2016/04/03 Tres Pinos fatality

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34277
"evidence of that silliness"

Tormod Helgesen - 2016/04/22 09:16:19 UTC

Ryan Voight - 2016/04/21 19:06:19 UTC

And- I'll explain it in terms of physics and CG...

Give up! For you own sake.

He has! At least four times already!

I think the problem is that your opponents believe that you need leverage to steer the hangglider.

They can't grasp the fact that while airborne you're part of a closed system so that whatever force you use to move your body is opposed by an equal force.

You mean like when a Cessna flying level at a constant airspeed with five hundred pounds of thrust is opposed by five hundred pounds of drag?

To produce any leverage (or torque) you'll have to fix the harness to the bottombar...

Would it be OK to just fix the harness with me in it in a particular position with my hands on the bottombar...

36-05024
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...for a time period of my choosing?

...and rotate your body inside the harness, mimicking an engine and propeller.

Why do we let people this astoundingly stupid out of secured institutions and into hang gliding?

To add to the confusion...

Go ahead, Tormod. Go for a world record on adding to confusion.

...someone is mixing in towing which is a totally different thing as it's a powered system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvhzoVC1UqM
Simple Progression for Teaching Hang Gliding

Ryan Voight - 2015/02/22

An excellent cue is to try to pull the glider through the air with the harness.

I think you've encountered a unsolvable case of the Donning-Kruger syndrome as your opponents simply refuses to educate themselves.

Donning-Kruger syndrome... Is that the one in which people think they can spell "Dunning" but can't?

(Had to look that one up yesterday morning. Then in the early afternoon I heard an hour long NPR program discussion to the Dunning-Kruger Syndrome with David Dunning. Mini mind blower.)

Mike Lake - 2016/04/22 09:48:28 UTC

I'm no one's opponent.

Yeah ya are.

I'm not after an argument.

Great. There's no argument here.

To add to the confusion someone is mixing in towing which is a totally different thing as it's a powered system.

How is running pulling a glider by the hang point with your harness straps any different from running pulling a glider by the hang point with a 20 foot piece of rope?

Because there's no 250 pound Infallible Weak Link between the hang point and your harness straps to increase the safety of the free flying operation the way there is between the harness and the twenty foot piece of rope to increase the safety of the towing operation.

I'm not adding to the confusion just stating a fact that the dynamics of towing come into play when you are on there ground.

How is that not adding to the confusion on The Jack Show - on which a bridle distributing towline tension (or "pressure") equally between the pilot and glider is a three point?

Call it something else if you like.

Would "pushing" be OK?

Instead of dismissing my post as irrelevant because I mention towing, try picking apart what I have said bit by bit and tell me how it is not connected with how the glider behaves when on the ground.

Keep rubbing people the wrong way - motherfucker - and you'll soon find yourself logging hours at the tow park Tad runs.

I'm listening.

And expecting different results?

Erik Boehm - 2016/04/22 15:02:39 UTC

Ryan Voight - 2016/04/21 19:06:19 UTC

...you've moved the 10 lbs of your weight the glider is lifting, relative to the center of lift of the wing- which remains unchanged.

No you haven't, the force is still being transmitted to the exact same location, through the hangstrap to the center of the wing. There is now a lateral component to the force, but there is no difference in the vertical component that would cause a roll.

Bullshit. It WILL cause a roll - IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. Remember the bit about for every action there being an EQUAL and OPPOSITE REaction?

At best the lateral component will result in a bit of "side slip" , and the glider will yaw into the relative wind, but that would take quite a lot of lateral force...

Shut up, Erik. You're operating way above your pay grade now.

I feel like I'm going to have to start making paint diagrams here.....

I feel like you're going to be using finger paints when you do.

2016/04/22 16:47:52 UTC - 3 thumbs up - NMERider

Nope. (P.S. Peter had a chance to get back to ya yet?)

Tormod Helgesen - 2016/04/22 17:38:50 UTC

pud: 2 comments.

Unless you're superman, the 0,7 horsepower å human is capable of generating cannot be described as towing, in fact, when you reach flying speed most of us are barely able to keep up with the glider.

Ever hear of WIND, dickhead?

I've measured the towline tension (pressure) between my HPAT 158 and a 115 horsepower 914 Dragonfly with the turbocharger kicked in at 155 pounds (per square inch). Think any of us are capable of taking a 155 pound strain with our heels dug in?

125 pounds without the turbocharger and Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney assures us that's enough to tear our wings off without the protection of a Rooney Link.

How much tension are you thinking it would take to put a glider into a gentle climb and/or a fatal lockout?

Whenever I get a wing lifted during launch I lean/run towards the LIFTED wing! The oposite of what you are telling me to do but it works and I haven't crashed in a long time.

Oh good. Maybe YOU will have time to get a video clip of yourself doing that hands off.

My experience trumps your theory.

Oh good. Maybe you'll be able to write the theory that explains your experience so's we can teach our students Helgesen Theory rather than Helgesen Experience. Dickhead.

2016/04/22 18:25:45 UTC - 3 thumbs up - Don Arsenault

Idiot fuckin' Mike Robertson product.

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/22 17:49:45 UTC

Erik Boehm - 2016/04/22 15:02:39 UTC

There is now a lateral component to the force, but there is no difference in the vertical component that would cause a roll.

Wouldn't the glider's response to the vector change actually be a roll in the opposite direction?

Not on The Jack Show.

Don Arsenault - 2016/04/22 18:26:27 UTC

Tormod Helgesen - 2016/04/22 17:38:50 UTC

Whenever I get a wing lifted...

Yep. Exactly what I do also.

Great Don! We can use all the no-hands video we can get.

Eric Hinrichs - 2016/04/22 19:23:20 UTC

Ok, I'm going to throw something else out there:
Can you affect pitch while your feet are on the ground and you're not touching the control frame?

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Over a fairly limited range. Slower run / Lighter wind, you're gonna be roll unstable and not likely to keep things going long. As your running/wind/air speed / suspension tension increases you pitch up / increase lift and that will translate to a loss of traction. An auto limiting situation.

Eric Hinrichs - 2016/04/22 19:26:20 UTC

Tormod Helgesen - 2016/04/22 17:38:50 UTC

Whenever I get a wing lifted...

Ditto

Yet another video source. (Thanks bigtime, Erik. And again thanks bigtime for teaching your students the same unhooked launch protection strategy you use for yourself.)

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/22 19:46:08 UTC

Eric Hinrichs - 2016/04/22 19:23:20 UTC

Can you affect pitch...

Yes.

Mike Lake - 2016/04/22 19:49:58 UTC

Tormod Helgesen - 2016/04/22 17:38:50 UTC

pod: 2 comments...

What else is it if it's not towing? If the word bothers you I'll use something else. Splunging is as good a word as any.

This has nothing to do with horsepower. In a breeze a man just has to hold onto a rope, not too much horsepower involved there.

It has to do with the fact the glider cannot do what it wants to do because of a 200lb tether - namely the pilot.
If the glider banks but can't go where it naturally wants to go because of a tether then we are talking towing dynamics. If the pilot's feet have left the ground or are hardly touching then we are not.

I'm not telling you to do anything and I assume your crash free takeoffs don't involve you running down a hill hands off. As a responsible pilot you will be holding the control frame and supplying input.

Sadly I can't say I have not crashed in a long time but that was a landing so it doesn't count.

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/22 20:09:27 UTC

Ryan Voight - 2016/04/21 20:53:49 UTC

Check your sentence structure and wording- I don't claim to teach this to students... I do, and when they do it, it works.

That's the definition of claim.

state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof.

Eric Hinrichs - 2016/04/22 21:09:38 UTC

Mike Lake - 2016/04/22 19:49:58 UTC

As a responsible pilot you will be holding the control frame and supplying input.

By your definition, I'm not a responsible pilot.

And, by mine, not a responsible instructor.

I have several hundred launches that I'm not holding the control frame, but I feel that I am still supplying input.

If you're exerting force on the glider through the suspension and/or your hands you're supplying input.

Of course I'm only going to do that in conditions so that I can move my body with my feet fast enough to control it.

