I'm also a strong believer in adding pullups. If you can't do a pull-up (or 5) then you shouldn't be flying! If you forget to clip in, your arms are the only thing that's going to save you.
Unlike sailplanes, the pilot is an integral part of the tow system. The breaking strength of an HG is a lot more than I can bench press, even one half of it's breaking strength if using a two point release. At some point, getting pulled through the control frame is going to be worse than almost any scenario I could think of. (and yes, no matter how easy it is to pull/bite whatever your release, at some point it's going to not work.. and if it jams and you have a 400lb weaklink (as was mentioned earlier) and you get out of sorts on your tow, explain how you are not totally F'ked?
Any thoughts on how many pull-ups one should be able to do before it's safe to hook up behind a 914 Dragonfly with one of those new two hundred pound weak links Morningside decided they were happy with?
- Were you this off the scale stupid BEFORE you got into hang gliding?
I'm stupid,. Distracted with some setup issues almost cost me. A wing tip drag saved my ass
0:17 - This wing tip drag may have saved my life
0:35 - Watch conditions for a moment
0:49 - Thinking about the wing tip drag, wonder if did any damage. there was a rock there
1:06 - 1'll let this cycle pass & have a look
1:15 - Set it down lean forward to see if I can see anything
1:26 - WTF!!! I'm not hooked in ...SHIT!!!!!!!
1:41 - Complete disbelief
1:49 - Yeah now hook in.... I'm smart
2:10 - 8 min sink out later, I'm really happy with myself
Fuck this shit.
Fuck you.
That was fucked.
I almost launched unhooked.
Hey Wonder Boy...
A thousand mountain foot launches and your Atos is in pristine shape after each preflight and you're always safely connected because of your excellent procedures, discipline, focus, invulnerability to distraction.
- En route to launch every time you drag a tip over a rock but don't walk through the wires and lean forward to check it out.
- What's the worst that can happen?
- A thousand mountain foot launches
A thousand mountain foot launches or the end of your flying career - whichever comes first - and your Atos is in pristine shape after each preflight.
- No rocks or tip drags en route to launch ever.
- There's a one in a thousand chance that you're gonna leave the setup area not connected to your glider and you never walk through the wires and lean forward to check anything.
- What's the worst that could happen?
1:41 - Complete disbelief
Rob Kells - 2005/12
The Best Insurance Is To Believe It Can Happen To You!
I'm also a strong believer in adding pullups. If you can't do a pull-up (or 5) then you shouldn't be flying! If you forget to clip in, your arms are the only thing that's going to save you.
It's sad that Zach's gone.
Some (perhaps well-intended?) pilots seem to be promoting the old, tired, "better" weak links and "hands on bar" release ideas.
Sorry, but that's not the best answer. We don't live in a perfect world of quantum knowns and 100% reliabilities. Fine-tuning a weak link isn't going to get us but so far. There's also a way to swing your body way outside the control frame so it stays up there while you reach out with one hand and release. Come on - do some pushups this winter. See if you can advance up to some one-arm pushups.
You're gonna fit in with the people in this sport just fine, Todd.
Matt Pericles - 2008/09/29 01:17:29 UTC
Roswell, Georgia
I tried the "Aussie method" for the first time this weekend. It worked great.
Yeah, you launched hooked into your glider much better than all those times you were getting into your harness BEFORE hooking connecting it to the glider.
It was easier to get in the harness than when it was unhooked because it was being held up - easier to get the legs in.
Yeah, for most glider/harness combos and environments...
That has never happened before or even close. The atos sits so low it is very tough to hook the harness in, then myself. (My normal routine)
Going to take a hard look at it.
...that is, in fact, the case.
It's also easier to ensure that your hang loops and harness straps are in the correct position.
Yeah, so what does that have to do with unhooked launches?
I'm going to do this from now on.
1. While you continue to flagrantly violate the USHGA regulation which states:
With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.
2. So if this is such a great technique for accomplishing anything how come none of your instructors at Lockout clued you in to it?
Tom Galvin - 2008/09/29 02:49:46 UTC
I am sure Relate2 will be happy to hear this. It's a good habit to get into, but it is not foolproof.
I don't teach lift and tug, as it gives a false sense of security.
...due to the false sense of security it was giving you. Or was it just that that technique was becoming too associated with T** at K*** S****** for your comfort?
What's more, I believe that all hooked-in checks prior to the last one before takeoff are a waste of time, not to say dangerous, because they build a sense of security which should not be built more than one instant before commitment to flight.
B.C. hang-glider pilot pleads guilty in woman's death
CTV Vancouver: Hang-gliding pilot pleads guilty
A hang-glider pilot whose failure to hook in his passenger led to her falling 300 metres to her death pleaded guilty to criminal negligence.
Vivian Luk, The Canadian Press
2014/02/07 18:30 UTC - Published
2014/02/08 00:15 UTC - Last Updated
CHILLIWACK, B.C.
A British Columbia hang-glider pilot whose failure to hook in his passenger caused a dramatic mid-air struggle, which ended with the woman falling 300 metres to her death, pleaded guilty Friday to criminal negligence.
William Jon Orders pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing the death of 28-year-old Lenami Godinez-Avila, who fell from Orders' hang-glider shortly after takeoff above B.C.'s Fraser Valley on April 28, 2012.
Orders, 51, was also charged with obstruction of justice after he swallowed a memory card containing video of the incident. A prosecutor confirmed Friday that the Crown does not intend to proceed with that charge.
The Crown and defence both recommended a five-month sentence. Orders is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday.
Orders appeared in a B.C. Supreme Court room packed with Godinez-Avila's friends and family. The court heard an investigation by the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada concluded the woman's harness was not attached to the glider during takeoff.
The probe also found Orders did not perform a pre-launch safety check, even though he had taken a tandem re-certification course just weeks earlier.
"He didn't miss just one step; he missed several," said Crown lawyer Carolyn Kramer.
"Of course, key to all of that is if any one of those steps had been conducted, this incident would not have happened. This was a complete failure to comply with industry standards and complete aberration of his duties owed to passengers."
The tandem flight was an anniversary gift from Godinez-Avila's boyfriend, who also planned to fly with another pilot the same day. The couple drove from Vancouver to Agassiz, about 140 kilometres east of the city.
Police recovered video from the memory card that Orders swallowed. While the video was not shown in court, Kramer described its contents, revealing new details about what happened in the air.
The video shows Godinez-Avila initially positioned behind Orders before takeoff, said Kramer, but that changes as they take off.
