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Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974
"Never take your hands off the bar." - Tom Peghiny
And Peter's idiot response:
2011/11/29
Never... another big word that's meaningless in the real world, like Always.
And Donnell's insane rationalization:
Donnell Hewett - 1981/10
Sometimes I am asked if a more conventional release mechanism would be preferred. Specifically one wonders whether it would be wiser to have a release lever right there by the pilot's hand rather than located on his abdomen. Well, yes, it is true that a conventional hand release would be quicker to release than a body release, but in a typical emergency situation, the pilot's hand release is seldom located at the right spot on the control bar to effectively initiate the release, and in a truly panic situation, it is much easier for a person to find a release on his own body than at some specific location on the control bar. Furthermore, it would seem that a single release on the body would be as easy to operate as the two separate releases on a conventional system. The body release also frees the pilot to move his hands anywhere over the control bar and to change from prone to erect flying or vice versa.
His insanely dangerous bridle/release system isn't engineered to allow the pilot to release with both hands on the basetube - like everybody before could - so he decides that that's not an important element. And - as if that weren't enough - he decides that it's actually MUCH SAFER to be grabbing a panic snap sleeve at one's belly rather than squeezing a lever or two on the basetube when the s*** hits the fan.
And it doesn't take too long before...
Donnell Hewett - 1983/03
HOW TO BREAK THE OTHER ARM
You will recall from Skyting No.1 that I broke my left arm in a skyting related accident. Well, you're not going to believe this, but I've done gone and done it again, except this time it's my right arm. Yes, the champion of safe towing techniques, yours truly, the one who says skyting is the safest way to tow hang gliders, has just broken his other arm in a skyting related accident.
In fact I've got a new name, it's "Crash Hewett". My friends ask me, "Donnell, what is it going to convince you to stop hang gliding?" I reply, "Enough already, I'm convinced. I'm going to stop hang gliding at least for the next six months."
DESCRIPTION
The first question someone asks when they see my arm in a cast is "How did it happen?" Well my family (my wife Helen and my two girls Tahnya and Tammi) and one crew member (Mike Greene) went out to Padre Island to do some flying. The winds were strong but smooth blowing at about 15-mph and every once in a while, getting up to around 20-mph.
We set up the glider and I did some ground handling on the 500 foot towline attached to the van. My ground handling ability had improved significantly since I first tried to ground the Gemini, (see Skyting No. 7). Apparently I was finally learning to control this glider and to get it to do what I wanted it to do. During this ground handling exercise, it soon became obvious there was not enough wind to kite. In order to get the glider airborne, we were going to have to tow it.
My wife and girls went over to the van to get it ready to tow and, while Mike and I were waiting for the conditions to get just right, the wind picked up. If fact, it became strong enough to blow Mike's cap off his head. I told him to go ahead and get his cap and that I would hold the glider until he got back. But as soon as he left, I noticed that the wind speed seemed to pick up even more and I thought that this surely was enough wind to kite in, so I decided that I would go ahead and take-off.
Instead of holding the nose down as I had promised, I picked up the glider, lifted up on the control bar and let the glider start to climb. It climbed about 3 ft and then apparently stalled. The left wing dropped down and hit the sand and of course, at that point, I no longer had any control over the situation. The wind continued to lift the high wing until I was looking straight down the other wing toward the ground 25 ft below. I then came crashing down on top of the glider as it continued to roll upside down.
Needless to say, I hit pretty hard, but the glider took much of the impact and the sand on the beach was at least somewhat forgiving. Nevertheless, I broke my arm just below the shoulder. Fortunately, no other damage was done except for the glider. There I broke one leading edge, both down tubes, the forward keel, and several battens.
...and let the glider start to climb.
I'm guessing that he has his hands on the downtubes but he could've easily launched from the basetube or immediately transferred as the glider floated. And, in fact, he may have.
It climbed about 3 ft and then apparently stalled.
So far - BFD. That's pretty much how people intentionally land gliders all the time.
The left wing dropped down and hit the sand and of course, at that point, I no longer had any control over the situation.
Well DUH! OF COURSE he no longer has any control over the situation 'cause he's got the the goddam release actuator at his belly where he has NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER of getting to it when he ACTUALLY NEEDS TO while he's fighting for whatever control he can get - despite what it says in that lunatic paragraph in the 1981/10 Skyting newsletter issue.
All he needs to do is squeeze the goddam lever that he doesn't have on the basetube and release the lunatic two to one bridle or a sane one to one bridle - which he could've had - from the keel and he can start playing again. But instead...
British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association Technical Manual - 2003/04
On tow the Pilot in Command must have his hand actually on the release at all times. 'Near' the release is not close enough! When you have two hands completely full of locked-out glider, taking one off to go looking for the release guarantees that your situation is going to get worse before it gets better.
And now it IS a BFD.
And then he's got this mostly lunatic six paragraph analysis of the incident in which it never once begins to dawn on him that maybe Tom Peghiny and everyone else who had been towing the previous decade weren't totally clueless.
Roger Coxon - 1983/05
Reading about accidents in Skyting is not my idea of fun. In fact, I hate it. Especially when some of the accidents might have been avoided if I'd written this earlier. So all of you safety conscious Skyters and potential Skyters listen up.
First, a new Skyting Law: The pilot should at all times be able to, without fumbling, positively release the bridle. No offense, Donnell, but the idea of reaching for the release on my stomach while in some weird attitude doesn't appeal to me. If Rich Pfeiffer and his friends had used my system on their Skyting system, when the pilot lost the control bar on launch, he would have been released immediately and dumped the nose. He would then have cussed me as he bought two new down tubes, rather than cussing Skyting on the way to the hospital.
