Oz Report

Fri, Jun 17 2022, 8:49:44 pm MDT

DelMarVa peninsula

altitude|beer|Charles "Charlie" Baughman|Charles Allen|cloud|collision|competition|equipment|harness|Highland Challenge 2022|Jim Messina|John Simon|Knut Ryerson|landing|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|meteorology|Moyes RX|radio|Richard "Ric" Caylor|Robert "Rob" Dallas|software|sport|towing|triangle|weather

(Highland Aerosports, Ridgely, MD, USA) (DelMarVa Peninsula, Church Hill, MD, USA)

Pete Lehmann writes:

Demonstrating both the vitality and decline of hang gliding, Charlie Allen has once again put together a small competition on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. This is the area that for years was host to the much larger aero-towed East Coast Championship at nearby Ridgely, MD. When Highland Aerosports closed their doors, and the airport changed hands, the sport lost an important focal point. Nonetheless, aerotowing has quietly continued on a private basis on the Eastern Shore, and a couple of years ago Charlie decided to put on a small, un-sanctioned meet to encourage competition and xc flying in what is a meteorologically interesting place to fly. The original objective was to hold the competition with ten pilots, but as is too often the case in hang gliding nowadays, he could induce only six pilots to participate. Shame on those who passed on the opportunity for some wonderful flying.

The DelMarVa peninsula over which we are flying is essentially flat, and at this time of year, enjoys ample, enormous landing fields. What distinguishes the flying is, however, the peninsula’s location between three bodies of water, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. The presence of the water bodies greatly influences the meteorology of the land, and consequently the flying conditions experienced. The interaction of the solar heated land with the onshore breezes originating from the three bodies of water creates a marvelously complex variety of convergences that both create and limit soaring opportunities. Flying near the cooler waters can be either terribly difficult, or fabulous if a convergence line sets above the collision of cold and warm air. It’s a place that puts a premium on pilot knowledge of cloud formations, and pilot skill in working crap conditions until getting into the better lift marked by the clouds. Added to that is the caveat that the conditions are dynamic. Conditions vary greatly over the course of the day as winds shift direction and strength with the heating of the land mass.

We are towing from Ben’s, a private farm airstrip near Chestertown, MD. Its location adds to the difficulty by being just 15 miles east of the Chesapeake, while also being much nearer one of its major estuaries. It’s wet nearby. This makes it often necessary to scratch very hard for the first ten miles when while heading inland to the better conditions. Indeed, it is sometimes necessary for the tugs to pull us up towards the inland east in order to contact workable lift. All of this is by way of saying that flying around here is complicated. A pilot has to juggle a number of decision-making balls, keeping a weather eye on the clouds, and using three-dimensional visualization software to imagine how the land and water will interact as one flies the course. It’s fun.

Day One was an epically good day for this region. We under-called the 44-mile dog leg task to the southeast. Conditions were so good that the vastly experienced local pilot Jim Messina experienced his best ever local altitude, getting to 8,100 feet, while Charlie got to 8,300msl. Five of the six competitors made goal including John Simon who won the day, and Knut Ryerson who made goal on his first flight with his new Moyes RX.

Ric / Knut: https://ayvri.com/scene/gdkz603ojz/cl44bjt7m00013b61xozernl6

John / Charlie / Jim: https://ayvri.com/scene/z15yrzn1jx/cl477ukq400032a6m4avh96mj

Day Two’s much weaker forecast had a short 23-mile dogleg task to the north that proved tricky despite its short length. A convergence line set up around the turn point, but it was very hard to climb under it. Two pilots landed while Jim and John fairly easily made goal, with John once again winning. They then turned around and nearly made it back to the field, coming up just short of Ben's. I royally screwed the pooch by loading the wrong task into my instrument. Eventually acknowledging the impossibility of flying the incorrect task, I bagged it and succumbed to beer suck. I scratched back to Ben’s flying an absurd dogleg that included an 850 ft. save with three bald eagles.

Ric / Knut: https://ayvri.com/scene/gdkz603ojz/cl44c4ziz00023b6127x19syj

Charlie / John / Jim: https://ayvri.com/scene/z15yrzn1jx/cl4781sbe00032a6muikfxxl7

Day Three had a low, blue forecast which again proved partially incorrect. Climbs were good, and we climbed to six grand in the blue, much higher than forecast. However, the winds were sufficiently strong that the triangle task proved impossible, and in frustration two of us gave up on the task and flew back to Ben’s. Beer suck is real. Of those who persisted, Jim Messina won the day, with Ric Niehaus in second, but they were still well short of the forty-mile task. In fact, the wind really won the day.

Ric / Knut / Pete: https://ayvri.com/scene/gdkz603ojz/cl44c8o3n00013b61xjcehat3

Charlie / John / Jim: https://ayvri.com/scene/z15yrzn1jx/cl4789fii00032a6mqmhtlzue

Day Four was blown out and we spent it fixing broken stuff. In fact, it seems that every day of the comp has involved one or the other of us trying to sort out equipment problems: blown out harness zippers, broken vario mounts, inaudible varios, and all manner of radio problems. We need a day off. The flying has been great fun, but somewhat stressful. We needed a day off.

Day Five: Task Four

Today’s task was a 40-mile triangle with the final turn being Ridgely’s airport, scene of the past East Coast Championships. It was, as Jim Messina said, good to be flying back in the ‘hood. Five out of six of us made goal, with John Simon and Jim once again being fastest, while we laggards experienced varying degrees of low saves along the way. Once again, the forecast conditions proved to have been pessimistic, and we were grateful to be getting more than a thousand feet higher than the predicted 3,500 feet agl.

The goal was not Ben’s Farm, our starting airstrip. Rather it was nearby at Ben’s Palatial Estate. The place is vast and has the feel of visiting the South Fork Ranch of the old Dallas tv series. Ben wasn’t home, so we made ourselves comfortable drinking beer at his poolside, telling lies, and enjoying life. Hang gliding is hell, but someone’s gotta do it.

Pete / Charlie / Jim: https://ayvri.com/scene/z15yrzn1jx/cl47566i000082a6m7buuitil

John / Knut / Ric: https://ayvri.com/scene/z15yrzn1jx/cl478h4^nd00032a6mxsoi3xqv

Day Six: Blown out, but we should be able to fly again on Friday.

Day Seven: Task 5

By Charles Allen

We opted for a 90.5km dog leg task to Indian Beach. However, we had an 8km turn point at goal so as not to force pilots to race low to the beach as there are limited suitable landing fields for about 4 miles prior to beach and we were concerned about an onshore sea breeze. The day was epic with climbs to almost 6,500 with great looking clouds. I ended up taking the 1:45pm start clock and heading off early. I was ahead until about half way into course when I got down to about 900ft and had to slow down. Jim and Pete who were close behind ended up passed me at this point as I was left of course line by about 5k. I arrived at the beach 12min after them. John took the 2:15pm start clock and arrived at the beach ~20min after me. Knut and Tom made goal but did not make the beach. The day ended with drinks and dinner at a Tiki bar a few minutes from the beach.

Pete / Charlie / Jim: https://ayvri.com/scene/z15yrzn1jx/cl4cv8cyx00032a6mtqv6l34o

John / Knut / Tom (guest): https://ayvri.com/scene/z15yrzn1jx/cl4cvfxt200032a6mcn22xtqw

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Mon, Mar 7 2022, 7:21:09 am MST

Strong blustery winds keep the tug pilots on the ground

tow|towing|tug

Saturday the sky was full of beautiful cu's, but the wind was east at 13 mph on the surface. No one really was excited about towing up.

Sunday, the cu's were very thin and mostly far away with almost none to the northwest. The winds were again strong but now out of the east southeast. Fourteen mph gusting to twenty seven mph at the Leesburg airfield to the north. The tug pilots were not going to tow us in these conditions. The sky conditions did not look good for a proposed task 228 kilometers to Live Oak airfield.

Monday looks better. Looks like we'll have a report later about the day.

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Mon, Nov 22 2021, 8:31:30 am MST

4000 tandems

aerotow|Craig Pearson|Facebook|instruction|Moyes Delta Gliders|North Wing|picture|scooter|tandem|Thermal Valley Hang Gliding|towing|video|Wills Wing

(Thermal Valley Hang Gliding, 4098 Old Amherst Rd, Lenoir, NC, USA) (Foothills Regional Airport, Morganton, NC, USA)

Craig Pearson «craig» writes:

We own and operate Thermal Valley Hang Gliding and operate in Lenoir NC. Our website is http://www.thermalvalley.net . We are on Facebook and Instagram and have been in business since 2011. We primarily aerotow tandem discovery flights but teach aerotowing, foot launching, and scooter towing. We have flown nearly 4000 tandems and are Wills Wing, Moyes and North Wing authorized dealers (although Wills Wing dealership status is unknown for now).

www.thermalvalley.net

https://www.facebook.com/thermalvalley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ika0wJDgjYs

https://youtu.be/2yJZTbQMiqk

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At Chris Zimmerman's

Ben Dunn towing on the Wills Wing Falcon 4 195

June 14, 2013, 7:22:45 EDT

Ben Dunn|Chris Zimmerman|Mike Degtoff|photo|tow|towing|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Falcon 4

(Chris')

Master tow pilot, Mike Degtoff.

Photos by Ricker Goldsborough

June 7, 2010, 8:52:29 EDT

Big tow machine

For advanced pilots

(Blue Sky, Manquin, Virginia, USA)

Blue Sky|Steve Wendt|tow|towing

Steve Wendt at the controls of his big ATV towing machine with a student who is about ready to start truck towing. This powerful machine is not used with new students:

The lens was fogged up.

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Mon, May 26 2008, 8:31:25 am EDT

Low and slow

Two hang gliding kids come off the dunes and onto the rope

(Blue Sky, Manquin, Virginia, USA)

Blue Sky|scooter tow|Steve Wendt|tow|towing|video

http://www.blueskyhg.com/

Giovanni and Hanna Marie were here on Saturday with their hang gliding dad, Shane Moreland, basically because they showed that they had an interest in hang gliding (unlike some of the other kids in the eleven kid family). They had already been dune skimming at Jockey's Ridge, at Kitty Hawk Kites, and now were ready to take the next step, getting scooter tow instruction from Steve Wendt at Blue Sky Hang Gliding.

The wind was blowing a bit too strong before 7 AM when I went out to help Steve set up the Wills Wing Condor 330 and pull out the Wills Falcon 195 and Falcon 170, which were already setup in their little hangar that they share with the zero radius riding lawn mower. Steve has trouble providing adequate lessons by himself on a Condor 330, especially with light kids and new pilots, when there is wind over 5 mph.

Steve has to operate the scooter tow and he can't run with the pilot at the same time and help them control the glider. Glider control is an issue with such a big glider in any winds. This kind of instruction greatly benefits from having both a scooter tow operator and an instructor to run with the student in these conditions. BTW, how can anyone instruct with a winch or scooter tow operation and not be next to the student when they launch (even with assistants)?

But today he had a bunch of helpers. First of all Shane and secondly Rich Cizauskas, who was playing the role of apprentice instructor. With the extra help it would be possible to overcome the control problems and keep the kids safe.

Still, at first, Steve was concerned about the breeze. He's not used to having the help. So he chose to tow the kids himself with Rich and Shane holding onto the wires. Instead of scooter towing it was Steve towing into a nice breeze, right on the north/south runway, away from the trees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spdg46ncNIQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdPnSEcyYqM

After a while the winds backed off a bit and we started scooter towing (this seemed to coincide with both Steve and Rich getting tired). Rich and Shane would still run with the young pilot to make sure that they were safe, but a few times they weren't able to stay with the pilot and still Steve kept the pilot quite safe keeping them very low to the ground and watching their progress as he throttled them back a bit on the Honda 50.

The kids got plenty of practice and we got to see the Condor 330 fly in slightly windy conditions with light pilots when the proper safety mechanism were in place. Low and slow instruction in action.

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Fri, May 23 2008, 11:00:56 am EDT

Low and slow

Olson from Whitewater here to learn how to scooter tow safely

(Blue Sky, Manquin, Virginia, USA) (Twin Oaks, Whitewater, Wisconsin, USA)

Blue Sky|Paul Olson|scooter tow|Steve Wendt|tow|towing|video

http://www.blueskyhg.com/

Paul Olson was here on Thursday from the Whitewater hang gliding club with instructions to get instruction from Steve Wendt on how to tow safely so that they won't have another of the kind of accident that they've already had with their scooter tow setup in Wisconsin this year (perhaps we can hear from Rik and Paul about that). Steve brought out the Honda Elite 250 to more closely match the 125 at Whitewater and to make it just a little more difficult to be the scooter tow operator.

On Thursday evening Steve and Rich Cizauskas were the wind dummies and later I got to join them for five flights (and one aborted flight) before the sun went down. The wind had been strong all day, but went to zero at 6 PM so we had great conditions for flying the Condor 330 and the Falcon 195.

The idea was, could Paul keep us within five feet of the ground even though the throttle was very touchy on the 250. (Steve uses it almost exclusively for higher tows with experienced pilots.) Our job was to play little tricks on Paul to see if he would catch us and do the right thing. What's the right thing? Almost always to set the pilot down.

I got my first launches since my crash on Mt. Borah. I wasn't sure that I could even run fast enough to keep up with the scooter tow. I can ride pretty fast on my bicycle, but I haven't been running around too much with my not yet fully recovered leg.

