Towing Aloft

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43279
Concerning Dennis Pagen

Fabiano Nahoum - 2015/07/31 15:28:56 UTC

Steve Seibel - 2015/07/30 15:42:18 UTC

So what?

Nothing wrong with using markers really! In fact a lot of presentations these days are made in the doodle animation videos like this one:

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


...which is exactly about the effectiveness of such videos.

Yeah. Cave painting done with CGI. So how come you're not using one of Dennis's doodle animation videos as your example?

Pagen is very skillful with a marker, as I have seen on internet videos, and a good artist as we can all witness in his books where all illustrations are his.

Yeah...

- He's a highly skilled artist. I saw a pencil drawing of a tall ship on his wall at home and almost had to press my nose against it to see that it wasn't a black and white photograph.

- Including the books that are supposed to have been coauthored.

I'd much rather watch a whiteboard presentation with good drawings than some impersonal PowerPoint presentation full of actual graphs and pictures.

And the other cool thing about good drawing is that you can create your own version of reality and sell it to people who don't know the difference. Same way you can with printed words which ignore all inconvenient data.

Ken de Russy - 2015/07/30 21:30:57 UTC

That article says Stef has been "involved in free flight for 20 years" and quotes him as saying "Last time I flew a glider was more than 20 years ago."
I cannot decide what to make of that seeming paradox.

What paradox? Can't a person be actively involved in flying and not fly?

Beats me...

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

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

Don't even get me started on Tad. That obnoxious blow hard has gotten himself banned from every flying site that he used to visit... he doesn't fly anymore... because he has no where to fly. His theories were annoying at best and downright dangerous most of the time. Good riddance.

And all without a single syllable's worth of a pretense of justification.

At some point all of us are going to stop flying and, shouldn't those that had enough good sense to survive and get old, also be the ones to help create the standards?

Fuck no...

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.

If you want new industry standards created your best bet is to get some incompetent dickhead like Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney to launch a tandem thrill ride unhooked.

And let's not forget pro toad tandem aerotow instructor Zack Marzec killing himself at the end of a fifteen second pull and accomplishing what decades of attempts at rational discussion were completely unable to.

-=-=-=-=-=

I just wanted to chime in because, having never met Pagen personally, I'm really grateful for his work, his books are perhaps the most important factor in my ever learning to fly.

Tell me one thing you learned that hadn't been published in scores of conventional aviation texts by the conclusion of World War One.

In making me see reason and rationality behind a seemingly daredevil sport, Pagen's books gave me a great sense of confidence.

Yeah if it's a great sense of confidence (another term of false sense of security) you want it's really hard to beat Towing Aloft. Just conform to the fundamentals described in it and there's no fuckin' way you can ever get scratched.

They still do!

Knock yourself out.

I don't meddle in USHPA discussions because, even though I'm a member, it is not my 'home-hg association' - I also hate politics!...

Yeah, I used to have my head up my ass with respect to what was going on at the top levels too.

- but it's hard for me to understand how USHPA could have an asset like Dennis Pagen and not use it!

Spelled "ass" wrong.

Cheers!

When you have an A$$et like that why don't you put it out on the web? It's just fuckin' ridiculous to maintain that there's something of value in just about any one percent relevant field you wanna name that has ZERO web presence in the middle of the second decade of the Twenty-First Century. If he's this fuckin' Stone Age with respect to this technology just how good do you think he can possibly be in any flavor of aviation technology you wanna name? This motherfucker's sending letters via Pony Express after the transcontinental telegraph has been strung. That kind of person doesn't have anything to say that to which I wanna waste my time listening.

[Steve Davy]

I first heard that one a zillion years ago on one of Prairie Home Companion's annual joke shows...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Prairie_Home_Companion

Other fictional commercials have included the Federation of Associated Organizations...

Now that's just fucking funny!

[Tad Eareckson]

Stumbled across that show spinning the dial one Saturday night in the early Eighties driving back from a ridge flying day (must've been in the winter 'cause it was well after dark) and was instantly hooked. Have seen it live a few times in recent years at Wolf Trap with my brother's family. Sure hope it holds together after Garrison drops out.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43279
Concerning Dennis Pagen

Bille Floyd - 2015/08/01 20:32:48 UTC

On the Can't a person be actively involved in flying and not fly thing :
YES and NO

It's true that those that had enough good sense to survive and get old, (could) also be the ones to help create the standards ;

Oh. That's to ONLY reason someone who no longer flies could POSSIBLY be able to write standards. Like at NASA. Only current and highly experienced retired astronauts are permitted to contribute anything to engineering and procedures.

...but technology , equipment and the standards used for decision making , change a LOT , over the years.

- Fer sure, dude. The first edition of the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden was published over seventeen and a half years ago and there've been five updated revisions so far. I have no freakin' clue how Dennis and Bill have been able to keep up the pace they have.

- Name something relevant from any point in the last three decades.

- Bullshit. The only difference between hang gliding and Groundhog Day is that things keep getting incrementally worse with each cycle.

- And, of course, if there actually WERE positive relevant changes in technology, equipment, and the standards used for decision making only someone who boated around Torrey for three hours a weekend would be qualified to address anything.

What was an acceptable practice 15 or 20 years ago ;

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

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/04 19:31:36 UTC

The accepted standards and practices changed.
I still won't tow people with doubled up weaklinks. You don't get to "make shit up". I don't "make shit up" for that matter either.

We all play by the same rules, or we don't play.
Morningside decided that they were happy with 200lb weaklink. They changed their tug's link and they don't just pass the stuff out either. If you'd like to know more about it... go ask them.
The law of the land at comps was 130lb greenspot or you don't tow. Seriously. It was announced before the comp that this would be the policy. Some guys went and made their case to the safety committee and were shut down. So yeah, sorry... suck it up.

there might be a better and more proven method , now days. Look at towing , as an example .

Dickhead.

I got mixed feelings , on this one ?? It would depend on the person !

I have no desire to participate as a flyer in any flavor of aviation that would tolerate assholes such as yourself.

I Fully agree on what you said about Dennis Pagen !!!

Big fuckin' surprise. And I have no doubt whatsoever that you've gone through all his vector diagrams, verified their accuracy, and checked his text for consistency with them.

Hey Bille...

I have a topic on weak links over here that's been running four and two thirds years. Currently reading over fifty thousand hits and nobody's ever been able to punch any holes in it. And I didn't start it up for well over two years after I last clipped into a glider. Explain that to me, if you will.

[Tad Eareckson]

Towing Aloft - 1998/01

The towline release is a critically important piece of equipment. It is the device which frees you from the towline and it must be failure-proof. Numerous designs have evolved over the years--some very good and some not so good. Unfortunately, releases are items that many pilots feel they can make at home or adapt from something they have seen at the hardware store. Two fatalities have occurred in the past 5 years directly related to failures of very poorly constructed and maintained releases. For the sake of safety, only use releases that have been designed and extensively tested by reputable manufacturers. Listed below are various types of releases available with their attributes and applications.

Provided in Appendix III is a performance test specification for towline releases. This is not presented to give you guidelines for making your own, but rather to make you aware of the requirements of a good release in order to select and purchase good equipment (See Appendix IV).

The towline release is a critically important piece of equipment.

Not, of course, to the level of...

Towing Aloft - 1998/01

A weak link is the focal point of a safe towing system.

A weak link is a very simple device--typically a loop of line--that is intended to break in the event towline tensions exceed a safe or desired threshold.

A weak link is required that will not break needlessly in response to moderate thermals, or pilot inputs, yet will break at a low enough point to avoid disaster or excessive pilot panic.

"It is infinitely better to have a weak link break too soon rather than too late."
-- Towing Proverb

A weak link is a fuse that protects the equipment--your body!--on an overloaded circuit.

Always use a weak link when towing--WEAK LINKS SAVE LIVES.

Of course, your weak link should break before the lockout becomes too severe, but that assumes a properly applied weak link.

...the weak link - particularly a properly applied one. But pretty critically important anyway. 'Specially when...

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.

...people don't apply the weak link properly enough.

It is the device which frees you from the towline...

