landing

[Tad Eareckson]

Sorry for the lateness. I do not have constant internet access.

S'alright. Not a particularly time sensitive discussion.

d) none of the above

No he didn't.

Other than a few individuals, most pilots here, do not post everything that happens, online.

A flight that requires a chopper ride after its conclusion is not "everything that happens".

We are also not a hot bed of USHGA support.

We (royal) are not a hotbed of USHGA support here either. Ditto for any other sleazy entity that...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=20756
How is Zach Etheridge doing?

Bob Flynn - 2011/02/04 11:26:34 UTC

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.

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1081
Platform towing /risk mitigation / accident

Sam Kellner - 2012/07/03 02:25:58 UTC

No, you don't get an accident report.

...suppresses, buries, shreds crash data.

I'd be totally delighted to see that vile organization totally demolished and scores of heads on pikes. Hang glider's hit an ultimate design plateau a long time ago. It'll be interesting to see what new innovations in sleaze USHGA and other national organizations will be able to institutionalize over the course of the next five or ten years.

There is word of mouth for the locals.

Which totally sucks. You need stuff in print from your best primary sources before people have a chance to decide on the most convenient story. That way when THIS:

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec

Mark Frutiger - 2013/02/08 19:12:21 UTC

Zack hit the lift a few seconds after I did. He was high and to the right of the tug and was out of my mirror when the weak ling broke. The load on the tug was not excessive as with a lockout, but I was not surprised when the weak link broke. I was still in the thermal when I caught sight of Zack again. I did not see the entry to the tumble, but I did see two revolutions of a forward tumble before kicking the tug around to land. The thermal was still active in the area that I had just launched from so I did a go round and landed on a runway 90 degrees cross to the direction we were towing in.

becomes THIS:

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec

Paul Tjaden - 2013/02/07

Beyond these facts anything else would be pure speculation. I have personally had numerous weak link breaks on tow, both low and high, after hitting turbulence and have never felt in danger of a tumble. I have witnessed countless others have weak link breaks with no serious problems. We train aero tow pilots how to handle this situation and I am certain that Zach had also encountered this situation many times before and knew how to react properly. Apparently, Zach simply hit strong low level turbulence, probably a dust devil that could not be seen due to the lack of dust in Florida, the nose went too high and he tumbled at a very low altitude.

Strong dust devils in Florida definitely do exist even though they are rare. My wife had a near miss when she encountered a severe dusty a couple years ago and I almost lost a brand new $18,000 ATOS VX when it was torn from its tie down and thrown upside down.

I wish I could shed more light on this accident but I am afraid this is all we know and probably will know. Zach was a great guy with an incredible outlook and zest for life. He will be sorely missed.

you know who the lying motherfuckers are.

On the afternoon of 2008/06/02 after idiot fucking Lauren got dumped by her Rooney Link on a normal climbout right after launch at Ridgely on Day 2 of the ECCs Paul stated to me, "Those things are dangerous." If I had that in print I could totally gut the sonuvabitch.

What we DO have in print is that motherfucker telling everybody how the 1.4 G Tad-O-Link I gave him didn't break when it was SUPPOSED TO - while he was being pro toad with a piece of shit bent pin Bailey "release" within easy reach...



...in world class violent thermal conditions fucking with his VG cord with one hand while flying the glider with the other - and allowed him to fly all the way into a lockout (like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27yFcEMpfMk
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27yFcEMpfMk[/video]

...Rooney Link protected one) and break idiot fucking Russell Brown's idiot fucking illegal tow mast breakaway protector.

If there were a good report on or video of this incident we wouldn't be having this debate. I'd have won it before it started.

Locals know that you can get popped when landing in crosswind turbulence.

You gotta be a local to know that?

They learn early on.

Apparently not how to handle the situation very well.

Yep, a feller who has never experienced landing with gusty crosswinds here is going to give us the keyboard players version of landing.

What's so special about your gusty crosswinds there? Name some flying sites that doesn't have gusty crosswinds strong and nasty enough to kill anybody they feel like regardless of how well he's flying and responding.

The last downtube of my career I was coming into Ridgely upright with eight inch Finsterwalders on the basetube, the ribbons all over the place, and, I found out immediately afterwards, a dust devil swirling up the road behind me. I was doing everything "right" about a second before touchdown time and suddenly got thrown sideways. An asshole (Chris McKee) landing at almost the same instant also took out a downtube. My thought at the time was that if I'd been prone going for a wheel landing I could've handled it.