I hooked up to the Condor 330, leveled the wings and said "Clear." Paul twisted the accelerator and the rope starting pulling me and the glider. The V-bridle is connected to the harness and to the glider so the glider and I get pulled at the same time and my job was to keep up.

I was surprised right away about how easy it was to run. My job was to let the glider was to let the glider fly at trim, hand off if I felt comfortable with that, and so I just let the glider go, releasing my hands from the down tubes. The glider was pulled so I didn't have to push it along. This wasn't going to help me directly with the launch issues I wanted to deal with, but my first step was to be able to just run with the glider.

It's easy to run and fly without your hands on the downtubes in this configuration (glider being towed) with the scooter tow operator keeping you as low to the ground as possible with no winds to upset the glider. It is also a lot of fun to just hang there and get the feel how the glider flies on its own.

The release is a bicycle brake type release half way up the right down tube and the idea is to release about three quarters of the way down the runway (marked with a cone) toward the turn around pulley. The brake handle is right next to your hand so it is easy to hit the release. You want to release the rope when it is tight so that the rope goes away from you and so that it is sure to be released.

I hiked the glider back, sometimes running with it with my hands in the grapevine grip, just to get some practice running in this configuration. After three tows I let Rich take another flight, before I took the Condor back. We switched back and forth as Steve helped Paul and watched how he did.

On my next time up I decided to run and hold the glider down by keeping my grapevine grip on the downtubes. Steve had talked about teaching students to keep the glider on the ground and the nose down after they learn how to launch, and this is just what I wanted to do. I didn't tell Paul just to see how he would react to the fact that the glider didn't get off the ground as fast as it had been. Would he try to over power the pilot and pull him into the air (the exactly wrong thing to do)?

I told Paul "clear," and he pulled the tow line up tight and I ran down the field. It was easy to keep the glider on the ground and I just pulled in to keep the nose down. After a dozen steps (running), Steve had Paul stop the tow. I felt that Steve had done that because Paul was trying to over power me and get me off the ground and I yelled out that I was trying to stay on the ground.

But that wasn't the issue. I had forgotten to hook in after I took over the glider from Rick. Each of us had our own light weight training harnesses (no connections to the legs beyond leg loops) and I "never" unhook my harness from the glider. Of course, here we are in a new situation and I didn't hook in. That's why Steve told Paul to stop, because Paul missed the fact that I didn't hook in . Steve didn't and he wanted to see if Paul would see it before I launched or would stop the tow after I launched unhooked. He didn't and Steve stopped the tow.

After hooking in I got to launch right away again, keeping the nose down, my hands in a grapevine grip pulling back forcefully on the down tubes and having a good long run until I finally decided to let the bar out a bit and get into the air. This made it a bit difficult for Paul to correctly judge how much to put on the gas, and I got up to fifteen feet.

The sun was beginning to set. Paul was getting much better with the throttle and learning lots of new lessons on how to safely tow pilots. It is so many little details. Steve had taken a flight and deliberately went way to the right to try to force Paul to put him down. Paul failed to do so and Steve released just before he ran into my trailer. Paul was thinking that because it was Steve he would "save" himself in time. Steve emphasized again and again, if things go wrong, just put the pilot down, because he is already low.

Of course, you might want to give the pilot a few seconds to save himself, say make a little turn to get back in line. So scooter tow operators aren't born, they must be trained and learn how to do all the little things that make for safe instruction and towing (and where better to learn, but at BlueSky). One thing that is crucial is for the tow operator to be next to the pilot when they take off, both for safer towing, and also to be able to see what the pilot is doing in order to be able to make a good critique of the pilot's efforts.

On the last tow of the day, as the sun went behind the trees, I took up the Falcon 195. Again I wondered if I could run fast enough with this "small" glider with the smaller wheels. I wanted to pull it in and keep it on the ground for a good run before getting into the air. It turned out to be no problem. I ran for a good ways while pulling in. I hoped that I was in the grapevine grip during the whole run, but without a video of the tow, I can't be sure. I'll be videoing my instruction from now on, I hope.

I expect to progress through a series of steps:

1. Run with Falcon 195 keeping the glider on the ground for a long time.

2. Run with the Falcon 195 being pulled just from the shoulders and not from the keel. This means I have to push the glider with my shoulders and still keep the nose at the right attitude.

3. Run with the Falcon 195 with my Moyes Matrix Race harness instead on the light harness with no bits of the harness to get in the way of my legs and feet. Maybe go back a few steps to the Condor 330 or to pulling the glider from the keel until I am sure that I feel comfortable running with the harness.

4. Run with my Wills Wing T2-144 with my harness.

In between I will be running on the flat lawn here without being towed just to see how it goes and to see if I am ready to run while being towed.

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Wed, Jan 25 2006, 10:23:31 pm AEDT

Sportavia

The winds die down and the smoke from the bush fires comes over.

gaggle|smoke|Sportavia International Open 2006|towing

I don't get to goal today, but fifteen pilots do. It's a 145 kilometer task to the southwest with a northeast wind which is light on the ground but over ten mph up above. The tows are easy and straight forward for everyone today with the light winds and we are all off before the start start time.

I launch early and find 600 fpm at 1,000' AGL to 5,700'. There is plenty of sun light over the air strip, but not so much over the start circle centered 15 kilometers to the south west. A bunch of us go over there and still find lift under the smoke and an hour and fifteen minutes later take the last start gate from 25 kilometers away from the towing area from 6,000' under smoke filled skies.

It's a bit of a scratch but a good number of us hang close by and work with each other as we head southwest. I don't get below 3,000' for the next hour nor above 5,400'.

I head off on my own being on top of my gaggle, knowing that there are four guys just out in front beyond the visible range. I pick up a nice thermal, get back to 4,000' and head for where I see the guys ahead turning over the darkest fields that we've come across so far on the task. I go right to where they were turning, right over the fields and find nothing. I soon land going over one dark plowed field after another. I think that error was concentrating too much on visual clues.

Results may be late, perhaps not till tomorrow.

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Tue, Jan 24 2006, 9:42:47 am AEDT

Towing

Much useful (some not so) discussion is going on re aerotowing in the Oz Report forum

fatality|Sportavia International Open 2006|towing

Here

Discuss "Towing accident discussed" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Thu, Apr 22 2004, 7:00:02 pm GMT

Go to San Diego.

Masters of Freestyle 2004

Freestyle

Masters of Freestyle 2004

September 17^th-20^th 2004

Ladies and Gentlemen fasten your seat belts because…

Aero Events is very pleased to announce that the World Famous, Masters of Freestyle Hang Gliding Contest will once again be held in the skies above Mission Bay Park in San Diego, California!.

As was the case for the last four years, aerobatic hang gliding will trade center stage with the two hundred mile per hour Unlimited Hydro planes during the 39^th Annual Thunderboats Regatta.

The contest will once again be the largest publicly attended hang gliding happening when as many as 250,000 people bear witness to the outrageous aerial spectacle during the entire three days of the event.

Four contest rounds are planned with a maximum field of 15 competitors. Aero towing will be used to transport the gliders at the top of the performance space located 2500 feet above the center of beautiful Mission bay between East Vacation and Fiesta Islands.

All pilots that have flown in any of the past Masters Contests are pre-qualified for the 2004 competition. All other pilots that are interested in competing must submit a resume and entry form.

The entry fee is 300. American dollars and includes event passes, aero towing, two catered dinners, a fireworks show, portable toilets, tee shirts and an invisible mountain of fabulous prizes !

Watch the “What’s New” page at www.aeroevents.org for the latest news and information.

«Contact-dinoddd»

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Mon, Jan 5 2004, 7:00:01 pm GMT

static towing and retractable bridles

bridle|competition|crossbar|harness|Hay|job|Len Paton|release|safety|towing|weaklink

Len Paton <lenpaton@westserv.net.au> writes:

It's great that you've refreshed your thoughts on static towing. I've always found it so relaxing compared to aerotowing. Less intense, less effort, less anxiety. I have always felt I have more control and feel much more secure close to the ground.

You might understand why most car towers at comps feel a bit perplexed when days are cancelled because of gusty conditions. I was astounded last year (or was it the year before?) when somebody in the safety committee at an Australian competition (who was aerotowing) commented to me a few days after a day was canned, that "we were more concerned about the pilots static towering than ourselves". I'm not sure it was a cop-out, but … an interesting comment.

Apart from knowing your thoughts about canning marginal days, (from our attempt to have a pilot vote last year at Hay) I think people on the safety committee should have some experience in the towing systems present at the comp. They will also be less influenced by pilots with a "hidden agenda" who are using an alternate towing system. At least the discussion at Hay last year may have brought to the fore many pilot's concerns. For a couple of years it looked like overly cautious safety committees were going to spoil some good competitions.

Retractable bridle systems: Some pilots have developed good systems that "hitch" or lock themselves in the extended position until the bridle is given a shake (or usually the response after release). I have seen pilots significantly distracted trying to pull their bridles out to full extension as the driver takes the slack out of the rope.

Also these pilots are reluctant to reduce the starting tension from the nominal 15kgs before launch in light and variable conditions, leading to some dodgy launches.

One fellow pilot has thought out a positive locking system to prevent the bridle retracting until the VG has been pulled for the first time. A loop attached to the end of the retract bungee is passed thru a small hole (or slot) in the side of the central crossbar fitting. This is pinned on the other side of the cross bar fitting by a pin attached to the nose by a light piece of chord, without any slack. As the VG is pulled, the loop is pulled off the pin, pulls back thru the cross bar fitting and allows the bungee to do its job.

I use an adapted Moyes type system: one-to-one, with the 4 metre bridle feeding thru a ring out in front. After I release I have only this bridle hanging from my waist which is easily stowed before the start gate. My release involves a link knife in the top position, just in front of my hang point. A weak link passes thru a link knife and is attached to the keel via a "quick link" (oblong metal loop with screw gate).

The link knife is attached to my VG rope using a small D shackle. An extra foot off VG rope is pulled back thru to allow the link knife to sit over the weak link without tension. Pull the VG a couple of inches which retracts the link knife and cuts the weak link. Of course this is not my main fail-safe weak link.

I have a 120kg weak link out in front between the bridle and towrope. In fact I have 5 ways to get off: 2 voluntary and 3 involuntary. The link knife release up top; a "curved pin in a tube" on my waist (very light and small); the main weak link out front; a 60-70% weak link that the link knife cuts and another 60- 70% weaklink incorporated with the belly release. They need to be greater than ½ the front weaklink because the bridle is not doubled back on itself.

With these options I thought the extra redundancy of a Jack knife was unnecessary and haven't transferred it across from my old CG1000 harness.

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Sat, Nov 8 2003, 3:00:00 pm EST

Dragonfly|gaggle|golf|Ground Skimmer|landing|magazine|sport|Sport Aviation|tow|towing|trike|USHGA

https://OzReport.com/toc.php?7.252#1

Ben <dskydawg@msn.com> writes:

Our club is on a cattle farm and this pays for the up keep of the land grass cutting fertilizer, etc. The dues now are $50 annually for $10 tows to 2500’ and $20 tows for pilots who just fly now and then. We have eight members now most are hang 4’s but one new pilot that's a hang 2 that we let fly in no wind conditions. We all enjoy helping him with our experience.

My farm is hilly so landings can be tricky on cross wind days so all members need to have good landing skills for mid day flying and novice pilots can fly in no or little winds that line up with the 1500’ runway. All members need to sign a waver to fly and be a USHGA member.

I have been towing with a trike for eight years and two years with a Dragonfly. We have three other members that are excellent tow pilots on both the Dragonfly and trike and we will all be ready when it’s required to have a Sport Aviation license.

I started this club so that my friends and I would not have to spend as much time driving to the mountains which are 3 hours each way. There we would get maybe two hours flying time, if the winds cooperate.

I've been flying for twenty eight years and joined the U.S.h.G.A. in 1975 when the magazine was Ground Skimmer. I am a charter member and have seen a lot of friends come and go through the years mostly because of family reasons (spending too much time away) or because of the long drive to the mountains. They don’t fly often enough to be comfortable on cliff launches or have anxieties on landing approaches so they don’t enjoy their flight as much as if they were more current. A few years of this and they lose interest in the sport.

Some of our members have families and they come by and fly for an hour or so and head back home in time for supper and quality time with there families. I think this is the key for growth in our sport, accessibility. If you look at it like golfers, go play a few rounds and head home. Golf courses are every where.

If we had airparks near half the major cites in the U.S. think of the possibilities. So I think the more clubs the merrier and hope that pilots in Atlanta area and east Albama will come by and fly and anyone else that likes to fly hang gliders because nothing else makes me happier than seeing a gaggle of gliders above my farm except me being in that gaggle at the top.

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Sun, Aug 3 2003, 6:00:02 pm EDT

Bobby Bailey|Chris Zimmerman|competition|Dragonfly|dust devil|equipment|Florida|George Longshore|North Wing|Quest Air|Rhett Radford|Russell "Russ" Brown|sport|supporters|tow|towing|trike|tug|US Nationals

The US Nationals in Big Spring is an expensive meet to run because it is a meet that is remote from all the resources needed to run it. Still it was the least expensive tow meet of the year for the pilots. This was done to encourage them to come out to Texas and fly.

