instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=20542
Crash survival wisdom

Chad May - 2011/02/10 06:59:19 UTC
Nashville

The Year With No Serious Injuries... Leatt Neck Brace

My passion for this topic eclipses my ability to type... Also I just banged my Dvorak typing finger in the front door of my apartment

Sorry, fellow Dvorak typist, I'm not with you on this one.

Leatt neck brace.

Watch the motocross guys crash, and walk away, and then ask why should we be dying given the comparative physics of both ??? Protective gear! !!!

The motocross guys are at risk of crashing pretty much for the entire duration of their activity. We're pretty much immune save for a few seconds at the beginning and end of ours.

A respected comp pilot whom I admire told me he would never wear that thing.. my Leatt... God knows he's more likely to need it than my Falcon-Flying a$$

If he's more interested in points than safety... Maybe.

Dave said it... we don't go fast enough for crashes to be inescapably fatal.

There's plenty of stuff this side of fatal that I want no part of.

We need something, maybe a hip/lower back plate that keeps our torso from bending in two. You know, you've seen this on youtube... chest stops, legs go flying forward with hips bending spine.

I don't think we're seeing this as a real issue in hang gliding.

Which instructor is it who ties his student to keel so they can't play bumper-pilot with the ground?

Which instructor is it who ties his students to a Dragonfly with a chintzy piece of fishing line so they can't get into too much trouble?

I hope to live to see the first year when January comes around and we all realize nobody lost any flying time or worse to injury...

If you base your reality on what you read in Hang Gliding magazine you'd probably lived long enough several years ago.

Someday in the future, we will look back at this topic the same way we might view a discussion of luff-lines in the 70's.

I think the only discussions we had about luff lines were with respect to the people who took them off. Ron Higgs comes to mind.

BTW, my Leatt is transparent to me in flight.. I forget it's there.

Great. But...

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.

The probability of it ever doing you any good is extremely remote. Neck injuries are fairly rare and lotsa times when they're an issue the glider's going down so fast and steeply that nothing's gonna make a difference.

We could get more bangs for our bucks with wheels and tow releases that don't stink on ice.

Fred Wilson - 2011/02/10 07:20:01 UTC
Vernon, British Columbia

Dave Hopkins - 2011/02/10 14:02:51 UTC

I don't think we could wear alot of protective gear. Ive taken to wearing knee pads. Most of what we need is education .

Yeah Dave, but not about how to crash. There wasn't a goddam thing that Zack Marzec could've done to improve his situation once the focal point of his safe towing system kicked in to increase the safety of the towing operation.

I feel We shouldn't make our body too stiff.

This isn't your FEELING, Dave.

Just getting our heads up and lower bodies between our Brain and the ground Is the best we can do.

Keeping the glider flying and under control is the best we can do.

also DO NOT STICK OUR FEET DOWN TO HIT THE GROUND FIRST.

The way Bill Bennett's friend did as a consequence of reading your crash survival wisdom to limit his injuries to compound fractures of both his tibia and fibula?

Dave Hopkins - 2011/02/09 22:47:29 UTC

Wow, I'm glad my advice helped.

You're glad your advice helped but your advice is not to stick your feet down to hit the ground first? Pick one, Dave.

Most sever impacts have enough force to break our pelvis or dislodge our organs. Pull our leg up . make our body as tight a ball as possible. Let he impact CRUMPLE as much of the glider as possible before our bodies hit the ground. Hitting on the side of our legs is the best shock absorbing part of our body. Sort of like the parachute landing technique. Every crash situation will be different. We have to make it up as we go but not panicking and using the shock absorbing characteristics of the glider to the best of our ability is the best we can do.

I can do a lot better than that, Dave - as can most people who've had something resembling proper instruction.

I think if this attitude were more common knowledge we would see a big reduction in fatal and sever injuries in this sport.

I think until we've started making a half-assed effort to address the issues that are causing the crashes that this discussion is pretty much a waste of time and a distraction.

Even practicing getting in the right crash position would help. Like practicing deploying our chute.

Speaking of distractions.

When split seconds count we don't have time for lots of figuring.

Yeah, and seeing as how the figuring you were doing to get yourself into this situation to begin with totally sucked, there probably wouldn't be much point in starting now.

just act!

