[TadEareckson]

Bob,

Sorry, the edit button's gone. I was smoldering with the refreshed memory and new information on all that. These moth- bas- jerks. Is jerks OK? These jerks cost me my flying career, got me effectively cut off from decades worth of friendships, have made sure that the results of years worth of my R&D have been buried, and have continued to get people slaughtered. So, it's out of my system for the moment. Feel free to edit.

With regard to the towing content, I don't have the expertise to make any real comment since I've never towed myself. As Directors, none of us had all the skills needed for all decisions, and that's why I tried to solicit comments from everyone in my region (and everywhere else). So I'm still not qualified to go much farther in the towing content.

1. The problem is that NOBODY in this sport has the expertise to make any real comment on towing content - especially anyone with towing experience. Well, maybe three or four. But not Donnell, Jerry Forburger, Dennis, Bill Bryden, Steve Kroop, Gregg Ludwig, Joe Gregor, Steve or Ryan Voight, Wallaby, Quest, Florida Ridge, Lookout, Blue Sky, Ridgely, Whitewater, Cowboy Up, HPAC, BHPA, DHV, or HGFA. Dave Broyles, Dynamic Flight, and Brian Vant-Hull are reasonable prospects.

2. And the fact that you've never towed yourself puts you way ahead of the game. If you flew a kite when you were a little kid and think about the simple dynamics of what was going on in common sense terms you're way WAY ahead of the game.

3. I've been working on a little four minute tutorial for you which - if you don't try to make things too complicated - will allow you to blow the towing establishment out of the water.

Fortunately, some others were in agreement, and I don't think there were any legal threats made.

I'm extraordinarily disappointed that legal threats WEREN'T made. The more these lunatics pull that kinda crap the more it makes them look like the lunatic paranoid negligent whitewashers people who understand the situation have known them to always be. Do you think they'd be going that berserk if I was just some nutcase who didn't know what he was talking about? If I were I could be fairly easily shown to be so and dismissed.

Think of USHGA as an airline that's been regulating itself with no accountability whatsoever for over a third of a century. What would be the public reaction to an airline that killed one out of every thousand of its customers ANNUALLY? And that's just the kills. Would you put YOUR nephew on one of their planes?

Our planes are in pretty good shape because they're HGMA certified.

Lauren Tjaden - 2008/03/23

When Jim got me locked out to the right, I couldn't keep the pitch of the glider with one hand for more than a second (the pressure was a zillion pounds, more or less), but the F'ing release slid around when I tried to hit it. The barrel release wouldn't work because we had too much pressure on it.

Anyhow, the tandem can indeed perform big wingovers, as I demonstrated when I finally got separated from the tug.

Jim Rooney - 2009/11/02

Oh it happens. I have, all the guys I work with have. (Our average is 1 in 1,000 tows)

Oh yeah... an other fun fact for ya... ya know when it's far more likely to happen? During a lockout. When we're doing lockout training, the odds go from 1 in 1,000 to over 50/50.

Our tow equipment SUCKS. And it really sucks in clutch situations. We just killed someone else a week and a half ago 'cause it sucks on multiple levels - just like it routinely does up high during training exercises. We don't fix the problems after the training exercises and we don't fix them after the fatalities.

Doug Hildreth - 1991/06
USHGA Accident Review Committee Chairman

Good launch, but at about fifty feet the glider nosed up, stalled, and the pilot released by letting go of the basetube with right hand. Glider did a wingover to the left and crashed into a field next to the tow road.

This scenario has been reported numerous times. Obviously, the primary problem is the lack of pilot skill and experience in avoiding low-level, post-launch, nose-high stalls. The emphasis by countless reporters that the pilot lets go of the glider with his right hand to activate the release seems to indicate that we need a better hands-on way to release.

I know, I know, "If they would just do it right. Our current system is really okay." I'm just telling you what's going on in the real world. They are not doing it right and it's up to us to fix the problem.

Luen Miller - 1996/10
USHGA Accident Review Committee Chairman

We have two more fatalities because of a glider that couldn't be released from tow. Again, the fatalities occurred in a training situation in which a student should reasonably not be expected to do everything perfectly.

I am strongly recommending formal review and analysis of releases and weak link designs for all methods of towing by the Towing Committee, and that recommendations on adoption or improvements be generated.

I believe that from preflight through release we should have more standardized procedures in towing.

Our tow equipment sucks 'cause for thirty years USHGA has steadfastly refused to do ANYTHING along the lines of what its own officials are calling for - the equivalent or extension of HGMA certification.

Jim Rooney - 2010/12/16

Notice how I'm not saying to not do it.
Go forth and experiment. That's great... that's how we improve things.
I'm just warning you of that chasm.

A few years ago, I started refusing to tow people with home made gear.

It sucks 'cause the people running the flight parks are good at making and selling junk and they're not gonna allow better available technology to get off the ground 'cause they don't sell it. And if they did sell something better they'd hafta admit that they'd been selling dangerous junk to people for the last fifteen years and offer replacements and refunds and open themselves up to negligent homicide issues.

Steve Wendt

Summary: I observed the accident from a few hundred yards away, but could clearly see launch and the aero tow was coming towards my area so that I had a full view of the flight. I was at the wreckage in a few seconds and afterwards gathered the information that helps understand the results of some unfortunate poor decisions of the injured pilot.

It sucks 'cause - when the crash is to severe to be covered up - it's the flight park operator who writes the "accident" report. And it's always REALLY EASY to write ANYTHING off as "pilot error".

Tracy Tillman - 2011/02/10

Anybody who is truly a good pilot, in any form of aviation, knows that the knowledge, skills, and judgement you have in your head, learned from thorough instruction from a good instructor with a good curriculum, are the best pieces of equipment you can fly with. Good equipment is important, the best equipment is a well-trained brain.