"Various witnesses stated something was wrong from the start," Kramer said. "Ms. Godinez-Avila is not parallel to the hang-glider, she is hanging down in a vertical, standing position."
For 90 seconds, the video shows Godinez-Avila fighting to hold on Orders and to a horizontal bar used to control the glider, said Kramer.
Kramer said Orders can be seen trying to reach for a carabiner on the woman's harness to clip her to the glider, but to no avail. Orders then wraps his legs around Godinez-Avila to hold her up, but her hands slip off and she falls.
Orders landed the hang-glider two minutes later, and police and search and rescue were called, the court heard. Hours later, Orders confessed to a police officer that he had panicked and swallowed the memory card of a camera that was attached to the glider.
"The defendant stated he didn't know why he had done this and regretted his action as soon as he had done it," Kramer said.
Godinez-Avila's body was found later that night.
Orders was taken into custody and then to a hospital. The memory card passed through his system undamaged and police were able to watch what happened, Kramer said.
Godinez-Avila was a Mexican student who was working for B.C.'s Environment Ministry while completing a project management certificate at the University of British Columbia.
Kramer read out victim impact statements from Godinez-Avila's family and her boyfriend. Her father sat in the courtroom gallery, while her mother listened from a separate room with the help of an interpreter.
"The loss of a daughter is a special pain that can only be understood by those who have felt a similar sentiment before," said Kramer, reading from Godinez-Avila's father's statement.
"(Only) we, who have seen her growing ... her aspirations, triumphs, wishes, interest, failures, and see how she overcame her difficulties and obstacles in life, can comprehend her great absence. The pain will never disappear, we just have to learn to live with it."
Orders is a 18-year hang-gliding veteran from New Zealand who has won many competitions and is known for being a safe pilot, his lawyer, Jeff Campbell, told the court. He said Godinez-Avila's death was caused by a "brief lapse of attention."
"His failing to connect her harness, his launching with Ms. Godinez-Avila without her being connected is a substantial departure from the standard of care you'd expect from a reasonably prudent pilot," Campbell said.
"It was unintentional."
Campbell said Orders is remorseful, pointing out that he publicly apologized to Godinez-Avila's family and friends shortly after her death. The court heard Orders abandoned hang-gliding after the incident and now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Orders, dressed in a black suit, addressed Godinez-Avila's family.
"I'm very sorry for what happened and your loss," he said, his voice trembling.
"I did tandem hang-gliding to make people proud of their accomplishments, that they may overcome fear of height, or live their dream of flying like a bird. All those previous flights mean nothing to me now."
Crown and defence lawyers submitted a joint proposal for a sentence of five months, followed by a probation order of three years that prohibits Orders from hang-gliding and orders him to educate others about what happened.
Very sad all around. I do admire how BC has handled this though.
Especially the way the Vancouver Sun buried the story on hook-in checks and instead published the heartwarming story about the memorial the duplicitous HPAC dickheads most responsible for keeping the hook-in check out of the SOPs established at the impact zone.
Not sure how I feel about the sentence. The time frame of it really doesn't matter (in my mind anyway) as Orders has a life sentence of guilt and may very well never enjoy the sport again.
May?
Tandem pilots have a high bar of responsibility to maintain. It can be easy to become complacent when flying hangs.
To violate the crap out of the USHGA regulation:
With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.
extent? Nah, that takes focused stupidity to a degree I can't begin to comprehend.
One just can't let that happen when taking along a passenger who knows little or nothing about what precautions and preparations should be made before a flight.
1. Right. It's quite understandable when a solo pilot runs off a ramp without his glider but a tandem operator must be much more focused because of responsibility he's taken on.
2. Maybe if these tandem assholes did more than little or nothing in the way of advising their passengers about the precautions and preparations that should be made before a flight and the hazards they're supposed to prevent their passengers would know more about the precautions and preparations that should be made before a flight and the hazards they're supposed to prevent.
One more reason to strive to be a better pilot to help avoid the tragedy that such a beautiful sport can turn into in a blink.
Then... I always preflight again and always do hang checks 'cause I've launched unhooked... I've forgotten my belly's band, I've forgotten my leg straps... ALL of them ALWAYS due to a distraction. So... That part... Be very very careful.
...Mike Barber. Just become as good a pilot as he is and there will only be a one in several thousand chance of an unhooked launch incident.
I'm wondering if any changes have been made in BC/Canada on tandem certification and/or equipment requirements prompted by this accident?
I'm absolutely positive there will be. I'm sure the word "hang check" will soon appear in a bold font so their tandem operators will REALLY appreciate the importance of making sure they and their passengers are safely hooked in five or ten minutes prior to launch. And I'm equally positive that there will be a press release when this change goes into effect so that even solo pilots will have a chance of picking up on this message.
Fred Wilson - 2014/02/08 17:51:06 UTC
Jon Orders is one of the nicest people alive.
Just so you know... Jon Orders, just devastated about this, is without doubt, one of the nicest people alive.
I'm happy to know that I am in fact speaking with Steve, not Tad.
Tad makes my skin crawl.
...is such a scummy piece of shit that he makes Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney's skin crawl...
Jim Rooney - 2011/08/25 04:55:25 UTC
Don't even get me started on Tad. That obnoxious blow hard has gotten himself banned from every flying site that he used to visit... he doesn't fly anymore... because he has no where to fly. His theories were annoying at best and downright dangerous most of the time. Good riddance.
...and doesn't fly anymore because he has nowhere to fly. But Tad always does hook-in checks so he doesn't fly gliders and passengers into powerlines while he's dangling from basetubes or drop passengers a thousand feet into clearcuts and swallow memory cards.
- so are 99.999% of the pilots in this sport. It attracts very nice people. Eh?
Definitely. And they always promote the very nicest of people with the very best of intentions...
We're re-working the accident reporting system, but again it's a matter of getting the reports submitted and having a volunteer willing to do the detail work necessary to get them posted. There are also numerous legal issues associated with accident reports, which we're still wrestling with. It's a trade-off between informing our members so they can avoid those kinds of accidents in the future, and exposing ourselves to even more lawsuits by giving plaintiff's attorneys more ammunition to shoot at us.
Imagine a report that concludes, "If we'd had a procedure "x" in place, then it would have probably prevented this accident. And we're going to put that procedure in place at the next BOD meeting." Good info, and what we want to be able to convey. But what comes out at trial is, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, my client suffered injury because USHPA knew or should have known that a safety procedure was not in place, and was therefore negligent and at fault." We're constantly walking this line between full disclosure and handing out nooses at the hangmen's convention.
