landing

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33544
Student Pilot Ridge Soaring Crash - Watch & Learn

John Dorrance - 2015/10/23 14:31:20 UTC

Am i the only one who wants to give this guy credit for having decent instincts?

No. See my previous post.

He tried to bump back at the point when he looked like he was top landing, but maybe overcorrected a bit which sent him back downhill...

Rubbish. He was totally locked into top landing way early and never considered pulling in and turning back out front.

...and he flared at a logical point when he realized he had no other option

1. Bullshit. Look at the fuckin' stills and read my previous post.
2. Yeah. NO OTHER OPTIONS. Being prone on the control tubes connector bar and flying the fucking plane simply isn't an option in hang gliding.

red - 2015/10/23 15:07:48 UTC

Oh good, campers. Words of wisdom coming up from the Sage of Jack's Living Room.

Tom Lyon - 2015/10/23 07:12:33 UTC

Did this pilot have a reasonable opportunity at 1:15...

Yeah, but just barely.

Name something about the end of that flight that wasn't just barely as things were.

Landing with a wingtip dragging would still be better (safer to the pilot, although it still may cost some aluminum) than what happened.

Landing with a dragging wingtip has killed people. Probably better off - but that's not chiseled in granite.

He was very lucky (not skillful)...

Yeah red. No skill whatsoever. We've established that already. Real asshole. Only brought shame to his fine conspicuously unidentified hang gliding school and instructors.

...to walk away with a glider in one piece. I would still want to check everywhere on that glider for bent bolts (which can make an "intact" glider dangerous later).

Are you drinking from the Great Salt Lake out there?

If the last turn to come over the top was really unintentional, he may have been trying to "save" his mistake with a top landing. Mr Pou, he should have turned hard, away from the ridge immediately, after the last turn in lift above the ridge. He had enough altitude to do that, and get safe again.

But, given that he failed to take that option, going to the control tubes was a pretty solid move.

What you have to know there is that the wind is crossing from the left as you look out from the launch.

Yeah, he has to know that and has to have you tell him. He's incapable of reading the text on the video.

His last turn put him into a straight downwind situation, and that is bad news.

Yeah, straight downwind. No cross component whatsoever.

He needed a full 180 degree turn to come into the wind, and he may not have had the altitude or airspeed needed to do that.

So? If he'd only partially executed that he'd still probably have a chance of walking away with his glider in one piece. Just not as good a chance as he had as things were.

Everything changes, if you simply make the same approach to a top landing from the downwind end of the ridge instead. Then, to turn into the wind, you would only need a final turn of 90 degrees, or less. You would have much better chances to get that done safely, even if low, as compared to a low 180. The reason for that difference is very important.

Everything you tell us is very important, red. I have no idea what we'd do without you.

A steep bank (for that top landing) can put the low wing down into the wind gradient. The low wing can stall down there in the wind gradient, while the top wing is still making plenty of lift. That can cause a steeper (un-recoverable) bank into the dirt.

That's why we fly with SPEED.

When you are low enough to put one wing down into the gradient, you want to keep the wings as level as possible then.

That's how I like to make my turns anyway. Hard to go wrong with leveled wings.

A shallow turn/bank can be done safely, but not a steep-banked 180.

What a total load o' crap.

The lack of an instructor (for this low-time pilot) is a big factor here.

Must be. The assholes responsible for this atrocity keep assuring us it is.

Mike Badley - 2015/10/23 17:19:48 UTC

We have a name for this - "Intermediate Syndrome"

What name do we have for the Kelly Harrison / Arys Moorhead? "Master Syndrome"?

Instructor or not - everybody goes through this stage of encountering a crap condition for the first time and not knowing what to do.

Crap condition? Landing upright with your hands on the control tubes? Yeah, I encountered it on my first lesson and didn't figure out what I should really be doing about it until near the end of my career the better part of three decades later.

The video post makes a big deal out of the pilot being 'away from instructor' but I don't think that's really valid.

That's really total ass covering crap. That video has been worked over and is being presented as a propaganda piece - the centerpiece of a disinformation campaign.

Getting too far behind a ridge and feeling your glider sink like a stone is really something that is hard to describe or experience until you do it.

Show me where that happens in the video. Brad's going down forty feet worth of slope and getting into gradient and being screened from the wind. Decreasing tailwind translates to increasing airspeed. He's picking up energy to burn.

They can tell you to steer into a skid and NOT apply the brake when your car hits the ice, but until you DO it, you don't really know what you're up against.

In hang gliding they tell you to go upright and put your hands way up on the control tubes for safer landings - and everybody and his dog swallows it hook, line, and sinker and keeps it down for the rest of his life.

Maybe the instructor would keep him safe for THIS flight...

Or maybe he'd have been screaming for him to hold the flare at the end and Brad might have killed himself slamming into the first wall as a consequence.

...but eventually - he's going to be up against it. I can almost guarantee that even if the instructor was screaming in his radio to "PULL IN AND TURN AWAY FROM THE RIDGE" on that downwind run - the pilot would be shutting that input out as his mind was freaking out on facing an immediate downwind landing.

Bull fucking shit. That was a totally minor issue that wasn't and wouldn't and shouldn't have been freaking out anybody.

Timothy Ward - 2015/10/23 18:31:07 UTC

Probably a decent preflight briefing would have sufficed. F'rinstance: "Don't go downwind of the ridge top, even if you get above it." "Don't get parallel to the ridge -- you will always want to be pointing a little bit away from it." "Best lift will be over the steepest part of the hill -- not necessarily the highest."

That shouldn't have been classroom stuff one should thoroughly understand before getting a Two signed off?

But if everybody thinks you already know that... it's not going to get said.

What makes you think he DIDN'T already know and understand that? He's not allowed to make a minor mistake with zero direct consequences once in a while?

If there was a radio, "You're too close, fly further out." at some point probably would have worked.

And he could've still come in for a deliberate top landing and ended up in the same or worse shape. Fuck his instructors. They got to talk to him way too much as things were.

Tom Lyon - 2015/10/23 20:07:42 UTC

This is such valuable advice.

Ain't red in particular and Jack's Living Room in general just the best!

I was setting up for landing on a moderately breezy day this summer and extended my pattern...

Hard to go wrong extending your pattern.

...(I was high)...

I hate whenever that happens. Scares the crap outta me. Towing with a standard aerotow weak link was almost always a big help in that department.

...in a way that required a 180 degree turn to get back into the wind.

Well, you were above two hundred feet so what the hell.

I came out OK...

How sure are you that you were OK when you went in?

...but scared myself pretty good because when I came out of that turn, I was lower than I wanted to be and facing a headwind with trees below me.

Sounds like you did a great job solving your higher than you wanted to be problem.

I could easily have avoided that situation and my instructor and I debriefed that landing pretty thoroughly. Lesson learned.

