You are NEVER hooked in.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33076
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1

NMERider - 2015/06/28 19:17:52 UTC

I think Jan should be commended on producing an excellent PSA video on NOT launching unhooked. Please pass this around.

http://vimeo.com/124963665

2015/06/28 23:21:08 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Brian Scharp
2015/06/28 23:46:15 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Mike Lake
2015/06/29 02:21:26 UTC - 3 thumbs up - mario
2015/06/29 20:14:19 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Bill Jennings

Steve Corbin - 2015/06/28 19:26:09 UTC
Crestline

Very well done, Jan. Thanks for making the movie.

So you're gonna start doing hook-in checks? Looking for others to do them? Insisting that others do them? Criticizing people you see in videos running off ramps without doing them.

Brad Barkley - 2015/06/28 19:29:01 UTC

Too bad the video also features a link to Tad's website...

1. It doesn't.
2. If it did then so the fuck what? Name somebody in this sport who's put one percent of the effort I've put into the hook-in check war.

...knowing how he cackles with delight every time a pilot is killed or injured...

1. Yeah, I'm just about all cackled out for the year and it ain't even half over yet.

2. OK pigfucker. You list all the "pilots" killed or injured since the beginning of, say, 2013 - or whatever you please - and match them to my cackles of delight. How 'bout we just do the latest? Slide Mountain Maverick. Quote me the cackle.

...(just one of his perversions).

Go ahead pigfucker. Categorize my perversions.

All that cackling and all those perversions you have to work with. Really amazing that there's any need to post anything negative about me anywhere. Fuckin' Dylann Roof of hang gliding.

NMERider - 2015/06/28 20:35:10 UTC

The link is NOT to Tad's website. It is to Tad's FTHI dissertation in pdf format hosted on Joe Faust's website.

Which was submitted to Nick Greece for publication in the magazine late last decade (2009/09/15). I'm still waiting for Joe Gregor to get back to me shortly and let me know if it's up to his standards.

A brief summary of the 2-second rule on performing a hook-in check within 2 seconds of launching is directly analogous to the 2-second rule on firearm handling. In other words assume that the firearm is ALWAYS loaded before handling and assume that you are NEVER hooked in unless you verify that the chamber is in fact empty and that you are in fact hooked in within 2 seconds of handling attempting to launch. I had one friend who parted his wife's hair with his 'unloaded' .45...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQB--IOILR0


And Bob - possibly the world's foremost expert on why hook-in checks are both dangerous and totally ineffective - put a bullet through a barracks wall from a handgun he'd shortly prior unloaded and cleared.

...and several who have launched unhooked plus several more who launched without leg loops and one who died early this year without his leg loops.

The assumption that you are never hooked and THEN performing a lift and tug (per Rob Kells--it's not Tad's method)...

May predate Rob as well. The first reference I've been able to find is in the 1977/10 edition of the magazine. But I've got a letter to the editor on the issue published in the 1992/09 issue. Rob has no public statement anywhere until the 2005/12 magazine - a couple US deaths later.

...as a safety system works--probably as well as anything will ever work.

It's the ONLY thing that works - for obvious reasons.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=31781
Another hang check lesson

Alan Deikman - 2014/09/23 19:47:06 UTC

A lot of people will find it gores their particular sacred Ox, but I have never seen anyone point out a flaw in his logic.

Logic is fuckin' bulletproof.

Yes, Tad has a first class potty mouth...

Nah. Upper third class at best. Ya want first class ya gotta do a Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. But they get bleeped.

...and rants on and on ad nauseum about many things...

Everybody needs a hobby. Mine used to be flying hang gliders.

...but when it comes to unhooked launch prevention there is no more effective system that I am aware of.

How 'bout the Kuczewski Gizmo and the Kellner Mirror? Or are you limiting the discussion to stuff that actually exists?

I suggest you read Tad's dissertation and get yourself and your friends into the habit of assuming that you are always unhooked and then perform a lift and tug with two seconds of starting your launch run every single time any of you attempts to fly.

I don't want that total piece o' shit or anyone who considers him anything north of an unfortunate acquaintance reading any of my stuff and/or incorporating it into flying procedures. Hang checks, easily reachable bent pin releases, Voight/Rooney Instant Hands Free Releases, Birrenators, tug pilots who can fix whatever's going on back there by giving them the rope, lotsa spot landing contests to perfect their flare timing.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33076
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1

Dontsink - 2015/06/28 20:47:08 UTC
Spain

I prefer to hook the harness and do a hang check.