...to the tops of the pecking orders.
Addicted to flying, Jon has now become a world class driver, paying back IOU's to every friend he knows.
That WOULD explain why he hasn't had the time to get involved in any of the discussions on prevention of unhooked launches.
Steve Baran - 2014/02/08 16:33:54 UTC
I'm wondering if any changes have been made in BC/Canada on tandem certification and/or equipment requirements prompted by this accident?
Hi Fred, I seem to recall reading about Jon being distracted by doing some adjusting or setting on his glider-mounted camera prior to launching or words to that effect and that this may have been a contributing factor to the subsequent tragic events. Do you have access to this information from closer to the source(s)?
Yes, Fred. If there were any discussion about distraction during setup, preflight procedures do let us know. Then we can all get serious about eliminating the potential for distraction during setup, preflight and finally lick this problem.
It is no secret for as much as I do use cameras extensively that I am one of the most outspoken critics of the risks involved due to their distracting and decision making influences.
And if you're gonna swallow the memory card right after landing the glider anyway, then what's the point?
Thanks,
Jonathan
Ditto for pulling crash videos 'cause one gets a little flak from people while the doctors are trying to figure out the best way to put one back together.
Fred Wilson - 2014/02/08 19:37:04 UTC
Hi Jonathan. Yep. It's on a private members only viewable accident reporting forum.
Oh good. Just what the sport needs. More private members only viewable accident reporting forums so that more private - and deserving - members will better understand these incidents and be able to become better safer pilots.
So how many dicks ya gotta suck to be deemed worthy of admittance to one of these private members only viewable accident reporting forums? If you don't have a figure at your fingertips...
No, I'm not going to comment on Arlan's accident and you really ought to quit as well because neither you nor I were there. The difference is that you have no trouble talking out your ass about that which you know nothing about. I could, however, speculate on several scenarios from having spoken at great length with the tug pilot and eyewitnesses. How many of those at the site did you speak with?
...do you think Peter would be up to speed on this?
Her boyfriend video taped the whole sequence. RCMP has it.
And let's keep both videos and as many of the details about the events that led up to this one out of the public view 'cause we certainly wouldn't wanna do anything that would have any negative effect on the tourist industry.
So if Jon Orders is one of the nicest people alive how come he hasn't made public every scrap of information about the elements that led up to this incident? Saving it all up for what the court's mandating he do during his period of probation?
A British Columbia hang-glider pilot whose failure to hook in his passenger caused a dramatic mid-air struggle, which ended with the woman falling 300 metres to her death, pleaded guilty Friday to criminal negligence.
The probe also found Orders did not perform a pre-launch safety check, even though he had taken a tandem re-certification course just weeks earlier.
"His failing to connect her harness, his launching with Ms. Godinez-Avila without her being connected is a substantial departure from the standard of care you'd expect from a reasonably prudent pilot," Campbell said.
I must admit... this has happened to us three times this year. We've just started scooter towing and it's surprisingly easy to do. We're all dolly-launched aero-tow pilots so hooking in is something we take for granted. I was the scooter operator each time and recognized it right away as soon as the glider started rising up (but the pilot didn't). Luckily we were only planning on doing low-and-slow tows and thus no swift full-tension tow.
Graeme Henderson - 2014/02/12 01:34:24 UTC
Five months?
That is pathetic punishment really...
Yeah, we should really get serious about punishing people who've taken off with dangling carabiners - 'specially if we put the death penalty on the table. That'll fix the problem.
...killing someone like that should be regarded as murder through incompetence and greed.
What should:
- making the same mistake and killing oneself
- killing someone by:
-- fixing whatever's going on back there by giving him the rope
-- using an illegally light front end weak link
-- teaching him that:
--- he's not hooked in until after the hang check
--- a loop of 130 pound Greenspot on the end of an aerotow bridle will increase the safety of the towing operation
--- his release actuator is mounted within easy reach
--- he can consistently safely land a hang glider with his hands on the downtubes
be regarded as?
Tandem pilots are in it for the money...
Why does:
- Dennis Pagen write books and magazine articles and run seminars?
- Dr. Trisa Tilletti write AT SOPs mandating tandem training?
...this woman was killed in a money making operation...
What were the people who sold Jon the glider doing? Charity work?
...life would be more appropriate...
He has a life sentence.
...and it would send a much clearer message to tandem pilots that they must get it right every time.
Solo pilots, since they're only risking stuff like:
- humiliation
- totaling gliders
- months of hospitalization
- crippling injuries
- slow or instant death
not so much.
I certainly hope this guy is never allowed to fly again.
Go fuck yourself, Graeme. You've never contributed ANYTHING of any use to any discussion of the unhooked launch issue.
Andrew Vanis - 2014/02/12 04:02:18 UTC
maybe if airplane designers got life for a design that resulted in death we would all be safer because none of us would be in the sky.
We're not killing, or even surprising, people because of lethally flawed hang glider designs because we've had standards for certification in place for the better part of four decades.
But maybe if pin bending fishing line freaks like Bobby Bailey, Matt Taber, Adam Elchin, Davis Straub, Paulen Tjaden and the tug drivers who happily pull the junk they put into circulation got stood up in front of walls after said junk killed people like Mike Haas, Robin Strid, Steve Elliot, Zack Marzec we'd have a much better sport with a lot more people getting a lot more airtime.
Davis Straub - 2014/02/12 04:17:58 UTC
If all of us were held strictly accountable for every thing that we have done in our lives, this would be a miserable place.
It's a pretty miserable place with motherfuckers like you and your buddies at Quest never being held the least bit accountable for ANYTHING - including circulating junk equipment, establishing shit policy, violating good common sense laws and thereby killing people.
Graeme Henderson - 2014/02/12 11:02:54 UTC
It was a pretty miserable place for the woman falling 300 meters to her death, and it still is for her friends and family. She had plenty of time to think about it after all.
How much have her friends and family done in the way of looking into this very common phenomenon of unhooked launches and the bulletproof solution published in the magazine over eight years ago in order to reduce the chances of this happening to someone else?
Graeme Henderson - 2014/02/12 11:16:12 UTC
And gun makers get life if a weapon they make is used to kill someone. It is one thing to risk your own life, another thing altogether to kill someone through negligence. Aeroplane designers and builders do have to be careful, they can...
...and bloody well SHOULD...
