The US Hawks should:

[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))?

That's a tough one. Can we get 'multiple choice' questions?

[TadEareckson]

Associated Press - 2003/09/24

A hang glider pilot will be tried for manslaughter after a tourist plunged 200 metres to her death during a tandem flight over a New Zealand alpine town, a court has ruled.

Stephen Parson, 52, of Canada, faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

Eleni Zeri, 23, a civil engineering graduate from Athens, died on March 29 after slipping from his hang glider near Queenstown on South Island.

The Queenstown District Court was told Parson had failed to attach Ms Zeri's harness to the glider.

01. Just after you've pled guilty to manslaughter charges because you failed to attach your passenger's harness to the glider.

Cragin Shelton - 2005/09/17

You are not hooked in until after the hang check.

George DePerrio
1926-1988
Mont Saint Pierre, Quebec
Advanced, 10 years experience
Vision

After completing his hang check, backed off from launch to wait for better conditions. Unhooked and forgot to hook up when he stepped back to launch.

02. Just before you've done the hang check and moved onto the ramp.

Rick Masters - 2011/10/19

At that moment, I would banish all concern about launching unhooked. I had taken care of it. It was done. It was out of my mind.

03. Just prior to the moment at which you banish all concern about launching unhooked and - because you've taken care of it and it's done - put out of your mind.

Sam Kellner - 2011/11/07

Preflight, Hangcheck, Know you're hooked in.

04. Just before you Preflight, Hangcheck, and Know you're hooked in.

Tommy Thompson - 2011/11/29

A hang check just prior to each launch is my routine.
What's my secret?

Know your ABC's and visually check as you say...

A = Already hooked in
B = Both hang loops
C - Carabiner locked

05. When you're about to go off Sauratown Mountain in North Carolina, have done a hang check just prior to launch, know you're already hooked in, have both hang loops in case your primary fails, and have your carabiner locked so it won't come open in flight but your helmet is strapped to your starboard cross spar JUST out of reach.

1991/09/19
Mark Kerns
41
Advanced
Airwave Magic IV
Wasatch State Park

Experienced pilot simply forgot to put legs through leg straps of cocoon harness. He could not get his foot into the boot after launch (which has saved other pilots), was able to hold on for several seconds, but slipped out of the harness and fell 200 feet. Died instantly.

06. When you're about to go off a mountain in the Wasatch Range in Utah, have done a hang check just prior to launch, know you're already hooked in, have both hang loops in case your primary fails, and have your carabiner locked so it won't come open in flight but have missed your leg loops.

bobk - 2011/11/19

If this is the top of your game, then you should pick another game that doesn't involve telling new pilots that they should be lifting their gliders into a turbulent jet stream just to verify something that they checked 10 seconds ago.

07. When you're lifting your glider into a turbulent jet stream just to verify something that you know you checked ten seconds ago.

Dave Hopkins - 2011/10/04

Also if we are not hooked in we should be aware that the glider has flown too high and we can let go of it before we get into the air or going to fast . I teach this on the training hill. we should let the glider fly off our shoulder and be very aware that the strap is tight . If the glider keeps going up let it go.

08. When you're halfway through your launch run and notice that your glider is getting a bit higher than usual.

Marc Fink - 1998/04/29

I ran aggressively, and when I was going very fast I leaned forward to prone out while gently easing out on the basetube. I remember thinking for a split second how unusual it was that I was sinking fast towards the ground, despite the tremendous speed I had. The next second was something of a blur...

09. When you're halfway through your launch run and notice that you're getting a bit lower than usual.

Mark Johnson - 2008/08/31

We all watch in horror not believing this was happening. Kunio was hanging on to the downtubes flying away from the mountain.

10. When you're hanging onto the downtubes flying away from the mountain.

William Olive - 2010/01/28

Phil Beck did this twice (or was that three times?) in a day at Hexham (New South Wales) one time while foot launch aerotow testing gliders. Of course, with a swag of gliders to test fly, Phil would unclip from the glider he'd just landed, then clip into the next one to be tested.