Cool. Did he also tell you how to tie your 130 pound Greenspot so that it more likely breaks at its rating breaking strength and better serves its purpose of reducing your risk of bad consequences?

Jim Steel - 2015/10/23 20:22:15 UTC

Yeah, hard to tell from the vid whether he could have turn x-wind and landed. Or has low enough alt. to pull off a rough wheel landing on the sheep meadow.

How hard is it to tell whether or not he needs to go upright in preparation for a foot landing?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33544
Student Pilot Ridge Soaring Crash - Watch & Learn

Rolla Manning - 2015/10/23 20:30:41 UTC

One of the best things to learn from this and the hardest to do, is realizing that anytime you feel you are get yourself into trouble. Do not hesitate even a second to give up altitude for airspeed instantly. The only thing that can get you out of a sh!tty situation that you got yourself into is airspeed.

Tell me how you get airspeed flying like:

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For the new guys, anytime your inside wing tip gets within a wingspan of the ridge line you are going to need extra speed to penetrate back out into the lift band when you turn. At 1:04 it all starts to go bad.

Really?

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Must have stopped going bad and started going really good again sometime within the next three seconds.

You can see his flight track is going right at the fence line.

Who the fuck cares? He's high and in smooth air with super top landing options.

Right here you can tell he knows something isn't going right and he tries to turn left. Look at his right elbow and you can see he is pushed out trying to make a flat turn with no loss of altitude.

Bullshit. We don't know what he's thinking or trying to do based on a little movement under the wing. We know that he flies reasonably well and have to assume that the glider's going pretty much where he wants it to - as long as he's prone and on the control tubes connector bar anyway.

You must pull in before rolling when you make a quartering downwind turn back into the lift band.

Oh. So the glider knows what the wind direction is. Pity we people of varying ages need to have a visual surface reference or GPS to stand a chance of figuring that out.

Yes you will loss altitude doing this but you have no choice.

Yes. We WILL loss altitude. Guess what... We're gliders and ALWAYS lossing altitude when we're not in air going up a lot faster than we normally sink.

He still could have probably saved a ruff top crash landing at 1:11 if he just pulled in hard and keep the left turn going.

At and beyond 1:11...

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...he could've flown back into the fucking lift band.

Remember that when you get the nose back into the wind your ground speed well quickly be reduced. You will still continue to descend but much better than a down wind landing/crash.

No shit.

Big mistake at 1:14...

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...never transition your downwind hand to the down tube first. You have to shift some weight in order to shift your hand position. It instantly stopped any left roll he had going in his favor.

Give me a single sane reason to transition any hand off the control bar EVER. And show me a video to back your claim.

He doesn't transition, he gets to keep flying that day.

freeflight - 2015/10/23 21:10:38 UTC

He might have come out better if he had held that flare.

1. He DID hold that flare. Didn't you read...

Gordon Rigg - 2015/10/23

... but he does not give up tryting to do whatever he can and he desperately holds the final flare over the wall.

...Gordon's comments on the video?

2. He'd have probably been fuckin' toast if he'd held that stupid flare.

NMERider - 2015/10/23 22:14:15 UTC

Possibly but he was going down a fairly steep slope with a tailwind at this point and his right wing was already stalled. At least he might not have gone 'Splat!' in between two stone walls.

If I've got the option at that point I'm going 'Splat!' in between the two stone walls. Gotta beat the crap outta going 'Splat!' into one of them.

At 1:14 if he'd have let the glider simply pivot to its left and mush into the grass I think he'd have stood a chance.

How ya gonna get your hands on the control tubes when you're letting the glider simply pivot to where you wanna be going?

But that would have been the mark of an experienced pilot who'd have avoided this whole situation in the first place.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=25536
Whoops! Snapped another tip wand :-O[/quote]

NMERider - 2012/03/14 15:17:14 UTC

I refuse to come in with both hands on the downtubes ever again. I have had some very powerful thermals and gusts kick off and lost control of the glider due to hands on the downtubes. I prefer both hands on the control bar all the way until trim and ground effect. I have been lifted right off the deck in the desert and carried over 150 yards.

Brad went about 240 yards.

I commend the pilot on releasing the video for public consumption.

I condemn him a bit for sitting on it as long as he did, not identifying himself and engaging glider people in the postmortem discussions, allowing the local establishment to control it and spin things the way they want them spun.

Hopefully it discourages other would-be pilots from jumping the gun in their progression.

We've been killing a lot of Four types this year. How can we say that any of them - 'cept Bertrand probably - died for a reason other than jumping the gun?

Mike Badley - 2015/10/24 00:55:26 UTC

We can all sit back and see that this could have been saved.... quite easily, really. It's the panic factor and intermediate syndrome that got this pilot.

Bull fucking shit. He doesn't panic, a new Two - by definition - cannot have INTERMEDIATE syndrome, and it was his crap stunt landing training that got him.

Just remember the FIRST time you were downwind with the ground rushing by and your glider seemingly sluggish and not responding to the same inputs you were just using a minute ago.

I probably saw that at altitude. There was no trace of it down where it mattered.

It is HARD to overcome the instinctive desire to slow down with an impending doom situation...

Get fucked. You can't talk about inadequate speed and NOT talk about totally decertifying the glider by going to the control tubes.

Dave Hopkins - 2015/10/24 01:19:28 UTC

Oh Gawd. Now we get to hear all about the deficiencies of young pilots - again.

This is a very typical h2 mistake. H2s are still mostly flying ground speed so when he was on his downwind leg he mushed the glider and got pushed over the ridge.

'Specially Twos with intermediate syndrome.

It is very difficult for a young pilot...

Toldyaso.

...to react properly...

Yeah, young pilots are noted for their really slow reaction times.

...to lose...

You should trade your noun with Rolla's verb.

...of bar pressure in this situation. Pulling in and diving at an already too fast moving ground is beyond their skill set.

Yeah. 'Cause they're YOUNG. No fuckin' way can you teach a YOUNG pilot that airspeed doesn't necessarily correlate all that well with groundspeed. 45 is probably the cutoff point.

At least he survived.

Yeah. Used his face, ribs, arm as crush zones. Pity he didn't have you telling him how to climb up the control tubes and use his glider as the crush zone.

He went down looking good with that fancy equipment.

Suck my dick, Dave.

dreamflyer - 2015/10/24 20:28:51 UTC

Appreciate this thread a lot of good inside. Thx

Excellent inside. None of that outside stuff from people Jack doesn't permit in his Living Room.

Anybody hear anything from Jack lately? I know how dedicated he is to promoting the sport and deeply concerned he is about the safety and wellbeing of its participants. A bit odd that he's not participating in this discussion in this area of his Living Room.

AndRand - 2015/10/25 11:03:35 UTC

As a newbie too...

Exactly how young are you?

...I also think of these two things that could work out:

- pull in at 1:08 and turn before the ridge and then flush down or even get back on lift

Not for a young pilot. Outside of the skill set.

