 UTC

His one-technique-fits-all attitude espoused on the Oz Report Forum has become tiresome to read. It does not work in the fucked-up world of XC landings and weary pilots.

I like what Steve Pearson does when he comes in and may adapt something like that.

For example... I don't let people use their gliders.

Or tow equipment that works. Or weak links up in the legal range.

You start on a falcon. PERIOD.
If you can't land a falcon properly, why the hell are you going to try learning to fix your landings on a topless?

Call me silly.
But I prefer it that way.

The good news is that the only people who have to deal with you in that capacity are the ones stupid enough to elect to.

Brad Gryder - 2013/04/13 12:45:49 UTC

Jim,
Good points you made...

Great to see that you're as on board with his landing philosophy as you are with him on towing.

...but we probably should make efforts to accelerate everything hanggliding to flatten the learning curve and attract more potential pilots.

How 'bout we just eliminate the quaint little landing practice of ours...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22176
Paragliding Collapses

Jim Rooney - 2011/06/12 13:57:58 UTC

Most common HG injury... spiral fracture of the humerus.

...that knocks more people out of the sport - temporarily and permanently, oftentimes before they even start - than anything else?

Everything else is being 'dumbed down', so why not hang gliding?

I'm a HUGE fan of dumbing things down in hang gliding...
- unhooked launch prevention procedures
- landing approaches
- landings
- releases
- bridles
- weak link definitions
- failure modes
- emergency procedures

Let's just let 'em land on big wheels...

Or smallish wheels on good surfaces, or...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=26854
Skids vs wheels

Andrew Stakhov - 2012/08/11 13:52:35 UTC

So I just came back from flying in Austria (awesome place btw). Stark difference I noticed is a large chunk of pilots choose to fly with skids instead of wheels. Conversations I had with pilots they say they actually work better in certain situations as they don't get plugged up like smaller wheels. Even larger heavier Atosses were all flying with skids. I was curious why they consistently chose to land on skids on those expensive machines and they were saying that it's just not worth the risk of a mistimed flare or wing hitting the ground... And those are all carbon frames etc.

...skids.

...forever if thats what it takes to make new pilots.

And keep existing ones.

Propose new hg skill on USHPA Card? FLAND = foot landing

Why?

- We have tons of people in the sport now who are incapable of and elect not to land on their feet - some of whom fly XC and undoubtedly have better safety records than XC foot landings.

- One of the sport's big killers is on the other end of the flight and occurs when foot launchers incorrectly assume they're connected to their gliders during the several seconds preceding launch. (Talk to your buddy Rooney about that one.) We've got a virtually totally effective regulation/procedure to deal with the problem that NOBODY teaches or enforces and only the tiniest percentage of flyers personally adhere to. What's the rationale behind refusing to make the launches safe while mandating dangerous landings?

[Steve Davy]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28835
Why I don't paraglide

Paul Edwards - 2013/04/17 21:26:15 UTC

If someone thinks HG is made more dangerous because their landings aren't consistent then they need to practice landing!

Where do I sign up for one of your landing clinics and how much is the fee?

It's not an arcane art.

Like juggling knives, if you're getting cut up keep doing it 'till you get good at it.

People get good at it and have consistent success in all manner of conditions.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=17092
Crash at Questair

Shannon Moon - 2010/05/28 12:31:35 UTC

This is my write-up of my hang gliding accident on 2010/05/09 at Quest Air in Groveland, Florida during an attempted foot landing which resulted in shattered arms, bilateral humerus fractures, and radial nerve trauma.

Some people get shattered arms, bilateral humerus fractures, and radial nerve trauma, but only those that needed more practice, right Paul?

It's a risky business.

You just said "People get good at it and have consistent success in all manner of conditions." So what you're saying is it's a risky business to get good at but once you have foot landings nailed (like you do) it's no longer a risky business.

It just makes it that much more important to go through the required steps to get good at launching, landing, and reading the weather.

Was your face landing a required step in learning to foot launch on surface tows?

[miguel]

Surely, if the navy taught 20 y/os to land blind on a carrier, you can teach yourself to land a hang glider consistently and safely on your feet.
training hill + practice = proficiency
keyboard wizardry never made anyone a better pilot.

[Tad Eareckson]

Surely, if the navy taught 20 y/os to land blind on a carrier, you can teach yourself to land a hang glider consistently and safely on your feet.

1. Why should I have to TEACH MYSELF to land a hang glider consistently and safely on my feet?

- Didn't I pay a quality certified USHGA Instructor to teach me how to do that before before he signed me off on my Two?

- As a Hang Four, didn't I have a USHGA rating official verify that I could land on my feet and keep the glider off the ground within twenty-five feet of a spot any time I felt like it?

2. If there are rated pilots unable to execute those tasks flawlessly in whatever conditions are flyable on all but the rarest of occasions isn't that more indicative of a major failure of the USHGA Pilot Proficiency, instruction, training, rating programs than of the pilots themselves?

3. Here's the post to which Paul Edwards was responding:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28835
Why I don't paraglide

Tom Emery - 2013/04/17 14:29:12 UTC
San Diego

Been flying Crestline about a year now. I've seen more bent aluminum than twisted risers. Every time another hang pounds in, Steven, the resident PG master, just rolls his eyes and says something like, "And you guys think hang gliding is safer."

C'mon, admit it. This is risky business. Hang or para.