Except, at least twice, he didn't clip in.

Bridle goes above the bar, tension on the line makes it as strong as steel. The tug cannot stop and the glider immediately assumes a high AoA and climbs rapidly. The pilot has no pitch control and is lifted by the basetube rising with the lines. You have a pico second to decide to release before you are at 100' plus, and faced with no palatable alternatives. Phil was quick on the trigger...and lucky to boot.

Lessons learn't? Treat the glider and harness as 'the aircraft'. Do a proper hang check each and every time you front up to fly.

11. When you've spent your entire flying career conditioning yourself to believe that if you're in a harness you're connected to a glider.

Eric Hinrichs - 2011/05/13

I went to Chelan for the Nationals in '95 as a free flyer. They were requiring everyone to use the Australian method, and you were also not allowed to carry a glider without being hooked in.

This was different for me, I hook in and do a full hang check just behind launch right before I go. I was also taught to do a hooked in check right before starting my run, lifting or letting the wind lift the glider to feel the tug of the leg loops.

So I used their method and I'm hooked in, carrying my glider to launch and someone yells "dust devil!" Everyone around runs for their gliders (most of which are tied down,) and I'm left standing alone in the middle of the Butte with a huge monster wandering around. I heard later that it was well over 300' tall, and some saw lightning at the top. After that it was clear that no one is going to decide for me or deride me for my own safety methods, someone else's could have easily got me killed.

12. When you're at a launch controlled by religious zealots.

Davis Straub - 2005/01/01

Well, very simply we could make a new rule for competition. If you are seen in your harness but not hooked into your glider you are automatically disqualified.

13. When you're at a competition controlled by a total idiot.

bobk - 2011/11/09

Your 5 second time limit between hook-in check and launch is unreasonably short - especially when attached to the consequences that you've listed. This would preclude, for example, the "turn and look" hook-in check that Joe Greblo teaches because 5 seconds would easily elapse between that check and getting the glider back into position to launch.

14. Just prior to doing the "turn and look" hook-in check that Joe Greblo teaches.

Luen Miller - 1994/11

Just before launch he reached back to make sure his carabiner was locked. A "crosswind" blew through, his right wing lifted, and before he was able to react he was gusted sixty feet to the left side of launch into a pile of "nasty-looking rocks." He suffered a compound fracture (bone sticking out through the skin) of his upper right leg. "Rookie mistake cost me my job and my summer. I have a lot of medical bills and will be on crutches for about five months."

15. Just after doing the "turn and look" hook-in check that Joe Greblo teaches.

FormerFF - 2009/08/25
Roswell, Georgia

I'm not sure what you thought was going to happen to Alan's connection to the glider in the ten feet between where Gordon had hang checked him and where he launched.

16. When you haven't had an instructor hang check you ten feet before you've arrived at launch position.

Chris McKee - 2005/10/03

The sad thing to say is I caught Bill unhooked on launch at the Pulpit Fly-In and made him do a full hang check before I would wire him off.

I really hope this is a wake-up call to all of us old and new pilots alike and that you realize you are mortal. Spend more time preflighting and making sure you will take off and return to terra firma safely.

Mick Howard - 2010/11/06

I really hope this is a wake-up call. This could have been disastrous at any other flying site. Why wasn't a hang check performed? A hang check must become a ritual immediately before every launch.

Zack C - 2010/11/07

While Mick is right in that this should be a wake-up call, it's the second wake-up call we've had this year. I don't think the first one changed much, and this concerns me.

17. Just prior to everyone getting a serious wake-up call - or two.

Holly Korzilius - 2005/10/01 13:19:55

I don't have many details at this point, but I just got a call from Scott. Bill Priday launched from Whitwell without hooking in. Scott indicated there was about a hundred foot drop off from launch. Bill's status is unknown at this time. Please pray for him!