- and then at 1:13 when - I don't know if he tried to make coordinated turn into wind pushing out or level for flare. Coordinated turn at low height is also not really welcomed for a newbie to do.

1. Right. Get back to us with that in another ten or fifteen years.

2. Name an instructor who TEACHES low altitude coordinated turns. Whipstalling to a dead stop on an old Frisbee in the middle of the LZ, putting younger pilots up on extra safe weak links - no problem. Low altitude coordinated turns - WAY too dangerous.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33544
Student Pilot Ridge Soaring Crash - Watch & Learn

Dennis Cavagnaro - 2015/10/25 21:05:16 UTC

Why is a guy who is just starting out hooking up a go pro on his. Kneel?

I dunno... Why is a guy who's:

- been around since the beginning of time writing in a manner that would earn him a dunce's cap in the second grade?

- just starting out being trained to do insane stunt landings that are highly likely to get him crippled or killed and have absolutely no use in the real world?

That is the last thing I would be focused about.

And the first thing would be your flare timing.

Pablo Garcia - 2015/10/26 08:49:17 UTC
New generations don't need to focus on that . They come with built-in capabilities we don't even understand

Gordon Rigg - 2015/10/26 11:26:54 UTC
UK

Was the gopro a distraction
No. There is a lot of footage of the goprop running before the pilot...

...skips his hook-in check and...

...launches. The pre flight and preparation is thorough. What is missing is a review of a flight plan and extra site briefing but the guy who helped him launch...

Who remains as anonymous as the crashee, instructors, school, other pilots flying that day...

...was not to know this pilot needed that.

And no fuckin' way could an older pilot screwed a pooch like this. Nope, it was entirely because he hadn't had a briefing.

Suppose the pilot had flown straight out from the hill after getting so close on the previous beat and landed safely. That film would be great for talking about it.

Not the tiniest bit as much fun as this one is.

Its well worth beginners using cameras, provided they run through the normal pre flight checks.

Which NEVER include the stomp test and hook-in check.

We are all used to flying without cameras and they become a distraction from our normal checks - perhaps not if they just become a less important part of the normal procedure.

Most of your normal checks are trivial useless, and worse than useless crap. They themselves would be distractions from the super critical stuff - if you ever actually did any of the super critical stuff.

The Harness
Outside USA this type of harness is wheat everyone uses before they leave the...

...conspicuously unnamed...

...school. The rest of the world stopped tripping over their cocoons and stirrups a long time ago.

How do you trip over a stirrup? At worst it dangles behind your calves. Anyone with half a brain or better bungees it to one of his calves so's he can effortlessly kick into it a second after he gets airborne. It's a super training hill and dune harness.

You run freely, and there is no struggle to find the thing to put your feet in.

See above about the stirrup.

The physics of where you are hanging relative to where you hold the base bar are the same for all harnesses...

Notice he wasn't holding the base bar during the fourteen seconds that...

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...MATTERED, dickhead? What do the physics have to say about that issue?

...so no particular type of harness is worse than another for cross controlling - that is decided purely by how head up/feet down the pilot is.

So I guess if you're not using a harness, just standing in the control frame and monkey barring, you're totally fucked. Kick your butt to the left the glider's gonna go hard right.

...you can see his harness is set up foe first flights and he is fairly head up as is best for beginners.

Course it is. Everybody knows that. Just like everyone knows bent parachute pins are best for pro toad barrel releases.

The glider
The calypso is quite old...

So old, in fact, that they hadn't yet invented capital letters for use in beginning names.

...but was considered ideal as a first post school glider in the past. Yes it has double surface, but it doesn't have double surface performance.

I dunno... Flew that shallow slope downhill and downwind to the impact point pretty good.

Handling is good. He isn't having difficulty steering it, not until he flies too slow and fails to react in time anyway.

But he does great as soon as he transitions to the control tubes.

The glider is not relevant to the problem.

Neither is anything else you've said, are saying, or will say. And that's the actual problem.

Tow launch flights
Missing so far is the info that this pilot had qualified as a winch launch pilot and is missing being signed off for hill flying.

No fuckin' way. If he got trashed that badly ridge flying he'd have been killed ten times over towing.

So hew made quite a few short but fairly high flights with good landings on this glider in this harness.

Bet he never once touched the wheels to the grass.

You can see his control of the glider is pretty good (perhaps I masked that by speeding up too much of it).

Yes, but I pulled it up in Final Cut and went through it frame by frame. He does fine - right up to the point he goes up on the control tubes.

What is missing as an appreciation of risk getting into the wrong position relative to the hill and yes the attempt to correct things as the glider heads the wrong way is not enough (obviously).

And he was totally fine flying upright. Absolutely nothing to do with anything.

The pilot did not react to this coming.

Go figure.

Had an instructor (or coach) been involved...

But preferably an instructor. Ideally the instructor who'd spent countless hours teaching him how to land properly and safely.

Usually we have radios and use them.

But just for the difficult and dangerous ridge soaring stuff. We've already got them fully qualified for the landings. 'Sides, if we're coaching them up on the ridge and they're landing down in the valley...

In fact this pilot has a radio and headset for his flying with the school. So a thorough site brief and a plan about when to give up and go head for the landing if he was low...

Just like he did on the video.

...which areas flying into might mean certain death etc was missing (but he already had some knowledge of that having done one flight at this site under instruction).

And now he understands that flying downhill and downwind into a stone wall could result in some pretty unpleasant consequences. Figured that out all by himself - with no help whatsoever from an instructor or coach.

And yes, if instructor or coach had seen him so close on the previous beat he would have been advised to fly further out and faster. If he wasn't listening a bit of running about and shouting and waving would have happened too - I've done that many times before! (he is very close to the ridge after all).

Great adjunct for your crappy groundschool training.

Several things conspired to let this guy slip through the net and launch without supervision.
I knew he was not signed off but I didn't know he had decided to come out and I was on the ground 20km away along with another experienced pilot. A third experienced pilot had driven to pick us up. Left at the hill was that pilots inexperienced son who didn't know this guy and helped him launch, and had no reason to believe he didn't know his stuff.

Why didn't he know his stuff? What's so fucking complex about ridge soaring in smooth mild air with a bit o' left cross on a clean ridge? Why was he gonna be able to understand and integrate the principles definitely and only after a five minute on site briefing just before launch? How come he was able to go upright and fly from the control tubes so flawlessly...

Gil Dodgen - 1995/01

All of this reminds me of a comment Mike Meier made when he was learning to fly sailplanes. He mentioned how easy it was to land a sailplane (with spoilers for glide-path control and wheels), and then said, "If other aircraft were as difficult to land as hang gliders no one would fly them."

...that he needed no briefing before the flight and no evaluation and recommendations afterwards but such a catastrophe resulted from his deficiencies in ridge soaring? How come Mike Meier never commented to Gil Dodgen that, "If other aircraft were as difficult to ridge soar as hang gliders no one would fly them."?