99.99 percent of that aluminum is getting bent in the Crestline Happy Acres putting green by idiots delusional enough to think that they can teach themselves to land hang gliders on their feet sufficiently consistently and safely enough to be able to consistently and safely land in...

http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=3858
Landing in the Big T wash

NMERider - 2013/04/05 21:09:27 UTC

There have been a number of bad landing incidents in the wash by a variety of experienced pilots because it is a dangerous bailout, period. It is NOT the club's landing zone either. It is a bailout and when it's hot on the surface it can and will bite you in the ass.

...the Big T wash - which they can't.

4. The reason that the Navy can teach kids to land Corsairs and F-18s on carriers and USHGA can't teach anybody to land a hang glider consistently and safely on his feet in the Happy Acres putting green is because it's a thousand times easier and safer to land Corsairs and F-18s on carriers than it is to whipstall a hang glider to dead stops at one of the two most critical and dangerous phases of flight.

5. For carrier landings you DO NOT:

- move your hands and feet from optimal to "adequate" control positions in order to be able to pop your nose up to sixty degrees a second before touchdown

- attempt to stop on:
-- a dime
-- anything other than wheels

- use the flight deck as practice for optimizing your Big T wash landings

6. The object of a carrier landing is to put the fuckin' plane down as safely as possible for the circumstances at the moment.

7. Note that Jonathan isn't telling people to teach themselves to land hang gliders consistently and safely on on their feet so they can land consistently and safely in the Big T wash - he's saying don't land in the Big T wash because, sooner or later, you WILL get fucked up.

[Tad Eareckson]

Oops, got sidetracked/distracted and forgot to finish this one...

training hill + practice = proficiency

Some asshole who wastes a weekend or two a month perfecting his flare timing is still/always gonna be thirty times more likely to break a downtube or arm than someone with a half decent pair of wheels or skids who deliberately uses them for all of his landings.

keyboard wizardry never made anyone a better pilot.

Keyboard wizardry is about the ONLY thing that makes people better pilots.

Zack Marzec, for example, did nothing but "fly fly fly" and was, undoubtedly, highly accomplished and "proficient". But he's as dead as fuckin' doornail 'cause he NEVER ONCE listened to any of the keyboard wizards who were trying to explain the purpose of a weak link and that the term "pro towing" is total bullshit.

A solid Hang Two on his first ever aerotow - minus any tandem training from any douchebags like Dr. Trisa Tilletti - with a two point bridle and a one and a half G weak link wouldn't have had enough excitement in that situation to increase his pulse rate. Mister Fly Fly Fly with his "pro tow" bridle and Rooney Link didn't have a snowball's chance in hell once he got slammed - his ratings, airtime, experience, skill, proficiency, reflexes all became one hundred percent USELESS at that instant.

Dumb glider jocks are a dime a dozen. No theory, no pilots. No keyboard wizardry, no theory.

[miguel]

more keyboard wizardry.

A prudent pilot will have adequate foot landing skills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-spd4pjv8I


Harder to land a hang glider than to land a Corsair on an aircraft carrier????

Time for a couple of these:



and some fresh air.

[Tad Eareckson]

A prudent pilot will have adequate foot landing skills.

1. What percentage of people who fly hang gliders would you estimate have adequate foot landing skills?

2. When are you expecting that percentage to improve to the point that...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28835
Why I don't paraglide

Tom Emery - 2013/04/17 14:29:12 UTC
San Diego

Been flying Crestline about a year now. I've seen more bent aluminum than twisted risers. Every time another hang pounds in, Steven, the resident PG master, just rolls his eyes and says something like, "And you guys think hang gliding is safer."

...Steven, the resident PG master, will no longer be rolling his eyes and saying anything like, "And you guys think hang gliding is safer." And what will make that happen?

3. If someone makes a thousand consecutive perfect no-steppers in the Big T wash then breaks his arm due to a mistimed flare in the Crestline Happy Acres putting green did he have adequate foot landing skills?

4. You train twenty students to the point that they all have adequate foot landing skills and do just fine with frequent bailouts into the Big T wash. Two years later one of them breaks his arm due to a mistimed flare in the Crestline Happy Acres putting green. Were you a successful instructor?

Harder to land a hang glider than to land a Corsair on an aircraft carrier????

You wanna watch a hundred landings and see as many as possible which result in damage to the aircraft substantial enough to require repair before another flight. Where do you stand? A carrier deck or the Crestline Happy Acres putting green?

Where did John Simon break two arms? On a heaving carrier deck in the middle of the night or on the Ridgely Happy Acres putting green in the middle of the day with the wind at 3.0 miles per hour gusting to 3.2?

[Steve Davy]

Miguel,

Paul's stupid decision to attempt a foot launch surface tow (with a dolly at his disposal) with no means to abort, and hands gripping the downtubes is analogous to anyone's decision to attempt a foot landing (with wheels at their disposal) with no means to abort, with their hands gripping the downtubes.

Paul was lucky he didn't snap his fucking neck.

Now the motherfucker is suggesting that people should follow his lead and keep practicing stupid shit until they get "good at it." Fuck him!

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28830
MASSIVE upgrade complete

Paul Edwards - 2013/04/16 20:38:44 UTC

Thanks SG!

And I notice he hasn't bothered to thank anyone contributing to Kite Strings for working to counter the damage Jack and his cult members do to the sport.

[miguel]

Letting go of the downtubes prevents spiral fractures. I learned this as a H-0 after watching a double spiral fracture.