2005/09/03 AT crash

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Martin Henry - 2005/10/14 05:06:37 UTC

Hmmmm, so I'm getting shot at for not having read the thread?

Yeah. You SHOULD be, Mister Industry Standards Expert. You should've had your fuckin' head blown off your fuckin' shoulds.

(not offended here...

Only 'cause I'M not in the conversation.

...but)

If you read my questions, you will see even the most fundamental of questions have not been answered...

- So just ignore the ones that have been answered repeatedly and ask them again.
- You wouldn't know the most fundamental of questions if they swam up behind you and bit you in the ass.

(and I'm not trying to offend anybody here, After all "I am Canadian"!... we can't offend anybody and its always our fault.)

You don't hafta try, Martin. You're a major enough asshole to be able to do it in your sleep.

Look at just the first set of questions, this forum has not answered (not that I'm looking to this forum for answers)...

If you think it's bad now then just wait a few years.

...what kind of glider was it?

The kind that whipstalls after it's being towed at an extremely high angle of attack and the weak link increases the safety of the towing operation.

...what was the history of the glider?

It's history.

...(sure it was hangered...

Does EVERYBODY hafta misspell that word?

..."set up", but how old? was the sail new?) was it certified? what was the gross aircraft weight? what was its manufactures max load?

Who gives a flying fuck? It was doing fine until the rope broke.

These questions are not "fluff". The questions are the stuff a good accident investigation is made of. You have to get all the data to start forming a conclusion.

Go fuck yourself.

With what is known about this crash, I could provide a summation of what I feel what will be the conclusion of an accident report. Such a conclusion would be speculative and without sound data to back up its conclusion.

So rather than get all the data (the daunting task of the crash investigator)...

Yeah. Extremely DAUNTING. After a FUN day we get an account of every bank angle through every turn in every thermal for two hundred miles. But after a sixty-five second mushed tow in sled conditions to 250 feet until a rope break dumps the glider into a terminal whipstall it's a DAUNTING task to gather relevant information and compile a report.

...why don't we just tackle one aspect...

The weak link?

...the Glider:

Of course. What was I thinking.

What exactly crashed? Was it a Double Vision? Was it a Fly 2? Was it a T2?

According to Joe Gregor's bullshit report it was.

Falcon? Here is a fact the industry does not want to face...

That it violates the crap out all FAA aerotowing weak link regulations with ALL tandem and the vast majority of solo flights every time a glider leaves the ground behind a tug?

...most of the gliders being used for tandems are not certified (by anybody! HGMA, DHV or BHPA.).

And here are the FAA/USHGA regulations under which we aerotowed aerotowed from the beginning of time until I posted my draft letter to the FAA pointing out that a glider is not certified for shit with someone trying to fly it with one hand:

USHGA Aerotow Guidelines - 1985/07

USHGA Safety and Training Committee

The towed vehicle must meet or exceed the Hang Glider Manufacturers Association airworthiness standards.

And I just noted that that it doesn't actually say that the glider must be HGMA certified. But I don't know how one can make a case that a glider meets or exceed HGMA airworthiness standards unless it's certified. And I also don't think USHGA was quite that evil back then and I think the intent was that a DHV certified glider be good to go as well.

Now if you're sharp, you'll note that the Double Vision and the Fly 2 and Falcon are/were certified. So what I would ask you to do is look more closely at the certification. Without question both of these gliders (being used in a commercial application) would have been re-fitted with a replacement sail...

If the sail were made from the same patterns and material as the original I don't see a real problem with that.

fitted with landing gear...

Fuck that. With all the commercial tandem aerobatic thrill rides being done one hundred percent of them with built-in landing gear if that were a problem...

...airframe mods...

Who's modifying airframes? Besides, assuming you don't increase the weight significantly or decrease the strength about the only things that could matter would be the leading edge sections.

...being flown beyond the manufactures max payload.

A few pounds? Compensate by not pushing it G-wise.

Not exactly as certified eh?

How 'bout bridles that don't trim the glider properly and releases that force one-handed flying?

My findings have shown that if examined, most of the industry uses uncertified equipment.

- Have your findings shown that any of those glider issues have ever mattered?

- You haven't said anything about releases and weak links. Gliders aren't certified to be flown with one hand in critical circumstances or have several hundred pounds of thrust instantly subtracted at the worst possible times, when they're climbing hard in a near stall situations. Those issues have killed tons of otherwise totally sound airworthy gliders.

In most cases the industry uses equipment that is being flown in excess of it original design limitations.

Bullshit. They're all designed to and will take half a dozen Gs. None of them will take one handed flying or rope break induced whipstalls.

Most of the gliders being flown without proof of pitch or load capabilities.

Most of the gliders being flown without proof of pitch or load capabilities prove their pitch or load capabilities every time they fly.

Shocking stuff?

Not in the bloody least.

Not really, most just assume the gliders are ok, after all, a tandem glider is just a fat old trainers. Now that's the shocking part.

Yeah, shocking. Just think of all the tandem gliders that must've tucked or folded up without anybody hearing about them.

Am I saying the gliders are unsafe? Couldn't tell you.

I can.

No data!

Bullshit. When tandem gliders go down we hear about them - whether the operations want us to or not. See current issue.

If you want to fly a glider outside its original specifications you're going to need to test it, your going to need to re-certify.

The fuckin' rope broke.

So, with just this one sample of the investigation, we can look back at what is known that is to say;

A glider (probably not certified)...

...which had been flying just fine since the beginning of time, just like all it's clones...

...departed from tow...

How? Why? Upon whose decision? With the instantaneous subtraction of how many hundreds of pounds of thrust - asshole?

...possibly in a very deep stall...

POSSIBLY?!

...and at a severe attitude...

Yeah. At the worst possible time, when the glider was climbing hard in a near stall situation.

...(see Matt's comments on in the OZ report about being low in the tow).

Fuck Matt and the Oz Report.

The glider may have been flown in excess of its maximum wing loading or at the very least, near max wing loading.

It may have been - and probably was - flying around the middle of its weight range.

If the glider departed from the tow force via the tug end weak link there exists the possibility the tow system at the glider end came in contact with the structure of the glider (this would compromise the glider end weak link, providing an explanation as to why the tug end failed first).

Somebody shut this total fucking moron up before I go totally insane.

In this situation, we should not be shocked as to why a glider in this state, would not recover from such a low altitude.

Make it a goddam factory fresh Cessna. Take it to 250 feet and stand it on its tail at half power. Kill the engine. What's gonna happen? Good day or bad day?

Just some of the interesting angles that come with looking very carefully at the composition of a crash.

Try pulling your head out of your ass and giving it another go.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Brian McMahon - 2005/10/14 05:28:47 UTC

Nobody is shooting at you, whatever vanman25 says is all we know!!! That is, except for what Davis is keeping under the table...

Give Davis a fuckin' break. The only reason we don't have the detailed report we need to make the fix is because of Jeremiah's totally despicable "family".

Geez Canucks are sensitive!!!

Martin Henry - 2005/10/14 05:42:10 UTC

Jacman, don't worry... I put on my bullet proof vest when ever I venture near a public forum.

And be very very careful not to mention weak link strengths around public forums...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skysailingtowing/message/7230
Towing question

Martin Henry - 2009/06/26 06:06:59 UTC

PS... you got to be careful mentioning weak link strengths around the forum, it can spark a civil war

...'specially when that's the issue that's just killed two guys. Doing so can and will spark a civil war in which the total idiots are gonna get their balls handed to them within the first fifteen seconds.

Mike Van Kuiken - 2005/10/14 06:07:46 UTC

Arlan had 2 tandems that he used on a regular basis the main one, the one that crashed i believe was an airwave. His other tandem was a northwing.

Joe Gregor identified it as the North Wing - for what that's worth.

I flew that tandem all summer and put about 70 tandems on it myself. Arlan did use a different glider last year, I didnt see this glider until the middle/end of 2004.

Christian Williams - 2005/10/14 16:48:27 UTC

Bulletproof vest? What're you talking about? Read the thread.

If he were CAPABLE of reading the thread don't you think he'd have done so?

Jeff Nielsen - 2005/10/14 18:32:10 UTC

Martin Henry - 2005/10/14 05:06:37 UTC

If you read my questions, you will see even the most fundamental of questions have not been answered...

You are right, very few specific answers to this accident. I feel your frustration. At best, it's been clumped in with other low altitude tandem accidents.

The less you think of these things as accidents the less frustration you're gonna feel.

Davis may know more but the rest of us do not.

Davis couldn't spell "carabiner" with a gun to his head (not that using just one "e" would be a good reason not to pull the trigger) and thinks that a bridle that splits the tow tension between the pilot and glider is a three point.

I happened to know a little more as I have talked with some of the locals. ... but very limited.

What exactly crashed?

Your points are well taken...

Not by me in the least.

...but I don't "think" these concerns contributed to this accident.

The question, if asked at all, should've been, "What exactly stalled?" That would've made the answer, "Who gives a rat's ass?"

My findings have shown that if examined, most of the industry uses uncertified equipment.

Yep. A blind leap of faith for sure. I think this aspect comes down to money (don't most things ) Again, while this is a huge point you are bringing up, to date, no one thinks this was a glider failure, etc.

Think hard. What was it the FAILED that sent control of the glider from marginal to nonexistent? And what could one have done to make that FAILURE less likely?

Am I saying the gliders are unsafe? Couldn't tell you. No data!

Right. I will say that the historical evidence is pretty good.

What's the historical evidence on rope breaks? Do things tend to get better or worse after they happen?

After thousands and thousands of tandems, structural failure has never been suggested in any tandem accident (I may be wrong on this, I just don't know of any).

That's because...

Tost Flugzeuggerätebau

Weak links protect your aircraft against overloading.

...Industry Standard weak links are doing really excellent jobs of protecting them against overload. Right...

Dr. Trisa Tilletti - 2012/06

Solo hang glider pilots should not place a 520 lb. double loop weak link on their V-bridle, unless they get specific approval from the tow operator. It could be hard on the equipment and could be illegal if the tug is using a weaker weak link. It is also far beyond USHPA's nominal 1g recommendation.

...

In this case, they may experience more unintentional breaks, but breaks will occur with less stress applied to the structure of the tow plane or glider. In this case, there is less likelihood that the tug will experience loss of control or structural failure before a weak link breaks when a glider gets out of the cone of safety. On the other hand, some operations may want to use weak links that are stronger but legal, primarily to avoid unintentional weak link breaks.