That techniche will get you a good smoooooooooove, into the wind landing here:

01-1008
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7102/13939290892_c3a881955b_o.png

02-1414
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05-2121
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06-2129
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07-2216
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08-2301
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09-2312
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10-2422
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http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2826/13650569513_1e36c95319_o.png



1. It was a wheel landable surface because he was coming in for a wheel landing.
2. We're not talking about the actual landing. We're talking about keeping the glider under control on final BEFORE the actual landing. He didn't.

In the real world, however, with gusts coming from the side, a wing may get lifted. If the lifted wing is not corrected both quickly and aggressively, a slipping turn results.

If you don't have speed it can be physically impossible to correct quickly and aggressively. He didn't have enough speed.

Upon contact with the ground, the wheels will not track because of the yaw and damage ensues.

Yeah. I'm familiar with that phenomenon. See above. And note that I was upright with my hands on the downtubes making every effort to stop on my feet.

An upright pilot has the ability to almost instantaneously grab and hug the downtube of the raised wing, moving the effective cg temporarily outside of the control apex, bringing the wing down.

Rubbish.

- The pilot's CG is at the bottom of the harness suspension.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2831/9623912388_98cf582742_o.png


It's way the fuck back behind the control frame and lower runs of the tail wires. Prone pilots aren't saying, "Crap! If only I'd been upright I could've almost instantly grabbed and hugged the downtube, moved my effective CG temporarily outside of the control apex, and brought the wing down!"

There are no videos of people on final or at five thousand feet getting rolled out of control because they're prone and up against the stops. There are no videos of people at five thousand feet going upright and grabbing and hugging downtubes to move their effective CGs temporarily outside of the control apex and bring wings down.

Here's how someone PROPERLY responds when he gets hit by something hard enough to impress him enough to post a video of the event:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yFUkMBhXEg


And care to make a case that if he:

- had had the bar pulled in when he got hit the control loss wouldn't have been as severe?

- is ever in a situation at altitude in which he's getting tossed all over the place for an extended period he's gonna go upright to more safely and easily deal with it?

An upright pilot can also land a glider yawed/slipped/in a turn.

An upright pilot can also NOT land a glider yawed/slipped in a turn. There are tons of videos of upright "pilots" not being able to land gliders in dead air at wide open sod farms.

Show me a video of a fucked up:
- foot landing attempt in which things wouldn't have gone better in prone wheel landing mode
- prone wheel landing attempt in which things would have gone better in upright foot landing mode

Both hands on the basetube, rocked up ONLY to prepare for a totally unnecessary foot landing, upper body higher, lower body lower, CG unchanged and not restricted by the control frame or tail wires.

If you want to see a demonstration of extreme downtube grabbing...

I don't. Just like I don't wanna see demonstrations of extreme:

- climbing into the control frame...

2-005


...after skipping the hook-in check

- traffic cone...

46-45901
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2937/14081080220_373f64f01d_o.png


...hitting

- easy reaching...



....for the release within easy reach

...check out your bud noman on youtube.

The only thing I wanna see my bud noman doing on YouTube is launching unhooked. I don't hate him enough to wanna see him hurt or wreck his glider but there's little that makes me happier than to hear about or see one of these smug Aussie Methodist assholes approaching or going off launch...

11-A12819
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8339/28924980016_2ba1d20ef7_o.png


...with a dangling carabiner.

As for landing - I'll take Niki...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_2holKUTxM


...any day of the week.

I have flown with Dave Hopkins before. He is an excellent pilot.

No.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28290
Report about fatal accident at Quest Air Hang Gliding

Dave Hopkins - 2013/02/09 16:43:09 UTC

The Aerotow weaklink is designed to break before a glider can lockout in roll.

Excellent pilots don't make totally moronic insane statements like that.

Ya gotta unnerstand: When you are close to the ground, and your wing gets popped up from a cross wind gust, even with good airspeed, you need the wings level to land safely, especially true with wheels, unless you have wheels like these:

Or these:



And I'll bet I could come up with a very long list of people whose flying careers have been seriously interrupted or ended in the three and a third years since Doug got a little too cute...

05-4321c


10-5024c

...a little too low whose flying careers wouldn't have been if they too had been forced into permanent wheel landing mode using even very modest versions of what Doug's got.

And the more airspeed you have the easier it is to keep or get your wings level.