You CANNOT control ROLL for a positive outcome without effecting force through your hands.

It's a weight shift aircraft, if we pull the weight to the right place with our feet on the ground, or our hands on the bar, I don't see how it should matter?

Because you're NOT SHIFTING WEIGHT such that one wing is more heavily loaded while the other is proportionally less loaded. You're altering the strength and direction of what the glider perceives as gravity and it will trim accordingly with wings equally loaded. Same as if you put a short loop on the hook of an umbrella handle and pull it sideways - or any other direction you choose - it will roll the other way and the attitude will be a resultant of your pull and any wind and/or running generated airspeed. And if you go nuts it will fail SYMMETRICALLY.

The first paragraph says the glider can't go where it naturally wants because of the towing dynamic, but doesn't the second contradict by saying there's no way to supply input without touching the control frame?

Maybe. Depends on how one is defining "naturally".

- If you tie one end of a rope to the hang strap and the other to a fence post, walk away, and wait for the wind to pick up to twelve miles per hour and fly the glider that would be one hundred percent naturally. If you hooked in in dead air and ran the glider up to twelve miles per hour hands off that would be zero percent naturally but the effect on the glider would be identical.

- Force exerted on anything on the glider below the wing through the hands is always one hundred percent unnatural.

...and yes, as you, I'm not counting landing crashes

Where are your hands just prior to impact and why are they where they are?

Mike Lake - 2016/04/23 01:44:07 UTC

I'm sure you are a responsible pilot.

It's a weight shift aircraft, if we pull the weight to the right place with our feet on the ground, or our hands on the bar, I don't see how it should matter?

It depends on if you agree that towing a glider by the hang straps is towing or something else (splunging?). I say it's towing and frankly I don't see how anyone can argue otherwise, but I'm not surprised they do.

If you don't agree (it's towing) please explain the difference between a flexible hang strap and a rope.
If you do agree then you must accept that, like it or not, towing dynamics come into play and it matters not if the glider is a few feet off the ground being towed by a hang strap or a hundred feet in the air being towed by a rope.

If misalignment of tow forces are autocorrecting, this being the only conclusion if even more misalignment is said to correct misalignment...

Donnell Hewett's Skyting "Theory"... The worse it gets the better it's gonna correct.

...then what we have is a glider that is lockout resistant.

Proof. So we just need a Reliable Release within easy reach.

Now if this is the case then perhaps I should abandon my quest for an anti-lockout device along with my perpetual motion machine and a complete study of the workings of the female mind.

I think I've got the typical hang glider "pilot" "mind" mapped out pretty well at this point. I can predict pretty well what (s)he's gonna do and say and why.

Eric Hinrichs - 2016/04/23 02:52:14 UTC

Yes, of course I agree that we are towing, the first thing my instructor taught me was to "float and tow" running on the flats.

Exactly as Ryan clearly stated in his instructional video.

I'm misunderstanding if this discussion is about autocorrection, I thought the main debate is if we can correct, level, and turn the glider by running with our feet on the ground and not touching the glider, or if you need to apply torque to the control frame to correct or initiate any roll?

We can OBVIOUSLY turn the glider by running with our feet on the ground and not touching the glider. We've got scores of people doing it all the fuckin' time. We just haven't been able to figure out how to get it on video to date.

...and good luck on that last quest pod! Keep me updated...

Erik Boehm - 2016/04/23 07:43:47 UTC

I thought the main debate is if we can correct, level, and turn the glider by running with our feet on the ground and not touching the glider, or if you need to apply torque to the control frame to correct or initiate any roll?

And here is where it gets weird...

Without hands on the control bar, controlling by how much you run and where you run is like trying to control a glider by a winch...

No it's not - unless the winch is on a truck and the runway is "infinitely" wide or on a boat where runway width is pretty much never an issue. Nancy was being towed on a system that only allowed a pull in one direction.

...which is exactly what people were arguing you can't do and shouldn't try to do in the towing fatality thread.

This is a seamless continuation of the towing fatality thread. (Thanks bigtime, Pat, for all your insightful contributions to it.)

But some of those same people basically now saw it works if you get rid of the winch....

You can do hands free launches... certainly... but I'd argue that relies on passive stability of the glider as far as roll, yaw, and pitch are concerned.

We're fine on both pitch and yaw. Our gliders have shit in the way of roll stability - times ten on tow.

By exerting force only through a strap going directly to the CoM, you only apply lateral forces/acceleration to the glider - no roll pitch or yaw.

There is a physics difference between the "closed loop" of forces when you weight shift while in the air, exerting forces on the control bar - and the "open loop" where you move your body to a side by exerting forces on the ground.

This "closed loop/system" bullshit was introduced by Ryan - 2016/04/15 13:28:18 UTC - who's totally fuckin' clueless on the issue of glider control and has been lying about what he can do on the ground and is now lying in a pathetic effort to cover up the lies he was telling us before. Drop it. It's totally bogus.

2016/04/23 14:39:48 UTC - 3 thumbs up - NMERider

Mike Lake - 2016/04/23 08:38:37 UTC

Indeed Erik. Explained much better than my attempts.

No. And this asshole gets pulled up under tow pressure.

Eric Hinrichs - 2016/04/23 14:50:50 UTC

Erik Boehm - 2016/04/23 07:43:47 UTC

And here is where it gets weird...

You can do hands free launches... certainly... but I'd argue that relies on passive stability of the glider as far as roll, yaw, and pitch are concerned.
By exerting force only through a strap going directly to the CoM, you only apply lateral forces/acceleration to the glider - no roll pitch or yaw.

But Erik, I thought you said that yaw could possibly be exerted, and Brian agrees with me that I can affect pitch by towing the glider with feet on the ground?

You CANNOT affect/effect pitch CONTROL the way you're meaning and thinking. For launch one HOLDS/TORQUES the nose DOWN and accelerates forward with his run. Without that torque pulling forward on a strap anchored at the wing's center of lift the nose pitches UP - the opposite of the pull, same as with roll - and impedes your ability to accelerate. And we start seeing a lot more nasty and fatal crashes on launch.

I understand what you guys are saying...

How unfortunate - 'cause Erik is mostly clueless.

...and I know Erik has a lot more of that other kind of higher education than me...

Yet still thinks that a towline transmits pressure to he glider.

...but still feel I can influence the glider not touching the control frame with my feet on the ground.

All you can do in the way of influencing the glider to do something you want it to without touching the CONTROL frame is run it FASTER in the direction you and it started out 'cause never once in the history of aviation has it been a good idea to slow down after commencement of takeoff.

So you're saying if a pilot was being towed behind a truck, that truck will exert no pitch, roll, or yaw influence on the glider by changing speed or driving sideways?

I don't know or care what the fuck he's saying. It gives me a headache to try to decipher the babblings of assholes who don't have fuckin' clues what they're talking about. So I'll just say that if you're being towed behind a truck it will be doing all of the above. It's providing the glider a thrust and gravity vectors and that's how the glider feels and reacts to it.

- The forward pull vector will pitch the glider up, make it trim nose high and the glider will "weigh more" so it will fly faster.

- The glider will yaw straight towards the truck in a headwind just as it will want to if you're holding it level in a strong crosswind on the ground - because of sweep. In a crosswind the glider will proportionally split the difference between where the truck's pulling it and the wind's pushing and fly at a crab angle. And if you argue with the glider and move it back to straight behind the truck - the way John Woiwode did - you'll be flying the glider towards and maybe into a lockout.

- If the glider gets into a roll for any reason - pilot putting lateral TORQUE on the bar, thermal turbulence, truck heading change - the glider will roll AWAY from the towline. The only way for you to correct this - behind the truck or during a launch run - is to TORQUE the control frame from the high side / to the low side the way this student of Ryan's:

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isn't doing. HOWEVER, unlike the foot launching pilot, the truck COULD, given the time altitude, and maneuvering latitude unavailable to the foot launcher, haul ass to the wrong/low side of the glider and roll him back to level while the pilot's doing the same thing by torqueing the bar. In real life this will never happen 'cause the scale is too large, the runway's always gonna be too narrow, and the pilot will have either been able to immediately effect the correction or been locked out.

