http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2093
USHPA sends safety letter about HG & PG fatalities
Frank Colver - 2015/08/29 04:26:36 UTC
I received by e-mail this letter from USHPA talking about HG & PG fatalities. Here is the lead-in sentence:
There are some recent trends in fatal hang gliding and paragliding accidents that you, as a pilot, should know, so that you can make better decisions managing the inherent risks of our chosen pastime.
It is also on the web, here is the link:
http://ushpa.aero/safety/safetynotice_20150828.pdf
I'm wondering why the HG fatalities began increasing so much starting in mid 2014?
They didn't. Count the stupid incompetent negligent bullshit that we know causes fatalities as fatalities despite the fact that these assholes totally get away with it 99.9 percent of the time and you'll see that there's absolutely nothing significant going on.
Sam Kellner - 2015/08/29 23:58:12 UTC
That's a good question, probably. Hopefully there is a simple answer.
Yeah. This sport tolerates, allows, encourages participation by / inclusion of total dickheads such as yourself.
Regardless.
The timing to announce this with the spike in HG is to diminish the PG stats.
Could that be?
Definitely.
Bummer that your 2012/06/16 Terry Mason fatality couldn't have been used for that purpose - 'cause, at the time, u$hPa judged that the biggest bang for the buck could be derived from shredding the report and never acknowledging that it ever happened. Whenever you have one that low profile there's really not much of a choice.
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2093
USHPA sends safety letter about HG & PG fatalities
Rick Masters - 2015/08/30 00:32:02 UTC
Open letter to Frank Colver from Rick Masters
Frank,
On August 28, 2015, after reading "Safety Reminders" by USHPA Accident Review Committee Co-Chair (HG)...
...and total duplicitous dickhead...
...Mitchell Shipley, you asked on the U.S. Hawks Forum, "... why the HG fatalities began increasing so much starting in mid 2014?"
The short answer, Frank, is because it is not true. 2014 was a stellar year for hang gliding safety in the United States.
Bullshit. Getting away with crap, getting lucky for a while on the dice rolls, does not make for a stellar period for safety.
Things did not start going down hill until the Jean Lake joyriding and towing debacle in March, 2015.
It wasn't:
- joyriding. Joyriding is what WE do. It was thrillriding.
- towing. Had shit to do with towing. This was for-profit fringe activity.
Like Shipley, I also keep a database of free flight accidents.
Sloppy, biased, politically motivated, pretty much useless.
Mine, however, is entirely independent...
Bullshit. What it really needs to be independent from is you.
...and global. A global database, by its nature, provides greater insight than one arbitrarily truncated by national boundaries.
But then ya don't get to say, "NOTHING like this has ever happened before (in Canada).
Unlike Shipley, I am not constrained by the legal issues...
Or anything remotely resembling honesty and fairness.
...pertaining to a corporation so I am willing to provide my opinion...
Fuck you and your opinion.
...and share my data.
And your biased bullshit data.
This is important because it appears to me that it is no longer possible for a corporation in the United States to provide effective accident analysis without incurring significant...
...and richly deserved...
...legal liability. This is a serious and disturbing development that stands in the way of the association's obligation to membership to provide genuine accident analysis and tends to sidetrack the issue into the la-la land of strangely perceived political correctness and meaningless obfuscation and delay.
It's been building for decades.
...For instance, nowhere in the letter are mentioned the words "towing," "collapse" or "tandem."
Show me something in which towing and/or tandem had relevance.
It is not possible to have a genuine discussion of free flight safety without touching on these issues.
It's impossible to have a genuine discussion of pretty much anything with an asshole like you.
Let us examine part of this letter in detail.
Dear Fellow Free Flight Pilot,
There are some recent trends in fatal hang gliding and paragliding accidents that you, as a pilot, should know, so that you can make better decisions managing the inherent risks of our chosen pastime.
How?
