[Bill Cummings]

Bob,
To get used to it leave the back up nose safety rope on (can't launch) and also the bar safeties (can't launch.) and go down the runway at a steady launch speed, (not accelerating past the horn blow launch speed). Pull yourself forward and you will see that you can put slack in your nose release cord. That should convince you that with hand holds and pulling yourself forward you can hold yourself on to the truck and solidly into the launching yokes. I've done it hundreds of times.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hi Bill,

I really like that idea. It would be good to know that I was just taking a truck ride rather than a rocketship into the air.

That's the perfect approach for a "chicken hawk" like me.   

Thanks Bill.   

[TadEareckson]

...when Sam decided that he'd had enough?

1. Just what hang gliding needs - more presidents and forum "moderators" who get to define "enough".

2. Especially when eight sentences is considered to be way way WAY too much.

3. Anybody who has decided he has had enough of me can probably figure out some way to not read me. Sam's actually always been pretty skilled at that.

4. Help whom? Just 'cause Sam doesn't want me posting doesn't mean that someone else - quite possibly a member of the Southwest Texas club - can't and won't benefit.

5. Do you really have enough experience, background, competence, and/or interest in towing to determine what is and isn't helpful?

6. If you follow Kite Strings much - which you don't - you'll notice that there are a few people, some with substantial towing experience, who think what I have to say is helpful enough that they actually ask questions, read answers (sometimes very long ones), and ask more questions.

Do you really honestly believe that?

After having reviewed the post I made immediately prior to being asked to phuck off I'd hafta say goddam right I do.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Do you really have enough experience, background, competence, and/or interest in towing to determine what is and isn't helpful?

Tad, even the people who support you the most will tell you that your approach is alienating to most pilots. I don't need any experience in towing to determine that you that you shoot yourself in the foot with that approach.

Just 'cause Sam doesn't want me posting doesn't mean that someone else - quite possibly a member of the Southwest Texas club - can't and won't benefit.

Thanks for helping me point out another great feature of the US Hawks forum!!

There's a "Hot" button on the forum that looks like this:

Hot_Button_2011_08_19.png (2.03 KiB) Viewed 6010 times

If you click it, you'll get the active topics from the national forum and all local club forums. Here's an example:

Hot_Topics_2011_08_19.png (91.85 KiB) Viewed 6010 times

So even if you're banned from every local chapter of the US Hawks, you've still got a very good chance that the members of the Southwest Texas club (or any other club) can find what you've written. That's something that neither Jack nor Davis nor USHPA have provided. It's another innovation of the US Hawks Hang Gliding Association!!  

[TadEareckson]

Tad, even the people who support you the most will tell you that your approach is alienating to most pilots.

1. A PILOT is someone who understands his plane and equipment and flying and adheres to sane regulations and procedures. A PILOT would never use backup suspension, 130 pound Greenspot, or a Wallaby or bent pin release or assume that he was hooked in two seconds before launch.

2. The number of PILOTS in hang gliding - worldwide - is something in the very low double digits.

3. An actual PILOT has little to no need to listen to me.

4. The vast majority of people who fly hang gliders are stupid jocks hardwired with whatever crap was taught to them by whatever established stupid jocks initiated them into the cult. OF COURSE I'm gonna alienate virtually all of them - I'm asking them to THINK and not complimenting them on their excellent flare timing.

I don't need any experience in towing to determine that you that you shoot yourself in the foot with that approach.

My foot doesn't get hurt. Their faces get rearranged.

http://ozreport.com/pub/fingerlakesaccident.shtml

I'm perfectly OK with that.

...that you that you...

Glad to see that I'm that I'm not the only person who makes that kind that kind of mistake.

So even if you're banned from every local chapter of the US Hawks, you've still got a very good chance that the members of the Southwest Texas club (or any other club) can find what you've written.

Right up to the point at which US Hawks establishes a set of bylaws in which the chapter presidents constitute the board of directors and fifty-one percent of them act to remove all traces of my current and previous existence.

It's another innovation of the US Hawks Hang Gliding Association!!

