instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

General discussion about the sport of hang gliding
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Tad Eareckson
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Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33542
In Memory of Jules Gilpatrick
Rodger Hoyt - 2015/10/22 04:33:48 UTC

Forgive me if this has been posted previously; I have not seen it, so maybe others haven't either.

I just learned that long-time hang glider pilot Jules Gilpatrick (USHPA #30189) passed away about a month ago from natural causes.
Global cooling probably. Curse these low levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and all the tree huggers opposing drilling in the arctic where all the sea ice used to be.
Jules was noted for being a Lakeview, Oregon local pilot and organizer of many events at "The Hang Gliding Capitol of the West." I was friends with Jules for many years but lost touch with him recently as both of us reduced our flying activities due to health issues. Jules was both a talented and experienced flier, and always good for an entertaining intellectual discussion on the ride up to takeoff.

See ya Jules.
Oh look:
Jules Gilpatrick - Oregon - 30189 - H4 - 1991/11/12 - D. Thomason - AT FL PL PA AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC - Exp: 2010/08/31
It's only if you die from HANG GLIDING related causes that u$hPa shreds your records in thirty seconds or less.
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Tad Eareckson
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Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44832
USHPA Insurance
Jim Rooney - 2015/10/25 06:06:43 UTC

Magentabluesky

How is it that an airplane reaching speeds in excess of 100 mph and weighing close to one ton is less to insure (Liability) than a Hang Glider?

Because it's not.

It's the activities that cause the issue. Just look at the lawsuits that the USHPA has had to deal with to see the real demon.
Some guy getting smacked in the head with a glider on takeoff getting spun around in a dusty?
Nobody has EVER been smacked in the head with a glider on takeoff getting spun around in a dusty, Mister Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney.
When was the last time you saw an airplane hit a bystander on the runway?
A step further... when was the last time that person sued anyone for anything?
A step further... could you possibly imagine them not getting laughed out of court?
And no Cessna has EVER lost power on takeoff and been inconvenienced into a housing development off the end of a runway.
It's kinda fun watching HGers...
Yeah, it's always fun for one of the tuggie cadre's contingent of God's Gifts to Aviation watching HGers doing just about anything. How long were you in hang gliding before you hopped in your draggy gas guzzler and became a PROFESSIONAL PILOT so you could run your stupid mouth nonstop about what a load of incompetent clueless muppets all HGers are about everything?
...try to convince themselves that they're not participating in an extreme sport.
Guess what?
:)
Yeah. That's why we're having this wave of fatalities this year. 'Cause hang gliding is an EXTREME SPORT. Not 'cause people are:
- scratching low and doing aerobatics in thermal turbulence
- Hang Twos with crappy instruction getting in over their heads
- taking kids up for tandem thrill rides with:
-- total junk equipment
-- drivers they met in the parking lot an hour ago
- running off cliffs with defective sidewires they never check
- approaching slow on final
- trying to move their gliders to cliff launches through rotors unassisted

Keep running your mouth about the people in this sport who actually fly hang gliders - you vile stupid little shit. Keep deluding yourself into thinking that you still have political capital to burn. Remember when idiots were speaking highly of you and recommending you as a reliable authority on everything? Notice that nothing like that has happened since the early spring of 2013?

I also notice a corresponding rate of decline in comments about Tad's Lunacy and Hole in the Ground.

We have some tectonic trends going on in this sport right now and there's NOTHING that's gonna reverse them. You tied your reputation to a loop of 130 pound fishing line and it and you are history.
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Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

Post by Steve Davy »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?p=377814&highlight=#377814
USHPA raises rates 50%!!!
Robert Kesselring - 2015/10/28 17:41:31 UTC

So now I'm confused.
You're getting your information from Jack Asshole forum idiots and conmen.
Have you considered reading the policy for the insurance:
https://www.ushpa.aero/member_file.asp?id=545
that you are paying money for?
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Tad Eareckson
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Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33546
USHPA raises rates 50%!!!
Mark G. Forbes - 2015/10/30 02:24:54 UTC