Quest Air and Flytec from Florida sent out three Dragonflies and one trike. They, by far, were the most generous supporters of the US Nationals and without their help from Florida we couldn’t have the US Nationals in Texas. What they do for the sport is crazy. There is no money to be made sending your tug and a tug pilot out to the Nationals. The compensation is very minimal and you are putting very expensive equipment in harms way. It’s a ridiculous business decision and we thanks them so much for it.

The tug owners are the ones responsible to repair their tugs (and pay for the repairs) if they get broken. The meet isn’t generating the kind of income necessary to compensate them whatever happens to the tugs.

Quest Air and Flytec are doing more to sponsor the towing competitions in the US than any other entity, by far. They take all the risks. They send out the best tug pilots (Rhett Radford and Bobby Bailey). They are incredibly supportive of the competition and hang gliding community and we very much appreciate all that they have done for us. I don’t think that there is any other entity out there that comes anywhere near doing what they are doing to help the sport (at least the competition side of the sport) near in the US.

They weren’t the only ones to put it all on the line at the US Nationals either. Kurt Graham flew in 100% of his Dragonflies from Hobbs and was the tug pilot for his tug. Jim Yokum brought his four stroke tug, and had to suffer a broken wing when his tug pilot hit the fence with it while in a dust devil. Rod Brown came out and flew the Russell Brown’s North Wing trike (which is for sale). George Longshore’s tug was a working Dragonfly until they started parting it out after Jim’s wrecked the wing. Chris Zimmerman brought his trike as a spare if needed. Lisa came from Maryland to fly a Quest Air Dragonfly.

Without the very generous support of tug owners and pilots in Florida, New Mexico, and Colorado (and Chris’ spare – but unused - trike from Texas) there wouldn’t have been a US Nationals in Texas this year. It’s great to see all these non-Texans providing so much for all the pilots who’ve come to Texas to fly in the Nationals. I’m sure the Texans are very happy to see this level of outside support.

Hope I mentioned everyone.

Discuss "Big Spring – the tugs" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Fri, Aug 1 2003, 4:00:04 pm EDT

competition|death|Masters of Freestyle|power|site|towing

Dino D DiNaso <dinoddd@juno.com> writes:

Aero Events is bringing the 2003 Masters of Freestyle Hang Gliding Contest to San Diego’s Mission Bay during the 38^th annual Thunderboat Regatta event September 19^th-21^st. The event is expected to draw 200,000 spectators to make the Thunderboat Regatta San Diego’s largest annual sports competition and family event. Mission Bay Park encompass’ more than 4600 acres and is the world’s biggest man-made aquatics park.

This will be the 8^th annual Masters of Freestyle Hang Gliding Contest where aero towing is used to increase the fairness, validity and fun quotient of the competition. The gliders will be towed up from Fiesta Island located in the center of Mission Bay. Pilots will begin their Freestyle routines at 2000’ above the center of the bay between Fiesta Island and East Vacation Island.

The Masters of Freestyle Contest will be trading center stage with the World Series of Power Boat Racing! The event announcers will be overcome with excitement as they call the audience’s attention alternately to the water, then to the sky during the three days of this monumental event. Eleven classes of bowel-shaking power boats will tear up the water while the death-defying acrobatic antics of the hang gliders will thrill and amaze the assembled masses!

For general event information check out the Thunderboat Regatta web site at www.thunderboats.net.

For contest information contact: Aero Events www.aeroevents.org

Discuss freestyle at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

Discuss "Masters of Freestyling" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Thu, Jul 17 2003, 3:00:02 pm EDT

aerotow|competition|David "Dave" Glover|David Glover|GPS|NTSS|scoring|sport|Sport Class|Tennessee Tree Toppers|towing|USHGA

Jeff Dodgen <windgypsy@bledsoe.net> writes:

Team Challenge 2003 is September 21-27. David Glover will be the meet Director and Tim Meany will be scorekeeper. David is applying for USHGA regular and Sport Class sanctioning. The field will be limited to 70 pilots so register early ($125 early registration).

The Team Challenge has historically been a fun meet with a competitive edge. It is an opportunity for experienced pilots to mentor new pilots and new pilots to learn cross country and competition skills. David is planning a meet that will allow nationally ranked pilots to earn NTSS points. These ranked pilots will be teamed up with less experienced pilots interested in learning cross country and competition flying skills.

Scoring will be designed such that the more pilots from the same team that make it to goal and the closer the entire team makes it to goal, the more team points will be awarded to that team. This will benefit all by encouraging the current nationally ranked pilots to mentor and coach their less experienced teammates.

Distance to goal and time to goal will all be considered. Foot launching is the priority with towing available based on conditions.

You must be Intermediate (Hang 3) for Whitwell launch and have an aerotow signoff to aerotow prior to the meet. You will need a GPS for national point scoring, but will not be necessary for team scores. This is a good time to get a GPS and learn how to use it!

The Tennessee Tree Toppers will host a party the night before the competition starts on Saturday September 20^th. A $10.00 donation will be waived for registered competition pilots, but otherwise required as this party will be catered.

The Awards Pizza Dinner will be held on the last night of the event at the dome. If you have some great videos - bring 'em. If you have some vintage slides - we'd love to see those too!!

Discuss "2003 Team Challenge" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Tue, Jul 15 2003, 2:00:02 pm EDT

Bill Bolosky|cost|harness|history|insurance|magazine|power|powered|sport|towing|USHGA

Bill Bolosky <bolosky@microsoft.com> USHGA President writes:

When the USHGA was created in the 1970s, the people who formed the association wrote a legal document called the Articles of Incorporation. These founders filed the Articles with the State of California to form the United States Hang Gliding Association, Inc. In the Articles, there is a statement that sets out and limits the primary purpose of the USHGA. In relevant part, it reads:

The specific and primary purposes are to engage exclusively … in the … use of fuel-less flight systems and aircraft capable of being launched by human power alone ….

This places two limits on the type of aircraft that we can deal with: they must not use fuel, and they must be launchable by human power alone. These restrictions cause two problems for the USHGA.

The first is immediate: it's not entirely clear that the Articles permit us to have programs for any kind of towing system that uses fuel. Since towing of all sorts is an integral part of both hang gliding and paragliding, and since the USHGA has programs relating to towing, it seems clear that we need to modify the Articles to remove any ambiguity with regard to towing.

The second problem relates to a direction that we may want to go in the future. In recent years, powered harnesses for hang gliders, and powered backpacks for paragliders have become increasingly popular. We have been receiving requests from our members to develop programs to cover these aircraft, and we have been approached by an association of powered paraglider pilots asking us to provide programs that would encourage their members to join the USHGA.

If we want to do these things, then we need to modify the Articles to allow them. Deciding to take on powered harnesses is a fairly major expansion of what the USHGA does, and even if it wasn't required by law, we wouldn't consider doing it without the informed consent of our members. The membership will make this decision in the form of a vote to modify the Articles and the Bylaws.

We will have a special membership meeting for the purpose of adopting these amendments during the Fall Board of Directors' meeting on Saturday, October 4, 2003 in Kitty Hawk, NC. All members will be able to vote either in person or through the mail in the form of a proxy vote. The official notice and proxy form will be published in the September Hang Gilding & Paragliding magazine.

We will structure the amendments as three separate questions: the first is to add to the purpose clause the phrase "and methods and systems for getting these flight systems and aircraft airborne" right after "human power alone." This amendment will make it clear that we can have programs related to towing. The USHGA Executive Committee believes that this should be a non-controversial question, and strongly encourages all members to vote in favor of it. If it fails, we will have to consider whether we can continue to support towing in the future.

The second question will be to remove the phrase "fuel-less" from the purpose clause. Adopting this amendment will allow us to handle powered harnesses, as long as the basic aircraft are still able to be launched by human power alone. Because we're keeping the human power restriction, the USHGA will continue to be prevented from getting into heavier aircraft, such as trikes or Light Sport Aircraft, unless they are to be used for towing.

The third change will be to amend the bylaws to create a new membership class for pilots using power. This will allow the USHGA to charge different membership fees for powered and glider pilots, which may be necessary because the cost of insurance may vary depending on the presence of motors. We expect that the dues would be the same for pilots regardless of whether they fly unpowered gliders, powered harnesses or both. In the future, however, the insurance company may offer us higher or lower rates for powered harnesses, based on their loss history, and we'd like to be able to reflect that in the dues paid by those pilots. We need a different membership class to make that possible.

The Board of Directors thinks that the right way to go is include powered harnesses. The main reason for this is that we have seen that many of the people flying them are the same people who fly unpowered hang gliders and paragliders. It is common to use a powered harness to launch from flat ground, get into lift and turn the motor off for the remainder of the flight. That is, they are us. Of course, there will be people who will choose to fly with the power on for the entire flight, and if we adopt these amendments we will be working to help them, too.

In the end, this decision belongs to the membership and not to the Board of Directors. We hope that this will be a topic of discussion among the members between now and the final vote so that everyone will have ample opportunity to make an informed and thoughtful decision.

(editor’s note: I certainly want to see the USHGA standing behind towing as an integral part of the hang gliding community. I’m fine with powered harnesses and powered paragliders.)

Discuss towing and powered harnesses at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

Discuss "USHGA – Towing and powered harnesses" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Sat, Jul 12 2003, 2:00:04 pm EDT

aerotow|Bart Weghorst|Cowboy Up|Jackson Hole|towing

Bart Weghorst <fly@cuhanggliding.com> writes:

On June 30 we officially started business in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Cowboy Up Hang Gliding, LLC is teaching, towing and foot launching in the beautiful area around the Tetons and Salt River Range of Wyoming and Idaho.

Aerotowing is on hold for at least three months due to permit issues with Teton County. Though we have secured a beautiful piece of property at the base of the Tetons to aerotow, the County says a conditional use permit is mandatory. We'll probably get the permit, but it looks like next year before aerotowing will start. Until then we're truck towing to 2000 feet and more. Everyone is welcome. We can be contacted at:

(307) 413 4164
<fly@cuhanggliding.com>
www.cuhanggliding.com

Discuss towing in Wyoming at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

Discuss "Cowboy Up" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Fri, Jul 11 2003, 1:00:03 pm EDT

David "Dave" Glover|David Glover|FAQ|tow|towing|tug|US Nationals

David Glover <david@davidglover.com> writes:

Looking forward to seeing you in Big Spring Saturday afternoon July 26^th. We have about 55 pilots signed up so far. If you know someone who is interested have them register online at http://www.flytec.com/usnats03/index.html.

Mandatory Pilot Meeting at the Big Spring Airport Hanger/Terminal: N 3212. 880 W 101 (far west side of airport: 6pm, Saturday July 26^th.

Meet Hotel is the Super 8 Pool, continental breakfast - Call now to reserve 915 267 1601 - Request the hang gliding rate.

Towing will be available Thursday (possibly earlier) before the event. You will need to pay the tug pilot cash ($20) per tow before the meet. Buffet towing during the 7 day meet is $175 (bring cash or check please). All tow fees go to making the tugs available and getting the tug pilots to Big Spring.

A FAQ is available at http://www.flytec.com/usnats03/index.html Shipping, RV info, etc.

Discuss the Nationals at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

Discuss "2003 US Nationals" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Mon, Jul 7 2003, 6:00:05 pm GMT

accident|aerotow|airline|airspace|altitude|Angelo Crapanzano|bridle|Carlos Avila|certification|cloud|control frame|DHV|environment|equipment|Felix Ruehle|Florida|foot launch|general aviation|GPS|harness|injury|job|landing|military|Moyes Xtralite|parachute|Ron Richardson|safety|site|spin|Swift|tail|technique|tow|towing|tumble|USHGA|Wallaby Ranch|winch

David Cross <d.cross@chello.nl> writes:

I have recently had the unfortunate experience of departing controlled flight in an ATOS rigid wing hang glider. I have written this report to share the experience with my fellow aviators so that any lessons learnt may be shared and the accident assessed by those with a better insight in this field than I.

Description of Flight Conditions

I had launched in the mid afternoon with an aero tow from Aerotow.com's facilities near the town of Avila in central Spain. I was planning to fly some cross country under the tuition of the highly experienced Ron Richardson. It was my second flight of the day. On the previous flight I had found the conditions to be weak with the thermals broken and the climbs poor and I had not been able to stay up for long. The afternoon however improved with the cloud base lifting to about 7000' altitude (average ground elevation of 3000'), with promising cumulus development downwind to the east and no sign of the previous day's overdevelopment.

The second aero tow was bumpy but easy to handle on the ATOS with its excellent control harmony between pitch and roll. I was waved off in some lift over a small ridgeline to the south east of the field. I again found the lift to be broken and the climb weak. Ron was at this stage further to the east overhead the town and was calling a 300'/min climb on the averager. As I was at this stage too low to get over to him I focused on what I had in order to build more altitude. I scratched up to 4800' altitude and then ran for a good looking cumulus on the way to Ron's position.

Loss of Control

Entering the Thermal

I rolled right hand into the lift under the cumulus and worked hard to centre it. The conditions were choppy but not rough and smoothed out somewhat above 5000' altitude to a steady 300 fpm up. The conditions downwind were now looking really good and through each turn I was scanning to pick up Ron's Avian Cheetah on the horizon, and I could hear Darren Blackman heading in towards us on his Swift. Things were at last coming together after a week of poor conditions. I was relaxed, thoroughly enjoying the ATOS and looking forward to the afternoons flying.