Cool. I'd be the absolute last person to come between you and your preferences. All that I ask is that you make sure your wing camera's on before you start your launch run. Fuck, that's easy enough to remember, right? And it's not like your life is gonna depend on you being right all the time anyway, right?

"Lift and tug" in windy,thermally take offs is beyond my abilities.

It's beyond your abilities NOT to do a lift and tug - assuming you're hooked in anyway - which you always do anyway. EVERYBODY does a hook-in check a second or two after starting a launch run, a couple dozen maybe do supplemental hook-in checks a second or two before. Either way you're gonna get pretty unambiguous feedback. A couple seconds one way or another... Big fuckin' deal.

I have never seen anybody do it over here...

Fuck, it's almost impossible to find anybody doing it ANYWHERE. And if it actually worked...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4247
Hook in failure in New Zealand

Jim Rooney - 2006/09/24 21:19:29 UTC

A couple things to chew on here...

There isn't one sure-fire answer.
If there was, we'd all be doing it already.

...everybody would be doing it everywhere already. This is coming from Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney - one of the world's foremost experts on everything - 'specially unhooked launches. Two and a half months in the hospital gives one plenty of time to focus one's keen intellect on stuff that really matters.

i have my doubts there are many people who can lift and control their glider in anything but the most benign,stable conditions.

Me too. And ya got that turbulent jet stream up there to deal with. And who wants to fly in the most benign stable conditions anyway? What would be the point. And even if you DID wanna fly in the most benign stable conditions you wouldn't wanna do lift and tug 'cause that might become...

George Whitehill - 1981/05

If, just before committing to a launch, a second check is done every time and this is made a habit, this tragic mistake could be eliminated. Habit is the key word here. This practice must be subconscious on the part of the pilot. As we know, there are many things on the pilot's mind before launch. Especially in a competition or if conditions are radical the flyer may be thinking about so many other things that something as simple as remembering to hook in is forgotten. Relying on memory won't work as well as a deeply ingrained subconscious habit.

...a deeply ingrained subconscious habit. And just how long would it take something like THAT to have you lifting your wing into the turbulent jet stream at the precise moment you MOST need to keep the glider tightly mashed down on your shoulders? I shudder just thinking about the kinda havoc that would wreak.

Maybe moving to the nosewires would be more practical for me,and it is good to practice that move.It comes in very handy in an overblown landing or the wing getting askew before takeoff.

And whatever you do NEVER use wire crew in nasty conditions. It's in nasty conditions in which asymmetrical releases of sidewires are most likely to cause the most damage. Wire crew is most effectively and safely employed in the most benign stable conditions - ideally on shallow sloping sand dunes under twenty feet in height.

Idiot.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33076
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1

NMERider - 2015/06/28 20:59:16 UTC

I had all the same doubts and argued with Tad that it couldn't be done when I fly alone but it turned out to be far easier than I imagined once I started doing it.

The thought of anybody I give half a rat's ass about NOT doing it scares me shitless.

You can bend your knees as far as you like while the keel is still touching the ground which keeps the nose down.

ANYTHING you do within the two seconds prior to launch is gonna be pretty effective. The big killer is not being afraid of not being unhooked. If you make a habit of straightening the ring finger of your left hand two seconds prior to intent to launch that'll trigger the thought and the thought will trigger the fear and the fear will cause you to THINK. And if you THINK you're gonna REMEMBER that three minutes ago you unhooked to adjust your wing camera.

All you need is someone on a side wire to help keep your wings level when standing up and the glider flying against the tug of your leg loops.

1. Yeah, right. ASYMMETRICAL help on a sidewire. Why don't you just get it over with quickly and recommend low turns off of base and short finals for getting into tight fields?

2. WIRE ASSISTANCE? Dontsink is from Spain and nobody in Spain has ever seen or heard of anyone on a sidewire helping to keep wings level.

Just practice the technique in benign conditions and you will find ways to make it easier in more robust conditions.

Yeah. See above. You're gonna get this guy killed in short order.

It's really not that difficult. The moment you feel that distinct tug on your crotch then you know you are connected to your harness and your harness is connected to you glider.

