[TadEareckson]

Discussion with Tad about Towing / Foot Launch

Let's not forget Rick, Sam, Bob, Pilgrim, miguel, Al, Bill, Zack, and anyone else who cares to join in.

And "Towing" doesn't mean not "Foot Launch".

There is such a thing as foot launch towing and it tends to combine the worst of what towing and slope launching have to offer. Robin Strid's decision to foot launch behind a Dragonfly was a big component of what got him killed.

And slope launch doesn't necessarily mean foot launch either. Chris Starbuck has been demonstrating that pretty definitively for several decades now - as well as punching very large holes in the argument that solid standup landing skills are essential for cross country flying.

I myself have been launched off the dunes fully proned out with my feet off the ground - and a couple of guys on my sidewires. Kinda blurs the line between towing and slope launching.

A launch from a PLATFORM on the edge of a cliff with crew in a 25 mile per hour wind has a whole lot more in common with a PLATFORM tow launch than it does with the kind of thing a student does to get airborne in light air on a training hill - the pilot's feet are mainly just there for show and can easily be dispensed with.

And a platform tow launch in a 25 mile per hour wind can be conducted with the truck's transmission in park.

It's a BIG mistake to define and think of hang gliders as foot launchable and landable aircraft and to foot launch and land them in a lot of circumstances in which foot launches and landings aren't necessary.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Bob asked:

Please let me know if you have any problem with that or if you'd like to suggest a better name for what this has become.

Tad replied:

the discussion has morphed and bounced around so much that you can probably just pick a few random words out of the dictionary to name it.

Bob picks "Discussion with Tad about Towing / Foot Launch"

Tad complains:

Let's not forget Rick, Sam, Bob, Pilgrim, miguel, Al, Bill, Zack, and anyone else who cares to join in.

And "Towing" doesn't mean not "Foot Launch".

There is such a thing as foot launch towing and it tends to combine the worst of what towing and slope launching have to offer. Robin Strid's decision to foot launch behind a Dragonfly was a big component of what got him killed.
...

[TadEareckson]

1. But Bob (probably) DIDN'T just pick a few random words out of the dictionary.

2. "Complains" is BOB'S characterization of what Tad said.

3. Tad was perfectly OK with "2011 US Nationals, Big Spring, Texas" - which, Tad strongly suspects, is now an extinct topic.

4. Any comment on the SUBSTANCE of what Tad said?

[TadEareckson]

Tad Eareckson - 2011/08/09

Two Dragonflies totaled, one driver (probably) badly injured, one driver killed. The one that was killed was not functioning as a tug pilot - or, in fact, any kind of pilot - when she was killed. The tow was safely enough over.

The story keeps changing but because the NTSB...

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief ... 5952&key=1

...is involved and USHGA and the Flight Park Mafia have lost control of the information flow we may be getting some real answers to this one.

So it's now pretty apparent that there was a major control system failure and Keavy WAS funtioning as an ultralight pilot as best she knew how.

But let's not forget that we have parachutes that are probably gonna work if deployed when our tugs and gliders are still under some vestige of control. I'm pretty sure that Keavy would've been OK on this one if she had pulled the handle at almost any altitude and that Bill Bennett and Mike Del Signore could have also come out smelling like roses if they had given up on their losing battle with the tug driver at a hundred feet and thought silk.

[miguel]

Tad Eareckson - 2011/08/09


So it's now pretty apparent that there was a major control system failure and Keavy WAS funtioning as an ultralight pilot as best she knew how.

NTSB says: "Examination of the airplane did not reveal any preimpact failures or anomalies with the airplane's engine or flight control system."

How is it pretty apparent that a major control system failed?

[TadEareckson]

The examination may not have (yet) REVEALED any anomalies but - unless she suddenly experienced a really nasty LSD flashback - it's pretty hard to explain what was reported any other way. And that plane has some problems and some history.

That's my call unless/until something better comes along. I've also made a few comments at:

http://kitestrings.prophpbb.com/post670.html#p670

[Bill Cummings]

I wish she would have fired off the chute! I hope the NTSB took the chute with them for inspection.

[TadEareckson]

But I doubt it would've even occurred to her. We tend not to think silk when we're that low and fighting for control. That's something we need to be trained or train ourselves to do - and Ridgely has always operated on best case scenario assumptions.

They won't find anything wrong with the parachute.

[TadEareckson]

Steve - 2011/07/21

>
Do Tad's words dilute his message?
<

No.

Complicated? 99 percent of this stuff a ten year old could figure out in a day or two.

Bob Kuczewski - 2011/08/12

Zack and Pilgrim,

First of all, thanks for signing up and thanks for posting.

My goal here is to actually build a better organization than USHPA to support the sport of hang gliding. I can see that we've got a long ways to go on that goal!!!