When you're completely upside down after relinquishing your death grip on the control bar...

Dennis Pagen - 2005/01

By the time we gained about 60 feet I could no longer hold the glider centered--I was probably at a 20-degree bank--so I quickly released before the lockout to the side progressed. The glider instantly whipped to the side in a wingover maneuver. I cleared the buildings, but came very close to the ground at the bottom of the wingover.

...and your deadly lockout is instantly whipped to the side and down to the level of an inconvenient but harmless wingover maneuver. But don't worry, people of varying ages... You're always gonna clear the buildings and just come very close to the ground. And nobody's ever been scratched clearing buildings and/or coming very close to the ground. And your tug pilot and his tow mast breakaway protector are always gonna keep you on tow to give you the critical margin you need to stay alive.

...and it must be failure-proof.

Oh bullshit...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22660
What can be learned from this "scooter" towing accident?

Jim Rooney - 2011/02/06 18:35:13 UTC

I don't really have anything against the Kotch release.
I think it's big, clunky and expensive, but I'm sure it works fine.
I'm also sure it has it's problems just like any other system. The minute someone starts telling me about their "perfect"system, I start walking away.

If there were such a thing as a failure-proof release dontchya think we'd all be using them already?

Numerous designs have evolved over the years--some very good and some not so good.

- And in the US we're all overwhelmed by the numerousness of all the designs which have evolved over the years.

- Really gotta admire the determination of the people doggedly striving to evolve the not so good designs instead of adopting the very good ones and working to evolve them.

Unfortunately, releases are items that many pilots feel they can make at home or adapt from something they've seen at the hardware store.

These many pilots totally crack me up feeling they can make releases at home or adapt them from something they've seen at the hardware store!



They're not even looking at existing releases and thinking about ways to make them better. They're just going to hardware stores. And not even the sailboat hardware stores that all the glider manufacturers go to for all their hardware. What TOTAL MORONS.

Probably the same many pilots who feel that they can make iPhones at home with tin cans, string, crayons, flashlights. How do any of these morons ever manage to hook up their gliders pointy end forward? We need to get some ratings revoked. Just tow the few pilots who DON'T feel they can make releases at home or adapt them from something they've seen at the hardware store.

If we start folding to individuals with sparks of creativity who think there are snowballs' chances in hell they can do anything to make towing safer and better they're gonna humiliate reputable manufacturers and make posts about what a total load o' crap your excellent book is.

Nah, we need to just buy our releases from the reputable manufacturers who all have top notch engineering teams and multi-million dollar factories to design, manufacture, test, constantly refine their releases for better performance, lighter weight, lower drag profile. Same as glider manufacturers.

Speaking of which... Name a glider manufacturer who produces releases and give me a sane explanation as to why there aren't any and never have been.

And another thing we really need to do is never enforce minimum performance standards from our SOPs on AT equipment because that stifles creativity and innovation almost as effectively as many pilots feeling that releases are items that they can make at home or adapt from something they've seen at the hardware store.

Two fatalities have occurred in the past 5 years directly related to failures of very poorly constructed and maintained releases.

- Oh. "DIRECTLY *RELATED TO*." So these two fatalities that you've managed to scrape up from the past half decade weren't CAUSED BY the failures of the very poorly constructed and maintained releases. They were just "directly related to" them. Like if we towed up a student, it took him an extra five seconds to pry himself loose, the extra altitude put him in the range of the powerlines, and we haven't taught how to turn yet.

No wait, I got it. The "TWO fatalities" that have occurred in "the past five years" occurred in the course of ONE tandem crash in the past YEAR AND A HALF. 1996/07/25 - Bill Bennett / Mike Del Signore. ReleaseS plural - both ends of the string. They used a Tad-O-Link which didn't break when it was supposed to and overwhelmed the tug's weak link (seriously). The crappy releases - which he doesn't even identify in his bullshit 1997/01 magazine report - were just a minor incidental issues.

Watch this...

...and sixth, the release at the tug end may have malfunctioned.

It MAY HAVE malfunctioned.

There is no known reason for the failure of the tug release since it was tested before and after the accident with a realistic tow force. However, correcting both of these matters - overstrength weak link and release failure...

It FAILED... But a FAILURE isn't a MALFUNCTION. It would only have been a malfunction if it failed under a realISTIC tow force rather than the REAL tow force under which it failed. Got that, people of varying ages? There's never once been a documented instance of a release malfunctioning as long as the tow force is realistic. Your release will only fail under real tow forces.

This is a prequel to Robin Strid - 2005/01/09. Tad-O-Link overwhelms the Bobby's weak link and release and the Bobby Fucking-Genius Bailey Quallaby Release snag was just a minor incidental issue dealt with by banning the Bobby Fucking-Genius Bailey Quallaby Release (at least for a short while) from the Worlds at Hay.

- And 28 fatalities have occurred in the past five years solely due to failures of very WELL constructed and maintained releases. But let's limit the discussion to those two that you tell us NOTHING about.

- Well it's a no brainer that somebody who's gonna very poorly construct a release is also gonna very poorly maintain it - or pay someone else to properly maintain his poorly constructed release.

- OK people of varying ages... Let's hear some excerpts from your release owners' manuals on maintenance procedures and schedules. No wait. Let's just check the chapter in the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden... DAMN! Somebody must've pulled the pages out.

- So what's a poorly maintained release do? Not work when you want it to or work when you don't want it to? I'm guessing the former 'cause the latter is just an inconvenience not worth talking about. Maybe both - but we've only gotta worry about the first thing.

- Notice Dennis Excellent-Book Pagen didn't say that these very poorly constructed and maintained releases, unfortunately, were items that the pilots felt they could make at home or were adapted from something they'd seen at the hardware store. He just knows that anybody who's read this far into his bullshit is gonna naturally assume and believe that.

For the sake of safety...

Whose safety? The physical safety of the guy on the string or the financial safety of the commercial operation?

...only use releases that have been designed and extensively tested by reputable manufacturers.

- And what better test than throwing thousands of copies into the air and watching what happens in real world conditions? Which is the only way Industry Standard releases ever get tested.

- Notice the motherfucker doesn't say anything about releases that have PASSED extensive testing. If a release fails a hundred times in the course of a hundred tests it's been extensively tested. ACTUAL conscientious release designers - all five of whom have nothing to do with reputable manufacturers - extensively DESIGN releases and run three of four tests to verify they'll do about what the math predicted they would.

- And when you're doing the real world "testing" just throw out all the data screaming that the pilot had no chance of survival either by staying on the bar, no longer able to hold the glider centered or quickly releasing before the lockout to the side progressed and instantly whipped to the side in a wingover maneuver. Thought he could fix a bad thing and didn't wanna start over, just froze, no evidence that the pilot made an attempt to release from tow prior to the weak link break as the gate was found closed on the Wallaby-style tow release, set the keel cradle too low/high, so many people do not appreciate how fast and furious lockouts can happen...

- Name some Disreputable manufacturers. ALL "manufacturers" are major commercial tow operations with zero oversight, accountability, legal responsibility and people fly or don't at their pleasure. All of them have totally...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22308
Better mouse trap(release)?

Jim Rooney - 2010/12/16 18:47:05 UTC

Oh, I've heard the "everything we do is an experiment" line before.
The trouble is, it's not.

I've seen experimentation with towing gear more than anything else in HG.
I've not seen many go out and try to build their own sails for example. When someone does, they're very quickly "shown the light" by the community. Example... the guy that was building the PVC glider in California somewhere.
But for some reason, towing gear is exempt from this.

The difference is what we do has been done by thousands of people already. It's been tested... a lot.
What we do is free of the experimentation part.
It's still dangerous, but not at the level of building new gear is. Not even close.

That's what people fail to realize.
It's no small difference. It's a huge chasm.

Notice how I'm not saying to not do it.
Go forth and experiment. That's great... that's how we improve things.
I'm just warning you of that chasm.

A few years ago, I started refusing to tow people with home made gear.
I like the idea of improving gear, but the lack of appreciation for the world they were stepping into didn't sit with me.
For example... flying with the new gear in mid day conditions?
Are you kidding me????