...Trisa?

Is this good enough info? Not even close...

It's plenty good enough for me.

...but it's somewhat reassuring ... maybe ??

If you want to fly a glider outside its original specifications you're going to need to test it, your going to need to re-certify.

If money were no issue, I don't think anyone would argue with you.

Name a fixed wing aircraft that's certified to retain safe flight characteristics when thrust equivalent to half, three quarters, one, one and a quarter, one and a half, two times its flying weight is instantly eliminated.

A glider (probably not certified), departed from tow, possibly in a very deep stall and at a severe attitude (see Matt's comments on in the OZ report about being low in the tow). The glider may have been flown in excess of its maximum wing loading or at the very least, near max wing loading.

Well, I think what you are saying is true, but it's loading it a little unfairly.

Another way to say it: "a glider that is thought to have an outstanding track record ... etc" Again, I am not defending with this statement, just pointing it out. Who really knows until you test, right !!

How 'bout the field test we just ran in which we used an Industry Standard tandem aerotow weak link to increase the safety of the towing operation?

That I understand, this glider was NOT low. It was SOP to tow lower using that Kolb tug. They always thought that it allowed the tug to climb better.

Smoking fucking gun. This is the same moronic bullshit...

Dr. Trisa Tilletti - 2011/07

Higher EDUCATION
HOW TO GET THE USHPA AEROTOW RATING

It should be noted that the normal "sweet spot" tow position behind the high-powered tugs we fly here at Cloud 9 is lower than that for tugs with less power, due to our very high climb rate, climb angle, and deck angle. Thus, our normal tow position has the wheels of the tug above the horizon.

...Trisa does. So the relative height business was in some part AT LEAST deliberate.

At best, one of those involved said, "it may have been a touch low but not anything significant."

Sure was significant to two people who come to mind.

Mike Van Kuiken - 2005/10/12 16:47:25 UTC

Jeremiah behind the controls from the start. They take off, get low on the tug...

The implication there is that the somewhat clueless student fucked up and set this flight up for disaster. But now "it may have been a touch low but not anything significant"? Is that because what very little the locals have in the way of brains kicked in, that they belatedly realized that it had to be the case either Jeremiah was doing what he was instructed to do or Arlan was at least perfectly OK with what he was doing? So now we're backpedaling, really trying to downplay the issue of the glider being low, trying to get Gary off the hook in the process?

This is total fucking bullshit. If they'd been DELIBERATELY LOW they'd have been maintaining NORMAL AIRSPEED - not flying dangerously mushed. The tug was way the fuck high and they were mushing the glider trying to get into a reasonable/normal position. The locals are LYING.

That I can gather, this was a lockout stall with no recovery.

Mike Van Kuiken - 2005/10/12 16:47:25 UTC

As far as I know there were 3 witnesses, myself and 2 others, which all say the same thing. Jeremiah behind the controls from the start. They take off, get low on the tug weeklink breaks from the tow plane, one wing stalls out, glider rotates to an almost straight down attitude, picks up speed and impacts.

Based on that information it's my personal opinion that the weaklink broke because of the increased pressure on the line from being low, and taking the power away from a glider that is pretty much stalled caused the lack of control, and the wing to drop. It seems to me that it was simply pilot error which lead to the weaklink breaking. Afterall, if the weaklink didn't break they still would have been flying.

THAT is NOT a LOCKOUT, motherfucker. THAT is a STANDARD AEROTOW WEAK LINK INDUCED *STALL*.

The glider was on it's wing tip and dropped from there.

AFTER and BECAUSE the WEAK LINK BLEW.

From that position and even at 250 feet, you can see why it didn't recover.

Yes.

In a lockout, either the glider's or the tug's weak link is supposed to break.

Sure, everybody knows that. That's the sole purpose of the weak link. It's supposed to break in a lockout. So how come the ones involved in the Robin Strid, Steve Elliot, Shane Smith, John Claytor crashes DIDN'T?

It should happen on the glider end, but if the tug's weaklink hadn't been changed in a while, it very well may be the one to break ... and that's ok.

Yeah, that's OK.

FAA aerotowing regulations MANDATE a heavier front end weak link but if the aerotowing industry feels like using the same weak link, can't even be bothered to make sure it's in good enough shape to give the glider a fifty/fifty chance, engineers a tow mast breakaway to prevent the glider from ever having a more than fifty/fifty chance, decides it needs a tow mast breakaway protector to GUARANTEE the glider ALWAYS has a ZERO percent chance, dumps the glider with 250 feet of Spectra draped over its basetube so that unless the glider driver can make the easy reach and get his Industry Standard release to function he's one snag away form virtually certain death, that's perfectly OK.

While I am a man of science and well educated...

You, sir, are a MORON.

I too am waiting for an official report but after talking with some of the locals, this *seems* to be the best explaination. If someone says differently ... well, that's fine, but I have heard nothing to contradict this idea. I may be way off and just know that as you read my thought.

Actually, it's AWAYS the USA's fault these days. We apparently do nothing right.

Got that much right, at least.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

David Williamson - 2005/10/14 23:04:14 UTC

So, Davis should get in touch with his feelings?

Nah, we need a lot more people getting in touch with who Davis is and what he's doing.

Once a law suit has been filed I guess we'll all be in touch with our feelings, 'cos we know just HOW sensitive lawyers are!

When you've killed someone's kid don't sit for over a month on all the illegal shit that was going on as SOP that precipitated the crash while you're trying to figure out how to best spin it.

If it's any help, I did a stall turn on a lightweight(55lb) intermediate glider, flying solo. The glider was completely stalled and vertically on it's side. I fell with the hangstraps loose for 150' before the glider flipped upside down. At no time did the glider's nose rotate earthwards.

What's a "stall turn"? When I do wangs and am at he top of the pull-up rolled hard I stall the inside/low tip and the glider rotates around it and goes into a nice, safe feeling dive. I don't go nuts with stalls.

Jeff Nielsen - 2005/10/15 04:56:57 UTC

David Williamson - 2005/10/14 23:04:14 UTC

So, Davis should get in touch with his feelings?

Wow, if that's the only thing you disagree with me on, then that's pretty good. I must have been on the mark otherwise!

Not by a long shot.

And yes, some pilots should have been in touch with their feelings a lot earlier (me included, btw). Perhaps it could have given the family a lot of comfort ... and maybe, just maybe, a law suit wouldn't have happened. It would have been a long shot, but it's only a secondary gain anyway. The problem now is that we will never know as that window has come and gone. You might say that they would have filed suit anyway ... and you may be right. To me, that's not the reason you do it anyway.

Fuck feelings. Read regulations, forget the crap you've been taught by hang gliding douchebags, apply some common sense to this scene. Then we don't ever get anywhere near the feelings bullshit.

Once a law suit has been filed I guess we'll all be in touch with our feelings, 'cos we know just HOW sensitive lawyers are!

Yeah, good point. Just like Davis, they probably all beat their dogs too.

While I disagree with this suit and think it sucks...

Why do you think it sucks? 'Cause Arlan was doing a totally stellar job but this is hang gliding and sometimes shit just happens?

if you heard about this family you might be impressed and realize that it's not about money. This family was NOT a stranger to high risk activities and this makes them somewhat unique in that respect. Of all people, they actually make get it.

How do you get off defining a tandem training tow up in evening sled conditions as a "high risk activity"? Compare/Contrast with a fully loaded passenger jet rolling down the runway up to 170 miles per hour for takeoff speed with a zillion moving parts in play and zero chance for anyone to survive and a hundred percent chance of a really spectacular fireball if it just loses power as it lifts off. Five hundred pounds of glider, gear, people moving at half the speed a downhill skier can hit, flat ground, pretty much unlimited runway in front, no fuel, lotsa aluminum tubing around you to take the impact lotsa times?

The primary high risk element in that operation was a fuckin' critically frayed tow rope DELIBERATELY selected to REDUCE risk.

Many of said that they might not get what they really want via a suit and I tend to agree with that too.

Me too. They want their kid back the way he was before Hang Glide Chicago got hold of him.

That makes this suit a lose lose situation. I doubt that the suit will get them more information than is available to you and I...

While I am a man of science and well educated...

Yeah, right. Give I a fuckin' break.

...once that information is released. I would think that they don't know that and might think that it will.

If it's any help, I did a stall turn...

Thanks, this does help and probably to others as well. While most of us would suspect that to be the case, first hand knowledge helps. Where you on tow or just flying?

He couldn't POSSIBLY have been on tow...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=14230
pro tow set-up

Ryan Voight - 2009/11/03 05:24:31 UTC

It works best in a lockout situation... if you're banked away from the tug and have the bar back by your belly button... let it out. Glider will pitch up, break weaklink, and you fly away.

You do something like that on tow you just fly away. It's only dangerous in free flight where just the opposite happens.

The biggest thing for me from all of this is that I always figured once that I got to about 300 feet, that most of the danger was well below me.

It is. If you're not going out of your way doing stupid shit (which you always are with Industry Standard weak links) you tend to be in real good shape at two hundred.

If this can happen to Arlan and a student at 300 feet...

250 ferchrisake. We've got enough bullshit being thrown into this one by the spin doctors without adding to it with this kind of carelessness.

...then I sure need to be on top of correcting students all the way up.

You're a TANDEM AEROTOW INSTRUCTOR?!

Jeffrey Nielsen - Illinois - 60761 - H5 - 1999/02/27 - Bill Bryden - AT PL PA AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC

Oh boy...

Of course it's never "safe" but you get the idea.

Not the way you clueless bozos and assholes do it. That's why I figured it just wasn't worth it any more.

When I learned to fly, we always practiced lockouts.

GREAT! The more you practice lockouts, weak link breaks, stalls the better you're gonna be able to handle them!

It was done to define the edge, to impress upon the student (me at that time) that there actually is an edge and once you step over it, there is no coming back.

Yeah, no coming back is kinda the definition of a lockout. Well, 'cept for Wills Wing lockouts...

http://www.willswing.com/articles/Article.asp?reqArticleName=AerotowRelease
Aerotow Release Attachment Points for Wills Wing Gliders

Tow Bridles and Releases

Towing without a top release will cause the base tube to be positioned much further back during tow, the glider will have increased pitch pressure, and lockouts are much more difficult to correct.

Those you can come back from with the right inputs and a bit o' persistence.

