Yesterday I sent this link:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post8469.html#p8469
to Jim Gaar via USHPA's pilot connect.
I hope that the motherfucker received it, and thus had a wonderful day.
You are NEVER hooked in.
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: You are NEVER hooked in.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33537
First Flairs
2. How 'bout learning to spell it before you teach it - seeing as how it's the only "skill" in the Pilot Proficiency System that anybody seems to give a flying fuck about.
3. Speaking of the Pilot Proficiency System... How come we see you complying with u$hPa's 34 plus year old hook-in check requirement on one hundred percent of your one flights and your student complying with it zero percent of his eight flights? Too advanced a skill for him to start trying to master at this point? Turbulent jet stream too strong, turbulent, and low that day?
4. Think he'll have his flare timing perfected enough to start him flying prone with his hands on the control tubes connector bar by the end of next season? Maybe getting him working on turns by early 2017?
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27415
Friday the 19th with Hawks & Friends!
What a total atrocity of a "lesson". Maximize the possibility of killing oneself at both ends of the flight and hang like an upright sack of potatoes for the twenty seconds in between.
Thank gawd I didn't have this asshole as an instructor thirty-five and a half years ago. Went prone as soon as my feet left the ground on the first flight, was flying highish and working on coordinated turns by Flight 16, scored my Two after 43 flights and five flying days on one Kitty Hawk Kites trip. Not just paragliders that are killing this sport.
P.S. Everybody remember li'l Ashley Strahl?
http://www.kitestrings.org/post3516.html#p3516
Anybody heard of her lately?
First Flairs
1. Great, Eric! You should have him safely and consistently landing in narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place in no time!Eric Hinrichs - 2015/10/20 05:48:49 UTC
Check out the last one in this video, this was his first times to try the flair!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4psMbsNTV4
2. How 'bout learning to spell it before you teach it - seeing as how it's the only "skill" in the Pilot Proficiency System that anybody seems to give a flying fuck about.
3. Speaking of the Pilot Proficiency System... How come we see you complying with u$hPa's 34 plus year old hook-in check requirement on one hundred percent of your one flights and your student complying with it zero percent of his eight flights? Too advanced a skill for him to start trying to master at this point? Turbulent jet stream too strong, turbulent, and low that day?
4. Think he'll have his flare timing perfected enough to start him flying prone with his hands on the control tubes connector bar by the end of next season? Maybe getting him working on turns by early 2017?
Orgasmically! I could barely contain myself!Jim Gaar - 2015/10/20 12:26:33 UTC
Lone Jack, Missouri
Pretty awesome!
Gawd how I miss Rooney and his keen intellect on this forum - and everywhere else lately as well. A REAL tug pilot and NOT a convicted pedophile. They just don't make them like that anymore.Rooney would love that instructors launch...
Yeah, let's not rock the boat on this one while we've got this mind blowing rate of progress ramping up. This guy is possibly on track to have the most perfected flare timing in the history of the sport.*If I was to offer advise and be nit-picky, I would have asked the student to hold the nose down longer to get a better feel for how the wing is reacting to his launch run and give him more time on the ground doing a good WJR and controlling his AoA. ( Mainly because the sudent seems to "get it" and could handle more input)
* I know. "But who asked you?"
Yeah, Jan... The FIRST person. The goddam instructor who ALWAYS does a textbook hook-in check just prior to launch - turbulent jet stream and false sense of security be damned - and NEVER has a student do one and NEVER gives us any help when we're fighting this war.Heli1 - 2015/10/20 12:46:03 UTC
A nice hook-in check just before launching
(the first person)
Or any other war - now that I come to think of it.Eric Hinrichs - California - 57944 - 1995/10/12 - H4 - Jim Woodward - AT FL TFL AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC - ADV INST, TAND INST
Yeah Fletcher, name some people who can foot launch and land in their sleep.Fletcher - 2015/10/20 14:50:57 UTC
Very nice flare on the last one- up instead of out
Now Practice Practice
Learn to launch and land until you can do it in your sleep.
You mean like everyone who lands on wheels and actually...You'll be a much better pilot if you're not worrying about the landing the whole flight.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27415
Friday the 19th with Hawks & Friends!
...LOOKS FORWARD to that part of the flight?NMERider - 2012/10/24 21:47:05 UTC
I have to say that landing on the wheels is so much fun it's not funny.
We just had a landing fatality two Sundays ago at a brain dead easy primary and a couple decades worth of flare timing and spot landing perfection didn't do shit for the survivability of the ex Four. Get fucked.Keep up the good work and keep us posted on your progress
A "flair" is like a trigger pull in a Russian roulette game. If you're doing it in the first place something dangerous and stupid is already happening.Dennis Wood - 2015/10/20 17:41:16 UTC
a flair is like the ante in a poker game. if you try to take it back, bad things happen.
Suck my dick, peanuts.any time you swing your legs forward in anticipation of touch-down, you move your weight forward, same as pulling in after flair.
more arc is gained for flair with hands higher on down tubes. (and the motion is an arc)
And stake your instructor to an ant hill.and some other stuff my instructor probably told me...
On the same page with something for a change.Brad Barkley - 2015/10/20 17:48:16 UTC
The first one is a FLAIR, and the second one is a FLARE.
They haven't been able to get it in the course of the previous few decades... What makes you think we'll have any better luck in the next few? The word or the Impossible Dream?Got it?
How 'bout telling us what you think a weak link is? And how to "correctly size" one so that it breaks when it's supposed to?Dennis Wood - 2015/10/20 17:52:43 UTC
i thunked a "flare" was one of them torchy burny thangs.
Well then, there's obviously absolutely no reason for the student to be doing hook-in checks. What's the worst that could happen on a shallow hill like that? I have no fuckin' clue why Eric's bothering.Andy Long - 2015/10/20 20:32:15 UTC
I've launched 2 of my Sensors from that very hill in the early morning when there wasn't so much as a breath of wind. Completely dead.
It was quite intimidating. That hill is shallower than it looks.
It IS easy. He's not doing anything challenging or fun or of any actual use in an actual flying career.The Condor (I assume that's the glider) makes it look easy!
Anything else you'd care to note regarding stuff that was only apparent on the very first flight?BTW, looks like it's almost blowing down the hill on the very first flight. Check out the wind streamers down below.
What a total atrocity of a "lesson". Maximize the possibility of killing oneself at both ends of the flight and hang like an upright sack of potatoes for the twenty seconds in between.
Thank gawd I didn't have this asshole as an instructor thirty-five and a half years ago. Went prone as soon as my feet left the ground on the first flight, was flying highish and working on coordinated turns by Flight 16, scored my Two after 43 flights and five flying days on one Kitty Hawk Kites trip. Not just paragliders that are killing this sport.
P.S. Everybody remember li'l Ashley Strahl?
http://www.kitestrings.org/post3516.html#p3516
Anybody heard of her lately?
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: You are NEVER hooked in.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45154
USHGA's ADM Safety Video
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27736
Increase in our USHpA dues
They allowed you to get that clip in because they've always had that in their SOPs, it's been taught by pretty much all instructors, and it isn't much of an issue in the serious crash statistics.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27494
The exciting bits
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5566/14704620965_ce30a874b7_o.png
USHGA's ADM Safety Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW8qZESnFvQMichael Grisham - 2015/11/12 22:09:25 UTC
http://www.ushpa.aero/videos.asp?type=hg02
Pre Flight Safety for Hang Gliding
Oh good, it's got an acronym. Must be quality stuff.This is the Aeronautical Decision Making (ADM) video on the USHGA website Hosted by Paul Voight.
Fuck the FAA.The video adapts the FAA's ADM to practical applications for Hang Gliding.
All except an example of:The elements of ADM are presented not by name but by example.
With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.
And you think that omission was just an oversight...Kendall - 2015/11/16 01:08:34 UTC
It's too bad that the video doesn't show Paul doing some kind of hook-in check between talking in front of the camera and running off the hill.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27736
Increase in our USHpA dues
...something u$hPa just hadn't thought of? Watch the film carefully. NOWHERE do you see a launch preceded by any kind of check in continuous footage. I guess if you were really good you could use shadows to prove that a given launch was preceded by a check less than an hour prior.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.
04-013115NMERider - 2015/11/16 02:07:11 UTC
They weren't even going to show the pilot inspecting the inside of the glider via the access zippers until I made a point.
They allowed you to get that clip in because they've always had that in their SOPs, it's been taught by pretty much all instructors, and it isn't much of an issue in the serious crash statistics.