Approach it for what it is... completely untested and very experimental gear which will likely fail in new and unforseen ways as it tries it's damndest to kill you... and then we can talk.

...EXCELLENT reputations. They serve you a shit sandwich, you wolf it down, pay twenty bucks for a second helping, tell everybody how great it is, piss all over anything that comes out of a Three Star Michelin operation way the fuck off the beaten path.

Listed below are various types of releases available with their attributes and applications.

Their attributes minus any performance numbers. But so what the fuck... If you have issues with them releasing under load...

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

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.

...just don't try to release them under load. Duh. (And by "load" this dickhead obvious means something south - probably WELL south - of the Rooney Link that will blow six times in a row in light morning conditions.

Provided in Appendix III is a performance test specification for towline releases.

Got any performance test specs for BRIDLE releases? 'Cause damn near all AT releases dump bridle ends. And they only see half or half plus fifteen percent towline.

This is not presented to give you guidelines for making your own...

Oh perish the thought. If I made my own and it blew all the guidelines outta the water it would still be dangerous crap 'cause *I* made it and *I*'m not a reputable manufacturer. And I could never become a reputable manufacturer because I don't have any way to threaten anyone to declare me to be a reputable manufacturer.

...but rather to make you aware of the requirements of a good release in order to select and purchase good equipment (See Appendix IV).

Great idea, Dennis. I'll have Quallaby and/or Lockout send me a few of their recommended releases and then I'll break out my five hundred pound load tester and see what they do. And if something passes my tests I'll write the check. Otherwise, I'll send it back so the reputable manufacturer can sell it to somebody else with a five hundred pound load tester he can use to determine whether or not the reputable manufacturer has sold a critically important piece of equipment that has a snowball's chance in hell of functioning in a critically important situation.

Funny that the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden doesn't have an Appendix V in which the reputable manufacturers could publish the numbers from THEIR testing programs.

http://www.getoffrelease.com

I'd think they'd want those figures on this critically important piece of equipment to advertise their reputable top notch engineering and promote their product over the competition somewhere inside your 374 page infomercial. Ya know, like the way reputable glider manufacturers advertise glide ratios, speed ranges, weight, hook-in ranges in the magazine. Very strange.

And on the subject of the gliders themselves... I'd like to see the reputable manufacturers run testing on their critically important gliders - positive and negative loading, stability, roll response, stall speed, VNE - so we pilots didn't hafta do that individually for every glider we're thinking about purchasing. Think there's any chance of ever getting something like that off the ground?

Fuckin' assholes.
---
P.S. - 2016/03/18 01:00:00 UTC

My 7000th post.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22308
Better mouse trap(release)?

Jim Rooney - 2010/12/16 18:47:05 UTC

Oh, I've heard the "everything we do is an experiment" line before.
The trouble is, it's not.

I've seen experimentation with towing gear more than anything else in HG.
I've not seen many go out and try to build their own sails for example. When someone does, they're very quickly "shown the light" by the community. Example... the guy that was building the PVC glider in California somewhere.
But for some reason, towing gear is exempt from this.

The difference is what we do has been done by thousands of people already. It's been tested... a lot.
What we do is free of the experimentation part.
It's still dangerous, but not at the level of building new gear is. Not even close.

That's what people fail to realize.
It's no small difference. It's a huge chasm.

Notice how I'm not saying to not do it.
Go forth and experiment. That's great... that's how we improve things.
I'm just warning you of that chasm.

A few years ago, I started refusing to tow people with home made gear.
I like the idea of improving gear, but the lack of appreciation for the world they were stepping into didn't sit with me.
For example... flying with the new gear in mid day conditions?
Are you kidding me????

Approach it for what it is... completely untested and very experimental gear which will likely fail in new and unforseen ways as it tries it's damndest to kill you... and then we can talk.

Oh, I've heard the "everything we do is an experiment" line before.

Oh, I'll bet if there's a line to be heard, you've heard it. How fortunate we muppets are to have you hearing lines. I remember the dark years before you arrived. Fuckin' bloodbath.

The trouble is, it's not.

And evaluating them for us.

I've seen experimentation with towing gear more than anything else in HG.

I guess so...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24534
It's a wrap

Paul Tjaden - 2011/07/30 15:33:54 UTC

Quest Air has been involved in perfecting aerotowing for nearly twenty years.

Quest Air has been involved in perfecting aerotowing for nearly twenty years...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22660
What can be learned from this "scooter" towing accident?

Mitch Shipley - 2011/01/31 15:22:59 UTC

Enjoy your posts, as always, and find your comments solid, based on hundreds of hours / tows of experience and backed up by a keen intellect/knowledge of the issues when it comes to most things in general and hang gliding AT/Towing in particular. Wanted to go on record in case anyone reading wanted to know one persons comments they should give weight to.

...and surely they're running all their prototypes up to Ridgely to have the benefit of your keen intellect and expertise on everything worth knowing, punch all the crash data into the database when the experiments fail.

I've not seen many go out and try to build their own sails for example.

- Oh, that sounds so much more cerebral than saying "I've never seen anyone go out and try to build his own sail." - the way a mere mortal might state it.

- Where would somebody GO OUT TO to TRY TO build his own sail?

- So you've seen SOME go out and TRY to "BUILD" their own sails. But never anyone who's actually BUILT one. They just TRY. And then they give up when they start realizing what they're up against. And then they hafta scrap the airframe they were planning on which they were planning on fitting it.

- Perhaps because the gliders are certified to strength and performance standards and don't totally suck the way the bent pin shit you Ridgely douchebags punch out and perpetrate on the public?

When someone does, they're very quickly "shown the light" by the community.

- Keep up the great work "showing the light", community. And when you get a chance post some photos of all the partially built sails you've kept from being finished and installed on fully built airframes so we can all have good laughs.

- We've had a dozen US community member fatalities since the end of this month a year ago - including one at Ridgely, quite likely on your watch. (Not a single experimenter amongst them. Not a single experimenter reported being scratched.)

-- Are you sure those members were qualified enough to be very quickly "showing the light" to anybody else?

-- Why do you think the surviving community members weren't sufficiently quick to "show the light" to the non surviving community members?

Example... the guy that was building the PVC glider in California somewhere.

Yeah, reminds me a lot of the "THE GUY" that strapped the JATO to the roof of his car out in the California desert "SOMEWHERE" and vaporized himself against a cliff face. Got any REAL examples?

But for some reason, towing gear is exempt from this.

- For SOME reason. No fuckin' clue what it is. Just the general insanity of the sport that I, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney, am here to get under control.

- Shit. Towing's so much more dangerous than free flight, virtually all of it's controlled by professional pilots who all have similar opinions on everything... One would think that towing gear would be THE LAST area to be exempt from experimentation. Why do you think that is exempt?

The difference is what we do has been done by thousands of people already.

Every single one of whom is alive and smelling like a rose. Not one single individual has ever been so much as scratched on or because of Industry Standard gear. Well, maybe a skinned knee or two before the track record had lengthened adequately.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3107
I have a tandem rating!!!

Lauren Tjaden - 2008/03/23 22:20:15 UTC

When Jim got me locked out to the right, I couldn't keep the pitch of the glider with one hand for more than a second (the pressure was a zillion pounds, more or less), but the F'ing release slid around when I tried to hit it. The barrel release wouldn't work because we had too much pressure on it.

Anyhow, the tandem can indeed perform big wingovers, as I demonstrated when I finally got separated from the tug.

No surprises there.

It's been tested... a lot.

Reg: If you want to join the People's Front of Judea, you have to REALLY hate the Romans.
Brian: I do!
Reg: Oh yeah, how much?
Brian: A lot!
Reg: Right, you're in.

All proven systems that work. And yet the "light showing" is about what you'd expect to find a couple thousand feet into an abandoned mine shaft on a moonless midnight on December 21 in the far north.

What we do is free of the experimentation part.

- We already know all the ways it kills people by a thousand flights into the track record.

- Show me one failure of a release mechanism that a halfway intelligent ten year old kid couldn't have easily predicted by looking at the piece o' crap.