Yep.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=20542
Crash survival wisdom

CAL - 2011/02/10 16:31:49 UTC
Ogden

i think there is great wisdom in all this !

No.

but there is one problem that i have that i have noticed, i would love to have the reflex to do what is necessary to protect my self from injury...

Keep flying the fucking glider.

...my problem is my instincts are to continue to fly the glider and gain control, while the ground may come up before this happens my instincts will always react this way, with that said my hands will always be on the control frame, for some reason i never give up on the fact that i am going to recover it is just born into me to respond to the input of what the gliders needs to recover, rather than to protect myself i am going to crash, so with my instincts i may pile in and die trying to recover.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with your instincts. Leave them the fuck alone.

on one of my landings i ran and ran trying to stuff the bar to slow my glider...

You were trying to stuff the bar to slow your glider? I think I'm seeing one of your problems with that landing.

...until hitting the ground, after viewing the camera in slow motion my hands were on the dts the whole time...

Big surprise.

...till the glider was stopped, though my shoulders felt like they were torn from there sockets...

As the shoulders of so many people who try to land with their hands on the downtubes the whole time and come to similar abrupt stops actually ARE.

...it prevented my head from hitting the keel...

Which wouldn't have been an issue if you'd come in on the fuckin' wheels with your hands remaining on the basetube the whole time in the first place.

...all in all it wasn't even thought out...

Especially the part about landing on your feet with your hands on the downtubes the whole time.

...just instinct

And what a shame it is that all of the instruction is geared towards killing the instinct that ALL first timers have to put the glider down on its wheels.

Jim Gaar - 2011/02/10 17:13:14 UTC

Easier said then done I realize.

No harm in flying all the way to the crash CAL.

- Doesn't that conflict just a wee bit with what Dave's saying?

- In the incident CAL just described he wasn't flying all the way to the crash. He had prioritized foot landing over flying at some point earlier - which was why there was a crash.

Just try to remember to relax at the end. You can tell yourself it's going to happen if you can tell yourself you are going to fly it in and then prepare for the inevitable.

Just like muscle memory you can train yourself to think in the proper manner. You just have to practice and visualize a LOT...

Go fuck yourself, Rodie.

CAL - 2011/02/10 18:20:06 UTC

Thanks Blindrodie ! i seam to be quite relaxed in tight situations, then when it is all over i am like, what the crap then i look at the video oh ! that's what i did wrong

- I didn't need to see the video to know what you did wrong way better than you know what you did wrong.
- How 'bout posting the video?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=20542
Crash survival wisdom

Dave Hopkins - 2011/02/11 01:37:35 UTC

I am very much like that too. I will fight to get control of the glider.

That's not what CAL and I are hearing.

I would rather fly or flare my way out of a situation then wreck my wing. I do know when the battle for control is over.

Doesn't sound like you even started a skirmish in most of those incidents you described.

aerodynamics are not going to work in my favor and its time to use my only other option. Make my glider in to a crumple zone. We are not like birds If we break a wing we are not dead. We just get an other one.

Maybe we should be giving more more thought to thinking like birds and really avoiding situations in which a broken wing is a possibility.

Situations like hitting a tree or wires and falling down, dragging a tip in a high wind launch and spinning back into the hill, A tow lockout and others.

We can - AND MUST - not get into situations like hitting trees or wires and dragging tips in high wind launches.
And we can damn near eliminate low level lockouts. And we can engineer to minimize the danger of a low level lockout - but you ain't done shit in that department so don't waste my time talking about how to survive the ensuing crash.

These situations where we know we are going to crash out of control we need to have that other option in the back of our mind to throw on the table. It's easy,,, rotate up off the base bar, grab the top of a D-T with both hands and pull our butts up turn away from the ground and count your losses.

Ya know, Dave...

I was in a situation at Jockey's Ridge - 1984/07/05 - in which an incredible thermal blast stood me on my ear, turned me around, and spat me weightless out the backside aiming for low on the face of the dune with a twenty mile per hour tailwind. I was one hundred percent certain that I was dead.