Amazing...This was before I learned the 'Lift and Tug' method for hook-in check from Tad Eareckson.
Yes, that's who I learned it from along with the 'Gun is always loaded' philosophy of preventing a FTHI launch.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27494
The exciting bits
Steve Davy - 2012/04/27 01:55:17 UTC
Why did you delete my post?
Still there.Davis Straub - 2012/04/27 02:42:02 UTC
Tad's name.
11-091400This reminds me that I still need to rebuild a certain T2C 144 [clears his throat].
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5566/14704620965_ce30a874b7_o.png
Big fucking deal.Harald Steen - 2015/11/16 22:34:27 UTC
Not very professional
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: You are NEVER hooked in.
Jump to next post:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post8740.html#p8740
http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=3638
FTHI
2. Someone who follows the Grebloville rag. It's good, just not good enough to put on one of the international forums or submit to u$hPa for approval for a magazine article and SOP.
3. What the fuck do you mean "USEFUL"? Hook-in is a life or death issue and you're either hooked in when you start your run or you're not. Is it "USEFUL" to keep the wings level and nose down for an AWCL? Or CRITICAL?
- And strangely not one:
-- other individual has adopted it
-- instructor is teaching it
-- description of it has previously appeared in print
Must be pretty groundbreaking stuff. Pray continue.
- For the past thirty years I've been driving without using a seatbelt and have yet to be scratched. And tens of thousands of people per year are killed buckled in securely. Do the math.
- Oh. It's been "working" for you. Once or twice a month it saves you from launching unhooked. Bull fucking shit. You've never once been in a position in which you were approaching or at launch thinking you were hooked in and intending to launch and had your stupid ass saved by your stupid ass "system". If you're gonna credit it for "working" to prevent unhooked launches you hafta credit it equally for preventing you from getting pancreatic cancer.
I'm one of the dozen or so people on the planet who actually complies with u$hPa's hook-in check regulation. Lift and tug has never "WORKED" for me or anyone else I know of to prevent an unhooked launch. What I CAN say is:
-- people who practice lift and tug don't forget to do hook-in checks
-- nobody who practices lift and tug ever has or will launched unhooked
- Reminds me of the standard aerotow weak link. Worked for quite literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of tows for numerous aerotow operators across the county.
2. Yeah, talk to John Alden, George Stebbins, Steve Parson, Jon Orders, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney, Steve Exceptionally-Knowledgeable Wendt. Make sure that whatever you say meets with their approval.
3. Why?
- If your advice is valid and the instructor:
-- isn't a total douchebag wouldn't he already be teaching all the procedures you're advising?
-- hasn't been teaching your procedures do you think he's gonna say, "Damn! Greg's advice is BRILLIANT! What a TOTAL ASS I've been for not teaching these procedures all these years!"?
4. Why does it hafta be HIS instructor? If it's not OK with HIS instructor but a dozen other instructors with more years and ranges of experience and superior ratings are totally behind it is there some u$hPa SOP that forces him to fly under the dictates of some least common denominator who oozed through one of the hundreds of mile wide breaches in u$hPa's quality control defenses?
5. Who is "HIS" instructor? Did he just have one instructor to get him through to his One or Two? If he's had multiple instructors how does he determine which one gets to make the call? Or should it be put to a vote with, if necessary, his Regional Director serving as tiebreaker?
6. Since a single instructor is entitled to nix your proposal for one or more of his students what's the logic in allowing ANY u$hPa rated pilot to adopt it? Shouldn't we ALL defer to the least common denominator in the interest of safety?
7. Oh. So...
- you're a fuckin'...
- you have this system that you really believe can save somebody's life but you're totally cool with letting somebody die 'cause some u$hPa approved twat nixed it for whatever reason he may have felt like - including the desire not to look like some u$hPa approved twat 'cause he hadn't thought of and been teaching it.
8. Wouldn't any COMPETENT RESPONSIBLE instructor be staying current on these discussions and engaging you regarding points of agreement and disagreement? Can you point to any FTHI discussions in which something like this has actually happened?
9. Fuck anybody who:
- has an issue he truly believes in and is willing to permit some least common denominator u$hPa twat to impede its implementation
- promotes a system he doesn't believe in enough to go head to head with least common denominator u$hPa twats
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25550
Failure to hook in.
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1153
Hooking In
And obviously you've analyzed all the unhooked launch incidents to verify the validity of your statement.
Me?
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1167
The way it outa be
Don't Forget your Hang Check!
2. Sounds like you're not all that confident in your procedure. Sounding a lot like...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4247
Hook in failure in New Zealand
He'd be a pretty good instructor to have not objecting to your package, by the way. His position is that there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to decrease his likelihood of launching unhooked (if it happened to HIM it can happen to ANYONE - obviously), that one's only hope is having someone else catch you. Thus he'd be perfectly fine with you recommending sloppy assembly and skipped preflight as well as hook-in checks to protect against unhooked launches.
3. If I see you doing ANYTHING stupid and deliberate I'm not gonna say shit 'cause assholes like you are of the greatest benefit to the sport when serving as data points. If I see you finalling into some powerlines I'll do my best to wave you off. If I see you at the centerpoint of your imaginary boundary circle at the edge of the ramp with your glider on your shoulders and your carabiner dangling waiting for a good cycle I'm gonna wish you a great flight and get my GoPro running. "Damn! What a terrible tragedy! Just assumed he was hooked in - and would do a hook-in check just prior to launch anyway. Oh well, at least he died doing what he loved."
4. Ya know what one hundred percent of unhooked launch disasters have in common? NOT ONE INDIVIDUAL at and/or within sight of launch noticed that...
2-112
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7600/28811055456_925c8abb66_o.png
...the would-be pilot's carabiner was dangling. And damn near all of those were closely observed and many were assisted. And you think that somebody's gonna stop you from moving from the setup area to launch unhooked.
By the way...
10-05707
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3914/14557534537_684991ece8_o.png
See anything wrong with THAT picture?
57-01527
2. Oh. You "THINK" that. But you're not capable of thinking enough to modify and vary your behavior in accordance with what's going on with the conditions and environment. In an Eric Hinrichs or Craig Pirazzi situation you're gonna hook in before leaving the setup area because you can't think of any other way to safely guard against an unhooked launch. Like holding a glove in your teeth and making a temporary rule not to spit it out until you've reconnected.
But of course if you were smart enough to think of doing something like that you'd also be smart enough have read some of Steve D's fourteen posts on the previous page and figured out what the fuck a hook-in check is.
3. Doesn't seem to bother the idiot fucking Aussie Methodists any.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=13359
Today was a bad day!
4. 99.9 percent of the assholes who fly hang gliders "THINK" that the risk of dying in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place because of unperfected flare timing and technique is 100.0 percent and that the risk of practicing 100.0 percent of their landings for perfected flare timing and technique is 0.000 percent. (Whenever anyone breaks an arm in the primary Happy Acres putting green it's because he was unworthy.) They're totally incapable of assessing situations in which a standup landing will be highly advisable or necessary versus those in which a standup landing attempt will be near or certain suicide. Gotta be ALL or land like a girl. No such thing as varying behavior to adjust to varying and actual situations and threats.
"Holy shit! I figure it's fifty/fifty as to whether or not I get sucked off the cliff by the rotor. But if I move the glider towards launch without first hooking into it, on my nose wires like the last twenty guys who just launched, I might forget to hook in when I get back under the glider!
Better play it safe and take my chances with the rotor! Really not all that concerned with dying in that fashion anyway."
Dickhead.
2. What's the maximum permissible imaginary boundary? Would forty feet be OK? Fifty? A hundred? Two hundred? Would it be OK to extend the radius out to just short of wherever you're setting up your glider such that when you finish preflight you're ready to launch?
Or are you saying that there's some advantage to performing critical verifications closer to the time and position of commitment. And, if so, can you think of any catastrophic unhooked launches precipitated by individuals within the radius of your imaginary boundary?