In aerotowing, on the other hand, short towline, unlimited maneuvering space... Any halfway competent tug driver will ease up on power and change heading to the wrong/low side and mitigate the problem the glider's having. This is what Bobby Fucking-Genius Bailey was doing for Robin Strid seconds before he was locked out and killed by Bobby Fucking-Genius Bailey's "tow equipment".

I was flying no hands at Westlake perfectly stable and was able to move my body without touching the control frame...

HOW? Grabbing the wires instead maybe?

...and the glider went into a turn.

So, in a fantasy situation, if I had two friends flying on either side of me with a string tied to my hip, they could pull me side to side and my glider would continue flying straight?

That would work. But the polar opposite of what the no-hander foot weight shifters are predicting. What they'd be doing is still just transmitting a vector to the hang point.

That seems to be what you're saying, but it still doesn't make sense to me.

It is - and can't.

We did something "similar" at the Kitty Hawk Kites glider ride factory all the fuckin' time in blown out conditions. We ran tethers to the nose and leading edge / cross spar junctions. You know what the nose tether did and the wing tether's functioned as extremely efficient sidewires transmitting asymmetrical tension as needed.

History is being made on this thread. What we're doing is majorly reversing 35 years of damage of Skyting Theory insanity. (First Skyting article published 1980/04.) Infallible Weak Link bit the dust hard in early 2013 and the autocorrecting "Center Of Mass Bridle" is getting chopped to pieces in the post Nancy firefights. Same team smashing through hang gliding ISIS lines and defenses on both campaigns. Don't hold back on the artillery barrages and don't take any prisoners. We finally got these motherfuckers right where we want them.

[Tad Eareckson]

This post initially showed up as a duplicate of the one above due to a software issue. (Note the identical time stamps.) I'll be filling the space with my next one when it's ready.
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OK, the next post is ready. We've got an ongoing software problem. PMs are going through double and not at all.
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Tad Eareckson - 2016/04/24 20:30:00 UTC

soaraholic - 2016/04/23 16:16:30 UTC

roll/yaw/turn

My simple aging mind liked the old theory of wings flexing/tightening and acting as ailerons but I guess as long as it goes where I want it to when I give it the input I've learned makes it turn, that's all that matters.

My simple aging mind liked the old theory...

There is no "old" or "new" theory. There's how stuff works on hang gliders it's all fairly easily explainable and understandable and totally consistent with simple Newtonian physics. And DO make a note of who is and isn't around making sense.

...of wings flexing/tightening and acting as ailerons but...

But nothing. That's exactly what's happening.

...I guess as long as it goes where I want it to when I give it the input...

Would you be one of the small minority of hang glider pilots who uses his HANDS when giving input?

...I've learned makes it turn, that's all that matters.

That's not all that matters when you're teaching and implementing, operating, flying tow systems.

Timothy Ward - 2016/04/23 16:23:13 UTC

Erik Boehm - 2016/04/23 07:43:47 UTC

By exerting force only through a strap going directly to the CoM, you only apply lateral forces/acceleration to the glider - no roll pitch or yaw.

If you change the glider's course without changing its heading, you may not have yawed the aircraft -- but you'll have yawed the relative wind.

In towing, I think part of the problem is that the "self correcting" nature of towing from the pilot is a roll input. And the initial response to a roll input is adverse yaw.

Donnell Hewett déjà vu. The glider SHOULD start coming back from the roll but ADVERSE YAW is screwing the way my center of mass bridle works.

With small corrections, this doesn't matter much.

Running a little left, a little right with your hands at your sides.

Erik Boehm - 2016/04/23 20:42:35 UTC

Timothy Ward - 2016/04/23 16:23:13 UTC

If you change the glider's course without changing its heading, you may not have yawed the aircraft -- but you'll have yawed the relative wind.

Of course... just like doing a crosswind launch, you run in the direction you want to travel, and the glider's passive yaw stability will take care of where the glider actually points, same thing here.

Eric Hinrichs - 2016/04/23 14:50:50 UTC

I know Erik has a lot more of that other kind of higher education than me...

The vast majority of it is completely irrelevant here though.

No fuckin' shit. The Dr. Trisa Tilletti Higher Education aerotow articles come to immediate mind.

Knowing how to do various kinds of genome editing or the more obscure points of RNA regulation in mitochondria doesn't really qualify me in any way to talk about what is essentially physics.

Then do everyone a big favor and DON'T.

For that, I've just got some undergraduate math and physics classes...

Did you pass any?

...and "experience" playing "physics simulator" type games.

Get your money back.

I'm not an aeronautical engineer...

Neither is Bob - despite the fact that he has the degrees.

...but I don't think you have the same roll-adverse yaw coupling when the wing is simply yawing into the relative wind...

If there's no roll it sounds like it would be tough to have it coupling to anything.

doesn't seem like the same situation to me where the effective AoA of each wing is different to cause the roll (and the roll starts first, then the yaw)...

Do you use your hands to control the glider or not?

I'm also wondering if there is also an effect where if you run in the direction that the glider is turning, your hangstrap goes taught later than if you "stay the course", enabling you to start real weight shifting sooner

You keep wondering that, Erik. I'm gonna be busy over here cutting you dickheads to shreds.

Timothy Ward - 2016/04/24 00:46:18 UTC

The glider's response to the yaw input is not my point.
The point is there is in fact a yaw input to the glider, using nothing but a translational force on the hangstrap.

And how does this help the discussion about whether or not hands are required to effect roll control during launch runs and/or towing?

[Tad Eareckson]

Next post is a bit strange. First... What was there originally:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34277
"evidence of that silliness"

Ryan Voight - 2016/04/24 03:39:11 UTC

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/22 19:46:08 UTC

Eric Hinrichs - 2016/04/22 19:23:20 UTC

Ok, I'm going to throw something else out there;

Can you affect pitch while your feet are on the ground and you're not touching the control frame?

Yes.

I see. It works in one axis, but not the other.

As for the "is launching the same as towing" discussion- if I might make a suggestion as to how they differ:
In towing, the purpose is to propel a glider HIGHER. In foot launching, we are trying to propel a glider LOWER (down a slope). Yes, also forwards... but look at the direction the hang loop points during a launch- the "pull" the glider feels is very much aimed downward, much like gravity (if you want to get really abstract, you could ask if gravity is towing us in flight?).

Looking at the angle of a tow line, and the forces provided, it's much more forward. Changing the direction in which the glider is being pulled mostly FORWARD, is not the same as changing the direction the glider is being pulled mostly downward. Only one of those simulates the same weight shift the glider "feels" in flight.

Also- being connected to the glider with relatively short lines, and having the ability to vary our CG relative to the glider (talking about pilot and wing as seperate entities, although as the wing lifts more and more of the pilot's weight, those two things are less and less separate, and become more of a single unit). If I'm running down a sloped launch, and I pull to the left (no hands), and you were to take a picture of my hang loop... do you think it would be out to the front anywhere like how a winch, truck, or aerotow line is? Or would it still be mostly down, but also shifted left/right?

To achieve the same amount of lateral variance from a tow source that is well AHEAD, pulling the glider forwards more than it is downwards (since we don't tow gliders DOWN, right?!), a winch would need to move laterally quite a bit to produce the same variation in "tow force direction change". My comment in the other thread was about using throttle to try to "pull" the glider back on course in the event of a lockout. Increasing line tension (tow force) is not the same thing as weight shifting... one increases the existing forces, and one alters the direction of those forces. Not the same, is it?

In a lockout,
__________
Ryan Voight
www.AIRTHUG.com

Fly High Hang Gliding / Ellenville, NY
www.FlyHighHG.com

I'm thinking that last bit was an editing issue. I think "Not the same, is it?" was intended as the end of the post. Sounds like it was fer sure and he's already talked about lockout in the previous paragraph. Ryan's a pretty careful writer - even if he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about with respect to aerodynamics - and in the top couple percent as far as hang gliding goes but we've got a lot of devastating heat on him now and there's no question that he's majorly rattled at this point.

I see. It works in one axis, but not the other.