The only other experienced...

...and unnamed...

...pilot there was packing his dual glider after flying with his son and his girlfriend. They were actually in a car on that road when he went in and he was fist to the scene, maybe 1 minute after impact.

How badly did the crashee really need a fist to the scene at that point? His jaw wasn't quite broken enough?

From then on everything was done as well as could be expected and the outcome was good.

I so do miss good flying days like that myself.

When I got back the pilot was already at the hospital and we just had the glider to pack up (which the police only let us do after they had the call that it was definitely non fatal)...

When it's fatal they hafta determine that the aircraft appears to be for recreational purposes.

The long wait for the school
The pilot got frustrated waiting a long time for the instructor to be available in the right weather for the hill endorsement.

1. No fucking shit. Sitting on his ass with all his equipment set up and ready to go watching nice soaring hours disappear down the toilet forever.

2. So he'd have had the signoff for what he was doing after the ninety second briefing and some radio chatter to top off his understanding of ridge soaring. But this was a huge fucking deal with respect to the outcome of this flight. Was out with the flu on the last day of medical school so he isn't really qualified to be a REAL doctor.

This is bullshit. Total analog to the Infallible Weak Link scam. Even today there's been no admission from any establishment power on the planet that towing with a piece of fishing line that breaks before you can get out of control is the single stupidest most dangerous thing you can do going up on a rope.

The business of these motherfuckers is selling stunt landing training so they're never in a million years with guns to their heads gonna admit that they're selling an insanely dangerous defective product which injures, mangles, cripples, kills people like they're going out of style.

This whole sport reeks of fundamental dishonesty. And you're totally clueless if you think for a nanosecond that you can have honest rational respectful discussions with these motherfuckers to move anything an inch forward. And anybody who will lie like this on any one such issue can and should be expected to lie on all of them.

And crappy writing goes with the profile. If you have no soul, character, principles to begin with what's the point in trying to connect with intelligent decent people who do?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33544
Student Pilot Ridge Soaring Crash - Watch & Learn

Dennis Cavagnaro - 2015/10/26 11:56:42 UTC

The very idea that he wanted to show off his flight using a video instead off just thinking about what he was doing is my point with the camera.

Keep you head in the game don't worry about showing off to your friends.

Remember what I said about sucking my dick, Dennis?

Hoosier_Eagle - 2015/10/26 13:40:14 UTC

I would add that instead of considering it a distraction, we should be working (and with students) to make it an integral part of the preflight setup and checklist.

Goddam right.

Yes, I really said that.

Good.

In other words instructors should be asking from the very first day, "Are you going to be using a camera?"

Ever heard an instructor ask, "What are you going to be using for a weak link and what are you expecting it to do for you?"?

"Well, even if not today, let me explain how we handle the use of cameras in general... We set it up with the glider, we preflight it for attachment, angle of image, focus, etc. We check it like we would the vario. Then, like the glider, we don't screw around with it again until we are ready to fly. When we are truly ready to fly, we power everything on, camera, the vario, etc. before getting into the harness...

Only if it's connected to the glider first. Ya wanna be able to always assume you're hooked in and thus never have a reason to suspect you're not and do a hook-in check.

...every single time, and we allow it to film our hooking in...

You're already hooked in. Remember?

...and hang and hook-in checks.

Why do a hook-in check? You just did a hang check.

We do not wait to get it started until we are "at launch, etc." Filming the flight means filming the hook-in check."

How many people do you know who do hook-in checks? Yes, the tiny handful of people who do hook-in checks film and edit such that they're included. And virtually all videos that we run across at random commence with the launch run.

IMHO it is better to know how to use the technology, how to incorporate it, than to keep acting as if "their gadgets" are outside the checklist. When something is viewed as being outside the preflight checklist, THAT is when it becomes a distraction FROM the checklist.

Fuck the checklist. There will ALWAYS be major distractions in glider setup and launch environments. So you need to wire your brain to be able to assess what's really important and what isn't. And the first list is really short so it's a really easy assignment.

We would be much better to encourage proper camera use...

Are you outta your fuckin' mind? Brad's camera almost got him killed.

...(like turn it on and leave it on) so we can learn from it.

We don't need to learn from it. We need to use the data it provides as ammunition in our fights against evil and stupidity.

Routines are important...

Threat assessment is important.

...and making the camera PART of the routine is much safer than making it ancillary to or outside of the routine. I for one, would have loved to have had some footage of my flights on the training hills. Now, that I have a camera, it has taken several tries before I really came up with a comfortable routine and location in my checklist for using it.

Benefits? I think a wonderful example is NMERider's latest post. He starts it, and that's it. He could have unhooked and rehooked to get it started and stopped but it appears he didn't. Instead, he turned it on, left it on, and stayed focused.

Staying focused is an extremely bad thing in aviation. Birds don't live long if they stay focused.

If we do not have a remote for the camera, or even if we do, that is a good choice. The result?

We can prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that all standup landings do for people is get them crashed.

Some wonderful footage of the subtle joy of "hang waiting", all the guys sitting on the ground, laughing and joking around.

Before they got killed the next weekend.

And finally, I don't know about other folks, but I really appreciate when folks post, or allow to be posted, their mistakes.

I have total contempt for the ones who don't.

This can be a pretty rough group sometimes...

It's not a rough group - it's a bunch of cowardly stupid douchebags who promote and enable evil and stupidity at damn near every opportunity.

...even when well intended and in the "for your own good" mode...

Yeah, get that flare timing perfected.

...so I heartily thank anyone with the chutzpah to do it.

Thank you!

We should ostracize all the cowards who don't do it - along with all the motherfuckers who sit on crash information. Fuck the pieces of shit who've given us zilch on Steven Tinoson, Trevor Scott, Kelly Harrison / Arys Moorhead, Bertrand Delacroix, Jesse Fulkersin.

Dennis Cavagnaro - 2015/10/26 13:54:47 UTC

Good thoughts Hoosier...

Yes if it was part of a prep check list and a suggested practice by his instructor then I can see the value.

If not, the camera killed him. Nuthin' whatsoever to do with the stunt landing practice suggested by his instructor.

My guess here is that the purpose of using go pro was for fun not training and if so was a added complication that could de-focus a persons mindset...I could be wrong.

Gawd how I hate watching persons with de-focused mindsets pile in. Let's ban the use of GoPros which are not parts of prep checklists as suggested practices by instructors and make FOCUSED PILOT wristbands mandatory.

Asshole.

Red Howard - 2015/10/26 14:16:42 UTC

Get ready again, campers.

Campers,

I don't think the camera was a distraction, or even if so, it probably had nothing to do with the incident at the end.

But that's just your opinion. My opinion is that this was a clear example of an unfocused pilot crash.

I believe the pilot was expecting to get the video, and maybe record a few minor errors, and then get advice from the flying community on those errors.

Hey Brad, get your hands up on the control tubes another inch and a half for better flare authority.