It sucks 'cause the flight park operators are also the Towing Committee and the Board of Directors. And - in this instance - the FAA. Yeah, that's a great system of checks and balances. What he's really saying is "Fly with the junk I'm selling. If you've got enough righteous stuff you can fly your way out of anything. If you don't... tough."

You can document that this guy is using dangerous equipment in clear violation of even the paltry regulations now on the books. You can document that he has no clue what he's talking about. Who you gonna call? USHGA? The FAA?

"FAA Detroit FSDO, Tracy Tillman speaking. How may I help you?"

With regard to the US Hawks, my goal here is to create an alternate national organization that will hopefully be more responsive to its members. That means that we will eventually write our own SOPs and have our own rating system. I believe that will finally introduce competition and that's the basis of our society. If we can do things better than USHPA, then we will attract more members than USHPA. It's that simple. I hope you'll be willing to join us and help us build something we're all proud of.

I will. But it won't change the power structure. It won't change Wallaby, Quest, Florida Ridge, Lookout, Blue Sky, or Ridgely. 'Cause they're gonna do what they've always done. They're gonna stay with the shoddy organization they already own and try to keep getting away with the same crap they always have. And they're gonna keep doing it until something scares them enough to clean up their acts - like seeing a flight park get sued out of existence and/or having one of its operators got to prison.

They gotta be scared of something. And I'll bet the thing that's scared them the most in the past twenty years is ME. Let's go with that and see what happens.

Warren,

Catch up with ya on the next post.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Can you imagine what would happen if TWO people wrote draft letters? How's that Arlo Guthrie song go?

Improvising from memory: If they sang (wrote) them in harmony, then they'd think they were both queer and wouldn't take either one of em.

People who've got nothing to hide don't behave that way.

That's why we're all here Tad, because we've got nothing to hide. Welcome.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Bob,

Sorry, the edit button's gone. I was smoldering with the refreshed memory and new information on all that. These moth- bas- jerks. Is jerks OK? These jerks cost me my flying career, got me effectively cut off from decades worth of friendships, have made sure that the results of years worth of my R&D have been buried, and have continued to get people slaughtered. So, it's out of my system for the moment. Feel free to edit.

I try to follow the guidelines made famous by the late George Carlin. Try not to use most of those words or any ethnic slurs or any threats and we're good. I know that guidelines on profanity may seem petty. I spent three years in the Army, so I'm no stranger to those 7 words (and others). But we don't need to give any ammunition to the people lined up to shoot us down. So that's why I like to keep it clean. For that reason, I substituted stars (*) for a few of the letters. I hope that's OK.

1. The problem is that NOBODY in this sport has the expertise to make any real comment on towing content - especially anyone with towing experience. Well, maybe three or four. But not Donnell, Jerry Forburger, Dennis, Bill Bryden, Steve Kroop, Gregg Ludwig, Joe Gregor, Steve or Ryan Voight, Wallaby, Quest, Florida Ridge, Lookout, Blue Sky, Ridgely, Whitewater, Cowboy Up, HPAC, BHPA, DHV, or HGFA. Dave Broyles, Dynamic Flight, and Brian Vant-Hull are reasonable prospects.

2. And the fact that you've never towed yourself puts you way ahead of the game. If you flew a kite when you were a little kid and think about the simple dynamics of what was going on in common sense terms you're way WAY ahead of the game.

3. I've been working on a little four minute tutorial for you which - if you don't try to make things too complicated - will allow you to blow the towing establishment out of the water.

I look forward to any information you can post. Please feel free to start a "Towing Tutorial" topic if you like. To be honest, I have a friend who was injured towing, and there are many aspects of it that I just don't like. So while I'm staying in Florida, I don't anticipate doing any towing. But I welcome the information, and I appreciate anything you can contribute to the site and the safety of our pilots. When you've convinced me that it can be done safely, you'll have made a big step!!

Do you think they'd be going that berserk if I was just some nutcase who didn't know what he was talking about? If I were I could be fairly easily shown to be so and dismissed.

You've got a good point there. In my experience, USHPA will work hardest to silence those who provide the most credible challenges to them. The same is true for a few other notable "personalities" in our sports. The "ban" button is usually an admission that the banner has no better argument with which to defeat the bannee.

I am strongly recommending formal review and analysis of releases and weak link designs for all methods of towing by the Towing Committee, and that recommendations on adoption or improvements be generated.

Post any recommendations you like right here. In fact, let's start building our own Towing Committee. I think you should start a new topic for it, and let's hash it out ... without anyone being silenced.

With regard to the US Hawks, my goal here is to create an alternate national organization that will hopefully be more responsive to its members. That means that we will eventually write our own SOPs and have our own rating system. I believe that will finally introduce competition and that's the basis of our society. If we can do things better than USHPA, then we will attract more members than USHPA. It's that simple. I hope you'll be willing to join us and help us build something we're all proud of.

I will. But it won't change the power structure. It won't change Wallaby, Quest, Florida Ridge, Lookout, Blue Sky, or Ridgely. 'Cause they're gonna do what they've always done. They're gonna stay with the shoddy organization they already own and try to keep getting away with the same crap they always have. And they're gonna keep doing it until something scares them enough to clean up their acts - like seeing a flight park get sued out of existence and/or having one of its operators got to prison.

Let's not focus on what they're doing wrong, and instead let's concentrate on what we can do right. The SCUBA diving community has avoided government intervention by providing solid training organizations and guidelines. These are not provided by monopolies, and there are many different certification programs available to divers and dive instructors. They compete and that's what helps them grow and be ... competitive. That's what our sport(s) are lacking. So let's build a competing organization and we'll end up improving USHPA at the same time.

Thanks for joining us. I look forward to learning more about towing ... even if I never try it.

Bob Kuczewski

[TadEareckson]

Warren,

I've got a little background in towing but certainly nothing to brag about.