1. The glider's pitch stable. Nobody ever locked out down on tow and you can't lock out going up...

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...as long as you have plenty of towline (which you don't on aero - but that's a totally different beast from the one you're dealing with on roll. On roll the worse it gets the worse it gets and you WILL be dealing with the ground soon without lotsa altitude. In pitch you keep climbing and, barring a Rooney Link increasing the safety of the towing operation at the expense of a bit o' inconvenience, you'll be fine.

2. HOWEVER... The pitch ALSO works backward with respect to fake weight shift. Pull the pilot under the nose, nose goes up. Pull him backwards after you've blown your Koch's first stage, nose goes down.

As for the "is launching the same as towing" discussion- if I might make a suggestion as to how they differ:

You might do well to shut the fuck up at this point.

In towing, the purpose is to propel a glider HIGHER.

'Cept in aerotowing - where the purpose is to give the Dragonfly pilot lotsa airtime and takeoff and landing cycles while the launch line is terminally clogged with free relights rewarding those with the bigger gliders connected to the one-size-fits-all focal point of the safe towing system.

In foot launching, we are trying to propel a glider LOWER (down a slope).

We're TRYING to propel the glider UP. We can do that with a steep slope and lotsa air getting blasted up...

http://vimeo.com/24544780
http://vimeo.com/24544780
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2-01320

Propelling down is an evil necessitated by shallow slopes and/or light or nonexistent lift.

Yes, also forwards... but look at the direction the hang loop points during a launch-

OK...

051-20014
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Can we agree that your guy would now be easily airborne with a six to one slope in the same light headwind he has here?

...the "pull" the glider feels is very much aimed downward, much like gravity (if you want to get really abstract, you could ask if gravity is towing us in flight?).

Fuck yeah. You've never heard that gliders are gravity powered aircraft? A gravity vector is always pulling the glider straight down. But for every one foot down it drops it flies ten feet forward. And any rope that's pulling so much as one degree forward will help flatten the glide slope. (Straight down it's the same glide slope but your flying forward and down faster). And you can be pulling way the fuck more down that forward and still have the glider climbing. And the better the performance of the glider the longer it can make money off of a progressively more down-pulling towline.

Above we're seeing the tow angle that's keeping that Falcon flying level at whatever airspeed the run and wind are delivering.

Here's Lin about to find out that he pre-jammed his three-string:

026-12323
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8573/16055019293_0096d40469_o.png


Look at the towline angle. At that point he's decided that he's no longer climbing enough to continue the tow.

Looking at the angle of a tow line, and the forces provided, it's much more forward.

Yeah. So?

Changing the direction in which the glider is being pulled mostly FORWARD, is not the same as changing the direction the glider is being pulled mostly downward.

It's a continuum, you moron. If your guy COULD get the strap at a shallower angle he WOULD. But then he wouldn't be the kinda guy who would need a glider to get airborne.

Only one of those simulates the same weight shift the glider "feels" in flight.

Bullshit.

Also- being connected to the glider with relatively short lines, and having the ability to vary our CG relative to the glider (talking about pilot and wing as seperate entities, although as the wing lifts more and more of the pilot's weight, those two things are less and less separate, and become more of a single unit).

I think I'm beginning to see why you trashed this post.

If I'm running down a sloped launch, and I pull to the left (no hands), and you were to take a picture of my hang loop... do you think it would be out to the front anywhere like how a winch, truck, or aerotow line is? Or would it still be mostly down, but also shifted left/right?

Really hard to say. How 'bout taking a picture of yourself running down a sloped launch - Ellenville perhaps - pulling to the left (no hands) so's we can see if your hang loop would be out to the front anywhere like how a winch, truck, or aerotow line is?

To achieve the same amount of lateral variance from a tow source that is well AHEAD, pulling the glider forwards more than it is downwards (since we don't tow gliders DOWN, right?!)...

160-20719
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http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8819/18267685796_64156e9c91_o.png

http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5788/23461251751_e98b9c7500_o.png

...a winch would need to move laterally quite a bit to produce the same variation in "tow force direction change".

That's why we invented...

36-1500


...aerotowing! Short towline, the driver can't slow his vehicle down worth shit...

45-1610


You can get all kinds of cool lateral variation really fast!

55-1712

My comment in the other thread was about using throttle to try to "pull" the glider back on course in the event of a lockout.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34243
Fatal HG crash in Tres Pinos CA 4-3-2016

Ryan Voight - 2016/04/06 22:08:19 UTC

Does the tow operator instinctively try to "pull" the student back on course with the winch- which actually would do the opposite, accelerating them into deeper trouble.

Increasing line tension (tow force) is not the same thing as weight shifting...

Neither is running towards the high wing / against the roll without torqueing the bar with your hands.

...one increases the existing forces, and one alters the direction of those forces.

They both do both.

Not the same, is it?

Who cares? The point is that misaligned force on the glider can kill you just as dead on a mountain foot launch as it can on a Tres Pinos Hang One training winch tow.

And here - one hour, thirty-two minutes, twenty-two seconds later - we have Ryan Instant-Hands-Free-Release Voight 2.0:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34277
"evidence of that silliness"

Ryan Voight - 2016/04/24 03:39:11 UTC

ya'll are on your own. I don't know nuffin.
__________
Gone flying.

Last edited by AIRTHUG on 2016/04/24 05:11:33 UTC; edited 1 time in total

ya'll are on your own.

Y'all not capitalized and misspelled à la Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney.

Gone flying.

Oh good. Now you won't hafta go outta your way to get that video evidence of you roll controlling/correcting your glider by running to the high side without using your hands.

Anybody got an explanation other than Ryan having finally been forced to realize:
- that he's never known what the fuck he was talking about on the flavor of aviation that's been the core of two generations of his family's existence
- how:
-- inextricably he's painted himself into a myriad of interrelated and fundamental corners
-- pathetic his efforts to squirm his way back to some facade of legitimacy look

__________
Gone flying.

Pulled all his signature stuff advertising himself and the family business. We very well may have just seen the last of him on a public forum. But let's not stop there.

I've transcribed his narration off of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvhzoVC1UqM
Simple Progression for Teaching Hang Gliding

It's a freakin' gold mine of contradictions - within and in the context of all the rot he's spewed on The Jack Show over the years. I'll need to spend about a day pulling organizing, cataloging stills but it'll be a gift that keeps on giving.

Kinda sad 'cause - disregarding the fact that he's massively fundamentally incompetent - he intended it as a free resource for the benefit of the sport an it's rather beautifully and professionally done. Oh well, beautifully and professionally produced examples of total rot can be extremely useful too.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34277
"evidence of that silliness"

Rcpilot - 2016/04/24 04:51:32 UTC

Ryan Voight - 2016/04/24 03:39:11 UTC
I see. It works in one axis, but not the other.

You're clueless on the issue, Ryan. Do your future students a big favor and read until you get a clue what pud has posted in this thread.
By the way, Ryan, pud has been towing hang gliders aloft a lot longer than you have been alive.
http://nhgc.wikidot.com/mike-lake

Reading that link may have been a significant contributing factor in Ryan's trashing of his post and needing to spend more time feeding his family and not making videos of no-hands roll control.

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/24 14:00:43 UTC

Lift opposes weight. When you merely pull the glider forward it pitches up to oppose the new vector. For the same reason, when you pull it to the side, it rolls in opposition. It works, but just the opposite of what you're saying.

Then we'll just add it to list of stuff that works just the opposite of what Ryan Instant-Hands-Free-Release Voight and Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney. Maybe we can publish it as a training manual of stupid shit not to do and make a lot o' money.

What do you think would happen if this student let go at this point?

069-25104
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1572/26142964830_289bc3f2cb_o.png

http://forum.hanggliding.org/download/file.php?id=26909

All cameras within a quarter mile radius would instantly malfunction.

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/24 15:49:49 UTC

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27217
Bad Launch!

Ryan Voight - 2012/09/26 14:23:55 UTC

Running to the right = weight shift to the right.

What about the pitch axis, is running forward the same as pulling in?

051-20014
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http://forum.hanggliding.org/download/file.php?id=26910

If you're hooked in backwards. But it wouldn't work for very long.

