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topic: Worlds 1998 (5 articles)

Guido Gehrmann dies in BD5-J Microjet crash

Thu, May 2 2013, 8:41:54 am EDT

Near Innsbruck

Guido Gehrmann

fatality|Guido Gehrmann|video|Red Bull|Europeans 1996|Europeans 1998|Europeans 2002|World Aerobatics 2006|World Air Games 1997|World Air Games 2001|World Air Games 2009|Worlds 1998|Worlds 2001|Worlds 2003|Worlds 2005

The former world champion. Article here and here.

The jet was launched in Salzburg and had completed a flight demonstration in the Ziller Valley.

The pilot reported technical problems and announced a planned emergency landing in Innsbruck or on the Inn Valley motorway, and the police blocked the highway shortly before the accident.

But the pilot managed to fly Innsbruck, not to the motorway, but finally tried to land on a field between Baumkirchen and military emergency landing, where it almost collided with a car.

The pilot's maneuver failed, the plane crashed and disintegrated on a hillside next to the main road. The pilot died in the accident. The cause of the technical problems is currently not yet known, the police started an investigation.

http://youtu.be/yd-SqOBuBOU

http://www.xcmag.com/2013/05/guido-gehrmann-in-fatal-plane-crash/

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Formula Free - beyond the borders of common sense and performance »

Sun, Mar 7 1999, 11:00:01 pm GMT

Erich Lerch|Europeans 1996|Gerolf Heinrichs|Guido Gehrmann|Hans Bausenwein|Manfred Ruhmer|Tomas Suchanek|Worlds 1998

(written by Gerolf Heinrichs, published in Fly and glide 12/98, translated by Hans Bausenwein, edited by yours truly)

"Nothing in the world is as fairly distributed as the mind. Everybody thinks he has received enough of it."

These words by Jaques Tati can be transferred unexamined to the safety potential of today's competition hang gliders. Almost every pilot believes his wing to be sufficiently reliable, but has strong doubts about the safety of gliders of his competitors. "There can be no other explanation for him to out fly me like he has. His glider cannot be a certified version."

To be honest, who in today's competition is still flying one? If you want to know for sure, you only have to look-up the results lists of renowned competitions - and look at the last third of the field. There they are listed, the last dreamers, who still believe in the adherence to DHV-versions, equal chances and Father Christmas.

The reality in the top third again is a lot different. A pilot first orders a new serial production glider - a mylar version, if possible -, then he flies the first competition with it and finds out immediately, the serial version is quite a piece of crap. Without hesitating he is going to "improve" it, tuning tips have to be collected: more tension, that's it!

The sprogs must be lowered, that's for sure, and the rigging must be smaller diameter, of course. Finished. The next competition: what, not winning again? No more handling, no more bar pressure? Well in hang gliding until now every "master" has fallen out of the sky - at least once -! By tuning, or let's better say mistuning, almost everything is possible: One glider does not want to fly in a straight line anymore, the other one only continues to fly straight.

To make a glider "hot" is relatively easy, to fly such a "hot" glider close to it's limits a lot more difficult. If test pilots have one advantage against the average talented pilot, than it's exactly this one. But, honestly speaking, it's also no fun for a top-pilot to fly gliders with "meager pitch". There's just one question left: Why do they still do it? The answer has a touch of the Lemmings' behavior: Well, because everybody else does it.

Is that insane? No, this is competition. But when competition doesn't get directed, it creates the most bizarre flowers.

When Tomas Suchanek appeared at the 1996 Europeans with 1.5mm rigging on his A-frame and Manfred Ruhmer during the 1998 Worlds flew with 18 millimeter small, almost unbreakable "carbon-swords" - a standard aluminum aerofoil upright cross section has about 25 mm diameter -, it became obvious, sooner or later every top-pilot had to follow.

Today Guido Gehrmann flies with 14 mm carbon fiber blades as uprights, the rigging has deteriorated to 1.2mm thin stringlets (breaking load about 120kp), fitted only half way down the upright. The much praised safety-cage of a hang glider does not exist anymore. Is Guido irresponsible because of that? No, he just does not make any compromises.

What has happened here is an arms race. It does not make sense to blame the pilots for it and to assume exaggerated ambition.

Competition in every possible way means going right to the edge, taking it to the limits, developing it further. This is legitimate. But to let this process not go wild, the competition in our daily life is regulated by laws. In sports these laws are called rules and regulations. To ask the sportsmen to limit themselves, to be highly disciplined, to have strong safety ethics, and for instance to ask them to avoid strong thermals, would mean the petition in bankruptcy of all rules and regulations. Isn't it already quite a big portion of wrong ethics to give a price to pilots for highly risky behavior on one hand, and on the other hand to criticize them for the same thing later?