But one of the things that will make us better is being able to better integrate people like Tad who have a lot to offer, but are difficult to deal with. I view Tad as somewhat of a "community project", and any help you can offer in that regard would be greatly appreciated.

Zack and Pilgrim...

What an odd grouping of individuals.

First of all, thanks for signing up and thanks for posting.

Yes and no.

But one of the things that will make us better is being able to better integrate people like Tad who have a lot to offer, but are difficult to deal with.

1. The fact that someone like Tad can have a lot to offer in a forty year old sport ninety-nine percent of which CAN be figured out by a ten-year-old in a day or two means that there is something fundamentally and MASSIVELY wrong with hang gliding.

2. And that's really all that makes people like Tad hard to integrate and deal with.

I view Tad as somewhat of a "community project", and any help you can offer in that regard would be greatly appreciated.

Stay in conversations and respond to points until resolutions based on ten year old kid logic are reached. (Note that some of this stuff will require ten year old kid level attention spans.)

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24691

Zack's post and the response to it.

Right now things here are looking a lot like they do on The Davis Show.

[TadEareckson]

What will keep the US Hawks from becoming another USHPA or HGAA?

You will ... hopefully. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Everyone has to do their part once in a while.

And be prepared to do it alone.

If you see something that's not being done correctly, then it's your duty to speak out.

FYI: You're making Sam's decision to ban you from the SW Texas forum look better all the time.

And I now see that when someone "Searches TadEareckson's posts" TadEareckson's SW Texas forum posts are no longer to be found. How convenient!

One big difference between the US Hawks and other organizations is that the US Hawks really does honor the free speech of its members.

As long as your free speech isn't critical of the practices of other members and...

I'm asking you to stop using words that can't be used during prime-time broadcast television.

...would be approved by the FCC (and Jerry Falwell) for prime-time broadcast television (although promoting practices, operations, schools, and instructors likely to get people killed is perfectly OK).

Will the US Hawks try to replace USHPA or the HGAA?

No. I started the HGAA because I wanted pilots to have choices. Eliminating USHPA (or the HGAA) would reduce our choices and that's never been my goal. Pilots who like USHPA should have USHPA.

Rock solid and becoming more so with each passing hour.

Pilots who like the HGAA should have the HGAA.

Dead as the Dodo.

And pilots who like the US Hawks should have the US Hawks. As I said when founding the HGAA, more choices gives us a better chance of each pilot finding an organization that they like. Hopefully those organizations (USHPA, HGAA, US Hawks) will all work together to make our sport better.

Does ANYBODY still think the USHPA or SGAA has the slightest interest in doing that?

They each appeal to different kinds of pilots and that's likely to give us more total pilots participating in our national organizations.

Of the people who fly hang gliders only a microscopic percentage are pilots.

Win. Win. Win. I hope the US Hawks' relationships with USHPA and the HGAA will be positive.

I hope the precise opposite.

How will the US Hawks try to be different from USHPA or the HGAA?

The US Hawks will try to be more of a grass roots organization - more like the start of hang gliding.

At its start hang gliding was saturated with developers, experimenters, and innovators. Now it's almost entirely stupid clones who've had everything - including large servings of crap - handed to them on silver platters and have no concept of evolution and no interest in understanding why things are as they are now. We shouldn't be expecting much.

There's nothing wrong with the strong central control exhibited by other organizations...

And US Hawks which just celebrated its first birthday as a dictatorship.

...but the US Hawks will appeal to pilots who want more local control...

By local dictators.

...and greater personal participation in decision making.

Good luck.

We believe that good decisions sometimes require a significant effort to dig into the facts.

Sam Kellner - 2010/03/28

Yeah, I don't even read all of those long winded "explanations".

Unless that effort requires more than sixty seconds of reading and thinking.

Sometimes arguments are heated, and that's not something to be feared or rejected. That's the process - painful or not - that leads to better decisions.

Sam Kellner - 2011/08/08

Let's promote the HG brotherhood. Let's respect the forum and BobK.

Unless they create disharmony affecting the Hang Gliding Brotherhood, the Forum, and its Leader.

Petr - 2011/07/25

It is now only a little more than a week ago that I met Keavy at Ridgely and took an early morning tandem flight with Adam, being towed up behind her small plane. After a couple of years, returning to a hang glider for what I though would be one flight was really exciting and I was happy to see that my old HG flying instincts were coming back. Nevertheless, what really changed my mind so that I signed up for more after landing was the good vibe I got from people at Highlands, the sense of camaraderie, joy of flying and professionalism that exuded from all of them.

Camaraderie - surefire ticket to professionalism and competence. The Highland Aerosports model is DEFINITELY the one we wanna be shooting for. And if you need any tips on dealing with threats to camaraderie I can't recommend a better authority than Adam Elchin.