Just like:

If you see something that's not being done correctly, then it's your duty to speak out. One big difference between the US Hawks and other organizations is that the US Hawks really does honor the free speech of its members. (Unless your free speech addresses something that's not being done correctly by a valued US Hawks chapter president, then it's your duty to look the other way, shut up, and stop rocking the boat.)

Great!!

[TadEareckson]

Sorry to hijack this thread...

Yeah, I suppose we could tolerate a little discussion about towing / foot launch from time to time.

...but maybe even Tad isn't fully 100% behind the second one like I am. I'm not sure.

Tad's also a hundred percent behind the second one - as long as the person is demonstrating that he's enough of a pilot to not unduly endanger himself or others. Then Tad isn't opposed to a little mutiny.

I witnessed this exact scenario where a pilot pulled in and the truck sped up and killed the pilot.

1. So can I put you down as agreeing that Item 2:

The tension in the towline must remain essentially constant throughout every phase of the towed flight.

of Doctor Hewett's list of the issues that need to be addressed for a safe tow flight is total crap?

2. Ten year old kids with kites and aerotowers without weak links do just fine without tension gauges - or, for the most part, a freakin' clue what the actual tension is.

3. I would SO LOVE to get as many details on that incident as possible (for my scrapbook).

It's really hard to compare since you can be doing both at the same time.

My second point in my 2011/08/15 01:45:16 UTC post.

Rod Hauser blew a launch at Mingus Mt., in '93.

1993/06/26

Bud Brown - 1992/06

Two tow manuals and a couple of towing guidelines are being reviewed by a towing subcommittee made up of Rod Hauser (foot launch specialist), Greg DeWolf (platform specialist) and Steve Flynn (aerotow specialist). The committee will be responsible for three guidelines, one for each launch technique. Coordination of the guidelines and creation of a Towing Instructor Certification Program will be handled by Chris Gagliano with help from Jerry Forburger and Dennis Pagen. Hopefully, the results will be communicated to us all in the magazine. Dennis has developed a new ICP outline with a section on Risk Management as it applies to free-flying. Sounds like a useful decision-making tool.

And ya wonder why...

There was a non flyer on his right wing...

Was that an issue?

Can we even use Rod's death to answer the question of which is safer towing or foot launching?

Given the fact that the glider BEHIND HIM scrubbed because of deteriorating conditions, I would say - no.

Same way the mangling of John Woiwode and deaths of Brad Anderson, Eric Aasletten, Robin Strid, and Shane Smith should be given zero consideration in a discussion about the safety of towing.

The Yellowstone rangers recover pieces of your body and the SD card from your camera shows a series of really good and progressively closer wide angle shots of a mother Grizzly and her two cubs. This incident in not a great example of why day hiking in a National Park is dangerous. (That scenario HAS played itself out before but it was back in the days of Kodachrome and I forget where.)

I did a platform tow where the release from the truck malfunctioned.

There is ZERO excuse for a malfunction like this. This is an easily engineered system.

1. The maximum load to which it can be subjected is pretty minimal.

2. It stays with the truck where it can be easily seen, checked, preflighted, tested.

Let's say that any type of truck nose release could freeze up or be bumped out of kilter for one reason or another and not work.

Then let's also say that any obviously damaged downtube can fold up in the course of any flight.

This speed is already enough to launch me without the towline and have enough maneuvering room to land even if the driver panics and hits the brake.

Get a different driver.

I'm pilot in command.

But...

When I say, "CLEAR!" the driver activates my nose release...

...you're giving control of what is at that stage the most critical element of your control system to your copilot who's busy piloting another quite different vehicle.

If the nose release should fail I keep my self forward, hold my hand holds and say, by radio, "STOP TRUCK! STOP TRUCK! STOP TRUCK!"

How much practice do you get with this procedure?

For all the different towing junk that's out there you can set up a procedure that will take into account a lot of the real world lack of standardization while we wait for the standardization to finally show up.

If we wait another twenty-five years for standardization to show up then the scumbags at Quest, Ridgely, and Lookout are gonna make sure that the towing junk at that time will look exactly like the towing junk we had twenty-five years ago.