Matthew Hendershot - 2016/04/24 22:36:18 UTC

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/24 14:00:43 UTC

Lift opposes weight. When you merely pull the glider forward it pitches up to oppose the new vector. For the same reason, when you pull it to the side, it rolls in opposition. It works, but just the opposite of what you're saying.

This thread has been a hoot!

1. It's not over yet.
2. Glad you've been enjoying it. It's a response to a Mission student getting fatally slammed in on tow 22 days ago.

I understand (and shared) your skepticism about control bar-free influence in a ground run/launch run until the last few posts.

What's your understanding of the meaning of the word "skepticism"?

I do not believe that that running sideways changes the center of mass.

In relation to WHAT?

It simply (as has been stated) changes the direction of a force, applied at that location.

At WHAT location?

I think the reason this technique works has more to do with changing the direction of airflow over the wing--and nothing to do with "weight shift" or torque.

The reason this "TECHNIQUE" *WORKS* is because nobody can get it on film.

This picture made me wonder if the shape of the washout (twist) presents more surface to the wind on the dropped wing than the raised wing. My answer to your question about the picture (what do you think will happen if he lets go) is that he is aggressively running to his left--I think the wing will roll left and level...

This picture helped me change my mind to this answer!

Cheers

Get fucked.

Mike Lake - 2016/04/24 22:59:46 UTC

And now?

Can you edit Ryan out of photos like that?

W9GFO - 2016/04/24 23:05:18 UTC

Matthew Hendershot - 2016/04/24 22:36:18 UTC

I think the reason this technique works has more to do with changing the direction of airflow over the wing--and nothing to do with "weight shift" or torque.

I think you are on to something there.

Or maybe just on something.

It also explains why a tow line won't auto correct a heavily loaded wing. The lightly loaded wing will readily respond to the change in direction of apparent wind, yawing it into the wind. While a heavily loaded wing will experience the same force but it will be weak relative to the other forces at work.

Get fucked.

The technique appears to work only when the wing is very well balanced.

The technique appears to work only when Ryan's around and his camera isn't.

The point of no return is exceeded quickly where other forces dominate.

The point of no return was Jean Lake - 2015/03/27. Get used to it.

Rick Maddy - 2016/04/24 23:34:04 UTC

Here's a bold statement:

Oh good. We've had such a paucity of them lately.

You can't weight-shift a hang glider while your feet are on the ground.

Now let me expand on that.

Yeah, go ahead and tell us how it's outside of the realm of Newtonian physics for a human to push or pull down on one downtube more than another while a glider is lifting thirty pounds of his weight.

I'm assuming you are hooked into or hanging onto the normal hang strap of the glider.

Big fuckin' surprise. Everybody assumes everybody's hooked into the normal hang strap of the glider all the time...

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And 999 times out of a thousand they're right.

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Hanging any weight on any part of the glider other than through the hang strap isn't allowed here. No cheating allowed.

Even the basetube if I've incorrectly assumed I'm hooked into the normal hang strap of the glider?

On flat ground, while running, you can't weight shift. The glider may be flying with a tight hang strap but the glider isn't lifting you off the ground. Since the glider is not lifting you...

It IS lifting you. It's not lifting you OFF THE GROUND but if the hang strap's tight you weigh less.

...you are not part of the glider's "system".

Bullshit. You're connected to it and you're its engine. You're just as much a part of it as the 914 Rotax is a part of the Dragonfly.

You can't change its CG since your weight isn't part of the glider.

1. Bogus assumption.

2. The faster you run, the more the wing generates lift, the tighter the strap pulls, the heavier the wing loading gets, the lower the CG moves.

You can certainly affect pitch and roll via the control frame but that's not weight shift.

Bull fucking shit. That's the ONLY way you can shift weight to make the wing go where you want it to.

You can let go of the control frame and run to the left or right. This is not weight shift. All you do is affect a lateral force through the hang point.

Correct - for a change.

Now the other extreme.

Yeah Rick. Let's do the extremes and not pause to consider the huge gray area in between them and that we're not doing anything particularly differently to exercise control from one end of the range to the other.

You leave the ground by running off of a hill or you are towed into the air. At this point you of course now control the glider through weight shift. Your weight is part of the glider's system.

It doesn't count unless your FULL WEIGHT is lifted by the glider. If you hook in at two hundred and the glider's lifting one fifty you're disqualified. But if you hook in at one hundred - fifty below min hook-in - you're totally cool and can REALLY control that glider.

As you move your weight around while hanging onto the control frame...

Do you HANG...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvhzoVC1UqM
Simple Progression for Teaching Hang Gliding

Ryan Voight - 2015/02/22

As the glider's airspeed increases, students should allow it to lift up so their harness lines become tight. As with all hang gliding, it's important to encourage a light touch.

...onto the control frame? Maybe you shouldn't be assuming you're hooked into the normal hang strap of the glider quite so much.

...your weight affects the CG of the whole glider system.

SOME of your weight is affecting the CG of the whole glider system whenever the strap is pulling any tension and/or you're holding down on the frame to any degree.

You are now weight shifting as we all know.

Totally fucking amazing what we all know in hang gliding.

There is a transition in between these two extremes.

Yeah, let's talk about that.

Between the point where the glider is not carrying any of your weight...

Sail slack.

...and you fully leave the ground during some sort of launch, the glider takes on more and more of your weight. So as you get "light footed", some of your weight is becoming part of the system and you can affect...

*E*ffect.

...some partial weight shift.

Tell me when - barring overwhelming wind, gust, stall lockout - you can't control a glider to point it anywhere you feel like within a reasonable fixed wing aircraft range.

I think this is all part of the confusion in some of the discussion here.

The confusion over there is fundamentally due to the fact that The Jack Show is controlled by a total fuckin' douchebag and saturated with his ilk and intelligence and competence are rooted out and eliminated whenever they rear their ugly heads.

People are discussing different things.

Everyone with his own unique take on math and Newtonian physics.

Summary:

1) If the glider isn't carrying any of your weight, you can't weight shift the glider.

Because you've treated your control frame with petroleum jelly and your hands will just slide ineffectually on the tubes whenever you attempt to do anything with your hands.

2) If you are flying and the glider has your weight, you can weight shift the glider.

Idiot.

3) During the brief period of a launch, as your weight gets transferred to the glider, you go from having no weight shift to full weight shift.

And must radically alter the means by which you maintain control and effect corrections through the transitional period.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34277
"evidence of that silliness"

Jim Gaar - 2016/04/25 13:04:55 UTC

Mike Lake -2016/04/24 22:59:46 UTC

And now?

LOCK OUT!

Lockout is one word, asshole.

Pud you dastardly dude...

Go fuck yourself, Rodie.

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/25 15:06:37 UTC

Timothy Ward - 2016/04/23 16:23:13 UTC

In towing, I think part of the problem is that the "self correcting" nature of towing from the pilot is a roll input.

There's no "self correcting" nature evident. I'd go with "self crashing". Any roll corrections come from the pilot.

Or, as was the case four Sundays ago at Tres Pinos, don't - since:
- nobody teaches students anything about roll control
- one needs two hands to torque the bar laterally and a third to yank three or four times on Mission's state-of-the-art two-string "release"

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=32183
Discuss-- aerodynamics of extreme loadings on flex-wings

Steve Seibel - 2014/12/16 17:23:24 UTC

* Lockouts on tow are different-- the line pulls your body to the side but this force goes to the hang point and makes no roll torque. So you only have a few inches left to weight-shift before you are touching the down tube-- and then none at all. You aren't pulling hard with your muscles because you are already full over with no more room to go. Once your body is pressed against the control frame and you haven't stopped the roll, from that point on the tow line might as well be tied to the down tube-- things are going to keep getting more and more exciting till something breaks or releases! After release (or weak link break) the forces are like normal flight-- initially a high G-load because you are flying fast and steeply banked-- in the few lockouts I've developed that progressed to a very steep bank I never had the sense that the glider wasn't responding normally after release-- in cases of bad outcomes I think the ground just gets in the way too soon-- but maybe it's not always that simple?

Gawd it's nice to see that motherfucker totally screw the pooch to that degree in his specialty turf so early in one of his mind numbingly eternal paragraphs.