That's OK, no towing is worth bragging about. Doesn't take all that much in the way of brains or skill from either end of the rope.

I do look forward to learning more.

Work on forgetting everything you know and stay tuned for my tutorial.

A safe release is at the top of my concerns.

My specialty is aero. Two reasons...

1. I love aero 'cause I love getting hauled up two thousand feet and being dumped in a thermal.

2. Because the tow angle is constant and straight ahead, designing safe bridle/release systems for aero is brain dead easy.

OK, maybe just one reason - laziness.

Tom Peghiny, Manned Kiting - 1974

Never take your hands off the bar.

Steve Kinsley - 1996/05/09

Personal opinion. While I don't know the circumstances of Frank's death and I am not an awesome tow type dude, I think tow releases, all of them, stink on ice. Reason: You need two hands to drive a hang glider. You 'specially need two hands if it starts to turn on tow. If you let go to release, the glider can almost instantly assume a radical attitude. We need a release that is held in the mouth. A clothespin. Open your mouth and you're off.

As much as Donnell, Peter Birren, Dennis, USHGA, the tow operations, the instructors try to rationalize reality away and con people into believing otherwise, "Never take your hands off the bar." is going to be an ironclad rule for towing - and hang gliding in general. And the "the bar" means the place where the pilot's hands were when the glider was passing its certification tests - not the downtubes.

If you foot launch you can't adhere to that rule. On the mountain that's a compromise you've pretty much gotta accept but in the vast majority of tow environments you can eliminate or minimize ninety percent of the ways to kill yourself towing by starting on a dolly or platform proned out with both hands on the basetube and a release actuator in one hand and/or between your teeth.

We've ALWAYS been able to do this in aero very cheaply and easily but the majority of pilots have simply decided not to. In the entire history of aero I can only name you one pilot so configured who bought the farm and his release was a notoriously unreliable piece of junk. Several others, though, where there were other issues in which the configuration was irrelevant.

Platform launching is the next easiest to design for because the tow angle remains constant - but we're already out of my league 'cause the next easiest is a huge leap and to do things right and cleanly they've gotta be built into the harness. Put a button under your finger, a wire up your sleeve, and a couple of solenoids at your hips. Normally you just hit one of the barrel releases at one of your hips, in an emergency you push the button and blow the whole assembly away. The good news is that platform towing is so safe and brain dead easy that low level lockouts are virtually nonexistent.

Static towing, stationary winch, high scooter... The tow angle changes and if you wanna top out you've either gotta accept dangerous interference with the basetube at launch or use a two stage. And the engineering to do that for no hands is more of a bitch.

The things that most bug me about the Koch two stage are that you've gotta take a hand off to blow it and it's draggy if you wanna do some serious flying after you get off - and there's no easy way to stow it out of the airflow.

But accepting a hand off compromise and ignoring the clunkiness issues - that's your ticket. Hand off, slap your chest, hand back on. Not a sure thing by any means in a nightmare scenario but it beats the hell out of taking a hand off and groping for a barrel or trying to climb the basetube to get back up to the downtube where you left your bicycle brake lever velcroed on.

And it wouldn't be that B a Fing D for a dedicated geek to rip off the basic concept, make the thing cleaner, and wire it to your finger so's it could be electromagnetically triggered.

(And the next time Head Trauma Rooney refers to it as a "chest crusher" ask him to try to come up with a list of people it's injured longer than the one he has.)

We could do this stuff if we were willing to spend our bucks to protect us from real dangers instead of dumping it all into parachutes to protect us from mostly imaginary ones in which the parachute may not be a real effective Plan B anyway.

Yeah, I'm saying that I'll betchya I can name more people killed by Davis quality releases than saved by Betty quality parachutes. And I can also name a lot of people really f***ed up by Betty quality parachutes that weren't stowed very well who never in their flying careers before or after actually needed a Betty quality parachute.

"Conflict of interest" doesn't cover the moral/integrity issues here. It's sad that Davis Straub is the way he is.

The guy is just plain evil. It's so transparent what he did on this last tow crash thread. And I wasn't even on it this time. "Oops, people are starting to notice that the crap I sell fails over half the time you really need it. Time to kill this conversation." That thread has picked up about seven hundred additional hits since Davis locked it.

And at the other place... The org's Scumbag In Chief For Life locked down my aerotow release thread after 182 post on 2009/07/04 just 'cause people who knew what they were talking about said I was right and he was wrong. It's picked up over 63 hundred additional hits. But nobody's allowed to discuss anything because Jack says there's no stall danger after a weak link blows.

I can't help thinking about one of the competitions where a foreign pilot was killed *on launch*...

Yeah, typically when somebody's life is destroyed on one of Davis's little bloodbath events we get about three sentences on the crash and fifty paragraphs on his crosswind leg strategy after the wreckage was FINALLY dragged off the runway.

Straub will probably never change and that is sad.

EVERYBODY changes. My only hope is that Davis will change a lot sooner than most of the rest of us.

What some of us don't understand that flying doesn't make us special.

Yeah, I used to think that my ability to fly made me some sort of god. Then I realized that I wasn't actually doing all that much that a plastic garbage can lid couldn't on a good day - I was just enjoying it more (probably, sometimes). Davis, Head Trauma, Tracy... They're all stuck.

In a world of inflated egos and thin skins, ya gotta play the game to stay in the game.

I dunno.

I've watched nothing change for thirty years and people dying over and over for the same stupid systemic reasons.

Words kill in this sport. I overshot the "field" (extremely marginal to begin with) on my third ever mountain flight 'cause my "Instructor" - Mark Airey - didn't know the meaning of the word "turnpoint". (Yeah, I know, "pilot error".)

In hang gliding you can't have theories, instructors, books, standard operating procedures, gliders, tow equipment that's 99 percent perfect without killing A LOT of people. And on some of this stuff we're down to fifty percent.