It is our hope that once we get the RRG launched, we'll be able to get a better handle on our insurance costs.
Which is another way of saying get a better handle on this safety thing - which you've massively demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt you're totally incapable of doing.
Right now we're forced to price things based on our recent past history, which sucks.
Fuck your recent past history. All you've had going on recently was a random spike in fatalities. The cultural behavior didn't suddenly shift for the worse at the beginning of 2015, it's just that a handful of the usual zillions of near misses didn't quite miss.
We think...
Yeah, right.
...the long term average is more realistic, but we have to prove that with actual numbers over time.
It's the moronic insane stuff that you normalize as "typical" under the u$hPa shield that sends the risk through the ceiling - whether or not you're seeing relevant fatalities.
If we're right...
How could you be anything BUT. You've been busting your asses for decades making as sure as possible you've been getting as much right as possible.
...our RRG will accumulate surplus funds and we'll be able to drop insurance costs over time as we develop more history.
I can hardly wait for you motherfuckers to develop more history.
That will come back to USHPA and the schools in the form of lower insurance premiums, and back to the members in the form of lower dues rates.
Unless I can get Arys Moorhead's family to understand what happened and why - and do to you a wee bit of what the criminal justice system SHOULD've done to you.
There's no guarantee, and it's up to each of us as pilots to make it happen.
And you've cultivated such quality material to fill your ranks - mostly by setting the best examples at the leadership level.
If we see somebody about to do something stupid, risky or damaging, we need to speak up.
- Sorry, my voice got shot to hell years ago.

- Right. You motherfuckers don't tolerate anybody speaking up about anybody doing something stupid, risky, damaging, fatal AFTER they've done it but now everybody's gonna start speaking up BEFORE.

- Quote yourself EVER ONCE speaking up about somebody about to do, doing, having done something stupid, risky, or damaging.
It's OUR money they're putting at risk.
Nevertheless, it's their friends, families, loved ones and their feelings that we're most deeply concerned about.
The guy who says "I think I can pull it off" when everybody else has their glider in the bag and it's blowing 35 on launch? That guy needs to get pulled off to the side and talked to. Maybe he's a sky god, but that doesn't matter. He's taking an unreasonable chance with YOUR dues money, and you need to call him on it.
Who is that guy? Have we read about him in a u$hPa crash report or seen him in a video?
Buzzing launch, acro down low over the LZ, top landing into a crowd, overshooting the LZ into a soccer game....all things our pilots have done, deliberately or due to lack of skill.
Nobody UNDERshooting the LZ and coming down in a soccer game? Maybe you dickheads should give a second thought as to the wisdom of teaching people to land on old Frisbees set in the middles of LZs and runways.
We need to change the culture; that sort of flying should not be tolerated by any of us.
We best do that by beheading the people who've been in charge of and controlling the culture for the past couple decades.
If we get a handle on this thing, we'll save ourselves money and keep the sport alive and healthy.
KEEP it alive and healthy? It's a lung cancer case that's been doing a pack a day for decades and has been doing two packs for the past half dozen years.
If we don't, we're done.
You're done. You've put yourself into a dive that nothing will be able pull you out of. Even if I WANTED to help you I wouldn't be able to do shit.

You gotta keep reprinting the seventeen year old excellent article by Mike Meier, "Why Can't We Get a Handle On This Safety Thing?" 'cause that's all you've got. And apparently it doesn't bother you in the least that it's never had the least perceptible effect on anybody's flying and practices.

And lemme point out that somebody who actually gives a flying fuck about safety doesn't write one totally useless article seventeen years ago and then never whisper a word in response to any of the hundreds of major catastrophes we've had since. I've currently got 1448 posts with 54224 hits here just on the weak link issue in order to make the point that:
Tost Flugzeuggerätebau

Weak links protect your aircraft against overloading.
and can count the people who've altered their behavior accordingly on one hand.

When we start seeing instructors and ratings officials teaching different theory, skills, practices, mindsets and different equipment being put into the air we'll start seeing different results on measurable scales. But go ahead, Mark...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=32681
Tandem crash in LV (speculation thread)
Mark G. Forbes - 2015/03/30 23:29:59 UTC

News reports are of little use since they're written by people who have no idea how our sport works or what is typical.
Keep on getting people to understand how our sport works and what is TYPICAL - while never doing shit about instruction and equipment.
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Tad Eareckson
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Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33568
Another accident
Brad Barkley - 2015/10/30 02:01:51 UTC

Thoughts and prayers for this pilot's recovery
And yet another catastrophic total failure of thoughts and prayers for a pilot's (full and speedy) recovery. Go figure.
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Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.aerosports.net/instructor.html
Tandem Hang Gliding on Maryland's Eastern Shore
Highland Aerosports Staff

