[JoeF]

The hang gliding community has been learning from DHG (Deaf Hang Glider). Who is DHG? Craig Uyeda. Hang gliding since 1991 ... What blessings has the hang glider community been given by DHG? What are the challenges? Explore.
Tags: deafhangglider deafscooter Sally Tucker | Mitchell
The deaf hang glider pilots are more than one.
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Start:
http://www.crestlinesoaring.org/node/779
and
http://www.crestlinesoaring.org/node/1124
and
https://www.facebook.com/deaf.hangglider
and
Set of DHG's videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBXIEL ... 1hmVcqZX0A
and
SHGA arena: http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB2/viewto ... dbc1959903





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There is some controversy over the mid-air collision that occurred a few years ago. An interesting post by Jonathan was recently posted in HangGliding.org site by Jonathan where Jonathan mentions testifying in court on the matter while making other comments that might be studied:

PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:51 pm Post subject: Reply with quote #8
Just so everyone is aware. The author of the biased video was equally at fault for the mid-air collision that not only happened over 3 years ago but Mark settled the matter with Craig and then Craig reneged on that settlement and filed suit in small claims court against Mark after his (Craig's) relatives pressured him into it. Mark contacted me and I contacted Martin Palmaz at USHPA. Our attorney Tim Herr contacted me and I offered to appear in small claims court as an expert witness in defense of Mark and ultimately USPHA. The reason for this that Craig filed suit in direct violation of the USHPA SOPs and in violation of the liability waivers he signed with both USHPA and the CSS.

Prior to appearing before the judge, we all met with an arbitrator and there was just no satisfying Craig so it went to trial. Craig is both deaf and mute. On top of that he is extremely stubborn and has a well-earned reputation as a crybaby. I have been telling Craig for years to drop the issue and get on with his life but he behaves like a certain former RD who was expelled from USHPA yesterday. Sound familiar? SOS, people. SOS! Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes Needless to say, he lost his case but that doesn't ever settle the matter for the self-pitying kind.

The reason that Craig dredged his bulls*** up from the depths of the past is because Mark flew 41 miles on Sunday and Craig's flights don't amount to anything. That's right again folks. Mark slammed a home run out of the park on Sunday and now Craig has his knickers all in a twist and has gone into another one of his little snits. While Craig has been pouting for years I have been working with Mark and coaching him by telephone to improve his flying which he has diligently done. It's no secret that Mark was a self-trained pilot who developed bad habits that resulted in accidents but he has improved dramatically albeit gradually.

Anyhow I have the full video and if Craig, AKA: Deaf Scooter, AKA: Deaf Hang Glider, AKA: Deaf WTF, wants to throw down then I will post the full video along with the comments of highly experienced and respected instructors who assigned more than 50% of the blame to him. He failed to see and avoid and had plenty of time to avoid the collision. His rants and laments are little more than sour grapes and self-pity. Anyone who buys into Craig's bulls*** really belongs on Loserville.org along with the rest of the sheep who follow the great deceiver who just rightfully got his a** removed from USHPA one day ago for allegedly lying on the witness stand against USHPA among other things.
Quote source:
Read more: http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.ph ... z3YXECv1ix

[[[  Jonathan did have further remarks: ]  ]]
Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 10:21 am Post subject: Reply with quote #96
In other words had Craig not had most or all of his attention on his camera rather than his situation and proximity to other gliders the likelihood of his impact with mark and tumble would have either been a minor event or a non-event. I have said it before and I will say it again. Cameras have killed and they will kill again. This is far from the only recent accident and not the only mid-air in which camera distraction was a major and serious factor. Had Craig been flying only with a keel camera that he was unable to turn around and sign to then this wouldn't have happened.

I'm not making any excuses for Mark's errors. Those were copped to by Mark a long time ago. What has never happened is Craig admitting that he allowed himself to fly in proximity to other gliders on the day of a busy fly-in while being engrossed with producing his video and while being inattentive to his surroundings. One would believe that this would have cured him of engaging in practices that are likely to draw his attention away from his surroundings. That is not what I have seen. Instead he simply seems to get even more engrossed in his gadgets and is resorting to the use of loud air horns to keep other gliders away.