No Steve, there's no roll TORQUE but there sure as hell is a roll VECTOR. Just regurgitating Donnell's half baked towing / lockout theory and one of the several excuses for his center of mass bridle being LEAST autocorrecting when it should be MOST autocorrecting. THIS:

04-1409
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3903/14555125331_c930110666_o.png


is what the pilot looks like in a lockout - on tow due to misaligned towline tension or off tow due to asymmetrical air blasting a wing. All aircraft have control authority limitations and hang gliders have LOTSA control authority limitations. Understand that and equip and fly accordingly.

Once your body is pressed against the control frame and you haven't stopped the roll, from that point on the tow line might as well be tied to the down tube-- things are going to keep getting more and more exciting till something breaks or releases!

Something OTHER, of course, than the hang glider pilot - 'cause the hang glider pilot can't even IMAGINE being able to release himself in any circumstance in which he NEEDS TO.

Hewett's autocorrecting Center Of Mass Bridle and Infallible Weak Link was supposed to have eliminated lockout fatalities from 1981 until the end of time. So he threw a Reliable Release into his Criteria and turned all the back-enders from being pilots to being along for the ride.

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/25 15:41:25 UTC

Matthew Hendershot - 2016/04/24 22:36:18 UTC

I think the reason this technique works...

There's no evidence it does.

On The Jack Show that's supposed to matter?

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/25 16:06:44 UTC

Mike Lake -2016/04/24 22:59:46 UTC

And now?

The effect of the missing student pushing and pulling on the down tubes is still apparent (in the washout on the high wing), but I see no recovery with that gone.

Rubbish...

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He's just resting his hands there on the control tubes while steering the glider through weight shift simply by running toward his target with the glider being pulled by the harness - just as Ryan's taught him.

Mike Lake - 2016/04/25 23:05:35 UTC

Jim Gaar - 2016/04/25 13:04:55 UTC

LOCK OUT!

Yes a lockout as any tow pilot will tell you.

Must be using a Tad-O-Link.

Paint the pilot in again and he will be yanking that control frame for all he is worth...

Like Mission students do when attempting to get off tow during lockouts with their state-of-the-art two-string releases.

...and not expecting his glider to have become lockout autocorrecting overnight.

I dunno... He's Ryan's assistant. And that's what Ryan and 95 percent of the Jack Show douchebags expect their gliders to do. Hell, 95 percent of Jack Show douchebags expect a loop of 130 pound test fishing line to release and land the glider safely, call 911, and administer CPR until the chopper arrives should the pilot be incapacitated by a lightning strike on tow.

I'm not dastardly by the way, strictly Church of England.

So look how far hang gliding's come in half a century...

Steve Davy - 2012/09/27 13:55:12 UTC

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to test Ryan's hypothesis.

In smooth coastal wind I got the glider floating and balanced, let go of the downtubes and ran in a direction approximately thirty degrees from the direction the keel was pointed. In each case the glider slowly rolled opposite to the direction I chose.

The second test was to get wings balanced, wait a moment for one to lift, then run in that direction. In the second test I found the glider would immediately and aggressively roll opposite to Ryan's idiotic hypothesis.

I did about twenty short runs, same result each run.

"But here's MY opinion on why two plus two equals negative four and how..." Thanks bigtime Dennis, u$hPa, Wills Wing, Bobby Fucking-Genius Bailey, Aeroexperiments, Bob... We're the only tiny little speck of an island of sanity in this global Waterworld disaster. Thirty-six years ago when I first clipped into a trainer on the dunes... Who'da thunk.
---
2016/04/26 11:30:00 UTC

At the above time I've split all the posts - 85 as of this one, uninterrupted - from the "Releases" topic to this dedicated special case discussion. Releases was reading 54425 hits when I submitted:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post9240.html#p9240
and 55633 at this time of the split - difference of 1208. This one's been - and will continue to be - a major game changer.

For the new reader... Do be sure to check out the Releases post:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post9235.html#p9235
immediately prior to the split for Mission Instructor / Hubble Rocket Scientist Karl Allmendinger's smartass Rube Goldberg / Heath Robinson crack about Tad's release system about fifteen hours before the owner of the school smashed his autocorrecting bridle, Birrinator pitch and lockout protector, easily reachable release, Infallible Weak Link equipped, control tubes flying, still unnamed "student" back into the runway.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34277
"evidence of that silliness"

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/26 14:36:37 UTC

Rick Maddy - 2016/04/24 23:34:04 UTC

Here's a bold statement...

You can ground handle, launch, fly and land without a harness, by manipulating the control frame and/or moving your weight on it.
While hooked in-
1) If you pull the glider to the side (with no other contact), the glider will roll the other way.
2) If you get pulled to the side (with no other contact), the glider will roll the other way.
3) If you pull your own weight to the side (and you're not overpowered), the glider will roll the same way.

Rick Maddy - 2016/04/26 14:57:23 UTC

You can ground handle, launch, fly and land without a harness, by manipulating the control frame and/or moving your weight on it.

Right but none of this is "weight shifting".

WHO THE FUCK CARES? "Weight shifting" is a totally meaningless expression without additional information, reference points. All hang glider control is achieved by varying the loads different areas of the wing are supporting - fore/aft/port/starboard. And the wing doesn't give a flying fuck how what change in distributing is achieved.

For #1 and #2 this is because you are not weight shifting.

You ARE. You're changing the gravity vector to something heavier pulling in a different direction. The glider WILL respond in a totally predictable reaction.

I don't understand what you mean by #3.

069-25104
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And peeetaaar getting overwhelmed by a big thermal hitting his left wing at Dunlap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yFUkMBhXEg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yFUkMBhXEg

04-1409
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He's maxed out his roll control authority for the airspeed he had when he got hit but he's still getting taken for a ride to starboard for a while - fortunately with no mountain close by in that direction. But he's getting taken for LESS of a ride than he would be if he WEREN'T *RESISTING* the LOCKOUT with BOTH HANDS on the *CONTROL* BAR.

Compare/Contrast with the crap that Ryan Instant-Hands-Free-Release Voight teaches his victims in the way of roll "control":

015-03014
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http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1464/26615010786_cfe9c05fd6_o.png
016-03115

That's IT. That's the maximum roll instruction authority being demonstrated, taught, possibly learned in his moronic "teaching" video. Compare/Contrast with what we're doing positive PITCH-wise:

054-20302
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We gotta spend all our time working on that stupid crap 'cause next weekend we might hafta land in a narrow dry riverbed with large rocks strewn all over the place and that skill will be our only path to survival. But gently swinging ourselves back and forth five inches with our fingertips ever so lightly contacting the control tubes a third of the way up is all will ever need to do in the way of DIRECTIONALY control. And we're ever so shocked, SHOCKED when a John Seward or Scott Trueblood gets turned back into the mountain and fails to turn back away from it.

In Fly High hang gliding instruction roll control is something you use to keep your Condor tracking as close to arrow straight as possible towards the old Frisbee fifty yards upwind from the training hill. Why would anybody ever NEED more than what we're seeing here?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34277
"evidence of that silliness"

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/26 15:16:51 UTC

Right but none of this is "weight shifting".

How are you defining "weight shift"?

Feet fully off the ground for a minimum ten foot clearance and twenty second duration. The moonwalking stuff you do between twenty-five foot strides on a shallow slope light headwind takeoff doesn't count.

I don't understand what you mean by #3.

3) If you pull your own weight to the side (and you're not overpowered), the glider will roll the same way.
It's a basic description of roll control.

What's the point in describing something that nobody teaches and hardly anyone ever learns?

I should've added push, as in push or pull your own weight.

Rick Maddy - 2016/04/26 15:30:13 UTC

How are you defining "weight shift"?

Connected to the hang point and changing the CG by moving your weight.

And that's a physical impossibility if either foot is supporting any weight.

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/26 15:50:18 UTC

The distinction needs to made as to how the weight is being moved, because you get opposite results.

Rick Maddy - 2016/04/26 15:59:49 UTC

The whole point of my big post earlier is that you can't weight shift on the ground. Period.