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25321
Stop the Stupids at the USHPA BOD meeting
Mark G. Forbes - 2011/09/29 02:26:23 UTC
We can establish rules which we think will improve pilot safety, but our attorney is right. USHPA is not in the business of keeping pilots "safe" and it can't be. Stepping into that morass is a recipe for extinction of our association. I wish it were not so, but it is. We don't sell equipment, we don't offer instruction, and we don't assure pilots that they'll be safe. Even so, we get sued periodically by people who say we "shoulda, coulda, woulda" done something that would have averted their accident.
It's not just concern for meet directors and policy makers...it's about our continued existence as an association. It's about minimizing the chance of our getting sued out of existence. We're one lawsuit away from that, all the time, and we think hard about it. I would LOVE to not have to think that way, but every time a legal threat arises, it reminds me that we have a very dysfunctional legal system in this country (note: not a "justice" system...there's little justice involved) and we have to recognize that reality and deal with it.
Mark G. Forbes - 2011/09/30 23:21:56 UTC
Here's how it really works:
- Member submits an accident report. Could be the pilot who had the accident, or some other witness.
- Accident report is sent to Tim to maintain legal privilege. Tim reviews the report and determines whether there's significant legal risk associated with it. He may redact certain parts (personally identifiable information, etc.) if in his opinion exposure of that information poses a risk to us. If the report is very risky, he may decide that it can't be shared further, and will notify the ED about it. He may also notify our insurers if he sees a potential for a claim, as is normal practice for any incident where we are aware of such a potential.
- Redacted report goes to the accident review chairs, for incorporation into periodic articles in the magazine. Articles focus on root causes of accidents, not on personal narratives or details.
The whole procedure is outlined in SOP 03-16, which you can read by logging into the USHPA website and clicking on "Policy Manual".
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27736
Increase in our USHpA dues
Mark G. Forbes - 2012/12/20 06:21:33 UTC
We're re-working the accident reporting system, but again it's a matter of getting the reports submitted and having a volunteer willing to do the detail work necessary to get them posted. There are also numerous legal issues associated with accident reports, which we're still wrestling with. It's a trade-off between informing our members so they can avoid those kinds of accidents in the future, and exposing ourselves to even more lawsuits by giving plaintiff's attorneys more ammunition to shoot at us.
Imagine a report that concludes, "If we'd had a procedure "x" in place, then it would have probably prevented this accident. And we're going to put that procedure in place at the next BOD meeting." Good info, and what we want to be able to convey. But what comes out at trial is, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, my client suffered injury because USHPA knew or should have known that a safety procedure was not in place, and was therefore negligent and at fault." We're constantly walking this line between full disclosure and handing out nooses at the hangmen's convention.
The more important a crash report is with respect to sweeping safety reform the more likely it is to get shredded by our total piece o' shit lawyer. And anyone who starts making a stink about the fact that you motherfuckers won't even comply with the stuff that you have on your own books gets marginalized, blacklisted, and forced out of the sport.
First a few facts to add to the graphs below showing fatality trends:
Wouldn't adding a few facts to the total crap you publish in the way of crash and safety information just hopelessly confuse people?
Faced with the appalling fatality rate of early hang gliding, the first chairman of the United States Hang Gliding Association's Accident Review Board, insurance actuary Robert V. Wills, wrote in the January 1975 Ground Skimmer, "We must have your help in recording all prior fatal accidents all over the world. We can no longer afford to have people guessing out loud on how many fatalities there have been.
And here was USHGA's response:
Robert V. Wills - 1976/10
Because there was some feeling that people involved in hang gliding, and people observing the sport from outside, should become preoccupied with accidents and fatalities, the editor of Ground Skimmer asked me to refrain from submitting accident summaries on an every-issue basis.
And the cells of that evil malignant little conflict of interest influence have been replicating out of control ever since - for eleven months shy of four decades now.
"If we fail in our responsibility to establish a reliable central data bank on hang glider accidents," he added...