But I kept trying to get the glider to fly and held the bar stuffed. And to my astonishment I finally got enough airspeed to rocket up the face and shoot over the top of the spine downwind. Turned around, elevatored down in smooth air on the next dune, and gently touched down smelling like a rose.

If I had instead done ANYTHING to mitigate the impact and use my glider as a crumple zone they'd have needed to use dental records to confirm my identity.

We have lost two pilots to these situations already this yr. I would like to see what the pilots did in their last seconds before hitting the ground.

And I would like to see what the pilots did in their last seconds before hitting the ground became inevitable. Hell, maybe they were configuring to best use their gliders as crumple zones.

I bet the fatal injuries were to the head and neck or blunt trauma to the torso. I bet the gliders were not totalled just the pilots.

- Maybe. And maybe there was nothing that could've been done to improve the outcome.

- So how come we don't know at this point? There may have been no good witnesses to the events preceding the crash but somebody bloody well knows what damage the gliders and pilots sustained.

I know it's tough to talk about this...

Why? What else have we got any business talking about?

...but we need to learn everything we can from a situation.

And then if what we learn is that the situation was largely attributable to instructor, tow operator, tug driver incompetence and/or USHGA policy or - lack thereof - we need to write things off as pilot error and publish a report that makes him look like a total asshole to give the illusion that everything's perfectly safe for anyone with a mid double digit or higher IQ.

It's great to learn from and prevent accidents...

There's NEVER anything to learn that shouldn't have been covered already within the first couple of days of ground school.

...but lets be real, there are always going to be serious HG crashes.

Especially when we focus on surviving, rather than preventing, them.

It's part of the game.

Not for everybody.

We can only learn from our mistakes if we are alive and well to fly again.

So what did the people who weren't Zack Marzec learn from his untimely demise and what are we doing differently to prevent a rerun?

I believe every friend I've lost in a HG could have saved them self if they had done this technique.

And I believe there wasn't a goddam thing Frank Sauber could've done once that scooter tow started locking out at fifty feet and the release that had been within easy reach a couple of seconds before suddenly was no longer.

[miguel]

I am guessing, Tad, that at the Pleasant Pastures Dream Air Park, you never lose control of your glider due to conditions.

There I was, a couple feet above the ground, about to land. The wind was about 25 to 30 mph and gusting wildly. I had no forward motion and thought I had it in the bag. A strong gust came from the side, picked the glider up about 30 feet. I went prone and pulled in to the max but I was a basic leaf in the breeze. The same gust slammed the glider back into the ground. I hugged a downtube. No injury to me but the glider was totalled.

Lesson learned: Don't fly in strong gusty conditions especially when the wind is splitting the ridge.

It is all well and good to preach crash avoidance.In the real world, however, there can be situations where you loose control of the glider and are about to strike an imovable object. Dave's suggestions can save lives and limbs

But then again, all knowing Tad might be able to control the winds

[Tad Eareckson]

Took the liberty of moving your post over here from:

http://www.kitestrings.org/topic65.html
How to crash a Hang Glider

Better fit.

I am guessing, Tad, that at the Pleasant Pastures Dream Air Park...

Where damn near everyone and his dog actually fly and land.

...you never loose control of your glider due to conditions.

Correct. I always have tight control of my glider due to keeping my hands on the control bar.

I had no forward motion...

And at that point wouldn't have even needed wheels - let alone feet - to land.

A strong gust came from the side, picked the glider up about 30 feet.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27086
Steve Pearson on landings

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.

I went prone and pulled in to the max...

WHOA! And here I was thinking that when you wanted superior roll control authority you went/stayed upright so you could have your hands on the downtubes at shoulder or ear height! Go figure!

...but I was a basic leaf in the breeze.

Which you might not have been if you had been prone to begin with and able to stuff the bar without first having to rotate back to prone in order to pull in to the max - rather than having the...

miguel - 2013/04/12 15:08:32 UTC

They also can fly the glider from the downtubes with adequate control.

...ADEQUATE pitch control range - and thus roll authority - you did with your hands on the downtubes.

The same gust slammed the glider back into the ground. I hugged a downtube.

Sorry, lost interest at the point I found out you were flying the glider from the downtubes with adequate control.

No injury to me but the glider was totalled.