So this is an EDGE you have to deliberately STEP OVER...

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

Bill Bryden - 2000/02

Dennis Pagen informed me several years ago about an aerotow lockout that he experienced. One moment he was correcting a bit of alignment with the tug and the next moment he was nearly upside down. He was stunned at the rapidity. I have heard similar stories from two other aerotow pilots.

You can't just get knocked on your ass by something...

03-1226
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http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3903/14555125331_c930110666_o.png
04-1409

...the way you can in free flight. The fact that your tied to another plane 250 feet and have had tandem Cone of Safety training makes you immune to that sorta thing.

It was fun too.

Yeah, the bullshit "training" exercises for things...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcEHUwR17KY


...always are. The real world Mike Hass shit...

http://ozreport.com/9.179
Fatality Report

Angelo Mantas - 2005/08/30

Then, at around fifty to sixty feet, the glider pitched up radically and started arcing to the left. Somewhere around this time the weak link broke, or the pilot released. The glider continued rotating left and dove into the ground, first hitting the left wing tip, then nose. The glider's pitch was near vertical on impact, confirmed by the fact that the control bar, except for a bend in one downtube, was basically intact, whereas the keel and one leading edge snapped just behind the nose plate junction. This all happened fairly quickly. Based on witness and tug pilot accounts, the glider was never over a hundred feet.

Despite help reaching him almost instantly, attempts to revive him proved futile. Mike suffered a broken spinal cord and was probably killed instantly.

Not so much.

The purpose of these bullshit "training" exercises is not to train you for anything but to:
- provide you some FUN in the course of your expensive tandem ride
- lull you into a false sense of security about the:
-- quality of the "equipment" they're selling you
-- consequences of a rope break or tug driver fixing whatever's going on back there
- tell all your glider and non glider buddies how safe and fun this deal is
- teach you what total fucking morons the people who get killed doing this in the real world are

And I'm totally one hundred percent serious about that.

At that time, instructor Brad always took us over that edge and let the weaklink break so we could experience that (at a "safe" altitude). While I think it was invaluable learning this type of stuff ...

Obviously.

...I had never thought about a lockout/wingover/stall to the point that you are totally slipping to one side with NO forward speed. Yikes!

Which should tell you that your training exercises, and thus qualifications, were/are total shit. Ditto for your instructor Brad undoubtedly Kushner.

While it cost my friend his life, getting out past this "edge" it had never occured to me and that 300 feet was not safe with regards to above.

THEY didn't lock out or go beyond any fucking "edge". THEY were where they should've been - centered - but slow and the goddam tug was HIGH.

I always thought that the worse that could happen is you lockout, break a weaklink, recover and land. Obviously not. Geeze!!

How fucking clueless can you POSSIBLY GET?! You've never heard of tow fatality before? The worsT things that can happen are that you:
- lock out and die the way Robin Strid just did at the beginning of this year
- whipstall and die as a consequence of coming off tow the way Eric Aasletten did when his Birrenator kicked in a little over fifteen years prior

You think there's some guardian altitude fairy hovering around out there making sure that whenever anything baddish happens on tow you're always gonna have enough air in which to recover? The way you were trained to think?

Un fucking believable.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Davis Straub - 2005/10/15 05:50:52 UTC

In the pre-Worlds in Forbes, NSW, Australia in the late nineties, those of us flying the Icaro 2000 Laminars got them just before the meet began after we has been in the country for a while. I had been flying a Moyes Extra Light, king posted glider.

On the first day towing the Laminar I believe I had nine tows, but maybe it was only seven. During those terrible tows I had at least three barrel rolls.

Really Davis? Kinda like THIS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4cTQH743E

06-01602
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47-05508
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'cept WITHOUT blowing off tow most of the way to upside down?

I thought we all learned that...

http://ozreport.com/9.177
Another bad launch off the cart

Davis Straub - 2005/08/28

And another good outcome that we can learn from.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meaneyman/sets/788578/
Bad launch good recovery

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meaneyman/35642942/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/meaneyman/35642828/

In the second frame the left wing is dragging on the runway and the weaklink has broken. This is a good thing. The pilot is in trouble and you want that weaklink broken so that he isn't dragged down the runway. Notice that he hasn't moved his hands at all, and doesn't throughout this sequence of photos. The weak weaklink does the heavy lifting for him. Use a properly sized weaklink!

...a properly sized weak link would sense when the pilot was in trouble, getting too far out of whack, serve as an instant hands free release, do the heavy lifting for him.

I guess you weren't using a properly sized weak link. How come? Even if you weren't concerned for your own safety had you no concern whatsoever for the safety of your tug pilots - who also weren't using properly sized weak links?

On the last tow, I did everything to maintain the glider in perfect position and perfectly level and straight. I was very wary that the glider would in fact stay that way from my previous experience during the day.

Instantly the glider barrell rolled once again.

How 'bout your world famous Pro tow Mini Barrel Release...



...piece o' crap? The one that is small and easily stored, is the most aerodynamic available, creates less drag if you don't put it away, is much stronger than your weak link? It DOES work as a release doesn't it? You've got it...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1143
Death at Tocumwal

Davis Straub - 2006/01/24 12:27:32 UTC

I'm willing to put the barrel release within a few inches of my hand.

...within a few inches of your hand, right?

01-001

04-200

07-300

10-307

15-413


And we all know you only need one hand to ride out a barrel roll on tow, right?

Thankfully I was always high enough to be able to recover and land.

We're ALL thankful, Davis. What an unimaginable tragedy it would've been for the sport of hang gliding to if a living world treasure such as yourself hadn't been high enough to be able to recover and land just one of those times.

Somehow I was able to learn to tow the glider and continue flying in the pre-Worlds.

What a relief.

Last January, I was towing a Moyes Litespeed S4 behind a trike and it got out of control very quickly after a little PIO. A lockout and a wing over at about 700' resulted in me getting up and away.

That's great, Davis. But I still don't think it's a very good idea to keep using those Tad-O-Links.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35257
The student on tow

lockout - 2013/12/19 04:17:30 UTC
Lameroo

Firstly, as it was my first aerotow without an instructor present and my first aerotow in twelve months since the aerotow course, I probably should have had a tow in calm conditions early morning or in the evening to familiarise myself again.

Secondly, as I had watched two weaklinks break before me, I made a bad decision to strengthen mine from the standard 1G to 1.5G. As you might have guessed, I changed it back for the next tow.

Jim Rooney - 2013/12/21 21:51:46 UTC

Thank you for seeing the wisdom in an actual "weak" link.
I'm sorry you had to learn it the hard way.
Thank you again for posting this so that people can understand the severity of the decision to fly with stronger "weaklinks".

Paul Walsh - Bob Sponge / Oakdude - 2013/12/21 22:44:45 UTC

IF you wish to learn from this...sorry Davis...
LISTEN TO THIS MAN

Jim Rooney - 2013/12/22 00:03:46 UTC

The "purpose" of a weak link is to improve your odds of survival when things go wrong. Yes, preventing the glider from folding up in one thing it does do for you. Please don't try to convince me that that's all it can do.
A bit lower and this guy would have died.

Bill Cummings - 2013/12/22 02:35:29 UTC

Agree!

Tormod Helgesen - 2013/12/22 07:45:54 UTC
Oslo

A perfect example of why the "strong weak link advocates" is so very wrong. I bet they'll start them rants again very soon.

I so do love it when total shitheads continually pump lead into their feet.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Davis Straub - 2005/10/15 06:01:25 UTC

I'm a little lost as to understand what it was about the family or the situation that made it so they didn't get an "answer," whatever that means.

Industry Standard equipment and procedures.

I got plenty of "answers" starting the very night of the accident.

And in turn we get plenty of "answers" from you. Is that a great system or what!

There seemed to be three eye witnesses.

One word, Davis. An "eye witness" is someone who witnesses eyes.

There were plenty of people there the next day. Did the family not go there on Sunday? There was plenty of investigation going on.

No, Davis...

Jeff Shapiro - 2005/09/22 15:19:53 UTC

He grew up in Missoula, Mt and excelled in school and athletics.

The family wasn't there the next day.

We have never heard anything about what they did to try to get an "answer." We have never heard what constitutes an "answer."

In Davis Dead-On Straub controlled hang gliding? Whatever anybody feels like pulling out of his ass.

Who do or did they expect to hear an answer from?

I dunno... I'da thunk all the expectations in their lives went to hell on the evening of 2005/09/03.

I asked Jayne and they have not sued the USHGA.

Critical mistake.

Did anyone feel the obligation to talk to the family?

Tell them how in a lockout, either the glider's or the tug's weak link is supposed to break, it should happen on the glider end, but if the tug's weaklink hadn't been changed in a while, it very well may be the one to break ... and that's ok?

Flyhg - 2005/10/15 11:22:50 UTC

These days, lawsuits after accidents are almost a guarantee. We can blame the lawyers for this, and they certainly are partly to blame, but they can't sue anybody without a client, so as it turns out we all (in US society) are our own worst enemy.

The aerotow industry is my - and hang gliding's - worst enemy.

So, with a lawsuit being almost a certainty, anybody who could be named (and that list is usually ridiculously long) isn't going to say anything that could be held against them in any way at some point in the future.

Sometimes assholes end up in real hot water for NOT saying something - like, "By the way, that defective ignition switch may cause the engine to die, the power steering and brakes to go out, and the air bags system to shut down."

If you get on that list (defendants), and it's not all that hard to get there, then the chances of having some percentage of the liability for the accident assigned to you are pretty good.

Yeah, that's been a HUGE problem in hang gliding year after year.

Do you want to be held even 1% liable for a multi-million dollar award, plus pay for your defense?

I'm not worried about it, Davis. I'm not a sleazy incompetent junk dealing sociopath like you and the scumbags in your circle.

Mike Van Kuiken - 2005/10/15 14:20:59 UTC

How could one be held liable for anything for just witnessing what happened? There was only one owner/operator of hang glide chicago

Flyhg - 2005/10/15 16:19:42 UTC

Since I don't know the details of what the bystanders may have known in advance and/or witnessed, there is no way I can give you a specific answer.

In today's world it is not a stretch at all to imagine that a wire crew, or the person who gives you a hang check...

And tells you:

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1152
Bill Priday's death

Cragin Shelton - 2005/10/03 15:13:27 UTC

You are not hooked in until after the hang check.

