Cold Spring hang-gliding crash claims Minnesotan - Daily Jefferson County Union: News
Are you sure about that? Have you got the right guy? There doesn't seem to be any trace of a Joseph Julik in the USHGA Member Directory.Cold Spring hang-gliding crash claims Minnesotan
Ryan Whisner, Union regional editor
2014/10/01 09:14 | Updated: 2014/10/02 08:48
COLD SPRING - A 57-year-old Minnesota man was killed in a hang-gliding accident in the Town of Cold Spring Monday.
Joseph Julik of Taylors Falls, Minn., reportedly was a 20-year veteran hang-glider who had participated in the sport across the country.
This is why it's IMPERATIVE that you rotate to upright, people. Get those legs between the ground and the stuff that really matters!Jefferson County Coroner Patrick Theder said Julik died at the scene from blunt force head trauma.
EXCELLENT school...According to Jefferson County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Jeff Parker, Julik had been in Whitewater with a friend since Friday and the pair had been hang gliding for the past several days from Gutzmer's Twin Oaks Airport along County Highway N in the Town of Cold Spring north of Whitewater.
The airport is home to the Whitewater Hang Gliding Club, Danny's Drag 'N Fly Aerotowing and the Wisconsin Hang Gliding School.
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Solid training by top notch instructors.
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State of the art equipment.
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Releases within easy reach.
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Highly experienced tow operators.
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Weak links that break before you can get into too much trouble.
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Controlled teaching/learning environment so that the student can progress at a comfortable rate and get instant feedback on issues needing improvement.
Flying, of course, in full compliance with FAA aerotowing regulations.From the airport, gliders are towed into the air by being connected to an ultralight aircraft called a Dragonfly, piloted by Danny Lange.
And, of course, the best!Lange, who has served as the full-time tug pilot for the past three years, said Julik and his friend visited Whitewater about two or three times a year, as it is one of the only hang-glider tow sites in the upper Midwest.
Yeah, tell me about it."If they are going to fly hang gliders in the Midwest, they've got to come here," he said.
Seeing as how he had no safe and reliable means of releasing himself?Julik recently had been to Colorado and regularly made plans to spend time flying out of the airport in Whitewater.
Chief Deputy Parker said that on Monday just before noon, Julik's hang glider was towed to about 2,000 feet and released.
So it was a total sled run. No thermal activity. Bummer."He spent about 10 minutes gliding...
What was involved in the process of landing? I thought I heard something about......and was in the process of landing," the chief said.
http://www.rmhpa.org/messageboard/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5545
"Jedi" Joe Julik - Gone But Never Forgotten
...a "transition". What's that all about? How's it work? What's it for?Tiffany Smith - 2014/09/30 15:28
Sunday night he made a deal to purchase a Topless glider.....he was landing his first flight on it Monday morning when he stalled after transition and couldn't recover....landed hard.
Wing.At about 100 feet, Julik's glider caught a wind...
Yeah, I've heard about those wing shears. Nasty business can cause your glider to pitch to one side - where normally it would ROLL to one side. Really disorienting....shear, which caused the glider to pitch to one side...
And then there's the nosedive it takes. Much worse than a taildive because you're coming down headfirst....and take a nosedive.
Yeah, that's the problem with nosedives. They often lead to the aircraft violently overturning, driving the pilot into the ground. That's why I always push out hard when I'm in a nosedive. Lessens the chances that my aircraft will be violently overturned and me be driven into the ground.That led to the aircraft violently overturning, driving the pilot into the ground.
God fuckin' damn RIGHT! If we could see that early afternoon air blasting up and sucking all those Turkey Vultures up with it we'd pack up our gliders, drive back home and THANK GOD that we weren't up there rolling dice that we weren't gonna get hit by one of those wing shears."One of our guys out here loves to say, 'if we could see the wind, we would probably never fly," Lange said.
Nah, Joe didn't have a PRAYER. None of us would have. Nuthin' you can do when you encounter wing shear at a hundred feet."In this particular case, it would have been nice to see that because it didn't matter what your skill level was, when you get into something that can toss you around like a leaf, it's pretty sad."
But he was already upside down before that point so what did it really matter?The chief said the left wingtip of the Julik's glider struck the end of another glider tethered to the ground in the crash.
One of those salad bowls on strings like Robin Strid was wearing? Damn! If only he'd had a better helmet or rotated upright before he got hit by the wing shear.Julik was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.
Why? Wasn't he pretty solidly and obviously dead at that point?Jefferson County deputies, Whitewater EMS, Fort Memorial Hospital paramedics and the Flight for Life helicopter from Milwaukee responded to the scene.
No shit.Parker said resuscitation attempts on the scene failed and Julik was pronounced dead at the scene by the Jefferson County Coroner's Office.