Bummer. It's usually just a downtube.

Lesson learned: Don't fly in strong gusty conditions especially when the wind is splitting the ridge.

And if Mother Nature figures out how to fuck you over anyway, rotate back to prone as quickly as possible so you can pull in to the max and go from adequate into optimal control mode.

It is all well and good to preach crash avoidance.

Thank you.

In the real world...

...the one in which you have people coming into the Pleasant Pastures Dream Air Park LZ:
- with:
-- the wind about 25 to 30 miles per hour and gusting wildly
-- no forward motion
- thinking they have it in the bag
- upright with their hands on the downtubes at shoulder or ear height in adequate control configuration...

...however there can be situations where you loose control of the glider and are about to strike an imovable object.

Sorry, lost interest at the point I found out you were flying the glider from the downtubes with adequate control.

Dave's suggestions can save lives and limbs

Not mine.

But then again, all knowing Tad might be able to control the winds

Nah. I gave up on that strategy a couple years into my hang gliding career and figured that maintaining tight control of the glider at all times was the better ticket.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=20542
Crash survival wisdom

BJ Herring - 2011/02/11 03:28:05 UTC

Good discussion

No.

Couple notes.

1. No need to do advanced flying manuevers until you're way past H2/lesson's.

Fuck that.

- WHAT "ADVANCED FLYING MANEUVERS"?

-- Flying in one of those vile "training" harnesses upright from the downtubes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_yTHPgNxsk

05-03223
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7411/14165628916_bbdc682e28_o.png


http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5120/14188732974_08536f5037_o.png
08-43827

...from launch through landing for 1350 feet of one's first couple of mountain flights?

-- Using a Rooney Link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYe3YmdIQTM


...to increase the safety of the towing operation?

-- Flying with releases...


http://ozreport.com/pub/images/fingerlakesaccident2.jpg
http://ozreport.com/pub/images/fingerlakesaccident3.jpg


...within easy reach?

-- Skipping...

http://vimeo.com/16572582

password - red
2-112
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7600/28811055456_925c8abb66_o.png


...hook-in checks?

-- Rotating to upright...

http://www.flyatos.com/bill_landing.jpg


...during landing approaches?

-- Relying on a properly timed whipstall...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-36aQ3Hg33c


...to stop the glider?

- By "ADVANCED MANEUVERS" you mean low hard turns.

-- Those can be worked up to gradually and very safely.

-- The fuckin' Twos are SUPPOSED TO...

The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, Inc. - 2013/02/07
Standard Operating Procedure
12. Rating System
02. Pilot Proficiency System
07. Novice Hang Gliding Rating (H-2)
-B. Novice Rating - Required Witnessed Tasks
02. Demonstrated Skills and Knowledge

-i. Demonstrates 180 degree turns in both directions, and at various speeds and bank angles.

...be able to do them.

-- Proficiency in / Comfort with hard low level turns is the name of the game in pilots being able to keep themselves out of trouble once the OPTIONAL launch is out of the way.

- This BULLSHIT:

The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, Inc. - 2013/02/07
Standard Operating Procedure
12. Rating System
02. Pilot Proficiency System
07. Novice Hang Gliding Rating (H-2)
-B. Novice Rating - Required Witnessed Tasks
02. Demonstrated Skills and Knowledge

-j. Demonstrates three consecutive landings that average less than 100 feet from a
target, safe, smooth, on feet and into the wind.

is ACTUALLY an ADVANCED MANEUVER - and the fuckin' glider manufacturer:

Gil Dodgen - 1995/01

All of this reminds me of a comment Mike Meier made when he was learning to fly sailplanes. He mentioned how easy it was to land a sailplane (with spoilers for glide-path control and wheels), and then said, "If other aircraft were as difficult to land as hang gliders no one would fly them."

...says so in no uncertain terms.

It's also:

- totally useless for this new pilot who isn't supposed to be doing advanced maneuvers like landing in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place

- WAY more likely to get him into serious trouble than get him out of it

- something that he'll NEVER be able to "master"

- a stunt that gets a helluva lot of Hang Four arms broken and shoulders dislocated

Ask the instructor all about maneuvers, speed, etc... and go with his suggestions.

