I'm sorry Tad, but Rob McKenzie is one of the top instructors that I've met.
Exactly. That's precisely why I will not recommend that my nephew - or anybody's nephew, or niece - go into hang gliding.
Rob is pointing out an important aspect of the problem when he mentions that routine leads to boredom.
1. Rob, who apparently has never once done or made the tiniest effort to comply with or implement this, I will say, most important and critical of anything in USHGA's SOPs regulating pilot proficiency, procedures, conduct is speculating that this "problem" exists without ONE MOLECULE'S worth of data, supporting evidence, or vague indication.
2. Aviation is a REALLY crappy pursuit for people who have issues with routine and boredom.
Hang Gliding - 2005/12
Master's Tips
Pre-Flight, Distractions, and Hooking In
Rob Kells
Two of the most dangerous, yet easily preventable, mistakes in hang gliding are taking off with an improperly assembled aircraft and launching without hooking in.
Accidents of this type usually involve a distraction of some kind to the pilot's normal pre-flight routine. Be it a camera mounted on the glider, a film crew, radio, new instrument, changing weather conditions, or a contest, the pilot is usually distracted by something different that catches his attention and contributes to her or him making a serious mistake.
A Comprehensive Pre-Flight Check
Most test flights we do at the factory are on production or prototype gliders that have never been flown before. It's essential that a complete and thorough preflight be conducted to ensure the glider is properly assembled. I pre-flight a hang glider the same way I was taught to pre-flight an airplane: Start at the nose, check the center section, and then work around the glider in a consistent manner. My preflight covers every assembly, cable, tube, nut, bolt, pin, safety ring, strap, zipper, Mylar insert, sprog, washout strut, nose cone and stitch on the glider. I personally believe that it is very important to actually touch each item as I check it. If interrupted by someone or something during the pre-flight, I go back to the beginning and start again.
How can you possibly IMAGINE anything more routine, rote, tedious, boring, reactive, totally devoid of true thinking than that?
Especially after you've just finished stuffing thirty-some battens.
Especially after you've done this six billion times before for five billion different gliders four out of five days of your life for the past thirty years with little to no evidence that running through this drill is making any difference.
But Kells has never needed to be scraped off the side of the bluff and have his ticker rebooted the way an energetic free thinker like Bille Floyd has.
Ridge soaring is mind numbingly boring after about Hang 2.5. This is why people are willing to risk and often succeed in killing themselves doing aerobatics.
Thermalling is boring. You hafta force yourself - sometimes for hours - to think of NOTHING beyond visualizing the edges and lift profile of your little column and adjusting your bank angle to maximize your climb. Think about anything else for more than a second or two and you stand a good chance of getting dumped off the side. I've got a theory that really stupid people tend to make really excellent XC competitors because they're pushing their brains to the red lines at this level and have neither the reserve processing power nor inclination to become distracted thinking about how and why Robin was killed on launch yesterday.
I used this routine, non negotiable, unvarying, boring launch sequence procedure for decades but, nevertheless, was NEVER once bored but rather ALWAYS scared. So, for this practitioner, McKenzie's take is pure unadulterated bulls***.
Hooked In, Or Not?
Following a recent fatal accident caused by the pilot launching unhooked, there has been a discussion on how to guarantee that you are hooked in. The two main methods are:
1. Always do a hang check before launch, and/or
2. Always hook your harness into the glider before you get into the harness.
Interestingly, NEITHER of these methods GUARANTEES that you will not launch unhooked some day. Let's add a third one:
3. Always lift the glider vertically and feel the tug on the leg straps when the harness mains go tight, just before you start your launch run. I always use this test.