3. Wanna see MY imaginary boundary, motherfucker?
06-04213
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7449/13891111960_87d494095e_o.png
My imaginary boundary is AT launch and four feet back from the edge of the fuckin' cliff. And I don't ever cross it unless I've verified that I'm connected to my fuckin' glider within the previous two seconds 'cause:
- I'm an extremely UNFOCUSED PILOT
- my:
-- short term memory totally sucks and I frequently have no freakin' clue as to what happened five seconds ago
-- long term memory's pretty good and I can never forget what happened at that launch ten years and three days shy of two months ago
- the rocks below launch look like this:
10-05124
http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2933/14074543322_a183cc3a23_o.png
and are a long way down - but not far enough down to allow me to get a parachute open (lose/lose)
- it's a real bitch trying to abort a launch here a quarter second after I've started moving forward
09-05019
http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2928/13891086719_3ba7e65d38_o.png
11-03110
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3697/13700915564_87a2a336b0_o.png
12-03129
http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2912/13700562685_86575e9220_o.png
Crouch to snatch completion in 0.73 seconds.
2. Oh, but Eric can't SEE his carabiner doing that and therefore might not catch any cracking or corrosion which might have occurred since hooking in and locking.
3. Another HUGE advantage that you don't mention is that this procedure absolves you from any and all responsibility to comply with u$hPa's thirty-four and a half year old regulation to...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7570/15661252749_7fcfe6445a_o.jpg
...inside their imaginary boundaries. And you're obviously not posting this for the benefit of any stupid people. We have way too many of them around as things are.
2. What do you do when you're airborne and commit an action that falls short of your sterling personal standards? Decide not to land and immediately throw your parachute?
3. So how many times have you actually started pulling battens because you judged yourself unworthy? What a total load o' crap.
4. And this is supposed to be making you a better, safer pilot in the long run. You PUNISH yourself for your oversights, for not being the one hundred percent perfect pilot you know yourself to truly be, by throwing away soaring time and launch and landing practice and going home to play checkers. What a mega-ass. I punish myself by forcing myself to continue flying until I get things right consistently.
5. Do you punish yourself in a similar manner when you miss your exit on the interstate? Pull off on the shoulder, call a tow truck, take a cab home, ground yourself for a week while you address the issue and become a one hundred percent perfect driver?
I just realized how much contempt I have for these self-flagellating holier-than-thou assholes incapable of making a mistake, learning from it, adjusting, getting on with being a better pilot. I scared the crap outta myself not finding that I'd done THIS:
until after I'd cleared my crew, launched, made a few high wind passes over the dune, landed, and turned around to unhook. But I didn't punish myself with a grounding. I said, "Holy shit! That's one mistake I must not and will not ever make again." And I sure wasn't worried about making it again before next weekend. If I were gonna ground myself the best time to do it would've been fifteen years from then when a bit of the shock might've starting wearing off a bit.
Here's Mike End-Of-Story Bomstad's stupid ass lucking itself out:
02-A01522
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8835/28852423432_4b2a38fb3c_o.png
11-A12819
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8339/28924980016_2ba1d20ef7_o.png
13-A14319
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8253/28924975726_0d24a615c2_o.png
Doesn't punish himself by turning around and pulling battens...
39-B14607
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8126/28852425302_d70604f440_o.png
So can you tell me how you'd become a better safer pilot than he did if you'd punished yourself for the similar but lesser infraction?
2. So tell be 'bout all the shit you've caught in the course of your couple decades of setting the glider down at launch and reaching back and tugging or your hang strap before lifting the glider. NOTHING? Really? Maybe if you're doing checks that aren't revealing any issues, like the idiot hang check you don't do, the checks really aren't worth doing. 'Specially if nobody else is finding anything doing the same idiot checks.
You hafta set the glider down, move forward, grab the nose wires, turn halfway around, grab and tug the hang strap, move back, squat down, position your shoulders between the control tubes, lift the glider, and trim it back for takeoff. And you often do this several times per launch.
And you don't seem to be able to make this an unconscious habit.
And any ACTUAL PILOTS in line behind you have nothing better to do than watch this moronic bullshit. Hope this catches on with everybody so we can convert the entire launch line to a preflight line that takes an hour and a half to navigate.
BULLSHIT. No way in hell are you or anyone else doing this crap. You may be doing this crap several times BEFORE you pick up the glider but once it's up you're not repeating it unless you have some other reason to put the glider back down. And it will NEVER become an unconscious "habit" - the way pulling in in response to a stall and lift and tug at the beginning of the launch sequence does.
Fuckin' sport has to be in a class by itself for dipshits coming up with dangerous solutions to nonexistent problems - backup loop, locking carabiner, hang check, spot no-stepper, Infallible Weak Link, Dragonfly tow mast breakaway protector, truck tow observer, tandem instruction, Christopher LeFay Five Second Rule...
So have you tried to get into the habit of checking the hook-in status of anyone that you see on or near launch with a glider, whether you're currently helping them or not? Obviously fucking not 'cause you're:
- saying "let US TRY to get into the HABIT of checking"
- too fucking busy with all your uselessly redundant bullshit procedures you're using as justification for not doing a hook-in check to have the time and energy left to give a flying fuck about anyone else
I notice when you say:
Me? I ACTUALLY DO THIS. And, more importantly, I ALWAYS look to see if people on the ramp comply with u$hPa's hook-in check regulation. And I pretty much never see them doing it - save for when the suspension's tight anyway 'cause the idiot let his wing float up into the turbulent jet stream for better control authority and cleaner launches.
And...
---
Edit - 2015/12/01 17:10:00 UTC
Jump to top:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post8738.html#p8738
http://www.kitestrings.org/post8740.html#p8740
http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=3638
FTHI
Greg Kendall - 2015/11/25 18:39:36 UTC
I thought I'd share what I do for hook-in verification just in case it might be useful to someone. My system has been working for me for about twenty years now. If you're a new pilot, talk to your instructor before following any advice that I might give.
The theme here is redundancy through doing multiple different checks. Redundancy is the only way to get high reliability from a system of not-so-reliable components. In this case a component is a human trying to remember to do a check.
I hook in where I set up. I don't ever move a glider toward launch without first hooking into it. If you see me doing that, please stop me because it means that I'm having a major brain fart. I recognize that there is a tradeoff between the danger of getting flipped over while walking to launch and the danger of launching unhooked. I think that the former is far less likely to result in disaster.
I also define an imaginary boundary around any launch that cannot be crossed without stopping to check everything. My checks don't take long, but the boundary should be far enough (thirty feet or so) from launch to allow room for anyone who's in a hurry to go around.
The main check I do at the boundary involves kneeling down until my hang strap and my leg loops are tight. The advantages of this check over the traditional hang check are: you can do it by yourself, you get a leg loop check in the process, you can more easily see your carabiner, and it's quicker. I don't do a traditional hang check unless I've changed something (glider, harness, hang strap, biner, etc.) that might affect hang height.
Once within the boundary, I stay hooked in. If I back off launch, I go back outside the boundary before unhooking. After that, everything starts over (or I start pulling battens).
Once on launch, I set the glider down and reach back and tug on my hang strap before lifting the glider. I've tried to make this an unconscious habit that will still happen even if my brain is shut off. I often do it several times per launch. By the way, when I pack up my harness, I don't hook my biner to anything. I don't want it to feel like it's hooked into a glider when it's not.
Finally, let's try to get into the habit of checking the hook-in status of anyone that we see on or near launch with a glider, whether we're currently helping them or not.
1. Of course it will. You're the one person in the entire history of hang gliding who's come up with a bulletproof strategy for preventing unhooked launches.I thought I'd share what I do for hook-in verification just in case it might be useful to someone.
2. Someone who follows the Grebloville rag. It's good, just not good enough to put on one of the international forums or submit to u$hPa for approval for a magazine article and SOP.
3. What the fuck do you mean "USEFUL"? Hook-in is a life or death issue and you're either hooked in when you start your run or you're not. Is it "USEFUL" to keep the wings level and nose down for an AWCL? Or CRITICAL?
Wow. Twenty years. A whole 1.0 individuals. What a track record. I say let's go for it.My system has been working for me for about twenty years now.
- And strangely not one:
-- other individual has adopted it
-- instructor is teaching it
-- description of it has previously appeared in print
Must be pretty groundbreaking stuff. Pray continue.
- For the past thirty years I've been driving without using a seatbelt and have yet to be scratched. And tens of thousands of people per year are killed buckled in securely. Do the math.
- Oh. It's been "working" for you. Once or twice a month it saves you from launching unhooked. Bull fucking shit. You've never once been in a position in which you were approaching or at launch thinking you were hooked in and intending to launch and had your stupid ass saved by your stupid ass "system". If you're gonna credit it for "working" to prevent unhooked launches you hafta credit it equally for preventing you from getting pancreatic cancer.