It would be good to know that I was just taking a truck ride rather than a rocketship into the air.

Likewise when you're behind a Dragonfly on a launch dolly there's no mandate that you commit aviation - unless you're using the kind of equipment that the good people at Quest have been perfecting for twenty years. And even then there's a one in four chance that your Greenspot will blow.

[Bob Kuczewski]

So even if you're banned from every local chapter of the US Hawks, you've still got a very good chance that the members of the Southwest Texas club (or any other club) can find what you've written.

Right up to the point at which US Hawks establishes a set of bylaws in which the chapter presidents constitute the board of directors and fifty-one percent of them act to remove all traces of my current and previous existence.

The general pattern for social animals is that they're welcome within the group as long as they're contributing to the group in some way. I've asked you to help work on some towing standards and/or a towing book for the US Hawks. I've offered to help you with the technical aspects of producing it on line. Given your background, I believe that would be a major contribution to this organization and to the sport.

But instead, you just want to snipe at Sam because you feel he disrespected you at some point in the dim dark past because he said he didn't want to read your long posts. Well, guess what? I don't like reading your long posts either. They're full of foul language and death wishes aimed at everyone who you feel has ever slighted you. I think you need to grow a thicker skin and let the barbs bounce off of you. Focus on making things better rather than continually trying to right past wrongs. I started the US Hawks to do better than USHPA and to do better than Davis and Jack. You should put your energy toward writing a towing book that will set a new high water mark for the sport. It's not too late. How about if you give it a try?

[Free]

A real dictatorship is coming down your street. It's the camera mounted on a pole on the corner...

Tad, the engineer in you has not explained how steel core buildings can come down at the speed of gravity without a little help. I think the question is simpler to understand than the question of bent versus straight release pins.

The results of the outcome of release pin physics may amount to a few lives, the results and implications of the physics of those collapsed buildings has already destroyed millions of lives (millions more to come) and a true unaccountable dictatorship is being set up because of it. Getting kicked out of a hang gliding sandbox, argueably for being a bit obnoxious, is no match for the emerging dictatorship you work so hard to ignore.

Glenn Greenwald, covers the free speech on the internet issue as a real dictatorship grows with our expanding surveillance industry.. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/08/19/surveillance/index.html

..and where this is taking us..

The intensely angry "town hall" political protests from last August, though wildly misdirected at health care reform, gave a glimpse of the brewing societal anger and economic anxiety; even Tea Party politicians are now being angrily harangued by furious citizens over growing joblessness and loss of opportunity as Wall Street prospers and Endless Wars continue. This situation -- exploding wealth inequality combined with harsh austerity, little hope for improvement and a growing sense of irreversible national decline -- cannot possibly be sustained for long without some serious social unrest. As Yale Professor David Bromwich put it in his extraordinarily thorough analysis
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/symptoms-of-the-bushobama_b_930260.html

of the "continuities" in what he calls "the Bush-Obama presidency":


The usual turn from unsatisfying wars abroad to happier domestic conditions, however, no longer seems tenable. In these August days, Americans are rubbing their eyes, still wondering what has befallen us with the president’s "debt deal" -- a shifting of tectonic plates beneath the economy of a sort Dick Cheney might have dreamed of, but which Barack Obama and the House Republicans together brought to fruition. A redistribution of wealth and power more than three decades in the making has now been carved into the system and given the stamp of permanence.

Only a Democratic president, and only one associated in the public mind (however wrongly) with the fortunes of the poor, could have accomplished such a reversal with such sickening completeness.


Economic suffering and anxiety -- and anger over it and the flamboyant prosperity of the elites who caused it -- is only going to worsen. So, too, will the refusal of the Western citizenry to meekly accept their predicament. As that happens, who it is who controls the Internet and the flow of information and communications takes on greater importance. Those who are devoted to preserving the current system of prerogatives certainly know that, and that is what explains this obsession with expanding the Surveillance State and secrecy powers, maintaining control over the dissemination of information, and harshly punishing those who threaten it. That's also why there are few conflicts, if there are any, of greater import than this one.