Course you don't know HOW...



...it's connected to your glider but hopefully by this point you've checked two or three critical preflight issues.

At least one pilot fell free from his glider and died who relied on the method of hooking the harness to the glider before getting in to the harness.

THIS:

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

13-A14319
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8253/28924975726_0d24a615c2_o.png

39-B14607
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8126/28852425302_d70604f440_o.png


Aussie Methodist motherfucker sure got killed but good for the purpose of the exercise.

All of my fiends who launched without their leg loops did hang checks. Hang checks do not prevent pilots from separating from their glider and falling free. Only the hook-in check accomplishes this. It needs to be done near enough to launch that no distraction will intervene that leaves a pilot disconnected.

My memory's reasonably reliable backwards two seconds. Beyond that I have no clue what day it is.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33076
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1

Brad Barkley - 2015/06/28 21:27:16 UTC

I have read Tad's writings once.

Really? I read your writings all the time. Never tire of them.

I read his mentions of nearly every friend or instructor I have in HG, intimating how happy he will be to see them injured or killed.

Got my bases covered pretty well, huh? But if you'd be kind enough to give me a list of the ones I've missed I'll be more than happy to get that "nearly" issue taken care of.

And me as well.

'SPECIALLY YOU as well.

It goes far, far beyond "potty mouth."

Aw shucks... 'Taint nuthin'.

Every HG pilot I know (well, most) has a potty mouth. There is a reason Tad has been banned from every forum, including this one, and from pretty much every flying site in the country. He is a sick person and his "rants" are beyond grotesque.

There is a reason Tad has been banned from every forum...

EVERY forum? I got news for ya...

I've probably only ever registered on one or two percent of hang gliding forums with a critical mass of English speakers so it would be a pretty good trick for me to have been banned on EVERY forum. And on top of that I've got ZERO interest in directly engaging the kinds of low double digit IQ dregs who infest and control ALL mainstream glider forums.

Remember comparing me to Ted Kaczynski?
http://www.kitestrings.org/post6771.html#p6771
You're gonna have a hard time calling me stupid after that.

...including this one...

No shit. He's so banned from this one that 37.5 percent of the current participants in this thread are in violation of the Jack Show mission statement by just mentioning him. (Does Jack return your balls to you when you log out or does he retain them as a security deposit for the duration of the time you're registered?)

...and from pretty much every flying site in the country.

Really? What's your source on that information?

If I'm banned from pretty much every flying site in the country then you shouldn't have too much trouble getting a statement from ONE controller of ONE flying site confirming that I'm banned and stating ONE pretense of a justification. So do it. Quote something from somewhere or get something from some pigfucker within the next couple weeks.

He is a sick person and his "rants" are beyond grotesque.

Cool. So what is there beyond grotesque? I've crossed that threshold, I need to aspire to something greater now?

Lemme tell ya sumpin', motherfucker... I've FORGOTTEN more of the flying sites I've logged than you'll fly in a couple lifetimes. You are - and always will be - a scummy little NOTHING who will never do or say anything worth remembering a couple minutes after the fact. Keep pissing all over me and my work and see where it gets you.

And next time ya see the asshole who signed your Three DO remember to thank him for the two graduates of his excellent program who became major news stories and his invaluable contribution to the unhooked launch discussion.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1166
Thoughts on responsibility...

Scott Wilkinson - 2005/10/05 14:10:56 UTC

We visited Steve Wendt yesterday, who was visibly choked up over Bill's death. For Steve, it all comes down to one thing: you've got to hook in. Period.

Now where have we heard something like THAT subsequently? Oh yeah...

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

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

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

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=17404
Aerotow barrel release - straight or curved pin?

Jim Rooney - 2010/05/31 01:53:13 UTC

BTW, Steve Wendt is exceptionally knowledgeable. Hell, he's the one that signed off my instructor rating.

The Press - 2006/03/15

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is urgently pushing for new hang-gliding industry standards after learning a hang-gliding pilot who suffered serious injuries in a crash three weeks ago had not clipped himself on to the glider.

Extreme Air tandem gliding pilot James (Jim) Rooney safely clipped his passenger into the glider before departing from the Coronet Peak launch site, near Queenstown, CAA sports and recreation manager Rex Kenny said yesterday.