...be held to account if an accident can be attributed to their negligence.
Note: If you use the "shift" key, then you can write with CAPITAL letters when you type.
Yeah.
I still say five months is too little, I have not called for life in jail, merely for life on the ground.
How 'bout life on the ground for the HPAC assholes who ran the tandem clinic recertified him just weeks earlier?
Certainly never allowed to do tandems again.
How 'bout Rooney? He gets a free pass because his "passenger" didn't get electrocuted and took a lucky bounce? Jon Orders was doing everything he could think of to try to save his passenger, Rooney, in doing everything he could manage to try to save himself, increased the danger a thousandfold to the person who'd intended to be his passenger but had become Pilot In Command.
Yeah, the captain's supposed to go down with his ship - but that's only when the going down's inevitable and while he's doing everything possible to save his passengers and crew. Rooney, on the other hand, was what was making the ship go down - into the fuckin' powerlines.
Mark Dowsett - 2014/02/12 11:42:28 UTC
He volantarily quit flying right after. Our association...
Fuck you and your association.
...also revoked his tandem rating, instructor rating and general membership soon after.
1. Yeah. You motherfuckers totally scapegoated him.
2. What was the justification for revoking his general membership? Do you revoke the general membership of everyone who's been responsible for an unhooked launch incident? Shouldn't he get some consideration for the many thousands of flights he has under his belt in which he DIDN'T make this mistake? Percentage-wise he's done WAY better than a huge number of people in this sport.
3. You personally launched flyers - probably students - three times on your scooter tow system in 2009. Tell me why Jon gets crucified and you get to totally walk. Is it just 'cause he was working with altitude and you weren't?
Lookout keeps this kind of stuff under their hat. You never hear of accidents there. But every time I go there, I hear about quite a few. Blown launches, tree landings, etc.
- Member submits an accident report. Could be the pilot who had the accident, or some other witness.
- Accident report is sent to Tim to maintain legal privilege. Tim reviews the report and determines whether there's significant legal risk associated with it. He may redact certain parts (personally identifiable information, etc.) if in his opinion exposure of that information poses a risk to us. If the report is very risky, he may decide that it can't be shared further, and will notify the Executive Director about it.
We're re-working the accident reporting system, but again it's a matter of getting the reports submitted and having a volunteer willing to do the detail work necessary to get them posted. There are also numerous legal issues associated with accident reports, which we're still wrestling with. It's a trade-off between informing our members so they can avoid those kinds of accidents in the future, and exposing ourselves to even more lawsuits by giving plaintiff's attorneys more ammunition to shoot at us.
Imagine a report that concludes, "If we'd had a procedure "x" in place, then it would have probably prevented this accident. And we're going to put that procedure in place at the next BOD meeting." Good info, and what we want to be able to convey. But what comes out at trial is, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, my client suffered injury because USHPA knew or should have known that a safety procedure was not in place, and was therefore negligent and at fault." We're constantly walking this line between full disclosure and handing out nooses at the hangmen's convention.
Was that really all that far out of line with the way the sport operates at all levels, especially the highest?
The courts have also ordered that he is not able to fly for three years as well (even solo). Who knows if he will ever WANT to fly again...and I am sure he will never have the desire, nor be allowed to do tandems.
1. Like Steve Parson was after his manslaughter conviction for dropping Eleni Zeri.
2. Yeah, let's preclude the possibility of him becoming a rabid hook-in checker and the safest tandem pilot on the planet and, because of one lapse that hundreds of other hang glider people - including the like of Dennis Pagen and Donnell Hewett - have made, take that option away from him for life. Yes, it's almost unimaginable that this guy would ever have the desire to do another tandem but if you put a gun to his head...
Rob Kells - 2005/12
Each of us agrees that it is not a particular method, but rather the fear of launching unhooked that makes us diligent to be sure we are hooked in every time before starting the launch run.
Do you have any IDEA how much sickening fear he'd have at the moment of commitment for every launch?
But I did have an incident where I failed to hook in. At High Rock. Eddie Miller saved my sorry butt. Sure woke me up. Too bad Bill did not have a scare like that. I now have a nice DSL line through the tangle of Alzheimer's plaque. That was at least ten years ago and there is still not a blade of grass on that neuron path. So that is not how I am going to die.
What we really have to do is to vaccinate pilots, like I have been, but without the scare. How do you do that? How do you get them to internalize a procedure so that they do it no matter what distractions are present? I don't know. But I have come to feel that the communal effort to assure that pilots are hooked can be destructive of this purpose. I never intended to advocate that wire crews should not be vigilant; just that they avoid hijacking the process.
This motherfucker is VACCINATED. He'd be about the least likely guy on the planet to go off with an unhooked passenger over the course of a hundred lifetimes.
And what are the chances he'd allow anybody else to go off a launch unhooked? Compare/Contrast with these Aussie Methodist assholes:
Phil Beck did this twice (or was that three times?) in a day at Hexham (Victoria) one time while foot launch aerotow testing gliders. Of course, with a swag of gliders to test fly, Phil would unclip from the glider he'd just landed, then clip into the next one to be tested.
Except, at least twice, he didn't clip in.
Let him out of jail tomorrow. Punish him instead by FORCING him to resume tandem rides. Japanese tourists who don't know his background and don't speak English. There's no doubt that a lot of good could come from that.
Davis Straub - 2014/02/12 15:45:10 UTC
Tandem pilots are just greedy.
Dontsink - 2014/02/12 15:59:12 UTC
What a load of holier-than-thou BS.
This guy's life is already destroyed. There was no malicious intent and he is not a danger to society.
1. He's not a huge benefit to it either. I still haven't heard the words "hook-in check" emanate from his lips.
2. The dangers to society are the motherfuckers at HPAC, USHGA, Vancouver Sun who bust their asses suppressing the hook-in check message.
Giving him a jail sentence is way excessive punishment.
Certainly won't do any good. If, however, the HPAC pigfuckers who set up that situation had the keys thrown away on them...
If you want tandem pilots to be true professionals...
I don't. The sport would be WAY better off if tandem flying were totally eliminated.
...you will have to completely change the way HG is taught and practiced.
Like maybe:
With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.
We could give THAT a shot? What could it hurt - besides, of course, giving the pilot a false since of security?
We cannot hide in the mountains as the hill-billy members of the aviation community (largely and happily ignored) and then demand this degree of accountability. It's pure hypocrisy.