Turn Reversal

I had in the last turn noticed a slight increase in lift in the southern sector of my circle. I glanced down to see if there were any birds marking the core and was presented with a magnificent stork circling left hand counter flow to me with slightly intersecting circles. After one more turn I saw that (as always) he was doing a better job than I and so I planned a turn reversal into his circle.

The reversal worked out well. As the stork slid under my nose I experienced a moderate pitch up from the stronger lift and eased the bar in to lower the nose and accelerate while rolling out of the right hand turn into a left hand circle. Due to the fair conditions I had been thermalling at 40-45 km/h (25-28 mph) indicated airspeed (IAS) with 20-25° of bank and had felt very comfortable at this speed.

(editor’s note: Unless the thermal is absolutely light (50-100 fpm) and full with no turbulence, I’m flying at 34-38 mph. The speeds indicated above are much too slow for the conditions described.)

As I had now accelerated into the stronger lift I estimate that the IAS was approximately 48-50 km/h (30 mph) as I started the reversal. The flap was set at 8-10°. The reversal was initiated with moderate spoiler application - I estimate ⅓ to ½ deflection. The altitude was now 6000' (about 2500' AGL due to the ridge below).

Departing Controlled Flight

As the left hand turn was established I felt a light short period aerodynamic buffet on the control frame and almost simultaneously experienced a very rapid nose down pitch rotation through approximately 90° of pitch. I estimate the pitch rotation rate to be 50 -60°/sec. There was also some left hand roll rotation, although this was less than the amount of pitch rotation. I was not aware of any significant yaw.

As the departure started my assessment was that the glider was auto-rotating and that I was in the incipient stage of a spin. I had been thermalling with the bar in the upper chest to lower chin position. As the nose down pitch started I rapidly moved the bar in to the mid chest position in an attempt to reduce the angle of attack, un-stall the wing and stop the autorotation. This appeared to stop the left roll rotation rate but had little effect on the rate of nose down pitch. During the latter part of the initial nose down rotation I estimate that the g loading on my body was 0 - 0.5 g (I felt almost weightless).

The glider then appeared to stabilize very briefly in the vertical nose down position before rotating extremely rapidly in pitch to the inverted position. This second rotation was violent and uncontrollable. As it happened I felt a powerful rearward pull from my hang strap and the control bar was pulled from my grip. I was thrown hard into the undersurface of the glider which was now inverted, next to the A frame. I estimate that this pitch down rate was well in excess of 90°/sec.

The glider now stabilized in the inverted position while descending in what appeared to be a relatively gentle oscillatory spiral. I was somewhat disorientated at this point and so may not be too accurate about the motion of the glider. I do however recall some spiral motion and some oscillation above and below the horizon.

I was lying on the undersurface of the wing to the left of and outside the A frame. I immediately checked the leading edges and tips and observed no apparent structural damage. I assessed that I had sufficient altitude and attempted to right the glider and reached for the A frame to do this. When I grasped the left down tube to attempt to right the glider, the glider entered a very disorientating oscillatory rotation but remained inverted. I assume this was caused by spoiler deflection when I moved the A frame.

After two rapid rotations it did not appear to be recovering. At this stage I was losing situational awareness with respect to the height remaining for recovery. In addition the gliders unstable motion had me concerned about the possibility of being knocked unconscious.

Parachute Deployment

I thus looked for clear air and deployed my emergency parachute hard in the direction of rotation half way between the right hand wingtip and the keel. The parachute deployed immediately and then appeared to semi collapse as the glider was rotated by the parachute deployment into the upright position, swinging me hard to hang to the outside of the A frame. The parachute then reopened immediately.

The system of parachute, glider and pilot now became extremely unstable with the parachute and the glider appearing to work in opposition. The glider appeared to accelerate and pitch nose up, causing the chute to collapse and then re-open before the cycle was repeated by the glider. From my vantage point the parachute was describing a sine curve-like path across the horizon while collapsing partially and re-opening in sequence with the pitch motion of the glider.

The glider and parachute appeared to be rotating rapidly about each other with the centre of this rotation somewhere between the glider and the parachute. At no stage was the parachute positioned above the glider. The centripetal acceleration of this system rapidly became very high. I estimate the g loading to be approximately 3 g and I was swung out helplessly under the wing clear of the A frame unable to control the system at all.

Stabilizing the System

I now broadcast a Mayday call, and informed Ron that I had deployed the parachute and was going down. I described my status and informed him that it did not look promising. At this stage the rate of descent and particularly the angular rotation appeared to me to be very high and I was sure that ground impact in this configuration would have severe consequences.

After several high g rotations I managed to grab the hang strap behind my neck and pull myself toward the A frame and grasp a down tube. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing. I then pulled myself into the A frame. This had an immediate positive effect. The parachute stabilized above the glider, the angular velocity reduced and the g loading reduced. I was now descending through about 500' AGL with a moderate oscillation but no angular rotation at all. I now called Ron to inform him that the situation was under control and proceeded to describe my probable touchdown position to him.

Touchdown

I descended onto the slope of a rocky tree covered ridge. Before impact I positioned myself as high into the A frame as possible as I was not sure what the rate of descent was and I wished to protect myself from any impact on what appeared to be very rocky terrain. I kept my legs bent to absorb as much shock as possible.

I was fortunate to impact into the crown of a moderately sized tree. The A frame took much of the initial impact of the branches. The glider was then swung out of the top of the tree throwing me out of the A frame. As I fell to the ground the glider hooked onto a branch and my fall was arrested with my feet 12cm off the ground. I was completely uninjured. I transmitted to Ron that I was down and safe and that he should cancel any ambulance.

The only apparent damage to the glider was a broken main spar and associated sail damage approximately ⅓ in from the right wingtip. This occurred on ground impact and not in flight. My assessment was that the glider was completely undamaged until ground contact.

Discussion

As with any aviation accident there are several lessons to be learnt. Most accidents are not caused by a single event but by a combination of factors. Often an accident could have been prevented if just one of these factors, however minor it may have seemed at the time, could have been identified and stopped. I will now discuss my background, what I think may have been the contributing factors to this accident and the lessons learnt from it. This is obviously my subjective opinion and I welcome any discussion on these points that may offer a more informed insight.

Flying Experience and Background

I am a USHGA intermediate rated pilot who has been flying for three years. I did my initial training in the French Alps mountain launching and completed my training at Wallaby Ranch where I also obtained an aero tow rating. I did a further foot launching course at Lookout Mountain where I obtained cliff launch, flat slope launch and assisted windy cliff launch ratings. My flying has taken place mostly in Florida and the Alps and has always been under the supervision of more experienced pilots. I currently fly a Moyes Xtralite. One month prior to the accident I had flown under the supervision of Chris Dawes in the UK where I did some winch foot launch training and some aero towing as an early season refresher. Prior to this I had last flown the previous late summer in the Alps.

I am a current airline pilot flying Boeing 747's and a current Air Force reserve pilot on fighter type aircraft. I hold a Glider Pilot's License although I am not at present current on sailplanes. I have some experience flying paragliders although I have not yet completed my license. My total flying experience is 8000 hours.

I have mentioned the military experience as I feel it is relevant with respect to my experience in spinning three axis control aircraft. My air force background has provided me with extensive spin training. I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity of spinning a variety of aircraft, from military trainers and fighters to general aviation aircraft, aerobatic aircraft and sailplanes.

Two weeks prior to this accident I carried out a maintenance test flight on a military trainer that included several multi turn full spins and recoveries. I thus feel that I may be considered current as far as spin identification, entry and recovery on three axis aircraft is concerned. This has relevance as there has been much discussion about the advantages of doing spin training on three axis aircraft before flying rigid wing hang gliders.

ATOS Experience

I had come to Spain specifically for the opportunity of flying the ATOS. At the time of the accident I had flown 11 flights on the ATOS for a total of 5.00 flying hours. All flight had been under the supervision of Felix Ruehle and I had been extensively and professionally briefed by him on all aspects of the glider.

Although this was my first experience on a rigid wing hang glider I had felt comfortable and confident on the ATOS from the first flight. I had on the second flight in smooth evening conditions flown the glider to the stall and found the recovery to be simple. I had confidence thermalling the glider in the moderate conditions I had experienced and at no stage had any reservations about the handling of the glider. I found the control harmony particularly pleasant and aero towing simple.

(editor’s note: An inexperienced hang glider pilot, new to an ATOS, was flying it too slow in a thermal.)

Equipment

The glider was a standard ATOS. I had for most of the week prior to the accident been flying another standard ATOS. The hang point for the accident glider (as on the previous glider) had been adjusted towards the forward centre of gravity (C of G) limit, appropriate to my hook in weight. On the accident glider my hang position was slightly higher than that of the glider I had flown previously in the week and the trim speed was slightly lower. Both the hang position and the trim speed were well within safe limits. The glider was fitted with an A.I.R. horizontal stabilizer.

I was using a Woody Valley Tenax harness with the parachute mounted on the right chest. The harness was fitted with a Metamorfosi Conar 18 Gore parachute, which was just over one year old and had recently been repacked by myself. No swivel was fitted to the bridle. My weight is 72 kg making a hook in weight of 87kg.

Airspeed information was provided by a Brauniger Galileo set to indicated airspeed (IAS) mode and a mechanical pitot system fitted by Felix. I used the mechanical system for airspeed reference as I had not yet calibrated the Galileo and was not sure of the reliability of the airspeed display.

Departure from Controlled Flight

I feel that the departure from controlled flight had two distinct phases, a non divergent autorotation phase, and a divergent pitch instability phase.

Autorotation Phase

The autorotation phase I would describe as a gust induced stall in the turn followed by an autorotation and an incipient spin (the incipient stage of the spin being where the aerodynamic and gyroscopic effects of the spin are still influenced by the initial flight path of the glider - in this case a left hand turn). Although the nose down rotation of this phase was rapid it did not feel to me to be divergent. I thus do not feel that the gust had at this stage placed the wing at an AOA/hang point loading combination that had exceeded any static stability margins.

I was surprised by the limited aerodynamic stall warning and the rate of the initial nose down rotation. For these reasons I think the gust onset was significant and rapid. All my previous spinning experience in aircraft had led me to expect an initial rotation rate in roll and yaw that equaled or exceeded any initial nose down pitch rotation. As the initial nose down rotation started I had reduced the AOA aggressively. This seemed to stop any further roll or yaw rotation but had little effect on the rate of nose down pitch rotation. At no stage did the glider enter a stabilized spin.

I feel that there are several factors that could have contributed to the initial autorotation.

Firstly the glider was trimmed slightly slower than that to which I had been used to on the previous ATOS I had flown. As stated this was well within safe limits but may have caused a tendency towards slightly slower flight if I was distracted.

Secondly, I was using flap to thermal. This would move the bar position slightly back and I would, if focused primarily on bar position, have the tendency to move the bar further forward than required.

Thirdly, I had completed a turn reversal prior to the autorotation and the spoiler deflection would have caused some nose up pitching moment. If not corrected this would cause an obvious reduction in IAS and place the glider closer to the stall.

All the above factors are conducive to slower flight. However I am accustomed to flying aircraft that require accurate speed control and feel that I was very aware of the IAS while thermalling. I was also aware that the spin behavior of rigid wing gliders can be unpredictable and had no desire to explore that environment. My thermalling speed of 42-45 km/h (26 mph) felt comfortable for the conditions I was experiencing. I have since been informed that it was perhaps on the low side but not unsafe.

(editor’s note: Pilot is unaware that he is flying too slow.)

I had thermalled at similar speeds in equivalent conditions for most of the week without ever approaching any stall margins. The accuracy of the airspeed reference must also be considered. As mentioned previously my primary reference was the mechanical pitot system as I felt it was more accurate than my as yet un-calibrated electronic reference.

Some points with respect to the turn reversal technique. I normally unload the wing (thus reducing the AOA) before initiating any reversal in order to improve the roll rate. This obviously also results in an increase in IAS. Whether my technique was sufficient to counter any pitch up due to spoiler deflection may be debated. I did not notice any significant pitch up during this particular reversal. My limited experience on the ATOS could of course preclude this.

In addition I had experienced acceleration on entering the increased lift prior to the reversal. I had countered the nose up pitch that this had caused and so feel that my IAS margins on entry to the turn reversal were probably sufficient for normal conditions. I had as well been briefed on the "rule of thumb" safe range for forward and rearward bar positions and at all times flew within this range.

I thus think there must have been some significant gust effect present. Simply approaching the stall in a turn should not result in the almost immediate and rapid rotation experienced with minimal stall warning. I have described the conditions as moderate. I was experiencing an average climb of 300 fpm with maximum instantaneous readings of 1000 fpm.

However, Ron Richardson reported some strong turbulence while descending through the airspace I had been flying in, shortly after I deployed the parachute. My assessment is that a gust rapidly exceeded the critical AOA of the wing. As I was not yet fully established in a stable turn, there would have been some asymmetric loading on the wing, possibly resulting in the auto-rotation. I feel that this is supported by the fact that my rapid reduction in the AOA had no appreciable effect on the pitch rotation rate.

Pitch Instability Phase

I will now discuss what I consider to be the second phase of the departure. During the initial auto-rotation I had not experienced any reduction in g loading on my body - the hang point still felt loaded. Although the initial nose down rotation was high, I still felt that I had some control input and that the glider would recover. However, as the glider passed through about 60° nose down I experienced a reduction in g loading and felt almost weightless.