And, in my humble opinion, what most keeps everything as deadly as it is civility and friendship - everybody treating everybody with respect and doing the best to get along.

If you're influencing hang gliding and you're 99 percent solid on everything and I call you on the other one you better talk to me and fix it - or it's war.

I've been over on TUGS and Tracy wouldn't talk to me. I called him a quote - F*cking moron. - unquote and a crappy engineer (he's an engineering professor at Eastern Michigan University). He immediately resigned from the list and I alienated at least a couple of people that I hadn't already.

But I also got people thinking and my conscience will be clear eight months from now when somebody else gets creamed - maybe at Cloud 9, maybe not, doesn't matter much. And I'm gonna be able to say "Told ya so." And more people will listen next time.

Bob,

Next post.

[TadEareckson]

Bob,

...then they'd think they were both queer and wouldn't take either one of em.

WHOA!!! Totally forgot about that! Good catch!

New US Hawks policy... Letters to the FAA ONLY in groups of three or more. And nobody writes from San Francisco. Not that there's anything wrong with that - but we've got an image to protect.

That's why we're all here Tad, because we've got nothing to hide.

Honest officer! I have NO IDEA how that got in my glove compartment. Must've been that filthy hippie hitchhiker I dropped off at the last intersection. He's probably still there if you wanna try to get him.

I try to follow the guidelines made famous by the late George Carlin.

One of my greatest heroes. Hold on for a sec. Just pricked my finger...

OK, it's alright, I'm back.

I love Carlin 'cause he was a genius with words and language and language is what we use as a foundation for what we do in the air. If we were Barn Swallows it wouldn't matter but we're mostly evolved to smash stuff with rocks so we need everything else going for us as much as possible.

...ethnic slurs...

Yeah, totally with you on that. Except OBVIOUSLY, I'm sure we can all agree, for albino Samoan Unitarian baroque accordion players. They're DESPICABLE. And their rotten little Cairn Terriers. And people who hide them in their attics. And people who don't report people who hide them in their attics.

But we don't need to give any ammunition to the people lined up to shoot us down. So that's why I like to keep it clean.

Alright, I'll try to be good (for me anyway). But none of those seven words - singly or in any combination - really gives anybody any ammunition or hurts anybody. Wanna see REAL ammo?

Tracy Tillman - 2001/05/16

We (and many others) do not recommend using a second weaklink on the non-released end of the bridle. That weaklink is just as likely to break as the one on the other end. If the lower weak link breaks, the bridle could get caught in the towline ring, and pull the glider from the 'biner or keel, causing it to tuck. The other weaklink (on top) may not break prior to the tuck.

The weaklink should be on the released end of the bridle, and the bridle should release from the top. That way, if the bridle does get caught on the ring, it is pulling from the body, rather than from the glider, and the glider may still be controllable--in which case you can use your secondary release (or hook knife if that fails) to release.

Tracy Tillman - 2001/05/24

We normally use 130 lb., but we now also have 150 lb. on hand for heavier pilots in draggier gliders. I use 150 lb. for pro-towing, but Lisa still uses 130 lb. for pro-towing. I use 130 lb when using my regular towing bridle.

He can kill people with words like that and he can be legally destroyed if he does - hopefully, even if he doesn't. That's AMMUNITION.

I have a friend who was injured towing...

1. "A" friend? Just "injured". What planet are you from? I'm assuming its atmosphere's pretty thick and just about all the surface is covered by water.

2. Details? I thrive on data.

...and there are many aspects of it that I just don't like.

Nobody likes it. Everybody's scared of it. That's why there were 143 posts on this last fatality when Davis locked it down.

People are afraid of things they don't understand. Nobody would go in the water after that movie in 1975. Then they started understanding Great White Sharks. Now they spend lots of money to dive off of South Africa and get dorsal fin rides.

Nobody understands towing 'cause whenever somebody who does starts making progress in helping people understand it and make it reasonably safe he gets locked down and exiled by Davis, Jack, Peter, Cragin, Rich Diamond, and Steve, kicked out of every flight park in the US and/or the UK, attacked by USHGA, and ignored by the FAA.

And the main reason nobody understands towing is 'cause thirty years ago a physics professor in South Texas lethally botched the physics while developing and promoting his approach to the issue.

Donnell Hewett - 1981/10

MY PRIORITIES

Those of you who do not know me personally may wonder - if skyting is really all that it's claimed to be - then why don't I spend more time, more money, and more effort in developing it to its completion? The reason is simply a matter of priorities. Development of the skyting technique, as important as it is, simply is not at the top of my list of priorities.

My first priority belongs to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, my Savior and Lord. Considering all He has done for me and the love we have for one another, I can do nothing less than commit my life and all that I have to Him and His service. If you know Him personally, then I'm sure that you understand my feelings and will agree that Jesus beats anything this world has to offer - including hang gliding. If you never come to meet Him, then ask someone to introduce you - believe me, until you do, you don't know what you're missing.

My second priority belongs to my family. Helen, my wife, is the greatest companion any man could hope for, and has filled my life with happiness throughout the eleven years we have been married. My daughters, Tahnya (ten years old last October), and Tammi (eight years old last June), are also important in my life. I love all three of my "girls" as well as my parents and my inlaws, so that if it ever comes to a choice between my family and skyting, then hang gliding will lose every time.

My third priority belongs to my profession, I am a professor at Texas A&I University and teach physics, astronomy, and solar energy. I am also conducting research in the field of solar energy in an attempt to develop some truly cost effective solar energy devices (including a solar air conditioner). Since these activities are my primary means of support, are obligations I have voluntarily accepted, and are both enjoyable and fulfilling to me as a person, I consider both my teaching and my solar energy research to be more important than my involvement in hang gliding.