Jim Rooney
Tug Pilot, Tandem Pilot

Jim has been teaching hang gliding since 1990 and towing since 1995. He holds United States Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association Master Pilot, Advanced Instructor, Tandem Instructor, & Tug Pilot ratings as well as a Sport Pilot CFI. Jim has towed in almost every major aerotow hang gliding competition around the world and has completed over 10,000 tows in the Dragonfly.
Jim Rooney
Shouldn't you be using a much larger font size?
Tug Pilot, Tandem Pilot
But not much of a solo hang glider pilot. Close to no record of him committing that flavor of aviation.
Jim has been teaching hang gliding since 1990 and towing since 1995.
Which is really remarkable - seeing as how Highland Aerosports didn't become operational until 1999/05/28 and the little shit didn't rear his ugly head for lessons before the 2002 season and didn't start as Pilot In Command of one and all gliders on the dangerous end of the string until 2005, I believe it was.
He holds...
...soon to be defunct...
...United States Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association Master Pilot...
Bull fucking shit.
James Rooney - New York - 78142 - Exp: - 2014/05/31
- H4 - 2004/09/03 - Paul (Sunny) Venesky
-- AT FL LGO PL ST TAT TFL RLF TUR XC
-- AT TOW OBS, TAND INST - 2015/12/31, TUG PILOT
- P4 - 2008/01/29 - Marc Fink
-- FL ST TFL CL FSL HA RLF RS TUR XC
-- ST TOW OBS, TAND INST - 2015/12/31
The little shit isn't even a Five paraglider "pilot". For a Five you need to rack up points in categories which reflect a diversity of skills and experiences he'll never achieve. I've got 'em, he never will.
Advanced Instructor...
Yeah? How much Advanced Instruction has he done? Quote some of his products praising him for the deep insights with which he instilled them.
Tandem Instructor...
- Tandem thrill ride driver. And I got news for ya... That's not a designation that's been endearing anybody to a whole lotta hang glider people lately.

- Bullshit. His u$hPa membership expired a year and a half ago - that means his instructor certification did too. All he can do is fly his gas guzzler - which is the only thing he was ever really interested in doing anyway - and a lot more his speed than hang gliders.
...& Tug Pilot...
Despite the fact that neither he nor any of you other motherfuckers have once flown tugs in compliance with u$hPa and FAA safety rules and regulations in the course of your miserable lives.
... ratings as well as a Sport Pilot CFI.
- Oh good, another flavor of aviation in which Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney's opinions can replace bothersome math and science based theory.

- A highly respected tandem pilot in New Zealand as well, where he worked in the down under summers running tourist thrill rides until an unfortunate but virtually inevitable unhooked launch incident on 2006/02/21.
Jim has towed in almost every major aerotow hang gliding competition around the world...
- Sometimes simultaneously on as many as three continents.

- Which saves him the embarrassment of getting his ass thoroughly kicked by people who actually fly solo gliders in actual XC conditions and environments.
...and has completed over 10,000 tows in the Dragonfly.
- And started another five thousand in which the safety of the towing operation was increased before the glider made it to fifty feet.

- Wow! He must be a really superb tug pilot! Ten times as knowledgeable, skilled, effective as someone who's only completed one thousand tows.

On that page the other tow totals listed are:
- 5000 - Sunny
- 6500 - Adam
The lower one's IQ the more he gets assigned to driving tows - and the happier he is doing it.
Tandem Hang Gliding on Maryland's Eastern Shore
Yeah, that's all it is. A big commercial tandem thrill ride operation that occasionally caters to hang glider pilots when it's not too busy.

What? No little memorial pages for Founder Chad Elchin or first-half-of-2007-season tug pilot Keavy Nenninger?

Notice that when whichever asshole it was who posted bio information that credits Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney with an extra decade of experience and a Master rating he doesn't have he doesn't bother correcting the record to better reflect reality. Just like when Mitch Shipley tells all us muppets what a keen intellect Rooney has and how he's the greatest authority on everything in the history of the planet.
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Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2128
Rich Hass Deposed as President of USHPA
FiascoDave - 2015/11/07 16:47:30 UTC
Ruch, Oregon

Paul Murdock is a PG PILOT. He is the worst kind of "leader". Two faced, stab-you-in-the-back hack primarily interested in one thing: self promotion.