I'm one of the dozen or so people on the planet who actually complies with u$hPa's hook-in check regulation. Lift and tug has never "WORKED" for me or anyone else I know of to prevent an unhooked launch. What I CAN say is:
-- people who practice lift and tug don't forget to do hook-in checks
-- nobody who practices lift and tug ever has or will launched unhooked
- Reminds me of the standard aerotow weak link. Worked for quite literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of tows for numerous aerotow operators across the county.
1. But not if you've been flying a year or two. Then you don't need to talk to your instructor before following any advice that I might give.If you're a new pilot, talk to your instructor before following any advice that I might give.
2. Yeah, talk to John Alden, George Stebbins, Steve Parson, Jon Orders, Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney, Steve Exceptionally-Knowledgeable Wendt. Make sure that whatever you say meets with their approval.
3. Why?
- If your advice is valid and the instructor:
-- isn't a total douchebag wouldn't he already be teaching all the procedures you're advising?
-- hasn't been teaching your procedures do you think he's gonna say, "Damn! Greg's advice is BRILLIANT! What a TOTAL ASS I've been for not teaching these procedures all these years!"?
4. Why does it hafta be HIS instructor? If it's not OK with HIS instructor but a dozen other instructors with more years and ranges of experience and superior ratings are totally behind it is there some u$hPa SOP that forces him to fly under the dictates of some least common denominator who oozed through one of the hundreds of mile wide breaches in u$hPa's quality control defenses?
5. Who is "HIS" instructor? Did he just have one instructor to get him through to his One or Two? If he's had multiple instructors how does he determine which one gets to make the call? Or should it be put to a vote with, if necessary, his Regional Director serving as tiebreaker?
6. Since a single instructor is entitled to nix your proposal for one or more of his students what's the logic in allowing ANY u$hPa rated pilot to adopt it? Shouldn't we ALL defer to the least common denominator in the interest of safety?
7. Oh. So...
- you're a fuckin'...
...23 year Four with lotsa merit badges but some new Hang Three twat working for a ride factory like Kitty Hawk gets to veto anything of yours he feels like. Or maybe some Florida product who's never once in his flying career taken off from anything higher than an aerotow launch dolly.Greg Kendall - 55236 - H4 - 1992/11/01 - Matt Spinelli - AT AWCL FSL RLF TUR XC
- you have this system that you really believe can save somebody's life but you're totally cool with letting somebody die 'cause some u$hPa approved twat nixed it for whatever reason he may have felt like - including the desire not to look like some u$hPa approved twat 'cause he hadn't thought of and been teaching it.
8. Wouldn't any COMPETENT RESPONSIBLE instructor be staying current on these discussions and engaging you regarding points of agreement and disagreement? Can you point to any FTHI discussions in which something like this has actually happened?
9. Fuck anybody who:
- has an issue he truly believes in and is willing to permit some least common denominator u$hPa twat to impede its implementation
- promotes a system he doesn't believe in enough to go head to head with least common denominator u$hPa twats
Yeah...The theme here is redundancy through doing multiple different checks.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25550
Failure to hook in.
Steve Davy - 2011/10/24 10:27:04 UTC
OK- how many times does he need confirm that he is hooked in? And when would be the best time to make that confirmation?
Brian McMahon - 2011/10/24 21:04:17 UTC
Once, just prior to launch.
Great idea.Christian Williams - 2011/10/25 03:59:58 UTC
I agree with that statement.
What's more, I believe that all hooked-in checks prior to the last one before takeoff are a waste of time, not to say dangerous, because they build a sense of security which should not be built more than one instant before commitment to flight.
Of course. You've just stated something so, obviously...Redundancy is the only way to get high reliability from a system of not-so-reliable components.
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1153
Hooking In
...it must be true.Steve Kinsley - 2005/10/02 02:45:48 UTC
I already see where the anger and grief take us. We need to do hang checks, double hang checks. And who was on Bill's wire crew? How could they let that happen?
When Bob Gillisse got hurt I suggested that our local institution of the hang check is more the problem than the solution. I still believe that. It subverts the pilot's responsibility to perform a hook-in check. I often do not see pilots doing a hook-in check. Why should they? They just did a hang check and they are surrounded by friends who will make sure this box is checked.
And obviously you've analyzed all the unhooked launch incidents to verify the validity of your statement.
Me?
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1167
The way it outa be
I prefer to do ONE solid preflight and ONE top quality hook-in check the instant before I start to move my foot. And that "worked for me" for a span of a quarter century. Also has always worked for everyone else I know who resembles that remark - asshole.Steve Kinsley - 2005/10/04 14:04:25 UTC
One last attempt.
We have now rounded up all the usual suspects and promised renewed vigilance, nine page checklists, hang checks every six feet, et cetera. Bob Gillisse redux.
A hang check is part of preflighting your equipment. You do it in the setup area - not on the launch or the ramp. When you get in line you are hooked in and ready to go. No going down for a hang check cum hook in check.
Fuck any human trying to remember to do a check. The more of these assholes we eliminate from the gene pool the better. We only want the people with enough brains to ALWAYS be afraid of launching unhooked. The functional brains and resultant fear takes the memory crap totally out of the equation. We don't want people flying these things who need to REMEMBER to come into a field with speed. We want people who instinctively/reflexively pull in 'cause they know what the consequences can or will be if they don't.In this case a component is a human trying to remember to do a check.
Oh. So you don't - and CAN'T - fly Glacier or Makapu'u.I hook in where I set up.
http://http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=21868I don't ever move a glider toward launch without first hooking into it.
Don't Forget your Hang Check!
Good.Eric Hinrichs - 2011/05/13 21:31:06 UTC
I went to Chelan for the Nationals in '95 as a free flyer. They were requiring everyone to use the Australian method, and you were also not allowed to carry a glider without being hooked in.
This was different for me, I hook in and do a full hang check just behind launch right before I go. I was also taught to do a hooked in check right before starting my run, lifting or letting the wind lift the glider to feel the tug of the leg loops.
So I used their method and I'm hooked in, carrying my glider to launch and someone yells "Dust devil!" Everyone around runs for their gliders (most of which are tied down) and I'm left standing alone in the middle of the butte with a huge monster wandering around. I heard later that it was well over three hundred feet tall, and some saw lightning at the top.
1. Get used to it. You ARE a major brain fart.If you see me doing that, please stop me because it means that I'm having a major brain fart.
2. Sounds like you're not all that confident in your procedure. Sounding a lot like...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4247
Hook in failure in New Zealand
...Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney - another one of the world's greatest authorities on unhooked launch prevention.Jim Rooney - 2006/09/24 21:19:29 UTC
Enough about what doesn't work though... what does?
Since we don't have a plug that only fits one way, we fall on lesser methods, but some are better than others...
In particular... Third Party Verification.
You won't save you, but your friends might.
Not always, but they're more reliable than you.
Why do you think that airline checklists (yes our lovely checklists) are check-verified by pilot AND copilot?
That's all I got for ya.
The other topics have been beat to death here.
If there was an answer, we'd all already be doing it.
He'd be a pretty good instructor to have not objecting to your package, by the way. His position is that there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to decrease his likelihood of launching unhooked (if it happened to HIM it can happen to ANYONE - obviously), that one's only hope is having someone else catch you. Thus he'd be perfectly fine with you recommending sloppy assembly and skipped preflight as well as hook-in checks to protect against unhooked launches.
3. If I see you doing ANYTHING stupid and deliberate I'm not gonna say shit 'cause assholes like you are of the greatest benefit to the sport when serving as data points. If I see you finalling into some powerlines I'll do my best to wave you off. If I see you at the centerpoint of your imaginary boundary circle at the edge of the ramp with your glider on your shoulders and your carabiner dangling waiting for a good cycle I'm gonna wish you a great flight and get my GoPro running. "Damn! What a terrible tragedy! Just assumed he was hooked in - and would do a hook-in check just prior to launch anyway. Oh well, at least he died doing what he loved."
4. Ya know what one hundred percent of unhooked launch disasters have in common? NOT ONE INDIVIDUAL at and/or within sight of launch noticed that...
2-112
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...the would-be pilot's carabiner was dangling. And damn near all of those were closely observed and many were assisted. And you think that somebody's gonna stop you from moving from the setup area to launch unhooked.
By the way...
10-05707
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3914/14557534537_684991ece8_o.png
See anything wrong with THAT picture?
Really?I recognize that there is a tradeoff between the danger of getting flipped over while walking to launch and the danger of launching unhooked.
