landing

[Tad Eareckson]

Keep It Complex As Hell So's It Can Effectively And Safely Do The Complex As Hell Job It Needs To, Stupid.

Shooooort track record.

With our backgrounds in formal research, you and I both know that lab tests may produce results with good internal validity, but are often strong in regard to external validity--meaning lab conditions can completely include all the factors and variability that exist in the big, real world - and way the fuck beyond.

It's a hundred times safer to land the fuckin' plane on the wide dry moonscape with large rocks strewn all over the place than it is to practice for landing the fuckin' plane on the wide dry moonscape with large rocks strewn all over the place on the Happy Acres putting green.

Neighbor across the street and one to the right from my (parents') Annapolis home Robert S. (Bob) Kraemer was a close colleague (NASA Director of Planetary Programs) and friend of von Braun's. The former had a book - Beyond the Moon: A Golden Age of Planetary Exploration, 1971-1978 - published by the Smithsonian 2000/09/17. I read the crap out of it and found a bunch of mistakes - some of which the publisher definitely should've caught. Told me that I'd probably read it more carefully than any other human who'd gotten his hands on it.

[Tad Eareckson]

The careful Kite Strings reader may have noticed that my posting rate has dipped a good bit over the course of the past few days. Been involved in some daunting, horrendous housekeeping projects:
- organizing, reorganizing my five thousand plus Flickr photo collection
- storing, organizing, cataloging photos and videos
- reviewing hundreds of pages, thousands of posts for:
-- unsaved photos
-- dead links
-- errors
-- formatting and appearance issues

It's a whole lot more fun and sometimes necessary to write and address what's going on out there than it is to organize and maintain - but what an unholy mess one can find himself in after several years of throwing things into digital clutter piles.

Anyway, landing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TIEHN5Yw1k
Brian Foster RLF Landing at Windy Hill

C R Valley - 2009/11/23

Brian Foster demonstrates a superb RLF landing approach at Windy Hill...this is a very tight LZ, so you better be able to live up to the RLF sign-off on your card!

Brian Foster - 80099 - H4 - 2006/07/25 - Eric Hinrichs - AT FL ST CL FSL RLF TUR XC

About the only good example of a good Restricted Landing Field approach - Windy Hill Open Space Preserve - on the fuckin' web. So what does Chris do with it?



Thanks bigtime, Chris. Where would this sport be right now if we didn't obliterate as many expressions of excellence as possible as soon as possible after they rear their ugly heads?

jtsquid

That was cool! My favorite part is seeing his shadow 5-10 feet beneath him on the trees as he swoops in like superman! I want to be just like BF...Ace Comp Pilot.

Goddam right. And on the SHIT extreme of the continuum we've got Tom Lyon making sure he never rolls more than five degrees once below two hundred feet on his mile and a half upright final leg.

That was one of my earliest still pulling efforts and I only grabbed one - and beat it to death - 'cause there's nothing else that good out there.

So today I decided it needed more justice.

Sixteen frames. The first eight have tops and/or bottoms cropped off to eliminate a lot of boring empty sky and grass and reduce scrolling effort.

01-2314
- 01 - chronological order
- 23 - seconds
- 14 - frame (30 fps)

01-2314-c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1538/26193684911_0092d53e5f_o.png

02-2328-c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1535/25655156104_b78b26c80a_o.png

03-2501-c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1507/25655155884_5dda30b023_o.png

04-2522-c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1575/25655155414_75766727d5_o.png

05-2704-c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1525/26167489042_9f5e5af537_o.png

06-2720-c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1503/25657245323_33537e1494_o.png

07-2822-c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1560/25987079010_6f9f026468_o.png

08-3028-c
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1641/25655153504_a96ff79614_o.png

09-3218
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1579/26234004816_258fe7b9e8_o.png

10-3403
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1518/25655152554_030ff9d534_o.png

11-3429
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1463/25655152054_dea27705e6_o.png

12-3515
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1675/26259932965_793da61284_o.png

13-3604
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1499/26167485322_9c193d3199_o.png

14-3612
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1642/26193679091_195c06ef93_o.png

15-3620
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1711/26193678731_55eed27b64_o.png

16-3811
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1615/26193678181_c3d161d1f1_o.png


And he had to ruin it with a near classic foot landing.

(Ignoring the cropping) compare/contrast my original still of 2704:



with Version 2.0:

http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1525/26167489042_9f5e5af537_o.png


It's laterally squished - makes the glider looked harder banked (cooler) than it actually is. Same video download, same harvesting (Final Cut) and editing (Photoshop) software, no settings I can find which would've fucked things up. I have no idea how the hell that happened. I know how to deliberately do it in Photoshop but ya gotta deliberately do it using the Image Size gizmo. And I don't think there's any way I could've accidentally done it.

Seems to be a 16:9 versus 4:3 aspect ratio thing and I've seen this before. Video looks fine no matter what you're watching it on, harvested still is squished horizontally or vertically. Easy fix in Photoshop using basic algebra.

Must say, though... The frames nearing and at the end of this clip look a bit suspicious. Maybe Jonathan knows what's going on.

I'll shortly be replacing all the squished 2704s with the 2.0s.

[Steve Davy]

I read the crap out of it and found a bunch of mistakes - some of which the publisher definitely should've caught.

Grammatical or factual mistakes?

[NMERider]

GoshdarnitImissedtheFrisbeeintheboulder-filleddryriverbed!

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

[Steve Davy]

http://www.flytandem.com/accident/index.htm

9-21-16 5:00PM. Local Advanced HG pilot gets low when heading east along the ridge toward Rim Forest and when returning cannot make it over the ridge to the arrowhead mountain and must attempt the glide out east of that mountain. Landing is forced on the soccer field at the arrowhead hotel complex. On landing into this small field the pilot overshoots into a dirt burm and suffers minor injuries to his face. Prognosis is good for full recovery in a few weeks.

[<BS>]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd9KUqo4S2c

Wet riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place.

[NMERider]

Long canyon glide-outs always end better with the right music!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kPoJ0jUTdU

[Steve Davy]

Beautiful video NMERider (I'm not a big Nugent fan, but I do like that one). What was that at the end? It looked like you were trying to catch something.

PS - You are in violation of the Christopher LeFay five second rule there, NME. Work on keeping your hands on the control tubes for a minimum of five seconds after launching, or face certain disaster.
---
Tad - 2016/10/12 21:30:00 UTC

Just noticed a bit ago that this was Steve's thousandth Kite Strings post. Two of us now into quadruple digits.

[Steve Davy]

http://www.gofundme.com/joe-stearns-recovery-fund

Unfortunately, Joe crashed on landing and broke a few vertebrae in his back and received a few cuts and bruises. After a med flight and a few days in hospital, Joe was released sporting a new back brace. Now he needs time to heal before he returns to his work as a roaster at the Barrington Coffee Roasting Company.

I'm guessing that he went for one of those dangerous wheel landings.

When are folks going to learn that these things must be landed on one's feet?

[Dave Gills]

I'm guessing that he went for one of those dangerous wheel landings.

Rumor is, it was a low turn to final & he touched his wingtip.