...or your instructor, or the owner of the equipment, facility, etc., could be determined by a jury to be at least a contributor, abeit maybe a very minor one, to an accident.

So, people have to ask themselves why they should risk opening their mouths in the first place.

To make a deal and rat out all the other sleazy motherfuckers collectively responsible for the fatality?

Can you blame them?

YES.

I understand what you are saying and I agree that any information that the family might get could go a long way towards comforting them to the extent that they might get some understanding of what happened. However, I can also see it very clearly from the other side of the fence.

I'm sure you can.

Bart Doets - 2005/10/15 16:29:22 UTC

Flyhg - 2005/10/15 16:19:42 UTC

In today's world it is not a stretch at all to imagine that a wire crew, or the person who gives you a hang check, or your instructor, or the owner of the equipment, facility, etc., could be determined by a jury to be at least a contributor, abeit maybe a very minor one, to an accident.

That should probably read:
"In the USA today it is not a stretch at all..."

It's a fake issue.

Bart
Europe

Jeff Nielsen - 2005/10/15 16:39:27 UTC

The family was from NorthWest USA. I hadn't heard that they came in but don't really know.

If you read my earlier post, I did frame out what an answer might be including that "there may be no answers right now." While that may not be satisfactory, it's still the best answer at that time.

I know for a fact that when past other accidents have happen at Hang Glide Chicago, Arlans wife at that time made sure that the family was notified... a personal call if you will ... if nothing more, perhaps, to say "we care and we are looking into it, we will get back to you."

This may not be right in the sense of the law or even fairness (that we have to initiate the call), but maybe it's asking a lot for the family to figure out how to get answers when their child was killed. While it's easy for us to sit back and say, "it's not our job" and you are probably even right in saying so, maybe it's an area that we (all pilots) need to think about when something like this happens.

http://www.ushpa.aero/aboutus.asp
USHPA - About the Association

Externally, USHPA will advance the positive awareness of hang gliding and paragliding among the non-flying public.

For instance, I know at least three people (independantly) on behalf of Arlan that called his family. This was no small task either. No one knew the family and most of those people worked on hunches ... but the family was eventually tracked down, informed and given information. Futhermore, the person who called was from one of the people that had looked at the wreckage and was close in. No such call was made to the other side because I assume now that it was concluded that those pilots close to Jeramiah would take care of it. And that makes sense, but realize that Jeramiah was a new pilot and perhaps most of the pilots around him were newbies. They would have no idea how to put this together. Maybe?

Information has been very limited. In fact, if you look at the initial post, many were saying, "don't talk about this, it's too early" ... or whatever.

Realize that for those of us who fly hang gliders, that saying this was a "lock out/wingover/stall" is about all you need to say and we get it.

How? This was an obvious stall and you're calling it a lockout? Tension, as usual is being referred to as PRESSURE. And nobody's getting bent out of shape by either of these issues.

I am sure this is not the case on Jerimiah's side.

If you're determined the fuck up the spelling of his name could you at least do it consistently?

Davis, you also need to give yourself credit on how much you know how to get information, especially info related to hang gliding, et al.

If he doesn't get solid, timely, detailed, accurate information how's he gonna be able to use his "newsletter", forum, influence to squelch, distort, obfuscate, misrepresent it? He's been at an around all this plenty long enough to understand what's what and who's who. Name somebody else with a track record anywhere close to his.

My 80 year old parents while still sharp don't even know how to turn a computer on! Ok, they do...

How are they at hacking into locked down discussion groups?

...but most of our parents can barely do email. It's asking a lot to say, "well, information was available, just turn on your computer, find the oz forum, and figure it out for yourself. If you think asking them to find information is reasonable, I am ok with that ... I just happened to think differently.

Again, looking back, you will see that Jeff Shipiro was on here looking for that information (go back and read his note) He is a savy guy and he didn't really have a handle on all of this either. He told us that he WAS that connection ... "a family close to his heart" (or something to that effect.) Should Jeff have done more? No, one of us should have stepped up to the plate and called Jeff S. I just didn't figure that out until way late (post suit). And that's ME not "us" or "you ... although any pilot "in the know" could have done it.

Like I said, there were at least three others that felt the need to connect with the family ... but it went no further than Arlan's family. In my opinion, just connecting with that family might have been enough even if we had no answer or very limited ones. It says that we care and that as further information comes in, either we can contact you again or you can contact us.

Flyhg - 2005/10/15 16:39:45 UTC

Bart Doets - 2005/10/15 16:29:22 UTC

That should probably read:
"In the USA today it is not a stretch at all..."

You're right - my mistake.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22540
LMFP release dysfunction

Jim Gaar - 2011/07/14 15:40:13 UTC

In a litigious society like the U.S. it's all part of the game. If you don't like it, you just take your ball and go home...

This is the reality of the sport we love. "Always the student". Learn how to use it or don't. You just missed out on what every American pilot already knows from birth.

We assume risk every day. Sometimes with a LMFP release. Hope you get your issues ironed out. The classified section is ready if you don't.

Steven Leiler - 2011/07/14 17:05:44 UTC

From here I have an image of France, that the people want the government and corporations to take care of them so they don't have to do it themselves

Diev Hart - 2011/07/14 17:19:12 UTC

I have had issues with them releasing under load. So I don't try to release it under a lot of load now.

Davis Straub - 2005/10/16 04:18:40 UTC

I guess I still don't know what an adequate "answer" is. I was hoping for an "answer" to that question, that would like in three sentences in one paragraph.

It seems like the "answer' was, as indicated, no answer,yet, which still seems like a reasonable "answer."

So is the problem that Arlan was no longer married? Is this a domestic issue? Or that people didn't know how to contact the family?

I think we all agree that a lawsuit doesn't "make the medicine go down."

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1041
"Sharing" of Hang Gliding Information ?!?

Merlin - 2012/05/26 14:22:30 UTC

I confess to previously having a bit of an Oz Report habit, but the forced login thing has turned me off permanently, and I am in fact grateful. Frankly, the site had pretty much been reduced to a few dedicated sycophants in any case.

And that it doesn't make any sense given the particulars. And it sure doesn't seem like any one did anything wrong.

EVERYONE who hasn't stood up against all of this Hewett / aerotow industry / Davis Dead-On Straub Infallible Weak Link bullshit lunacy has done something wrong.

So its unclear if there is a problem that needs to be fixed, or just a simple misunderstanding, the kind that can easily happen.

Go fuck yourself.

David Williamson - 2005/10/16 12:38:21 UTC

Firstly, I was just flying, doing aerobatics. I'd done several stall turns before and always flipped right way up. I didn't know any better, in the early days, and just treated flying a hanglider...

A what?

...as you would a three-axis aircraft.

Secondly, 300 feet doesn't sound like much when you think that it's only ten wingspans between you and the ground.

Jeff Nielsen - 2005/10/16 17:14:06 UTC

Davis Straub - 2005/10/16 04:18:40 UTC

I guess I still don't know what an adequate "answer" is. I was hoping for an "answer" to that question, that would like in three sentences in one paragraph.

Man, no kidding. I have been so long winded on these replies, my wife is starting to look at me funny.

And stunningly short winded on the shit that actually matters.

It seems like the "answer' was, as indicated, no answer,yet, which still seems like a reasonable "answer."

So is the problem that Arlan was no longer married? Is this a domestic issue? Or that people didn't know how to contact the family?

Several unique things with this one. The main thing is that the entire organization was represented by a single individual and that person died.

How 'bout the USHGA operatives who'd certified Arlan?

Next, there was a student death, also a single guy and no one can really speak for him either ... and the people that are around him are either students or other people who don't understand the mechanics of what we do.

Anybody who understands the mechanics of what "we" do knows they're total crap - they're what killed Mike Haas and Arlan and his last victim.

His family was not local.

I am sure Arlan's family didn't need a huge answer, perhaps only to hear that it was a accident ... of any kind.

Bullshit.

Arlan had been through some tough accidents before, survived, and his family knew what the score was.

Let's hear about them - and the lessons learned.

Then there's Jerimiah in a student roll, new to hanggliding. While the family was into higher risk activities, they probably needed a LOT of help to get through this one. One might even have to start with "we tow hanggliders because ..."

...it's the only way to get them up in the flatlands. And we do it using a critically frayed rope to make it safer. A critically frayed rope is the only chance anyone has of getting off tow in an emergency - like a lockout or dangerously high pitch attitude.

Perhaps long explainations of what a lock is...

Something you use on a door to make sure nobody who doesn't have a key can get in.

...and why they happen ...

How 'bout we start with somebody who understands the difference between a lockOUT and a stall?

...a stall and why no recovery...

Not following you here. Stalls are nothing to be feared in hang gliding - lotsa fun after you've practiced them a bit.

...that the equipment was ok...

'Cept, of course, for the reflex bridle adjustment.

...that a weaklink failure is normal and built in...

Like the round in the cylinder in a game of Russian roulette. The game would be pretty stupid and pointless otherwise.

...how can it happen to a student backed up by an excellent instructor/pilot.

It CAN'T actually - ASSHOLE.

I think we all agree that a lawsuit doesn't "make the medicine go down."

Maybe a few botched lethal injection executions. Oklahoma needs the practice anyway.

And that it doesn't make any sense given the particulars. And it sure doesn't seem like any one did anything wrong.

Agreed.

So its unclear if there is a problem that needs to be fixed, or just a simple misunderstanding, the kind that can easily happen.

Yeah, maybe a little of both in this case.

I am thinking that us locals missed this one. I know there were many locals that would have called Jerimiahs family, including myself. I should have contacted the chief investigator, gather what is known and what is speculated ... then called Jerimiah's family. And suits be damned, it just the right thing to do.

So's knowing what the fuck you're doing and talking about - so's shit like this doesn't happen in the first place.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Davis Straub - 2005/10/18 02:20:07 UTC

http://ozreport.com/9.212
The lawsuit against Hang Glide Chicago

http://ozreport.com/9.212
The lawsuit against Hang Glide Chicago

Davis Straub - 2005/10/18 UTC

And Northwing

NORTH SPACE WING. Two words. Try getting something right for something new and different.

Check it out here:

https://63.251.13.149/cookcounty/Finddock.asp?DocketKey=CAAF0L0ABAIJB0LD

Can't. It's dead.

The family of the student that died with Arlan has filed a lawsuit against Arlan's estate and against Kamron Blevins Northwing, apparently the manufacturer of the tandem glider than Arlan and Jeremiah were flying.