And the more prone you are the easier it is to get and keep airspeed.

I've got a gun to your head. You get to watch twenty landings and if you don't see a crash I'm gonna pull the trigger. What are you gonna watch?
- Cessnas at the county airport
- passenger jets at SFO
- F-18s on a carrier
- ultralights
- paragliders
- hang gliders at McClure
- hang gliders engaged in a spot landing contest at AJX

Show me the videos and/or cite the reports.

[miguel]

By the time I got a couple of paragraphs in, the old analog meter was hopelessly pinned

[Tad Eareckson]

Paragraphs like:

An upright pilot has the ability to almost instantaneously grab and hug the downtube of the raised wing, moving the effective cg temporarily outside of the control apex, bringing the wing down. An upright pilot can also land a glider yawed/slipped/in a turn.

and:

I have flown with Dave Hopkins before. He is an excellent pilot.

?

Yeah, big surprise.

An excellent pilot understands that if he:
- is flying in thermal conditions he'll never be so excellent as to guarantee that he'll be able to prevent a stall
- has a line of thrust running far below his centers of mass and drag he's gonna have a serious negative pitch control limitation
- with a serious negative pitch control limitation gets blasted by a thermal his nose is gonna go way the fuck up
- instantly loses 260 pounds of thrust when his nose is way the fuck up close to the surface in a tailless aircraft he is FUCKED

Any disagreement with any of that?

http://zweefvliegopleiding.nl/index.php/thermiek


Good.

Now name some excellent hang glider pilots. And don't bother starting off the list with Dave Hopkins - or another much bigger asshole whom we both know whose first name starts off with the same three (or, if you use David, FOUR) letters.

[Tad Eareckson]

Jump to next post:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post6089.html#p6089

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31318
Woo hoo! I actually pulled off a good landing!

Mike Badley - 2014/05/28 21:33:29 UTC
Sacramento

Woo hoo! I actually pulled off a good landing!

1. Woo hoo! Niki here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_2holKUTxM

28-11505
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33-12400
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36-12714
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...actually pulls off a good landing every time she comes down! Notice any fundamental differences between what she's doing and what you're doing?

2. No. Not crashing does not automatically qualify as a good landing. Your landing sucked - it was ugly.

Jeez, I have been pounding in too many times of late. Fortunately - Dunlap gave me a good one.

Exactly. You got away with it. Nothing more.

Enjoy!

Fer sure. Probably not in the way you intended, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je0QPepzmIM

-
There are 2 types of gliders - those that have been whacked.... and those that haven't been flown yet.

Three types:
- foot landed gliders that:
-- have been whacked
-- haven't been flown yet
- gliders that land like all conventional fixed wing aircraft that are no more likely to be whacked than other conventional fixed wing aircraft

01-00821
- 01 - chronological order
- -0 - minutes
- 08 - seconds
- 21 - frame (30 fps)

01-00821
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2939/14311845312_4807c498fe_o.png


Yeah, that's pretty much the way I felt on the vast majority of the flights of my career - especially in light wind thermal conditions. A nagging fear in the background the whole fuckin' flight which majorly ramped up once the glider was on an irreversible downward course.

Compare/Contrast:

35-81908
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http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27415
Friday the 19th with Hawks & Friends!

NMERider - 2012/10/24 21:47:05 UTC

I have to say that landing on the wheels is so much fun it's not funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2Gd2kcyOes

6-4518
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7151/13952329131_03e535bc8b_o.png

- "Oh, that's so much more brainless than landing on your feet!"
- "That was beautiful!"
- "That was a GREAT landing, Rotor!"
- "Who cares if it's downwind!"
- "Ooh shit, that was awesome!"

In aviation - as well as most other stuff - if something feels it almost certainly is. And what you're doing ALWAYS feels wrong.

02-03307
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2907/14127069660_8c87126b16_o.png


Good. Pod's unzipped. Landing gear's ready to be dropped.

03-04201
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3810/14127068760_ff4e18ed04_o.png


Yep. Thin, hot, light air. High stall speed. You're gonna need to really punch that sucker if you wanna stop it on a dime.

04-10913
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05-11502
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Yeah, now's a good time to get that landing gear free.

06-12217
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07-12623
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08-12902
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Yeah. That's why it's never a bad idea to do a tight DBF approach - even if you don't need to.

OK, now that you have the glider flying at trim, you should be thinking about shifting your hands up to shoulder or ear level on the downtubes - arm break / no control position.