18. When you start praying that your flying buddy is gonna be OK and waiting for an update to come across the wire.

Holly Korzilius - 2005/10/01 13:38:40

Scott just informed me that Bill didn't make it.

19. Eighteen minutes and forty-five seconds later when you find out that prayers didn't do the trick - again.

Scott Wilkinson - 2005/10/02

I saw Bill launch. I watched him pick up his glider, answered his radio check, and watched him move up to launch. I saw him pick up his glider, yell clear, run, and drop from sight below the edge. I ran up to launch, along with several other people, just in time to see Bill's glider do a graceful hammerhead---fly straight up, almost back to launch. At that point I thought Bill was in the glider. Then glider fell off to the side, and I saw an empty control frame...a sight I'll never forget...and a sick feeling of dread filled my stomach.

20. When you see your flying buddy's glider reappear at launch without him.

Scott Wilkinson - 2005/10/05

We visited Steve Wendt yesterday, who was visibly choked up over Bill's death. For Steve, it all comes down to one thing: you've got to hook in. Period.

21. When you launch without being hooked in. Period.

Scott Wilkinson - 2005/10/05

For Steve, it all comes down to one thing: you've got to hook in. Period.

22. When you've got an instructor who tells you that for him, it all comes down to one thing: you've got to hook in. Period.

Scott Wilkinson - 2005/10/13

Steve Wendt (Bill's instructor) has already talked about instituting preflight hang checks (meaning literally getting down on the ground and hanging in your harness, just like you'd do in the mountains) for all of his students at the flight park - just to get them into the habit of doing it - even if they don't need to do it for a towed launch.

23. When your instructor hasn't gotten you in the habit of doing preflight hang checks - literally getting down on the ground and hanging in your harness.

Steve Kinsley - 2005/10/02

When Bob Gillisse got hurt I suggested that our local institution of the hang check is more the problem than the solution. I still believe that. It subverts the pilot's responsibility to perform a hook-in check.

Doug Hildreth - 1991/04

Werner Graf, a Long Beach, California pilot was vacationing in Switzerland on October 1990. He prepared to launch, but unhooked to adjust his camera.

24. When your instructor HAS gotten you in the habit of doing preflight hang checks - literally getting down on the ground and hanging in your harness.

Lauren Tjaden - 2005/10/02

He was really happy when we got Steve Wendt a cake celebrating his instructor of the year rating. Why? Bill was a nice guy. Was? How ridiculous. He should be here, with us. Isn't he here?

He landed so perfectly, every time. He told me how he had worked on his landings. He slammed the keel into the ground each one. He wanted a big margin of safety.

25. When there's a USHGA Instructor of the Year Certificate hanging on the wall in the office at your school.

Jim Rooney

I run off mountains strapped to complete strangers and giant kites... for a living.

26. When the complete stranger you've paid to strap himself to you and a giant kite doesn't.

The Press - 2006/03/15

However, he took off without attaching himself.

In a video, he was seen to hold on to the glider for about fifty meters before hitting power lines.

27. When the complete stranger you've paid to strap himself to you and the giant kite is clinging onto the giant kite's basetube and preventing you from controlling it and diving it and you into the powerlines.

Rooney and the passenger fell about fifteen meters to the ground.

28. After the complete stranger you've paid to strap himself to you and the giant kite, the giant kite, and you have hit the powerlines but before the complete stranger you've paid to strap himself to you and the giant kite, the giant kite, and you have finished falling about fifteen meters and hit the ground.

Doug Koch - 2007/10/24

A longtime pilot from Southern California and recently Las Vegas named Bill Floyd was seriously injured in a hang gliding accident last week. He launched unhooked while towing at a dry lake bed in Vegas.

Bill fell about twenty to thirty feet from his glider and hit the dirt so hard that he broke both feet at the ankles and drove his shin bones out the bottom of his feet. He also broke his hips and nose, along with other more minor injuries.