Skyting, therefore, is number four in my list of priorities. I still consider it to be important, both for providing me with a means of personal relaxation and recreation, and for providing others with an opportunity for safe and accessible hang gliding. But in my life, skyting and its development will just have to accept the fact that it gets the time, the money, and the attention that remains after I have met the needs and the obligations associated with the higher priority items mentioned above.

That's not who you want developing the system to which you're gonna trust your nephew's life. You want some scumbag atheist who doesn't believe in anything until he's put it on the test rig a hundred times then sent it up once or twice with somebody nobody likes very much on the end of the string. And if the data doesn't line up perfectly he fixes his equations and/or equipment until it does. This is close to how we got the Wright Flyer.

And you want this scumbag atheist to be so socially retarded and obsessive/compulsive that he's never gonna have a snowball's chance in hell of having any friends - let alone a family - to interrupt his focus.

I, personally, have only seen such individuals on TV sitcoms but I call on the readership to keep a lookout for a likely candidate whom we might use to our advantage.

If Donnell had been involved in another hobby and towing had been allowed to evolve from Brian Pattenden and the Brooks and Lake Bridles we wouldn't be killing people like Shane and having debates about weak links that go 278 posts before being locked down. We'd all be using solid releases and 1.5 G weak links and Davis would be off setting world records and landing in the middles of deserts instead of selling junk equipment, dictating policy, and working overtime to keep us believing that the sun orbits around the Earth 'cause he's on it.

So while I'm staying in Florida, I don't anticipate doing any towing. But I welcome the information, and I appreciate anything you can contribute to the site and the safety of our pilots.

And I really appreciate someone who has little interest in towing participating in this conversation. But even if you never tow, towing isn't as different from free flying as people think. And if you get a good understanding of towing you'll have a much better understanding of free flying, and that`ll make you a better pilot.

I'm not saying that will help you fly better or safer, but a good pilot understands underlying theory. And people like Davis and Jack will never be real pilots - they're just glider drivers.

When you've convinced me that it can be done safely, you'll have made a big step!!

Not sure I wanna do that. Depends upon what you consider "safe".

Hang glider towing IS and ALWAYS WILL BE inherently dangerous. Our free flight control authority - relative to what folk have in conventional aircraft - sucks to begin with. Put a rope on the glider and it becomes very roll unstable. And you've always gotta take off from the ground. So put all that together... mediocre control authority, roll instability, hard stuff.

Then throw in a culture that doesn't know what it's doing and junk equipment... I NEVER ONCE had a safe aerotow. I could fix everything on my end but I was still vulnerable to the stuff on the front.

If I had to pick a driver I'd probably go with Jonny Thompson 'cause he prevented a mutual friend from slamming into a dock where I was standing by hitting the gas on the winch - the precise opposite from what I and everybody else I knew would've done and the only thing that would've prevented a near or total fatality.

I've flown behind Bobby and he's excellent but doesn't know what a weak link is. And, consequently, all Dragonflies have weak links and breakaway tow masts which are gonna snap before my weak link.

So we've got some big problems to overcome before it's as safe as it should be.

That all being said, if you've got good equipment on your end - probably even if you don't - I think you're still a zillion times less likely to get hurt in the course of any dolly or platform tow launch than you are at a ramp, slot, or shallow slope. In other words, for any given launch I think you're way better off at a crappy tow operation than you are on a typical mountain with top notch equipment and excellent crew doing everything right.

Tow operations just seem dangerous or more dangerous 'cause they're doing thirty times as many launches per day.

In my experience, USHPA will work hardest to silence those who provide the most credible challenges to them.

Try this. Trying going through every scrap of correspondence on that blowup and try to find ONE person quoting ONE fragment of ONE sentence of mine and being able to discredit it.

Here's a piece of something I got from Mark Forbes...

2009/06/13
Corvallis, Oregon

I have an assortment of concerns, starting with the use of the word "infallible" and continuing on from there. Partly what bothers me is that the proposed language doesn't reflect the current state of the art, particularly with regard to towing by light sport aircraft, which almost all of our tugs are. It's fairly rare to have a true Part 103 legal tug, and I don't know of one that could provide 250 pounds of towing force. Even Ray's little 447-powered Mustang trike is too heavy for Part 103, and my big honkin' Venus with a 582 is WAAAAY too massive. I'm sure that Ray's little trike doesn't pull anywhere near 250 pounds.

"Infallible" was in reference to the release - so I guess his thinking was that since Davis releases jam half the time our regulations should accommodate the equipment currently flooding the market - and the fatality reports.

"250 pounds"... He's referring to this line:

01. The tow vehicle (powered ultralight) must have a rated thrust of at least 250 lbs.

in my proposed revisions document.

The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, Inc.
Standard Operating Procedure
12. Rating System
02. Pilot Proficiency System
10. Hang Gliding Aerotow Ratings
-B. Aero Vehicle Requirements

01. A release must be placed at the hang glider end of the tow line within easy reach of the pilot.

I freaking copied and pasted it from the freaking existing USHGA aerotowing SOPs. Great to know how seriously our officers and tug operators take their own regulations.

The "ban" button is usually an admission that the banner has no better argument with which to defeat the bannee.

And it's administered without the least concern about how obvious it is what's being done.

TadEareckson wrote: I am strongly recommending formal review and analysis of releases and weak link designs for all methods of towing by the Towing Committee, and that recommendations on adoption or improvements be generated.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

TadEareckson DID NOT WROTE!!! TadEareckson wrote that USHGA's own Accident Review Committee Chairman wrote. Over fifteen years ago. TadEareckson happens to fully agree with that statement and handed the useless bastards on the Towing Committee a good set of standards for releases and weak links two years ago for them to not even bother reading... But it's crucial to understand that TadEareckson is not just a lone fringy nutcase.

I think you should start a new topic for it, and let's hash it out ... without anyone being silenced.

Hmmm...