The error just got larger than expected, and that probably caused an increase in the advice offered.

Of course, maybe the guy just wanted to record a memory of his early flights, and got a little more of a "memory" than he wanted.

And it turned out to be one of his later flights.

Having it posted was still a fine choice, for the good of his fellow fliers.

So this guy's still a flyer?

I'm glad the pilot had enough heart to allow the video to be posted. I believe that many can learn from (and avoid) such mistakes in the future...

And the past - if they focus hard enough.

...so it is not just the pilot who benefits. As a group, we are often fairly blunt in such discussions...

To the degree of total obtuseness.

...but I hope the pilot can see that we wish to see him succeed in flight...

Also the landing. And better utilization of his glider as a crush zone.

...and for a good long time.

He's history.

This ball of rock we live on can be far more than "rough" on a pilot, when mistakes are made.

Or taught and mandated to make one a more focused and safer pilot.

NMERider - 2015/10/27 07:13:26 UTC

Thanks H_E, I use an external battery and my recording time is limited only by the size of the memory card and is 5-1/4 hours with my current 32GB card. As far as being a distraction goes, I never would have fractured my neck had it not been for my camera.

Or - speaking of distractions - your drag chute.

An esteemed...

...and unnamed...

...member of this forum...

Mutual masturbation society.

...launched a very high mountain without his leg loops or chest strap IMHO because of the complexity and distraction of his sophisticated camera remote wiring setup.

Absolutely nothing to do with the fact that at the beginning of his career two decades ago he made a solemn vow to never under any circumstances perform a hook-in check. (The chest strap doesn't matter.)

A pilot was killed at an international comp because he draped his drag cute over his control bar in order to fiddle with his camera.

DAMN that camera!

An H-5 pilot at a local site caused a mid-air collision because he turned around to adjust the angle of his camera while in ridge traffic.

Brad didn't turn around to adjust the angle of his camera while in ridge traffic.

Cameras are game changers...

Not 0.001 percent of the degree to which control tubes are.

...and data they provide can be used to improve pilot proficiency but they can also lead to disaster as they have done many times already.

Incident reporting - official and un - has been gutted worldwide. Cameras are the best thing we have going for us to see what's happening and why. Without Ben's camera Gordon can totally get away with painting this as a ridge soaring incident and get the school totally off the hook.

It's a mixed blessing. I flew without a camera on Monday and enjoyed my flight much more than I would have had I been distracted by trying to aim my glider in order to get the shot over and over again.

Too bad you didn't fly without a drag chute on 2014/01/29.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33544
Student Pilot Ridge Soaring Crash - Watch & Learn

Enos - 2015/10/27 07:42:32 UTC
Sydney

As a newbie (about 10 hrs flight time solo) I can say I record all my flights with my go pro so I can review my flights and analyse what happened good or ill.

Blur the camera's focus a bit. That'll help sharpen yours.

I mainly review takeoffs and landings to make sure I'm not getting complacent but if anything funny goes on during the flight I have a record as well.

So what did you think of Brad's landing? Any bearing on the outcome?

As a happy coincidence I get to taunt all my earthbound friends as well with the flight footage.

I turn it on as I'm setting up and forget about it, I wouldn't consider it a distraction in any way but a valuable tool. In fact early on I found the vario more of a distraction to be honest as it was "in my face" and I kept looking at it...

I damn near caused a midair because I ASSUMED I was alone and looked down at my vario and up at a cloud I was trying to make just before making an abrupt uncleared turn. So let's think about banning varios and discouraging shooting for cloudbase.

...rather than honing my instincts based on the environmental feedback.

Good luck. I don't think you're gonna find many top comp finishers flying without electronics because they've honed their instincts based on the environmental feedback so finely.

This could of course depend on where you place the camera. I always have it on my keel to get a good view of what I'm doing, I could see it being a problem if you had it mounted somewhere you could play with it during flight.

Brad didn't have it mounted somewhere at which he could play with it during flight. He had it mounted the same place you have it. Unfortunately he DID have the control tubes mounted somewhere at which he could play with them when he most needed to be flying the fuckin' glider.

Alan Deikman - 2015/10/27 16:52:41 UTC

I would be more worried about the radio being a distraction rather than the camera being a distraction. The camera is set before flight and it is running so no need to think about it any further. And it is very useful for post-flight instruction.

Just use it without wiring it to a helmet headset and a PTT button on a finger - the way...

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...Kelly Harrison had his. That way if there's ever a critical situation which requires your full undivided attention going on...

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...the radio won't become a critical distraction.

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As for the radio I would suggest that if the pilots are trained to rely on a ground-based instructor to tell them what to do then they aren't really being trained as pilots. Rather they become a glider remote control mechanism.

I would suggest that it would be criminally negligent to put a student up with his safety being dependent upon radio communication - or any other communication coming from the ground.

In my experience usually the PG crowd has this affliction more than the HGer does. I have a radio and when it is on to the site frequency I often hear shouted out instructions like "no Bill, go left -- left!" and "Looking good, Mary, stay on that heading" and crap like that. I have to wonder WTF do these students do when the radio goes out?

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I don't know if that is the case here but I submit that if this pilot was trained to rely on instructions from the radio rather than a pre-flight briefing then that methodology and mindset is the root cause of this accident.

I submit that these motherfuckers deliberately trained him to land using the stupidest and most dangerous procedures imaginable and that was the cause of this "accident". And that's totally consistent with your take on the radio controlling bullshit.

Mike Badley - 2015/10/27 16:55:33 UTC

Enos,
Pure flight without any electronics is the best way to just focus on the task of flying without distractions.

Fuck that. "Pure" flight without any electronics and just FOCUSING on the task of flying without distractions is a sensory deprivation chamber.

But, here is the list of stuff that can add up to mess you up.

1 - Vario
2 - More complex vario with windspeed, altimeters, timers, speed to fly, waypoints, etc.
3 - GPS
4 - Radio, including the PTT wiring to headset and fingers.
5 - I-pod for 'tunes' to play while just ridge soaring away.
6 - Camera
7 - Multiple cameras
8 - Towing lines
9 - Hydration tube
10 - wheels and barmitts, etc.

Why stop there?

11 - skids
12 - full face helmets
13 - gloves
14 - sunglasses
15 - pod zippers
16 - parachutes
17 - cell phones
18 - mountains, cliffs, forests
19 - other gliders and planes
20 - birds, deer, dolphins
21 - wuffos
22 - wind
23 - clouds, thermals, dust devils
24 - rain, snow

We add a LOT of distractions...

Life's a lot of distractions - thank gawd. If you get tired of them just use an extra safe weak link to increase the safety of your towing operation.

...and it is wise to just add them one at a time.

Right. Start off with just the glider and harness. On Day Two a helmet. Then a left wheel...

However, you can eventually get to the point where too many are there and you lose that focus - even for just a sec.

