Releases

[Steve Davy]

Have a look at this:

http://www.drachenfliegenlernen.de/shop/schleppzubehoer/ulflash1schleppklinke.php

[Tad Eareckson]

I checked into them over eight years ago. It's junk and the guy who deals (dealt?) them - Andreas Ernst Becker - is an asshole.

It doesn't work, loaded or slack you hafta reach for it, it's bulky and expensive.

The bite controlled releases - Russian, three-string, remote barrel - can all be blown under tension with both hands on the basetube. Slack - the Russian can be blown with both hands on the basetube while the other two require a hand off.

Some cleverness went into the design but it was a wrong turn from the start and the idea should've been scrapped - especially after Steve came out with his multi-string.

[Steve Davy]

I wonder what the reasoning was for making the pin so ridiculously short.

Make the pin 50mm, along with the boost loop and I'd bet it would at least function as a release.

P.S. Hello Andreas.

[Andreas Becker]

Tad, the production of the UL-FLASH1 release expired last year.

But as far as I know you never got one.
Our last contact was in June 2005, 8 years ago, when I wrote you this email:

Von: Flugschule Drachenfliegenlernen
Gesendet: Dienstag, 28. Juni 2005 22:40
An: 'TadErcksn at aol.com'
Betreff: AW: shipping charges

Hi Tad,

last weekend a pilot had a release with the Flash1 in 4m altitude, just short after take off. He could't manage to get up on his feet and broke an upright (no inruries).

Investigations are running, perhaps the release is too weak, or comes too fast. That's the reason why I won't ship you the Flash 1. You should get a fully functionable towing release.

Best regards
Andreas

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: TadErcksn at aol.com [mailto:TadErcksn at aol.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 28. Juni 2005 16:46
An: office at drachenfliegenlernen.de
Betreff: shipping charges

I was hoping to have been able to purchase the "Schleppklinke Flash 1"
mechanisms by now (one of each color) and have been waiting for over a week to find out the shipping charges.

I looked up the cost of delivery from the US to Germany on the United States Postal Service web site and found that the cost for three times the weight of the three releases via Airmail Parcel Post is $15.50. I imagine the cost for mailing a half or whole kilogram in the other direction is about the same.

Your web store still appears to have no way of paying for the items and completing the transaction.

I do have a MasterCard credit card and PayPal account and am anxious to get things moving.

Thanks again for your attention,
Tad Eareckson

The FLASH1 was slightly improved in 2006.

We had a safety note by the German Hanggliding asoc. DHV in 2011: One release blocked due to a worn out glue between the inner parts the release.

The overall design of the release was according to the DHV regularities to get the DHV Musterzulassung (homologation), especially the means of releasing the tow line when there is no towing force anymore.

[Tad Eareckson]

Steve,

The "reasoning" behind making the pin so ridiculously short is that it's gotta rotate inside the barrel component.

Here's one of the two documents I have on the mechanism:

http://www.dfs-kelheim.de/contentFrames/drachenzubehoer/schleppbedarf/klinken/Betriebsanleitung_Flash1_V2.pdf

The other:
Ausloesung_V2(1).pdf
seems to no longer be available online and I have it attached.

Andreas,

Welcome and thank you for posting. (Sorry about the delay in approving your post, if you're registered and activated you should have unrestricted posting privileges - and I'll try to get that barrier switched off.)

Reasons for my characterization of you...

- I made an offer to help with an English translation of the documentation for this device and got nothing in the way of an acknowledgement - let alone thanks.

- You left me sitting around for six days before sending me that message.

- I didn't need to be advised to "get a fully functional release". I had told you I had developed one years prior. And you and anyone else who is supposed to give rats' asses about aerotowing technology and safety should've been looking into it - as you should now.

- I never heard anything about an advisory, recall, fix - and it seems you continued to sell them to lots of people who weren't me.

Tad, the production of the UL-FLASH1 release expired last year.

An unmitigated good thing - from all the evidence I have. It introduced a lot of problems in coming up with a solution for slack line - which, for all intents and purposes, isn't a problem we need to worry about.

But as far as I know you never got one.

Correct. And, for the record, I never wanted one to fly - my own stuff was fifty times better. I just wanted one to play with and add to my collection.

The FLASH1 was slightly improved in 2006.

- Enough to be able not to dump gliders unexpectedly and handle load?
- Were the slightly inferior ones recalled and replaced?

We had a safety note by the German Hanggliding asoc. DHV in 2011...

As far as towing and towing equipment is concerned... Fuck the DHV. They're ten miles south of totally useless.