There are a lot of war criminals out there. I don't know if any of y'all are familiar with a guy by the name of Jack Axa... something-or-other. But I'm of the opinion that silencing some people is a really good thing. Somebody who is wrong but honestly believes he's right and engages in an academic discussion where arithmetic is the arbiter and it is acknowledged that two plus two equals... uh... FOUR! OK. Some scumbag who makes up whatever facts suit him at the time, ignores inconvenient data, quotes people saying things they never said, uses the ban button every time the game starts going the wrong way...

I've got a long list of hang gliding people that have proven over the course of a couple of posts or a couple of decades that they should never again be allowed to participate in and derail and sabotage discussions. And I'll tell y'all right now that Sam Kellner is pretty solidly on it.

Let's not focus on what they're doing wrong, and instead let's concentrate on what we can do right...

Good paragraph. Didn't know how SCUBA was regulated - despite the fact that I frequently try to find analogies between the ways we run things. Bet SCUBA programs didn't invent customized versions of physics to justify their fatalities.

At risk of being called a defeatist... Even if this little insurgency never gets more than a couple of feet off the ground we can at least develop a model of how to do things right. And maybe it won't be as easy for the FAA to dismiss the concerns of an organization of hundreds as it did one individual.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks very much for inviting me. This is the most hope I've had of something positive happening in this sport for years.

Death to tyrants. Peace. (Yeah, that's a little incongruous but it seems to work a bit every now and then.)

[MikeLake]

Thanks for opening up this topic.
I was beginning to doubt my ability to put forward a coherent argument.

I am sure I must now hold the record for the most polite, innocent, concerned and wholly on topic poster ever to have been blocked from the Oz Report.
Was this really just for commercial reasons (I had no idea of any of this) or was it because I was hitting a nerve?

The final post by the way was AFTER the thread had been blocked for me.
It would have been nice to have had the opportunity to sum up and the right of reply.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Totally forgot about that! Good catch!

Just showing my age ... "You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant (excepting Alice)."

I love Carlin 'cause he was a genius with words and language and language is what we use as a foundation for what we do in the air. If we were Barn Swallows it wouldn't matter but we're mostly evolved to smash stuff with rocks so we need everything else going for us as much as possible.

Words matter. And the honesty (or dishonesty) that they convey matters even more.

...ethnic slurs...

Yeah, totally with you on that. Except OBVIOUSLY, I'm sure we can all agree, for albino Samoan Unitarian baroque accordion players. They're DESPICABLE.

Please lay off the albino Samoan Unitarian baroque accordion players especially the albino Samoan Unitarian baroque accordion players who fly hang gliders. You should see them doing loops!!

I have a friend who was injured towing...

1. "A" friend? Just "injured". What planet are you from? I'm assuming its atmosphere's pretty thick and just about all the surface is covered by water.

2. Details? I thrive on data.

It's called Planet California which is inhabited by many strange creatures, but the foot-launch flying there is spectacular. I know very few pilots who tow regularly, so that statistic is worse than it sounds.

...and there are many aspects of it that I just don't like.

People are afraid of things they don't understand.

It's not that I don't understand it. I've got an engineering degree (aeronautical), and I'm sure I could understand it well enough. What scares me is the high degree of dependence on the judgement and character of other people. That's the real weak link - people. I would trust my life to many people in this sport, but there are also people in the sport who I don't trust at all. It's hard to tell them apart when you first meet them ... and that can be fatal.

You want some scumbag atheist who doesn't believe in anything until he's put it on the test rig a hundred times then sent it up once or twice with somebody nobody likes very much on the end of the string. And if the data doesn't line up perfectly he fixes his equations and/or equipment until it does. This is close to how we got the Wright Flyer.

I doubt that the Wright brothers were scumbag atheists. I see them as careful engineers, but I get your point. For me, I have more concerns about the human factor in the towing equation than anything else. But again, I haven't even tried towing, so please discount this if you like.

So while I'm staying in Florida, I don't anticipate doing any towing. But I welcome the information, and I appreciate anything you can contribute to the site and the safety of our pilots.

And I really appreciate someone who has little interest in towing participating in this conversation.

That's what I tried to do as Regional Director. I'm a recreational pilot, and I have enough competition in my life without flying in it. But I tried to treat the concerns of the comp pilots as if they were my own. For example, I tried to dig into the various scoring systems to understand them. I tried to program them up so I could see how they operated. That effort was cut short along with my term, but I was trying to do my job for ALL pilots right up to the end.

In my experience, USHPA will work hardest to silence those who provide the most credible challenges to them.

Try this. Trying going through every scrap of correspondence on that blowup and try to find ONE person quoting ONE fragment of ONE sentence of mine and being able to discredit it.

As far as I could tell, they weren't interested in discussing what you had to say. They were more interested in being sure that you couldn't say it. That's part of what I see as broken in USHPA. I saw it in many other areas as well. Let's try to do better here.

The "ban" button is usually an admission that the banner has no better argument with which to defeat the bannee.

And it's administered without the least concern about how obvious it is what's being done.

That's because it doesn't matter how obvious it is. We have to face the sad fact that there are many many pilots who won't stand up for others when they see something wrong. Look at how I was banned from hanggliding.org. There were a few good men who spoke out, but when Jack went ballistic, even they fell silent. It wasn't their ox being gored, so when push came to shove, I stood mostly alone. So why should a crooked admin have any concern about how obvious they are with their whims? Who cares? Sadly, very few.

But it's crucial to understand that TadEareckson is not just a lone fringy nutcase.

But that's how your opponents will want to portray you ... so others will dismiss you.

I think you should start a new topic for it, and let's hash it out ... without anyone being silenced.

Hmmm...