My release system has a loop around my wrist at all times, requiring only a quick tug to release the top, with the bottom following on auto-release.
And then fast forward another eleven years...
1996/04/28
Frank Sauber
68
Novice, 17 years, but "still low airtime", tow sign-off on a platform
Taylor Farm Training Hill, Fredericksburg, Virginia
Pacific Airwave Formula
Lockout on tow?
Downwind stall?
"Massive internal"
Glider damage:
Unknown
The pilot and a tow operator were using an experimental stationary winch system, reportedly utilizing a motorcycle engine. On the first tow a bicycle grip release was used and three tries were required before the glider released.
On the second tow a string three-ring circus was used. The pilot also said that he wanted to remain lower. "At 50 feet Frank got into a left turn for reasons unknown. The operator thinks that Frank may have been reaching for the release. The turn went uncorrected until Frank was 180 degrees from his original flight path." The winch operator does not believe the glider locked out. At some point in the turn the tow operator reduced power on the winch.
The glider impacted the ground nose first. After attempts to revive the pilot failed, the tow operator went for help. The pilot was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.
The above information has been assembled from second and third-hand reports. An official accident report on this incident has not yet been received.
The operator thinks that Frank may have been reaching for the release. The turn went uncorrected until Frank was 180 degrees from his original flight path."
Sound familiar Donnell? I had put one HELL of a lot of work into that guy to get him a very solid Two and all it took was a couple of scooter tows with this clueless attitude that what was 1974 common sense has ever since been worthy of no consideration whatsoever.
(I was also the one who Santos had previously crashed when he conned me into guinea pigging his tow system. And I also did the postmortem on the Formula - there was massive damage done to it as well.)
On the first tow a bicycle grip release was used and three tries were required before the glider released.
axo - 2009/06/20
Wallaby Ranch
But I have seen others fail twice and one of them was during one of my training tandems. I just kept hitting the brake lever for a few seconds in WTF mode, and the instructor used the barrel release.
Thank you very much, Malcolm.
Jim Rooney - 2011/08/25
See, the thing is... "we", the people that work at and run aerotow parks, have a long track record.
This stuff isn't new, and has been slowly refined over decades.
We have done quite literally hundreds of thousands of tows.
We know what we're doing.
Sure "there's always room for improvement", but you have to realize the depth of experience you're dealing with here.
There isn't going to be some "oh gee, why didn't I think of that?" moment. The obvious answers have already been explored... at length.
It's no mystery.
It's only a mystery why people choose to reinvent the wheel when we've got a proven system that works.
Yes indeed. A long TRACK record. If only you despicable scumbags had the long PRISON records you so richly deserve.
Don Hewett - 1996/11
I was shocked to learn from the August issue of ReelNews that five of the six fatalities so far this year were towing accidents!
Yeah. Shocked! Shocked!!
One of the pilots killed was Frank Sauber, a "very cautious flyer" whose advancement in the sport was based on a repetitive and laborious flight regimen."
Yeah, tell me about it. I was the guy carrying his Mark IV 17 up the hill for him a couple dozen times a weekend.
The last two pilots killed were Region 9 Director Bill Bennett, and a certified instructor, Mike DelSignore. These two pilots, killed while tandem aerotowing in Ohio, were among the most respected, experienced and competent tow pilots in the world.
Yeah, I went to Bill's funeral too that flying season.
The fact that such cautious and competent pilots could be killed while towing, and the fact that towing accounts for more than 80% of the hang gliding fatalities reported so far this year, prompted Vic Powell to write an article in the above mentioned issue of ReelNews concluding that, "The wall writing suggests that towing weight-shift gliders is experimental. People who tow should know that they are functioning as test pilots."
No, they're actually NOT.
Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
by Daniel F. Poynter
1974
"Never take your hands off the bar." - Tom Peghiny
"A bad flyer won't hurt a pin man but a bad pin man can kill a flyer." - Bill Bennett
"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release." - Richard Johnson
Three people died that year in my neck of the woods primarily 'cause Donnell convinced everybody that those issues were backwards - and they WEREN'T and AREN'T.
And it was almost four 'cause when the bad pin man is driving a tug he can get himself killed too - and he damn near did on that one.
But I digress...
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.
Bull's-eye. Back to the grip on reality hang gliding had in 1974.
But we've still got most of our feet mired in Mister USHGA Safety Award brand lunacy...
Peter Birren - 2011/11/29
I guess you don't use radios. Kinda hard to be understood with a mouth full of marbles.
...'cause in Skyting radios are required but releases which don't result in unplanned semi-loops at maybe two hundred, maybe fifty feet, are of no value whatsoever.
So you wouldn't have been ANY better off if you could've blown tow either by sliding your hand an inch or two inboard or just twisting your grip on the basetube?
That's about the size of it.
bulls***. You have the SLIGHTEST CLUE how many people get killed because of irresponsible negligent statements like that? Hop in the time machine and give Donnell and Frank Linknives instead of the panic snaps and three-string they were using. Donnell's arm gets just as broken and Frank gets just as killed 'cause the problem wasn't that the release mechanisms didn't or wouldn't have worked but that THEY COULDN'T GET TO THEM WHEN THEY NEEDED TO fast enough and without losing what control of their gliders they had left.
And you, Peter, have done NOTHING to get those problems fixed and, in fact, you're just one more giant pain in the a** obstacle to people who are trying to make a difference for the better.
Steve Kinsley, on the other hand, made a MAJOR contribution with his bite controlled multi-string aerotow release which the scumbags at Quest, Manquin, Ridgely, Lookout, and everywhere else elected to ignore at the cost of a fair amount of needless death and destruction. It's OBSCENE that somebody like you has a safety award and his contribution gets suppressed and ridiculed.