Make sure you get the word out to Thompson's Gazelles, Cheetahs, NFL linemen.

It doesn't matter how your weight is moved. While on the ground, controlling the glider can't involve weight shift (in the normal use of the term) because the glider isn't carrying you. Your weight isn't involved.

So the glider wouldn't be lifting off the slope like a fuckin' rocket if you weren't hooked in and let go of the control frame?





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You can force the glider to roll, pitch, and yaw of course but none of that is through weight shift (while you are on the ground).

I've got a gun to your fuckin' head...

07-0911cv
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Tell me whether or not Ryan's fully airborne. Tell me how we can tell, what he'll be doing and how the glider will be sensing input and responding differently.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34277
"evidence of that silliness"

Matthew Hendershot - 2016/04/26 16:43:30 UTC

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/26 14:36:37 UTC

1) If you pull the glider to the side (with no other contact), the glider will roll the other way.
2) If you get pulled to the side (with no other contact), the glider will roll the other way.

Video proof please.

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This does not happen. What you describe is exactly the same as sitting on the ground in a light breeze without touching the control frame--glider floating--

Yeah, that's a great visual. SITTING ON THE GROUND WITHOUT TOUCHING THE CONTROL FRAME. Video proof please.

...and the wind direction changes. When this happens, the glider yaws into the new apparent wind direction. It does not roll away and pound its downwind tip into the ground.

Great! Hear that, people of varying ages? We only need crew when it's straight in. We're fine in crosswinds.

You ignored the second half of my prior sentence in your previous post.

I wish I'd ignored everything you've written so far.

Everyone is conveniently ignoring the effect of apparent wind direction over the wing.

Apparently.

Also: I'm pretty sure the AoA is a lot higher while static towing than while launching.

Yes. 'Specially since there's no launch involved in static towing.

So I'm not sure that's an apt comparison when it comes to the forces (esp. airflow) acting on the wing.

Get back to us when you are.

Tormod Helgesen - 2016/04/26 20:25:56 UTC

Maybe I'm just plain stupid...

Maybe?

...because I don't understand how one can excert any torgue on the controlbar while not in contact with terra firma?

Me neither. I also don't see how you could exert any torgue on a conventional fixed wing aircraft by pumping all the fuel from a half full starboard wing tank to a half full port wing tank while not in contact with terra firma.

Except for that brief moment you actually start a movment (which is cancelled out when you stop moving).

Care to explain? Mr Scharp, aeroexperiments?

Nah, you pretty much had it nailed at just plain stupid.

Steve Corbin - 2016/04/26 20:32:58 UTC

The apparent wind flowing at an angle across the wing will react with the dihedral or anhedral built into the glider. If dihedral and/or dihedral effect is dominant, the glider will want to roll towards the low wing, but if anhedral or anhedral effect is dominant the glider should roll towards the high wing.

"Dihedral effect" is created primarily by the wing being swept aft. "Anhedral effect" I define as the anhedral created by the combination of wing sweep and washout.

I think that some gliders will react differently than others in this scenario. Also we need to keep in mind that an unloaded or lightly loaded glider will likely have less washout than a fully loaded one.

Way back when I was an active instructor, I taught the students how to steer the glider using weight shift on a very shallow slope. I taught that if the glider had a bank angle, it would be necessary to "follow" the glider's curving flight path, while high-siding to effect weight-shift.

Did you allow them to use their hands?

I taught that continuing to run in a straight line would not work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvhzoVC1UqM
Simple Progression for Teaching Hang Gliding

Ryan Voight - 2015/02/22

If you teach them how to pull the glider with the harness they'll learn to steer the glider through weight shift simply by running toward their target.

This thread made me realize that I had never tried it, I had simply assumed that it wouldn't work.

But I believe now that if there's enough anhedral/anhedral effect present in the glider it just might work. I'm now too old and lazy to try it.

Steve (no, not that one, one of the other ones).

Talk about Rube Goldberg...

- What we're dealing with ain't all that fuckin' complicated.

- If it WERE all that fuckin' complicated and this crap were fundamental to people flying hang gliders how would we be teaching it to the kinds o' bozos typical of what we get clipping into hang gliders?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34277
"evidence of that silliness"

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/26 23:21:44 UTC

Matthew Hendershot - 2016/04/26 16:43:30 UTC

What you describe is exactly the same as sitting on the ground in a light breeze without touching the control frame...

Not exactly. One describes a yaw reaction to a change in the apparent wind, while the other is a roll reaction to a vector change.

You're a better man than I for wading through, decoding, and responding to this drivel.

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/26 23:37:58 UTC

Steve Corbin - 2016/04/26 20:32:58 UTC

I taught that if the glider had a bank angle, it would be necessary to "follow" the glider's curving flight path, while high-siding to effect weight-shift.

By high-siding you mean applying torque with your hands on the control frame, right? It's an important distinction in this thread.

Nah, you're not allowed to use the word "hands" on The Jack Show. That falls under the purview of Tad's material. Hands aren't important in Jack, Davis, Bob, Greblo Show hang gliding - and if you use them at all you're supposed to put them on the control tubes at shoulder or ear height where you can't use them to control the glider.

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/27 01:47:46 UTC

Tormod Helgesen - 2016/04/26 20:25:56 UTC

Maybe I'm just plain stupid because I don't understand how one can excert any torgue on the controlbar while not in contact with terra firma...

What is the restoring force of a pendulum?

It is this tangential component of gravity which acts as the restoring force. As the pendulum bob moves to the right of the equilibrium position, this force component is directed opposite its motion back towards the equilibrium position.

Brian Scharp - 2016/04/27 03:24:28 UTC

Rick Maddy - 2016/04/26 15:59:49 UTC

The whole point of my big post earlier is that you can't weight shift on the ground. Period. It doesn't matter how your weight is moved. While on the ground, controlling the glider can't involve weight shift (in the normal use of the term) because the glider isn't carrying you. Your weight isn't involved. You can force the glider to roll, pitch, and yaw of course but none of that is through weight shift (while you are on the ground).

Your weight is involved. When the glider first starts lifting its own weight you can put more of yours on one downtube and make it roll.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndr2o57NnvQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndr2o57NnvQ

Tormod Helgesen - 2016/04/27 05:31:05 UTC

That's the force that returns your body to the center position but that force is opposed by the added tension in the hangstrap.

Care to discuss adding to / subtracting from the tension in the sidewires?

You need a fixed point outside of the glider/pilot system to put any torque into the gliders controlbar, at least that's what I've learnt.

Well then you just stay with what you've learnt. Any unlearning and relearning or further learning could accelerate the rate of your brain's implosion.

Rolla Manning - 2016/04/27 06:10:49 UTC

Looks like weight shift with his feet to me

Yeah, he's just shifting this weight from one foot to the other. Nothing whatsoever to do with hands and arm muscles and differential use thereof. You can easily prove this to yourself by taking your hands off the downtubes and just using your legs. Just make sure you're up to a nice safe altitude before you try it so the unfamiliarity with the control responsiveness doesn't get you into trouble. Dickhead.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvhzoVC1UqM
Simple Progression for Teaching Hang Gliding

Ryan Voight - 2015/02/22

This is a 5-min video FOR INSTRUCTORS that breaks an intro lesson into it's most basic parts, and stresses that teaching needs to be a progression of smaller steps, guided in accordance with the fundamentals of instruction.

We can not teach someone to launch if they struggle with picking up the glider, and we can't put them in the air until we've taught them how to land first.

The end goal is creating that 'Eureka' moment and hooking the student on hang gliding... and we do this by ensuring their first flights are a hugely positive and fun experience.

Regarding the technical content of this lesson, I understand different schools might follow a slightly different progression depending on the syllabus or training facilities available to them (such as teaching wheel landings to start out). This video is an example of A PROGRESSION, not "THE" progression (this is what has worked best for the Voights). The key is the WAY it's taught- progression, clear & simple cues, and with an emphasis on the things that bring people back. We as a whole can't afford to lose any potential pilots!

At face value this video provides new instructors with an excellent 'canned' intro lesson. Going deeper for more experienced instructors, the video stresses and demonstrates a lot of the complexities of instruction, be it an intro hang gliding lesson or anything else- taking something complex and delivering it in simple and straightforward, piece by piece steps.