They have weak link regulations based on the same idiot Hewett bullshit that's been crashing gliders the world over for over thirty years, in the US has been actual law in years past, and is de facto law for aerotowing now. If I want to aerotow over there I'm capped at 150 KG - which for me is barely over 1.0 Gs - half a G under a safe rating and half of my allowance under US FAA sailplane and hang glider regulations. No way in hell would I tolerate that.

One release blocked due to a worn out glue between the inner parts the release.

What safety note from the DHV did you have on the one that dumped that glider?

Correct me if I'm wrong here... Release:
- degrades with use, locks up, glider doesn't crash, advisory is issued
- in factory fresh order and condition dumps glider, glider crashes, no advisory is issued

Right? Y'all sure you've got your priorities where they should be?

The aerotow releases in the US (and damn near everywhere else on the planet) are ABSOLUTE JUNK. They fail ALL THE TIME. They fail so often that the incidents aren't deemed worthy of discussion - let alone reporting. But only under the rarest and most extraordinary of conditions does a glider get crashed due to a locked up release - which is why people tolerate the junk they do.

What crashes gliders LEFT AND RIGHT is the fishing line...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR_4jKLqrus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTKIAvqd7GI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjncKQ02FJ8

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WtDFymXlPU


...USHGA, HPAC, HGFA, BHPA, DHV has everyone using to keep them from getting into too much trouble. (Somebody find me a video of a glider crashing because of a jammed release.)

But anyway... At THIS link:

http://www.drachenfliegenlernen.de/shop/schleppzubehoer/ulflashcompetition.php

from the page Steve referenced one finds this cheap idiot CRAP for sale:



Want to see what it looks like installed and ready to go?



Want to see the results you get with it when a fairly minor amount of shit hits the fan?




What standards did it pass in order for the DHV to approve it? That's what the pros in Florida use and it has a very long track record with just a few fatalities so it must be OK?

You guys maxed out with the Koch two stage release about thirty years ago and have been going down the tubes ever since. Surprise me and do something to reverse the trend.

P.S.

last weekend a pilot had a release with the Flash1 in 4m altitude, just short after take off. He could't manage to get up on his feet and broke an upright (no inruries).

He had absolutely no NEED to get up on his feet and if he had instead focused on landing the goddam glider he wouldn't have broken any uprights (or been injured).
---

[Tad Eareckson]

I wonder what the reasoning was for making the pin so ridiculously short.

I've spent some more time reviewing / refamiliarizing myself with this contraption and understand / can explain it better.

It's pretty fucking obvious that folk in Germany don't give any more of a rat's ass about load capacity...



...than the assholes radiating out from Florida in this country. (That's a goddam key ring they're using to mount the "release" - ferchrisake. I wonder what it would look like under two or three hundred pounds of direct loading.)

They've got a loop of line anchored at the "pin" which extends forward...



...runs through what should be the tow ring - but in the photo is a loop in the end of the towline...



...formed with a bowline - and back where it's engaged by the "pin" as would be the weak link on the end of a bridle and engaging a regular barrel release.

(Thought... This loop could be a/the weak link - analogous to the way Zack C's platform tow crowd uses the final loop of the Mason three-string as the weak link.}

This loop serves to cut the towline load affecting the pin shaft in half. You could instead use this the way we do with our regular barrel releases and use a bridle (or Bridle Link)...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8313526097/


...to cut the towline load in half.

Or you could use the bridle and loop extension to cut the load down to a quarter towline.

The aft length of the barrel is a bell which allows the stubby little pin shaft to rotate when the barrel is pushed forward for a slack line release without interference from the pilot's hand. And there's a stopper in the end through which the pin eye cannot pass so's you don't lose the barrel.

This thing looks like it's begging to hang up on the basetube and autorelease when the bar is pushed out as well as pulled in.

Summary...

- You're butchering your mechanical advantage and adding a lot of bulk and complexity to deal with a problem that's pretty much nonexistent when you have one or two people on the rope ends who have half a clue or better what they're doing.

- You can't afford to get into a slack line situation because by the time you've used this thing to deal with it the towline may already be fouled around something badly enough to ruin your day.

- While Hewett Links account for the most crashes, lockouts - which almost always involve tensions from normal to weak link - account for the most fatalities and releases within easy reach are virtually always totally useless or, as Ben Dunn recently demonstrated, worse in such circumstances.

- This is a one point release and one point aerotowing - as Zack Marzec recently demonstrated and one of Andreas's countrymen demonstrated in the summer of 2004 - is unacceptable.