He is primarily responsible for the decline of HG in RVHPA and the collapse of all collaboration between HG & PG in a once functional and successful flying club.

In my experience, he can not be trusted to advance HG. His involvement at the national level will mark the rapid demise of USHPA just as history shows has occurred at the club level at RVHPA.
Good. I'd be seriously depressed if I thought that sleazy organization was making an effort to install someone with a spark of decency in its power structure.
In other words; his involvement at USHPA is the best thing to happen for US HAWKS!
Ditto for Kite Strings - hopefully/probably more so.
SO LONG USHPA!
And rot in Hell where you belong.
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Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45132
HG fatality at High Rock MD
Mark G. Forbes - 2015/11/11 01:25:07 UTC

Please be careful out there; we've had another HG pilot fatality, at High Rock, Maryland last Sunday. Mitch Shipley reported:
Sunday November 8, 2015

Karen Carra (54) USHPA #61868, an Intermediate (H3), Novice (P2) pilot and USHPA member since 1995. Preliminary reports via phone indicated she was launching her Sport II 135 at High Rock MD site around 1500 with a wire crew. Her nose popped up on launch followed by loss of control of the glider until impact below launch. About an hour to extract by rappel. She was conscious during extraction but died sometime later. Her husband Mathew Graham was believed to be there, probably in the air when she launched.
This site is not one where you could save a stalled launch. See video tour here:

http://vimeo.com/129357732
So what good is being careful out there gonna do us, Mark?

We've just had three fatalities in my neck of the woods this year so far. Two Fours, one seventeen year Three, two of them I knew, one of those I flew with for years, all of them spun in and died at easy Two sites in easy Two or under conditions, one of them across the road from the airport, one coming into the primary, one coming off the ramp.

I haven't heard ONE WORD about any of the pilots or, in the last two, launch crews being the least bit careless or unfocused or doing anything inappropriate or beyond a skill range. Bertrand Delacroix was flying an aircraft that appeared to be for recreational purposes, Jesse Fulkersin was coming in with plenty of speed when he got popped by a thermal, Karen Carra's glider's nose popped up on launch and then there was a loss of control. What more can we do? How more careful can we possibly be?

Isn't it simply the case that we engage in a sport that has risk, that that is part of the attraction, and shit just happens every now and then and there's absolutely nothing anybody can do to change that? Wouldn't we all be ultimately better off just leveling with our insurance company and having our rates adjusted accordingly?

Shouldn't we just be wishing our pilots good luck instead of telling them to be careful out there and trying to revise our SOPs and training to thwart the inevitable?

Or hell...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6845
Options for Sun08Nov : High Rock?
Dan Lukaszewicz - 2015/11/11 20:12:42 UTC
Alexandria, Virginia

.
Maybe just totally go with pretending that nothing bad ever happens.
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Tad Eareckson
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Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33622
Why are we killing ourselves so much more this year?
Robert Kesselring - 2015/11/11 17:58:16 UTC
West Virginia

Why are we killing ourselves so much more this year?
- Who's "we"? Is hang gliding just one big homogenous group? Or are there different subsets within the group doing things differently from what other subsets and getting different results?

- What do your Lockout instructors have to say on the issue?
The drastic jump in fatalities from previous years indicates to me that there is an underlying cause.
What are the crash and lucky miss statistics?
No doubt that the increased fatality rate is due to a change in the way pilots are making decisions, and making poor ones...
No doubt whatsoever. Couldn't POSSIBLY be a minor statistical blip.
...but large groups of people do not spontaneously change their behavior unless some common influence effects them en mass.
Why do you think people the world over sudddenly became deadly silent on the issue of the standard aerotow weak link a bit before the beginning of the 2013 season?
Until we figure out what the common influence is, I fear the trend will continue.
And I hope you're right. We don't want people of varying ages trying to make cases that smoking cigarettes is a perfectly healthy hobby.
I'd like the purpose of this thread to be a discussion of what that common influence might be.
I'd like to see it dropping the bullshit about common influences and instead looking at the individual incidents.
One thing that I thought of is the aging population of the HG community. The stock market is up this year which may make it a good year for some to cash out some securities and retire. If a large group of pilots just retired they will now have seven days a week to go fly instead of two so it would make sense that they would fly (and crash) three to four times more frequently. Compound this with the fact that the they are now older, slower to react, and physically more fragile then they were a few years ago and I could easily see the death rate for this population of pilots going up by a larger factor. This theory could be supported or refuted by finding out what portion of this year's fatalities were recently retired. Anybody know how to get that info?
I wouldn't bother. It's total rubbish.
Any other suggestions for possible underlying influences?
Nothing new... Shit training, equipment, attitudes, culture and individual cluelessness and stupidity.
Davis Straub - 2015/11/11 18:09:02 UTC