- So Paul was LYING when he told us Quest Air has been involved in perfecting aerotowing for nearly twenty years? And the community was letting him get away with it?

It's still dangerous, but not at the level of building new gear is.

- Fuck yeah. Much better to kill somebody every now and then with known defective Industry Standard gear than build new gear which eliminates the defect but multiplies the kill rate tenfold. That's why the Davis Dead-On Straub crowd banned the type of release mechanism that killed Robin Strid (at least for a short while) from the Worlds at Hay. It was the only sane choice possible.

- So how do you explain all the certified glider models that have evolved over the decades with virtually no issues regarding safety? Shouldn't we be seeing tons of crashes and parachutes being thrown during certification flights?

Not even close.

Fuck no. Just ten percent of the kill rate.

That's what people fail to realize.

How? You've seen experimentation with towing gear more than anything else in HG, the danger level of building new gear is astronomical, for every person you kill on defective gear you kill ten on what Quest Air has been perfecting for nearly twenty years, you're posting the detailed fatality reports on The Davis Show where everybody who meets with Davis's approval can see them.

So if people fail to realize the biggest and most obvious threat to their safety - despite having the advantage of incessant warnings from the most highly respected AT professional in the business - how are they able to succeed in realizing ANY threat involved in their flying and why should they be flying AT ALL?

It's no small difference. It's a huge chasm.

- I can't express anything in terms of percentage 'cause I'm just pulling stuff outta my ass... But trust me... It's a HUGE CHASM.

- Then why isn't the community very quickly "showing" people "the light"? If it can't even recognize a HUGE CHASM like this how do we know they've got their shit together on much less huge chasms? How are people with their heads so far up their asses capable of "showing the light" to anyone in a manner that's a positive influence on his long term survival?

Notice how I'm not saying to not do it.

- Oh good. Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney isn't telling us not to do something. So there's a possibility we'll be able to do it.

- Why not? "The guy" that was building the PVC glider in California "somewhere" was "very quickly" shown the light by the community. What's different here?

Go forth and experiment.

- Should we also multiply once we've gone forth? Do you think that God thinks he's Rooney sometimes? I fuckin' DARE you to say that in a real room with real people who can beat the shit outta you.

- Who specifically? Where?

That's great... that's how we improve things.

Why should we waste our time, effort, lives to IMPROVE things while YOU're PERFECTING them?

I'm just warning you of that chasm.

- Are there any other chasms you should be warning us about?

- I thought the definition of towing gear that worked in reality was...

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

Jim Rooney - 2013/02/12 18:00:27 UTC

Your second statement is why.
I just buried my friend and you want me to have a nice little discussion about pure speculation about his accident so that some dude that's got a pet project wants to push his theories?

Deltaman loves his mouth release.
BFD

I get tired as hell "refuting" all these mouth release and "strong link" arguments. Dig through the forums if you want that. I've been doing it for years but unfortunately the peddlers are religious in their beliefs so they find justification any way they can to "prove" their stuff. This is known as "Confirmation Bias"... seeking data to support your theory... it's back-asswards. Guess what? The shit doesn't work. If it did, we'd be using it everywhere. But it doesn't stand the test of reality.

...that we'd be using it everywhere. How come this so doesn't work at all with respect to huge chasm spotting and awareness? How come we're all clinging to life on a single Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney thread?

A few years ago, I started refusing to tow people with home made gear.

Guess that's why you told us to go forth and experiment rather than to come hither and experiment.

So a few years ago - let's call it 2007 - you started refusing to tow people with homemade gear. 'Cept, of course, for deranged megalomaniac and convicted paedophile Tad Eareckson whom you continued towing with entirely homemade gear, including Tad-O-Links, through the end of the 2008 season.

But everybody else at Ridgely and all the other tug pilots at all the other AT operations continued towing all that completely untested and very experimental gear which would likely fail in new and "unforseen" ways as it tried its damnedest to kill the test pilots. So you don't really give a flying fuck about the safety of anyone trying to improve things. Either that or you're just trying to kill all efforts to improve gear as effectively as you know how. And you're not even doing that very well 'cause if you were you'd have gotten other tug pilots and AT operations on board with you and tried to get the SOPs made appropriately restrictive. Talk about majorly deranged.

So now after eight years of this carnage where's the carnage? Where's a single scraped knee or glider gone upside down at altitude as a consequence of all that completely untested and very experimental gear which will likely fail in new and unforeseen ways as it tries its damnedest to kill us?

I'll bet the Taliban would like to know how to engineer devices capable of maiming and killing as easily and effectively as hang glider pilots trying to make towing equipment as safe as possible.

I like the idea of improving gear...

Just as long as it's just the IDEA of improving gear.

...but the lack of appreciation for the world they were stepping into didn't sit with me.

So 100.00 percent of the many individuals in sync with your liking of the idea of improving gear were totally clueless regarding the world they were stepping into.

And the reason that you started refusing to tow people with homemade gear was that the lack of appreciation for the world they were stepping into didn't sit with you. And you would be totally unable to get any of these scores of people to appreciate the world they were stepping into. Well, yeah, if they REALLY appreciated the world they were stepping into they probably wouldn't even be thinking about stepping into it. Kind of a Catch-22 thing. Who in his right mind would go up with gear that might kill him even more than a bit over half the time in emergency situations?

So if they wanted to go up still lacking appreciation for the world they were stepping into they'd hafta step to the side and wait five minutes for the next tug.

Sounds a lot to me like you're a total shit instructor. You seem to be totally unable to get people to appreciate the huge chasm issues of the worlds they're stepping into and you're perfectly willing to blow them off and let them get mangled or killed behind one of your close friends. Isn't the whole point of instruction and the rating system to train pilots to understand risks, make decisions, execute and stay healthy without supervision?

For example... flying with the new gear in mid day conditions?
Are you kidding me????

So why not tow them in morning and evening glass? Then if their experimental gear proves to be within a reasonable range of your...

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

Jim Rooney - 2009/11/02 18:58:13 UTC

Oh it happens.
I have, all the guys I work with have.
(Our average is 1 in 1,000 tows)

Oh yeah... an other fun fact for ya... ya know when it's far more likely to happen? During a lockout. When we're doing lockout training, the odds go from 1 in 1,000 to over 50/50.

...sterling safety standards - only kills people a bit over half the time in emergency simulations - you could try some bumpier stuff or simulate bumpy stuff at altitude. Like the way you u$hPa guys...

The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, Inc. - 2014/03/14
Standard Operating Procedure
12. Rating System
02. Pilot Proficiency System
11. Hang Gliding Special Skill Endorsements
-A. Special Skills attainable by Novice
-D. Aerotow

05. The candidate must also demonstrate the ability to properly react to a weak link/tow rope break simulation with a tandem rated pilot, initiated by the tandem pilot at altitude, but at a lower than normal release altitude. Such demonstrations should be made in smooth air.

...train people to safely respond to increases in the safety of the towing operation.

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

Jim Rooney - 2007/08/01 13:47:23 UTC

Whatever's going on back there, I can fix it by giving you the rope.

You mean you can fix whatever's going on back there by giving us the rope - as long as it's nothing related to experimental gear.

Approach it for what it is... completely untested...

As bench testing counts for NOTHING. If it did you'd all be doing it already and, in fact, NONE of you do it already.

...and very experimental gear...

If I clamp my Quallaby release lever to the downtube within easy reach rather than...

05-02713
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1639/25711853442_938287954f_o.png

08-03206
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1707/25806738026_c5b53178e3_o.png

09-03212
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1630/25806737416_581e6ff03b_o.png

20-12126
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1493/25532092990_c8f2010dc2_o.png


...velcroing it on does that make it "very experimental gear"?

...which will likely fail in new and unforseen ways as it tries it's damndest to kill you... and then we can talk.

- Meanwhile, go FORTH and attempt to improve things behind some other tug driver who doesn't give a rat's ass about your safety.

- Yeah, it will LIKELY fail in new and unforeseen ways. Even Davis Dead-On Straub who's been at an around all this plenty long enough to understand what's what and who's who...

