Surface towing for teaching

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27448
BASE jumping gone wrong

zamuro - 2012/10/26 11:27:13 UTC
New York

Some people may fly because they love risks.

They don't. The ones that say they do are idiots and liars. Every last one of us wants to be in maximum control of his situation at all times and the forums are clogged with discussions about minimizing risks - even if the vast majority of the participants DO have most of what they're talking about totally backwards.

I am not sure.

I am. There's no question whatsoever on this issue. Don't listen to what the assholes are saying - watch what they do on the ramp or cart, in the air, and coming into the field. And look at their suspension. How often do you see people flying without idiot backup loops - even though there's zero possibility of the main failing?

In my case I fly *despite the risks*.

Exactly.

I like to fly like a a bird, seeing beautiful landscapes from the air and meeting the challenges of staying up by understanding the weather around me, etc. This is hang gliding for me.

That's hang gliding for the only people who have any business participating in it.

I then try to minimize the risk and certainly wouldn't add stupid tricks that only increase it without adding anything to the flying experience.

Excepting, of course, standup landings - and then only because you've been brainwashed into thinking that doing and practicing them makes you a better safer pilot.

Fuck you, Mitch.

[Steve Davy]

Tad, Mike, Zack, anybody

Tell me what you think about Edward's release/splitter arrangement. If there are any discrepancies in his setup I'm not seeing them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lWVrOQN428

[MikeLake]

Tad, Mike, Zack, anybody

Tell me what you think about Edward's release/splitter arrangement. If there are any discrepancies in his setup I'm not seeing them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lWVrOQN428

I have a fairly open mind and would really need to try it out.
We need something real soon now as most of the Koch users are all dead from a crushed chest.

I can't fully see what the setup is from the video but I would assume one spit releases everything at any time (?)

At 1:03 would not be a good time to hit a thermal, looks like a bit of release chasing. Tad will no doubt point out that first release is at the pilot's choice but even so it does not compete with the minimal time it takes to release the first line from a Koch. (The second line is a different story.)

A bit 'wrappy' looking on first take but I note there is an absence of chunks of metal ready to take the pilot's eye out in the event of a line break.

At one time I went to great lengths to design something that eliminated the need to remove a hand from the base-bar at any point during a tow, but having now used a Koch for a few years I have softened up a bit.

It depends on the whole package and the quality of the people who are your ground team. There are evidently some sleeping winch operators out there.

[Tad Eareckson]

I don't like it.

- It's funky shit. Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney won't tow it.

- The shit doesn't work. If it did, we'd be using it everywhere. But it doesn't stand the test of reality.

- It's not on the list of assemblies approved...





...for use at the 2013 US Nationals at Big Spring, Texas.

- The release actuator is being held between his teeth. That's where you need to be holding your hook knife if you're to have any hope of cutting your way loose when your release doesn't work.

It's complicated. Complicated shit sucks. If you want to put a rover on Mars don't go through all that bullshit NASA does - just stuff a young Labrador Retriever in an eighteen inch gun and aim it at the red dot in the sky on a clear night.

- He's obviously using a stronglink because he made it up to altitude. If your weak link doesn't break when you don't want it to it's very unlikely to break when it's supposed to.

[Tad Eareckson]

But seriously folks...

At launch it's essentially a one point aerotow and until you climb enough to start developing some towline angle have the same loss of speed range you do for one point aero. But that's a small risk for a short window and the crap you'd hafta add to neutralize it wouldn't be worth it.

I can't fully see what the setup is from the video but I would assume one spit releases everything at any time (?)

I can't either but there is. There's a yellow lanyard going to the first stage release (maybe a three-string sort of arrangement) and if he spits out the second stage actuator the assembly will pull away, that lanyard will be tensioned, and the pin will be pulled.

At 1:03 would not be a good time to hit a thermal, looks like a bit of release chasing...

Yeah, but at any sign of trouble all he needs to do is relax his bite and everything disappears. If a better first stage solution can be easily/cheaply engineered go for it. But as it is I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

A bit 'wrappy' looking on first take but I note there is an absence of chunks of metal ready to take the pilot's eye out in the event of a line break.

If you use low stretch materials (as you should for everything in a tow system) there's no recoil. And, even if you didn't, for an assembly that short you'd have a hard time getting enough stretch to have a problem.

At one time I went to great lengths to design something that eliminated the need to remove a hand from the base-bar at any point during a tow, but having now used a Koch for a few years I have softened up a bit.

Yep.

There are evidently some sleeping winch operators out there.

Harold Johnson wasn't asleep...

http://vimeo.com/68791399


He was watching in horror the whole time - maybe running around asking if anyone had a Swiss army knife he could borrow for a moment.

Bob Buxton's winch guy was asleep...

Bob Buxton accident
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2oeb0nNIKs
Scott Buxton - 2013/02/10
dead
http://www.kitestrings.org/post5902.html#p5902
016-04308
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3799/13746342624_c9b015f814_o.png


http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2809/13746340634_a74b33d285_o.png
022-04610

But he was just a recruit - probably just doing what he had been told.

Anyway...

That's a nice setup. It could probably be cleaned up a little and made more elegant but I wouldn't change anything about it with respect to the fundamentals.

Must be nice to be able to create something that moves technology forward and get it in the air without having it attacked, suppressed, grounded by the kind of international cartel we have with the aerotowing industry.

[MikeLake]

Must be nice to be able to create something that moves technology forward and get it in the air without having it attacked, suppressed, grounded by the kind of international cartel we have with the aerotowing industry.

I'll second that.
It's easy to develop new kit when not much preceded it but once stuff gets thought of as "good enough" it's an uphill task.

[Tad Eareckson]

Yeah. If Davis says he's never had any trouble with his Rooney Links or the bent pin crap he sells it's golden. And you have to kill about half a dozen people in fairly rapid succession before you can even start getting people's attention.

[Steve Davy]

Any reason Bob Buxton could not have used Edward's secondary/emergency release for platform towing?

[Tad Eareckson]

It's REALLY REALLY easy to engineer something bulletproof and clean when you're towing off your shoulders.

You could do something like Edward has or Paul Farina has done for platform but you'd end up with a lot of crap in the airflow and I wouldn't use it.

Platform is the safest way to get a glider in the air - towing or free flight. BUT:
- You can't route the bridle over the basetube.
- If you DO route the bridle over the basetube you REALLY need someone on the truck watching the glider.

If I were gonna to do platform on a regular basis I'd use an electrical emergency system that blew the bridle off from my hips. It would cost a couple of hundred bucks and I'd never use it but I'd be a whole lot more likely to use it than my parachute.

But platform - as it is - is so safe that the bozos who practice it will NEVER develop anything like that.

But if they spent five percent of the effort into developing something like that that they do whining about the odd Bob Buxton caliber disaster...

[Steve Davy]

... but having now used a Koch for a few years I have softened up a bit.

Paul Edwards - 2012/10/17 15:41:42 UTC

While launching I had no way of releasing from the tow line.

I don't understand why anyone who surface tows would not use a setup like this when it's so easily doable.
If the technology exists why not use it?