The US Hawks should:

[Bill Cummings]

Tad,
You address Bob but not on a Personal Message so I would like to make what I feel is a constructive criticism.

Some posts that you quote you later don’t stand behind when someone assumes that they have figured out what your position is and tries to hold you to it because they perceive a conflict with something you stated elsewhere.

Then you say/type that you had just posted a quote and didn’t say one way or the other what your position was on the subject.

You leave scores of quotes and interject unrelated comments like, even a fifth grader can figure that one out.

I have to agree with Bob that it is hard to figure out if you personally have come to a conclusion on many issues or is it your style to teach by answering a question with a question so that the student can arrive at their own “AHAA! moment?

Or is it that you are withholding your information to develop an appetite for knowledge that you hope to capitalize on when you publish a book of knowledge on line for some bucks?

Do you think that a 1.3 g weaklink for each pilot’s all up weight is sufficient for platform truck launching? (I do!)

I’m asking you and you alone. If I want anyone else to give me their opinion I will ask them.

A short and sweet answer to that direct question would go a long way for up and coming pilots to know if at the very least, two experienced tow pilots, you and I agree or not.
Of course they should not stop asking others about the same question even if we would agree. (which I feel will not be the case.)
Some clarity on your part would go very far with a lot of pilots. Clarity is not what I have been seeing lately.
Thank you!
Respectfully!
Bill C.

[TadEareckson]

Bill,

Lemme vent a little more and I'll get back to you.

---

One more thing, Bob...

Tad Eareckson - 2011/11/19

And the ACTUAL quote:

Tad Eareckson - 2011/10/24

Some people are physically incapable of lifting and tugging in light or nonexistent air. But EVERYBODY can do SOMETHING to check connection status within five or ten seconds of launch.

Tad's quote of himself may have been "AN" ACTUAL quote, but it wasn't "THE" ACTUAL quote that I was referring to in what he calls "The charge" above. Here's the ACTUAL quote that Tad didn't mention:

Lift and tug is MANDATORY *IF* you can physically do it - there's NO legitimate excuse for not doing it.

Tad's use of the wrong quote was deceptive because it made my original quote ("The charge"):

He wants to force everyone to do that.

appear to be inaccurate ... when it was not.

Here's the ENTIRE relevant quote with containing your "charge" IN CONTEXT as ORIGINALLY posted.

Tad Eareckson - 2011/06/05

1. Lift and tug is MANDATORY *IF* you can physically do it - there's NO legitimate excuse for not doing it. Somebody make a case otherwise.

2. Some glider/pilot/harness combos are problematic. There are lotsa other acceptable hook-in checks you can do that aren't as good but a HANG CHECK is NOT one of them.

Note the similarity between Item Two and the more recent quote I used to make my position clear and refute your characterization.

And, given that you were just babbling away misrepresenting my position with:

But that wasn't good enough for Tad. He wants to force everyone to do that.

and not even bothering to take a quote out of context to help make your case, that wasn't a bad match.

So how 'bout you start being REAL goddam careful about who you accuse of deception, cherry picking, and dishonesty and doing a disservice to "OUR" sport and goals.

And don't you think for one nanosecond that you get to speak for anybody other than YOU in defining what "OUR" goals are.

[TadEareckson]

You address Bob but not on a Personal Message...

No, I'm responding to things publicly which have been said publicly.

Some posts that you quote you later don't stand behind when someone assumes that they have figured out what your position is and tries to hold you to it because they perceive a conflict with something you stated elsewhere.

1. How 'bout an example?

2. Bob's been taking some of my quotes and posting them entirely - and, I believe, deliberately - out of context. So that can get a bit confusing.

3. Anybody who's confused about my position is free to ask me and I WILL respond - honestly and as accurately as I can.

4. There's stuff that I've written that I DON'T stand behind. If you're saying the same things you were twenty years ago that means that either you had everything right back then or you haven't learned anything.

Then you say/type that you had just posted a quote and didn't say one way or the other what your position was on the subject.

1. Ask me my position.

And/Or...

2. Check the math and reach your own position.

You leave scores of quotes and interject unrelated comments like, even a fifth grader can figure that one out.

OK.

...or is it your style to teach by answering a question with a question so that the student can arrive at their own "AHAA!" moment?

Quite often.

Or is it that you are withholding your information to develop an appetite for knowledge that you hope to capitalize on when you publish a book of knowledge on line for some bucks?