This is a 5-min video FOR INSTRUCTORS...

Would it be detrimental for students, Two and up rated pilots, people contemplating getting into hang gliding to watch? A fair chunk of this video talks to the student more than to the instructor.

...that breaks an intro lesson into it's most basic parts, and stresses that teaching needs to be a progression of smaller steps, guided in accordance with the fundamentals of instruction.

We can not teach someone to launch if they struggle with picking up the glider, and we can't put them in the air until we've taught them how to land first.

You're not teaching them to land. You're teaching them to STUNT land. The fuckin' glider will pretty much land itself - just as it will pretty much launch itself - if one lets it.

The title of this film is "SIMPLE PROGRESSION for Teaching Hang Gliding." If you really meant that...

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."

...you'd have your students landing on wheels, the way all other fixed wing aircraft have landed since the dawn of aviation, and "advance" them to foot landing as the need arose - which it never would. Fly High isn't about teaching hang gliding - it's about convincing people they need to use stunt landings to be safe pilots and divert their progression to the specialty you sell.

The end goal is creating that 'Eureka' moment and hooking the student on hang gliding... and we do this by ensuring their first flights are a hugely positive and fun experience.

And this abortion:

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is the first of the three flights appearing in the video. And you present it as a failure of the student to perform - for want of being able to handle all the counterintuitivity issues - as you've carefully trained him to the best of your professional ability. It's not. It's glaring evidence of the incompetence of his/your instruction.

You motherfuckers set him up for that failure and forever robbed him of a positive memory of the really cool first flight experience that I got on the dunes after watching the film and taking one short practice run at the top. And I landed on the fuckin' wheels just fine and wish I'd never set foot on the stunt landing path.

Regarding the technical content of this lesson, I understand different schools might follow a slightly different progression depending on the syllabus or training facilities available to them (such as teaching wheel landings to start out).

Smoking gun. See above.

This video is an example of A PROGRESSION...

I'd go with REgression - eradicating what common sense and intuitive behaviors with which the student might have approached the sport.

...not "THE" progression (this is what has worked best for the Voights).

Yeah. This stuff works best for The Voights teaching what The Voights teach best - zilch to do with competent aviation.

The key is the WAY it's taught- progression, clear & simple cues, and with an emphasis on the things that bring people back.

Oh good. You're gonna weed out all the potential pilots and suck in all the stunt landing junkies. Similar bullshit going on with all the other schools - totally monolithic.

We as a whole can't afford to lose any potential pilots!

You just told us you're weeding them out.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34176
Retirement Flight

Ryan Voight - 2016/03/20 20:50:07 UTC

Not saying it's right or wrong... but the so-called "stigma" only applies to some. I've never heard anyone give Dan Buchanan, Chris Starbuck, or Bob Vogel crap for landing on their wheels. More pertinent to this thread, I have a hard time imagining anyone giving a 70 yr old dude who's more or less done it all on a hang glider, any crap for wheel landing from now on. The so-called stigma usually arises when someone shifts toward wheel landings because of lackluster foot landing skills... and just landing on the wheels from then on is taking the "easy way" rather than addressing the lack of skill(s) that results in the hard time landing. Landing is just an exercise in precise flying, right? So a young able-bodied pilot who decides to "fix" being imprecise by wheel landing... yes, they often take crap from their peers. Maybe- probably- not the best or most constructive way to convince them of the bigger picture problem(s) needing attention... but that's a topic for another discussion.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=29884
Hat Creek Power Whack

Mike Bilyk - 2013/09/07 17:07:26 UTC

Wheel landings are for girls!

It's not about what THEY want and what's best for them. It's about what THE VOIGHTS want and PERCEIEVE is best for them - rightly or wrongly. I'd say the latter.

At face value this video provides new instructors with an excellent 'canned' intro lesson. Going deeper for more experienced instructors, the video stresses and demonstrates a lot of the complexities of instruction, be it an intro hang gliding lesson or anything else- taking something complex and delivering it in simple and straightforward, piece by piece steps.

Even if it's...

If you teach them how to pull the glider with the harness they'll learn to steer the glider through weight shift simply by running toward their target.

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...totally fuckin' backwards and WILL get hundreds of people mangled and killed over the decades.

Complete transcript:

0:00
This is a story about hang gliding instruction. What is the instructor looking at? What clues tell the teacher to move on or hold up? What skills are we trying to develop and how are we getting our students there?
0:15
This is not intended to represent everything that happens in an introductory lesson. Safety precautions, learning and teaching styles, ec cetera have been purposefully omitted due to various constraints.
0:27
This is meant to be an introductory snapshot into flight instruction and will hopefully provoke greater study and understanding of the subject.
0:37
The feelings and sensations in hang gliding will be unfamiliar and perhaps counterintuitive to the person who has never flown before. Our job is to incrementally build skills and confidence.
0:55
Our story starts with familiarizing the student with moving around with the glider on flat ground. People are very familiar with moving on flat ground and learning something new is much easier if you can relate it to something you already know.
1:11
When picking up a glider it's easy to say "balance the glider on your shoulders". But giving more specific cues like "the downtubes should contact the outside of your arm where it meets your shoulder" will greatly enhance your student's learning experience.
1:28
To start running with the glider, students must learn to accelerate while maintaining the proper angle of attack.
1:35
Teaching students to walk, jog, run helps smooth the acceleration and therefore makes it easier to control pitch.
1:42
Starting our run with a falling forward step and leading with our shoulders is also an excellent way to get the glider and pilot accelerating together.
1:52
As the glider's airspeed increases, students should allow it to lift up so their harness lines become tight. As with all hang gliding, it's important to encourage a light touch.
2:03
If you're teaching students to pick up the glider with the grapevine grip, you'll need to teach them how to smoothly transition their grip without compromising pitch control.
2:14
Once the glider has lifted its own weight and the harness lines go tight, you must continue accelerating. An excellent cue is to try to pull the glider through the air with the harness.
2:25
This is also an excellent time to teach them to let the glider support some of their weight while taking long strides, much like pushing a scooter or skateboard.
2:35
As students are running with the glider we give them a target to aim for in the distance. This helps get their head up for situational awareness and keeps them running a straight line.
2:46
If you teach them how to pull the glider with the harness they'll learn to steer the glider through weight shift simply by running toward their target.
2:55
Once students are proficient at picking up and running with the glider while controlling pitch it's time to introduce the flare.
3:03
We help with the timing, but with the students' hands at shoulder level they should be pushing the downtubes forward and up until their arms are fully extended with their hands over their heads. Having them do this with open palms insures a loose grip.
3:23
With our students well prepared, it's time to take them to the slope and give them a taste of flight. This is the part that really puts the smile on their face and the make or break moment for hooking someone into the sport of hang gliding.
3:36
If they're feeling safe, having a great time learning to fly, and can see this is something they can do, they'll be back for sure.
3:49
By following the flat ground progression, we were able to teach the skills necessary to launch, fly, and land a hang glider with minimal risk to the student because their feet never left the ground.
4:01
These tasks set the foundation that all following flight skills build upon. So it's important to spend time coaching students on each task until we witness several satisfactory executions.
4:14
A successful hang gliding instructor embraces the fundamentals of instruction by creating and maintaining a comfortable learning environment, by relating new tasks to their students' existing life experiences, and by following a progression for each new task built upon the previous one.
4:33
Giving accurate demonstrations and using simple yet precise teaching cues that appeal to your student's learning style will have them excelling in no time.
4:44
Remember to train your students only in appropriate conditions, and don't forget the priorities of a hang gliding instructor: safety, fun, and learning - in that order.

---
Edit - 2016/04/29 15:00:00 UTC

This post was originally entered at:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post9350.html#p9350
2016/04/28 18:00:14 UTC

I've shuffled it seven posts back to the bottom of this previous previous page for two reasons:
- to consolidate the stills archive of Ryan's video on one page
- Ryan's description of the video and my commentary should have preceded the stills archive in the first place.

The six consecutive archive posts have all been bumped one slot down accordingly.