..."we're going to be doing exactly what's best for the lawyer to whom we've handed total control of the US division of the sport. So keep up the great work, guys!"
"...we are going to look like a happy-go-lucky band of daredevil adventurers to some politician or judge and you may one day no longer be able to soar free as a bird, regardless of what our true safety record may be."
Good. Very few of us have been able to soar as free as birds...
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3600
Weak link question
Jim Rooney - 2008/11/24 05:18:15 UTC
Well, I'm assuming there was some guff about the tug pilot's right of refusal?
Gee, didn't think we'd have to delve into "pilot in command"... I figured that one's pretty well understood in a flying community.
It's quite simple.
The tug is a certified aircraft... the glider is an unpowered ultralight vehicle. The tug pilot is the pilot in command. You are a passenger. You have the same rights and responsibilities as a skydiver.
It's a bitter pill I'm sure, but there you have it.
BTW, if you think I'm just spouting theory here, I've personally refused to tow a flight park owner over this very issue. I didn't want to clash, but I wasn't towing him. Yup, he wanted to tow with a doubled up weaklink. He eventually towed (behind me) with a single and sorry to disappoint any drama mongers, we're still friends. And lone gun crazy Rooney? Ten other tow pilots turned him down that day for the same reason.
...at any time within our distant memories and the assholes in this sport who tolerate scum like you, Mark, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney in it will have gotten some percentage of exactly what they deserve.
Unfortunately, global data collection was arbitrarily terminated by the USHGA in the mid-1980s.
And gutted for the US in the mid-1990s.
- From 2005 through 2014, combined hang glider and paraglider fatalities per annum have ranged from five to nine, averaging about six.
I care very little about paraglider fatalities. They tend to have little to no relevance to what goes on in hang gliding.
- In 2014, we experienced nine total fatalities in the US.
Nine that u$hPa has allowed us to hear about anyway.
My records for 2014 indicate 9 total fatalities in the USA, plus Bud Wruck's fatal crash in Slovenia:
PARAGLIDING
1) Paul MacDonald flew into power lines - HI, 2/10/14
2) Roland Allen Carter got wrapped in his canopy performing aerobatics - UT, 2/23/14
3) Bence Pascu flew into the ground performing aerobatics - ??, 3/21/14
4) Eric Jonathon Hill died following a collapse - UT, 4/20/14
5) Kevin Smith died following a collapse - CO, 6/20/14
6) Bud Wruck of Damon, TX, died following a collapse in Slovenia, 7/3/14
7) David Norwood died following a collapse - WA, 7/16/14
8) David Pearson died following a collapse performing aerobatics - CA, 10/28/14
9) Kjell Sporseen flew into the ground performing aerobatics - ??, 11/30/14
One electrocution, five collapses and three aerobatic mishaps. Hang gliders don't experience sail collapse. The pendulum gyrations that parachutists call "acrobatics" are not comparable with the true aerobatics of hang gliders. Eight out of these nine paragliding fatalities stem from flaws inherent to parachutes and are not something hang glider pilots can do anything about.
HANG GLIDING
1) Joseph Julik lost control of a new topless glider during landing rotation - WI, 9/29/14
Bull fucking shit. He ELECTED to throw it away at a hundred feet in order to prep for stunt landing he was intent on pulling off at zero feet.
By any measure, only one hang gliding death in all of the U.S. represents a spectacular success.
By my measure it represents a grotesque stupid failure. And then we have to look at the scores of assholes we NEEDED to kill who came through yet another year smelling like roses.
That is what we hang glider pilots accomplished in 2014.
I know I sure did MY part. And Bob's been making a pretty good show of things since last November too.
For a dangerous sport, that is something to brag about.
Sure Rick, whatever you say.
We can forget about Adam Parer - 2014/08/30 - 'cause that wasn't in the US.
Then we have Eric Mies who quaded himself at Funston also doing aerobatics with inadequate clearance on 2011/05/20 but didn't check out until late last August. If you hang on long enough to complete the calendar year it doesn't count anywhere.