09-13200
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3793/14127027159_9e6786123b_o.png


Good... Now start lining up on that waist high grass in the middle of the field. That'll be good practice for landing in waist high wheat fields.

10-13324
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5478/14311836462_93c05bcc1a_o.png


Good... Now start slowing it down a little more. You sure don't wanna catch that basetube in the grass with a lot of speed.

11-13519
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Good... Now slow it down a little more...

12-13617
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OK, now slow it down as much as possible!

13-13627
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EXCELLENT! And you've almost got the grass made!

14-13708
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15-13725
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SUCCESS!

16-13809
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17-14502
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Yeah! No more stress like that till next time! And...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27396
Scooter tow faillure... or Never Land On Your Face

Mitch Shipley - 2012/10/22 19:04:16 UTC

We engage in a sport that has risk and that is part of the attraction.

...try to think of some more stupid dangerous shit you can do to further enhance your attraction to the sport.

Now let's get this bird out of the target area and walk it back to breakdown on the clear surface where all the girls and faggots land on their wheels.

18-15500
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Keep that bullshit up and you're gonna get fucked over by gradient and/or thermal turbulence and break an arm or worse. And WHEN you do could you please post the x-rays so's I can add them to my collection?

Jump to top:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post6087.html#p6087

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31318
Woo hoo! I actually pulled off a good landing!

mrcc - 2014/05/28 22:04:01 UTC
Auckland

ITS A NICE feeling

Fuck you. He didn't HAVE a nice feeling - unless you wanna count the relief after he mushed and stalled his way to a dead stop without breaking or bending anything (for a change).

W9GFO - 2014/05/28 22:27:25 UTC

My landings can use some improvement...

Oh. You're another foot lander then.

...so I am not trying to sound like an expert...

If you DO wanna try to SOUND LIKE an expert read a couple hundred Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney posts...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec

Jim Rooney - 2013/02/11 19:22:18 UTC

Of course not... it's Asshole-ese.

Sorry, I'm sick and tired of all these soap box bullshit assheads that feel the need to spout their shit at funerals. I just buried my friend and you're seizing the moment to preach your bullshit? GO FUCK YOURSELF!!!!!!!!

I can barely stand these pompus asswipes on a normal day.

...and just imitate the style. If you wanna BE an expert than just come over here and get a remedial dose of common sense.

...nor am I intending to be negative...

Yeah, let's bend over backwards to not call a spade a spade too definitively.

Why is it that so many people fly their finals at trim?

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27217
Bad Launch!

Ryan Voight - 2012/09/25 05:59:51 UTC

You see... the human shoulder limits how far you can pull in. Prone or upright, you can really only get your hands back about even with your shoulders.

Is it accidental?

Sooner or later...

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3859/14423696873_f1326e2320_o.png


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.

...it's highly likely to be.

Are there pilots that have decided that a reserve of airspeed is not necessary?

Plenty of FLYERS. No PILOTS.

If so, why?

Why is this motherfucker not landing like:




or, if he MUST land on his feet:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5546/14023934299_a4bb37165f_o.png

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2935/14208148472_7bd55720a0_o.png

Jason Boehm - 2014/05/28 22:28:11 UTC

still could use some work, you were high and slow, left you little energy to flare with and then your basetube hit pretty hard

you touched down at 1:37, take it back 5 seconds to 1:32 and this is what you see:



compare with one of mine coming in 5 seconds before touch down

Yeah. The Golden, Colorado narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place. At least he has SOMETHING in the way of wheels on his basetube - asshole.

bring some speed in all the way to the ground, then bleed it off

Mike Badley - 2014/05/28 22:42:00 UTC

Flying too slow is definitely a problem for me.

It is for EVERBODY who goes to the downtubes before the glider bleeds down to trim in ground effect.

This is a T2 that I hook in at near 270...

So what aerotow weak link do you use? Max hook-in is 285 plus 76 glider - 361. I'm not even gonna do the math for pro toad 'cause when you're pro toad...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7200/14097626583_03972773c6_o.png


...you're not flying a certified glider and that's illegal. So with a Rooney Link you're flying at 59 percent of max certified operating weight or 74 percent of min legal.

...so Jason, you may not be that big on your glider.

Your point being? If you're lighter on a glider your stall and all other speeds drop proportionally.