From this point I felt I no longer had control of the glider and I was unable to hold the bar in any longer. This is when the rapid rotation to the inverted position occurred and I lost my grip on the control bar. Perhaps the excessive AOA of the wing combined with the unloading of the hang point caused the static stability margins of the wing to be exceeded, causing a divergent rotation in pitch. The first auto-rotation phase initially felt controllable. The second phase of pitch instability was definitely not controllable.

Lessons Learnt

Thermalling at higher speed, steeper bank angles and higher g loadings, while not necessarily providing an increase in stall margin, will improve the damping in pitch and make a departure less likely.

It would be of value to calculate the exact stall speeds for the actual wing loading at various appropriate bank angles. With an accurate IAS reference sufficient margins could be applied to these calculated stall speeds for safer thermalling. An accurate IAS reference is obviously necessary. Of even more value would be a vane type AOA reference (Here's hoping!).

I found the ATOS easy and a pleasure to fly. However, in retrospect I feel that more time spent exploring the performance of the glider in smooth air would have been of benefit. I think in particular, the effect of flap on trim speeds and bar position, spoiler effect on pitch in turn reversals and approaches to the stall in wings level and turning flight should have been more fully explored before flying in more challenging conditions.

I think that my initial reaction to the auto-rotation phase was correct. Moving the bar in reduces the AOA and places the centre of gravity in the best possible position for dive recovery. Should this happen again I will do the same while attempting to hold on tighter. I do however feel that it was impossible to maintain grip on the control bar during the rotation to the inverted position.

Some comments on pilot experience. I was very excited to be offered the opportunity to fly the ATOS by Felix, as I consider myself a low time hang glider pilot. His briefing was comprehensive and gave me confidence in the glider while making me aware of how it differed from other gliders I had flown. I flew the glider conservatively and felt very confident with the general handling.

The afternoon following the accident I flew another standard ATOS in moderate thermic conditions for a 1 ½ hour flight. While understandably nervous at first the pleasant handling of the glider allowed me to settle down and soon regain my confidence. In summary I experienced nothing in the handling of the ATOS that should exceed the abilities of an intermediate pilot. In most respects I found the ATOS easier to fly than an intermediate flex wing hang glider.

Some discussion on three axis spin training for rigid wing pilots. I feel the main benefit of this would be spin entry recognition and reduced disorientation. The spin entry techniques and recovery procedures for a three axis aircraft are different to that of a rigid wing hang glider and themselves can vary dependant on the design of the aircraft. Practicing these procedures would I feel have limited benefit for rigid wing pilots and may even reinforce incorrect techniques. In this accident the main benefit to me of my spin training was recognition of the initial situation and orientation in the unusual attitudes experienced.

Some points on the parachute deployment. It has been suggested, considering the glider was undamaged while inverted, that I could have tried harder to right the glider before deploying the parachute. In retrospect I am glad I did not. I lost a lot of height trying to stabilize the spinning parachute/glider combination. Had I deployed the parachute any later I might have impacted before stabilizing the system. At the time I did not feel that this would have been survivable.

I have discussed this with Angelo Crapanzano from Metamorfosi. He commented that although I was experiencing high g loadings, because the centre of gravity of the pilot/glider/parachute system would have been very close to the pilot/glider combination, my rotational speed would actually have been quite low. In addition he said that my descent rate would perhaps have been even less than when I had stabilized the system. He thus feels that even when the system was not stabilized, it was survivable. The perception from the pilot's point of view remains unpleasant.

In addition it is not certain how the glider may have reacted in the attempt to right it and there is a strong possibility of pilot injury in attempting this. This may then preclude parachute deployment. I thus feel strongly that if one is fortunate to survive a loss of control situation uninjured, the priority is to get the parachute deployed immediately. Considering the instability after parachute deployment, I feel the priority should be to get ones mass as close as possible to the hang point.

Angelo Crapanzano recommends that one gets as close as possible to the nose of the glider, or at least in front of the hang point. This can however be difficult and the A frame is a familiar refuge when under stress and can provide impact protection. It would have helped if I had held onto some part of the A frame before deploying the parachute, as this might have prevented me from being flung away from the A frame as the parachute deployed and righted the glider.

Had I been able to remain closer to the A frame the spiral motion might not have developed. I also feel that some thought should be given to the option of releasing from the glider prior to parachute deployment. All my complications were due to the fact that I was still attached to the glider.

I am very pleased that I had the Conar HG18 parachute. The rate of descent once stabilized was acceptable and the opening time impressively fast. It worked as advertised.

Some discussion on communications and search and rescue procedures. I was able to transmit a Mayday to Ron Richardson seconds after deploying the parachute as I had a transmit button fixed to my thumb. Ron demonstrated professionalism and true airmanship. He acknowledged my call, was overhead my position within minutes, plotted GPS co-ordinates and arranged a rescue. He then landed in a difficult location and was at the accident site within 30 minutes.

Had I been seriously injured Ron's actions would have been potentially life saving. The lessons here are to always fly with someone, be able to communicate effectively with them, even under duress, and always be prepared to assist effectively in an emergency. I had water in my harness but no first aid kit or emergency rations. This has been rectified.

Conclusion

In summary, I suggest that this accident was a result of a gust exceeding the critical angle of attack of the wing by a large margin. This resulted in auto-rotation with a rapid nose down pitch and unloading of the hang point. The static stability margin of the wing was exceeded and the wing experienced a divergent rotation to the inverted position.

Contributory factors were the relatively low indicated airspeed while thermalling, the effect of flap on the control bar position, pilot technique in the turn reversal and the pitch up effect of spoiler deflection.

Flex Ruehle’s Comments

I have attached an email from Felix Ruehle with his comments on the report and the incident.

You report is excellent however I think it's hard to see how quickly or slowly everything happened because my experience is that reports from stress situations follow a different clock.

Since hang gliding was born turbulence can be a problem for safe flying. However different developments improved the safety. One of the latest developments is the fixed V-tail with a lifting airfoil from A-I-R. How does it work? The glider is designed to have the same pitch up moment with tail like the standard ATOS with 0° flap.

With thermal, take off and landing flap setting the pitch up moment is significantly higher with the V-tail. Additionally the V-tail increases pitch damping very significantly with all flap settings. Of course instead of a tail the sweep angle can be increased too to get the same pitch damping effect. However this didn't work out as well for the ATOS, because higher sweep in combination with wing bending would cause dynamic problems.

With the V-tail the glider flies significantly more comfortable. In opposite to the opinion of some pilots, that a positive pitch up moment only protects a glider from tumbling, this is not the case. It is a result of several flight incidents with all types of hang gliders and as well with the hang glider drop test made by the DHV a few years ago that even with a certified hang glider it is possible to tumble.

According to my opinion the main parameters are: Pitch damping which can be increased by higher speed and by the wing area distribution in flight direction. For example a higher sweep angle or a tail, increase pitch damping as well as a forward pilot position. Pitch up moment. This is the moment which must be above a certain value for certification. Small distance from aerodynamic centre to CG.

For example a short A-frame is positive. High airspeed in relation to the turbulence is positive too.

The incident

The air was not very smooth this day and there was over development with rain shortly after the incident at this spot. Ron who landed close to help Dave (thanks Ron) hit some strong turbulence too. However, the day wasn't that rough that pilots usually would stop flying.

According to my opinion the tumbling from Dave was caused due to low airspeed in relation to the turbulence. The thermal speed under this condition was already little slow. The reversal turn reduced the speed probably further. This for example is a very good practice in smooth condition, doing reversal with constant speed. Take care: If you don't pull in during the reversal the speed drops.

I flew to the same spot the next day and felt comfortable with about 55km/h (34 mph) as min. thermal speed. This day looked smoother to me as the previous day.

Does the tail improve the safety? At the online contest (olc) 2002 the ATOS is the glider which has flown the most km before any other wing (including flex wing) and the ATOS flew much more km than other rigids, too. Many pilots have flown sometimes under extremely hard conditions and have reported the good behavior under turbulent condition.

It looks to me like active flying is getting more and more important. With the fast gliders the pilots have the possibility to fly with extra speed or high bank angle without losing too much of performance and it looks too me like the ATOS with the new V-tail is a step to improve pilots safety to a very high level even with the incident of Dave.

Under strong condition the glider gets extra stability with high bank angle and higher speed. While doing a reversal you can easily lose speed and the pilot has no extra g loading. I think this can be an interesting discussion how different pilots handle turbulent air.

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Sun, Jun 29 2003, 5:00:00 pm EDT

cloud|cloud suck|Dragonfly|George Steinmetz|harness|Moyes Litespeed|Moyes Litespeed S|National Geographic|photo|Quest Air|record|Ron Gleason|science|Swift|towing|triangle|Zapata

Gary writes early in the morning from Kansas (he had to return home for a couple of days and will be back tonight) that we should expect a lot of cirrus clouds today. The cirrus is pretty thin in the morning and the cu’s are going off at 9 AM. The winds are forecast to be light out of the east with a trough in the Gulf. Conditions for big flights aren’t forecasted to return until Tuesday.

George Steinmetz on photo assignment for National Geographic Explorer is here for the next three or four days, so I decide to go out to the airport around 10 AM to take a flight and let him capture a shot of a hang glider up next to the clouds. Evan …, senior science editor for WGBH Boston, producer of NOVA, is writing the article for National Geographic Explorer and have been here all this week for interviews.

I’m looking at all the beautiful cu’s around the airport as I arrive and it looks like a wonderful day to be in the air and floating around. We get George in the front seat of the Dragonfly with the 912 (or is it 914) four stroke engine and he and Russell have no problems towing me up to near cloud base at 4,000’.

I circle up to the wispies hoping that I’m following George’s directions closely so that he can get a good shot. Actually it turns out that he wants me at cloud base but in the blue so that the glider is highlighted in the sunshine against the darker cloud. Well maybe next time.

The lift is good up high and I’m a lot higher than I would normally expect to be this early, 4,000’ AGL. My zipper opens up again, so I was thinking that maybe I would just fly around and then land and fix the zipper before going up and leading the pack around the 25 km triangle.

After reflecting on the good lift and the plentiful cu’s I decide that even with the open harness I would go ahead and do the 25 km triangle that we are encouraging everyone to take a shot at today. We’ve picked this task because Junko in the Swift Light is afraid to land out so she doesn’t want to go too far from the airport.

No one else is in the air yet as we’d normally wait for better conditions around 1 PM or later, but with the promise of a lot of cirrus later in the day and the fact that things look beautiful now I head over to the cloud right over the start point. There is a lot of cloud suck under it and I keep jumping back to its edge to stay out of the cloud. Finally I race across under the cloud to get the start time.

There are plenty of cu’s on the 5 mile leg to the turnpoint, but if you have to turn at all you most likely won’t get the record. It is 50.4 km/h, the fastest of the triangle records, so it will be hard to beat. Tommy’s flex wing record is 50.84 km/h.

Fighting a 5 mph east wind, I do have to thermal before the first turnpoint and that slows me down. Also on the second leg. I’m feeling that I can’t make it. I come back toward the airport averaging 53 mph. I average 49 km/h over the triangle, not quite enough for the record, but great practice. I land so I can fix the zipper permanently.

The cirrus comes in thick now but there are plenty of cu’s forming under it. In fact they have plenty of vertical development and we can even see some virga under some of the cu’s. The ground is almost completely shaded by the cirrus and the thick and plentiful cu’s underneath.

Most of the rest of the pilots are in the air now checking out the conditions. Mikey is test flying the new Moyes Litespeed S and loving it. He’s got the carbon aft leading edges for reduced tip inertia.

Ron Gleason tries the small triangle what doesn’t find any lift out by the first turnpoint nor under the clouds on the way there and has to eke it back to the airport. Most of the pilots are hanging up the airport and climbing up to cloud base. The winds are lift out of the southeast at about 5 to 10 mph. In spite of the over development and bits of rain there are no gust fronts. All is mellow.

That is what Zapata and south Texas offers, mellow buoyant conditions that are pure pleasure to fly in. It’s the closest to flying in your dreams that you can get, and still you can set world records. The lift today averaged 450 fpm on my 25 km triangle, and it was just so sweet to fly in.

Tropical storm Bill is out in the Gulf of Mexico. I assume he will have some influence on conditions here tomorrow, but may not. Tuesday looks like a return to our standard go long for it conditions.

You might contrast and compare this article with that which follows.

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Thu, Jun 26 2003, 6:00:05 pm EDT

Garmin 12|GPS|Micke Wigstrand|picture|towing

Micke Wigstrand <micke.wigstrand@telia.com> writes:

I have in cooperation with the Swedish champ 2002, 2003 Mr. Peter Isacsson, developed a frontal pod. We decided to have it very thin and aerodynamic. We also decided to have inboard speed probe, covered by a carbon lid to minimize the risk of have it damaged by towing line.

It’s only for air foiled speed bars: Wills, Fast, Aeros etc. For the present fits Bräuniger IQ and Garmin 12. IQ& Garmin 76 is under construction.

Materials is carbon reinforced glassfibre, weight about 270g. Connection holes between vario and GPS. The picture shows a prototype without Velcro tabs. I also make conventional pods for IQ & G12 and IQ & 76.