Good. Those motherfuckers should be stood up against a wall too. They sell zillions of those tandem boats damn near a hundred percent of which are tow launched - overwhelmingly aero and overwhelmingly for bucket lister thrill rides. They know they're being fitted with total shit Quallaby releases and bent pin backups with dangerous illegal bullshit weak links - and refuse to specify what "an appropriate weak link" is.

Fuck 'em. Sue them out of existence. Send a message. Get people's attention.

I have found out that Jeremiah's sister, Lili, is the one filing the lawsuit and is a lawyer along with her husband, Sam. They work for Stoel Rives out in Oregon.

And they weren't there at Cushing Field the next day either?

We have heard that the family has filed the lawsuit in order to get an answer as to why Jeremiah died.

A tower of stupidity, incompetence, negligence, corruption, and evil that defies description.

Discussion about this issue here:

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Totally moronic and extremely interesting.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Davis Straub - 2005/10/18 16:43:17 UTC

Peter Birren writes in the Yahoo Tow Group:

Which you can only read if Peter permits you to.

Heard last night the FAA cleared the tug and tug pilot of having done anything wrong (other than being a bit overweight).

- He was overweight AND managed to stay way the fuck above the glider the whole time? Well done, Gary.

- And well done...

http://ozreport.com/10.135
Hang Glide Chicago suspends operations

Davis Straub - 2006/07/01 21:42:08 UTC

The USHPA brings the hammer down on a flight park that wasn't playing by the rules and was jeopardizing our FAA tandem and towing exemptions.

Under its previous owner, Arlan Birkett, Hang Glide Chicago had three fatal accidents over the last two years, including Arlan and his student's death while being towed up tandem behind an inexperienced and unrated tug pilot.

...once again, FAA. Same sleazy motherfuckers we've got running USHGA.

Davis Straub - 2005/10/19 23:58:11 UTC

From: Jayne DePanfilis
To: 'Davis Straub'
Sent: 2005/10/19 16:42
Subject: Will you consider removing Lili's email address?

The family has received a deluge of harmful emails, some of them very accusatory, calling the family money grubbers etc. I think it would be best to apologize and remove the email addresses. I know this isn't what you intended to have happen but some members of our flying community are making things much worse for this family that just suffered a terrible loss. Jayne

You mean they wrote the "family" expressing EXACTLY the same sentiments Davis has been expressing all over his rag? But, of course, that's certainly not the sort of thing Davis intended.

Speaks very highly of the sorts of individuals who compose our wonderful free flight community, don't it Jayne?

Martin Henry - 2005/10/20 02:51:52 UTC

Very good to hear that the tug pilot was cleared by the FAA people.

That was a HUGE relief to me too, Martin. The more we can clear Hang Glide Chicago people of any responsibility for this one the better our chances are of dumping everything on Jeremiah and defusing the lawsuit.

Very sad to hear that somebody...

Somebody? Sounds to me like there was a deluge of somebodies.

...out there would be so insensitive that they would send a harmful Email to someone who has suffered a loss.

'Specially when they can just post vile nasty crap about them on a public forum.

I was surprised to see the Email link in the OZ report.

Why? Davis very openly and repeatedly expressed his contempt for the "family" and knew that fellow sociopaths were on the same wavelength. Why WOULDN'T he post the link to help make the world a bit more miserable?

I felt almost obligated to send a note but thought better of it, and did not.

Good.

There is only one way to convey an understanding of this sort of tragedy, and that is face to face.

Bullshit.

I'm sure others, far closer to this accident then myself, have taken the time to meet with the family.

The people closest to this "accident" at Sheridan, Illinois were people thirteen hundred miles to the ESE of the family in Missoula. I'm sure they're about the last people who would've taken the time to meet with the family.

I wish the family well but I feel their legal challenge will not fill the void caused by their loss.

Who said they're trying to fill the void? When a family has a kid murdered for no reason whatsoever how do they typically feel regarding the perpetrators and how do they typically want them dealt with?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Davis Straub - 2005/10/20 03:25:05 UTC

I asked people to send in answers (some have been asking for the family's address here), and some answers can be found here.

And thanks to all these answers and all this discussion the sport of hang gliding will once again move a few steps forward in its better brighter tomorrow evolution. How lucky we are to have you and this wonderful resource you've created, Davis.

Brian McMahon - 2005/10/20 14:19:43 UTC

I'm not too surprised about the "money grubbing" accusations being sent considering some of the more inflammatory members of the community.

How do actions like those NOT merit ratings revocations and expulsion from USHGA?

I don't mean on this forum...

Course not. All the people on The Davis Show - 'cept, of course, Davis who's doing EXACTLY the same thing - are the best folk one could possibly hope to ever meet.

...mainly on places like the Yahoo HG forum where anything goes. Some of those yahoo's probably got wind of the email link and started in with their H8-Mail. Email should only have been sent if the sender had anything useful to say about the accident.

Exactly. Just like on all the regular hang gliding discussion groups.

I agree that the lawsuit is a waste of time and probably counter productive to what they are apparently trying to accomplish (getting info).

Exactly like the nothing they were doing for the first month.

Mike Glasgow - 2005/10/22 05:39:16 UTC

From reading everything here, and re-reading vanman's account, I think probably what happened with Arlan and Jerimiah was they were low behind the tug, and probably on the verge of a lockout when the weak link broke.

Yeah Mike. Why would ANY weak link break...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?

Jim Rooney - 2011/09/02 19:41:27 UTC

Yes, go read that incident report.
Please note that the weaklink *saved* her ass. She still piled into the earth despite the weaklink helping her... for the same reason it had to help... lack of towing ability. She sat on the cart, like so many people insist on doing, and took to the air at Mach 5.
That never goes well.
Yet people insist on doing it.

Your tandem incident was some guy trying to drag himself out of a low lockout instead of accepting the fact that he was too far out of position and hitting the damn release, pulling the nose in and flying away.

...unless the glider were on the verge of a lockout? We all know that...

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/26 02:44:10 UTC

The "purpose" of a weaklink is to increase the safety of the towing operation. PERIOD.

...the "purpose" of the weak link is to increase the safety of the towing operation - PERIOD. And if weak links broke on the verge of STALLS...

Donnell Hewett - 1980/12

Now I've heard the argument that "Weak links always break at the worst possible time, when the glider is climbing hard in a near stall situation."

...as some delusional glider jockeys like to argue, they wouldn't increase the safety of the towing operation - probably do just the opposite. And therefore they wouldn't be weak links. A piece of fishing line can only be a weak link if it meets our expectations of what a weak link should do.

When the weak link broke the glider was almost instantaneously stalled...

Almost?

...and probably went into a hard turn at almost 90 degrees of bank.

Probably?

They may have fallen into the rear wire and gotten caught on it.

Who the fuck cares?

At 400 to 500 feet...

Or half that, if you wanna go with what the fuckin' report says. I'm seeing some major altitude creep here. First it was 250, then 300, now 400 to 500. Do I hear 600? 600 anybody? Going for 500 once, twice... 500 it is then. Next item - standard aerotow weak link strength. Bidding starts at 260...

...they probably did not have time to clear from the wire, which is what would have needed to happen to put the glider in stall recovery mode. There probably was not enough time for the parachute to deploy. A rocket might have had time, but I wouldn't want to bet a large sum of money that a rocket would have helped.

How 'bout a heavier piece of fishing line - asshole?

I have had a couple of low releases. The last one, I did not have my mind on flying, and had let the glider start to bank to the left when I released. I did not have a high angle of attack, and still the mild turn went very unmild and very steep very fast, and the glider started a dive very fast.

Wills Wing / Blue Sky / Steve Wendt / Ryan Voight Productions - 2007/03

NEVER CUT THE POWER...



Reduce Gradually
Increase Gradually

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links

Jim Rooney - 2007/08/01 19:49:30 UTC

It's more of this crappy argument that being on tow is somehow safer than being off tow.

Had I not gotten my mind back on flying very fast, I would have done a lot more than broken the down tubes on my glider. Arlan and Jerimiah both probably had their entire focus upon flying...

What's your best guess as to what Gary had HIS mind on?

...but from my limited experience towing, when the tow is disrupted, and the glider is not somewhere close to optimum position, things can get very nasty very fast.

Fuck you and...

http://www.wallaby.com/aerotow_primer.php
Aerotow Primer for Experienced Pilots

The Wallaby Ranch Aerotowing Primer for Experienced Pilots - 2014/08/08

Welcome to Wallaby Ranch, the first and largest Aerotow Hang Gliding Flight Park in the World! We're the aerotowing (or "AT") professionals; no-one knows AT like we do; it's all we do, and we do it everyday, year-round. This primer will teach you the basics of AT theory and technique. Our instructors have fine-tuned this system over the course of many years, while teaching thousands of people how to aerotow hang gliders. Careful study of this material will make your transition to AT faster, easier, less expensive, and safer. When done properly, AT is your gateway to longer, higher, hassle-free flights, and more airtime with less effort than ever before.

Equipment

A weak link connects the V-pull to the release, providing a safe limit on the tow force. If you fail to maintain the correct tow position (centered, with the wheels of the tug on the horizon), the weak link will break before you can get into too much trouble.

Flying Under Tow

The three most common mistakes for pilots new to aerotowing are:

1. The pilot comes off the cart and rises too quickly above the tug, breaking the weak link.

2. The pilot fails to anticipate the tug's quick climb-out after launch, gets low, and then doesn't push out far enough to climb up. Remember: it is almost impossible to stall under aerotow. The induced thrust vector makes the glider trim at a higher attitude. It is OK to push way out; you will climb, not stall.

3. Over-controlling and over-correcting. Make only small, relaxed, conservative movements and corrections. Should you find yourself low behind the tug, you may need to actually push out on the control bar forcefully, resulting in a "past normal" bar position, that in non-towing situations would lead to a stall. However, because of the "pull" of the tow line, this action will result in a CLIMB, and not a stall. Stay with the tug using pitch input. If you are low, PUSH OUT!

...your limited experience towing.

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/25 04:55:25 UTC

Ditto dude.

It always amazes to hear know it all pilots arguing with the professional pilots.
I mean seriously, this is our job.
We do more tows in a day than they do in a month (year for most).

We *might* have an idea of how this stuff works.
They *might* do well to listen.