One other issue I note is that at higher speeds, this glider is sensitive to adverse yaw and gets a 'leetle beet' screwy on the glide if you fly it too fast.

BULLSHIT.

http://vimeo.com/26210217


The only thing that glider is a 'leetle beet' sensitive to is PIO. Try learning to fly it. And anyway... He's not talking about coming in with the bar stuffed. He's talking about coming in with the bar back as far as possible with your hands on the downtubes. And people have been killed because that speed wasn't enough to handle the crap they were in.

This landing may seem like I touched the basetube hard, but really it just set down on the ground when I did - not the nice pop up flare with dainty no step landing, but still nothing like some of the wang-bangs I've been doing.

Fine. It still sucked. You were one little puff from behind away from two broken downtubes.

I have been working at ignoring the ground speed and just trying to come in a bit hot, but I am not there yet. Just need to keep convincing myself to DO IT.

Un fucking believable. Plenty of Lesson One students grasp and execute this concept just fine and somebody sold you a Hang Four rated glider?

Jack Barth - 2014/05/28 22:59:40 UTC

Are you really comfortable with hanging that high?

1. Fuck off, Jack. You don't fly anymore so nothing you say could possibly have any validity. Let somebody who's flown within the last couple weekends - like Mike Badley fer instance - address these issues.

2. He seems to be comfortable mushing his glider in most of the way on final. Why shouldn't he be comfortable hanging a bit high?

3. This is a sport that's always been comfortable skipping hook-in checks, flying Rooney Links, mounting releases within easy reach, being pro toad, taking wheels off of basetubes after flare timing has been perfected, doing approaches with hands on the downtubes at shoulder or ear height where the glider can't be controlled, whipstalling all its landings to dead stops, allowing Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney to appoint himself its Pilot In Command. And you're worried about how comfortable he is hanging a few inches high?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31318
Woo hoo! I actually pulled off a good landing!

Red Howard - 2014/05/28 23:32:23 UTC

If you'd take some advice, maybe this will help you. Not many people can fly fast enough for a safe approach, with their hands on the uprights...

Stop there.

...thumbs up.

It would probably help if you practice flying faster than you can now while soaring high, nowhere near the LZ.

Even upright as he was, he wasn't making the slightest effort to come in with any speed. He was doing just the opposite and now he's making total bullshit excuses like "adverse yaw" - same bullshit excuse Donnell used to explain why his Skyting Bridle didn't autocorrect lockouts.

Rock up, put one hand on the upright (thumbs up), and one hand on the basetube.

Rock up - IF YOU MUST - at the same point Steve Pearson does.

You will be able to pull in and fly very much faster that way, but it takes real practice. You won't "have it" after a minute or two, but with some good time, this trick is not difficult. Practice your full DBF approach, 'way up there. Get a good handle on turns, rolling out level, and fast straight glides up there, all with one hand on the basetube, rocked up, and one hand on the upright.

What a fuckin' waste of time. Any comment on the "spot" he picked for touchdown? Just kidding.

On the actual approach, you will only need to lift one hand from the basetube.

Tell me why he needed to lift that many hands in that field?

That's better than needing to change both hands...

And occasionally...

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.

...lethally worse than changing zero hands.

...or floating in too slow (while holding both of the uprights thumbs up).

A too-slow approach could...

WILL.

...eat you alive one day, and nobody wants that for you.

I don't want it for him (although I'd fuckin' love it for Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney) but I'm long past the point at which I'd give much of a flying fuck.

Nic Welbourn - 2014/05/29 00:28:07 UTC

I'm no ace but... I KNOW we should all have as much speed as possible on final (unless it's a very small LZ).

I dunno... THIS:

37-12413 - 38-12612

41-13000 - 42-13014

46-13714 - 50-14106


is a fairly short strip and Dave comes in like a bat outta hell.

If it's too short to come in like a bat outta hell it's NOT an "LZ" and one shouldn't be landing in it.

It's fun too!

Goddam right it is. Polar opposite of what Mike Mushman Badley was having.

If you don't want to use the 'one-up, one-down' method described by Red (I use it most times, it is excellent!), just keep your hands low on the DTs to pull-in max, then move them up as you get to trim speed (ie. when there is no bar pressure) before flaring.

Like Steve Pearson and Dave Seib do?

Here is about my worst landing, back in the day. It was mostly caused by not having much leverage to pull-in on final (was tired, reverted to a bad technique in haste), I asked for feedback here and everybody said MORE SPEED:

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

Really awesome...