I love innovation. However, this isn't the type of thing that's "puzzled out" on the internet. AKA, you're not going to figure it out here. This is real world engineering stuff. Five minutes with Bobby Bailey is worth more than anything you're going to achieve here. Pick your engineer of choice, Bobby's just a very good example.
You're asking a bunch of pilots to design a mechanism that needs to be extremely reliable but light. This is a tall tall order. And while that appeals greatly to the pilot ego, especially the tinkerer pilots, they're not the people that do this sort of thing.
The end results always look simple, but the road to that simplicity is anything but.
Bring in the aviation authorities with their medical/competency/aircraft/procedures verification checks and rules.
Stewart LaBrasca - 2009/08/27 16:07:08 UTC
Chehalis, Washington
How many of you have ever helped airlift a fellow pilot off the hill after launching unhooked? Because this is a (tongue in cheek) self regulated sport, there is no SOP for hooking in prior to launch. Therefore it is obviously up to the PIC to make sure he is hooked in.
As a commercial pilot for an airline I am glad that there are mandatory flows and checklists required. There isn't a pilot out there who will not make a mistake of some kind in his flying career. As the safety envelope increases, the margin of error decreases. My original post was only to address the issue of safety. To make people aware that as you progress in your flying career, you can and usually will get complacent about safety. Whatever method you have to ensure safety in your flying, use it, don't abuse it !
Prepare to pay through the nose, prepare to lose quite a few pilots too.
We're paying through the nose now. Eliminate standup landings and Rooney Links and we'll come out WAY in the black.
For me it would not be worth it.
My sincere condolences to the friends and family of Lenami.
Fuck her friends. And so far I haven't seen anything useful coming from the family - as is virtually always the case.
I wish Jon Orders strength and the willpower to re-invent himself after this tragedy.
I wish he'd do something to help us fix the problem.
Concussions are in fact very serious and have life long effects. The last time I was knocked out what in 9th grade football. I have felt the effects of that ever since. It changes your wiring.
Well, very simply we could make a new rule for competition. If you are seen in your harness but not hooked into your glider you are automatically disqualified.
...how come HPAC never bothered to very simply make a new rule for tandem operations: If the pilot or passenger is seen in his harness but not hooked into his glider the pilot loses his certification.
The harness is part of the aircraft... end of story.
(Just because it's easy to remove, does not mean it should be. Dont choose the path of least resistance)
Attach it to the wing, completing the aircraft.... then preflight the completed aircraft.
Buckle yourself into the cockpit and then your ready.
Ask him why he's not advocating that position now.
Jim Rooney - 2014/02/12 21:23:08 UTC
Oh, I was SO hoping you'd be stupid enough to open your mouth on this one.
Dontsink - 2014/02/12 15:59:12 UTC
If you want tandem pilots to be true professionals you will have to completely change the way HG is taught and practiced. We cannot hide in the mountains as the hill-billy members of the aviation community (largely and happily ignored) and then demand this degree of accountability. It's pure hypocrisy.
Yup.
Bring in the aviation authorities with their medical/competency/aircraft/procedures verification checks and rules. Prepare to pay through the nose, prepare to lose quite a few pilots too.
Yup.
Come to NZ. That's exactly what we have now.
"We"?
(It's not just HG/PG either, all "Adventure Sports" are regulated this way now... example, jetboats and rafting trips)
But especially...
The Press - 2006/03/15
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is urgently pushing for new hang-gliding industry standards after learning a hang-gliding pilot who suffered serious injuries in a crash three weeks ago had not clipped himself on to the glider.
Extreme Air tandem gliding pilot James (Jim) Rooney safely clipped his passenger into the glider before departing from the Coronet Peak launch site, near Queenstown, CAA sports and recreation manager Rex Kenny said yesterday.
However, he took off without attaching himself.
In a video, he was seen to hold on to the glider for about fifty meters before hitting power lines.
Rooney and the passenger fell about fifteen meters to the ground.
Ok, this thread's a million miles long already (and mostly my fault at that), so I'm not going to feel bad about making it a tad longer.
A couple things to chew on here...
There isn't one sure-fire answer.
If there was, we'd all be doing it already. This thread I think makes this obvious... every single thing people have put forth as "the way", someone else has show how it can fail. Every single one. Argue about the details, but every single one fails.
Here's the real trick of it in my book (especially with new technology, but it applies to methods too)...
Whatever you change only works on that glider/site/whatever.
What happens when you're off flying somewhere else or flying someone else's gear?
Someone suggested putting a red flag on the nose of the glider that gets removed after the hang check... this way, if you haven't hooked in, it's really obvious. Say this works for you and you get used to it. Then you borrow a glider or fly a different site on a rented glider. In your world, no red streamer means "good to go".
Take aussie vs clipin if you like... what happens when you're at a site that you can't use the aussie method with? (I can name you some cliff launches that you can't if you care). Now you're used to the security of the aussie method, and it's not there. You might say that the fear will help you, but your instincts will say otherwise (the fear is highlevel thought, and highlevel thought is the first thing that gets tossed out of your brain.. else we'd never launch unhooked in the first place).
Argue if you will about the examples (whatever), the trick of it isn't the method to me, it's how using new things doesn't work (and actually causes problems) in strange ways (like when going back to "normal" flying after getting used to the new method/device).
Enough about what doesn't work though... what does?
Since we don't have a plug that only fits one way, we fall on lesser methods, but some are better than others...
In particular... Third Party Verification.
You won't save you, but your friends might.
Not always, but they're more reliable than you.
Why do you think that airline checklists (yes our lovely checklists) are check-verified by pilot AND copilot?
That's all I got for ya.
The other topics have been beat to death here.
If there was an answer, we'd all already be doing it.
Thanks to Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney's pioneering work on this issue there's now a regulation that the tandem pilot must have five or more certified friends present at every launch. Such a pity that HPAC didn't follow New Zealand's lead. If only Jon had had just two more non-family-member friends present that day.
There's good and bad and yeah, it's freaking expensive and we've lost many pilots.
Such a pity. So can you estimate your personal contribution to those numbers?
Time will tell though.
Really? How? What are we gonna start seeing that we haven't already?
Richard Bryant - 2009/11/05 14:11:27 UTC
New Egypt, New Jersey
Tad,
I wonder if you did as much Highland bashing while you were a 'loyal' customer...or you displaying a cowardly nature by bashing after you were told you were no longer welcome there. If you acted there as you do here, perhaps they got tired of being told how to run their operation.