Note Greenwald, makes the point, as I have, that the fake left wing President gets away with more than a fake right wing President could have in destroying the very base that bought into the fake 'hopey changey' brainwashing in the first place.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hi Warren,

Unfortunately, inaction is fueled by uncertainty.

Inaction is fueled by uncertainty as to whether or not there's a real problem.
Inaction is also fueled by uncertainty as to whether or not the problem can be solved at all.
And finally, inaction is fueled by uncertainty about the best course of action to take if there is a solvable problem.

To make matters worse, the uncertainty grows as the problem gets further from our own experience. That's when paths of trust are important.

Let me give you an example. I was at the USHPA Board Meeting where Lisa Tate refused to allow my proposed "Accountability Amendment" to be seconded. She simply said we would not discuss it and then moved on to other business. I also witnessed (first hand) when Dave Wills refused to allow any discussion of the Accountability Amendment during the Organization and Bylaws meeting. I have reported that to the pilot community over and over. The people who really know me (and trust me) have believed me. But people who don't really know me view even these first-hand accounts as questionable.

I think if people really knew credible sources close to them regarding USHPA or the twin towers, then that might make a difference. But just hearing conflicting reports leaves people filled with uncertainty ... and inaction.

I don't have an answer other than to do your best ... as I'm sure you are.

By the way, for the record, I do believe that the twin towers were brought down by terrorists who hijacked planes and flew them into those targets. I'm sorry if that doesn't help.

[TadEareckson]

Bob,

The general pattern for social animals...

1. Humans are also big heavy terrestrial monkeys who tend not to bounce very well from altitudes much over three or four feet and thus tend to be most complacent when lying on launch dollies - which they shouldn't.

2. Hang gliding is an extremely not social sport. From the time the monkey leaves the ramp or pins off from the line there's almost nothing any other flying monkey can do to help him. Therefore the social behaviors inherent in our species need to be heavily sublimated for hang gliding to work effectively - at least until they start getting some understanding of what they need to be doing.

...is that they're welcome within the group...

What's that they say about group intelligence? Take the IQ of the stupidest person in the group and divide it by the number of people in the group. Look at my farewell discussions on the Jack and Davis Shows if you have any doubts about that arithmetic.

...as long as they're contributing to the group in some way.

1. What's the group trying to accomplish? Getting as many monkeys as possible off the street and up in the air as quickly and with as little education as possible using whatever junk is most cheaply and readily available? Or establishing a base of competence and professionalism from which individuals representative of the rather uncommon variety of monkey with the requisite interest in and suitability for this game can be properly trained and equipped?

2. Competence and professionalism are gonna never gonna be valued in hang gliding any more than understandings of evolutionary biology and climatology are in Texas. And people who try to get those messages across are never gonna be welcome in a fairy tale and ignorance based culture.

I've asked you to help work on some towing standards...

And I've been telling you for six months that I did that two and a half years ago and that they're sitting over at:

http://www.energykitesystems.net/Lift/h ... index.html

where they're getting ignored by US Hawks almost as effectively as they were by USHGA and as USHGA ignores what little it itself has in the way of towing standards.

Have you read them? How 'bout the existing relevant USHGA SOPs? Towing Aloft? The Towing Aloft chapter of Performance Flying? The Skyting Newsletter series? Manned Kiting? The FAA's Glider Flying Handbook?

Given your background, I believe that would be a major contribution to this organization and to the sport.

As far as I can tell only one member of this organization - who didn't come here from Kite Strings - is reading what I've done so far. I'd like to see a little more bang for those bucks before another zillion hours of my life get flushed down the toilet by the Brotherhood of Hang Gliding.

But instead, you just want to snipe at Sam because you feel he disrespected you at some point in the dim dark past...

1. Yeah, WAY WAY back in the dim dark past of the spring of 2010 - when Archaeopteryx was the hottest thing in the sky.

2. And it's obviously only because I FEEL like I was treated with disrespect - not 'cause I actually WAS treated with disrespect...

Butch Pritchard - 2010/04/02

Tad that turd is getting back in the punch bowl.