Yeah, that's why fighter jets are stripped down to bare minimums. You sure don't want their pilots losing any of that critical focus - even for just a sec. Idiot.

It's enough to make you launch unhooked...

Get fucked.

...or some other stupid mistake.

Like listening to some total douchebag from Sacramento pretending to have a fuckin' clue about anything.

Once saw a pilot ready to launch with his right side sprogs sticking out and un-zipped.

Big fuckin' deal. Rafi Lavin launched two months and six days ago with his glider properly assembled and preflighted in accordance with the procedures in his owner's manual and was dead several seconds later.

Distracted during set-up???

Yeah. Name someone who ISN'T distracted during SETUP. That's why we require PREFLIGHT CHECKS. Fuck anybody who's got a problem with distractions. If you're too stupid and incompetent to deal with them on the ground when nothing critical's going on you're WAY too stupid and incompetent to deal with them in the air when the games on and we're playing for keeps. Get the hell out of hang gliding and adopt solitaire as a hobby.

In REAL aviation we've got an extensive history of combat in which airfields and carriers are being bombed and strafed and pilots hopping in the most complex and sophisticated planes in existence a minute later and go up and engage other similar planes trying to kill them.

In hang gliding if a wuffo walks up and asks a question about a vario the "pilot" pales with fear, pees himself, reruns his preflight from Step One, and considers himself lucky to have been able to survive the ensuing five minute sled ride. Clamp a camera to the keel and your odds go down to Russian roulette level. What a bunch o' total twats.

Enos - 2015/10/28 02:42:55 UTC

Agreed, and to your point, I was more saying not that it couldn't be a distraction but that I consider the camera as one of the less distracting things and that currently its value as a tool outweighs the distraction risk, for me at least.

The sport's pretty fucked as it is now - under total control of the sleaziest imaginable snake oil salesmen. The camera is the best of the few things we've got going for us. It doesn't lie - 'specially when people post the videos that night before the snake oil salesmen get the chance to edit most of the truth out of them - or just swallow the cards outright.

Saying that, I am a very cautious person in general life and even more so as a newbie in HG and will rather not fly at all than take what I consider an unnecessary risk or rush to get in the air.

Oh. So you're saying that it's possible for pilots to address distractions and manage risk. Interesting concept.

Of course I may find as I get more experience I get complacent and it becomes more of a problem (or get intermediate syndrome as some people have described it here before).

1. Or if you hang out on The Jack Show so long that irreversible brain damage starts setting in.

2. Complacency can be a really good thing when applied to the proper categories.

I one hundred percent guarantee you that Brad was drilled half to death (literally) on hitting his spot and nailing his flare timing. Look where it got him out in the REAL world.

Start getting as complacent as you possibly can about that bogus crap and deadly serious about conserving available runway and keeping the glider under control until its rolling to a stop on its wheels.

3. And as these assholes are describing it here now in reference to then and permanent new Two whom they hadn't quite signed off for unsupervised high flight in totally benign conditions.

4. Or, hell, maybe now that we're killing off one advanced pilot a weekend it's a valid characterization. Intermediate is the new advanced and intermediate is the new novice.

Pablo Garcia - 2015/10/28 08:40:07 UTC

I-pod for 'tunes' to play while just ridge soaring away.

You are kidding, right ?

No...

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But don't worry. He's a professional pilot pro toad who flies with as safe a weak link as the law allows - probably a bit safer.

[Tad Eareckson]

Jump to next post:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post8589.html#p8589

Back to:
2015/10/11 14:58 Jesse Fulkersin approach fatality.
Discussion started at:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post8520.html#p8520
Four consecutive posts.

Referenced in the second:

http://vimeo.com/26196213
Hang Gliding At Hyner View, PA - 2011

Richard Cobb - 2011/07/09 07:32

http://vimeo.com/26196213


Scenes from a hang gliding flight at Hyner View, PA, over the July 4th weekend. Flight was an hour and a half, with a max altitude gain of 2000 ft above takeoff.
The flight ends with a turbulent ride into the LZ between the rows of trees of either side of the field.
Google Earth GPS track:
http://wind-drifter.com/Hyner2011GPS.jpg

Richard Cobb - Virginia - 32995
- H4 - 1985/07/20 - W. Richards - FL PA AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC - EXAM
- P2 - 1999/10/30 - Chris Bowles - FL PA

Pulled 41 stills...

01-00000
- 01 - chronological order
- -0 - minutes
- 00 - seconds
- 00 - frame (30 fps)

Set to launch.

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Hook-in check.

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Launch to LZ - about 1270 vertical feet.

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The paved walkway from the parking to the wall forms an inverted T. There's a flagpole coming up from the midpoint of the wall and you can see the (American) flag against the pavement showing what the wind's doing - every bit of twelve I'd say and a wee bit right of straight in. Much more informative look on the video.

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Did a feasibility study for flying under that bridge on my Comet 165. Measured the clearances and selected a gravel bar to park on. Had a good shot at it on a 1991/07/05 early morning sled but bailed for fear of catching peer flak.

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LZ is the strip below Richard separated from the river by the strip of forest.

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Note the parked glider on the edge of the field in the upper left corner of the photo. Gives a good feel for the width of the strip. And note that any Hang Four can pull off three consecutive standup landings in a target circle with a radius less than that wingspan in any halfway reasonable flying conditions.

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You should be upright and on the control tubes at this point, dude. Superior roll control and no necessity for a dangerous transition at trim in ground effect.

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Still on the control tubes connector bar.

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Note flag, wind direction/strength.

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And even with that nice smooth headwind in this Happy Acres putting green we're running the glider to a stop - rather than attempting the suicide flare we've spent so many hundreds of repetitions perfecting so we can safely land in narrow dry riverbeds with large rocks strewn all over the place.

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This is what an ACTUAL approach and foot landing done by an ACTUAL 26 year Four u$hPa Examiner in ACTUAL ridge and thermal soaring conditions in an ACTUAL landing field - one recently having been characterized as insanely tight and dangerous and convicted as the only significant issue in a local skygod landing fatality - ACTUALLY looks like. And name me one single person who's been trained by a u$hPa instructor, school, program, clinic, ratings official to approach and land like this.

P.S. As much as I despise foot landings... With the wind as strong and nicely channeled straight down the runway as this - what the hell.

Jump to top:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post8588.html#p8588

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33504
Another fatal accident

Charles Fager - 2015/10/12 15:10:30 UTC
Pennsylvania

Until next of kin are notified it is best to not to say too much.

Two days shy of three weeks now and nobody's said too much so I guess the next of kin haven't been notified yet. And if the next of kin haven't yet figured out that this guy ain't around no more it makes ya wonder a bit about the natures of the relationships and just how important it is not to say too much out of respect for them and their feelings.

It was beautiful day in the mountains with a very sad ending.

What? No unprecedented instability, shear, gusts, rotors? Just a beautiful day in the mountains, a bit late in the thermal season?