05-0527
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1649/25841502075_969f1d656e_o.png


http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1621/25841495775_5e7e52244e_o.png
08-0813

...would be totally helpless regarding spotting a deadly issue.

- New and unforeseen ways. It could explode or start a fire. Those would be new and unforeseen. All the old and foreseen ways are limited to working when we don't want it to and increasing the safety of the towing operation at the expense of...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRrpHNa68iY/UQ6Pv9gRZyI/AAAAAAAAjTg/Hc22bx5122Q/s2048/20943781_BG1.jpg


...inconveniencing us a bit or...


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


...not working when we need it to and thus decreasing the safety of the towing operation.

We still have a Rooney Link...

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

Jim Rooney - 2009/11/03 06:16:56 UTC

As for being in a situation where you can't or don't want to let go, Ryan's got the right idea. They're called "weak" links for a reason. Overload that puppy and you bet your ass it's going to break.

You can tell me till you're blue in the face about situations where it theoretically won't let go or you can drone on and on about how "weaklinks only protect the glider" (which is BS btw)... and I can tell ya... I could give a crap, cuz just pitch out abruptly and that little piece of string doesn't have a chance in hell. Take your theory and shove it... I'm saving my a$$.

...don't we? You can't teach any of these test pilots to just pitch out abruptly...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9Ek9_lFeSII/UZ4KuB0MUSI/AAAAAAAAGyU/eWfhGo4QeqY/s1024/GOPR5278.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Xh_NfnOcUns/UZ4Lm0HvXnI/AAAAAAAAGyk/0PlgrHfc__M/s1024/GOPR5279.JPG

...to more quickly and effectively increase the safety of the towing operation?

A few years ago, I started refusing to tow people with home made gear.
I like the idea of improving gear, but the lack of appreciation for the world they were stepping into didn't sit with me.
For example... flying with the new gear in mid day conditions?
Are you kidding me????

Approach it for what it is... completely untested and very experimental gear which will likely fail in new and unforseen ways as it tries it's damndest to kill you... and then we can talk.

How 'bout scooter tow - in morning and evening glass then carefully nudging the envelope?

http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4778/39004826790_90f4fd60c9_o.jpg


You use Industry Standard two and one point AT configurations on completely untested and very experimental students who will likely fail in new and unforeseen ways as they try their damnedest to kill themselves. On the early flights they don't even release themselves and are instructed not to - everything critical is controlled by the...

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

NEVER CUT THE POWER...



Reduce Gradually
Increase Gradually

...power that you're NEVER SUPPOSED TO CUT anyway. Tell me how anything bad could happen with any operator who wasn't a couple miles south of the total dickheads who run these operations. Explain to me why one couldn't easily set up a flight testing program - taking the completely untested and very experimental gear up through a progression in which you're simulating 914 Mach 6 takeoffs in midday conditions.

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

Freedomspyder - 2013/03/04 03:21:55 UTC

I saw a quote of yours that you often give pilots the rope. Is this common? What circumstances does this happen?

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/04 09:25:48 UTC

Really?
I'd suspect what you actually read was that I've got an itchy trigger finger. I don't know that I've passed out that many ropes really. I can probably think of all/most of the ones I've given.

It's a pain in the ass btw. If I drop my rope, I have to go get it... which means I'm not towing again for a while... and who knows where you're going to leave it.
So thankfully it's not too common.

You have to scare me.
You're either trying to kill yourself, or you're trying to kill me.
Either you're way out of whack and threatening to crash or you're pointing me at stuff that will hurt (trees, the ground, etc)

Lockouts generally look pretty similar. For me, they feel similar as well. Remember, you're a big/heavy thing yanking on my tail... I can generally tell when you're getting out of shape.

So you're willing to put up AT rated PILOTS who have so little reliability that you're afraid they're trying to kill themselves or you (guess we can't possibly have BOTH) and cut them loose - confident that they'll have enough competence to appropriately respond to the increase in the safety of the towing operation / power cut and maybe land with 250 of Spectra draped over their basetubes. But you draw the line at any experimental gear regardless of the rating, experience, skill, track record of the pilot. Bullshit.

Pretty fuckin' obvious that you're too fuckin' stupid to either accomplish what you CLAIM you want accomplished or present a sane justification for stifling development of quality tow systems which is what you ACTUALLY want.

[Tad Eareckson]

Towing Aloft - 1998/01

The towline release is a critically important piece of equipment. It is the device which frees you from the towline and it must be failure-proof. Numerous designs have evolved over the years--some very good and some not so good. Unfortunately, releases are items that many pilots feel they can make at home or adapt from something they have seen at the hardware store. Two fatalities have occurred in the past 5 years directly related to failures of very poorly constructed and maintained releases. For the sake of safety, only use releases that have been designed and extensively tested by reputable manufacturers. Listed below are various types of releases available with their attributes and applications.

Provided in Appendix III is a performance test specification for towline releases. This is not presented to give you guidelines for making your own, but rather to make you aware of the requirements of a good release in order to select and purchase good equipment (See Appendix IV).

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22308
Better mouse trap(release)?

Jim Rooney - 2010/12/16 18:47:05 UTC

Oh, I've heard the "everything we do is an experiment" line before.
The trouble is, it's not.

I've seen experimentation with towing gear more than anything else in HG.
I've not seen many go out and try to build their own sails for example. When someone does, they're very quickly "shown the light" by the community. Example... the guy that was building the PVC glider in California somewhere.
But for some reason, towing gear is exempt from this.

The difference is what we do has been done by thousands of people already. It's been tested... a lot.
What we do is free of the experimentation part.
It's still dangerous, but not at the level of building new gear is. Not even close.

That's what people fail to realize.
It's no small difference. It's a huge chasm.

Notice how I'm not saying to not do it.
Go forth and experiment. That's great... that's how we improve things.
I'm just warning you of that chasm.

A few years ago, I started refusing to tow people with home made gear.
I like the idea of improving gear, but the lack of appreciation for the world they were stepping into didn't sit with me.
For example... flying with the new gear in mid day conditions?
Are you kidding me????

Approach it for what it is... completely untested and very experimental gear which will likely fail in new and unforseen ways as it tries it's damndest to kill you... and then we can talk.

Parasites are ALWAYS gonna do what they can to control the sport - same as everything else they can get their suckers clamped to - and they're pretty much always gonna succeed. They got in on the ground floor - pretty safe to say that Bill Moyes is and Bill Bennett was a parasite and they WERE the ground floor - and they've been consolidating power and embedding their suckers more firmly and deeply ever since.

Knowledge is power, right? So what are parasites gonna do about the knowledge problem? Ditto for anything that starts smacking of intelligence.

The excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden, is a disinfomercial perpetrated on the recreational pilot by the commercial towing industry.

Kite Strings Founder Zack C's reaction to Dr. Trisa Tilletti's fourteen page AT weak link disinformation contribution:

Zack C - 2012/06/02 02:20:45 UTC

I just cannot fathom how our sport can be so screwed up.

That's how and why.

Towing before the asteroid hit:

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

"A bad flyer won't hurt a pin man but a bad pin man can kill a flyer." - Bill Bennett
"Never take your hands off the bar." - Tom Peghiny
"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release." - Richard Johnson

Obvious, common sense, consistent with conventional glider towing.

Then Donnell comes along seven years later with his physics-free / Christianity-based towing package and turns all that totally upside down. This fits in very nicely with what the parasites wanna do, the Brooks Bridle is wiped off the face of the planet and its history is erased, and it's Spanish Inquisition time - as we all should've expected.

There's a flyer on the back end of the string and somebody making money on the front and never again will anything that happens to the flyer be the parasite's fault.

The parasites want the flyers to live in a constant state of fear. They don't want them thinking they can stay on OR get off tow to stay alive as circumstances dictate. "No way in hell I'm gonna let you have any REAL control as a PILOT on that rope. Want power when you need it or reduced or cut power when you get kicked out of alignment? Then suck my dick, do whatever I tell you to, don't EVER challenge me on anything... MAYBE I'll feel charitable if/when the shit hits the fan." Or:

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

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

Don't even get me started on Tad. That obnoxious blow hard has gotten himself banned from every flying site that he used to visit... he doesn't fly anymore... because he has no where to fly. His theories were annoying at best and downright dangerous most of the time. Good riddance.