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1. Yeah. It's a no brainer that that's also what Craig Pirazzi was thinking three months ago a few seconds before he got swept off the cliff by the rotor. And, seriously folks, it's a pretty good bet that he was clipped in approaching launch because his mindset on this FTHI issue was very similar to this total douchebag's. Should be interesting to see what u$hPa says regarding this when we get the final report at the conclusion of the Accident Committee's comprehensive investigation.I think that the former is far less likely to result in disaster.
2. Oh. You "THINK" that. But you're not capable of thinking enough to modify and vary your behavior in accordance with what's going on with the conditions and environment. In an Eric Hinrichs or Craig Pirazzi situation you're gonna hook in before leaving the setup area because you can't think of any other way to safely guard against an unhooked launch. Like holding a glove in your teeth and making a temporary rule not to spit it out until you've reconnected.
But of course if you were smart enough to think of doing something like that you'd also be smart enough have read some of Steve D's fourteen posts on the previous page and figured out what the fuck a hook-in check is.
3. Doesn't seem to bother the idiot fucking Aussie Methodists any.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=13359
Today was a bad day!
Not a single one of any of those dickheads will acknowledge that there can be any danger at any site in any conditions associated with only entering and exiting a harness when it's part of the aircraft or any practical and safety advantages to hooking in and unclipping suited up. And all you're doing is a watered down version of the Aussie Method.Mike Bomstad - 2009/08/26 04:21:15 UTC
The harness is part of the aircraft... end of story.
(Just because it's easy to remove, does not mean it should be. Dont choose the path of least resistance)
Attach it to the wing, completing the aircraft.... then preflight the completed aircraft.
Buckle yourself into the cockpit and then your ready.
4. 99.9 percent of the assholes who fly hang gliders "THINK" that the risk of dying in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place because of unperfected flare timing and technique is 100.0 percent and that the risk of practicing 100.0 percent of their landings for perfected flare timing and technique is 0.000 percent. (Whenever anyone breaks an arm in the primary Happy Acres putting green it's because he was unworthy.) They're totally incapable of assessing situations in which a standup landing will be highly advisable or necessary versus those in which a standup landing attempt will be near or certain suicide. Gotta be ALL or land like a girl. No such thing as varying behavior to adjust to varying and actual situations and threats.
"Holy shit! I figure it's fifty/fifty as to whether or not I get sucked off the cliff by the rotor. But if I move the glider towards launch without first hooking into it, on my nose wires like the last twenty guys who just launched, I might forget to hook in when I get back under the glider!
Better play it safe and take my chances with the rotor! Really not all that concerned with dying in that fashion anyway."Dickhead.
Oh good. An imaginary boundary to match your imaginary solution for the unhooked launch issue.I also define an imaginary boundary around any launch...
Well of course you can't cross it. It's an imaginary boundary ferchrisake. And there are universally recognized and extremely strict rules prohibiting the crossing of imaginary boundaries....that cannot be crossed...
And make sure you check EVERYTHING. Redo the entire textbook preflight. Detension your wing and pull the battens to check for port/starboard symmetry....without stopping to check everything.
1. Well yeah, thirty feet or so is the universally recognized radius inside of which it's physically impossible for any critical alterations of the configuration to occur - regardless of the length of time spent within that radius. If you do thorough checks just outside of that radius you're fuckin' golden.My checks don't take long, but the boundary should be far enough (thirty feet or so) from launch...
2. What's the maximum permissible imaginary boundary? Would forty feet be OK? Fifty? A hundred? Two hundred? Would it be OK to extend the radius out to just short of wherever you're setting up your glider such that when you finish preflight you're ready to launch?
Or are you saying that there's some advantage to performing critical verifications closer to the time and position of commitment. And, if so, can you think of any catastrophic unhooked launches precipitated by individuals within the radius of your imaginary boundary?
3. Wanna see MY imaginary boundary, motherfucker?
06-04213
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7449/13891111960_87d494095e_o.png
My imaginary boundary is AT launch and four feet back from the edge of the fuckin' cliff. And I don't ever cross it unless I've verified that I'm connected to my fuckin' glider within the previous two seconds 'cause:
- I'm an extremely UNFOCUSED PILOT
- my:
-- short term memory totally sucks and I frequently have no freakin' clue as to what happened five seconds ago
-- long term memory's pretty good and I can never forget what happened at that launch ten years and three days shy of two months ago
- the rocks below launch look like this:
10-05124
http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2933/14074543322_a183cc3a23_o.png
and are a long way down - but not far enough down to allow me to get a parachute open (lose/lose)
- it's a real bitch trying to abort a launch here a quarter second after I've started moving forward
09-05019
http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2928/13891086719_3ba7e65d38_o.png
You mean like REAL pilots who have their shit together before approaching launch and don't feel like wasting critical soaring time waiting for incompetent assholes like you to make extra attempts to get their shit together? Why do you feel entitled to block or impede these other gliders to allow you to implement your imaginary system for preventing unhooked launches?...to allow room for anyone who's in a hurry to go around.
What's stopping you from lifting the glider up at the boundary until your hang strap and leg loops are tight? Oh, right. Kneeling down until your hang strap and leg loops are tight doesn't give you the false sense of security that lifting the glider up until your hang strap and leg loops are tight does. Plus any false sense of security you might get from kneeling down until your hang strap and leg loops are tight is greatly diminished when executed outside the designated imaginary boundary.The main check I do at the boundary involves kneeling down until my hang strap and my leg loops are tight.
Is the traditional hang check anything like the traditional aerotow weak link? Who started this tradition and, if it's such a great tradition, how come it's never been included in any of the u$hPa SOPs?The advantages of this check over the traditional hang check...
Which fits right in with your every-man-for-himself approach to this issue. Reminds me of Craig Pirazzi who liked to approach Assisted Windy Cliff Launches by himself in Assisted Windy Cliff Launch conditions....are: you can do it by yourself...
You couldn't see your carabiner clearly enough when you were clipping it into your suspension?...you get a leg loop check in the process, you can more easily see your carabiner...
1. Is it as quick as:...and it's quicker.
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12-03129
http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2912/13700562685_86575e9220_o.png
Crouch to snatch completion in 0.73 seconds.
2. Oh, but Eric can't SEE his carabiner doing that and therefore might not catch any cracking or corrosion which might have occurred since hooking in and locking.
3. Another HUGE advantage that you don't mention is that this procedure absolves you from any and all responsibility to comply with u$hPa's thirty-four and a half year old regulation to...
...always perform a hook-in check just prior to launch. Unwritten fundamental law of hang gliding: Avoid any check which might be construed as "just prior to launch" like the fuckin' plague because all individual pilots have better ideas for preventing unhooked launches incompatible with the hook-in check.With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.
Oh. So when you just said:I don't do a traditional hang check unless I've changed something (glider, harness, hang strap, biner, etc.) that might affect hang height.
you were lying. You DON'T check everything. You just ASSUME that you haven't changed anything and you'll be hanging at proper bar clearance when you get airborne. So can you specify what needs to be checked and rechecked and what doesn't and give us the justifications?I also define an imaginary boundary around any launch that cannot be crossed without stopping to check everything.
Well duh. It's not like you're gonna unhook to adjust, fix, access, retrieve anything like all those other assholes who've run off ramps without their gliders after establishing that they were safely connected before crossing their imaginary boundaries. Only stupid people do shit like that...Once within the boundary, I stay hooked in.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7570/15661252749_7fcfe6445a_o.jpg
...inside their imaginary boundaries. And you're obviously not posting this for the benefit of any stupid people. We have way too many of them around as things are.
And ain't it great that you're never in any reverse Craig Pirazzi situations in which it would be moronic at best and lethal at worst to back off to your imaginary boundary and through a rotor while hooked in. And ain't it also great that none of the assholes listening to your moronic advice will ever be in a reverse Craig Pirazzi or any other situation in which being hooked in behind launch would be massively inadvisable.If I back off launch, I go back outside the boundary before unhooking.
1. But you're pulling them anyway to recheck for port/starboard symmetry, right?After that, everything starts over (or I start pulling battens).
2. What do you do when you're airborne and commit an action that falls short of your sterling personal standards? Decide not to land and immediately throw your parachute?
3. So how many times have you actually started pulling battens because you judged yourself unworthy? What a total load o' crap.
4. And this is supposed to be making you a better, safer pilot in the long run. You PUNISH yourself for your oversights, for not being the one hundred percent perfect pilot you know yourself to truly be, by throwing away soaring time and launch and landing practice and going home to play checkers. What a mega-ass. I punish myself by forcing myself to continue flying until I get things right consistently.