Here's a thought. Pay attention to your surrounding, Craig and you won't need an air horn to shoo other gliders away from you. You can simply steer away and if necessary take out your pen and pad of paper after you land and hand the offending pilot a note indicating your displeasure.

It can get pretty crowded around Marshall and Crestline and different types of gliders get all mixed together at times. The last thing we need are pilots putzing around with their gear when they should be attentive to their surroundings and how they are interacting with other types of gliders and pilots of broadly differing abilities.

My 2p worth of rant! cuss

Read more: http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.ph ... 493#369493#ixzz3YXMQFJLD

I think that "Loserville.org" is a coded transcription in that quote of USHawks.org forum as one of the journalistic automatic tactics Jack at HangGliding.org uses to constrain and limit good communications in the hang gliding community; a poster writes a link to USHawks.org and Jack has that automatically get read to a non-working -non-linking string; it is a means at journalistic censorship that builds a wedge among factions in the hang gliding community. Jonathan seems to have said that Jonathan offered himself to appear in court as an expert witness. It seems further that a mention of "allegedly lying" was mentioned for some kind of impact relative to MGF's claiming without proof that lying was occurring for the expert witnessing of BobK in a different court case; BobK shows how he did not lie; why let "alleged" have impact? Someone might might put the "alleged lying" on anyone that testifies in any case. Why did Jonathan mix the two cases? Jonathan, did BobK lie in court or not? And it seems Jonathan has taken a stance that BobK is the "great deceiver" for what reason? Jonathan, what deceiving, please; it is OK to put whatever up on the table for clear seeing. [ ]

If anyone is interested in the collision case, that is, interested in any take on the matter, that is, interested in the perspective of either involved pilot or interested in any comments like Jonathan's or others, that is, interested in any speculative idea on matters involved in the traffic incident, then feel free to post in USHawks.org forum. Present your comments, arguments, ideas, labeled speculations, etc. The USHawks.org forum has room for delving into all sides and perspectives on important hang gliding matters.

[brianscharp]

There are a fair number of losers buying into "Craig's bulls***".
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.ph ... 463#369463

I have some history regarding this midair and I would like to share it with the group. I had hopes that this tragic event would all be water under the bridge as I will explain later.

Craig is deaf and began flying in about 1989 or 1990. I was his instructor. There were challenges teaching Craig to fly because of the impaired hearing and I had been warned that without the ability to hear airspeed that Craig (and Sally who is also deaf and learned before Craig) would have trouble knowing proper airspeed. We focused on being very aware of return to trim pitch forces and both Sally and Craig did go on to become quite competent pilots. I bring this up because of what I saw in the video.

begin description…

In the video Craig is making a video and talking “signing” to a gopro on the right crossbar. He is boating along at trim facing southwest with the ridge on his right in fairly smooth late evening ridge lift. Craig is almost directly over the ridge top and approaching toward the Crestline launch area probably about 120’ above the launch height. The midair will happen at 1 minute into the video, directly over the Crestline launch. You will see Craig raise his hands off the bar at about 18 seconds, and 34 seconds and 48 seconds into the video and I believe he is narrating about recognizing trim and illustrating that the glider can fly hands off. I don’t know specifically what else he is narrating to his crossbar camera but I do believe at this point he has no idea about Mark approaching him from his left, then below and behind to pass below on his right.

Let’s talk details about Mark’s flight path. Based on both the video and a witness account from another pilot, at 14 seconds into the video Mark was several hundred feet further out from the ridge top and about the same height as Craig. He is visible going east, meaning right to left across the screen. From 17 second to 31 second Mark is out of the screen and doing a right 270 degree turn. At 31 seconds Mark re-enters the left side of the screen at eye level with Craig and becomes more visible by 34 seconds. At this point Mark begins a wings level flight with a heading taking him to a point just behind Craig meaning Mark has a heading of northwest. Initially Mark is at about 80 degrees left of Craig’s glider heading meaning at about Craig’s 9 o’clock, and Mark is perhaps 1 wingspan higher than Craig. Mark is quartering into the hill at about a 45 degree angle.