And if you don't like the suggestions about maneuvers, speed, et cetera from that instructor just shop around for other opinions. It shouldn't take all that long to find someone who tells you what you want to hear or the precise opposite of what you heard before.

Taking each step of the learning process with tons of repetition is what creates lizard-like muscle memories of how to ground-handle, flare, catch yourself when you don't flare strongly, etc.

Never ask yourself what you're supposed to be accomplishing with all these stupid flare issues...

All the small and controlled mistakes... like flying in H1-H2 level winds (as USHPA rules indicate(forgot what they are), will allow you to push the envelop and make those inevitable mistakes in conditions that won't cripple you...

At what wind speed are you more likely to blow a foot landing and break an arm - zero or twenty?

like your first dnwind landing b/c you misjudge altitude or a fence you didn't see till low or whatever.. Or you forget to keep your eyes up on landing, but instead watch a ditch cross under you and totally biff a flare, on and on.... the more mistakes you make in controlled conditions, the more the lizard memory gets developed to save you when it's more than a dntube at stake. (By the way, controlled conditions means under an instructors tutorship, flying an approriate wing for your experience level, conditions, mental clarity, etc) There is no other way to learn a sport so unforgiving. As painfully slow as improvement can be in the early year or 2.

2. The glider's health has to be 2nd priority to yours.

- I think I'd rather be coming down with the flu on a glider with sidewires up to the job than feeling on top of the world with the last strands about to go.

- If the glider finishes the day in pristine shape you PROBABLY will too.

- More so if the deceleration at the end of the flight is gradual.

3. If you're really up sh1t creek, fight, get your legs under you for the first impact and either hold onto one dntube, or if coming dnwind at breakneck speed...

You can't make blanket statements like those - and you're flatly contradicting...

Dave Hopkins - 2011/02/10 14:02:51 UTC

also DO NOT STICK OUR FEET DOWN TO HIT THE GROUND FIRST.

...what Dave's saying on the issue.

...or falling to the ground after a 25-30ft early flare...

How well is the gene pool being served by the survival of someone who punches a flare so early and hard that he regains twenty-five feet?

...climbing into the control frame with one-two feet works miracles.

And you want someone who's stalled at twenty-five to thirty feet to climb into the control frame instead of stuffing the bar?

4. Prevention is the best...

...and easiest...

...thing b/c all emergency situations suck.

Yes.

I try to stay in good physical condition just in case the worst happens, but it's almost all preventable if the sport is given the respect it deserves.

The sport as it should be deserves respect. The sport as it is deserves little but contempt.

( I'm a total hypocrite by preaching this btw ). Just saying it's not Hang gliding that's dangerous, it's complacency, impatience, over-confidence, etc.

How 'bout institutional incompetence, negligence, corruption?

It's been too long since one of these discussions. And like I think Dave said... Wisdom comes from making mistakes... sharing mistakes is awesome so we don't have to learn too much the hard way.

- We don't have to learn shit the hard way. We have to start educating students about the real and deadly hazards of the sport and instead of conning them into believing it's all perfectly safe and focusing on the best ways to survive crashes at the expense of training on how to avoid them.

- So if sharing mistakes is so fucking awesome how come that practice has become virtually extinct in the magazine?

Later,
BJ

Allen Sparks - 2011/02/12 02:26:07 UTC

This is a good thread.

Amusing anyway.

I've unfortunately used a bunch of crash survival strategy, all mentioned here.
My main strategy is to avoid having any more crashes. because ...
I'm not so sure I'll always have much control over the outcome
... and I'd sincerely hate to discover that I've run out of luck

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=20542
Crash survival wisdom

Dave Hopkins - 2011/02/12 16:16:23 UTC

BJ Herring - 2011/02/11 03:28:05 UTC

Couple notes...

True, Its poor pilot judgements that leads to potentially deadly situations. The great thing about HGs is that they are slow and if we use our heads they will offer lots of protection.

Sure. No matter what the circumstances of the situation we're ALWAYS gonna be able to use the glider to cushion the impact if we're smart enough.