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...training programs we've got over here, huh? (And people wonder why nobody can land (or fly) worth shit.)

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31318
Woo hoo! I actually pulled off a good landing!

Mike Badley - 2014/05/29 02:26:31 UTC

Nicos,
I can see why you didn't like this approach, I kept seeing your nose go up and then down as you waffled it in. Still, you got it nice and slow just before touchdown - so you didn't go classic sideswiping.

Yeah Mike, that's the idea. Get the glider nice and slow just before touchdown.

Hang gliding, aerotow, pattern tow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2seBsx8wM_4
Niki Longshore - 2013/12/16
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Anyway - it's all just technique and mine has got to get better.

Yeah. Like ballet or gymnastics. Certainly nuthin' some jerk off the street could get right on the first shot.

Just needs more speed.

Are you SURE? Maybe you should try an approach or two using LESS speed.

Another poster asked about hanging too high. That's a DIRECT result of those freakish long downtubes on the bigger T2. I do have a longer hang strap but then on launch I absolutely can NOT get a tight hang strap.

You don't WANT a tight strap. Talk to Bob Kuczewski - he can write you hundreds of pages of horrible things that will happen to you launching with a tight strap. I don't know how long you've been using that certifiably insane technique but it astonishes me that you haven't been quaded or killed yet.

For the love of God put that longer strap on to eliminate the temptation/possibility and get Joe Greblo to teach you how to avoid launching unhooked by always turning around and giving your carabiner a good look...



...and feel in the staging area before moving on down to the launch line.

So, I hang a little high. It's not really a problem for controlling the glider.

Yeah...

- Control authority is never a problem until you're in a critical situation when control authority is a problem. And there's never been an aircraft with such awesome control authority that Mother Nature can't throw something nasty enough to overwhelm control authority and fuck it over.

- And when you're hanging high over the basetube - just as when you're rotated upright with your hands on the downtubes or flying pro toad - you're not flying a certified glider.

- And you're too fuckin' stupid to be using that tight strap to...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=26007
THE CODE AMONGST ALL PILOTS

Mike Badley - 2012/09/15 05:57:02 UTC

Well, well, well... It's the most preventable of all accidents in HG, and yet it keeps happening. Hang checks, little streamer ribbons with HOOK IN written on it, observers, wire crew, rituals, check lists... JEEZ. So, have I ever launched unhooked? Nope, came close 2 times (in over 20 years of flying). Both flat slopers where you just mosey on out to the launch and just keep on trucking down the hill off into the air. Never on a cliff or ramp site - so why is that? It isn't new sites that do it, or complacency, or lack of checklists. It's just that we have so MANY things to do to get into the air and we don't always do it the same way with zero distractions. I personally just think you have to say to yourself that no matter WHAT you do on any site on any day or in any routine, that the absolute last thing you do before you pick your wing up for the run is CONFIRM you are hooked in. In general, I won't even approach a launch site with a glider if I'm not hooked in - even at a site we have that is crazy hard to do that because of a stinking highway guard rail that racks my nuts every time getting over it while hooked in. Keep on checking your pals, check yourself, try to say to yourself that NOBODY that launches before you is going off unhooked on your watch! Takes but a second and could save a life.

...prevent yourself from launching unhooked so we can take that issue off the table.

- So for any minor/negligible advantage you might derive for a few hundredths of a second during launch you're willing to compromise your control authority and increase your control effort for the remaining three hours of your flight - including landing approach.

- Yeah, I've never flown a glider I couldn't raise enough to tighten the suspension on in dead air at launch and I prefer to start my launch with a tight strap but it's not a big fuckin' deal from a control aspect and I still would never launch unhooked because I'd be scared even more shitless that I was about to do it and I can think of a dozen workarounds ninety-nine to a hundred percent as effective as lift and tug - in none of which you'd have the slightest interest.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31318
Woo hoo! I actually pulled off a good landing!

K C Benn - 2014/05/29 09:54:27 UTC
Ogden

When I first started flying my T-2 I was flying to slow on landing. I had some good whacks ! Speed it up . I took Ryan's landing clinic and I am landing the glider a lot better since.

Fuck Ryan and his landing clinics. All that asshole is doing is teaching people how to use a fundamentally dangerous and insane landing strategy better.

It is not an easy glider to land in no wind.

No...

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."

...glider is. Why do you think nobody's flying them?