- As far as I can tell, never in the history of modern hang (or para) glider towing has Germany developed a release that can be blown while control of the glider is maintained. They don't even make good releases developed elsewhere available. Given the glider and other aviation history of that country - un fucking believable.

[Steve Davy]

I'm not understanding why slack line would've been an issue with a straight pin barrel release.

I took a staight pin release without a brake, held it vertically and found that I could actuate it with the weight of a Bic lighter attached. Then found it would actuate with nothing attached!

Is the slack line performance governed only by the brake?

[Tad Eareckson]

I'm not understanding why slack line would've been an issue with a straight pin barrel release.

That's 'cause it wouldn't. It's just one of these many fake issues created by the industry to distract the participant population away from the REAL issues and the fact that they're not being addressed. The best:
- way to abort the launch or climb up into the control frame after you've skipped the hook-in check
- hook knife mounting and lanyard material for compensating for a release failure
- weak link rating for keeping you from slamming in in the event of a low level lockout
- bridle elasticity to keep your Rooney Link from breaking inconsistently
- helmet to use for surviving the lockout resulting from your weak link welding itself to your spinnaker shackle gate
- hand positions on the downtubes for stopping in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place
- Screamer rating to use to survive the opening shock when you finally get your parachute pried out of its container after freefalling four thousand feet

Yes, it's nice to have a release that dumps a slack line but if there's virtually any tradeoff involved you don't make it because there's absolutely no good reason for getting into a slack line situation.

I took a straight pin release without a brake, held it vertically and found that I could actuate it with the weight of a Bic lighter attached. Then found it would actuate with nothing attached!

Exactly. And THIS:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8307303546/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8307336598/

plus four inches of aluminum tubing is all you need in the way of engineering and materials.

Is the slack line performance governed only by the brake?

Correct. And you only need/want enough brake resistance to prevent things from falling apart when you're prepping for launch. As soon as things start getting loaded the tip of the pin against the inside barrel wall becomes the brake.

[Steve Davy]

- This is a one point release and one point aerotowing - as Zack Marzec recently demonstrated and one of Andreas's countrymen demonstrated in the summer of 2004 - is unacceptable.

Would you consider it unreasonable to aerotow two point (with a bridle link) with only a multistring (or remote barrel) on the secondary bridle?

If you were going up next weekend how would you be configured?

[Tad Eareckson]

Would you consider it unreasonable to aerotow two point (with a bridle link) with only a multistring (or remote barrel) on the secondary bridle?

I guess you mean one or the other and no regular barrel release on the opposite shoulder.

Not in the least, the system I used was overkill - but essentially no cost overkill. The secondary stuff doesn't weigh anything and gets stowed out of the airflow as soon as you're done using it. And the emergency releases are low cost and the regular barrel is pretty much no cost.

The regular barrel DOES introduce a possibility of an accidental release but I consider that risk to be pretty damn negligible - the Industry Standard crap is a lot more blow susceptible and there's never been an associated problematic result. And I like having it because nothing gets burned/worn through use - as is the case with the multi-string.

If you were going up next weekend how would you be configured?

With an English-French dictionary 'cause I wouldn't do it in the US - 'cause of all the assholes running things - or the UK - 'cause of their idiot weak link regulations.

Well, actually I'd do it in Columbus behind a trike with a six hundred pound weak link.

I'd like to see Zack:



configured with an emergency secondary release but - what the fuck...
- He's never going to be in a low level lockout.
- If he does get in a low level lockout his Street Release is gonna work.
- I think that two point bridle is pretty near incapable of wrapping.
- If the bridle DOES wrap the secondary weak (bridle) link is almost certain to blow.
- If you get into a low level lockout your chances of survival aren't all that great ever if you ARE free in the next tenth of a second.

If I were going up next weekend I'd be configured with my built-in primary:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8318603266/


and secondary:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8305308635/


systems. 'Cept...

- The Four-String would hafta be a Three-String (I'm glad nobody had to find that out the hard way).
- If I had to replace my Ribbon Bridle it would be a hollow braid job spliced its entire length like the ones I made for Zack.

If I had to start making sacrifices...

- The regular barrel would go first. It's more of a hazard than a benefit anyway (and there's no possibility of a Bridle Link wrap).

- I'd swap a Remote Barrel in for the Three-String. (I actually think the Remote Barrel's a better release - but I like the Three-String 'cause it's cooler.)

- If I had to give up all secondary emergency options I'd go with a pair of regular barrels.

- Lastly I'd lose one of the barrels.

You could also chuck the other barrel and go through tens of thousands of flying careers without it making a difference in terms of consequences - but you'd have then entered the realm of irresponsibility.