...by a bunch of stupid Davis, Jack, and Peter Show douchebags.

3. And please try to get THIS through your skull...

Warren Narron

2009/02/16

Now Davis suppresses tow release information from Tad Eareckson on the Oz Report forum.

I call foul on Davis for being such a controlling jerk 'moderator' bully that just can't stand any free and open thought.

For whatever reason, Davis has a mental limitation that can't tolerate free thought. His actions are an impediment to the ongoing innovation and safety considerations of hang gliding.

This is a serious offense, in my opinion.

2011/02/09

Journalistic Conflict of Interest?

By a secret consensus vote of one, Davis Straub, ends another discussion on tow bridle safety in the "Oz Report" forum.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22660

"What can be learned from this "scooter" towing accident?"

Journalist? Davis Straub, fails to address a personal financial conflict of interest he may have in that discussion.

Straub sells a particular style of tow release different than that being discussed when the discussion was abruptly censored.

This, of course, is not the first time the 'journalist' has personally censored tow bridle/release mechanism discussions.

Pilot, Tad Eareckson, who has contributed many hours of research and development re: tow release bridles was previously censored and then banned by (journalist/entrepreneur) Davis Straub, also on the "Oz Report" forum.

Various other pilots have also been censored for reasons known only to (journalist) Davis Straub, in the past.

The interest of safety should be the number one priority for all pilots and these discussions should not be limited to the lowest common denominator of one self-interest entrepreneur that fails to disclose his personal conflicts of interest in these matters.

Davis Straub can't have it both ways.

Is Davis Straub really a journalist or is he merely a (self-interest) blogger who's personal income may be more important than the safety of other hang glider pilots?

Are Davis Straub's personal tow release sales the 'end of the line' for those of us that may want more information before placing our lives, literally, on the line?

It is said that the truth will set you free.
Will your tow bridle do the same?

This doesn't have shitt to do with me "feeling" disrespected. I get disrespected a few dozen times a day and scarcely notice. What you don't get was that Sam played a significant lowest common denominator role in helping Davis get another discussion on safe and sane equipment get shut down and a threat to him and his incompetence and duplicity silenced. And that bloody well IS "a serious offense".

4. About the only things in hang gliding that are in the dim dark past are uncertified gliders and frame towing.

Each and every one of these:

1979/12/31 - Jerome DuPrey
1981/01/18 - Dan Cudney
1982/06/20 - Tom Perfetti
1984/05/07 - John Shook
1990/07/05 - Eric Aasletten
1994/10/08 - Gerry Smith
2005/05/29 - Holly Korzilius
2005/09/03 - Jeremiah Thompson
2005/10/01 - Bill Priday
2007/10/18 - Bille Floyd
2008/04/10 - John Simon
2009/01/03 - Steve Elliot
2010/01/18 - Martin Apopot

happened YESTERDAY 'cause they were all known problems with EASY fixes that hang gliding absolutely REFUSES to implement.

...because he said he didn't want to read your long posts.

bulls***.

1. He SAID:

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

2. I'm pretty sure you've never bothered to actually read the discussion from some point in the dim dark past on which you're commenting.

3. If one's fifty-nine second attention span can't handle a sixty second long winded "explanation" that's fine. Just don't fuckin' waste my time by asking me a stupid fuckin' question, not reading the answer, and going on to make whatever stupid fuckin' comments you feel like on what you haven't bothered to read.

4. Also, if one has a fifty-nine second attention span which precludes one from reading sixty second long winded "explanations", one also doesn't have the attention span or time to be laughing out load, rolling one's eyes, having premature releases, and sending Hang Twos in wingovers low over houses off the sides of runways.

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

But when someone actually DOES that it gets characterized as just wanting to snipe at Sam because one feels he's disrespected him at some point in the dim dark past.

I don't like reading your long posts either.

Yeah, I noticed. Like:

http://kitestrings.prophpbb.com/topic9-40.html#p663

which demolished the imaginary horrors you predict will befall the foolish practitioners of the Rob Kells lift and tug technique for eliminating unhooked launches.