Just a guess but probably the trigger that got you booted is when you went to the FAA with your draft proposal for more regulation of the sport...yeah, that was a great idea on your part!
With your very high numbers on the ignore report, I'm surprised you haven't been booted from here like you have been from some Yahoo groups.
Zack Marzec (27), an H-4 Pilot with Aero Tow and Tandem Aero Tow proficiency as well as Advanced Instructor and Tandem Instructor appointments, and a USHPA member since 2009, suffered fatal injuries when when his glider tumbled during an aero tow launch. During the launch, at an altitude of 150 AGL, the pilot encountered an invisible bullet thermal which pitched the nose up, causing the weak link to break. Upon the breakage of the weak link, the glider whip stalled and then tumbled twice. The pilot and glider's leading edge hit the ground simultaneously. The pilot was utilizing his own pro-tow style tow harness, this own high performance glider with VG on, and was not wearing a full face helmet.
- aerotowing in thermal conditions
- privately owned:
-- pro-tow style tow harnesses
-- high performance gliders
- VG use
- open face helmets
Bille Floyd - 2014/02/12 22:55:09 UTC
If the Guy was Stoned or Drunk , when the ACCIDENT occurred, then Yea-- i could
see jail time ; other-wise NO , it don't seam Right to me !
THEN
the wind died, and Stayed dead for 10 min.
So i unhooked from the glider and sat on the bace-tube, but left the Bridle attached.
The Wind came back up and i picked up the glider & made a mental pre-launch check. Remembering that i had already hooked in previously --
i deleted the, "lift the glider" part to check for tension on the harness.
and signaled for the driver to GO !!
What percentage of the time do you think Jon made any effort whatsoever to verify that he and his passenger were hooked in within five seconds of launch?
Rob Clarkson - 2014/02/13 16:03:10 UTC
The sentence recommendation came from the crown and defence. Jon is not a Canadian and serving six months would have him subject to being deported. Since he has a child in this country I assume they felt it would be a punishment to his daughter as well if he were to be deported.
His daughter's being punished as a consequence of this one anyway.
Brian McMahon - 2014/02/13 23:03:51 UTC
Although each person signs their life away when they sign a waiver, it's doesn't really excuse the tandem pilot of criminal negligence.
1. How 'bout we start charging survivors of solo unhooked launches with criminal negligence? When a drunk driver with no passengers crashes into a telephone pole he gets charged. What's the difference?
2. The real criminal negligence didn't happen down at Jon's level.
Five months in jail is a pretty small price to pay for being the cause of a death.
With or without a criminal conviction and with or without jail time this asshole has paid an enormous price.
Drivers reading a text message and run someone over didn't mean to do it either.
1. Jon wasn't reading a text message or drunk. He was attempting to conduct a safe operation and had a lapse after many thousands of repetitions. Let he who has never had a lapse in the course of doing something potentially dangerous...
OK- how many times does he need confirm that he is hooked in? And when would be the best time to make that confirmation?
Brian McMahon - 2011/10/24 21:04:17 UTC
Once, just prior to launch.
Christian Williams - 2011/10/25 03:59:58 UTC
I agree with that statement.
What's more, I believe that all hooked-in checks prior to the last one before takeoff are a waste of time, not to say dangerous, because they build a sense of security which should not be built more than one instant before commitment to flight.
How can anyone make a case that he wasn't set up for failure by the HPAC?
Andrew Vanis - 2014/02/13 23:42:29 UTC
That is why this flying instance is an accident. (or at least more like an accident for those lawyer types)
Flyer types who believe in accidents shouldn't be flying.
To make your texting analogy work, the pilot would have to specifically decide to fly with the passenger unclipped (like deciding to read the text in your example) and try to get away with it.
His analogy totally sucks.
If nothing happens all's good, if it does go sideways then it's becomes an issue.
This is more like you're driving along and get distracted by flashing light next to you and hit something. Yeah, you should have kept your eyes on the road but it was an unintentional lapse.
People don't have to get distracted on this one. The mistake is always made well before the consequences happen. A false memory or assumption is all it takes.
Fred Wilson - 2014/02/13 23:59:29 UTC
Our sport has enough safety in it that, like all aviation, no single failure should be enough to cause an accident.
MOST of the time... no.
More than one link in the safety chain needs to be broken.
HPAC starts its flyers out with a total piece of shit for a safety chain.
Don't forget that there were pilots on launch.
Nah. There wasn't an actual hang glider pilot or smart paraglider pilot within hundreds of miles of that launch.
Did no one do a hang check? No visual inspection?
So if a hang check or visual inspection had been performed there's no fuckin' way there's gonna be an unhooked launch? Don't read a lot of fatality reports, do ya?
I talked about this at our latest club meeting.
Fuck you and your club.
Hang Gliders (at least around here) are slowly learning to watch for sticks in lines, broken lines, line twists or knots when PGers launch.
I'll bet the learning is slow. And I'll bet a typical five year old kid could be up to speed on these issues after about ten seconds of training.
Most hang gliders around here are well into their sixties and most if not all of the old gang are quitting, or are out very rarely indeed.
Oh well, at least they've made sure they've passed their collective wisdom on to the next generation.
Our Hang Gliding Instructors, after decades of zero production are starting to pump out novices.
Mike Robertson, Jim Rooney, Tom Galvin, Christopher LeFay, Paulen Tjaden, Dr. Trisa Tilletti, lions, tigers, bears...
So my talk was to Pgers, telling them its time to reciprocate:
Hang Checks, visual batten checks and ensuring wings are level are simple cross checks they should become comfortable with.
In that order, of course.
- Hang Check - DONE. Five Cs out of the way. Good to go. No fuckin' way he's gonna launch unhooked now.
- Visual Battens Check. Good. Well... You might wanna take a look at the third one in from the starboard tip. Looks like it might have gotten dragged backwards and deformed a wee bit.
Ok, this thread's a million miles long already (and mostly my fault at that), so I'm not going to feel bad about making it a tad longer.
A couple things to chew on here...
There isn't one sure-fire answer.
If there was, we'd all be doing it already. This thread I think makes this obvious... every single thing people have put forth as "the way", someone else has show how it can fail. Every single one. Argue about the details, but every single one fails.
Here's the real trick of it in my book (especially with new technology, but it applies to methods too)...
Whatever you change only works on that glider/site/whatever.
What happens when you're off flying somewhere else or flying someone else's gear?