However, he took off without attaching himself.

In a video, he was seen to hold on to the glider for about fifty meters before hitting power lines.

Rooney and the passenger fell about fifteen meters to the ground.

Suck my dick, Brad. You and anyone who'll have anything to do with you.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33076
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1

Paul Hurless - 2015/06/28 21:36:17 UTC
Sparks, Nevada

Tad is a sociopath and his only positive contribution to hang gliding was leaving it.

Yeah, I'll certainly never have anything to compare to the aerotow release cocktail napkin sketch you never actually sketched on a cocktail napkin.

Lemme tell ya sumpin', asshole... I haven't clipped into a glider for the better part of seven years now but don't think for a nanosecond that I've left the sport. I control a REAL significant chunk of the sport's cyberturf and that has a REAL significant effect on the global conversation - like this topic for example.

The sport's rotting from the inside out - thanks in no small part to stupid cowardly scumbags like Brad and you - and the worse things get the more the few people on the planet capable of positive contributions are gonna concentrate here. That won't be enough but it'll be better than both nothing and worse than nothing.

Keep those fatalities rolling in, Nevada. Three in the space of a day under three months - including an eleven year old kid. That's GOTTA be some kind of per capita world speed record.

Fuck anybody in this sport who ISN'T a sociopath. If you get along with most of the people in it you're an accessory to child murder.

NMERider - 2015/06/28 21:47:08 UTC

The Lift and Tug hook-in check was developed or at least promoted by the late, Rob Kells.

Fuck Rob. I liked him and enjoyed his company, he was intelligent, accomplished, competent, personable, helped get a lot of good gliders into circulation but beyond that he really didn't do shit for the sport.

http://www.willswing.com/history/robs-page/
Rob's Page - Wills Wing

Rob was a friend to every pilot he met...

You can't be a friend to every "pilot" you meet and accomplish anything of any use. I've found out the hard way that you need to be prepared to make bitter lifetime enemies of over 99.9 percent of the people in this stinking sport to start making the slightest dent. I took one quick glance at a Bailey bent pin backup release and thought, "This is totally fucking moronic." It never occurred to me that anyone who flew gliders would be so stupid that I'd need to spend more three or four seconds explaining why. The reality is that I'm extraordinarily lucky to get through to one in a thousand on a concept my parrot figured out all by herself with no "trail" and error period.

Where do you get that Rob "DEVELOPED" this check? It's a fucking chimp level common sense thing that anybody who hasn't been brainwashed by idiot fucking hang check training - like I was on Day One - would figure out in milliseconds.

"At least" promoted it? Got that goddam right. Least promoted it as much as possible. Find me a single reference before or after the 2005/12 article. Even with that it's a stretch to say he "PROMOTED" it.

Each of us agrees that it is not a particular method...

Watered down friend-to-every-pilot-he-meets bullshit. Goes on say that the crap idiots like Rob McKenzie and Pat Denevan teach is just fine.

NOT ONE reference to it EVER in any of his owners' manuals, NOT ONE of his asshole dealerships has ever taught it and goddam near all of them are openly and viciously hostile to it.

You name me ONE person Rob has EVER persuaded to do ONE actual hook-in check. If he'd ever done jack shit on this front then - obviously - you wouldn't need to telling people he had.

Rob was a practitioner and very mild single instance advocate of lift and tug and nothing more. That loaded gun analogy is entirely my baby and Steve Kinsley deserves mega credit for first realizing and stating that the fucking hang check doesn't prevent unhooked launches - it's the primary cause of them.

In this one thread here, Jonathan, you're doing a thousand times more damage to the opposition than Rob did in his entire career. Don't fuck things up by giving credit where none is due.

It's the most effective and reliable method I know of for launching while fully connected.

Assuming you're fully connected - which you can't.

27-30822
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7577/16060302158_094fac3de7_o.png


It's not a substitute for a proper preflight.

Let's just say that it may be Tad's only redeeming feature and leave it at that.

Let's not. Unless you can point to someone else in this sport who's dead-on with respect to one issue and totally full o' shit on everything else. I myself don't know of anybody who fits that description. This game is pretty much all grade school level science, math, logic so someone who's got two plus two equals four down is probably also gonna be good with one plus three issues.

Heli1 did a great job and I hope pilots share his video and spread the technique so that it becomes a habit.