There is a moment at 51 seconds where we momentarily see Mark’s left wingtip in the left side of the screen still on the same heading, traveling to a point just aft of Craig. Mark is diving a bit because he is now perhaps 20’ below Craig having been perhaps 20’-30’ higher than Craig just 15 seconds earlier. Craig doesn’t see Mark coming in from the left. It might be important to note that given the strong crab angle in this wind, even though Mark is at Craig’s 9 o’clock relative to the direction the glider is pointed in the airflow, it is more like his 8 o’clock position relative to Craig’s ground track so if Craig is centering his focus on where he is going over the ground he would have to look probably about 120 degrees left of his ground track direction to see Mark coming.

At 51 seconds Mark is about 40’ left and 15’ below Craig (at Craig’s 9 o’clock).

At 54 seconds Mark is passing 20’ below and about 10’ directly behind Craig soon to begin a left 25 degree bank.

At 57 seconds Mark is 40’ directly to the right (Craig’s 3 o’clock) and 20’ below Craig in a left 25 degree bank and going about 7 or 8 mph faster than Craig.

At 58 seconds Mark comes into view of the camera and is climbing in a left turn. Craig sees Mark for the first time. Craig stops narrating his video and takes the bar to prepare for an evasive action. Craig had been flying at minimum sink and has 2 to 3 seconds to do something to avoid the collision. I’m not sure it was possible in such a short time. We are talking perhaps 2.5 seconds.

… end description

This midair happened in July 2012. I spent a lot of time trying to piece together what happened and why. I drafted up an image in 2012 showing the gliders with the frame of reference being air (not the ground). Here is a link to this report/image. https://www.dropbox.com/s/130ejmpg0127a ... r.jpg?dl=0

I believe that this was an accident with no mal intent. I also believe that Mark as a new pilot was having trouble getting the difference between airspeed and ground speed digested. On a previous flight Mark had made a 180 degree ridge reversal with a turn toward the hill and misjudged his ground speed and drifted into the hill before completing the 180.

It is speculation but I believe there is a good chance that Mark knew Craig was there and intentionally dove under him to safely pass him but as he lost sight of Craig and saw the ground going past at such a good speed he got confused by the speed of the ground and as a result, underestimated how long it would take to get well ahead of Craig where a pitch up would not interfere with Craig. Mark was not taking into account that Craig was also flying forward through the air meaning that Mark’s speed over the ground was far greater than Mark’s speed relative to Craig.

In the days and weeks that followed this tragic midair and as I saw and felt I had a good grasp of what transpired I could not help but think about what I would have done. Occasionally over my 41 years of flying there have been cases where I am straight and level and another pilot dives and zooms past me. Sometimes they fly past above me and sometimes they are beside or below. Yes there is a bit of a vulnerable feeling if someone passes by close and with speed. It is a vulnerable feeling because I know that for a few seconds I must trust that they will not just dive onto me nor climb into me. I have no choice in such a case to believe that since the pilot started out higher than me and/or had a period of time where they were flying toward me from beside or behind meaning I was in plain view, and they know I am there. Perhaps they dive past simply because I am there. Because of all this, if I were in Craig’s position that day, even if I had seen Mark passing by on my right and below me I would have no cause to believe that he would decide to pitch up when directly under me. Why would he since he is obviously just passing on the ridge in proper fashion. I came to the conclusion that if I were there instead of Craig, I would probably have been in a midair too.

Those weeks in summer of 2012 were agonizing. I really felt that Craig had done little to nothing wrong. But there is no place for legal battles in hang gliding among pilots. We all sign waivers and accidents do sometimes happen.

Craig had a broken arm and Mark was unhurt. Both gliders were wrecked. We were very lucky that there were no fatalities. We had to think glass half full and try to build up from there.

With the conclusion in my mind about what happened I felt the first thing to do was give Craig a big hug, follow up on his healing progress and to most importantly let him know I felt he did nothing wrong. Since Craig had hundreds of hours of experience I was quite sure that he already knew this and that he would be very hurt if people were pointing fingers at him and calling him a bad pilot. I made sure he knew that I felt he was still a good pilot and that as they said in “top gun”, he could be my wingman any day.