Someone suggested putting a red flag on the nose of the glider that gets removed after the hang check... this way, if you haven't hooked in, it's really obvious. Say this works for you and you get used to it. Then you borrow a glider or fly a different site on a rented glider. In your world, no red streamer means "good to go".
Take aussie vs clipin if you like... what happens when you're at a site that you can't use the aussie method with? (I can name you some cliff launches that you can't if you care). Now you're used to the security of the aussie method, and it's not there. You might say that the fear will help you, but your instincts will say otherwise (the fear is highlevel thought, and highlevel thought is the first thing that gets tossed out of your brain.. else we'd never launch unhooked in the first place).
Argue if you will about the examples (whatever), the trick of it isn't the method to me, it's how using new things doesn't work (and actually causes problems) in strange ways (like when going back to "normal" flying after getting used to the new method/device).
Enough about what doesn't work though... what does?
Since we don't have a plug that only fits one way, we fall on lesser methods, but some are better than others...
In particular... Third Party Verification.
You won't save you, but your friends might.
Not always, but they're more reliable than you.
Why do you think that airline checklists (yes our lovely checklists) are check-verified by pilot AND copilot?
That's all I got for ya.
The other topics have been beat to death here.
If there was an answer, we'd all already be doing it.
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.
Yep Jim, that sure is one really keen intellect you've got there. I doubt that there's anybody else from the entire history of the sport who's realized or understood that the Pilot In Command is actually essentially helpless in protecting himself and, in tandem operations, his passenger from unhooked launches - that this is just a matter of luck, time; that our only REAL hope is that WHEN our number inevitably comes up we have enough FRIENDS, who, by definition, obviously, are all more reliable than us, that one of them will notice the problem and make a timely intervention. (Real bummer that Bill Priday and you were deficient in the on-hand more reliable friends department when it really mattered.)
So since you've had this fundamental truth revealed to you and enlightened all of us inferior clueless muppets within earshot on the issue...
You posted this twenty-five days shy of two years before Kunio Yoshimura ran off the top of Mingus with his carabiner dangling. Do you feel that that single Davis Show post was enough of an effort on your part to get the right message out on this very critical issue?
Jim Rooney threw a big tantrum and stopped posting here.
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.
Christopher LeFay - 2012/03/15 05:57:43 UTC
January's canonization of Rooney as the Patron Saint of Landing was maddening. He offered just what people wanted to hear: there is an ultimate, definitive answer to your landing problems, presented with absolute authority. Judgment problems? His answer is to remove judgment from the process - doggedly stripping out critical differences in gliders, loading, pilot, and conditions. This was just what people wanted - to be told a simple answer. In thanks, they deified him, carving his every utterance in Wiki-stone.
...the ultimate, definitive, one-size-fits-all technique for not bonking standup landings. And it's a sticky right under Davis's (fake):
Welcome to, and policies of, the Oz Report discussion group
post perpetually at the top of the main page, currently reading 31382 hits, and carved in Wiki-stone throughout the hang gliding web. By contrast this FTHI post is buried in a thread currently buried second from the bottom of The Davis Show Page 294 with 6504 (a fifth as many) hits - and nobody ('cept T** at K*** S******) ever links to or references it. And, of course, since shortly after Jon Orders dropped Lenami a thousand feet to the base of Mount Woodside early in the 2012 season, the only people who still have a chance of finding it are those on Davis's personal approved list.
Is your conscience clear on this with respect to getting the message out? Don't you think that if The Word had been better circulated, Kunio, as he was prepping to launch, might have said to himself, "Not a good situation. Better get some more friends over here to reduce my chances of launching unhooked." And maybe likewise some of Kunio's friends might have been thinking, "Kunio's getting ready to go off the north launch. Maybe a few of us should head over there. If he's not hooked in one of us might notice and say something. Or maybe not. But we should at least head over there. Couldn't possibly hurt."
Two months after Bill Priday ran off the ramp at Whitwell with his carabiner dangling while surrounded by hordes oblivious low quality friends Rob Kells published some delusionary clueless crap on the FTHI issue substantively stating that it WAS possible for the Pilot In Command to prevent himself from launching unhooked and saying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the critical importance of having friends with superior reliability.
In it he states:
Rob Kells - 2005/12
Following a recent fatal accident caused by the pilot launching unhooked, there has been a discussion on how to guarantee that you are hooked in. The two main methods are:
1. Always do a hang check before launch, and/or
2. Always hook your harness into the glider before you get into the harness.
Interestingly, NEITHER of these methods GUARANTEES that you will not launch unhooked some day. Let's add a third one:
3. Always lift the glider vertically and feel the tug on the leg straps when the harness mains go tight, just before you start your launch run. I always use this test.
He's OBVIOUSLY implying that this test GUARANTEES that the Pilot In Command will never launch unhooked. And we KNOW that this is ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT because...
- If it WERE a sure-fire answer we'd all be doing it already. And the fact of the matter is that virtually no one does it already. Even you, with your world renowned keen intellect, weren't doing it when you launched unhooked on your last tandem mountain "flight".
- Nowhere in the world, as far as I can tell, is any established school or instructor teaching this to students.
- This procedure has never even been hinted at even in any of the owners' manuals that have been published by his own company over the course of the two partial and three complete decades of its existence.
- Tom Galvin has made us realize that this test only gives the pilot a false sense of security and thus INCREASES our odds of launching unhooked.
But how come you never got through to your good friend Rob and had him publish a retraction/denunciation of his statements in that widely circulated and read article? I mean, it was a pretty lucky thing that he died of prostate cancer on 2008/08/09. Another three weeks and that could've been him instead of Kunio at the top of Mingus getting a false sense of security by doing his usual lift and tug test that not everyone uses, foolishly thinking that his...
Wills Wing - 2007/02
My partners (Steve Pearson and Mike Meier) and I have over 25,000 hang glider flights between us and have managed (so far) to have hooked in every time. I also spoke with test pilots Ken Howells and Peter Swanson about their methods (another 5000 flights).
Not one of us regularly uses either of the two most popular methods outlined above. Each of us agrees that it is not a particular method, but rather the fear of launching unhooked that makes us diligent to be sure we are hooked in every time before starting the launch run.
...fear of launching unhooked would make him diligent to be sure he was hooked in before starting his launch run after you've figured out that fear is high level thought and thus the first thing to get tossed out of one's brain, unaware of the danger of having a low number of friends with superior reliability in close proximity to launch, heading for inevitable disaster.
So now that Rob's gone don't you owe it to his memory to denounce his article in the magazine in which it was published for the dangerous crap that it is? Or...