1. Find an example of me withholding information.

2. The book IS online.

http://kitestrings.prophpbb.com/

It's free. I've literally never made a penny - I've just poured untold thousands of hours into it to help people get things right.

Do you think that a 1.3 g weaklink for each pilot's all up weight is sufficient for platform truck launching? (I do!)

1. All up weight has nothing to do with weak links. The only thing that's important is the MAXIMUM CERTIFIED FLYING WEIGHT of your glider.

2. Not really. There's no reason not to go to 1.5 times the maximum weight for ANY flavor of towing - up to 2.0 is fine IF the releases, bridles, mountings are up to it. Zack's platform crowd all use about 600 pounds and they're doing fine.

A short and sweet answer to that direct question would go a long way for up and coming pilots to know if at the very least, two experienced tow pilots, you and I agree or not.

Our experience has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with it. It's a fifth grader issue. It's actually gonna be a lot easier for the fifth grader who hasn't been tainted by thirty years worth of crap about trying to use the weak link as a lockout protector or backup release.

Tost Flugzeuggeratebau

Weak links protect your aircraft against overloading.

If you can understand that you can understand that all the weak link does is break before something important and/or expensive does. And any fifth grader should be able to do that math.

Of course they should not stop asking others about the same question even if we would agree. (which I feel will not be the case.)

Oh yeah they should. You don't want them going any where NEAR an aerotow operation or anybody who's spent more than two or three minutes at one. Have them go to sailplane operations if they need other people to talk to.

7. INFALLIBLE WEAK LINK

The system must include a weak link which will infallibly and automatically release the glider from tow whenever the tow line tension exceeds the limit for safe operation.

That's ABSOLUTE RUBBISH.

Some clarity on your part would go very far with a lot of pilots.

It's not gonna help many pilots. Most towing nowadays is aero and we've allowed the idiot tug drivers to take control of the sport away from hang glider pilots.

Clarity is not what I have been seeing lately.

Keep asking clear questions.

Thank you!
Respectfully!

Ditto!

[Bill Cummings]

“Bob K,
There's a big difference - sometimes a life and death difference. His 2011/10/24 post mentions difficulty using lift-and-tug in "light or nonexistent air", but he doesn't want to recognize the difficulties with that technique in strong and dangerous air.”

“Tad E.
That's because in strong and dangerous air responsible pilots use adequate crew and anybody stupid enough to put himself in a position in which ten pounds of tension on the suspension will push him over the tipping point is a threat to himself,----”

Here is my idea of working with Tad’s statement of which the start I agree with.
“Tad,
“That's because in strong and dangerous air responsible pilots use adequate crew ---” NO DISAGREEMENT HERE.
“Tad,
“----and anybody stupid enough to put himself in a position in which ten pounds of tension on the suspension will push him over----”

BC--Now, #1) if it is okay to do the lift and tug with the wire crew in place,
Then # 2) lower the down tubes back onto the shoulders and yell “Clear!” then
#3) start the run with the nose held down with the shoulders, then I’m good with that.
Otherwise you get a weaker launch, strap tight, and considerably less pitch control then you do with the down tubes on your shoulders with the nose held lower.
Who agrees with Tad?
Who agrees with Bill?
Who has another idea?
Got to go --maybe more later maybe--

[Bill Cummings]

If I had two straight pin barrel releases, one on each shoulder, slipped on the snow stuffed each straight pin barrel release full of slush skidded into the air off of my chest then at altitude froze up the releases. Now what.
What is the activation pressure of a frozen straight pin barrel release?
Never tried one of yours but all the others at one time or other froze and failed to release.
The driver broke my less than 1.3 g weak link (220lbs for static/350 for platform) for me.
I didn’t stall tuck and tumble or loop. I just flew on.
A 2 g weak link will put you closer to a break stall or an uncompleted loop.
I'm sorry to hear that your teaching has removed a very important survival tool for pilots that can’t get released.
Edit: I make allowances during the whole tow up that the weak link can break at anytime and not put me in trouble.
That can mean, no down wind tows, not on a narrow road with trees to the side, no power lines off to one side or the other. etc.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Who agrees with Tad?
Who agrees with Bill?
Who has another idea?

Bill, I admire you for wading into this, so I'm going to just stand by what I've already written and see what kind of progress you can make without me making a worse mess of it.

But I will offer a few comments on the big picture of what we're trying to do here.