It always amazes to hear know-it-all pilots arguing with the professional pilots. I mean, seriously, that's their job. They do more tows in a day than know-it-all pilots do in a month (year for most). They *might* have an idea of how this stuff works. The know-it-all pilots *might* do well to listen.

And if you can't listen to the professional pilot closest to the situation 'cause he's splattered all over the runway just find another one like him.

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/31 09:25:57 UTC

Oh how many times I have to hear this stuff.
I've had these exact same arguments for years and years and years.
Nothing about them changes except the new faces spouting them.

It's the same as arguing with the rookie suffering from intermediate syndrome.
They've already made up their mind and only hear that which supports their opinion.

Only later, when we're visiting them in the hospital can they begin to hear what we've told them all along.

Nobody's talking about 130lb weaklinks? (oh please)
Many reasons.
Couple of 'em for ya... they're manufactured, cheap and identifiable.

See, you don't get to hook up to my plane with whatever you please. Not only am I on the other end of that rope... and you have zero say in my safety margins... I have no desire what so ever to have a pilot smashing himself into the earth on my watch. So yeah, if you show up with some non-standard gear, I won't be towing you. Love it or leave it. I don't care.

So please, find me something... that you didn't make... that I can go out and buy from a store... that's rated and quality controlled... that fits your desire for a "non one size fits all" model, and *maybe* we can talk.
But you see... I'm the guy you've got to convince.
(or whoever your tug pilot may be... but we all tend to have a similar opinion about this)

You've not heard about strong-link incidents.
Uh, yeah... cuz we don't let you use them.

"light" weaklink issues?
"I had to land"... boo hoo.
Oh, I thought of an other one... I smashed into the earth after my weaklink let go cuz I fly as badly as I tow, and I'm only still here cuz my weaklink didn't let me pile in harder.

Your anecdotal opinion is supposed to sway me?
You forget, every tow flight you take requires a tug pilot... we see EVERY tow.
We know who the rockstars are and who the muppets are.
Do you have any idea how few of us there are?
You think we don't talk?
I'll take our opinion over yours any day of the week.

They all tend to have similar opinions about this stuff.

Arlan was a good tandem pilot, and very conservative doing tandems.

Hell...

13302
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7395/13626862385_ae79ba296a_o.png


ALL these guys are. If you're a tandem pilot you can hardly help but get really good and conservative.

I know, as he signed me off on my aerotow skill.

Yeah, I'll bet he did a totally EXCELLENT job of teaching you what he taught you.

I have been participating in various airsports for nearly 30 years, and I have seen other friends get too far "behind the power curve" or "on the backside of the curve" as one of the other guys has commented, and I really dislike losing friends.

Should've avoided hang gliding like the plague then.

From what I knew of Arlan over the last three years of flying at HGC, I am very suprised, shocked and saddened that this happened, for all of us.

- Yeah, that's 'cause you did such an excellent job of learning what he taught you.
- You're very surprised, shocked, and saddened that this happened? The Mike Haas fatality the previous season didn't set off any alarm bells?

This is my theory about what happened, but the only people who could tell us exactly what really happened are not with us anymore, and they will both be missed by a lot of people.

Fuck that.

Throw Jeremiah out of the equation 'cause he was just a tandem student.

Arlan got himself and his tandem student killed on a training flight in zilch evening sled conditions. People involved in operations which result in fatalities are almost by definition fuckups. If you want good understandings of what happened you don't talk to the surviving fuckups or run séances with the non surviving fuckups - you talk to people who DON'T fuck up.

When a Zack Marzec gets killed flying with the people who've been perfecting aerotowing for twenty years you don't talk to Zack Marzec, Mark Frutiger, Paul and Lauren Tjaden, Steve Kroop, Bo Hagewood, Russell Brown, Davis Dead-On Straub, Bobby Fucking-Genius Bailey. You talk to people with six hundred pound weak links on their tugs and five hundred pound weak links on their solo gliders.

I do not intend to quit aerotowing...

Neither did Mike Haas, Jeremiah Thompson, or Arlan Birkett.

...but I will probably be even more attentive in the future.

Great. I'm sure you'll do MUCH better than the three Hang Glide Chicago victims I just mentioned 'cause you're gonna be more attentive than they were.

Take offs and landings are the two most critical parts of any flight, regardless of the aircraft category.

Regardless of the aircraft category what's about the worst thing that can happen to an attentive pilot on takeoff?



At what points did things REALLY start going south for the three people I just mentioned?

When towing, until you release from the tow rope, and have the glider stabilized after the release, you are in the middle of your take off, and should always remember you are in the middle of your take off.

Can you think of any ways a glider can come off tow, the tow can be disrupted, other than upon the decision of the glider pilot and with his action?

This may be very obvious to most, as I don't remember anyone reminding us of this fact, but I felt it was worth mentioning.

Speaking of very fucking OBVIOUS...

Mike

Keep flying the aircraft until all the parts stop moving and all the fires are out (I fly balloons also) and until the aircraft is parked, tied down and/or completely packed up, and the fuel is turned off.
Smooth Air, Long Flights, and Soft Landings,
GliderMike, aka Mike Glasgow

Smooth air isn't very conducive to long flights in the flatlands (or interesting flights in the mountains) and, sorry, hang gliders DON'T DO soft landings - they're much too concerned with perfecting flare timing.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Davis Straub - 2005/10/22 21:54:49 UTC

Towing Committee - 2005/10

2- Factors that may be contributing to AT tandem accidents and possible procedure adjustments

Review of aerotowing procedures, AT accident data and discussion with top AT Tandem pilots suggests that there needs to be increased awareness of the importance of positioning under tow and the potential hazard of pushing out under tow. Situations can develop where a hang glider can stall under aerotow. Stalls that occur on tow are aggravated and result in a much greater altitude loss than previously believed. Various tandem aerotow operators have reported that they have experienced a stall while being towed and confirmed that the stall was quite abrupt and the recovery altitude was considerable. There are several possible situations that can lead to an online stall, including but not limited to: flying too far to the inside of a turn, crossing a shear at a different moment than the tug, flying into the tug propwash, inadequate tow speed (possible with a light tug and a heavy tandem). Pushing out in one of the above situations (or combination of situations) could cause the onset of a stall. Tandem pilots need to be cautioned regarding the dangers of pushing out on tow as well as the significant altitude required to recover from an on line stall.

Dave Glover has conducted an online discussion on this topic. Based on his, and this committee's findings this committee proposes the following statement to be added to tandem and aerotow study, test, and administrator/supervisor packages:

Experience in tandem hang glider flight using aero-tow launch, along with analysis of accidents and incidents that have occurred during such flight, strongly suggest that for safety reasons, the following cautions be observed.

If the tandem finds themselves too low behind the tug the tandem pilot must pull in and release rather than push out. Just because you have pushed out on tow without incident, in the past, does not mean that there is not extreme underlying danger. If the tandem glider becomes disconnected from the towline with a nose high attitude, while pushing out, a very abrupt stall (super stall) will result and MUCH more altitude than one would expect will be required for recovery (up to 1000' or more); in the most extreme cases may result in a structural failure.

Tug pilots towing tandems require extra awareness particularly early in the tow in order to help the tandem pilot avoid critical situations from developing. Prior to initiating a tow, assessment of the appropriate tow speeds based on total weight of the tandem glider, instructor and student should be made; more total weight will require increased tow speeds. A glider CAN stall on tow; towing a little faster is better than a little too slow to help prevent the glider from stalling. The tug pilot should fly the appropriate airspeed to maintain the tandem glider in the proper position and avoid pulling up abruptly leaving the tandem glider low.

Pending BoD approval this statement to given to Safety in training Committee for dissemination to AT and ATP pilots

Respectfully submitted Steve Kroop, Towing Committee

Towing Committee - 2005/10

Which consists of WHOM? Put your names on it, motherfuckers.

2- Factors that may be contributing to AT tandem accidents and possible procedure adjustments

Now start bending over backwards not to mention standard aerotow weak links and FAA and USHGA regulations and SOPs.

Review of aerotowing procedures, AT accident data and discussion with top AT Tandem pilots...

Why? You pieces of shit have never done anything like this before. Is it because this time the "family" filed a lawsuit?

...suggests that there needs to be increased awareness of the importance of positioning under tow...

And make sure you don't say anything about DELIBERATELY positioning the glider low...

Jeff Nielsen - 2005/10/14 18:32:10 UTC

That I understand, this glider was NOT low. It was SOP to tow lower using that Kolb tug. They always thought that it allowed the tug to climb better. At best, one of those involved said, "it may have been a touch low but not anything significant."

Dr. Trisa Tilletti - 2011/07

Higher EDUCATION
HOW TO GET THE USHPA AEROTOW RATING

It should be noted that the normal "sweet spot" tow position behind the high-powered tugs we fly here at Cloud 9 is lower than that for tugs with less power, due to our very high climb rate, climb angle, and deck angle. Thus, our normal tow position has the wheels of the tug above the horizon.

Commercial operations have adopted that lunacy as Standard Operating Procedure and if anybody in mainstream hang gliding is deliberately doing something it must be OK.

And now would probably be a good time to say that holding a glider straight behind a truck in a strong crosswind is OK 'cause that's how John Woiwode permanently demolished himself just two months minus four days before Arlan took himself and his student down.

...and the potential hazard of pushing out under tow.

Well, it's just a POTENTIAL hazard - not an ACTUAL hazard. You published in your magazine and Malcolm publishes on his website that it's perfectly safe - that, in fact, it's PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to STALL when you're pushed way out. That, in fact, it's actually SAFER than stuffing the bar. We know this because on 2013/02/02 Zack Marzec had a fatal whipstall, tailslide, tumble with the bar stuffed. If he'd had it pushed way out he'd have been fine. Counterintuitive but lotsa stuff in aviation is.

Situations can develop where a hang glider can stall under aerotow.

REALLY? That wasn't just my imagination when I went weightless for a second shortly after coming off the cart some years back. Thank GOD you told me this! Thought I was losing my mind!

Stalls that occur on tow are aggravated and result in a much greater altitude loss than previously believed.

By whom? Fiction writers like Dennis Pagen, Bill Bryden, Matt Taber, Malcolm Jones, Dave This-Is-What-We-Use Glover, Steve Quiet-Amusement Kroop, Steve Exceptionally-Knowledgeable Wendt, Ryan Instant-Hands-Free-Release Voight, Davis Dead-On Straub, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney, Paul and Lauren Tjaden?