5. Do you punish yourself in a similar manner when you miss your exit on the interstate? Pull off on the shoulder, call a tow truck, take a cab home, ground yourself for a week while you address the issue and become a one hundred percent perfect driver?
I just realized how much contempt I have for these self-flagellating holier-than-thou assholes incapable of making a mistake, learning from it, adjusting, getting on with being a better pilot. I scared the crap outta myself not finding that I'd done THIS:
until after I'd cleared my crew, launched, made a few high wind passes over the dune, landed, and turned around to unhook. But I didn't punish myself with a grounding. I said, "Holy shit! That's one mistake I must not and will not ever make again." And I sure wasn't worried about making it again before next weekend. If I were gonna ground myself the best time to do it would've been fifteen years from then when a bit of the shock might've starting wearing off a bit.
Here's Mike End-Of-Story Bomstad's stupid ass lucking itself out:
02-A01522
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8835/28852423432_4b2a38fb3c_o.png
11-A12819
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8339/28924980016_2ba1d20ef7_o.png
13-A14319
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8253/28924975726_0d24a615c2_o.png
Doesn't punish himself by turning around and pulling battens...
39-B14607
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8126/28852425302_d70604f440_o.png
So can you tell me how you'd become a better safer pilot than he did if you'd punished yourself for the similar but lesser infraction?
1. Good idea. That will let you know that your hang strap will likely withstand the force in flight with which you're tugging. Don't see what benefit it would be in establishing that you're connected to your glider though.Once on launch, I set the glider down and reach back and tug on my hang strap before lifting the glider.
2. So tell be 'bout all the shit you've caught in the course of your couple decades of setting the glider down at launch and reaching back and tugging or your hang strap before lifting the glider. NOTHING? Really? Maybe if you're doing checks that aren't revealing any issues, like the idiot hang check you don't do, the checks really aren't worth doing. 'Specially if nobody else is finding anything doing the same idiot checks.
Keep trying to make this an unconscious habit. I'm sure that any year now you'll succeed in making this an unconscious habit.I've tried to make this an unconscious habit...
How is an asshole such as yourself able to determine whether or not his brain's shut off and what possible difference could it make?...that will still happen even if my brain is shut off.
And you still haven't had any success in making it an unconscious habit. Go figure.I often do it several times per launch.
You hafta set the glider down, move forward, grab the nose wires, turn halfway around, grab and tug the hang strap, move back, squat down, position your shoulders between the control tubes, lift the glider, and trim it back for takeoff. And you often do this several times per launch.
And you don't seem to be able to make this an unconscious habit.
And any ACTUAL PILOTS in line behind you have nothing better to do than watch this moronic bullshit. Hope this catches on with everybody so we can convert the entire launch line to a preflight line that takes an hour and a half to navigate.
BULLSHIT. No way in hell are you or anyone else doing this crap. You may be doing this crap several times BEFORE you pick up the glider but once it's up you're not repeating it unless you have some other reason to put the glider back down. And it will NEVER become an unconscious "habit" - the way pulling in in response to a stall and lift and tug at the beginning of the launch sequence does.
Well good for you. So tell me how hooking your carabiner to a shoulder strap is gonna make it feel like it's hooked into a glider at launch time. And then tell me how taking an actual extra risk of misrouting your suspension isn't more of an actual issue than the imaginary issue of having your harness feel like it's hooked into a glider when it's not. Cite me one account from the history of hang gliding of an incident precipitated by a carabiner being hooked to something on the harness making it feel like it's hooked into the glider when it wasn't.By the way, when I pack up my harness, I don't hook my biner to anything. I don't want it to feel like it's hooked into a glider when it's not.
Fuckin' sport has to be in a class by itself for dipshits coming up with dangerous solutions to nonexistent problems - backup loop, locking carabiner, hang check, spot no-stepper, Infallible Weak Link, Dragonfly tow mast breakaway protector, truck tow observer, tandem instruction, Christopher LeFay Five Second Rule...
No. Let's not. Let's keep on asking people if they've had hang checks and assuming they're hooked in once they've made it onto the ramp or inside the imaginary boundary thirty feet or so from the front of the ramp.Finally, let's try to get into the habit of checking the hook-in status of anyone that we see on or near launch with a glider, whether we're currently helping them or not.
So have you tried to get into the habit of checking the hook-in status of anyone that you see on or near launch with a glider, whether you're currently helping them or not? Obviously fucking not 'cause you're:
- saying "let US TRY to get into the HABIT of checking"
- too fucking busy with all your uselessly redundant bullshit procedures you're using as justification for not doing a hook-in check to have the time and energy left to give a flying fuck about anyone else
I notice when you say:
you don't say anything about checking anyone who's in a hurry to go around. Aren't people in hurries to go around generally considered to be at higher risk for launching unhooked?My checks don't take long, but the boundary should be far enough (thirty feet or so) from launch to allow room for anyone who's in a hurry to go around.
Me? I ACTUALLY DO THIS. And, more importantly, I ALWAYS look to see if people on the ramp comply with u$hPa's hook-in check regulation. And I pretty much never see them doing it - save for when the suspension's tight anyway 'cause the idiot let his wing float up into the turbulent jet stream for better control authority and cleaner launches.
And not a word on what's right or wrong with what anybody else is doing for hook-in verification because...I thought I’d share what I do for hook-in verification just in case it might be useful to someone.
...you haven't launched unhooked in about twenty years at any of the half dozen wimp California sites you've flown. Betchya also have a top notch, state-of-the-art aerotow release 'cause you've never been killed in a low level lockout before either.My system has been working for me for about twenty years now.
And...
After over five days not one peep of dissent from Joe Four-Or-Five-Cs Greblo so if you're totally cool with an icon such as he...If you're a new pilot, talk to your instructor before following any advice that I might give.
---
Edit - 2015/12/01 17:10:00 UTC
That doesn't mean he's claiming to punish himself for failing to adhere to his personal standards. That means he start's pulling battens if the reason he backed off was that it blew out or started coming in over the back. Relevant abuse withdrawn with respect to Greg. But you DO hear crap like this from assholes who claim they'll abort flying if they do something that indicates to them that their heads aren't adequately in the game. And while their heads aren't in the game adequately for flying they're always in the game adequately for navigating around scores of semis and hundreds of family vehicles at seventy miles per hour back out on the highway on the way home.After that, everything starts over (or I start pulling battens).
Jump to top:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post8738.html#p8738
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: You are NEVER hooked in.
http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=3638
FTHI
22-20605
If you see one of those open so much as an inch make sure to take care of it personally. Don't trust some idiot wire crewman to the job. You're the Pilot In Command so do it yourself to make sure it's done right.
And remember what Greg just said about redundancy:
2. What do you do when you're already under the glider and have just unclipped to zip up your port cross spar / leading edge junction inspection port zipper?
- ACTUALLY REMEMBERED hook-in checks at launch?
- tried to remember TO DO hook-in checks at launch?
- ACTUALLY REMEMBERED TO DO:
-- hook-in checks at launch?
-- A hook-in CHECK at launch?
If you managed to clear all those hurdles have you ever ACTUALLY DONE A HOOK-IN CHECK AT LAUNCH? (Just kidding.)
2. A hook in check at launch...
3. It's a no brainer that you work on perfecting your flare timing every landing so you can safely land in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place whenever you need to. Is there something stopping you from doing a dozen hook-in checked launch simulations in the LZ until the checks become automatic/subconscious?
Or is this just not an important enough issue for you to really worry about?
And if it ISN'T an important enough issue for you to really worry about then why are you bothering to comment on it here?
4. A hook-in check "AT LAUNCH"? Where the fuck else are ya gonna do a hook-in check and how can it be a hook-in check any place other than AT LAUNCH? Do properly trained ten year old kids check both ways before crossing their Imaginary Boundaries thirty feet or so from the edge of the street?
2. Funny, for every foot launch I ever did between the first time I was clued in during the fall of 1980 to my last one in the fall of 2005 I never had the SLIGHTEST problem remembering and executing a hook-in check - through a range of situations and conditions covering everything you could possibly name. And nobody else I know who practices hook-in checks has ever reported the slightest problem. And lotsa people always launch with tight suspension just for the performance advantage. Are you sure you've got an adequate number of functional brain cells to be participating in this sport?