I proposed to Craig that if I could arrange to get a replacement glider and all damaged equipment replaced for him, and to get Mark to apologize, would he be willing to agree to not bring a lawsuit against Mark. Craig agreed.

I confess, I scolded Mark pretty harshly, in private, and asked Mark to cover the damaged gopro of Craig’s and apologize and I would get Craig the glider he said he would accept which was a 143 supersport I had in my quiver. The apology happened, the gopro and glider were delivered and Craig continued to heal.

I have to apologize to Mark publicly right now. I told him that Craig was agreeing to not seek damages in court in exchange for the equipment and the apology. It was an email recorded agreement and although it was not drafted up by a lawyer, it had content that was very clear to understand. Yet a year later or so, Craig did bring a suit against Mark. I could not be involved with helping either side and simply felt terrible because Mark trusted what I said about the agreement. No good deed goes unpunished.

The tragedy continued in the weeks after the midair. Because of the midair and of other accidents that Mark had in the spring of 2012, he had his rating downgraded from H2 to H1. This meant no flying at Crestline or Marshall.

If I could have one wish it would be that we get together now and have a group hug and move forward. I mean, Craig I really wish you could find it in your heart to forgive Mark. And Mark, it is obvious that you have done a lot of flying at sites other than Crestline and your skills are building. Congrats on a recent XC flight. Perhaps there is a chance now, that you could with logbook in hand, approach the CSS and regain your flight permissions there. I am not the one to make that decision; you would have to clear it with the Officers of the Crestline Soaring Society.

Darbbb Sun Apr 26, 2015 5:12 am 3 thumbs up
op Sun Apr 26, 2015 9:09 am 3 thumbs up
Mr Pou Mon Apr 27, 2015 4:13 am 3 thumbs up
Jason Mon Apr 27, 2015 8:32 am 3 thumbs up
NMERider Sun Apr 26, 2015 7:35 am 3 thumbs up
atag Sun Apr 26, 2015 10:07 am 3 thumbs up
blindrodie Mon Apr 27, 2015 6:31 am 3 thumbs up

[JoeF]

Rob McKenzie's mentioned-above document:

midair.jpg (243.14 KiB) Viewed 4511 times

[JoeF]

Be ready at all times for there to be unrated pilots in the airspace.

Don't assume that the other aircraft has a skilled pilot in it. Don't assume that the other aircraft has a medically fit pilot; at any moment the other pilot might suffer from a thousand or more maladies. Consider, if you once see an aircraft, then reach for ways to stay vigilant to stay away from that other aircraft, unless you and that other aircraft are in full-aware status doing formation flying, etc. Lose visual contact with another close aircraft and risk collision. Both Mark and Craig were aware that they were both in a common airspace parcel with enough proximity that loss of sure knowing of where the other was could lead to touch. No time for pushing the other away; just use those moments to gain distance away from proximity.

Confirm such matters or else assume that the other aircraft might do unexpected things. VFR? Sensing "too close" ... act to fly away from the scene. Evade. Spending time to give misinterpretable hand signals when full communications are not running otherwise, then evade.

Stay aware. Keep distance and know vectors. Change path to keep aware.

HG is not done clearing blind spots.

Notice that airspace where HG are allowed by FAA to fly, there may be unrated ultralight pilots of very many descriptions.

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SIDEBAR:

Consider never being beneath a PG (whether walking or flying). Why?

[dhmartens]

Put a streamer on it - simple. Always allow 3 glider length distance between gliders.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Thanks for posting this Joe.

I very rarely read hanggliding.org, and I've been on business travel for the past week.

I find it sad to see Jonathan slamming me like that. We used to be on pretty good terms, but recently he's become extremely negative. This may be more damages from USHPA broadcasting false claims during the expulsion hearing.

I also find it sad that Jack Axaopoulos remains so petty after all these years that he still blocks anyone from even posting a link to the US Hawks. That kind of censorship breaks the spirit of the internet itself, and it introduces a huge blind spot full of ignorance into our sport.