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Sun, Jun 22 2003, 9:00:00 pm EDT

airspace|Andrew "Drew" Harris|cloud|cloud street|Jamie Shelden|Mike Barber|record|site|towing|world record|Zapata

We awake to the over running. Low dark clouds are wiping out of the Gulf about a thousand feet over our head. The light wind day that Gary had predicted a few days before is now a classic Zapata go long day and we hurry to the airport after checking the forecasts out ourselves.

At the airport I’m greeted with a site that I haven’t witnessed in three years. The strong winds are coming from a bit south of southeast. The windsock at the airport shows a bit of its mouth as we approach the southeast/northwest runway from the west. It is so great to see this wind direction which will help carry us past the Laredo airspace.

On the way to airport I call up Gary who’s driving in north Texas heading to us as fast as he can. Unfortunately for him, but great for us he’s got a strong headwind as he heads south. He’s pulling a trailer with the equivalent of a VW van and the headwind is slowing him down.

He tells me to be careful because tomorrow, Monday, looks much better because of higher wind conditions. The windcast also indicated this although Sunday also looked very good. I hadn’t seen just wind forecasts for two years now. It was just exciting seeing how good things might finally be.

Pete, Bo, and Mike Barber decide they are going to go for it anyway. The cloud streets have been forming up since 8 AM, and Bo and Pete will be able to get off before 10:30 AM. Mikey is off by 10:45. The clouds are still thick, with some vertical development by then, and the streets are still there.

The cloud streets at the airport.

The clouds continue all day. Often we’ll get a little break as the morning lift spreads out and reforms and the cloud base rises. Today, the clouds continue to form without a break. It is spectacular.

Pete and Bo get together under a cloud street and head north. Cloud base is 2,400’ MSL (2,000’ AGL). By the time Mikey is up it has risen to 3,000’ MSL. This is perfect for morning conditions in Zapata.

Now the only issue is will they go far enough to break the record or just far enough to not be able to get back to Zapata for the supposedly even better days ahead.

At noon we hear that Pete is on the ground 15 miles south of Laredo and that Mikey is going to come over and land with him. There is only one driver out there, Drew, so Mikey wants to get back with him. Bo decides to keep going.

After a bit of a discussion, Drew heads on after Bo and Jamie Sheldon drives Mikey’s car out to get Pete and Mikey. We haven’t heard yet how Bo is doing.

Gary has predicted that the winds near Zapata will back off later in the morning. Dave Prentice is out in the paraglider paddock towing up, but failing to get very far. On his second flight he notices that the winds have backed off about 10 mph.

I go out to the airport at 2:30 and attempt a world record out and return flight. As I climb up from the airport my instrument records a 15 to 20 mph wind out of the southeast. As my declared task would take me up wind 30 miles to the east, I decide that it is not possible today and land. We were hoping to set a new world record every day. Now all our hope rests on Bo.

By six o’clock we had heard that Bo had been more than one hundred miles out, had turned around and was coming back with Drew chasing him. It looks like he will be able to get back in time to be ready for tomorrow. Gary should be here late tonight.

Later in the day I check out the satellite to see if there are puffy cu’s all the way up the state. Instead it looks like there is blow off from the cu-nimbs that formed along the dryline. And the cu’s seemed to have quit about 100 miles out.

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Sun, Jun 1 2003, 2:03:06 pm EDT

Jesus Costa Sanchez|photo|towing

curt warren <secretagentcrack@hotmail.com> sends this shot of the air cam towing in Costa Rica

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Sun, Jun 1 2003, 2:03:03 pm EDT

aerotow|altitude|bridle|David "Dave" Glover|David Glover|drogue|electric|government|harness|job|Lighthawk|Mark "Forger" Stucky|Oz Report|payout winch|PG|power|powered|powered PG|PPG|Quest Air|sailplane|Stuart Caruk|Stu Smith|tail|technique|tow|towing|trike|tug|winch

Mark Stucky <stucky_mark@hotmail.com> writes:

I just noticed the discussion on the bigair paragliding forum regarding the recent paraglider aerotowing shown on the Oz Report. For several years I've occasionally put thought into the conceptual design for aerotowing a paraglider. I really think the future is in aerotow and discussed the issues some with David Glover (who is also very interested in it for big meets) last September at the Tehachapi sailplane fly-in. I wish we could have talked more but most of my attention at the time was dedicated to the Lighthawk flying debut.

The obvious issues with aerotowing are the slow flying speed of a paraglider and the relatively small amount of pitch and airspeed control available. Some comments on the web about concerns with the vertical distance of the canopy from the tow point are not that big of a deal due to the low thrust and drag forces involved. After all, if a paraglider couldn't handle 80 lbs of thrust near the CG of the pilot then powered paragliders would not work either!

I see three methods for aerotowing a paraglider.

Method 1: The obvious solution is a tug that tows at a compatible speed and climb rate. This method would involve conventional "follow the tug" procedures and a fixed length of towline. While having a PPG or powered PG trike arrangement has some appeal due to their slow flying speeds, I think they will cause more problems than they solve. I think a better tug would be a fancily flapped ultralight or a very large yet lightweight hang glider trike. Until such an exotic tug is designed we will have to make due with exotic procedures.

Method 2: Perhaps the best solution for paraglider aerotowing is to make a lightweight payout winch that can handle 2500 feet of spectra. Until we can get the tow airspeed slow enough to match the speed the paraglider pilot would like we will need to figure out how to handle a speed differential. With a payout winch you could use existing tug aircraft with procedures similar to a ground payout winch tow, the paraglider could simply climb up behind the tug without regard to maintaining the same relative altitude as the tug.

Let's assume we can get a tug that can tow at 45 feet/sec (30 mph) and have a paraglider that wants to fly at 30 fps (20 mph) for a differential speed of 15fps. I think a comfortable climb rate for a paraglider from a ground tows is 500 fpm. If the tug was also climbing at 500 fpm then the total climb rate of the paraglider would be 1000 fpm so a two minute tow to 2000 feet AGL would require 1800 feet of tow line (plus whatever amount you initially laid out). The benefit of an aerotow winch would be that you could use a small field and any wind direction instead of being tied to a long road.

Additionally, the tug could tow you to a thermal although once the line pays out beyond a few hundred feet the tug will be limited to shallow banks or short, quick turns (similar to ground circuit towing). The winch would have to have some kind of rewind capability and a small drogue to ensure it couldn't recoil into the tug's propeller.

Method 3 is obviously not for the faint of heart and requires advanced skills at both ends of the towrope. It is designed to make due with existing tow aircraft and uses a small fishing reel as a short duration payout winch. One way to manage a small speed differential is by using differential bank angles to fly concentric arcs with the paraglider flying a slower speed on the inside of the turn.

Stu Caruk's comments about delivering a bag of goods from a Cessna by hanging it out a window and flying circles around it has some merit. I was once involved in a government program that built upon that technique in an attempt to hover a small spy package several feet off the ground. The package contained sensors and fed position and altitude information back to the aircraft that was equipped with an exotic hydraulic winch which would make the fine high speed in/out corrections to the tow line while the pilot make the rough corrections by following guidance to fly an exact arc thousands of feet overhead. The program got cancelled and I sure wish I could have figured out a way to get my hands on the winch and the 10,000 feet of spectra!

To tow successfully without a high capacity payout winch, we need to manage not just the airspeed but also the climb rate, turn rate, and rope length. To manage the rope you need to first start with the proper length of towline. Too short of a rope and the workload is too high, the allowable lateral/vertical errors too small, and the probability of a lockout is too high. If the rope is too long then the turn circles are no longer concentric and havoc will quickly result.

We need to fly the proper arcs at an angle of bank that does not require extraordinary piloting skills or decrease the climb rate excessively. This means we need shallow bank angles so we can increase or decrease them as required without generating excessive turn rates that would be impossible to manage in a tethered relationship.

Successfully aerotowing a paraglider with this method requires a change to the traditional paradigm of towed flight in which the glider must dutifully follow the tug. Both the paraglider pilot and the tug pilot will have to abide by a pre-coordinated plan for dealing with the continuous corrections that will be required. In the absence of such an advanced plan, the aerotow will be short-lived.

If our 45fps tug flew at 13° bank then his radius of turn would be 275ft at a leisurely turn rate of 10° per second. To achieve the same turn rate with the 30 fps paraglider, it would use 9° of bank for a radius of turn of 178ft. At these conditions I computed a 160 ft towrope as optimal. Under these conditions the paraglider is approximately 45° off axis from the tug (i.e. with both aircraft in a left handed turn, if the paraglider is pointed north, the tug would be pointed northwest).

While this would normally be disconcerting to a tug pilot used to conventional aerotows, it is possible to tow with the line leaving the tug at a 45 degee angle (and only 70% of the tow tension providing thrust to the paraglider). As always, though, the paraglider pilot should strive to keep the towline square to the harness and canopy. Note that if the towrope was routed to the tug's tail then the drag of the paraglider would always be trying to pull the tail inline with the glider and the tug would have to have sufficient rudder power to counter the torque of the off-axis tow or else have some sort of CG/bridle hook up.

If both aircraft are climbing out at the same rate then everything is perfect but chances are there will be some errors. Here is where the pre-planning is required. If the tug is climbing faster than the paraglider, then the paraglider should decrease its bank slightly to increase its speed and climb rate. If the paraglider is climbing above the tug (more likely) he should increase his angle of bank to cut to the inside. Here is where a smart tug pilot will make or break the tow.

He needs to evaluate if the paraglider pilot has been doing a good job and if it has room to make the required correction. If the paraglider is slightly out of position but correcting back then the tug may just observe. If the paraglider pilot is already in the planned position (about 45° inside the turn) then there isn't much more he can do and the tug pilot should either throttle back or increase his bank angle to decrease the climb rate. His course of action should be based upon his interpretation of the paraglider's 3-D position and heading (if the paraglider has dug far inside the turn and the tug turns harder then the paraglider will have to deal with a huge change in heading and possibly even slack line).

If the plan is properly coordinated and well flown by both pilots then a small payout winch could be mounted on the tug. The purpose of the winch would be to handle short periods of excess tow pressure. The winch could simply be a large fishing reel with some pretty small towline (or large fishing line - depending upon your point of view). I'm not a fisherman but I think you could get a commercial product with 500 feet of line that only weighs a few pounds.

You would set the drag for say 20% more than the planned tow force and it could handle short periods of time while the aircraft are transitioning back to the proper positions to reset the planned steady-state conditions. A small electric motor could wind the line back in at the completion of the tow. The reel should be mounted in the field of view of the tug pilot and the line could be routed through guides or pulleys to route it clear of the propeller.

(editor’s note: I believe that all of these methods are being looked at and attempted in some cases at Quest Air.)

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Fri, May 30 2003, 6:03:00 pm GMT

Andrew "Drew" Harris|competition|Dave Hopkins|David "Dave" Glover|David Glover|Davis Straub|food|Jamie Shelden|Jeff Huey|Kate Diamond|Paul Pearce|PG|Russell "Russ" Brown|scooter|scooter tow|tow|towing|winch

In spite of having a forecast for the best conditions of the week, only one of the pilots was able to get away from the tow paddock at all. There were dark, black bottomed cu’s every where, but no one could find any lift under them.

There was a 10 mph wind out of the west-northwest, pretty much like the day before, but with repeated launches and no one getting up off tow morale was getting lower and lower. Rob, the only pilot who had thermaled out and left the field, felt that the winds were a bit too strong coming into the field where he landed a few miles down wind. He phoned back his concerns to the pilots not getting up in the tow paddock.

Then a less experienced winch operator let the pressure off on a pilot just getting up a bit sideways and sent him sprawling across a couple of paragliders. Low morale, winds, sprawling pilot, the phoned in report from Rob, and only a few minutes left in the original end of launch time (which had just been extended), and pilots voted to stop the day.

It sure was hard to say why no one was able to get up off tows to 2000’ (the winds helped get pilots higher). On the worst looking day, we have the easiest time getting everyone into the air, and on the best looking day, we have the hardest time.

There are more helpers than contestants in this small first PG towing contest:

Paul Pearce's Hydraulic pay in - Drew Harris
Greg McNamee's Scooter tow rig
Russell Brown's Double wire drum pay in
ATV/Pulley return tow - Lois Nuebaeur
Rope Pull Back - by Hank Camp, Drew Harris, Joe Johnston
Retrieve Drivers - Jamie Shelden, Bruce Hopkins, David Glover, Martha Huey
Traffic Control - Kate Diamond, Damon Wooten and Bruce Hopkins
Launch Help Pilots/Winches- Davis Straub, Bruce Hopkins/David Glover
Food - Reily, Connie, Darrien, Lois

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Wed, May 28 2003, 6:03:00 pm GMT

competition|David "Dave" Glover|David Glover|Florida|gaggle|Jeff Huey|Josh Cohn|landing|PG|picture|Quest Air|radio|tow|towing|Wallaby Ranch

A cold front slowly moved through central Florida today changing the wind direction somewhat from west to west-northwest. The winds basically died down to light and variable.

With a raft of high level clouds accompanying the front the day looked dismal as we contemplated a task at 10:30 AM. The green dot is Groveland.

The BLIPSPOT predicted lift continuing along in the same vain as the previous days , 450 fpm, but it sure didn’t look like we would get any convergence and therefore help with increasing lift. We wondered if we were going to get any cumulus development at all.

We held the launch window back to 1:30 hoping to get enough filtered sunlight to heat up the ground and produce some lift. The cu’s started forming under the thinning cirrus, so it didn’t look completely hopeless, just almost completely hopeless.