So do I. But since hang gliding is practiced as a conglomeration of religious cults and Norway's got total assholes like Tormod running around loose I'm not optimistic.

It would have prevented this near-disaster:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3UbztgTtsc


...by our esteemed colleague.

Fuck our esteemed colleague. He says right on the fucking video:

Greg Porter - 2013/10/02

A lot of pilots will pick up the glider until they feel the tension on their leg loops to be sure that those leg loops are attached.

But he WON'T DO IT. 'Cause he's got his special little distraction-proof checklist project. And using his special little checklist he's not once subsequently launched...

15-13326
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5488/10131923933_d22af2b60d_o.png


...minus leg loops. So, obviously, this is a proven system that works and why mess with success.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33076
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1

Marcos70 - 2015/06/28 23:12:12 UTC

Tom Sapienza, an instructor, of Oregon was killed by hooking in to a faulty hang strap that was girth hitched in such a way that it was not looped through itself, but created enough tension to allow him to launch, weight it for a bit, and then drop him as I understand it, so I tend to think that "tugging" with full body weight, doing a hang check gives me better piece of mind. [/b]

Just like Tom Sapienza, an instructor, of Oregon had just before he didn't. [/b]

Trust me, Marcos... I REALLY want you to have maximum piece of mind every second you're standing on the ramp - 'specially the last two.

flybop - 2015/06/29 00:44:36 UTC
Livingston, Montana

Do both!!!

Why? You've just weighted it a bit with full body weight a minute or so ago and so you have better piece of mind. [/b] None of that false sense of security that Tom Galvin has told us in no uncertain terms you get from doing a hook-in check.

Nic Welbourn - 2015/06/29 02:15:24 UTC
Canberra

I think many miss the bigger point.

Many most assuredly do. That's why Jack maintains a forum in which Aussie Methodist dickheads are free to give us all the full benefit of their religious beliefs.

The problem with the video is that the harness necessarily gets connected AFTER the glider has been assembled and checked (which I believe is pure madness except in the rare circumstance where this is not possible or practical).

- See? You got to express your BELIEF and call all non Aussie Methodists - including Rob Kells and all of his Wills Wing test flyer crew - purely mad. And with no consideration whatsoever to any actual data regarding this issue.

- EXCEPT in the RARE circumstance where this is not possible or practical. Like in the rare circumstance of Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney doing a tandem flight from Coronet Peak or Mike End-Of-Story Bomstad flying his Atos. And these are, by definition, rare circumstances and thus statistically insignificant.

It seems like a cultural thing for pilots to walk around in their harnesses, which looks cool.

Yeah, we NonBelievers like to waddle around in our harnesses 'cause we look really cool. I always get into my harness before going to the mall. Picking up people of varying ages is a no brainer when I'm walking around in my harness looking cool. I put my helmet on too when it's not uncomfortably warm.

I'm also one of those guys who thinks he can fix a bad thing on tow and doesn't wanna start over. So I never make the easy reach to my Industry Standard release until I'm fully locked out. The only reason I'm still alive is that I always use an appropriate weak link with a finished length of 1.5 inches or less. Pitch out abruptly - instant hands free release. Need to make sure it's tied properly so that it more likely breaks at its rated braking strength, of course.

Seems a shame people die from FTHI every single year...

Yeah? Name the people who've died in 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2014. The problem is that NOT ENOUGH people die from FTHI. It only took ONE high profile pro toad to experience a fatal standard aerotow weak link inconvenience to put a permanent and almost instantaneous end to the 130 pound Greenspot religious movement.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18695
How could this accident happen?

William Olive - 2010/01/28 04:50:53 UTC

Phil Beck did this twice (or was that three times?) in a day at Hexham (Victoria) one time while foot launch aerotow testing gliders. Of course, with a swag of gliders to test fly, Phil would unclip from the glider he'd just landed, then clip into the next one to be tested.

Except, at least twice, he didn't clip in.

If you could translate all of the no and minor cost unhooked launches to fatalities I one hundred percent guarantee you we'd have an immediate end to tolerance of idiot fucking hang checkers and Aussie Methodists.

...and normally only in places where folks don't connect the harness as part of glider setup.