Both these snake oil salesmen motherfuckers are saying the same thing. Dennis is just a smoother, more subtle operative. Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney is the devolution Dennis adapted to the internet age. Dennis was smart enough to know what would happen to him if he ever exposed himself in an interactive arena, Rooney was so stupid he started guzzling his own snake oil and went down in flames after maybe eight years of holding the high ground.

And now hang gliding itself is going down in flames because the parasites multiplied and increased in their virulence and appetite and sucked the host too dry to allow its survival.

Muscle controlled aviation was dangerous enough without the parasite load and for it to survive everything needed to be done as safely as possible. But everything was always engineered to make it as dangerous as its controllers could get away with making it and right know there's a feedback loop spinning faster and faster with each passing month and the whole shit heap is imploding.

Proud to have contributed and be contributing to this chapter of aviation history - with a little help from my friends (as the song goes). When we're finished with the US maybe we can refocus our attention on New Zealand.

[Tad Eareckson]

Yesterday morning as I was working on my last "Skyting demolition" post I was wondering when it was that Donnell first got called on:

Donnell Hewett - 1982/09

In addition to the above mentioned roll and yaw tendancies, there is some sideways force on the pilot due to the body line. This is illustrated below:



As can be seen, this sideways force tends to pull the pilot over to the correct side to make the glider turn naturally in the proper direction.

The '96 season we had:
- 1996/04/28 - Frank Sauber (Santos Mendoza)
- 1996/07/25 - Bill Bennett / Mike Del Signore (Dave Farkas)

And there was some back and forth between Donnell and Dennis in subsequent magazine articles from 1996/10 to 1997/01 and I had it in my head Dennis that had done something definitive with his vector diagrams. And we've discussed some of that here around:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post1501.html#p1501

(And I've also previously noted that I was still buying into some level of the autocorrection bullshit as I began my Ridgely career in 1999 the day they opened up.)

So I fairly quickly found the articles and that led me to pull out my falling-apart old copy of the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden (1998/01) to cross reference.

I have a lot of the excellent book's top hits transcribed and archived for quick referencing and humiliating quotes. And I found another page - that included a devastating illustration - at 140 that I needed to add to my collection. My eyes were fried (in desperate need of more shut time), I was having to use a big magnifying glass, and I was getting frustrated and nowhere fast.

This motherfucker gets paid by the word so he never uses one where thirty will do to pretend to make a valid point. It's nothing but pretentious verbose pseudointellectual crap designed to get the shipping weight maxed out, keep the reader confused enough to fail to realize that there's no there there, think he's simply too dimwitted to get any of this without hours more rereading and review.

I had to keep picking up the book and magnifying to get the next five multisyllable words transcribed accurately, I finally knocked over an empty coffee mug and exploded. I swore, snapped the display down on my laptop and hurled it down to the floor.

Not really the floor. I threw it onto my soft backpack lying on the floor where I knew I wouldn't hurt anything.. But Jesus H. Christ. Then I took a time-out to get some of my vision back and blood pressure - oops, tension - down.

Dense Pages has always presented himself as the ultimate intellectual authority on everything hang gliding - the only guy who really understood the physics and aerodynamics of our birds well enough to explain it to the most intelligent ten percent of us. (Same scam Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney tried to run but with microscopic percentages of Dennis's education, background, history, flying skills and accomplishments, talents, vocabulary, political sensitivities, IQ...)

Then you look at the IQs of the u$hPa assholes writing SOPs, rating requirements, teaching this crap - not to mention 98 percent of their products. Dennis talks nonstop about all these misconceptions circulating in hang gliding culture. Well all these misconceptions are obviously the total crap all the u$hPa administrators, observers, certified instructors are perpetrating. But we're never supposed to be learning or doing anything on our own - we need to be constantly under the supervision of highly experienced and qualified operators and instructors. So then how come we need to buy your book to really get things right?

I was always thinking, right up until yesterday morning, that Dennis had been instrumental in at least getting a few things right for us. You read on Page 137 that two plus two equals four. Wow. Alright then. But then you read in his various other chapters, publications, magazine articles that it equals seven, three, zero, five, minus two...

Fuck him. If you can't trust EVERYTHING the motherfucker says then you can't trust ANYTHING the motherfucker says. No partial credit. ZERO. Get the hell outta here Dennis and don't EVER come back.

But/And getting back to the initial mission...

Dennis Pagen - 1996/10

LOCKOUTS AND WEAK LINKS
©1996 by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden

The following article is excerpted in part from the new book, Towing Aloft by the authors (due out this fall).
---
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48898755163_8e196bd7a1_o.png


When the pilot is to one side of the towline with wings level, misalignment of the forces R and CF works to pull the glider back into alignment with the towline, as shown by the arrow (see (a)). However, if the pilot is off to one side with the wings rolled as at (b), the misalignment of R and CF induces the glider to slip the other way -- away from the towline -- to make the problem worse. This is known as a positive feedback situation, and despite the seemingly cozy new-age turn, "positive," is an engineer's worst nightmare. Positive feedback sends things out of control and a lockout is a precise example.

This is pretty much the same crap Donnell's feeding us with his "As can be seen..." illustration. 2(a) doesn't exist in the real world. A milder version of 2(b) is what we'd be seeing.

If the pull is to starboard and the pilot's centered the glider WILL BE rolled to port and the "pilot" - who's not actually piloting anything - WILL STAY centered. And the glider WILL BE on its way toward a port lockout. And - need I add - the glider WILL NOT BE crabbing to starboard to get properly lined up? (How did I manage to miss that "Glider moves" arrow for as long as I did?) 2(a) only starts working a bit if the pilot has gotten his weight under what had just been the high starboard wing.

And then this zombie of Dennis's fevered imagination just STAYS centered while his glider continues to accelerate sideways back into the runway. Yeah. This is the way we typically...

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.

... have lockouts.

So how the fuck did that guy manage to get up high enough to lock out in the first place? We're roll unstable as hell on AT and if the air's the least bit bouncy - and it is 'cause we don't go up in sled conditions - we're CONSTANTLY making micro-adjustments to stay in optimal position behind the tug and follow it efficiently in and through turns. But as soon as we get the slightest bit out of alignment our brain just totally shuts down and we stay perfectly centered from that point on until impact.

Can anyone imagine this book being published in this era in which we have tons of high resolution video footage through which we can look frame by thirty per second frame to see what's ACTUALLY going on and post for the planet to see? Dennis doesn't have one single incident photo or frame anywhere and just sketches the Industry Standard version of some hopelessly incompetent idiot on the way to totaling himself. Great matches for all the fatality reports the instructors, tow drivers, flight park operators send in. And, big surprise, these are all the same guys Dennis and Bill gratefully acknowledge in their acknowledgements. None of any of their victims' families had anything substantive to say on any of the issues.

"We" - 2019/10/06 12:18:32 UTC - have previously eliminated from the definition of "lockout" incidents in which the "pilot" deliberately flies into the situation and/or decertifies his glider by flying with a pro toad bridle and/or flying one handed while he attempts to actuate his Reliable Release. So we've obviously also gonna exclude fictional situations with a Pagen copyrighted potted plant at the controls. Goddam Roadrunner cartoons used to pad the magazines and books so Dennis and u$hPa can show us how safe the sport is for anybody with better than a low single digit IQ and make more bucks off of more pigeons.

P.S. When we talk about "pilots" flying into situations we also count the pilot on the front end of the rope exercising control over thrust and heading.

And - it's just now dawned on me - good freakin' luck finding an account, hypothetical description, illustration of the one thing that precipitates ACTUAL LEGITIMATE lockouts. Smooth thermal blasts that sneak in between us and the tug and hit us asymmetrically. Note that such thermals invariably morph to "severe turbulence" or "invisible dust devils" within a couple days of impact and first accounts. The thermal is the only reason we're towing. You gotta be a bit clueless to fly in dangerously turbulent conditions and really unlucky to get hit by an IDD.