There are a lot of war criminals out there. I don't know if any of y'all are familiar with a guy by the name of Jack Axa... something-or-other. But I'm of the opinion that silencing some people is a really good thing. Somebody who is wrong but honestly believes he's right and engages in an academic discussion where arithmetic is the arbiter and it is acknowledged that two plus two equals... uh... FOUR! OK. Some scumbag who makes up whatever facts suit him at the time, ignores inconvenient data, quotes people saying things they never said, uses the ban button every time the game starts going the wrong way...

I've got a long list of hang gliding people that have proven over the course of a couple of posts or a couple of decades that they should never again be allowed to participate in and derail and sabotage discussions. And I'll tell y'all right now that Sam Kellner is pretty solidly on it.

OK, we may be parting company on this topic. I believe everyone should be able to offer their opinions - valid or not. The crucible of debate and review will separate fact from fiction. It's the Scientific Method. As for Sam, I think you may have him wrong (or I may have misinterpreted your statement). I think Sam is a good and conscientious man, and I would respectfully ask you to reconsider your judgement of him.

Let's not focus on what they're doing wrong, and instead let's concentrate on what we can do right...

Good paragraph. Didn't know how SCUBA was regulated - despite the fact that I frequently try to find analogies between the ways we run things.

It's actually a pretty good analogy. There are several certifying organizations out there. NAUI and PADI are the two biggest. I was certified under both. If a member has a problem with one, then they can always switch to another without giving up the sport. I think that's healthy for their sport, and I believe it leads to better treatment of divers in general ... who can vote with their feet. I think having a viable alternative to USHPA would profoundly revolutionize our sports. That's why I started the HGAA. Unfortunately, the HGAA was quickly hijacked by Jack, and he banned me from hanggliding.org when I began protesting his takeover of the HGAA (I called it the SGAA, and he banned me ).

Even if this little insurgency never gets more than a couple of feet off the ground we can at least develop a model of how to do things right. And maybe it won't be as easy for the FAA to dismiss the concerns of an organization of hundreds as it did one individual.

I like that thinking. Let's do it.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks very much for inviting me. This is the most hope I've had of something positive happening in this sport for years.

Death to tyrants. Peace. (Yeah, that's a little incongruous but it seems to work a bit every now and then.)

This is capitalism. Rather than "death to tyrants", let's just work to gain most of their market share.

Seriously, the one thing that we will have to do is create a site where people will want to come and discuss what's on their minds. This site will have to offer more than just politics. So if you've got some nuts and bolts towing information to share, I'd really appreciate it. Even if it's controversial, that's fine. Just be as fair and honest as you can. I'm sure you can do that very well.

It's good to finally converse with you.

Bob Kuczewski

[Bob Kuczewski]

Thanks for opening up this topic.
I was beginning to doubt my ability to put forward a coherent argument.

Welcome Mike!!

I am sure I must now hold the record for the most polite, innocent, concerned and wholly on topic poster ever to have been blocked from the Oz Report.

Please post the link that got you into hot water over there. I don't follow the Oz Report very closely any more, and these "administrative actions" are usually done in the back rooms. Lots of people didn't even know I was banned, and simply thought I'd stopped posting.

So tell us your story...

[SamKellner]

Welcome Tad . Welcome Mike

[TadEareckson]

Gonna take me a while to get up a response to the last round of correspondence, so lest too much boredom set in during the interim...

This is the infamous draft letter that got USHGA in so much more of a tizzy than the last hundred fatalities combined as it was posted on skysailingtowing on 2009/10/09 - 'cept I just added a comma to one sentence to help and the word "a" where it was missing from another.

Beyond that there is one HUGE but, for the substance of the letter anyway, fairly inconsequential mistake. The concept of "center of mass" towing is total bulls***.

I don't think anybody at USHGA actually read anything beyond the fifth line of the recipient's address before they started having closed door meetings to figure out how to get me out of the way and make it look like an accident, so I welcome anyone here to find - beyond what I just mentioned - anything false, misleading, or inaccurate.

Gregory T. French
Aviation Safety Inspector
800 Independence Avenue
AFS 810 Room 832J
Federal Aviation Administration
Washington DC 20591-0001
202-493-5474
gregory.french@faa.gov

Dear Mr. French:

I am writing to you regarding concerns I have with the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association's Standard Operating Procedures and practices regarding the conduct of the towing of unpowered by powered ultralight vehicles as allowed under FAA Exemption 4144.

As the principles involved in towing hang gliders are identical to those concerning sailplanes we should be modeling our protocols on techniques understood, accepted, and proven many decades ago in conventional aviation rather than making feeble and misguided efforts to reinvent these wheels.

The current SOPs - available at http://www.ushpa.aero - are problematic in terms of validity, scope, consistency, and compliance and these deficiencies translate to a great many minor crashes and incidents and a few very serious injuries and deaths.

The key to conducting safe towing operations is CONTROL. The Dragonfly tugs typically employed have more than enough of it but the gliders at the other end of the tow line most assuredly do not and cannot afford to squander any of their already limited potential.

Lacking the movable control surfaces of conventional aircraft, weight shift hang gliders are relatively sluggish in response and often require a great deal of physical effort to keep under control - especially on tow.

It is not an uncommon occurrence for hang gliders to be thrown by thermal turbulence (which is the reason they are launching in the first place) out of position to the point at which the tow is not recoverable and must be aborted. Occasionally significant altitude is lost during recovery and if that altitude is not available the pilot has virtually no chance of survival.

The control of a hang glider requires two hands at all times.

If the above statement is something of an oversimplification the following is not.

During a crisis situation - especially on tow - any relinquishment of a grip for so much as a fraction of a second can have lethal consequences.

From the current SOPs:

-
A release must be placed at the hang glider end of the tow line within easy reach of the pilot.
-

The concept of an "easy reach" in a low level crisis situation is a completely oxymoronic MYTH. The technology to allow a pilot to maintain torque on the basetube with both hands while instantly actuating a release is cheap, has been available since the introduction of the Dragonfly in 1991, and has absolutely no downsides. The people who have a good idea what they are doing in this sport accept nothing less. The vast majority, however, need to be protected from themselves and a culture which operates under the philosophy that noncompliant second and third rate equipment is acceptable because crisis situations are rare and can usually be mitigated by someone at the front end of the tow line.