If we really want to provide an alternative to USHPA, then we're going to have to get insurance. The easiest way for us to get insurance is to simply adopt USHPA's ratings and policies verbatim. Because every time we change one punctuation mark, the insurance people are going to get squeamish because they don't know a hang check from a hang loop. So anything we do differently, we're going to have to justify.

Having said that, we do want to be BETTER than USHPA, so we can try to make changes where we really feel they're important and nearly universally acceptable to our members. If we can come up with a better hook-in methodology that's nearly universally acceptable, then I'll tend to support it. I was hoping to move us in that direction, but Tad seems to be digging in his heels on either mandatory lift and tug or a ridiculously short time-out interval like 1 to 5 seconds. So while I opened this discussion in the hopes of being able to accommodate Tad's endorsement of the "lift and tug" method without mandating it, I'm at the point where maybe we should leave the existing regulation as it is and move on. I feel it's sad that we haven't been able to agree on a better and more enforcible regulation, but I don't think we should be adopting a regulation that's both different from USHPA's and strongly debated within our own ranks. In other words, if we're not all in pretty strong solidarity with a particular change, then maybe we should go with what USHPA has already gotten approved through their own insurance carrier.

Personally, the hook-in issue is not my passion (other than ensuring that we do something safe and reasonable). One of my personal passions is open voting and accountability by whatever governing body ends up controlling US Hawks. That's where I think USHPA is the most broken and it has manifested itself in all kinds of secret ballots and in regulations being passed without us knowing how our own elected Directors have voted. To me that's the BIG issue because it's the basis for all other issues. Every stupid and dangerous and unfair thing that USHPA has done has been done through its Board and Officers. If the members don't have insight into which Board members and which Officers are doing those stupid, dangerous, and unfair things, then there's no way for the members to correct it. Now I'm hoping we'll find much more solidarity on that issue than we have on how to do a hook-in check.

Thanks again for wading in on this issue Bill. I appreciate your diplomatic efforts and skills.   

[TadEareckson]

Who agrees with Tad?
Who agrees with Bill?

There has NEVER been a disagreement between Tad and Bill on this. Tad has ALWAYS been perfectly fine with that. I'm sure I've done it that way myself in light air when I've been too lazy to hike it up. It's JUST PRIOR TO LAUNCH - just like it's said in the book for the past thirty years. It gets pilot and crew focused on and doing something about the biggest threat at the only time it matters.

If I had two straight pin barrel releases, one on each shoulder, slipped on the snow stuffed each straight pin barrel release full of slush skidded into the air off of my chest then at altitude froze up the releases.

01. I know some of your background from up in Frostbite Falls. I've retyped every word and punctuation mark you and Terry wrote in the Skyting newsletter series. NOBODY is so desperate for airtime nowadays that he tows up behind snowmobiles on frozen lakes. All people who tow wanna do is pin off and thermal. They don't even get out of bed on a Saturday morning if the ground is still gonna be moist at 10 AM. And here in Maryland the aerotowing season is OVER by about half past October and it's not worth going back out until May.

02. You are the ONLY person I've heard documenting slush in releases refreezing at altitude.

03. My shoulder mounted barrels are used for aero. Nobody in his right mind foot launches for aero. If you blow a launch off a dolly you very seldom are gonna be worried about anything jamming your releases 'cause it's almost a given that you're gonna be in the hospital at least overnight for observation.

04. A don't think I've ever seen ANY barrel release with so much as a grass stain on it.

05. Anybody who aerotows can fly two point with the primary release up around the hang point. Those NEVER come anywhere near contact with the surface (unless your landing is so rough you won't be flying again till next weekend anyway).

06. If I WERE flying in a slush environment making sure the releases were dry before takeoff would be a prominent item on my to do list.

07. But if you're happy flying 1.3 in slush... Fine, fly 1.3 in slush. That's not an unreasonable number - it's about twice what those scumbags at Ridgely had me flying for most of my years there.

08. But it's a HUGE dice roll to be going up relying on your ability to blow ANY weak link when your release freezes up.

09. You CANNOT PREDICT - despite what Donnell has deluded himself into believing - what kind of shape you're gonna be in after ANY weak link blows. If a weak link is capable of getting you airborne it's capable of killing you in a variety of interesting and spectacular ways when it blows. That's why God gave us basetubes and releases to avoid nasty situations and abort them before they get too ridiculous when we can't.