3. Aw FUCK hook-in checks. You:
- follow much the same routine as Greg
- before approaching launch grab the front wires, step forward to tug on the strap and look back at your glider for unzipped zippers and released tensioners
- always:
-- get into your harness away from the glider and grip the hang strap at the base and follow it up to the 'biner for twists
-- approach the glider with the carabiner in your hand so you have to do something with it
What could POSSIBLY be amiss after all that care and double checking before you cross your Imaginary Boundary thirty feet or so from launch to allow room for anyone who's in a hurry to go around? And you've been so impeccably rememberful through all those processes.
Suck my dick. And be sure and come East sometime so's you can fly our great sites like Talcott, McConnellsburg, High Rock, Whitwell, Henson, Lockout. Or, failing that, a little foot launch towing at Jean Lake. And for stuff real close to home Plowshare and Torrey wouldn't be a bad ideas either.
Still after nearly a week not a single comment from a single Grebloville individual on either of these idiot posts.
FTHI
Even better. 'Specially those cross spar / leading edge junction inspection port zippers.Jim Thompson - 2015/11/26 00:13:07 UTC
All good habits, Greg. I follow much the same routine as you except, before approaching launch, I grab the front wires, step forward to tug on the strap and look back at my glider for un-zipped zippers or released tensioners.
22-20605
If you see one of those open so much as an inch make sure to take care of it personally. Don't trust some idiot wire crewman to the job. You're the Pilot In Command so do it yourself to make sure it's done right.
And remember what Greg just said about redundancy:
Wouldn't hurt to recheck the junction as long as you're there.Redundancy is the only way to get high reliability from a system of not-so-reliable components.
And, of course, NEVER connect the harness to the glider BEFORE getting into it. That would be totally insane. (Guess Aussie Methodists aren't allowed to post in Grebloville 'cause Joe Four-Or-Five-Cs Greblo doesn't recognize the Aussie Method.)And one additional habit related to not clipping the carabiner onto the harness: when I get into my harness, it is always away from the glider (meaning not under the sail).
Oh. You grip the hang strap at the base and follow it UP. Sorry, missed the part where you flipped the glider upside down.I grip the hang strap at the base, follow it up...
1. Make sure you have that helmet on and buckled when you're approaching the glider with the carabiner in your hand so you have to do something with it. If you do something with it without a helmet you could get a rating revocation for your dangerous practices. (Funny nobody has ever mentioned this Bob/u$hPa bullshit in a discussion of critical preflight issues.)...to the 'biner for twists and always approach the glider with the carabiner in my hand so I have to do something with it.
2. What do you do when you're already under the glider and have just unclipped to zip up your port cross spar / leading edge junction inspection port zipper?
By which this asshole means putting the glider down, turning around, grabbing the carabiner, and tugging on the suspension, ducking back down through the control frame, lifting the glider, trimming for launch.I try to remember hook-in checks...
1. That's great, Jim. Have you ever:...at launch...
- ACTUALLY REMEMBERED hook-in checks at launch?
- tried to remember TO DO hook-in checks at launch?
- ACTUALLY REMEMBERED TO DO:
-- hook-in checks at launch?
-- A hook-in CHECK at launch?
If you managed to clear all those hurdles have you ever ACTUALLY DONE A HOOK-IN CHECK AT LAUNCH? (Just kidding.)
2. A hook in check at launch...
...is a requirement for every flight for every rating - One through Four. Can you list the total douchebags who signed off some dickhead too fucking stupid and incompetent to adhere to that simple fundamental safety rule that any ten year old kid with half a brain or better would be capable of understanding and incorporating after three or four minutes worth of indoctrination and practice?With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.
3. It's a no brainer that you work on perfecting your flare timing every landing so you can safely land in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place whenever you need to. Is there something stopping you from doing a dozen hook-in checked launch simulations in the LZ until the checks become automatic/subconscious?
Or is this just not an important enough issue for you to really worry about?
And if it ISN'T an important enough issue for you to really worry about then why are you bothering to comment on it here?
4. A hook-in check "AT LAUNCH"? Where the fuck else are ya gonna do a hook-in check and how can it be a hook-in check any place other than AT LAUNCH? Do properly trained ten year old kids check both ways before crossing their Imaginary Boundaries thirty feet or so from the edge of the street?
1. And how wonderful it is that you're totally immune from all the issues PRIOR TO arriving at launch that make other people forgetful sometimes....too, but I have to admit, watching for launch conditions makes me forgetful sometimes.
2. Funny, for every foot launch I ever did between the first time I was clued in during the fall of 1980 to my last one in the fall of 2005 I never had the SLIGHTEST problem remembering and executing a hook-in check - through a range of situations and conditions covering everything you could possibly name. And nobody else I know who practices hook-in checks has ever reported the slightest problem. And lotsa people always launch with tight suspension just for the performance advantage. Are you sure you've got an adequate number of functional brain cells to be participating in this sport?
3. Aw FUCK hook-in checks. You:
- follow much the same routine as Greg
- before approaching launch grab the front wires, step forward to tug on the strap and look back at your glider for unzipped zippers and released tensioners
- always:
-- get into your harness away from the glider and grip the hang strap at the base and follow it up to the 'biner for twists
-- approach the glider with the carabiner in your hand so you have to do something with it
What could POSSIBLY be amiss after all that care and double checking before you cross your Imaginary Boundary thirty feet or so from launch to allow room for anyone who's in a hurry to go around? And you've been so impeccably rememberful through all those processes.
Or anybody else's. And aren't we lucky to have all these amazingly talented and creative individuals in the sport to develop all these different bulletproof procedures such as his to one hundred percent guarantee everyone will be safely connected to his glider before getting near launch.All the more important to follow a pattern such as yours before getting near launch.
Suck my dick. And be sure and come East sometime so's you can fly our great sites like Talcott, McConnellsburg, High Rock, Whitwell, Henson, Lockout. Or, failing that, a little foot launch towing at Jean Lake. And for stuff real close to home Plowshare and Torrey wouldn't be a bad ideas either.
Still after nearly a week not a single comment from a single Grebloville individual on either of these idiot posts.
Re: You are NEVER hooked in.
Good idea!Tad Eareckson wrote:Is there something stopping you from doing a dozen hook-in checked launch simulations in the LZ until the checks become automatic/subconscious?...
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: You are NEVER hooked in.
Yeah but...
Hang glider Crash
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1
We are due for another fatal and I'm gonna have about as much sympathy for whomever it is who next buys it as I did for Zack Marzec. I got sick and tired of screaming these warnings and getting ignored, undermined, pissed all over a long time ago. If I'm lucky it'll be one of these two assholes.
Neither of us makes any claim to have originated lift and tug and Tad has specifically cited a 1977/10 magazine reference - three years before Tad was tuned in and began the practice. But it IS Tad's method. Also Rob's, Doug Hildreth's, Steve Kinsley's, Judy McCarty's, Dennis Pagen's, Eric Hinrichs', Helen McKerral's...
And Tad published in the magazine eight and a quarter years and two US fatalities and one New Zealand tandem thrill rider fatality before Rob did. And Tad didn't water his message down legitimizing the stupid crap that Rob McKenzie, Steve Pearson, and Pat Denevan do and/or teach.
Doug Hildreth was lift and tug's earliest high profile advocate but Tad's also fought harder and at greater cost than anyone else. I've had posts deleted by Davis and the Rocky Mountain club shits, been banned by both and by Rocky Mountain specifically over that issue, had articles censored by u$hPa and the Vancouver Sun, been sabotaged by douchebags like Charlie Schneider, Bob Kuczewski, Rick Masters...
I'm also the only person I know who can be documented as winning converts.
And Kite Strings, as of this one, has 817 posts on the issue in a dedicated topic.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13132
Unhooked Death Again - Change our Methods Now?
2008/10/11 22:16:23 UTC
http://www.kitestrings.org/post2074.html#p2074
That's MY place in this sport's history.
Also credit Steve Kinsley for identifying the vile hang check as a (the) primary cause of unhooked launches rather than a preventative measure. Did an early nice job on the vile idiot Aussie Method as well.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=18876Rob Kells - 2005/12
Each of us agrees that it is ... the fear of launching unhooked that makes us diligent to be sure we are hooked in every time before starting the launch run.
Hang glider Crash
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33076Helen McKerral - 2010/09/07 00:16:04 UTC
More important, I think, is a change in mindset: that you constantly assume that you are NOT hooked in.