John Claytor got his neck seriously rearranged on 2014/06/02 when the Ridgely douchebags were trying to run flight ops in a zillion mile per hour crosswind with a tug driver Pilot In Command who didn't fix whatever was going on back there by giving his passenger the rope, a pro toad release that proved not to be easily reachable, and a Rooney Link that didn't work when it was supposed to. And he disappeared from the sign and nobody's heard a word from or about him since. For the purposes of hang gliding he got killed a lot deader than Holly Korzilius.
Same day...
32-1826
Just shaken up a bit. Didn't break his fuckin' neck.
Two days later at Ridgely... John Dullahan has to get choppered out to have his back pieced back together after an approach that didn't work out too well.
34-3509
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5597/15703164475_348903ed84_o.png
No problem. The glider took all the impact.
We have tons o' shit going on all the time and we tend not to hear about non fatal stuff that doesn't make it to YouTube.
But how is this presented by the USHPA?
- In 2014, we experienced nine total fatalities in the US.
That doesn't look so good, does it?
What happened?
They mixed in paragliding fatalities with hang gliding fatalities. Just what are hang glider pilots supposed to do about paragliding safety when many of us won't even fly them because we believe them to be too dangerous? By reporting fatalities in this manner, the USHPA renders safety accomplishments in hang gliding meaningless.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS like WHAT? We luck out with a low fatality rate for a five month window? What was it we'd just started doing differently to deserve the better results? If we'd ACCOMPLISHED anything the crash rate graph would've dropped down to the lower light, leveled off, and stayed flat there. Fuckin' Rafi Lavin ACCOMPLISHED something by always skipping stomp tests and having his defective sidewire hold for the better part of eight months after the ball dropped?
It strikes me as odd that the Hang Gliding Co-Chair would present a fatalities list in this manner.
It would've stricken ME odd if that sleazy motherfucker HADN'T.
- Since the beginning of this year, we have experienced fifteen fatalities:
Bummer. I myself haven't experienced any for the past several years.
8 Hang Gliding and 7 Paragliding. The 2014 fatality rate was high.
Again, hang gliding experienced only one fatality in 2014.
Adam Parer. And Eric Mies. 2011 or 2014. Pick one. You don't get to pretend he never existed. James Brady got shot in the head on 1981/03/30 and when he died on 2014/08/04 it counted as a homicide.
The 2014 fatality rate for hang gliding was very low.
So the fuck what?
It's just that nobody's ever going to know it because of the USHPA's flawed premise.
1. It's not flawed. It's CALCULATED.
2. Who gives a flying fuck? Were doing EXACTLY the same things this year, reaping a bloodbath for our efforts, and continuing to do NOTHING to address this string of "bad luck".
"Hang gliding is dangerous, too," goes the paragliding mantra. Perhaps Shipley didn't want to draw heat by pointing out something that went against paragliding mythology.
The motherfucker is a commercial conflicted interest. What is it you'd EXPECT him to be doing?
...The 2015 rate is already more than double the annual fatality rate for the last decade--and the year is not yet over.
Let's look at 2015:
PARAGLIDING
1) Clayton Butler stalled a small paraglider and spun to the ground - HI, 1/15/15
2) Billy Baker hit a cliff on a small paraglider - WY, 1/22/15
3) Ronald Faoro fell from harness - CA, 3/1/15
4) Siegfried Muhlhauser
collapse culminating in a spiral dive - UT, 5/1/15
5) Junichi Nakamura was found dead - CA, 5/17/15
6) Richard Moren had a
collapse - WA, 6/14/15
7) Gregory Knudson had a
collapse - FRANCE, 7/14/15
8) Dale Brockett unknown - CA, 7/14/15
Two killed themselves on speedwings, one fell from his harness and five died from collapses or unknown events, which usually turn out to have been collapses. Anyone flying speedwings is on my short list. Allowing them into a hang gliding organization makes as much sense as allowing grenade launchers into hunting clubs.
