[DarthVader]

The video of the dust devil the guy was not on the keel to hold it down, so as you notice on the video what is the first thing that comes up on the glider? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FDJTApk ... r_embedded

[Bill Cummings]

Al,
Thanks for the email with the attached scan on the story. The scan I could read but the print on the post above was too blurry to read once I “blew it up.”

I think you told me that it was in a Dense Pages book about a Tony Barton account about what to do to secure a hang glider in the event of a dust devil.

The picture shows a dust devil behind the glider and drifting to the right of the picture. (Moving from behind the glider to in front of the glider.)

Assuming (oh boy,) that the general wind is not too strong to have a hang glider set up in, it has been my experience that most dust devils will locally over power the general wind (prevailing wind of the day).

In the picture shown the dust devil behind the glider would be pulling the wind into the front of the glider. At this moment (instant) the pilot would be better positioned at the nose of the glider.

Where the pilot is, near the tail of the glider, would tend to pole vault the nose of the glider up and over the tail and toward the thermal. (Dust devil.)

Once the thermal centered over the glider most often they wind up standing on their nose and spin like a top if someone (or two) is/are hanging onto the nose.

I’ve seen this happen several times at Chelan Butte, Washington. It can be a captivating scene of determination, hopelessness, and fear. (If we could see the air we flew in, we wouldn’t! ---Unknown.)

I remember during the Women’s Worlds as a lane marshal I told Campbell Bowen (sp) he might want to unhook from his ridged wing for the dust devil behind him. He looked over his glider, slack jawed, at the dusty spectacle. Two pilots on the nose of a glider were being spun around and around on the ground while the glider was standing on it’s nose with the keel pointing straight up the core of the thermal.

If the dust devil was out in front of the glider, in your posted picture, then I would agree with the pilots position Al.

Pilot Steve Ford told me what worked for him. Stay on the nose when it goes tail up grab the king post, or keel if it’s a topless gliders, and hold down and run around and around with the spinning glider until the thermal dances away. A “Ballzy” move that I just don’t have the heart for.

From what I've seen if it was my glider I would try to save it and scream for help. If it was someone else’s glider I’d just say, “I couldn’t understand what you were screaming! You should speak more calmly next time.”

So I may or may not be right about this, Al, but perhaps this will open up the can and we can gain more input from the vast pool of experience out there.

[Pilgrim]

We were at the nationals at Colorado's finest foot launch site (which is actually in Utah) Dinosaur for the '96 (or was it the '98) nationals. A dust devil came into the set up area from behind. I was standing by a proto-type Airborne glider that was unattended. As the devil grabbed the glider from behind, I grabbed the nose wires. The glider's tail went straight into the air and then started to spin. Two or three revolutions later the glider settled gently back to the ground unharmed, me still holding the nose. At this point, the owner of the glider came running up thanking me largely for saving his glider. This was the same jerk who just 15 minutes earlier said he would have to kill me if he told me why his glider was a prototype. He blew his launch later and trashed the undercarriage of the glider.

Later that same day, a pilot on launch was sucked up by a devil and stuffed unceromoniously 50' up in a pine tree. Pilot was unhurt and climbed down. However, when the glider dislodged itself and fell to earth, an innocent by-stander was cold cocked when struck in the head by the leading edge. Go figure.

That was the same comp where some guy named Terry Reynolds showed up with a proto-type topless Predator that had fake wires and kingpost so its true topless identity was disguised.

Pilgrim