10. I don't EVER put someone up on equipment which allows the possibility of them not being able to release within about a second of making the decision. On aero I can put them up so they can release no matter what with both hands on the basetube at all times.

11. Saying you make allowances for weak link failure on takeoff on a glider such that you'll stay out of trouble is like saying you make allowances for engine failure on takeoff on a Cessna such that you'll stay out of trouble. Yes, in either case a good pilot should/does fly in a manner such that he's best prepared for worst case scenarios. But if everybody flies Cessnas which lose engines every third or fourth takeoffs you're gonna be seeing a lot more crashes and every now and then things are gonna line up such that someone who's doing everything right is gonna buy the farm.

12. I have no problem with people launching downwind from narrow roads next to powerlines and rows of trees - if that's the best that's available within responsible carbon footprint range. Yeah, there are serious risks involved - just like there are serious risks involved in launching off of cliffs in high winds. Risks can be safely managed. I'm just rabidly opposed to not managing risks as best as possible and even more rabidly opposed to deliberately building a dozen of them into the system the way the aero morons are so fond of doing.

[Free]

12. I have no problem with people launching downwind from narrow roads next to powerlines and rows of trees - if that's the best that's available within responsible carbon footprint range.

It's ok to risk death and destruction for recreation if it doesn't add an infinitesimal amount of CO2 into an already CO2 starved atmosphere?

It's a fifth grader issue. It's actually gonna be a lot easier[to understand] for the fifth grader who hasn't been tainted by thirty years worth of crap

Breaking news: By the time a child is in the fifth grade of a government indoctrination center they are already severely tainted with decades worth of crap. Drowning polar bears because CO2 is melting all the ice is one example. These ideas are injected and reinforced into these childrens minds from day one with tear jerking propaganda pics of cuddly bear cubs floating on a small piece of ice.. deadly CO2.. never mind the real toxins and genetically modified organisms that are the true enemies of mankind. 'Science knows best' ..but never question it.. never question physics.. it's what we say it is because we are the experts. Sometimes bowling balls can fall through steel and concrete at the speed of gravity and because the ocean is going to rise 30 ft. and drown us all, it all makes sense... because "we" are the experts.. but I digress..

Anyway, while I can agree with many points you make in towing and releases, throwing fifth grade logic into the mix as untainted doesn't fly... much as I wouldn't fly, "launching downwind from narrow roads next to powerlines and rows of trees." even if it is "the best that's available within responsible carbon footprint range."

Launching downwind on a narrow road with trees and powerlines is about as bad as surrendering sanity to the trumped up horrors of nature's building block, CO2. That really is fifth grade thinking and it takes away from your points where I might agree.

PS- edit: sorry this doesn't fit much with the intent of this discussion... whatever that is..

[Bob Kuczewski]

PS- edit: sorry this doesn't fit much with the intent of this discussion... whatever that is..

That's OK Warren. At least you make your point with a degree of courtesy and then don't belabor it for 10 pages while "disemboweling" anyone who responds with a different opinion.

Not that anyone else would ever do those things.   

[TadEareckson]

Nobody - 2011/11/15

Investigation of Fatal Hang Glider Accident at the Remarkables, Queenstown on 2003/03/29

http://www.nzhgpa.org.nz/docs/o_harepar ... report.pdf

bobk - 2011/11/24

That's a very good report on the March 2003 failure of a tandem pilot to hook-in his passenger (who fell to her death). The report discusses the factors leading up to the error of "omission" (failure to hook-in the passenger) and it also claims to deal with the decision process after the launch. I believe the first part (discussion of errors of omission) is helpful for understanding why we forget to do simple things (like turn off our headlights after a trip or leave the last original in a copying machine when the job is done). But the second part seems to be tacked on to the report without any real justification (since it's not clear from the report that there were better choices for the pilot than continuing to the planned landing area).

Unfortunately, there aren't any concrete solutions offered to keep this from repeating itself other than the knowledge that we are particularly susceptible to these errors of "omission" and we should try to be vigilant to keep them from happening (using checklists, stepping back from stressful situations, etc).

But it's a good report to read because it reminds us of our human vulnerability and raises (you're going to like this Tad) our fear that a similar thing could happen to each of us. A healthy level of fear is ... healthy.

Thanks for the post Nobody.

And when's the best time to max out that healthy level of fear, Bob (or anybody ('cause I don't think Bob is ever gonna really get this))?