This is the second fatal accident I was present for this year, the first being at Ridgely. Hopefully the Hyner club president will come out with an official statement when appropriate.

Any thoughts on when it might become appropriate? I'da thunk it would've been appropropriate before there was a chance of one more person launching. Hang Four with all the relevant merit badges...

Jesse Fulkersin - Berwick - 54649 - H4 - 2011/10/20 - Thomas Johnson - AT FL AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC - MNTR - Exp: 2015/11/30

...doing everything right coming into the LZ on a beautiful day in the mountains gets killed instantly. And you're gonna continue throwing Twos off there with no advisories whatsoever because the fucking unidentified Hyner club president has determined it's not yet appropriate to come out with an OFFICIAL (read throughly whitewashed and spun) statement?

Until then let us respect the pilot, relatives and the many friends that had to witness this tragedy.

Fuck every last one of them. Not one of them has raised a finger to shed the dimmest ray of light on what happened, why, and how to keep this from happening to the next Two who gets thrown of on the next beautiful day in the mountains.

This guy was a "Mentor" - one of the crowd supposed to be coaching the Twos on how to do this site right. If he can't land there on a beautiful day in the mountains without getting killed instantly for no reason then what chance does anyone else have? What's the point in having a Pilot Proficiency System and site rules? I didn't hear about any Twos getting any skinned knees at that event weekend.

And does anybody think for a nanosecond that if it had been somebody else with the same or more and better merit badges coming outta his ass who'd bought it instead at that moment that Jesse would be lifting a finger to do anything about anything?

Earth Magnet - 2015/10/12 22:34:54 UTC
Central Pennsylvania

Jesse flying.



He's the only one who got high that day.

Great shot. Guess nobody thought it worthwhile to get a shot of the crash zone with his iPhone. Funny how when something like this happens out in the non hang gliding world everybody and his fuckin' dog is snapping pics and posting them.

'Member how serious u$hPa was gonna get about managing risk a bit over a week ago?

Mark G. Forbes - 2015/10/22
USHPA Finance/Insurance/Risk Management Committee Chairman and Treasurer

Risk Management and You

Risk management is every member's responsibility.

Each of us can have an impact through our individual actions, and also through our influence on others. We need to change our culture and celebrate incident-free flight. We need systems for identifying risk and modifying behaviors and practices to reduce the risks we all face when we fly. We need to tighten standards for site management plans, take a harder look at instructional practices, and enforce a zero-tolerance policy for violations of the rules, particularly with respect to tandem instructional flights. If we are able to improve our overall level of risk management and reduce accidents (and claims), the RRG could become financially strong enough to provide benefits back to the members.

Guess they've been too busy celebrating all the incident-free flights. Probably got a pretty big backlog to deal with.

We don't have one single firsthand word from one single firsthand motherfucker on this one - and never will. Hang gliding culture now makes the Mafia look like a flock of canaries.

[Tad Eareckson]

THIS:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33504
Another fatal accident

Dave Gills - 2015/10/12 11:54:41 UTC
Grove City, Pennsylvania

That is the third hand information I have been told.
He nipped a tree trying to drop into the slot and spun in.

Charles Fager - 2015/10/12 15:10:30 UTC
Pennsylvania

This is the second fatal accident I was present for this year, the first being at Ridgely.

NMERider - 2015/10/12 23:49:19 UTC

I hear that Jesse got popped by a thermal coming in to land.

NMERider - 2015/10/13 01:01:57 UTC

I learned about this accident from a very close friend of the pilot who just died in Australia a few days ago.

Dave Hopkins - 2015/10/13 02:28:27 UTC

I heard the pilot had taken a few yrs off and was getting back into flying. He was high on approach and was doing S turns in the slot to lose altitude.

David Stevens - 2015/10/13 21:12:03 UTC

According to those on the ground Jessie was coming in on a long final with plenty of speed when he got turned at about tree level by thermal activity. He corrected but his wing tip clipped a tree.

is EVERTHING we have.

- One motherfucker - with at total of eleven Jack Show posts who's identified himself only as being from Pennsylvania and having been at Ridgely when Bertrand bought it - telling us he was at Hyner, implies that he wasn't a witness, says nothing about where he was at the time, and all we get about the conditions is that it was a beautiful day in the mountains. Probably rules out microbursts, derechos, tornados but we're not entirely sure how beautiful a day it was in the fields along the river below the mountains.

- We hear from our friend from Grove City that a friend of his heard from a friend of his that Jesse nipped a tree trying to drop into the slot and spun in. Good assumption that these are oral transmissions 'cause the digital stuff doesn't degrade in retelling iterations. So people are willing to talk to each other to some extent on the telephone 'cause that leaves nothing in the way of a solid record. (This is why I stopped - way on the late side - allowing Bob to communicate with me on the telephone.)

- Jonathan tells us that he heard from an unnamed source who may or may not have been within a thousand miles of Hyner at the time that Jesse got popped by a thermal coming in to land.

- Dave Hopkins, an extremely old pilot, tells us he HEARD, from gawd knows where, that the pilot had taken a few years off, was getting back into flying, and was high on approach and doing S-turns in the slot to lose altitude - which is totally moronic given both the length and width of the strip.

- David Stevens relays from "those on the ground" - none of whom has a name or a rating - that "Jessie" (and here I was thinking he was a dude) was coming in on a long final with plenty of speed when she got turned at about tree (top?) level by thermal activity, and corrected but her wing tip clipped a tree.

-- Thermal "activity"? What the fuck is that?

-- Corrected - but clipped a tree and was dead three seconds later. Gawd only knows how badly the afternoon might have gone if she HADN'T "CORRECTED".

NOTHING about:
- the glider
- wind direction and strength
- final direction
- centering of the glider over the strip before the thermal pop
- relevant side of the strip
- runway length behind and unused ahead
- proned out versus upright on the control tubes
- duration of the flight and altitude gained
- surviving pilots' assessments of the afternoon's thermal activity
- other approaches and landings around the same time

Bend a fuckin' downtube and there'll be twelve pages of discussion, analysis, opinion from scores of clearly identified and identifiable expert witnesses. Fatal LZ crash and... Hyner? Anybody know where that is? flown there in the past ten or fifteen years?

Hang gliding's inverse-square law: The quantity and quality of the information released in response to an incident is inversely proportional to the square of the severity of the consequences of the incident.

- Bonked landing in the primary putting green. No scraped knee, control tubes fine. Severity one. Analyzed to death over a minimum of eight pages of discussion. One over one squared. Rating: 100 percent.

- Brad turning / getting turned downwind during a top landing attempt. Serious injuries, intensive care. Severity twenty-five. 56 mostly bullshit posts with no one identifying the actual problem. One over twenty-five squared. Rating: 0.0016 percent.