So at what point did we start believing this? How many people reported three hundred foot stalls but weren't believed because we didn't previously believe gliders would stall three hundred feet worth?

Various tandem aerotow operators have reported that they have experienced a stall while being towed and confirmed that the stall was quite abrupt and the recovery altitude was considerable.

They reported this to the Towing Committee, right? So how come the members of the Towing Committee aren't the ones with the experience having these stalls and reporting them to everyone else? Is it because getting on the Towing Committee has a lot more to do with sucking dicks than it does with experience and competence in towing?

There are several possible situations that can lead to an online stall, including but not limited to: flying too far to the inside of a turn, crossing a shear at a different moment than the tug, flying into the tug propwash, inadequate tow speed (possible with a light tug and a heavy tandem).

But CERTAINLY NOT blowing a weak link. Blowing a weak link can NEVER result in a stall because it INcreases the safety of the towing operation. In fact that's another advantage to a weak link. It's most likely to blow when you're pushed out hard, which makes it impossible to stall, and when it blows it's also impossible to stall, you get an increase in the safety of the towing operation and a bit of inconvenience. Can't stall, can't stall, and nobody ever got scratched due to inconvenience - by definition. Win/Win/Win.

Pushing out in one of the above situations (or combination of situations)...

...(not involving a weak link break, for reasons given above, or a rope break because that's really just a non designated weak link break)...

...could cause the onset of a stall.

Well, if it's just the ONSET... Big fuckin' deal. I can handle the ONSET of a stall in my sleep.

Tandem pilots need to be cautioned regarding the dangers of pushing out on tow as well as the significant altitude required to recover from an on line stall.

But you solo guys... You're cool. Just keep on doing whatever the fuck your instructor's told you will make you safer.

Dave Glover has conducted an online discussion on this topic.

WHERE? Where's he hidden it so that we can't see it? Why didn't he conduct it on The Davis Show where all the action is happening?

Based on his, and this committee's findings this committee proposes the following statement to be added to tandem and aerotow study, test, and administrator/supervisor packages:

Thank you so much for interrupting your mutual masturbation exercises long enough to provide us this invaluable service.

Experience in tandem hang glider flight using aero-tow launch, along with analysis of accidents and incidents that have occurred during such flight, strongly suggest that for safety reasons, the following cautions be observed.

Wow! That sounds REALLY BRAINY! Is there someplace I can go to see everything translated into single syllable words so I can have some chance of understanding some of it?

If the tandem finds themselves too low behind the tug the tandem pilot must pull in and release rather than push out.

Pull in THEN release? I'm pretty sure...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?

Jim Rooney - 2011/09/02 19:41:27

Your tandem incident was some guy trying to drag himself out of a low lockout instead of accepting the fact that he was too far out of position and hitting the damn release, pulling the nose in and flying away.

...you have that backwards. But that's OK - there's just so much you can get right without a really keen intellect.

Just because you have pushed out on tow without incident, in the past, does not mean that there is not extreme underlying danger.

But if you've been flying with Davis Links your whole career...

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

Davis Straub - 2013/03/06 18:29:05 UTC

You know, after all this discussion I'm now convinced that it is a very good idea to treat the weaklink as a release, that that is exactly what we do when we have a weaklink on one side of a pro tow bridle. That is exactly what has happened to me in a number of situations and that the whole business about a weaklink only for the glider not breaking isn't really the case nor a good idea for hang gliding.

I'm happy to have a relatively weak weaklink, and have never had a serious problem with the Greenspot 130, just an inconvenience now and then.

...and have never had a serious problem with one, just an inconvenience now and then, don't worry when you see a tandem aerotow instructor fly into a thermal with one and end up splattered on the runway. You'll be fine. If there were any possibility that you wouldn't donchya think we'd be warning you about it in this advisory?

If the tandem glider becomes disconnected from the towline...

How? A tow ring failure? Maybe something falls off a passenger jet and cuts the glider's bridle?

...with a nose high attitude, while pushing out, a very abrupt stall (super stall) will result and MUCH more altitude than one would expect will be required for recovery (up to 1000' or more);

Why is this in the Jeremiah/Arlan thread? The tandem glider OBVIOUSLY...

Mike Van Kuiken - 2005/10/13 19:47:26 UTC

The weak link broke from the tow plane side. The tow line was found underneath the wreck, and attached to the glider by the weaklink. The glider basically fell on the tow line.

...DID NOT become disconnected from the towline. It stayed properly secured to the tandem glider from the moment it started rolling to and beyond the moment it stopped plummeting. Any chance we can get back on topic now?

...in the most extreme cases may result in a structural failure.

So we've been having these extreme thousand plus foot plummets and in flight structural failures on tandems and to date nobody who isn't on the Towing Committee knows about them. How very odd. Maybe you could give us some names, sites, dates, conditions, glider models, tugs, flying weights, harness configurations, parachute deployment info, descriptions of structural failures, survival rates...

Suck my dick, guys. Not ALL of us are stupid enough to swallow any and everything you feel like pulling out of your asses.

Tug pilots towing tandems...

Or anything else are virtually all TOTAL DREGS. So whatever you're about to say try to make it REAL SIMPLE and don't expect anyone to do anything he's not doing already.

...require extra awareness particularly early in the tow in order to help the tandem pilot avoid critical situations from developing.

And, again, fuck the solo guys. We're not making any money on people established in hang gliding - mostly just the thrill riders. And we're gonna get in the most trouble killing those - along with our certified ride operators who are bringing in the revenue and fairly difficult to replace.

Plus killing a certified ride operator is about a thousand times more problematic from the public relations angle than killing a Mike Haas.

- When you kill a Mike Haas it's because he was a rusty bozo who couldn't control a glider which was really too much for him at the time, flew in thermal conditions, didn't use a fin, made no attempt to release before his Davis Link had to increase the safety of the towing operation and fatally inconvenience him.

- When you kill an Arlan Birkett (and some tandem student of his) it's as a result of all these factors that were never before properly understood by the best and brightest in hang gliding and you hafta put out advisories to make sure that everyone understands that it IS possible for a tandem glider to stall on tow and there ARE occasional downsides to tandem gliders becoming disconnected from the towline.

Prior to initiating a tow, assessment of the appropriate tow speeds based on total weight of the tandem glider, instructor and student should be made; more total weight will require increased tow speeds.

Bullshit. All tugs fly faster than the gliders they're pulling like to go. If they don't have sufficient power they don't FLY slower - they CLIMB slower.

A glider CAN stall on tow;

Oh really. And people who have aerotow ratings from solo through tandem instructor and tug pilot need to be TOLD this. So what's that say about the overall competence of this sport? Hey General Aviation dudes... Make sure you've got gas in the tank BEFORE takeoff.

...towing a little faster is better than a little too slow to help prevent the glider from stalling.

No shit. More speed - less likely to stall. Less speed - more likely to stall. Never thought about that before. Thanks. Expect a little sumpin' extra in your stockings this Christmas.

The tug pilot should fly the appropriate airspeed to maintain the tandem glider in the proper position and avoid pulling up abruptly leaving the tandem glider low.

But what good does any of this do if the tandem glider becomes disconnected from the towline? How does this typically happen - 'specially in the cases which resulted in thousand foot plummets and the EXTREME cases resulting in structural failure?

Do you have any thoughts on preventing the tandem glider from becoming disconnected from the towline? Is it a problem with the bridles? Should we inspect them more carefully and replace them more often?

Pending BoD approval this statement to given to Safety in training Committee for dissemination to AT and ATP pilots

Are ya gonna proofread it a little more before this statement to given to Safety in training Committee for dissemination to AT and ATP pilots?

Respectfully submitted Steve Kroop, Towing Committee

Fuck you Steve Quiet-Amusement Kroop, Towing Committee. And save your respectful submission. Hell would freeze over before you'd be able to buy a molecule's worth of respect from Yours Truly.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Marc Harrison (Windmedic) - 2005/10/23 17:13:41 UTC

Weaklink break at low altitude while in tandem.

Hey ASSHOLE. Didn't you bother reading the advisory for the USHGA Towing Committee in the last post? We don't refer to a "WEAK LINK BREAK". The proper term is "DISCONNECT FROM THE TOWLINE". Get that much right and we JUST MIGHT get you to understand that the force transmitted through the towline as "PRESSURE".

Hi,

My name is Marc Harrison.

You might wanna consider spelling your first name with a "k". You DO NOT want to take a chance on being confused with Fink. Trust me on this one.

I'm a new H2 pilot and I learned everything I know about hang gliding at Quest in Florida.

Consider getting a lobotomy. Yes, there are several downsides, but you should be WAY better of in the long run.

My main instructor was Kevin Carter, closely followed by Bob Lane and Paris Williams.

Sorry, I don't recognize any of those names. Haven't seen them anywhere in this discussion.

Quest, as you may know, uses the over-under harness orientation for tandem instruction; student on the lower harness.

http://www.questairforce.com/aero.html

Quest Air

The strength of the weak link is crucial to a safe tow. It should be weak enough so that it will break before the pressure of the towline reaches a level that compromises the handling of the glider but strong enough so that it doesn't break every time you fly into a bit of rough air. A good rule of thumb for the optimum strength is one G, or in other words, equal to the total wing load of the glider. Most flight parks use 130 lb. braided Dacron line, so that one loop (which is the equivalent to two strands) is about 260 lb. strong - about the average wing load of a single pilot on a typical glider. For tandems, either two loops (four strands) of the same line or one loop of a stronger line is usually used to compensate for nearly twice the wing loading. When attaching the weak link to the bridle, position the knot so that it's hidden from the main tension in the link and excluded altogether from the equation.

IMPORTANT - It should never be assumed that the weak link will break in a lockout.
ALWAYS RELEASE THE TOWLINE before there is a problem.

Ok, the airport is laid out in a cross-type LZ with the long axis runway being North-South and a much shorter East-West runway which has powerlines running along HWY 33 just 50 yards west from the end of the runway.

On my 10th flight, Kevin and I had a weak-link break just as we crossed mid-field on an East heading.

Wow! That was exactly the same number of tandem training flights Jeremiah had had when he had a weak link break! (Real good thing too. Saved you from a lockout you'd have had almost no chance of surviving that early in the tow.)

I would guess our altitude was about 250'...

'Bout the same altitude too! What are the odds! Sounds like you and Jeremiah have/had a lot in common!