A young women just died.
- Yeah. Somebody should call the Kapitol Kite Klub and let them know.
- She was 54. I remember a time in hang gliding when that wasn't considered to be all that young.
Robert Kesselring - 2015/11/11 18:53:43 UTC

I know. That's one reason I'm thinking about this.
Why aren't you thinking about why we got total shit in the way of a report and Kapitol is deleting all posts which acknowledge Karen's death?
If a normal year has two to five fatalities and this year is pushing twenty I want to know why.
You don't wanna know why badly enough to venture out of your mutual masturbation society and check out the best information and analyses available.
Maybe, if this had been a normal year, she would have been one of the two to five. But maybe she'd still alive. Unless we can identify the negative influence, we may never know.
She and her crew blew an Assisted Windy Cliff Launch by starting with the glider too far back and the nose too high. Jesse Fulkersin clipped a tree and crashed in the LZ 'cause he came in way the fuck too slow. What other questions ya got?
I'm interested in the driving factor behind the fifteen or so that are above the normal rate because if I can safeguard myself against THAT factor I cut my risk by three quarters.
You have a totally clueless approach. When I started in the sport I DEVOURED fatality reports - INDIVIDUALLY. And we had a lot more people flying back then, pretty much all strong young Baby Boomers with great reflexes, we were DWARFING this year's statistics, and we had Robert V. Wills and Doug Hildreth doing the reporting instead of the lying, ass covering pieces o' shit we've got running the show now.

Get yourself the magazine archives discs, review the reports, and forget about what's happening now. People aren't inventing new ways to kill themselves and their "buddies". They're just learning to do it more effectively and efficiently and cover up the relevant issues a lot better.
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Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

Post by Tad Eareckson »

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33622
Why are we killing ourselves so much more this year?
NMERider - 2015/11/11 18:56:02 UTC

"No doubt" is an expression used by people who don't have facts to back up their assertions and so they interject expressions such as "obviously" and "everybody knows" in addition to "no doubt".
Obviously. And he hasn't bothered to look up and analyze the available "facts". And there ain't that many of them - even in this banner year.
Now I have some very bad news for you as follows:
The increased fatality rate is due to a lack of change in the way pilots are making decisions, and have continued making poor ones unchanged.
Does leadership and training enter into the equation to any degree?
If you understand how probability outcomes work then you might observe that random outcomes or events tend to clump or cluster and it's human nature to assign special meaning to these clusters of events when in fact there is no particular meaning as it is the nature of random outcomes.

Pilots make hundreds to thousands of decisions each and every time they fly and many of these decisions are poor ones but they don't all result in accidents.
If something bad happens as a consequence of a poor decision it's not an accident. It's an incident or crash. Jesse Fulkersin and Karen Carra are excellent examples of accidents 'cause both of them died after having done absolutely nothing below the level of excellence maintaining max safety margins at all times.
In fact, few poor decisions result in accidents and there comes a point where the more bad decisions that a pilot gets away with the greater the likelihood that the pilot will not only make more bad decisions but will increase the rate at which bad decisions are made until disaster strikes and ends the pilot's flying activities.
Zack Marzec, Jon Orders, Joe Julik come to mind.
What's even more pernicious than this single-pilot vicious cycle of inevitable disaster is the observable phenomenon of one pilot's own history of making poor decisions negatively impacting other pilots' decision making resulting in a self-destructive group dynamic.
15-3703
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There are some pilots who get away with far more bad decisions than other pilots and it often ends up being the other pilots who get injured.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=13359
Today was a bad day!
Mike Bomstad - 2009/08/26 04:21:15 UTC