And you also failed to really address Steve's short version:

Bob, you're full of shitt. Go learn how to launch with a tight hang strap!

which is pretty much all there is to it.

And thus we fail to come to any solid, meaningful resolutions.

They're full of foul language...

1. All of them?

2. "Full"?

3. And I break out in a rash with just a sprinkling of Laughing Out Louds and Rolling Eyesses. But I manage to wade through it anyway.

4. But I don't hear you commenting on really dangerous language like:

What kind of person thinks like this? Absolutely no one I would ever respect, honor or have anything to do with. What a looser. This attitude alone undoes every single thing that guy ever tried to do that was worh while. So what do you have left? Worthlessness with worthless advice. Un f'_cking believable.

PS: I apologize in advance to the other folks on this site for the 14 page rant that is to come trying to rationalize this unbelievable statement. Good luck because I will not be buying that crap. HHPA was right on to dump this guy. He ain't no good for anything but screwing the pooch.

from this idiot.

...and death wishes aimed at everyone who you feel has ever slighted you.

bulls***. You give me one single quote to justify that statement. And after you fail maybe you could start worrying about the kind of language you find on Wallaby's website and in Towing Aloft that actually causes people to get killed.

I think you need to grow a thicker skin and let the barbs bounce off of you.

I can do rhinocerous hide and it will never again allow me to do the kind of flying I wanted to do or even associate with the people whose company I enjoyed for a couple of decades.

Focus on making things better rather than continually trying to right past wrongs.

1. These aren't "PAST" wrongs - these are present and ever and rapidly accelerating wrongs. This sport is all about keeping things as safe as possible on paper at the expense of keeping them deadly in the field.

2. And anybody who tries to do anything about it can count on getting his microphone cut - at a bare minimum.

I started the US Hawks to do better than USHPA and to do better than Davis and Jack.

And I'm the first participant in it to have one of his microphones cut.

You should put your energy toward writing a towing book that will set a new high water mark for the sport.

1. The high water mark for this sport was hit right after I got into it with the introduction of the Brooks Bridle and about the time establishment machinery started gearing up to keep all the good things from happening.

2. How is a 221 page book going to make any difference within a population of monkeys in which a 221 word "explanation" of a critical issue is almost universally considered to be too long winded to be worthy of the most cursory of skims?

Jason Dyer - 2010/03/28

Jeez sam, don't get him started or this thread will be 30 pages in no time.

This is the market.

3. From near the end of the 374 page Sacred Text of the current and long time highly praised monopoly force on the issue of hang glider towing:

Appendix III
Release Test Procedures
I - Load Testing

A - Load the release to 600 pounds straight away from its attachment (no sideways load). Upon repeated trials, the release should not fail, separate, jam, release on its own, or suffer any problem.

How is "Towing According To Tad" gonna be better effective at getting bent pin releases out of the air?

How 'bout this:

Bart Weghorst - 2011/02/25

I've had it once where the pin had bent inside the barrel from excessive tow force. My weaklink was still intact. The tug pilot's weaklink broke so I had the rope. I had to use two hands to get the pin out of the barrel.

No stress because I was high.

How well is that working?

The response always has been and always will be:

Diev Hart - 2011/07/14
Santa Cruz, California

I have had issues with them releasing under load. So I don't try to release it under a lot of load now. Solved my issue but I am not doing tandems.

outside of the half dozen or so people with functional brains in this sport. (And I hope I don't hafta remind you of what I saw on Dennis Pagen's shoulder the last time I saw him showing up at Ridgely.)

It's not too late.

It is for a few people I can think of - Shane Smith and Lemmy Lopez come to mind as recent examples.

How about if you give it a try?

How 'bout we start utilizing the stuff I've already made available first? The way Joe Street, Antoine, Zack, Al, Steve Nobody, and miguel are doing.

How 'bout we start standing behind the founding principles of this organization - even/especially when they start becoming politically inconvenient?

How 'bout I start getting a little more covering fire when the going gets a little rough and I'm entitled to / deserving of it?

Warren,

I'll get to your points when I have some more time.