Just get Bob to concoct justifications for banning them.
As for paragliders, they collapse in turbulence and I've learned to expect them to do that in hot weather.
What does hot weather have to do with turbulence?
Hang glider pilots can't do anything about this and it makes no sense to harangue them for it.
Fuck no. Took decades to replace Rooney Links with Tad-O-Links and then it wasn't hang glider pilots doing shit. It was all tug drivers / flight park operators.
HANG GLIDING
1) Kelly Harrison tow lockout tandem joyriding - NV, 3/28/15
Bull fucking shit. That was NOT a lockout. It was a clusterfuck fringe operation incompetent beyond all description - even for hang gliding.
2) Arys Moorhead child passenger, tow lockout tandem joyriding - NV, 3/28/15
1. See above.
2. Why specify that he was a:
- child? Is his death more statistically significant 'cause was little and cute?
- passenger? Kelly was a fuckin' passenger on that ride.
3) Markus Schaedler was found dead - CA, 5/9/15
Any more dead than he'd have been on a paraglider in the same circumstances?
4) Scott Trueblood flew straight into mountain - NY, 5/17/15
Should've practiced flying on the uprights more to have been able to prevent a headfirst impact. Salad bowl on a string helmet too.
5) Bertrand Delacroix spun to ground - MD, 6/20/15
1. Why?
2. Would a paraglider have spun in given the same circumstances?
6) Edgar Higgins was found dead - NV, 6/26/15
1. He went by "Trey".
2. Any more dead than he'd have been on a paraglider in the same circumstances?
7) Rafael Lavin flying wire snapped - CA, 8/23/15
1. Rafael Lavin skipping one too many stomp tests.
2. What happens when *A* flying wire snaps on a paraglider?
8) Craig Pirazzi blown off cliff launch - UT, 8/24/15
1. Craig Pirazzi blown off AN APPROACH TO a cliff launch.
2. In winds a paraglider couldn't and wouldn't have been flying.
Two died in a commercial joyriding accident under tow...
Fringe activity clusterfuck.
...two were found dead...
Two were trying to work thermal lift too low and slow.
...one died in a spin...
How the fuck do we know that? Here's the relevant u$hPa passage/sentence:
Slowly descending to approximately 400 feet AGL the pilot then initiated some maneuver that was not witnessed but was followed by several full revolutions that a pilot witness on the ground saw and that appeared to be a fully developed spin until impact with the ground, causing fatal injuries.
And all the motherfuckers most closely associated with that incident and individual have been silent as clams.
...one had a structural failure...
Bullshit A structural failure is what happens when you blow an aerobatics maneuver and load things up to well over half a dozen Gs. This motherfucker took off without any structure and rendered his glider uncontrollable at a wee bit over one G. It's not a structural failure when you take off with a 1.2 G wire or one of the basetube pins in your pocket.
...one flew into a cliff and another was blown off a cliff.
The latter wasn't a flying incident. It was a ground handling issue. It's a bit of a stretch counting it as a hang gliding fatality. We'd have had a similar outcome if a glider had gotten away from somebody and knocked a wuffo off the cliff.
It is doubtful that the USHPA instructors' cabal that profits from joyriding will ever enforce strict interpretation of the FAR 103 tandem exemption for instructional purposes, but if they had, we would be looking at six, not eight, hang gliding fatalities.
Find a single instance of one u$hPa instructor criticizing another u$hPa instructor for doing or not doing ANYTHING.
Pilot error is always the leading issue in hang gliding.
Only Markus, Scott, Bertrand, and Trey were participating in the sport as anything resembling PILOTS. And Scott was a bit iffy on that score.
I suspect flying near stall was a factor in three fatalities, barring medical issues, because when hang glider pilots are found dead, they usually stalled their gliders at low altitude and dove into the hill.