Landing at the Crawfords elevation of 6800 ft you have to speed it up even more

Didn't know they had narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place at elevations like that.

Andy Long - 2014/05/30 00:47:11 UTC

Another tidbit for what it's worth. You see someone making an approach and somewhere in there, usually on final, they go for a hand transition, the nose pops up and they loose that airspeed they had wanted to keep.

You mean like the way you do whenever a Rooney Link...

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


...increases the safety of the towing operation at the other end of the flight? How come loosing airspeed on final is a bad thing while loosing airspeed on initial is a good thing?

The reason this happens is they did the hand transition with the glider flying faster than trim. So, here's what to do. Scenario #1: If the conditions are mellow, when you turn on final and get the glider flying straight, gradually slow down and when the glider is at trim, do your hand transitions. If it's mellow, you do your whole transition and get both hands on the downtubes. This way you're done with plenty of altitude still. Then you pull in, go through the gradient, round out in ground effect and you're all set.

The second scenario is doing 2 transitions. This would be for when you want to have one hand on the basetube until you are in ground effect because it's turbulent. So, make sure your glider is stable and... perhaps during your base leg... move one hand to the downtube, keeping the other on the basetube so you can pull in easily for speed.

Turn on final then keep how much ever speed you want/need. But don't go for the second hand transition too soon! You have to wait until the glider is at trim. This going for the second hand too soon is where you see the vast majority of "nose pop ups" on final. It's amazing how often I see this. The pilot is going for that second hand on the downtube but they are doing it when the glider is flying faster than trim.

So, you are in ground effect and the ground is whipping by. But you must wait. You must wait until you feel that positive pitch pressure on the control bar go away... like you could just let go with both hands and the glider would just keep on flying by itself without any change in pitch. And guess what, if you did that just then, it would!

This is when you want to move that second hand.

Well that's SUPER, Andy! So what do you do when, for whatever reason, pilot error, equipment problem, Mother Nature...





...you're locking out right/shortly after a tow launch? The conditions are NEVER mellow 'cause you're:
- virtually certainly flying a helluva lot faster than trim - as you need to be for any safe launch
- already terminally crooked
- flying in extraordinarily nasty Mother Nature generated shit if you've been doing everything right

And the conditions are HUGELY not mellow for pro toad assholes...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7200/14097626583_03972773c6_o.png


...'cause they're not flying anything REMOTELY resembling a certified glider.

So in this Ollie Chitty scenario, fer instance, at what point do you recommend we make a hand transition from the basetube to the release actuator...




...within easy reach?

But it takes discipline and practice to do it then because when there's no wind, the ground is flyyyyyyying by and the time to flare is right around the corner.

So just how much discipline and practice does it take to land using a SANE technique like THIS?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcPhIzCFtC4
Morning Flight
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This motherfucker is just begging to seriously smash himself up in the primary putting greens he's trying to stop in. He has ZERO fuckin' business even trying to approach and land in these - let alone going XC and coming down in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place. And, for that matter, NOBODY has any fuckin' business going XC and coming down in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place. So why are you trying to teach him the best techniques for landing in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place and not how to safely land a glider in the primary - or, better yet, at the training hill where he belongs?

So, either transition both hands way early or wait until way late to transition the second hand. We've got the exact same dynamics with the Atos. Except more so... due to extremely aft raked downtubes (very hard to reach the second downtube unless you are at trim) and a lot of extra positive pitch pressure (the full flaps for landing) when flying faster than trim.

Or just leave your hands on the fuckin' basetube where they belong, pick some place in the primary other the waist high grass section, and roll it in on your dinky little wheels which will work just fine anywhere else in that LZ.

How come we've got tens of thousands of detailed posts on issues of critical windows for taking hands off the basetube for normal landing approaches but for making the easy reach to Industry Standard releases all we've got is THIS:

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/05 01:32:20 UTC

Btw, it's nothing to do with you "counting" on the weaklink breaking... Its about me not trusting you to hit the release.
If it were only about what you want, then you could use what you like.
You want the strongest weaklink you can have.
I want you to have the weakest one practical.. I don't care how much it inconveniences you.
I don't trust you as a rule. You Trust you , but I don't and shouldn't.

total fucking bullshit from that total fucking asshole that everybody hails for his keen intellect?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31318
Woo hoo! I actually pulled off a good landing!