What? There's other ones we may not be able to recall very well?Julik's death marked the second fatal incident that could be recalled as having occurred at Twin Oaks in its more than two decades of operation.
Oh...The prior incident is believed to have occurred around 2009...
http://forum.hanggliding.org/download/file.php?id=11565
http://forum.hanggliding.org/download/file.php?id=11566
You kill one of your aerotow students and all you have is some vague recollection that it happened somewhere around 2009.
Yeah, that wing shear will get ya - coming down or......and involved a hang glider getting into a similar situation as Julik, only at the beginning of his flight as it was being towed.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17166
Accident at Whitewater 2009
...going up.Davis Straub - 2009/09/01 19:09:48 UTC
An eye witness reports:Conditions: 9am local time, 55°F., sunny and clear, with little or no wind.
Can you recall any non fatal wing shear incidents from that period?"In three years that I've been operating the tow plane, we've had more than 3,500 flights," Lange said.
Yeah, right.Prior to that, there has been aerotowing at Twin Oaks Airport for more than two decades.
"Not that two fatalities is something to be proud of, but it is still one of the safest sports that there is," Lange said.
Hang gliders don't COLLAPSE. They BREAK.He noted that glider pilots do wear parachutes when flying. However, Lange said, they are generally considered beneficial in only two circumstances, one being failed aerobatics and glider collapses...
Yeah, wing shear on landing and takeoff. Let's talk about parachutes. Ocean liner hits an iceberg, let's talk about shark repellent....because of extreme loads and the other being a mid-air collision.
See above."We have never had either one of those options occur here," Lange said.
With your hands on the downtubes at shoulder or ear height where you can't control the glider..."Occasionally something happens, the wind changes, switches, turns, rotates, and if you happen to be unfortunate enough to be right there ...," Lange said.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27086
Steve Pearson on landings
...and are highly likely to get turned downwind if you get hit by some shit.Steve Pearson - 2012/03/28 23:26:05 UTC
I can't control the glider in strong air with my hands at shoulder or ear height and I'd rather land on my belly with my hands on the basetube than get turned downwind.
Yeah, our takeoff and landing crash rates are similar to theirs."Even airlines run into severe turbulence sometimes.
Yeah, nuthin' really you can do about that either."Motorists come across slick spots on roadways," he continued.
Or play checkers with flat sackers like T** at K*** S****** but that's little - if any - better than sudden death anyway."You can probably stay safe in bed.
But why is that the slightest bit relevant here? There was OBVIOUSLY no carelessness, incapacity, or neglect. 20-year veteran hang glider who'd participated in the sport across the country. I thought you said that it doesn't matter what your skill level is when you get into something like that that can toss you around like a leaf. This guy sounded like one of the best of the best. Flying a topless glider, probably pro towing and using one of those two hundred pound weak links that many of us are happy with now. Undoubtedly been at an around all this plenty long enough to understand what's what and who's who.As far as aviation goes, there is a quote on many airport wall that states, 'Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.'"
An aptly named INVISIBLE dust devil. A dust devil without the dust. Those have been a real problem the past couple years. They NEVER seem to have any dust in them. We should probably start calling them air devils. (I know I will fer sure.)Lange said that in this case, it was the unseen, but aptly named, dust devil that was to blame.
So he went up to two grand and just sledded back down without hitting a single bump to extend the flight but at a hundred feet while still flying prone with both hands on the basetube he suffered air devil induced wing shear, pitched, took a nosedive, violently overturned, and got driven into the ground.
And there was no warning of this air devil that could be detected by the twenty year veteran who was doing everything right or anybody on the ground. The windsock was pointing normally, the tethered glider that he crashed into...
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...wasn't getting bounced around?
GREAT! A day of mourning, day of flying in celebration of Jedi Joe's life, and by Thursday we've gotten another bullshit air devil story out to the press. That's two days off of Paul Tjaden's time to put out his air devil report! Be honest with me now... Did you already have a generic air devil fatality report on the hard drive so's all you needed to do was fill in a name and tweak the details a bit?While other hang-gliders and Lange mourned Julik's death Monday, they were flying again by Tuesday.
FUCK NO! No faggots in hang gliding!"Having an incident like that doesn't change the overall nature of the sport," Lange said. "For everyone, it gives us some pause and we reflect on the reasons we do this and why we do it, but for us, that love flying, it is not going to make us stop."
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27396
Scooter tow faillure... or Never Land On Your Face
We engage in a sport that has risk and that is part of the attraction!Mitch Shipley - 2012/10/22 19:04:16 UTC
We engage in a sport that has risk and that is part of the attraction.
Keep it up, motherfucker. You keep getting away with outrageous bullshit fiction like this and every time you see if you can get away with even more outrageous bullshit fiction but there inevitably comes a point at which the Ponzi scheme collapses.