Yeah...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mX2HNwVr9g
Hang Gliding Fail
andyh0p - 2011/04/24 - dead
03-0325 - 06-0511
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/13512258445_6b5a3662d0_o.png

http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/12931220073_1609b59b17_o.png
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52378864885_3b8ca2da8c_o.png

http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52378864870_2129572e3a_o.png
18-0919 - 21-1025

Right. Normally.

So how come not one of you idiot Aussie motherfuckers has ever even suggested including even a mention of even the existence of Aussie Methodism in your HGAF SOPs?

If it's such pure madness to get into a harness that's not connected to a glider then how come we hear nonstop rants about what a grotesque sociopathic pervert T** at K*** S****** is while the Voight twins get free passes for THIS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW8qZESnFvQ


total crap and nobody ever lays a finger on Joe Greblo, his Four or Five Cs, and regularly and frequently scheduled Grebloville unhooked launches?

So yeah, do a hang check and 'lift and tug'... OR, avoid the issue (more or less) completely.

Yeah, (more or less) completely. Good enough. And sometimes after less completely avoided the issue there's a window in which you can swallow the video card.

<rant>
ASSEMBLE YOUR GLIDER WITH IT'S HARNESS, then include it as part of your pre-flight checks - problem solved.
<end rant>

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

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/05 21:40:02 UTC

You want MORE.
I want you to have less.
This is the fundamental disagreement.
You're afraid of breaking off with a high AOA? Good... tow with a WEAKER weaklink... you won't be able to achieve a high AOA. Problem solved.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=13359
Today was a bad day!

Mike Bomstad - 2009/08/26 04:21:15 UTC

The harness is part of the aircraft... end of story.
(Just because it's easy to remove, does not mean it should be. Dont choose the path of least resistance)

Attach it to the wing, completing the aircraft.... then preflight the completed aircraft.
Buckle yourself into the cockpit and then your ready.

C'mon Mike...

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


You got a fellow cult member solving this problem for everybody. Help him out just a wee bit.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26134
Whipstall almost tumble

Mike Bomstad - 2011/12/26 08:33:15 UTC

Well, how about a weak link...

Let's put an end to this story once and for all.

Rodger Hoyt - 2015/06/29 08:18:52 UTC

The cardinal sin of hang gliders is walking around launch in their harnesses.

Take it from a global warming denier. Really hard to go wrong on any issues involving cardinal sins.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33076
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1

Tormod Helgesen - 2015/06/29 12:27:46 UTC
Oslo

I think he's having an easy task of "tugging" with that harness when the hangstrap is connected to the hips. If you use a harness with a slider the hangstrap will be located between your shoulders and that make things a "tad" more difficult. What you can do however (courtesy of HS), is to go down on one knee, lean forward and do the tug-thing.

I'm not gonna go down on one knee two seconds before I launch - 'cause it's physically impossible to do a check like that and launch two seconds later. NOBODY will do this beyond one time shortly after arrival on the ramp because it's too time, energy, hassle intensive. And plopping down and picking up gliders on ramps are NOT risk free operations.

I'm gonna make some zero weight and drag cost modification to the suspension system that will allow me to lift and tug. And I'm only gonna need it when the air's too light to float the glider.

I don't do that personally though, I'm not paranoid enough to think that a gremlin will unhook me on my way to launch...

Exactly like every single individual who's ever run off a ramp without his glider. If any one of those motherfuckers had just for a second been paranoid enough to think that a gremlin would unhook him on his way to launch he'd have had a nice afternoon of flying instead of several seconds of dying doing what he loved.

If we trained a troop of macaques to sneak up behind gliders and unhook people all we'd hafta do to one hundred percent guarantee a permanent end to unhooked launches at that site would be to post one video. It would scare everyone and his dog absolutely and permanently shitless.

...and I have enough presence of mind to know what I've been doing from the time I climb into my already hooked in harness, until I'm on launch.

I have enough presence of mind to know that I don't have one percent of the presence of mind to know what I've been doing beyond two seconds ago. Things are a lot easier for me that way.

I always do a hang-check though, solo or assisted.

I never had the slightest doubt. So how many times have you found your bar clearance to be dangerously out of specs? What have you ever actually LEARNED of any use doing a hang check? You already know what your bar clearance is and that you're hooked in. You wouldn't be doing hang check if you didn't already know you were hooked and that, even if you weren't, it wouldn't matter in the least at that point. And it's totally useless in telling you anything about your leg loops.