We're re-working the accident reporting system, but again it's a matter of getting the reports submitted and having a volunteer willing to do the detail work necessary to get them posted. There are also numerous legal issues associated with accident reports, which we're still wrestling with. It's a trade-off between informing our members so they can avoid those kinds of accidents in the future, and exposing ourselves to even more lawsuits by giving plaintiff's attorneys more ammunition to shoot at us.
Imagine a report that concludes, "If we'd had a procedure "x" in place, then it would have probably prevented this accident. And we're going to put that procedure in place at the next BOD meeting." Good info, and what we want to be able to convey. But what comes out at trial is, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, my client suffered injury because USHPA knew or should have known that a safety procedure was not in place, and was therefore negligent and at fault." We're constantly walking this line between full disclosure and handing out nooses at the hangmen's convention.
...is this concept of yours that the only hope we have of not eventually killing ourselves by launching unhooked is to be caught by one of our friends just so solid a strategy that USHGA won't publish it for fear of being sued out of existence for not having thought of it and published it well over three decades before?
Did I miss any?
Is it clear what I mean by "We"?
I didn't make the system up.
And I'm not so arrogant to think that my precious little ideas are going to magically revolutionise the industry.
Sorry Jim, but you've really gotta make an effort to push your precious little ideas if there's any hope of the industry being magically revolutionized for other issues the way you did it for foot landings.
And what if, God forbid, you were to launch unhooked again with too few friends around but with no powerlines to stop your glider? Or, even worse, some scumbag were to double the Rooney Link behind your Dragonfly when no one was looking? If anything were to happen to you your precious little ideas would be lost to the industry for all eternity and then what do you think would be the prospects for the long term survival of the sport and its participants? Everything was hanging by a thread before you arrived and I couldn't bear the thought of a return to that state upon your premature departure.
i've been preaching this stuff for a long time... that's the irony... i was one of those 'hang checks will save you' guys.
christ... my email was jim@hangcheck.com!
i was the religious finatic about checking.
i did do hookin checks (after hang checks)
i did all the stuff you guys are saying will save you
guess what?
all that stuff is good stuff to do... it helps with other problems. but it helps with other problems.
if you think that you're immune to omissions because you this, or you do that, then god help you.
That's USHGA's current and most powerful statement on unhooked launch prevention - refined from four decades worth of trail and error and put forth and endorsed by the top minds and most experienced and conscientious professional pilots and lawyers in the industry.
And it's ENTIRELY about HANG CHECKS.
And the point man on that is the father of your pigfucker fellow Jack Show bannee Ryan Instant-Hands-Free-Release Voight.
Not ONE WORD nor any HINT about friends, observers, site monitors, event safety officers being of any possible benefit in the prevention of unhooked launches. And that's the first thing you see when you go to the safety section of USHGA's website. Currently riding 4311 hits, 23 likes, zero dislikes, two positive comments on YouTube. How come you don't go over there and dislike it and leave a very clear comment as to why?
And no, in a thread titled "Critique my radial ramp launch" that video is also pretty much entirely off topic.
You want to discuss/debate/dictate people's pre-launch habits, great, just don't hijack someone else's thread about radial ramp technique.
Since this video starts with him on launch, we don't know if he did a hook-in check already, a hang check, a preflight, took a pee before putting his harness on, or drove a hybrid car to launch... Why are you critiquing what you don't know, didn't see, didn't ask about, and isn't what he asked for critique on??? WTF?
...hang check junkie who has no appreciation of the critical importance of friends. Have you done anything to help him see the light?
Steve Wendt (Bill's instructor) has already talked about instituting preflight hang checks (meaning literally getting down on the ground and hanging in your harness, just like you'd do in the mountains) for all of his students at the flight park - just to get them into the habit of doing it - even if they don't need to do it for a towed launch.
All about hang checks, zilch about friends. And he's exceptionally knowledgeable...
BTW, Steve Wendt is exceptionally knowledgeable. Hell, he's the one that signed off my instructor rating.
Hell, he's the one who signed off:
- your instructor rating shortly before you launched your tandem glider and passenger unhooked from Coronet Peak and spent two and a half months in the hospital
- Bill Priday's Three rating shortly before he launched his Sport 2 unhooked from the Whitwell ramp and was killed
And he's pumping out A LOT of students at Blue Sky. Have you made any effort to get your precious little idea through to him?
There isn't one sure-fire answer.
If there was, we'd all be doing it already.
If the Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney Friends approach is the best possible thing we can have going for us on this issue then how come we're not all on the same page with it and living on FaceBook full time in order to maximize our numbers of friends and thus our chances of survival?
You might say that the fear will help you, but your instincts will say otherwise (the fear is highlevel thought, and highlevel thought is the first thing that gets tossed out of your brain.. else we'd never launch unhooked in the first place).
OK, we know that fear won't help us because the fear is high level thought and high level thought is the first thing that gets tossed out of our brains. And we know that's an absolute truth because you've stated it - it's not...
Well, I'm assuming there was some guff about the tug pilot's right of refusal?
Gee, didn't think we'd have to delve into "pilot in command"... I figured that one's pretty well understood in a flying community.
It's quite simple.
The tug is a certified aircraft... the glider is an unpowered ultralight vehicle. The tug pilot is the pilot in command. You are a passenger. You have the same rights and responsibilities as a skydiver.
It's a bitter pill I'm sure, but there you have it.
BTW, if you think I'm just spouting theory here, I've personally refused to tow a flight park owner over this very issue. I didn't want to clash, but I wasn't towing him. Yup, he wanted to tow with a doubled up weaklink. He eventually towed (behind me) with a single and sorry to disappoint any drama mongers, we're still friends. And lone gun crazy Rooney? Ten other tow pilots turned him down that day for the same reason.
if you think that you're immune to omissions because you this, or you do that, then god help you.
Everyone who's ever launched unhooked HAS thought - AT THE TIME WHEN IT MATTERED - that he was immune to the omissions which precipitate unhooked launches - read: without fear.
So what's the point in telling us that maintaining the belief that we're not immune to potentially lethal omissions - read: fear - will be of value in preventing ourselves from launching unhooked right after telling us that fear will be of no value in preventing ourselves from launching unhooked because it's a high level thought and high level thought is the first thing that gets tossed out of our brains?
Did you ever read Catch-22? If so, do try to bear in mind it wasn't intended to be the foundation for a flight training manual.
See if you can advance up to some one-arm pushups.