A hang check seems to be a very reasonable way to ensure that you are hooked in, your lines are straight, and that you are the proper distance from the base bar. However, it does not ensure that you are in your leg loops. I know most pilots include the leg loops as part of their hang check, but remember the point about distractions. Several pilots have launched unhooked after doing a hang check because they were distracted and unhooked from the glider, and then, remembering having done a hang check earlier, they ran off the hill unhooked. If you unhook for any reason after your hang check, and a hang check is your way to be sure you are hooked in, you must always do another hang check! In some conditions, though, it's difficult to do a hang check, e.g. if you are the last pilot to launch.
"Knowing" that if you are in your harness you must be hooked in, means that if something comes up that causes you to unhook for any reason, you are actually in greater danger of thinking you are hooked in when you are not. This happened to a pilot who used the Oz Method for several years and then went to the training hill for some practice flights. He unhooked from the glider to carry it up the hill. At the top, sitting under the glider with his harness on, he picked up the glider and launched unhooked. Fortunately he was not hurt... but I bet he was very surprised.
My partners (Steve Pearson and Mike Meier) and I have over 25,000 hang glider flights between us and have managed (so far) to have hooked in every time. I also spoke with test pilots Ken Howells and Peter Swanson about their methods (another 5000 flights). Not one of us regularly uses either of the two most popular methods outlined above. Each of us agrees that it is not a particular method, but rather the fear of launching unhooked that makes us diligent to be sure we are hooked in every time before starting the launch run.
High Adventure's Rob McKenzie (18,000 flights) has yet another method. He is the only Wills Wing test pilot who does` hang check on every flight. Rob makes a tripod between the base tube and his feet by slowly lying down to put pressure on his harness mains while pushing forward with his feet. Using this method Rob is able to do an unassisted hang check. One day while test flying production gliders at Marshall, he did his hang check and found himself lying in the dirt. He thought he was hooked in and was not, so it may have saved his life. He also told me that any time he unhooks for any reason, he says out loud, "I am unhooked, I have to do another hang check."
The Best Insurance Is To Believe It Can Happen To You!
I believe that there is no "one method" that is best for all pilots or situations. If fact, we use different methods at different times.
I know of five very experienced pilots who have launched without being hooked in. It is possible to climb into the control frame and fly the glider standing inside the bar after launching unhooked (two of the five managed to do so), but most pilots will not be able to do so for several reasons. It requires a lot of strength to get up into the bar, and most current gliders will be trimmed very fast if you are hanging from the base tube after launching unhooked. One pilot was able to deploy his parachute while hanging from the base tube after launching unhooked from a 1000-foot cliff. Miraculously he was not injured.
The right answer is to always be sure you are hooked in before you start your launch run. If you are on a sloped launch and feel your glider taking off without you, the sooner you let go the better. If it's a cliff launch, trying to climb into the control bar (if you are athletic) is probably your best bet. Once inside the bar, with the glider stabilized, you can wrap one arm around the control bar apex and hook in.
Last Thought Before You Start Your Launch Run: Hooked In? Not Sure? CHECK?
This is the technique Steve Pearson uses if he is not absolutely sure he is hooked in on launch. He sets the glider down and while holding the nose wires, turns and looks at his mains and carabiner and physically grabs the carabiner and gives it a tug. While it does not ensure that you are in your leg loops, it is an easy way to CONFIRM that you are hooked into the glider prior to launch.
Mission's Pat Denevan teaches a hook-in check, which is the "lift the glider to feel the leg loops go tight" method I outlined above. He adds that he teaches his students to repeat it if they do not launch within fifteen seconds. Pat points out, correctly, that it's more important to know that you are attached to your glider and in your leg loops than if your harness lines are twisted in some way.
All Lines In Order?
I always do a hang check when I get in a new harness or after I've worked on one. I do not usually do a hang check on later flights unless I'm aerotowing and have to lie down in the cart. I always hang my carabiner in a loop on the front of my harness right after I unhook from the glider. This assures that the lines remain untwisted next time I hook in.
I think that if all pilots started doing a hook-in check IMMEDIATELY PRIOR to their launch run, we'd have fewer cases of the very sad mistake of launching unhooked.
Please fly safely.