I'll do five or ten lifts and tugs while I'm fidgeting on the ramp 'cause each one tells me I'm connected to my glider and gets me worrying about partial hook-ins seconds before I'll be running off the cliff and there's no time, energy, safety cost.

Tormod Helgesen - 2015/06/29 12:30:04 UTC

And, maybe as a result of this cockiness, if I forget to hook in you are allowed to laugh

We won't be needing your authorization at that point.

Marcos70 - 2015/06/29 14:52:55 UTC

With all such activities it seems the key is having a routine that you do every time ingrained by habit.

Yeah, sure, forget the fear part. If you've got a routine that you do every time ingrained by habit there's absolutely nothing you have to fear - other than fear itself, of course.

The same goes for setup and preflight of the wing. Just get in the zone and ignore all distractions until your done.

If you can IGNORE them they're NOT DISTRACTIONS - asshole. You can't ignore a dust devil churning through launch, somebody needing help with a blown over glider, remembering that you left your wheels in the other bag in the trunk, the pin you dropped in the grass, your dead vario battery, clothing requirements and adjustments, water refills, being required for wire crew, leaving your car keys with your driver, the little Timber Rattler next to the ramp, the kinda shit that's virtually inevitable every time you go flying.

I preflight my harness and hook it in, but that doesn't work for a cocoon, so whatever you do...do it every time until it is habit.

So what happens WHILE something's becoming a habit? Different glider, harness, radio, camera mount, wire crew pool, flying site, launch conditions, ACTUAL distractions? You're fucked?

This goes for any activity that's critical like this for safety.

Bull fucking shit. Virtually NONE of the crap we hafta do to get a glider in the air is CRITICAL for safety. Sidewires integrity, basetube pins, suspension system, hooked fucking in JUST PRIOR TO LAUNCH.

Even missed leg loops tend to be no big fucking deals. You've gotta miss BOTH of them AND be foot launching for it to have a chance of mattering and even then the vast majority of incidents are able to stay armpitted in, kick into their boots, prone out, and start thinking about how they're best gonna be able to practice their flare timing perfection.

But you fuckin' assholes can never manage to let one of these discussions pass without bringing a missing safety ring to the same level of critical importance as a dangling carabiner and thereby totally sabotaging the message.
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Total Kite Strings posts:
8000

[Steve Davy]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?mode=unignore&t=33076&ignoree_id=2963
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1

Paul Hurless - 2015/06/28 21:36:17 UTC

Tad is a sociopath and his only positive contribution to hang gliding was leaving it.

You going to let that bullshit go unchecked, NME?

Fucking worm!

[Tad Eareckson]

Ya know Jonathan...

Before getting into this Kite Strings project and gradually discovering just how totally rotten to the core this stinking sport actually is I was of the persuasion that if crediting a popular, personable, charismatic rockstar like Rob as the world's greatest and most articulate proponent of lift and tug could get one more individual doing hook-in checks and possibly prevent another Kunio Yoshimura from almost surviving in front of his screaming wife and kids on a beautiful Labor Day weekend afternoon at Mingus then go for it.

Now... Fuck that.

- Crediting a popular, personable, charismatic rockstar like Rob as the world's greatest and most articulate proponent of lift and tug WILL NOT get one more individual doing hook-in checks and prevent another Kunio Yoshimura from almost surviving in front of his screaming wife and kids on a beautiful Labor Day weekend afternoon at Mingus.

- I don't want the kind of total asshole who adopts a procedure because it's advocated by a popular, personable, charismatic rockstar like Rob surviving in this sport and further crudding up its shit heap of a gene pool. I only want people doing it because they're scared shitless they're gonna launch unhooked and the logic is bulletproof.

The ONLY hope we have for ANY positive change we have are high visibility and profile deaths in which actual information is broadcast too quickly and widely for the u$hPa cover-up machinery to gear up and react. It took a combination of Zack Marzec getting smashed into the runway at Quest, his driver immediately and stupidly blurting out seven short sentences of truth, and a blitz response by an international team of the sport's top sociopaths to put an almost overnight end to the longest and most outrageous, deadly, and successful frauds in aviation history.

Fuck Rob. He's a poster boy for a conspiracy of serial killers and crediting him for anything beyond his due only helps to move things backwards at an accelerated rate.