Look at your wing and think of how much force it would take to break all that tubing and wires and sail. They are rated for 6 to 10 Gs. What is your head rated for ? Which would you rather test? Some mathematicians could do the math and show us all the physics, but it's I've tested it in the real world. No doubt luck is always a factor but at least bend the odds in your favor!

The type of glide we fly also has a big influence on how fast it will accelerate in to the ground and how much protection it will offer if we are stupid and don't do anything to protect our heads.
Beginner ,Intermediate wings with long root cords and shorter control frames allow some protection against our bodies hitting the ground. High performance models and rigids with short cords and long control bars can be head and neck choppers. They also dive quicker and hit harder.
So if you have stepped up to a H-P wing be more aware that we need to more actively protect ourselves in a crash situation.
I fly a rigid so I am very aware that a minor nose over could kill me. I've had a couple of hard nose overs with my Atos-b. Not being on the base bar during those landings saved my head . The Gliders nose will usually hit first as long as we are behind the bar. Always grab one down-tube with both hands to rotate our bodies around the frame and not through it head first. Practice this while hanging in the glider every so often to built some muscle memory. It may save most of the broken arms and necks.
I'm not trying to tell pilots what to do. I'm just pointing out what has worked for me in some potentially deadly situations.

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.

[Tad Eareckson]

Speaking of...

http://www.kitestrings.org/post4272.html#p4272

...violating one of my fundamental rules and failing assume the worst about somebody - Skypuppy / srskypuppy / Steve Rodrigues / USHPA # 30605, H-5, Mentor, Observer, Director at Large, former Tandem Instructor & Tandem Administrator - in hang gliding...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28906
One legged Brad put Funston in jeopardy today

I was gonna say something about liking the way spork / Rick Cavallaro was handling himself but...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22212
So long guys

Rick Cavallaro - 2011/06/21 04:34:17 UTC

I couldn't agree more. I always felt Jim was one of the most intelligent and level headed posters here.

Sorry, that's a total dealbreaker.

And on the subject of The Jack Show...

http://www.kitestrings.org/post4064.html#p4064

It seems that as OP's thread about T** at K*** S****** is sinking down from the top of the list in Jack's Basement - from the Number 4 slot at the time of the above link to Number 5 where it was three days ago - the number of titles Jack allows you to see when you go to:

http://www.hanggliding.org/forums.php

increases correspondingly. On that day - 2013/04/24 - pulled the shroud down a notch to reveal three titles. It'll be interesting to see if the trend continues.

No posts or links about Bob K, Scott C Wise, Tad Eareckson and related people, or their material. ALL SUCH POSTS WILL BE IMMEDIATELY DELETED. These people are poison to this sport and are permanently banned from this site in every possible way imaginable.

If someone truly IS poison to the sport one does not deal with him by censoring positive references and even trying to sweep negative references and attacks under the rug. One only uses those tactics to try to conceal the fact that one oneself is poison to the sport.

[Tad Eareckson]

miguel - 2012/02/03 18:32:08 UTC

I have known Noman for 10-12 years and watched him come up through the ranks. He is good people.

Again...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28906
One legged Brad put Funston in jeopardy today

Brian Horgan - 2013/04/27 16:56:01 UTC

YOU ARE A FUKIN IDIOT if you get the faa and rangers involved.If you got a problem with that guy settle it like a man and not some little kid telling his mommy. The gay spoon strikes again!

No. And the culture that lets an asshole like that slide on shit like that ain't nuthin' to write home about neither.

And furthermore...

If some motherfucker deliberately aims his glider, jet, cigarette boat, SUV at me while I'm on my glider, windsurfer, or bicycle, I have no interest whatsoever in settling anything "like a man". I don't wanna discuss anything with him or take a chance that he's a better fighter or shot or more heavily armed than I am.

I want the motherfucker arrested, handcuffed, and taken out of circulation. And ditto with respect any other target.

We're supposed to be SELF *REGULATED*. *REGULATION* does NOT mean establish a bunch of rules, let everybody do whatever the fuck he feels like, and tough luck if you get your teeth kicked out first in conflict resolution.

[miguel]

Brian is neither elegant nor eloquent, but his message is spot on. If Spork has a problem with a pilot, take it up with the pilot instead of whining on the internet. He said, she said, he said, is a waste of everybody's time.