In The Excellent Book - Page 140 - we have a cleaner close matches for 2 a and b. "Glider moves <----" is conspicuously absent. (Better tuck that one way back up your ass whence you pulled it and pray no one notices anything.) c and d are gone maybe 'cause he thought they looked too stupid and/or dangerous.

Hang Glider Lockouts

A hang glider can also experience this effect. In figure 4-8, a hang glider is seen under tow off to one side of the towline. The lateral (to the side) component of the tow force will pull the pilot to the side. This is different from a turn, when the pilot moves to the side, for there may be no force from the pilot on the basetube in the opposite direction as is required for weight shift to initiate turns. The glider tends to be stable and actually rolls a bit to maintain proper orientation to the apparent force as shown in the figure. In effect, contrary to popular misconception, the towline does not cause a weight shift which would initiate a turn back towards the towline. If you doubt the truth of all this then examine truck towing. Ask yourself, when the towline pulls the pilot forward relative to the glider, why does the glider's nose not drop and speed increase? The principles in effect when the glider is examined in profile are identical to those when the glider is viewed from ahead.

The glider tends to be stable and actually rolls a bit to maintain proper orientation to the apparent force as shown in the figure.

And he depicts the pilot to be slightly off to starboard and the glider as being slightly rolled to starboard. It's not as outrageous as Hewett but it's still totally fictional bullshit. And if a glider's on tow at normal pitch attitude and it's rolled to port it WILL turn to port.

So as far as I'm concerned Kite Strings and its pre Kite Strings evolutionary development is the first - and maybe only - entity to get this shit right. Hopefully we'll hear from Mike Lake and get the record set straight with credit given where due. But until.../otherwise...

[Tad Eareckson]

Dennis Pagen - 1996/10

http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48898755163_8e196bd7a1_o.png

Towing Aloft - 1998/01

Hang Glider Lockouts

In figure 4-8, a hang glider is seen under tow off to one side of the towline. The lateral (to the side) component of the tow force will pull the pilot to the side. This is different from a turn, when the pilot moves to the side, for there may be no force from the pilot on the basetube in the opposite direction as is required for weight shift to initiate turns. The glider tends to be stable and actually rolls a bit to maintain proper orientation to the apparent force as shown in the figure. In effect, contrary to popular misconception, the towline does not cause a weight shift which would initiate a turn back towards the towline. If you doubt the truth of all this then examine truck towing. Ask yourself, when the towline pulls the pilot forward relative to the glider, why does the glider's nose not drop and speed increase? The principles in effect when the glider is examined in profile are identical to those when the glider is viewed from ahead.

In figure 4-8, a hang glider is seen under tow off to one side of the towline.

No it isn't. It's your pencil drawing of a hang glider under tow off to one side of the towline. It's your pencil drawing of what you're ASSUMING happens with a hang glider under tow off to one side of the towline based on your fuzzy understanding of hang glider towing aerodynamics and your tidy little vector diagrams.

And let's recall that you weren't one of the guys who figured out that the lower attachment needed to come off of the basetube and onto the pilot. You weren't even one of the guys (I think there was actually only one - Gil Dodgen) who publicly apologized for or condemned the pulling of Donnell's articles on the u$hPa rag that you used to pretty much own back in those days.

And if you were really all that hot with vector diagrams you should've beaten both Donnell and Brian Pattenden on this one.

The lateral (to the side) component of the tow force will pull the pilot to the side.

So you've done this, right? You went out to the Jean Dry Lakebed one morning with a light steady smooth wind. Got up to five hundred feet level, went neutral on the control bar, radioed the driver to cut hard right. The glider stayed level and crabbed to starboard to better line up with and downwind of the truck.

This is different from a turn, when the pilot moves to the side, for there may be no force from the pilot on the basetube in the opposite direction...

MAY be no force from the pilot on the basetube in the opposite direction? Pick one, Dennis. Are you torqueing the control frame are aren't you? If you're having trouble telling then take your fuckin' hands off the control bar to make sure.

...as is required for weight shift to initiate turns.

Yeah, but we're not really sure what's going on now, are we?

The glider tends to be stable...

What's it doing when it's not tending to be stable? Starting to stand on its fuckin' ear?

...and actually rolls a bit to maintain proper orientation to the apparent force as shown in the figure.

How very thoughtful of it. About how long does one need to spend training one's glider to actually roll a bit to maintain proper orientation to the apparent force as shown in the figure? That HPAT 158 you sold me 1991/11/03 at Hyner is still seeming to be a bit recalcitrant. Maybe I should try it with the VG full on and see what happens?

In effect, contrary to popular misconception...

Good thing we've got you to debunk all the crap our u$hPa instructors are popularly shoving down our throats.

...the towline does not cause a weight shift which would initiate a turn back towards the towline.

It just pulls us over to starboard a little and crabs and rolls us to starboard a little. It's not actually initiating a turn back towards the towline because here may be no force from the pilot on the basetube.

If you doubt the truth of all this then...

...just look what I had to say on weak links:

Weak links very clearly will provide protection from excessive angles of attack, high bank turns and the like for this form of towing.

I rest my case.

...examine truck towing. Ask yourself, when the towline pulls the pilot forward relative to the glider, why does the glider's nose not drop and speed increase?

I have no fuckin' clue? It sure as hell does...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9230
Departing the launch cart

Jim Rooney - 2007/08/31 12:57:14 UTC

If you forget to "resist the tug", as I put it (holding that bar in position prevents you from getting pulled through), the tug will pull you through the control frame while you're waiting for the keel to rotate.
Behind a 582, not too big of a deal.
Behind a 914, things get a bit more dramatic.
As the keel rotates, you're now essentially pulling in even more (the glider's nose has come down relative to you). You're behind a 914, so it accelerating at a very rapid pace. This extra speed "pins" you to the cart. Now you have to push out to get out of the cart. Now, you're at a high AOA, going a million miles an hour straight into the propwash. Or the glider goes negative and you faceplant.

I'm not speaking of theory here. I see this crap a lot.

...on AT. I'm not speaking of theory here. I see this crap a lot.

The principles in effect when the glider is examined in profile are identical to those when the glider is viewed from ahead.

So then how come we never seem to hear about anything other than immediate and expected glider responses to changes, fluctuations in tow tensions for all flavors of towing and fluctuations in the relative altitudes of tug and gliders as the bounce along through thermal lift and associated sink?

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

Cragin Shelton - 2011/09/03 23:57:33 UTC

Nice Reference Citation

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

"A bad flyer won't hurt a pin man but a bad pin man can kill a flyer." - Bill Bennett
"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release." - Richard Johnson

Do you REALLY think that there has been no progress in knowledge about the practical applied physics and engineering of hang gliding in 37 years? OR that an early, 3+ decade old, information book written by a non-pilot is a solid reference when you have multiple high experience current instructors involved in the discussion?

We seem to have totally nailed it though the better part of 23 years ago - 62 percent of your figure. Dennis and his fake coauthor haven't needed to put out a second revised, updated edition to fix a single typo - let alone any new thoughts on weak links. (A bit odd in light of Dr. Trisa Tilletti's fourteen page magazine article on some of the finer points on the 130 pound Greenspot braided Dacron Tolling line that should be placed at one end of a shoulder bridle.)

So pick something Cragin...

- We'd peaked at total perfection at or shortly before 2011/09/03 23:57:33 UTC?

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

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/03 19:37:19 UTC

My response is short because I've been saying it for years... and yes, I'm a bit sick of it.
This is a very old horse and has been beaten to death time and time again... by a very vocal minority.

See, most people are happy with how we do things. This isn't an issue for them. They just come out and fly. Thing's aren't perfect, but that's life... and life ain't perfect. You do what you can with what you've got and you move on.

But then there's a crowd that "knows better". To them, we're all morons that can't see "the truth".
(Holy god, the names I've been called.)

I have little time for these people.

It saddens me to know that the rantings of the fanatic fringe mask the few people who are actually working on things. The fanaticism makes it extremely hard to have a conversation about these things as they always degrade into arguments. So I save the actual conversations for when I'm talking with people in person.