We had had so many tows under beautiful cu filled skies, that the tow crew was not looking forward to hundreds of tows under skies that promised very light lift if any. Josh volunteered to wind dummy if he could get his place back and we let him go over shaded ground to see if there was anything out there. He didn’t get up.

Still that didn’t stop folks who decided to start towing anyway as Josh slowly came down. There was a break in the cirrus and a cu formed over the middle of the field. A few pilots got up and started to stick. Suddenly everyone wanted to go.

Fourteen tows later for twelve pilots and everyone was sticking and gaggling in the same thermal in the middle of the Quest Air tow field. They were climbing slowly but they were together and there is a strong incentive to stay with everyone else and not come back to the field on your own.

So on the worst looking day we have the easiest tow operation and get everyone out of the tow field in less than an hour. One pilot comes back after landing within the two mile reflight zone, but after two tows, decides to go on retrieval and pick up his flying buddies.

The task committee called a 23 mile task from Quest, fifteen miles southeast to the intersection of highway 27 and 474, and then south-southwest 8 miles to Wallaby Ranch. The idea was to keep pilots away from the difficult to retrieve areas and over landable areas on the final glide into goal.

Three pilots including Dave Prentice got high and left together. The next eight had to wait longer and get higher within the two mile start circle before they could head out after the lead gaggle.

The lead gaggle didn’t make it to goal and landed further from goal than the later gaggle. I heard Jeff Huey in the air on the radio early on saying it looked like every one would make goal. Looks like he landed a mile short. Josh Cohn was the only one to make it to Wallaby.

Wednesday:

Place	Name	mph	miles	Total
1	COHN Josh	18.09	23.3	855
2	HUEY Jeff		22.4	648
3	BROCK Gary		21.7	635
4	FARRELL Jeff		20.8	614
5	HOISINGTON Zach		18.5	546
6	SWAIN Gavin		15.4	443
7	HOFFMAN Doug		15.4	441
8	MOOK Tom		8.6	261
9	PRENTICE Dave		6.6	223
10	SZAFARYN Len		6.4	219
11	SPORER Rob		5.9	204
12	KEARNEY Bill		2.4	83

After four days:

Place	Name	Total
1	COHN Josh	2129
2	HUEY Jeff	1895
3	FARRELL Jeff	1806
4	BROCK Gary	1607
5	PRENTICE Dave	1426
6	HOISINGTON Zach	1244
7	MOOK Tom	1099
8	SWAIN Gavin	1054
9	SZAFARYN Len	887
10	SPORER Rob	702
11	HOFFMAN Doug	634
12	KEARNEY Bill	376

David Glover writes:

Picture by: Sir Geoffrey Farrell of http://www.4superfly.com Quest can be seen in the middle far right of the picture - spring fed pond on the east side of the field.

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Tue, May 27 2003, 6:03:00 pm GMT

competition|Florida|Jeff Huey|Josh Cohn|landing|Orlando Stephenson|PG|power|tow|towing|winch

We head northwest to the wide open areas of central Florida south of the Florida turnpike in order to use a larger field to accommodate the continual western winds. Going northwest we can also more easily get the paraglider pilots away from Orlando and downwind to some small airports north of Lake Apopka.

The task today was a 20 mile down wind leg straight east to Bob White airport and then a 30 mile slightly off downwind leg to the Orlando County Airport. After landing at a private airport yesterday, we wanted to land at a public airport today.

The forecast was for winds of 5 to 10 mph out of the west with 400 fpm lift to 5,200’ in the last afternoon. If the winds came up we didn’t want to force the paraglider pilots to go cross wind in light lift (400 fpm lift – 200 fpm sink rate).

We convoy out to the field off sand roads and setup under some high tension power lines while the winch tows get taken down to the western end of the field as we hold onto the wires at our end. We can’t quite see the winches beyond the rolling hills, but they can see the paragliders when we kite them. There is enough wind to make this easy to do.

We spend the next four hours towing up twelve pilots on four tow rigs until finally every one gets away. We tell the last pilots that they have to turn and go downwind because the sea breeze has wiped out all the lift (if there ever was any) over the field, and they need to run to the clouds in the convergence zone to the east. Otherwise, they won’t get up. They follow our advice and most do get up.

We are able to tow pilots quite high in the prevailing winds and those that are clever stay with any lift that they can find hanging on for dear life. It only gets better as they quickly drift away toward the convergence zone. Jeff Huey reports 500 fpm climb to 5,500’ in his last thermal.

Pilots at goal reported watching Josh Cohn head off in the wrong direction after the first turnpoint. He finally figured out where he was supposed to go, turned around and didn’t make it back enough to make goal. Turns out he was watching the arrow on his Garmin eTrex and it was not pointing toward the GoTo point.

The first pilot to make goal left the start circle at 1:30 and made goal before all but one other pilot who made goal left the start circle. The last pilot to leave the start circle was the last pilot to launch and left at 4:20, almost three hours later.

Seven pilots make goal and everyone leaves the field.

Place	Name	mph	miles	Total
1	BROCK Gary	23.55	23.4	612
2	HUEY Jeff	23.14	23.4	603
3	PRENTICE Dave	21.46	23.4	541
4	MOOK Tom	20.69	23.4	516
5	HOISINGTON Zach	19.48	23.4	493
6	FARRELL Jeff	15.91	23.4	482
7	SZAFARYN Len	15.52	23.4	401
8	COHN Josh		22.9	279
9	SPORER Rob		16.3	212
10	SWAIN Gavin		2.2	40
11	HOFFMAN Doug		1.6	38
11	KEARNEY Bill		0.6	38

After three days:

Place	Name	Total
1	COHN Josh	1274
2	HUEY Jeff	1247
3	PRENTICE Dave	1203
4	FARRELL Jeff	1192
5	BROCK Gary	972
6	MOOK Tom	838
7	HOISINGTON Zach	698
8	SZAFARYN Len	668
9	SWAIN Gavin	611
10	SPORER Rob	498
11	KEARNEY Bill	293
12	HOFFMAN Doug	193

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Mon, May 26 2003, 6:03:00 pm GMT

competition|PG|Quest Air|tow|towing

<FlyMrPuffy@aol.com> writes about the first day:

Ok, I got out of the tow paddock first. Jeff Farrell followed me on an XTRA large Oasis, I got about 7 miles away, on two big thermals, flying by myself in the lead (like a real man), eventually I landed in a swamp hip deep in vile reptiles.

Thirty minutes later, the alligator I was wrestling with stopped halfway through our battle and pointed to the sky and said " hey, it looks like all the rest of your pussy friends are flying over your head, and it also looks like they're holding hands while they're flying together, so even though I'm trying to kill and eat you, you've earned my respect! ".

So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!!

Monday was an amazing day in the tow paddock. I’m sure that some pilots got close to a dozen tows. We were lined up on the shorter east west runway with the full spectrum of winches next to highway 33. The winds were right out of the west just like yesterday, but this day we were towing right into the wind. Pilots got a lot higher.

There were beautiful cu’s everywhere and no chance of over development. It sure appears as though the prevalent winds will be out of the west for the rest of the week. We started the towing at 12:30, an hour later than Sunday and stayed there the rest of the day towing, and towing, and towing. The Superflytec Championship became the Quest Air Tow Clinic.

Slowly as the lift improved, pilots began dribbling away to the northeast toward the goal, a small private airport, twenty one miles away. Some pilots even began step towing and getting quite high. The pilots who made goal didn’t leave the two mile start circle until 2:30 to 2:50.

We ended the day with only two pilots still not able to at least get out of the field and four pilots at goal. The rest were strung along the course line. Monday:

Place	Name	mph	miles	Total
1	COHN Josh	18.75	21.6	614
2	HUEY Jeff	17.78	21.6	561
3	SWAIN Gavin	14.86	21.6	488
3	FARRELL Jeff	13.95	21.6	488
5	BROCK Gary		14.4	277
6	PRENTICE Dave		10.9	234
7	KEARNEY Bill		7.3	172
8	HOISINGTON Zach		4.5	122
9	MOOK Tom		2	72
9	SPORER Rob		1.4	72
9	HOFFMAN Doug		0.4	72
9	SZAFARYN Len		0.2	72

After two days:

Place	Name	Total
1	COHN Josh	995
2	FARRELL Jeff	710
3	PRENTICE Dave	662
4	HUEY Jeff	644
5	SWAIN Gavin	571
6	BROCK Gary	360
7	MOOK Tom	322
8	SPORER Rob	286
9	SZAFARYN Len	267
10	KEARNEY Bill	255
11	HOISINGTON Zach	205
12	HOFFMAN Doug	155

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Sat, May 24 2003, 6:03:00 pm GMT

airspace|communication|competition|David "Dave" Glover|David Glover|Gregg "Kim" Ludwig|Josh Cohn|Orlando Stephenson|Oz Report|PG|Quest Air|radio|Russell "Russ" Brown|scooter|tow|towing|winch

This variously-named paragliding competition (recently referred to in the Oz Report as the PG Gator Classic) got under way today with twelve paraglider pilots all towing at Quest Air. Our tow line up setup consisted of Russell Brown’s two wire static tow rig, Gregg McNamee from http://www.graybirdairsports.com/ with his scooter on a platform tow, a big reel winch tow setup, and the simplest and fastest turn-a-round tow system, the static line with a pulley tied to a tree and an ATV. This was more than enough for the twelve competitors.

Some pilots got many tows as we towed them cross wind in light winds down the longer north south runway. Because of the cross winds we weren’t able to get them as high as we did a couple of days ago (1,100’ on that day) and pilots had to scratch their way out of the field from 500’ or less feet. A total of six pilots were able to do so after three hours of towing.

The task was Umatilla airport 30 miles to the northeast given the predicted southwest winds (245°). The 5 to 10 mph winds were in fact about 270°, so it made for tough going in the often light lift. Straight east of Quest you’ll soon find Orlando and controlled airspace starting at a bottom of 6,000’, although getting to 2,100’ was a feat today.

Unlike the past few weeks, there was a much reduced chance of over development and the sky was full of friendly cu’s from 10:30 AM onward. 50 miles to the south there were thunderstorms. It looks like tomorrow should have a further reduced chance of showers. The rest of the week looks good also.

The pilots who did get away generally got away in pairs. Dave Prentice and Josh Cohn were the second pair out. Josh went 20 miles and Dave 24 miles. Dave said that he decided that Josh was getting more help from Dave than Dave was from Josh, so he tried to get away to see if he could shake him. At that point they took very different routes.

These were the longest flights of the day that was worth about 430 points.

David Glover is the meet organizer/director and is handling the launch coordination at the pilot end. I’m down at the other end of the field coordinating the winch end of the launches, basically making sure that the radio communication is clear. Given the long lines, we had Kate in the middle at the road handling the car/truck traffic crossing the lines.

We had to shut down the hang gliding operation for three hours to make sure the paraglider pilots had a chance to get up and out, but the hang glider pilots had good flights before and after the paraglider towing operation. Tomorrow with the west winds, we will be towing from the same location as the hang gliding operation, so we probably won’t have to close them down at all.

Place	Name	miles	Total
1	PRENTICE Dave	24.1	428
2	COHN Josh	20.4	381
3	MOOK Tom	10	250
4	FARRELL Jeff	7.9	222
5	SPORER Rob	7.4	214
6	SZAFARYN Len	6.6	195
7	HOISINGTON Zach	1.2	83
7	BROCK Gary	0.5	83
7	HUEY Jeff	0.4	83
7	SWAIN Gavin	0.4	83
7	KEARNEY Bill	0.4	83
7	HOFFMAN Doug	0	83

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Thu, May 22 2003, 2:00:05 pm EDT

competition|David "Dave" Glover|David Glover|David Prentice|Josh Cohn|PG|Quest Air|tow|towing|winch

This weekend a paraglider towing meet begins here at Quest Air. David Prentice has been here all spring getting ready for this meet. Josh Cohn and other paraglider pilots are here getting ready for the meet, rehearsing their towing skills.

David Glover is the meet director and he and David Prentice are working with the winch tow rigs. Right now it is pouring rain, but it has been quite flyable for weeks here, even with the rain in the afternoon or evening. It is the rainy season.

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Fri, May 9 2003, 2:00:06 pm EDT

competition|David "Dave" Glover|David Glover|Florida|tow|towing

David Glover <david@davidglover.com> writes:

I would like to get some of these static tow rigs as a back up to the winches for the late May 2003 Florida paragliding competition. I will buy or rent. Anyone who knows where to get these, let me know. Anyone who can make of a couple, please contact me.

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Wed, May 7 2003, 3:00:02 pm EDT

petition|Rob Jacobs|tow|towing

Rob Jacobs Manchester, NH writes:

Last fall, we ran into some opposition to our towing operation here in New Hampshire and in a very small town, it doesn't take much to cause locals to stand up and take notice.

We as pilots have the opportunity to effect change by showing our local town council that aerotowing is indeed a viable and desired method of becoming airborn and serves as a tried and true method for training new pilots.

In addition to these facts, the influx of pilots to the local area, and the commerce they support and allow to thrive, brings a far higher value to the community. The towing operation at Morningside is very young, and we've been put to the cross more than once in its short life so far, and we have an opportunity to put the issue of towing to bed once and for all, and secure the right to tow for many years to come.