- Jesse Fulkersin getting popped coming into the Hyner View Happy Acres putting green and clipping a tree. Killed instantly. Severity fifty. Zero eyewitnesses, videos, track log, photos; 37 not-appropriate-to-comment-at-this-time-before-friends-and-loved-ones-have-attained-closure and speculation posts. One over fifty squared. Rating: 0.0004 percent.

- Cool Hang Five surfer dude slams self and cute little eleven year old white kid into desert dry lakebed from 390 feet with some guy he just met in the parking lot driving for commercial tandem thrill ride. Cool Hang Five surfer dude and cute little eleven year old white kid killed instantly in front of most of the latter's family, news choppers darkening the sky by the end of the first half hour. Severity one hundred - physically impossible to do any worse than this with the weapons currently at our disposal. Massive conspiracy involving local flying community, u$hPa, police, FAA to lock down as much useful information as possible and suppress reporting and discussion. One over a hundred squared. Rating: 0.0001 percent.

I kid you not. Wait until the next one comes around, IMMEDIATELY assign a severity rating using this scale, do the math. You will be able to accurately predict the end product quality of the response before the second post pops up.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33504
Another fatal accident

Charles Fager - 2015/10/12 15:10:30 UTC
Pennsylvania

Until then let us respect the pilot, relatives and the many friends that had to witness this tragedy.

I missed this:

...and the many friends that had to witness this tragedy.

'cause I tend to max glaze over whenever I hear the standard mandatory crap about suppressing crash information under the guise of maintaining respect and concern for all the primary and secondary victims of yet another one of these incomprehensively terrible tragedies.

...and THE *MANY* *FRIENDS* THAT *HAD TO* **WITNESS** *THIS TRAGEDY*.

So putting all those accounts together we SHOULD HAVE a totally awesome detailed picture of just what happened and why. Yet every last one of those motherfuckers...

Ya know how glider jockeys are always babbling on about freedom, individuality, self determination... Bunch o' cowardly ass kissing clones.

[Tad Eareckson]

A bit more along the lines of hang gliding's inverse-square law...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33504
Another fatal accident

Charles Fager - 2015/10/12 15:10:30 UTC
Pennsylvania

Until next of kin are notified it is best to not to say too much. It was beautiful day in the mountains with a very sad ending. This is the second fatal accident I was present for this year, the first being at Ridgely. Hopefully the Hyner club president will come out with an official statement when appropriate.

Until then let us respect the pilot, relatives and the many friends that had to witness this tragedy.

We tend to respect the pilot, relatives, and many friends that have to witness these tragedies by not saying too much most when the "pilot" is least deserving of the respect and...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22132
choochoonooga incident.

James Dean - 2011/06/08 23:00:40 UTC
Chattanooga

I saw Tim fighting the gust-front in his Sport 2 and it was, by far and away, the most horrible and terrifying thing that I have ever witnessed. I watched the whole thing and wish I could get it out of my head now...

...vice versa.

Tim Martin got hit by something near the atmospheric equivalent of a tsunami, was doing and did somewhere between nothing and very little wrong, got slammed in and died a day and a half later. And everybody - Yours Truly included - is saying what he'd have quite likely ended up the same way had he launched the same time and place that afternoon. And we get everything of importance we need to know - including a horrifying firsthand report of the final moments - with no "respect" whatsoever given to the pilot.

Grossly negligent eleven year old kid homicide / suicide...

http://www.crestlinesoaring.org/node/1095
Las Vegas Accident | Crestline Soaring Society

Tom Emery - 2015/03/30 20:28

Instead of focusing on the blame, let's respect the fact that a tragic event has left two people dead. Regardless of the "why"....and regardless of what you have heard...two of our flying community are no longer with us. Focus on that. Say a prayer. Pay your respects to the families. Be grateful for you and yours. Please.

Let's set new Guinness World records for respect slathering and relevant information suppression.

David Stevens - 2015/10/13 21:12:03 UTC

According to those on the ground Jessie was coming in on a long final with plenty of speed when he got turned at about tree level by thermal activity.

Yeah, PLENTY of speed. And if you've got PLENTY of speed in would be just plain stupid to have any MORE speed. "PLENTY", of course, means...

a large or sufficient amount or quantity; more than enough

...speed to burn. You've got plenty of ammunition you've got twice as much as you need to kill all the Indians at the Little Bighorn. So let's rule out inadequate speed as a relevant issue. If we had to shoot that same approach not one of us would pull the bar back another inch 'cause we've already got more than we need. Come in a bit slower if anything.

He corrected but his wing tip clipped a tree.

Well, he corrected. Not much to be done there either. If you correct even more you've overcorrected and that can kill ya just as dead as undercorrecting can. Guess he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Shit happens. There, but for the grace of God...

This is total bullshit. This guy was slow, possibly upright and on the control tubes or one-up-one-down, and not centered over the strip. If he'd been doing every right on this beautiful day in the mountains we'd be seeing scores of disrespectful comments testifying to that effect and statements that any of us would most likely not have stood a chance either in that situation.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=14312
Tow Park accidents

Jack Axaopoulos - 2009/11/12 14:49:58 UTC

One of the stated goals of this site is to promote HG. MOST views on this site are NOT from members but from visitors, they have no ignore button.

Having Tad run around every day giving the impression that there is a massive weekly slaughter of pilots at tow parks due to their horribly dangerous devices surely doesnt promote HG. Especially when the safety records are quite excellent.

Like Jim said, theyve gone a decade with no fatalities at their tow park. Pretty damn good I say.

Yet listening to Tad, you would think guys were dying all over the place
He's been nothing but misleading and negative and ignored multiple warnings from me. So He's GONE

So instead, Jack, you've got your pet assholes running around saying that a Four with all the merit badges and decades of experience can come into an easy Hang Two field on a beautiful day in the mountains doing absolute nothing wrong / unable to do anything any better and get killed instantly. And that scares the crap outta prospectives and new pilots like your Robert Kesselring. All the ones with at least partially functional brains are thinking, "Shit. If that can happen to someone with HIS skills and experience...".

Or, if highly respective Jack Show Douchebag In Good Standing Mitch Shipley - u$hPa's go-to guy whenever a cute little eleven year old skydiving student is snuffed and we need to get to the truth of what happened and why - is right:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27396
Scooter tow faillure... or Never Land On Your Face

Mitch Shipley - 2012/10/22 19:04:16 UTC

We engage in a sport that has risk and that is part of the attraction.

then how come you banned T** at K*** S****** for running around every day giving the impression that there is a massive weekly slaughter of pilots at tow parks due to their horribly dangerous devices? I'm guessing I was a lot more right than Mitch seeing as how we're not getting a huge surge of new participants in response to this year's record slaughter - a slaughter rate that the people who are making the money to be had in this sport are trying to reverse with a shitload of stupid, useless, odious, expensive regulations which will only serve to further reduce participation, by the way.

If one of your stated goals is to promote hang gliding then you're doing a really shitty job of it 'cause the sport's totally on the ropes right now.