Bille Floyd - 2011/10/27

The day i crashed on that Foot launched TOW; i had hooked into the tow bridle And the hang loop for the harness.
THEN
the wind died, and Stayed dead for 10 min.
So i unhooked from the glider and sat on the bace-tube, but left the Bridle attached.

The Wind came back up and i picked up the glider & made a mental pre-launch check. Remembering that i had already hooked in previously --
i deleted the, "lift the glider" part to check for tension on the harness.
and signaled for the driver to GO !!

29. When you're part of a foot launch tow operation in which you and the crew are all too stupid to use the "lift the glider" part as the signal for the driver to GO !!

Doug Koch - 2007/10/22

Normally, the other two hang glider pilots that tow here (myself and another), use a tow cart.

This pilot used a standing start method, and I haven't been able to talk to the person assisting him, so I don't know what, if any, checks he performed.

30. When you're part of a foot launch tow operation in which you and the crew are all too stupid to use the "lift the glider" part as the signal for the driver to go AND the available tow cart.

I actually did have ONE MORE CHOICE in mind, but:

a) if I listed it people would either just stare at it uncomprehendingly and drool for several minutes or immediately start coming up with scores of idiot reasons why it would make the launch unacceptably dangerous; and

b) I've listed so many choices already that I had to go back and change the letters to numbers and I just hit a nice round one.

[Rick Masters]

I finally put Tad on ignore for the same reasons that I don't have time to read the Tale of Two Cities right now. While I like and admire Charles Dickens, I have to be in the mood to appreciate him.

So I thought I'd be able to get to the meat of this discussion. But with Tad's posts cut out, the discussion about launching safely mostly turned into a discussion about Tad.

Oh well, here's my two bits. You can't safely launch all hang gliders with tight straps so it's ridiculous to require it. What you do, if you are watching, is yell out if the idiot didn't hook in.

After training and watching and yelling, launching unhooked assumes a Darwinian aspect.

[TadEareckson]

Hey!!! Great approach!!!

1. Totally ignore what Tad is actually saying.

2. Just read other people's idiot interpretations and deliberate misrepresentations of what Tad is saying.

3. Then comment on what you think Tad is saying.

Oh well, here's my two bits.

We already have your two bits.

At that moment, I would banish all concern about launching unhooked. I had taken care of it. It was done. It was out of my mind.

Run through a procedure and from that point on - completely regardless of the time which subsequently elapses prior to launch - ASSUME YOU'RE HOOKED IN. That's even more moronic than commenting on what you think someone is saying based on other people's idiot interpretations and deliberate misrepresentations of what he's saying.

You can't safely launch all hang gliders with tight straps so it's ridiculous to require it.

Yeah. It is. THAT'S WHY I'VE NEVER ONCE IN MY LIFE SUGGESTED REQUIRING IT. But you wouldn't know that 'cause you're too goddam negligent and lazy to check out primary sources before running your mouth - so the lie just keeps getting amplified.

What I'm ACTUALLY saying is that we have a regulation which states:

With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.

which - by some odd coincidence - is precisely the same regulation under which everybody with a USHGA ticket has been flying and mostly ignoring but not objecting to for over thirty years.

What you do, if you are watching, is yell out if the idiot didn't hook in.

Yeah...

Mark Johnson - 2008/08/31

I stopped and looked and got my first glance at him. Then all hell broke loose. "He's unhooked, s***..." Guys yelling at him over the radio to throw his chute, "Kunio don't think, throw your chute throw your chute". We all watch in horror not believing this was happening.

...that's ALWAYS been a GREAT plan.

Rick Masters - 2011/10/27

Bob held on to his base tube all the way down from Plowshare. The impact split his skull and he suffered terribly until he died during the night, alone.

After training and watching and yelling, launching unhooked assumes a Darwinian aspect.