A reading of Kell's article ALSO gives a strong impression that McKenzie's take is pure unadulterated bulls***.
I have NEVER ONCE heard a practitioner say anything to indicate that McKenzie's take wasn't pure unadulterated bulls***.
If you can find any statement from a practitioner or other evidence that McKenzie's take isn't pure unadulterated bulls*** then post it.
The setup area is a mediocre place for variety and true thinking.
The preflight procedure is a fairly crappy time for variety and true thinking.
The launch ramp is an ABSOLUTELY DEADLY place for variety and free thinking and a REALLY EXCELLENT place for extremely standardized routine procedures and FEAR.
Show me ANYTHING else in hang gliding or established aviation - paragliding, Cessna, sailplane, chopper, passenger jet, fighter, blimp, balloon - in which the pilot is advised to vary his preflight, takeoff, communication, emergency training, stall and spin recovery, landing procedures for the sake of variety and true thinking stimulation.
Does McKenzie ALSO advise not checking roll, pitch, ribbons, air traffic every few launches just keep things stimulating?
Maybe keep your nose up, take two steps, and jump on the bar once in a while?
If variety is so fuckin' important shouldn't he have people doing a hook-in check once every twenty or thirty flights?
That's part of the human element that you want to ignore by reasserting the regulation.
He's openly and flagrantly violating the regulation. Let's assume that he's ONE HUNDRED PERCENT RIGHT. Has he written USHGA, published a magazine article, posted to a forum calling for the abolition or modification of the deadly verify-that-you're-hooked-in-just-prior-to-to-launch requirement?
If the regulation were so bulletproof, then why doesn't it work 100% of the time?
1. In the thirty years since the implementation of the regulation I know of not ONE SINGLE PERSON who's made any effort to adhere to it who's been so much as scratched as a consequence of launching unhooked. That's plenty close enough to a hundred percent to keep me happy. If you've got contradictory data then present it.
2. I'd guesstimate that efforts to comply with it fall well short of ONE percent.
The answer is the human element.
The PROBLEM is the human element. And that's PRECISELY what this regulation is designed to address.
Helen McKerral - 2010/01/27
South Australia
Hiya Tad,
I've been doing the lift and tug for some months now, after our discussion. It's good and it works.
And it's good and IT WORKS. But only if you make more of an effort to DO IT than you do to tell everyone why it can't possibly be of any value whatsoever and will, in fact, send the fatality rate through the ceiling.
But my main point here is that Rob McKenzie is one of the best instructors in the country.
And Matt Taber's new GT Release is the best commercially available two point aerotow release in the country. And it also sucks.
It's entirely possible that I would GLOW with admiration at everything else Rob says and does - but that ain't anywhere NEAR good enough.
We need more instructors like Rob McKenzie.
We got all the instructors we need telling people that if they check to make sure they're hooked in at the back of the ramp they can safely assume they'll be hooked in when they run off the front of the ramp.
If he flunks in your world, then that shows a big problem with your world.
George Bernard Shaw
Man and Superman - 1903
Maxims For Revolutionists
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
Each of us agrees that it is not a particular method, but rather the fear of launching unhooked that makes us diligent to be sure we are hooked in every time before starting the launch run.
Fear is at the core of what powers the hook-in check mindset, it can probably work to get some of the instructors to take the most important part of their jobs seriously.
1. Rob's got approximately 2.7 zillion students out there whom he elected to sign off in violation of the regulations.
2. There's a reasonable chance that one of them will run off the ramp without his glider sometime in the coming years.
3. There's an excellent chance that that event will be captured and run on The Jack Show version of America's Funniest Home Videos.
4. If/when this happens I'm gonna be contacting the next of kin - and the attorneys - and making sure they fully understand WHY it happened.
5. I might be more favorably disposed towards Rob if he were to go out on the magazine and wire and make a significant effort to reverse some of the damage.
6. But that ain't never gonna happen, is it?
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