We're about due for another skipped hook-in check fatality (hopefully an Aussie Methodist, Voight twin, or Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney and on a video card that can't be swallowed quite quickly enough) and WHEN that happens we'll pick up another hook-in checker or two and the sociopaths will once again be able to say toldyaso and pick up a few notches worth of more credibility.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33076
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1

Jan (Heli1, TheFjordflier) - 2015/06/29 18:51:41 UTC
Norway

Hi
Jonathan, thanks for sharing the video.

I'm not sure if people are understanding the concept of a last hook-in check.

'Course not. There's not a hang gliding organization, school, tandem thrill ride operation, instructor, regulatory agency, tourism promoter, mainstream media outlet on the planet that wants to admit that there has been a simple zero cost procedure that nobody uses that could've prevented virtually all unhooked launch disasters in the history of the sport.

It's your last chance to possibly save your life, if for whatever reason you failed to hook in.

The whatever reasons are that this max critical assembly item is, pretty much of necessity, extremely easy to make and unmake in an instant, there are a thousand reasons to unmake it as launch grows near, and the point at which the connection is most critical is also the point at which the connection point is most effectively hidden from the prospective pilot's view.

It doesn't matter what "method" you are using prior to launching.
If you prefer doing a hang check, fine.

Disagree. Only idiots do hang checks once bar clearance has been established. And a hang check sends a signal to the other idiots in the vicinity that they can rest assured from that point on that the primary idiot is safely connected to his glider. Idiots should have no place in hang gliding - particularly in the vicinity of launch.

And the Aussie method, if it suits you, great.

Aussie Methodist make hang checkers look like rocket scientists. I despise these people with a passion and don't want them doing hook-in checks. We need as many of them as possible permanently out of he gene pool. There's no talking to or reasoning with these assholes 'cause they're all members of a dangerous religious cult.

The Aussie Method isn't just to connect one's harness to one's glider before entering it when safe and practical - which is a superior procedure for setup and preflight. It's to:

- NEVER under any circumstances enter a harness unless it's connected to a glider

- always assume that anyone in a harness and under a glider is safely connected

- either deny the existence of or refuse to fly in situations in which it's not safe and practical to enter a harness only after it's connected to a glider

- brutally persecute anyone and everyone in range who:
-- refuses to subscribe to their cult
-- advocates any form of hook-in check of having any possible value whatsoever

- refuse to acknowledge what an insanely dangerous failure it is whenever some Mike End-Of-Story Bomstad Aussie Methodist total asshole screws the pooch

Even walking around in your harness, looking cool, no problem.

Nobody looks cool walking around in a harness. We all look and feel like dorks until we're proned out. But compared to this:

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


http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8253/28924975726_0d24a615c2_o.png
13-A14319

total fucking asshole we walkarounders all look like rockstars.

As long as you do that last verifying of your connection to the glider a few seconds...

Two or fewer. Anybody who uses longer intervals isn't afraid of the possibility that he might not be hooked in.

...before running outside that cliff, or ramp.

Let's not forget...

http://ozreport.com/forum/files/copy_2_of_imgp1239_197.jpg
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7220/13949046702_ccfa0fafab_o.png

http://www.thekiteboarder.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/opener-532x800.jpg

...runway. You CAN get killed or permanently seriously fucked up tow launching unhooked from pancake flat ground like:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7588/16793597978_a1e73bd274_o.png

That eliminates most, possibly all chances of an un-hooked launch.

That eliminates ALL chances of an unhooked launch. Doesn't eliminate all possibilities of lethally flawed hook-ups.

And give me a peace of mind before my run.

It shouldn't. Peace of mind is the enemy. There's no penalty for staying scared / assuming you're not hooked in until it's too late to do anything about a situation.

Sorry for my bad english

You spelled "peace" a whole lot better than Marcos did.

If I forget to hook in you are allowed to spit on my grave

Nobody ever got scratched because he forgot to hook in. People get majorly fucked up and killed because they refuse to do hook in checks. I'll just spit on you if I see you skip a hook-in check and I don't give a flying fuck whether or not you're hooked in.

Cheers, and safe flying, all over the World

Let's not wish Australia too much success.

Hasta la vista
Jan
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http://vimeo.com/thefjordflier