Exactly, that is the case in today's hang gliding and paragliding competitions. When hang gliders tumble and paraglider pilots fall upside down over their canopies, it's not the pilots, that have gone crazy all of a sudden. One has simply reached the limits of our existing competition-formula, one has slipped through the net of our regulations. The width of the mesh has to be reduced to avoid a development of our sport in the wrong direction.

A telephone book- like edition of rules and regulations is edited every year for Formula 1 car racing. Even the smallest details of how the new racing cars have to look like is regulated exactly. Constantly the technical minimum requirements are improved. This has to be that way otherwise within three years these rockets on wheels would have 1000 HP and the Formula 1 ten dead pilots per year.

It seems that has this fear does not exist for our flying pilots. Some national and international competition organizers let us fly life-threatening tasks "at our own risk" and do not want to take responsibility when accidents happen.

We are looking at the jury, the national federation or the FAI asking for help. We look at sporting code section 7, but there is nothing. Because, instead of giving an exact definition of how our hang gliders have to look like in terms of safety features, we only find a short remark in section 7, 1.4.2. Is says that a hang glider has to be controlled by weight shift and a paraglider is more or less a "boneless" hang glider, that can be foot launched and -landed.

National certification requirements are not a question at all in FAI competitions. Also the simple remark, that the glider has to be state of the art (which means made of modern materials), means little. In reality everything is permitted: Formula free. And we, the pilots, are the stupid ones.

Is there a solution in sight? Once a year CIVL, the international commission of all national hang gliding federations, has a meeting. Delegates from all FAI-member countries meet and make decisions. Sometimes even long used terms and definitions are changed. The one-sentence-definition of hang gliders is such a long used definition, that should be changed.

Competition pilots usually are not a majority at CIVL meetings. The active pilots rather moan about the politicians in the federations, instead of doing something for themselves. We would like CIVL to take action and solve our problems and we do not notice, that CIVL means: ourselves. Here the circle closes itself. We are the stupid ones and the politicians at the same time.

So as not to belong to the dead, sooner or later, we pilots should take action. "There is nothing good, only if you do it" Erich Kästner wrote in his diary. This understanding would also fit very well in section 7.

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The Topless in America

Thu, Mar 4 1999, 11:00:08 pm GMT

Don Netlow|G.W. "GeeDub" Meadows|Gerard Thevenot|Gerolf Heinrichs|Mark "Gibbo" Gibson|Mark Gibson|Mike Barber|Reinhard Pöppl|Worlds 1998

The La Mouette Topless has won the 1997 pre-Worlds and the 1998 Worlds. Internationally, the Topless is the top dog, closely followed by the Icaro Laminar ST, and the Aeros Stealth. Oleg recently won the Forbes Flatlands and the Bogong Cup on the Stealth.

If you've read Hang Gliding Magazine you've seen Gianni's ads about how well Manfred and Gerolf (now with Moyes) are doing on the Laminar ST, with Gerolf winning the 1998 pre-Worlds

In the US, G.W is winning the marketing war with the Stealth. The Topless has almost no presence. Now Mark Gibson and Mike Barber are flying for Gerard Thevenot, representing La Mouette here in the US both for trikes (in conjunction with Don Reinhard at Personal Flight), and for the Topless. It's unlikely that they will be able to match the G.W. marketing effort, though.

I had an opportunity to be the factory pilot for the Topless when it was first introduced and brought to the US 3 years ago. It was a terrible glider, but then I'm not a top US pilot, so it didn't matter. I was happy to try it out for Don, and just as happy to let someone else fly it after my experiences with it at the Sandia Classic.

All that is ancient history now, because the new Topless is much better. Guido won the worlds on a non stock version that pushed the limits of flex wing glider design. They know how to make them go fast. They just don't know how to make them go fast and pass DHV testing.

Of course, Guido's is not the only glider that wouldn't pass DHV testing. Don Netlow flies the glider that Manfred used to win the US Nationals. Ooh, the wires are so thin. There is a movement inside of CIVL to restrict this type of glider tweaking in major competitions, but no one knows how to do it. We'll see what happens.

Well, I got off the topic for a minute there, but it will be interesting to see what happens with La Mouette in the US. They really only have a presence with their wings on Cosmos trikes (another company, but still in the family). Can they challenge the local producers and the Ukrainians? We'll see.

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