Brad Barkley - 2014/05/31 13:05:44 UTC

If you are having trouble pulling in on final with your hands on the DTs, you might want to try being upright but with your hands on the base tube.

He's NOT having trouble pulling in on final with his hands on the downtubes. He's deliberately...

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5031/14313676715_af9c23d32f_o.png


...PUSHING OUT with his hands on the downtubes.

This is the method I use. My feet are out of the harness, I have rocked upright, but I use the base tube to pull in until I'm rounded out at trim. Here are two recent landings using this technique.


[youtube][/youtube]

Good thing your stopping it on your feet there, Brad. You shouldn't have any problem whatsoever stopping in a waist high wheat field like this one:



that Paul Vernon's less than second away from ending his flying career in. Nice tight approaches too.

Jack Barth - 2014/05/31 13:47:29 UTC

If glider is trimmed too slow try moving CG forward one notch less bar pressure required during landing.

It's not. He's deliberately pushing out and mushing in. Fix that problem before you go fucking around with the trim.

therms - 2014/05/31 23:26:07 UTC
Australia

why such a high performance glider if ya landing more bad landings than good ones,.....just saying

What the fuck does the performance of the glider have to do with anything? How is that the slightest bit relevant to his issues? Why would he be landing the least bit different / better / more safely on a goddam Falcon?

Mike Badley - 2014/06/01 03:18:00 UTC

I hear ya, but it's not that I'm having more bad than good - just too many of them are not the picture perfect no-steps.

Bullshit.

- You obviously have no fuckin' clue how to land 'cause you've categorized this crap...

Woo hoo! I actually pulled off a good landing!

...as a "good landing".

- Fuck picture perfect no steppers...

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5151/14082589410_dde239dffb_o.png


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...and the assholes who make their livings pushing them and teaching people how to perfect them.

And that's not making me happy having grass stains and dirt all over my harness and blue-jeans.

Make the fuckin' harness manufacturers provide harnesses designed to be skidded in and stay zipped up. How come zillions of gliders are equipped with wheels and skids but nobody's offering harnesses that can be skidded in without getting stained and damaged?

Anyway - why does ANYBODY choose a performance wing?? Certainly not for the landing characteristics.

Something I totally agree with.

We all wish we were flying Sports or Falcons when we are making that final approach.

Bullshit.

- I LOVE performance - all the way to the fuckin' deck. THIS:

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is a real cool XC approach. And it's a real tragedy that that asshole ever started fucking around with drag chutes - or at least going nuts with them.

- You're just landing in LZs where the runway length is - for all intents and purposes - infinite.

- You turned your T2 into a slow draggy beginner level glider during your descent into the LZ. And you'd have screwed that landing with a Falcon just as effectively as you did with what you had.

- You can launch, fly, thermal, get into position over an LZ just fine. The problem is you're totally fucking clueless on fundamentals of landing.

So.... I will work on taming the T2...

Bullshit. You've got it tamed so much already that you're about one ill-timed puff away from getting your neck broken.

Niki here:

Sunset Flying Over Luling, Tx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYATgxEivm4
Niki Longshore - 2014/02/10
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could've taken off with and, better than you'd be able to imagine in your wildest dreams, landed your T2 on the next flight with her eyes closed. If you're gonna take a landing clinic then let her run it.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31318
Woo hoo! I actually pulled off a good landing!

Brian Horgan - 2014/06/01 18:02:58

the glider does not get screwy with speed,you get screwy with speed.

Goddam right. "Adverse yaw"... Total bullshit. Last refuge of a scoundrel.

Red gave you good advise.Get high pick a heading and fly towards it as fast as you can.Your timing will sync with the glider and make carrying speed on approach safe.What are you doing on a t2 anyways,you have not been flying that long.Why does everybody get in a hurry to fly the latest and greatest thing.This is not a dirt bike that gets better with all the new tricks.This is hanggliding where you get a very unstable platform with more performance.

So how is that the least bit relevant to any issues here?

Go back to your old bird,when you can land it perfectly 90 percent of the time only then might you be ready to move on to a more unstable bird.

1. Given your definition of a landing - how many decades do you think that'll take? Niki has been able to land perfectly one hundred percent of the time in the entire history of her entire short flying career.

2. What the fuck does instability have to do with anything? Show me the clip in which his wings wobbled?

Brian Horgan - 2014/06/01 18:04:46 UTC

sounds like you are justifying a mistake.

Yeah. Justifying total cluelessness on a Day One fundamental competency.