Yeah, motherfucker?
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1563
Platform Launching (PL) Draft suggestions needed
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1822
Oz forum
Rick Masters - 2015/05/22 00:28:25 UTC
We have a firewall. It's BobK. He is the one outstanding moderator in the entire arena of freeflight. He is the only moderator or site administrator with the courage to say no to the garbage-mongers. Without BobK, hang gliding's future doesn't stand a chance.
Spins are hard to maintain in an intact hang glider.
I don't think I've ever done one beyond a half turn.
I almost died in one, though, when my harness zipper line caught on a sail tensioning lever in the Sierras.
1. HPAT.
2. That's not a spin.
A pilot can box himself in to a bad outcome with wishful thinking.
How 'bout a:
- Rooney Link
- Dragonfly tow mast breakaway protector
- pro toad bridle
- easily reachable bent pin release
- tug driver who can fix whatever's going on back there by giving us the rope
- skipped:
-- stomp test
-- hook-in check
- moment at one:
-- banishes all concern about launching unhooked
-- has taken care of it
-- done it
-- put it out of his "mind"
- long final
- transition to upright for more flare authority and better head protection
- old Frisbee in the middle of the field
A pilot who deliberately boxes himself in isn't a pilot.
Delayed maintenance...
What was the maintenance interval Rafi should've adhered to with respect to a sidewire with an asymmetrically crimped nico? Fifty hours? Six months?
...and cliff launches in turbulence without a wire man come to mind.
There haven't been any issues involving cliff launches in turbulence without wire crews this year to date.
Professional film crews often invite disaster.
1. But amateur film crews are OK? So could we secure agreements with professional film crews that they not be reimbursed for services rendered during critical phases of flight ops?
2. So should we have a training program and Special Skills signoff for flying in the vicinity of a professional film crew?
- There have been twenty-four pilot fatalities since the beginning of 2014:
I'd tend to go with zero since 2011/06/06 when Tim Martin and a shitload of other flyers in the Chattanooga area got caught in a gust front.
As I mentioned earlier, I am focused on global accident numbers.
Then try to focus on Adam Parer a little better.
I know of 161 paragliding fatalities and 22 hang gliding fatalities since the beginning of 2014.
22? You're doing a lot better than I am. You list one for last year and eight for this one to date. I can't get as much as half your total.
Hopefully, these represent the larger fraction of the true numbers.
The constant throughout is that hang glider pilots, by and large, kill themselves by pilot error while soaring parachutists, by and large, are killed by their paragliders suddenly collapsing in normal turbulence, then going out of control.
Tell me how electing to fly a craft in turbulence very well known to become uncontrollable in turbulence isn't pilot error.
Pilot error can be addressed...
Good freaking luck, asshole. Bob, along with the mainstream industry, encourages and rewards pilot error as a foundation for "free flight".
...but the inherent risk of collapse in paragliding cannot.
Anything like?:
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27086
Steve Pearson on landings
Steve Pearson - 2012/03/28 23:26:05 UTC
I can't control the glider in strong air with my hands at shoulder or ear height and I'd rather land on my belly with my hands on the basetube than get turned downwind.
Because of this fact, I doubt that real improvements in paragliding safety can ever be accomplished.
Therefore we should persecute Max Marien and Brad Geary unmercifully for doing really cool precisely controlled stuff in glassy smooth coastal air.
Hang gliding certainly has nothing to do with paragliding attrition.
Nah, most hang gliding attrition is the result of hang gliding attrition.
And the premise at the heart of the USHPA analysis...
Analysis?
...that the fatality numbers can be combined to yield meaningful information, is simply ridiculous.
Duh. Mark G. Forbes stated a month shy of four years ago in black and white and virtually unambiguous terms that u$hPa's accident review and safety programs were total frauds. Exactly what are you expecting out of u$hPa other than more of the fraudulent, self serving, politically motivated crap we've been seeing for decades?