Your "idiot" "friend" died at age 23 in 1982. Has he got any surviving family members - parents, siblings, whatever - to whom I can forward your sentiments on him and the issue? I'd really like them to have the same feeling and level of respect for you that I do.

HE WASN'T TRAINED, RICK.

My sincere thanks to Carlos Miralles and Bill Dodson for teaching me the ONLY way.

NOTHING substitutes for a hang check immediately before take off. I know. I'm still here.

Hang Gliding - 1981/05

Just Doing a Hang Check is not Enough
Article and photos by George Whitehill

His training sucked as much as yours did. You've been lucky, he wasn't.

If ya really wanna improve the gene pool start shooting the goddam instructors. Somebody goes off a cliff without a glider you look to see whose name is on his card and send that person off the same cliff without a glider. We can start with Steve Wendt. Anybody see a problem with that approach?

[terryJm]

THANK YOU Bob, and Bill for exposing the TROLLS for what trash they write, give them enough room and they fall back in it every time! on to the next, tjm

[TadEareckson]

bobk - 2011/04/28

I've been having a good discussion with Tad Eareckson about hook in failures. The discussion has been mostly over the phone. Tad has some solid ideas about verifying hook in just prior to launch, and they're worth reading. Here's a link to some of his discussions on "KiteStrings":

http://kitestrings.prophpbb.com/topic9.html

Bill Cummings - 2011/11/21

NO DISAGREEMENT HERE.

Tad Eareckson - 2011/11/21

There has NEVER been a disagreement between Tad and Bill on this.

[TadEareckson]

OK, we've heard from Rick and Terry and I'm sensing that the readers with IQs ABOVE fifteen are having a little trouble pinging in on the "pass" response so I'll try a little hint...

Ridgerodent - 2011/10/24

OK- how many times does he need confirm that he is hooked in? And when would be the best time to make that conformation?

Brian McMahon - 2011/10/24

Once, just prior to launch.

Christian Williams - 2011/10/25

I agree with that statement.

What's more, I believe that all hooked-in checks prior to the last one before takeoff are a waste of time, not to say dangerous, because they build a sense of security which should not be built more than one instant before commitment to flight.

[TadEareckson]

bobk - 2011/11/24

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

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).

It's a one hundred percent, way south of useless, eighteen page pile o' CRAP.

WHENEVER someone dies in this stupid, useless manner it's for one reason and one reason only.

The Skytrek Operations Manual addresses the problem of distraction for pilots during the hang check:

"DO IT!! Do NOT be distracted by anything else going on at this point" (p. 13).

EXACTLY the same kind of off the scale stupidity as:

Rick Masters - 2011/10/19

At that moment, I would banish all concern about launching unhooked. I had taken care of it. It was done. It was out of my mind.

Sam Kellner - 2011/11/07

Preflight, Hangcheck, Know you're hooked in.

It's because of the adoption of some idiot procedure the "pilot" "in command" uses so he can assume that he (and/or his passenger) is hooked in from the point he performs it on.

Really makes ya wonder just how far in the Skytrek Operations Manual Steve read when right there on Page 13 it CLEARLY states that the pilot must do a hang check and not allow himself to be distracted. I wonder if they wrote their own manual or just got Steve Wendt to do it for them.

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.

Those of us with functional brains have never needed reminders of our human vulnerability to raise our fear that a similar thing could happen to each of us - particularly, in my case anyway, myself.

Christian Williams - 2011/10/25

What's more, I believe that all hooked-in checks prior to the last one before takeoff are a waste of time, not to say dangerous, because they build a sense of security which should not be built more than one instant before commitment to flight.

I wonder if there's any way we could get Associate Professor David O'Hare to dissect the brains of twenty or thirty "At that moment, I would banish all concern about launching unhooked. I had taken care of it. It was done. It was out of my mind." people to find the structural defects which compel them to take an insane pointless risk with each and every launch and try to get everyone else to follow their idiot leads and make life hell for people trying to fix the problem.