...with a light East wind. Immediately after the link broke, the glider pitched up slightly...

No it didn't. It felt like that because your angle of attack immediately popped way the fuck up but the glider immediately started pitching down.

...and Kevin had me pull in on the control bar to maintain...

Regain.

...the speed we had and make an immediate left turn back to the field. To me, everything made sense, and I was totally confortable with the whole situation.

Did it make sense to you that in glassy smooth air with everything normal, the glider in perfect position, a real hot comp pilot In Command that a device that's supposed to protect your glider from structural overload blew and dumped you into a mild stall? When you were taking driver's ed and cruising down a quiet country road at 35 miles an hour would it have made sense if the air bags had blown up in your face without having even run over a small stick?

I could see how a new pilot, not particularly abreast of normal flight basics would want to fight the instructions/imputs from the instructor.

Bullshit.

Mike Van Kuiken - 2005/10/13 19:47:26 UTC

I was told the student was on his 10th flight, and was to do 3 more that evening, then solo.

Pulling in for speed, pushing out to slow down are intuitive as hell. ALL training hill students get it right immediately starting Day One, Flight One.

The only students who fuck up are conventional aviation pilots who are wired to do the precise opposite on a yoke or stick. But they know how to fly and don't push the issue. They know what mistake they're making and why as they're making it.

I'm not an aeronautical enigneer...

Good thing. I think they require it to spell it properly before they let you into the program.

...but without knowing what the student/instructor cooperation was during the crash, how can we say that a tandem glider wouldn't recover after 1000'?

If the sail's shrunken and the reflex bridle hasn't, which was obviously the case in this one, the glider's divergent. Good luck with the parachute.

The glider was used never felt like it was out of control or bordering on stalling.

That's 'cause the glider was level with the tug, the tug wasn't trying to outclimb the glider, and Kevin and you weren't trying to mush the glider up into position.

We then continued around to make a crosswind landing heading North.

See? A mere inconvenience!

Kevin, from the very beginning, always stressed staying a little high of the tug during take off; to avoid prop-wash,

You mean like the opposite of what the assholes at Hang Glide Chicago were and the assholes at Cloud 9 are doing?

...pulling the tail of the tug down-leading to a possible stall...

Nobody's ever stalled a tug...

06-01602
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3826/11414264713_1fa67f5689_o.png


...by pulling its tail down. Total fucking rubbish, an excuse to put gliders up on insanely dangerous illegal weak links. The only thing that stalls tugs...



...is EXACTLY the same thing as the only thing that stalls gliders:

09-1116
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8203/29011379445_8956477e20_o.png


instant catastrophic loss of thrust. And if a tug ever got anywhere remotely close to being stalled by a glider...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7509/15659143120_a9aae8f7bd_o.jpg

...and/or putting slack in the towline-leading to a possible weaklink break when the line gets taught...all bad situations.

- Gets taught what?

- A weak link break a BAD thing? It increases the safety of the towing operation - PERIOD. You're just making more of this crappy argument that being on tow is somehow safer than being off tow. Get Lauren Eminently-Qualified-Tandem-Pilot Tjaden to straighten you out on this one. Absolutely fundamental to what we're doing.

He also stressed, that if you even think you're getting into one of these positions, it's best to pin off, land safely and re-launch-after you change your shorts.

And DO take advantage of your tandem training to learn how to do this properly. You'll have two hands available to fly the glider, a third hand to hold the bicycle brake lever to keep it from spinning around the downtube, and a fourth hand to squeeze the lever. This:


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


is the kind of problem you get into when you start flying solo. Doesn't get much better even after you've graduated to...

07-300

11-311

15-413


...pro tow.

He always asked me right after the wheels cleared the tree line, "Ok, if the link broke now what would you do?" After my tandem trainings were through and I prepaired to make my first solo, that was the thought of the day.

And don't start worrying your pretty little head about situations down the road when you're flying a REAL glider in REAL air and you get hit with some shit that's so violent that you can't afford to have one more thing go wrong. That hardly ever happens.

I feel terrible about all the recent deaths and accidents I've read about.

Keep reading about them - there'll be plenty more. Also read about the not so recent ones. Pay special attention to the shit that's not being said. And see just how well the crap you're being taut at that shit heap lines up with the realities of those situations.

I've contemplated not going on with flying- I'm a firefighter (dangerous) a husband (part-time dangerous) and a father of 2 boys (always cool)-but I've always wanted to do this since I was a kid.

I always wanted to do it as a kid too. Long before it actually existed. And when it did exist and I started doing it and getting pretty good I always wanted to aerotow before it existed in any practical form. But I didn't know hang glider aerotowing was gonna get hijacked by the kinds of shitheads and sleazebags you're dealing with at Quest and Jeremiah was dealing with at HGC. And those motherfuckers were the end of the dream for me.

To me, I know it's dangerous...

Hang glider aerotowing is only REALLY dangerous BY DESIGN.

...but it's always important to pre-flight your brain before you hook in to fly anywhere/anyhow.

Do that. Start by asking yourself why Kevin had himself and you and Arlan had himself and Jeremiah up on pieces of fishing line that dumped them off tow when none of the people involved in each operation wanted that to happen and there were, respectively, good and really really really good reasons for that NOT to happen.

If you can't come up with really solid sane answers to those questions then your brain totally flunks the preflight for towing and you shouldn't do it unless you feel like rolling a set of dice that can come up Jeremiah/Arlan at any time.

Just my $.02
Fly Safe

Marc Harrison - 83122 - H2 - 2004/12/30 - Robert Lane - AT FL FSL - Membership Expiration Date: 2015/01/31

Still on the rolls but it doesn't sound like you're racking up a lot of airtime. Oh well...

37-23223
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3713/9655904048_89cce6423a_o.png


Could be worse...

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[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=865
Tandem pilot and passenger death

Jeff Nielsen - 2005/10/23 22:42:18 UTC

Mike Glasgow - 2005/10/22 05:39:16 UTC

I think probably what happened with Arlan and Jeremiah was they were low behind the tug, and probably on the verge of a lockout when the weak link broke. When the weak link broke the glider was almost instantaneously stalled and probably went into a hard turn at almost 90 degrees of bank. They may have fallen into the rear wire and gotten caught on it.

It seems this is correct. Nothing has pointed to anything else that I have heard of. I was a REAL skeptic of this at first ... thinking, "no way does someone stall it in from 300+ feet."

- 250 feet is NOT 300+ feet.
- Please tell me how somebody can think a glider low and mushed but level and dead center behind a tug can be on the verge of a lockout.

The fact that that report said, "Apparently this recovery period is much longer than we had expected, perhaps as much as one thousand feet of altitude loss," makes me feel like they are surprised at how much altitude it can take to recover.

Makes me feel like they're pulling stuff out of their asses. Here's how it reads in the advisory they were forced to issue a timely four months minus a week following the bullshit draft:

http://www.ushpa.aero/advisory.asp?id=1
USHPA - Safety Advisory #1

USHGA - 2006/03/15
Safety Notice
HG Tandem Aerotow Operations

Should the tandem glider become unattached from the tug during this maneuver, the nose high attitude of the tandem glider attained while doing this will cause a very abrupt stall which will result in a much greater altitude loss than one would expect (possibly more than 750 ft.)

Notice how they dumbed it down by 25 percent?

Like many of you, I am sure, I have stalled hanggliders in all sorts of positions, but never on tow. These stalls (off tow) have never lost more than 200 feet, in fact 200 feet would be a LOT ... more like 50-75 feet.

Like I have said in previous post, at 200 feet, I always thought that bar a structural failure, I am pretty darn sure that I am flying the glider before I might hit ... apparently not.

Read these:

Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974

"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release." - Richard Johnson

Wills Wing / Blue Sky / Steve Wendt / Ryan Voight Productions - 2007/03

NEVER CUT THE POWER...



Reduce Gradually
Increase Gradually

A CONTROLLED DELIBERATE stall in FREE FLIGHT is NOT the same as the kind of stall you get when you're mushed to begin with and have two or three hundred pounds of thrust instantly subtracted. This guy:

37-23223
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TUMBLED the fuckin' glider TWICE from sixty percent of the altitude from which Arlan's glider started out. Flying on badly frayed tow ropes is DANGEROUS and SCARY. Why do you think even the douchebags at the FAA specify a MINIMUM strength? That rule ain't on the books 'cause they're worried about people being INCONVENIENCED. Can you name any other FAA regulations that protect planes from inconvenience?

This is a huge wake up call to all tandem pilots.

Yeah. Just like the three or four unhooked launches we hear about every year and the thirty of forty we don't. Hang gliding has more huge wakeup calls each year than all other flavors of aviation combined because nobody ever does anything POSITIVE in response to ANY of them.

I am still having a hard time accepting this information (that someone at 300 feet can stall in with no recovery) ...

Well hell, just don't then. It won't make the slightest bit of difference one way or the other. You've already pronounced that...

Jeff Nielsen - 2005/10/14 18:32:10 UTC

It should happen on the glider end, but if the tug's weaklink hadn't been changed in a while, it very well may be the one to break ... and that's ok.

...violating the crap out of USHGA SOPs, FAA regulations, common fucking sense protocols is perfectly OK - after having just seen those violations kill two people and hearing one of the three non criminal eyewitnesses state...

Mike Van Kuiken - 2005/10/12 16:47:25 UTC

Afterall, if the weaklink didn't break they still would have been flying.

...those violations as having been the cause of the fatal crash. Accept or reject whatever the fuck you feel like.

...but a lot of great pilots/thinkers have gone over this stuff and there is no other reasonable explaination.

Yeah, right. Really great pilots/thinkers coming out of hang glidings ass and not one of the has breathed a syllable about the pounds, material, description, condition, configuration, legality of the fishing line that sent the tandem glider into a fatal whipstall.

It's really the exacerbation of the stall caused by the tow rope that allows a glider to get into very unusual stall positions... what they are calling the "super stall." Once you understand this, then it starts to make sense how it could happen.

You're missing a minor...

Wills Wing / Blue Sky / Steve Wendt / Ryan Voight Productions - 2007/03

NEVER CUT THE POWER...

...component of this equation.

Bottom line: If you are on tow and getting low, never push out, only "let" out. If this doesn't fix the problem, release from tow. Never push out.

Also make sure you're never blasted up by a thermal 'cause then it may not matter what the fuck you do or don't.