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

Attach it to the wing, completing the aircraft.... then preflight the completed aircraft.
Buckle yourself into the cockpit and then your ready.
11-A12819
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You see Robert, I can make some pretty bad or high risk decisions and walk away unscathed.
37-4427
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Yet if you observe me getting away with some of these and think that you can do this too, there is a very good probability that you will get hurt and I won't. This is how the dynamic works.
A good deal of what allows you to make some pretty high risk decisions and walk away unscathed is experience and skill. But you don't wanna be making a habit of putting yourself in situations which depend on skill to be able to survive in good shape and walk away.
You have to know your own limitations regardless of what anyone or even everyone else does or gets away with.
Hey Robert... Think you can resist a lockout with one hand while making the easy reach to your Industry Standard release with the other?
Your limitations are unique to you and you alone. Your decision making must revolve around your own limitations and not my limitations or anyone else's.
Doesn't he have a rating card...
Robert Kesselring - West Virginia - 96723 - H2 - 2015/07/19 - Matthew Masters - FL CL FSL
...which says he can perform safely in specified environments under specified conditions just as well as the next guy with the same stuff on his card? If not then of what use and legitimacy are the pilot training and rating systems?
There's much, much more to this dynamic and some of it is so ugly I won't repeat it in public.
Repeat it here. This is a public ugliness friendly venue.
Rather than focus on why accidents are happening, we need to be focused on where accidents are not happening and work hard on replacing the vicious cycle of poor decisions with the vitalizing cycles of those who are enjoying the recreation that hang gliding has to offer without accidents and injuries.
Yeah Robert. Focus Image on all the:

- pro toad / standard aerotow weak link whipstall inconvenience fatalities they haven't had at Wallaby, Florida Ridge, Lockout, Currituck, Manquin, Ridgely, Morningside, Cloud 9, Whitewater Cowboy Up

- unhooked launches they haven't had at the Lockout ramp

and choose and/or modify your equipment and procedures accordingly.
Dave Gills - 2015/11/11 19:47:07 UTC

I just ordered a couple of books that were recommended from a sailplane forum.
Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow"
Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking"
What does the sailplane forum say the purpose of the weak link is and what does it recommend we batten guys use to achieve that purpose? Fuck the sailplane forum. Name one of those assholes who in the 34 year history of Hewett based hang glider towing has ever bothered to come over to this sport and condemn the insanity in no uncertain terms. And recognize that we've got plenty of assholes in this flavor who do both.
Has anyone read either of these two?
What's the max for syllables per word?
Brad Barkley - 2015/11/11 19:55:52 UTC

It bears repeating:
http://www.willswing.com/why-cant-we-get-a-handle-on-this-safety-thing/
Fer sure. That's what u$hPa told us to read in their report/response to the Kelly Harrison / Person Of Varying Age that kicked off the 2015 US killing spree. You can see how great it's working. No doubt we'd have had twice the number of fatalities otherwise. So keep repeating the same thing over and over again so's we can all gear up for the better results everybody knows we're inevitably gonna get.
Here is a key quote:
You see, here's how I think it works. The overriding determinant of pilot safety in hang gliding is the quality of pilot decision making. Skill level, experience, quality of equipment; all those things are not determinants.
Course not. Otherwise you'd ship your gliders with safe aerotow releases built in and tell us what the fuck "an appropriate weak link" is for all your gliders. Quality of equipment is only an issue in REAL aviation.
What those things do is determine one's upper limits. More skill gives you a higher limit, as does more experience or better equipment. But safety is not a function of how high your limits are, but rather of how well you stay within those limits. And that, is determined by one thing; the quality of the decisions you make. And how good do those decisions have to be? Simply put, they have to be just about perfect. Consider the type of decisions you have to make when you fly. Do I fly today? Do I start my launch run at this time, in this cycle? Do I have room to turn back at the hill in this thermal? Can I continue to follow this thermal back as the wind increases and still make it back over the ridge? Each time you face such a decision, there is a level of uncertainty about how the conditions will unfold. If you make the "go" decision when you're 99% sure you can make it, you’ll be wrong on average once every 100 decisions. At 99.9%, you'll still be wrong once every thousand decisions. You probably make 50 important decisions for every hour of airtime, so a thousand decisions comes every 20 hours, or about once or twice a year for the average pilot.
Launching And Flying The Falcon
We recommend that you hang as close as possible to the basetube in the glider - this will give you lighter control pressures and better control.

Landing The Falcon
Your hands should be at shoulder width and shoulder height on the uprights.
Get fucked, Mike. Get your own shit together before you start telling all us muppets how to operate.
Brad
Hang 3
WW Sport 2 155
Get fucked, Brad.
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