While at least the concept - if not the practice - of being able to get off tow while maintaining control of the glider is universally accepted there is virtually no understanding that losing the tow at an inopportune moment can be every bit as lethal as not being able to terminate it.

Center of mass hang gliding towing towing was initiated in the UK three decades ago and was not widely accepted and implemented in the US and elsewhere for several years after that and hang gliding culture has never been been able to shake its genetic memory of the period prior during which it was ALWAYS safer to be off tow than on.

The combination of low altitude and high angle of attack is one of the most dangerous to which one can subject an aircraft. And an aircraft under normal tow tension will ALWAYS experience an abrupt and dramatic increase in angle of attack when a release is actuated or a weak link fails.

-
The weak link at the glider end must have a breaking strength that will break before the towline tension exceeds twice the weight of the hang glider pilot and glider combination.
-

While USHPA requires a tug to be able to generate a minimum of 250 pounds of thrust and has circulated an advisory warning of the lethality of releasing a low partially stalled glider, its failure to specify a MINIMUM allowable weak link strength renders these policy positions almost completely without substance.

Hang gliding has adopted a loop of a particular type of one millimeter line - 130 pound Cortland Greenspot Braided Dacron Trolling Line - installed on one end of a bridle as its universal standard weak link for solo gliders of any weight or size based on the untested assumption that this loop fails at 260 pounds. It, in fact, frequently fails in flight at a half to a quarter or less of that figure.

Weak link breaks occur with monotonous frequency for all but the lightest of gliders and resulting crashes are commonplace - though most, in no small part thanks to the low stall speeds, are relatively minor.

As hang gliding culture has convinced itself that these weak links have become the only acceptable option for some long forgotten rational reason, flight park operators, tug pilots, and event and competition organizers very commonly refuse to allow medium light gliders and up to use anything which puts them at anywhere close to a reliable 1.0 Gs - a figure I view as the absolute minimum for expectation of a safe and reliable tow.

-
The weak link at the tow plane end of the towline should break with a towline tension approximately 100lbs. greater than the glider end.
-

This point MUST NOT be any more of an OPTION in hang gliding than it is in sailplane towing. It is extremely dangerous for a hang glider to be trailing 250 feet of Spectra routed in front of his basetube following a front end weak link break at low altitude.

-
A weak link must be placed at both ends of the tow line.
-

Most tugs and virtually all gliders engage the tow line by means of a bridle which runs through a ring on the end of the tow line. Separation is typically achieved by releasing one end of the bridle which allows it to but does not guarantee that it will run through and clear the ring.

Weak links are typically installed on the ends of bridles rather than of tow lines. Unless weak links are installed at both ends of bridles the weak link is removed from the equation in the event of a bridle wrap. Thus introducing this failure mode was a formerly prescribed and almost universal practice and is still quite common today.

-
This release shall be operational with zero tow line force up to twice the rated breaking strength of the weak link.
-

By failing to define both a minimum allowable weak link rating and a maximum allowable required release actuation force this requirement is completely meaningless. Twenty-five pounds is a widely recognized top allowable required actuation force and releases should be able to function well under this limit at 2 Gs of tow line tension and 350 pounds of direct loading.

Gliders are almost universally equipped with extremely poorly designed releases which have been demonstrated on the ground and in the air to come nowhere close to any reasonable interpretation of the existing requirement.

-
Must give a complete discussion of aero tow vehicle operations including all normal and emergency procedures, and signals between aero tow pilot and glider pilot, in accordance with the USHPA Aero towing Guidelines.
-

The referenced Aerotowing Guidelines are not available at the USHPA website and apparently do not exist. Past editions I have archived from unofficial sources are rife with inconsistencies and dangerous misinformation.

Finally, even if the glider pilot takes the initiative to stray from the mainstream and properly equip himself and is ALLOWED to tow with a weak link of something approaching adequate strength, he still can, through no fault of his own, find himself in a situation in which his life is entirely dependent upon the tug pilot's understanding of equipment and emergency procedures.

As discussed above, unnecessary weak link failures must be regarded as potentially lethal events, not mildly annoying background noise as is now the case. The tug pilot must take seriously his responsibility of ensuring that his weak link not be the first to go.

And the tug pilot must understand that robbing the glider of the time, airspeed, power, and option to climb out of a dangerous situation should almost never be his first reaction to a crisis situation.

Situations in which Dragonflies find themselves in imminent danger as a consequence of having a glider on tow and out of position are somewhere between rare and nonexistent and when not jeopardized himself the tug pilot must take very seriously a decision to override the glider pilot's option to remain on tow. Unfortunately, due to inadequacies of training and failures of education, many tug pilots believe that there is no problem too large, serious, complicated, or inappropriate to be solved by an immediate squeeze of a release lever.

For many years I have tried to work within the community, culture, and organization of hang gliding to address these and other safety issues but have had little success beyond the conversion of a few isolated individuals. I believe the lack of a critical mass of understanding of the fundamental physics associated with towing within hang gliding which will prevent any significant improvement in our situation as a result of internal efforts. Conflict of interest issues may be a significant barrier as well.

Hang gliding in the United States is supposed to be primarily a self regulated aeronautical activity but over the course of the quarter century since the issuance of Exemption 4144 it has done a poor job of following even the bare minimum of its own hopelessly inadequate rules and the consequences of self regulation morphing into no regulation whatsoever have occasionally been catastrophic.

I feel that an outside review of the manner in which operations are being conducted would be the first step to helping improve the technology and safety of aerotowing to the long term benefit of all involved.

Thank you very much for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,
Tad Eareckson