A fun saying that I picked up... Some people listen with the intent of understanding. Others with the intent of responding.
I like that.

For fun... if you're not seeing what I mean... try having a conversation here about wheels.

That doesn't seem to be the case 'cause Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney says flat out we haven't and It saddens him to know that the rantings of the fanatic fringe mask the few people who are actually working on things. And now the fanatic fringe who'd been masking the few people who were actually working on things have been have been successfully and totally eliminated, the few people who were actually working on things (a much smaller fringe than the fanatic fringe) have been unmasked, and the only thing different is that everyone and his dog are now flying short track record Tad-O-Links.

- In 1974 - now four and a half decades ago - people operating with much more primitive and dangerous gliders that were providing really excellent feedback for fuckups actually got some things right and those fundamentals were buried as the sport degraded in the face of mainstream incompetence and corruption? The trend definitely hasn't been towards the safer weak links Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney was advocating and that motherfucker's long gone from the game so that scenario might be worthy of consideration.

And just note that Dennis is still selling his excellent book so that every day it's in circulation minus any very public advisories he's still standing by every punctuation mark.

[Tad Eareckson]

Towing Aloft - 1998/01

CONSTRUCTION OF WEAK LINKS

Like most things in our sports, there are numerous methods of implementation for weak links.

Stick around for a while, Dennis. Davis has got a pretty good grip on this situation. I'm pretty sure you'll find the case to be otherwise.

These include various loop configurations, knots and various materials for the line. It is tempting to just recommend a particular string, knot, and setup. But experience has taught us that there is extensive variance in line quality between brands, sizes, etc.

Don't worry...

The Glider Weak Link

For aerotowing, the proper towline force that should break the weak link at the glider end should be no more than 100% of the combined pilot and glider weight. Note that this is less than with ground towing, since the tow force is directed more nearly along the flight path and does not oppose the lift. A two-point bridle weak link should break at half the force of a single-point system as long as the weak link is located at one end of the two-point bridle (the bridle divides the force as explained in Section III of Appendix I).

A two-point bridle weak link is most often made out of single strand 130 lbs (59 kg) test Dacron fishing line. (Note: Fishing line comes in various weights. You must make weak links and test them each time you use a new spool of material, even if its breaking strength is labeled. This line is known by the trade name Greenspot Dacron Trolling Line and is commonly referred to as "greenline".) With the tow force being divided on the bridle line, the tow force on the towline that will cause the weak link to break is theoretically twice 130 lbs or 260 lbs (118 kg). However, knots in the weak link cause it to break at a lower force than this theoretical maximum. The side bar provides additional weak link theory.

We've got everything under control.

For example, we have found breaking strength variances exceeded 35% for the supposedly same 205 leech line (sailboat material) procured from different sources.

It is imperative that you make and test your own weak links on a test rig to know at what point they break.

Obviously. It's imperative. We all just pick up our test rigs...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8317889807/


...from our local flight parks for fifteen bucks a shot so we can go home and make sure the weak links we're using are actually well within the specs required for them to properly fulfill all of their critical missions. After all... The weak link is the focal point of a safe towing system.

You should make and test at least 10 weak links.

I test fifteen just to be on the safe side. And if I don't get the results I want I keep testing until I get fifteen in a row to pass muster. Takes hours sometimes. And sometimes I go through the whole spool and still come up empty.

They will all break at slightly different points...

VERY slightly in the case of the stuff certified by the International Game Fish Association. Those guys don't fuck around when it comes to hang glider aerotowing safety.

...but measure them and find the average.

Yeah...

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

Quest Air Hang Gliding

Weak Link

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.

AVERAGE being the operative word here.

Also compare several of the highest...

Most dangerous.

...and several of the lowest...

Safest but most inconvenient.

...breaking values to the average. If they differ by more than 10% you do not have a reliable and predictable weak link system.

So no telling what might happen on any given tow. You might get inconvenienced on the one hand or die in a lockout or whipstall on the other. No fuckin' way! I'm going with plus or minus 5% so I'll know beyond any shadow of a reasonable doubt where I'll stand.

The hazard of having a link breaking at a much higher tensions is obvious.

Goddam right. Near certain death not only for you but also for your tug driver. And don't forget to always thank him for intentionally releasing you, even if you feel you could've ridden it out. He should be given a vote of confidence that he made a good decision in the interest of your safety.

And just look what happened to Jeff Bohl who NEVER thanked his tug driver for intentionally releasing him, even when he felt he could've ridden it out. His tug driver kept him stuck on tow and didn't squeeze the lever until a millisecond after his Tad-O-Link dumped him into an irrecoverable stall and just a couple of seconds before the 582 Dragonfly would've gone into the trees.

Right after that people were lining up to thank their tug drivers for all the times they'd intentionally released them, even when the thought they could've ridden it out. They were also setting fire to all their Tad-O-Links and sneaking back into line with contraband 130 pound Greenspot, bribing launch directors to look the other way.

27-0721

However, if weak links are breaking often at lower than desired tensions, then pilots may be tempted to double them over, use much stronger ones, or even remove them.

Desired...

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

Jim Rooney - 2007/07/22 22:30:28 UTC

I've heard it a million times before from comp pilots insisting on towing with even doubled up weaklinks (some want no weaklink). I tell them the same thing I'm telling you... suck it up. You're not the only one on the line. I didn't ask to be a test pilot. I can live with your inconvenience.

...by whom? The passenger or the Pilot In Command?

This negates the point of even having a weak link in the system.

THE point?

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

Davis Straub - 2011/08/28 15:26:28 UTC

Then again, Russell Brown had us double up behind him after six breaks in a row at Zapata. We couldn't figure out why we had so many breaks so quickly. Maybe just coincidence.

Singular?

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

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/28 10:15:12 UTC

Oh, in case it's not obvious (which it doesn't seem to be), once someone starts telling me what the "sole" purpose of a weaklink is, I tune them out as they have no clue what they're talking about.

Weaklinks are there to improve the safety of the towing operation, as I've stated before.

Any time someone starts in on this "sole purpose" bullshit, it's cuz they're arguing for stronger weaklinks cuz they're breaking them and are irritated by the inconvenience. I've heard it a million times and it's a load of shit. After they've formed their opinion, then they go in search of arguments that support their opinion.

"Sole" purpose?

WEAK LINKS

A weak link is an integral part of any towing system in order to prevent overloading and lockouts (see Chapter 2).

Whoa! Had me worried there for a minute, bud. I was on the verge of tuning you out.

But of course the motherfucker still doesn't say ANYTHING about STRUCTURAL overloading. Overloading is STILL tow pressure high enough to allow the glider to get into a stall or lockout attitude. So there is not ONE SINGLE REFERENCE in this entire piece o' shit book about protection from structural overload of even one of his stupid piece o' shit bent pin pro toad barrel releases.

Hey Dennis... If you want a weak link capable of getting you airborne and also preventing overloading and lockouts (see Chapter 2) you're not gonna be able to do much better than:

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

Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 14:04:52 UTC

We had six weaklink breaks in a row at Zapata this year.

That's pretty much the sweet spot.

http://www.dennispagen.com/aboutus.htm
About Us

Dennis Pagen - 2019/10/15

The author was raised in Port Huron, Michigan and educated at Michigan State University where he majored in physics and elctrical engineering. Upon graduation, he decided to see more of the world and traveled through Europe and Asia for three years.

At least you learned how to spell "physics".

Dennis Pagen - 2005/01

Analyzing my incident made me realize that had I released earlier I probably would have hit the ground at high speed at a steep angle. The result may have been similar to that of the pilot in Germany. The normal procedure for a tow pilot, when the hang glider gets too high, is to release in order to avoid the forces from the glider pulling the tug nose-down into a dangerous dive. However Neal kept me on line until I had enough ground clearance, and I believe he saved me from injury by doing so. I gave him a heart-felt thank you.

Does it ever bother you in the least that all the snake oil you sell and spew contributes to the deaths of countless participants in the sport? And will continue to indefinitely?