'Lift and Tug Before You Get Off' - PSA video from Heli1
The people who GET that the fuckin' gun is always loaded don't NEED to do any conditioning exercises. The INSTANT I got the lift and tug tip-off I was good for life 'cause I was *ALREADY* SCARED. And how could any poorly trained Baby Two NOT be scared knowing about all the hotshot pilots who'd died before him.NMERider - 2015/06/28 20:35:10 UTC
A brief summary of the 2-second rule on performing a hook-in check within 2 seconds of launching is directly analogous to the 2-second rule on firearm handling. In other words assume that the firearm is ALWAYS loaded before handling and assume that you are NEVER hooked in unless you verify that the chamber is in fact empty and that you are in fact hooked in within 2 seconds of handling and attempting to launch. I had one friend who parted his wife's hair with his 'unloaded' .45 and several who have launched unhooked plus several more who launched without leg loops and one who died early this year without his leg loops.
We are due for another fatal and I'm gonna have about as much sympathy for whomever it is who next buys it as I did for Zack Marzec. I got sick and tired of screaming these warnings and getting ignored, undermined, pissed all over a long time ago. If I'm lucky it'll be one of these two assholes.
The assumption that you are never hooked and THEN performing a lift and tug (per Rob Kells--it's not Tad's method) as a safety system works--probably as well as anything will ever work.
Sorry, but fuck Rob Kells. It bloody well IS the particular method - lift and tug if one can do it, a reasonable facsimile if one can't - within two seconds of commitment. You wanna do something to accomplish something positive in this sport you can't be a friend to every pilot you meet - you gotta do pretty much the precise opposite.Rob Kells - 2005/12
Each of us agrees that it is not a particular method, but rather the fear of launching unhooked that makes us diligent to be sure we are hooked in every time before starting the launch run.
That sentence needs work.The assumption that you are never hooked and THEN performing a lift and tug (per Rob Kells--it's not Tad's method)...
Neither of us makes any claim to have originated lift and tug and Tad has specifically cited a 1977/10 magazine reference - three years before Tad was tuned in and began the practice. But it IS Tad's method. Also Rob's, Doug Hildreth's, Steve Kinsley's, Judy McCarty's, Dennis Pagen's, Eric Hinrichs', Helen McKerral's...
And Tad published in the magazine eight and a quarter years and two US fatalities and one New Zealand tandem thrill rider fatality before Rob did. And Tad didn't water his message down legitimizing the stupid crap that Rob McKenzie, Steve Pearson, and Pat Denevan do and/or teach.
Doug Hildreth was lift and tug's earliest high profile advocate but Tad's also fought harder and at greater cost than anyone else. I've had posts deleted by Davis and the Rocky Mountain club shits, been banned by both and by Rocky Mountain specifically over that issue, had articles censored by u$hPa and the Vancouver Sun, been sabotaged by douchebags like Charlie Schneider, Bob Kuczewski, Rick Masters...
I'm also the only person I know who can be documented as winning converts.
And Kite Strings, as of this one, has 817 posts on the issue in a dedicated topic.
All mine. Ditto for the "The gun is always loaded." analogy. That dates to:The assumption that you are never hooked...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13132
Unhooked Death Again - Change our Methods Now?
2008/10/11 22:16:23 UTC
http://www.kitestrings.org/post2074.html#p2074
That's MY place in this sport's history.
Also credit Steve Kinsley for identifying the vile hang check as a (the) primary cause of unhooked launches rather than a preventative measure. Did an early nice job on the vile idiot Aussie Method as well.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: You are NEVER hooked in.
Davis didn't want this discussion:
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17820
Launching unhooked with scooter tow
continued and anybody to see the following post and so deleted it shortly after its appearance. So...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17820
Launching unhooked with scooter tow
continued and anybody to see the following post and so deleted it shortly after its appearance. So...
And fuck you and your good wake-up call too, Mark Dowsett.Tad Eareckson - 2009/11/14 21:29:09 UTC
I never thought for a nanosecond that you were proud of "getting away" with these - nobody is. And I greatly appreciate that you're volunteering this information.
But...
These foot launch tow situations are WAY more dangerous than people think they are.
Take another look at that photo on Page 1...
http://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3729/13148945555_cea849a8eb_o.png
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8086/8356999007_a283a027c4_o.jpg
Isn't that a CARABINER in front of his right arm serving as the tow ring?
He's approached that glider and connected a carabiner to SOMETHING and heard it click closed. WAY more advanced pilots than he probably is have had their brain switches flip to green because of that phenomenon. If you're human you're vulnerable - I know I would be.
He's instinctively holding onto the glider and it's trying to pull him up. Unless we've trained ourselves not to, we're ALL likely to instinctively hold onto the glider while it pulls us up.
Look where his release actuator is. Not much good to him there, is it? Easy reach? I don't think so.
And any flying skills he might have developed by this point are equally useless to him.
If I had been the throttle jockey sitting on the scooter right next to the student - I wouldn't have given him any gas until IMMEDIATELY after he'd have lifted the glider until it tensioned his leg loops - as I would have had taught him the first time he had gotten within fifteen feet of a tensioned kite.
We're ALL supposed to be doing this but we'd rather come up with zillions of reasons why we shouldn't have to - so we kill someone every couple of years and break a few pelvises in between to keep ourselves amused.
The screw-up didn't happen as the pictures were being taken - it happened a long time before.What lesson, good wake-up call to what, how are others running the same operation in the same way gonna avoid these mistakes? What are you doing DIFFERENTLY so that this doesn't happen in a situation or environment in which it's REALLY gonna matter?I must admit...this has happened to us three times this year.
Lesson learned (all without incident)
it was a good wake-up call.
I'm just sharing experiences here (so others don't make the same mistakes).Yeah, so would I. I'm human too. That's how come we've gotta teach ourselves and our students an inviolable, automatic, hard wired, muscle memory routine so it NEVER HAPPENS.If we were doing full tension pulls where the operator is mostly just looking for a glider that is flying straight before they crank the tension to maximize their tow height...then we'd be in trouble.
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Steve Davy
- Posts: 1338
- Joined: 2011/07/18 10:37:38 UTC
Re: You are NEVER hooked in.
http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=5033
Extraordinary Carnage for One Day
Extraordinary Carnage for One Day
Jim Thompson - 2015/12/12 01:42:36 UTC
H4 pilot with three-man wire crew positioned to launch from the saddle. Launch was reportedly perfect. Witnesses then noticed the pilot hanging by hands from the control frame until the pilot released grip and fell around ten feet to the ground. Glider shot straight up 80-100 feet, turned toward the ground, flipped, dove and recovered in time to impact on the control frame and keel, cartwheeled once and came to rest right-side up before damaging any other gliders.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: You are NEVER hooked in.
Cool! That should imbue the insurance companies with a lot of confidence in our ability to prevent damage and injury to third parties.
Of course what it could actually mean is that it came to rest right-side up and then got gusted back where it damaged other gliders.
26-30805
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7497/16247851605_ca3ab0d126_o.png
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7577/16060302158_094fac3de7_o.png
27-30822
Lessee...
01-00000
20-00727
57-01527
In order to keep from mangling third parties we've gotta:
- keep our wings tied down at all times BEFORE moving to launch
- have a minimum of five people on them WHEN moving to launch
But once we get to launch it's not really important to check that at least one person is actually...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mX2HNwVr9g
Hang Gliding Fail
andyh0p - 2011/04/24 - dead
03-0325 - 06-0511
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/13512258445_6b5a3662d0_o.png
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/12931220073_1609b59b17_o.png
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52378864885_3b8ca2da8c_o.png
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52378864870_2129572e3a_o.png
18-0919 - 21-1025
...connected to the fuckin' glider.
Of course what it could actually mean is that it came to rest right-side up and then got gusted back where it damaged other gliders.
26-30805
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7497/16247851605_ca3ab0d126_o.png
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7577/16060302158_094fac3de7_o.png
27-30822
Lessee...
01-00000
20-00727
57-01527
In order to keep from mangling third parties we've gotta:
- keep our wings tied down at all times BEFORE moving to launch
- have a minimum of five people on them WHEN moving to launch
But once we get to launch it's not really important to check that at least one person is actually...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mX2HNwVr9g
Hang Gliding Fail
andyh0p - 2011/04/24 - dead
03-0325 - 06-0511
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/13512258445_6b5a3662d0_o.png
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/12931220073_1609b59b17_o.png
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52378864885_3b8ca2da8c_o.png
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52378864870_2129572e3a_o.png
18-0919 - 21-1025
...connected to the fuckin' glider.