I ask that if you are interested in aerotowing at Morningside, now or in the future, please take a minute and sign our petition which can be located at:

www.vhga.org/towing.htm

Many thanks to those who have supported us in the past, and in the future.

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Sun, Apr 27 2003, 2:00:03 pm EDT

aerotow|cart|cartoon|cloud|Cloud 9|competition|cost|David Maule|donations|Dragonfly|equipment|FAA|flight park|Florida|Flytec USA|food|foot launch|game|glide ratio|government|harness|instruction|landing|Maureen Grant|Moyes America|Moyes USA|parachute|photo|record|release|Rick Agudelo|Rob Kells|safety|site|sport|Sport Aviation|Spot|spot landing|storage|students|tandem|tow|towing|Tracy Tillman|training hill|transport|travel|tug|USHGA|weather|Wills Wing

aka the Dragonfly Cup - a new comp with a tall attitude and monster-size prizes.

by Tracy Tillman and Lisa Colletti

(from Reality Check cartoon series)

While working in the laboratory late one night, we created a new hang gliding competition for 2003, the Dragonfly Cup. The comp will take place at Cloud 9 Field in Michigan, home of the Draachen Fliegen Soaring Club. The value of prizes to be awarded is over $6000. Major sponsors include Wills Wing, Moyes USA, Flytec USA, High Energy Sports, AV8/Icaro, and Cloud 9 Sport Aviation.

Hot Comps

Many of the most successful meets taking place across the world use aerotowing as the primary means of launch. At a good site, it allows launching into any wind direction, and enables a large number of pilots to launch in a short period of time (provided that there are enough tugs and tug pilots available). The large cross-country meets that have been hosted by our friends in Florida and Texas over the last five years are a great example of the popularity and success of aerotowing as a launch format. The mass launches are an awesome site to behold, and participation in those comps is an experience that one will never forget. By all means, one should try to get to one or both of the Florida meets, as a participant, tug pilot, volunteer helper, or spectator.

The good flying conditions and high-level of competition at these meets bring together some of the best pilots in the world. These are relatively complex, work-intensive, and expensive comps to run, which results in entry fees being near $400, not including tow fees. With travel, food, lodging, and support crew costs added, the overall cost for a pilot to participate in one or both of the Florida meets is significant. Never-the-less, registration for both of these meets fills up almost immediately after opening.

Despite the popularity of these meets, it has been difficult for some clubs to run a successful meet in other parts of the county. Here in the Great Lakes/Great Plains region of the country, poor weather and low pilot turnout has resulted in the cancellation of meets more often than not. We can experience great soaring conditions across the summer flying season in this part of the country, but the weather patterns are not as consistent as in Florida or Texas. Also, many average Jo/Joe hang glider pilots who live in this part of the country are more interested in participating in a lower-cost, fun-type comp, rather than in a higher-cost, intensely competitive cross-country competition; and, it may be difficult for some pilots to take many vacation days away from work to attend a meet.

The Dragonfly Cup

With these issues in mind, and after some discussions with Rob Kells of Wills Wing, we created the Dragonfly Cup hang gliding competition for the summer of 2003. Aerotow and hill slope will be the primary means of launch. The comp will be hosted by the Draachen Fliegen Soaring Club (DFSC) at Cloud 9 Field in Michigan. It is a low-cost comp to benefit the DFSC, with large prizes sponsored by major hang gliding companies.

(A good summer day at Cloud 9. Photo by Rick Agudelo)

To avoid weather cancellation issues, the Dragonfly Cup is running season-long, from May 15 through September 1 (Labor Day), 2003. To avoid weather-related cross-country task problems, there are five different task categories: Race, Distance, Duration, Spot Landing, and Glide Ratio. To avoid retrieve problems, all task landings are at Cloud 9 Field. To reduce expenses, the cost is only $10 or $20 per comp flight, depending upon the task(s) declared by the competitor, plus the cost of the tow for that flight. A pilot can enter and declare a flight as a comp flight as many times as he/she likes across the season. To enable any level of pilot to win, a handicap system will enable lower-performance gliders to release from tow at higher altitudes. Pilots will foot launch from the newly-constructed training hill at Cloud 9 Field for the glide ratio task, which will enable non-towing student pilots, and even paraglider pilots, to compete in the meet. (Note: It is not a large hill; using a light, slow, high-lift wing may offer an advantage for this task.)

Results will be recorded across the season. Those who finish at the top of each category will be eligible to win one or more of the major prizes available. So far, the prize list and sponsors include: (a) Falcon 2 hang glider, sponsored by Wills Wing and Cloud 9 Sport Aviation ($3075 value); (b) Contour Harness sponsored by Moyes America ($950 value); (c) 4030XL variometer sponsored by Flytec USA ($899 value); (d) Quantum 330 reserve parachute sponsored by High Energy Sports ($650 value); and (e) PVC storage/transport tubes sponsored by AV8/Icaro ($500 value).

The cost for declaring a hill flight as a glide ratio comp flight is just $10, which means that for as little as a $10 entry fee, a pilot could win a brand new Falcon 2 glider worth over $3000. The cost for declaring an aerotow flight as a comp flight is $20 (plus tow fee), but the pilot can choose two of the four aerotow task categories for that flight: (a) Race, which is the fastest out and back 16 mile round trip time to the neighboring Sandhill Soaring Club field; (b) Distance, which is the most out and back round trips to the Sandhill Soaring Club field; (c) Duration, which is the longest time aloft; and (d) Spot Landing, which is landing (by foot or wheel) within a prescribed circle. All landings must be on Cloud 9 field; out-landing flights will be disqualified. For the aerotowing tasks, the tow height limit is1500 feet AGL for rigid wings, 2500 feet for topless flex wings, 3500 feet for kingposted double-surface flex wings, and 4500 feet for kingposted single-surface flex wings.

(Lisa, Tracy, and DFSC club members. Artwork by Bob and Maureen Grant)

The DSFC will host comp parties on Memorial Day weekend, July 4 weekend, and the first weekend in August, to encourage pilots from other clubs to schedule a trip en masse to fly here with us. The grand finale party will be held on Labor Day weekend, with final results determined and prizes awarded on Labor Day.

The winners of each task category will have an equal chance at winning the major prizes. A drawing of the task winners' names will be held on Labor Day to determine who gets which prize.

We feel that events like the Dragonfly Cup can help the sport to grow, as do several major manufacturers and distributors. Wills Wing, Moyes, Flytec, High Energy Sports, AV8/Icaro, and Cloud 9 Sport Aviation are offering significant donations in support of the 2003 Dragonfly Cup. These companies are dedicated to supporting our sport with their excellent products and services, please support them in return.

Cloud 9 Field and the Draachen Fliegen Soaring Club

If you have not flown with us before, please be aware that we have a specific operations formula that may be somewhat different from what you have experienced at other aerotowing sites. Because we have a nice site with a very active club, some pilots mistakenly think of our DFSC club site as a commercial flight park-it is not.

Cloud 9 Field is our sod farm, private airfield, and home. We purchased the land specifically with the intent of building a house, hanger, and private airfield, and to create a home base for the Draachen Fliegen Soaring Club. We are on the executive board of the Draachen Fliegen Soaring Club, and are the owners of Cloud 9 Sport Aviation, which is a supplementary mail order hang glider equipment business that serves Michigan and the Great Lakes region. We are also the owners of Cloud 9 Field, Inc. sod farm.

We allow DFSC club members and guest members to camp on our property (temporarily, not permanently) at no charge, and bathrooms and showers are available in our hanger for members and guests to use. The hanger has a second-floor club house/game room/kitchenette and observation deck overlooking the field. Our airfield is flat and open, and allows smooth cart launches and foot or wheel landings in any wind direction on mowed and rolled sod grass. Last year, we also built a 30 foot training hill on the edge of the field with the help of several club members (thanks Rick, Mark, and Jim!).

(Cloud 9 Field hanger and DFSC club house.)

The DFSC has been active since 1997, and has been flying from Cloud 9 Field since 1998. Even though we gained prior approval from the local, state, and federal government for the establishment of our private airfield for aircraft, ultralight, and hang glider operations, the local township government reacted to complaints from a neighbor about our towing operations, and sued us to prevent us from flying. As a result, we purposely kept a low public profile (but did not stop flying) while battling the lawsuit over several years.

Since that time we have learned how common it is, all across the country, for legal action to be initiated against people who own or establish airstrips and conduct flying activities. We also discovered that it is very important to find attorneys who are well versed in the appropriate areas of law, and who really care about your case. At a significant cost to us, we settled the lawsuit last year. In addition to having a great pair of attorneys working for us, one of which is a hang glider pilot and now a DFSC club member, we also had to do a great deal of work to help them develop an understanding of the case and to build a solid legal argument for the court. We learned a lot, but it was very time-consuming, stressful, and expensive.

During this process, we were inspected twice by the FAA. Their visits and reports supported our legal argument by helping to verify that we are not a commercial flight park operation, that we are operating properly within FAA regulations and exemptions, and that we are operating safely and relatively quietly. After getting to know us and the nature of our operations, the FAA asked Tracy to serve as an Aviation Safety Counselor for the FAA Detroit FSDO region, which also had a positive impact for us in court.

We are both ultralight basic flight instructors, and airplane private pilots. Lisa is the main tug pilot, and Tracy is the tandem hang gliding instructor for the club. We have two Dragonfly tugs, one with a Rotax 914 engine, and one with a Rotax 912 engine. We also own a Maule STOL airplane, painted in the same colors as our Dragonfly tugs.

In consideration of our neighbors, we have been successful in significantly reducing the engine/prop noise generation levels on both of our tugs. We use quieter and more reliable 4-stroke engines, custom-designed Prince propellers that provide increased thrust and reduced noise, after-muffler silencers with exhaust stacks that direct the noise upward, and towing/flying techniques that minimize noise levels on the ground.

(Tracy and Lisa with one of their Dragonfly Tugs)

Our operations formula has been refined over time to best meet FAA, IRS, USHGA, USUA, and other federal, state, and local laws, rules, and regulations. As such, all of our hang gliding instruction and flying operations take place via the Draachen Fliegen Soaring Club, Inc., which is a not-for-profit, mutual benefit organization to promote safe hang gliding and instruction. Club members share in the cost of our operations for their mutual benefit, such as site preservation and maintenance, tow operations, and instruction. All flights conducted by the DFSC are considered instructional flights. Instruction is free, but the club collects membership dues and fees from each member to cover their own specific towing expenses (non-member pilots can fly with us a few times a year as guests of the club without paying membership dues, but club members pay less for tows).

Our field is a private airfield for non-commercial use, not a public flight park for commercial use; therefore, all pilots, students, and visitors must contact us prior to coming out to our field to fly---on each and every visit. We try to be available for flying on most good days, but will be away from the field on occasion, so call before you come. Our season runs from May 1 through October 31. We are available to tow after 10:30 AM six days a week (not on Tuesdays), and on weekends only after Labor Day (when Tracy has to resume his faculty duties for the fall semester at Eastern Michigan University). We conduct tandem instructional flights in the evening, in conditions that are appropriate for students.

Everyone who flies with us must be a DFSC club member or guest member, a member of USHGA, sign our club waiver, and follow all club rules and procedures. We are very safety and instruction oriented, and expect pilots to do what we ask of them. Anyone who does not, will be reminded that they are at our home and on our field as our guest, and will be asked to leave. We would hope that pilots understand that there are many complex factors and issues involved in the establishment and operation of a successful aerotow hang gliding club, which mandates that we do things in certain ways. So far, our approach seems to work--we have an excellent safety record, a great group of pilots, a lot of fun, and a good reputation among students, pilots, and FAA officials who know us.

In spite of the cost and effort (on top of our regular professions) that it has taken for us to create and maintain the field and buildings, equipment, and club operations for the club, we support the club and its members because we love hang gliding and flying. We have had good success in bringing new pilots into the sport and we have helped to improve the flying skills of our club members.

Now that we have settled our township-related problems, we can be more open about our club's flying activities. We are hoping that more pilots will come to learn and fly with us in 2003, and we are very much looking forward to hosting the Dragonfly Cup this year.

Instruction and continuous improvement of flying skills and safety are the prime directives of our club. We take that very seriously. Accidents and injuries are not fun-safe flying is more fun for everybody. We will continue to focus on helping all of our club pilots improve their flying skills throughout the year, and we think that the Dragonfly Cup is a great way to help make that happen.

We are looking forward to having a great flying season ahead. Come fly with us, and enter the Dragonfly Cup - you've got a good chance at winning big!

For more information about the DFSC and the 2003 Dragonfly Cup, visit our website at http://members.aol.com/DFSCinc, email us at <DFSCinc@aol.com>, or call us at 517.223.8683. Fly safe, Lisa and Tracy.

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Fri, Apr 25 2003, 4:00:06 pm EDT

Australia|competition|Florida|Hay|site|towing|Worlds|Worlds 2005

There continues to be a lot of discussion here among the top pilots about the choice of Hay as the site of the 2004 pre-Worlds and 2005 Worlds. They continue to see Florida as a preferable location. With two flight parks (in central Florida) that provide ready-made services to the pilots they continue to wonder why they have to go out to the desolate outback and make their own arrangements for towing, etc.

I have set up a poll for the top competition pilots to vote on whether they want to go to Hay, NSW, Australia or to Florida (either of the two flight parks in central Florida) at https://OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=283#283

If you are a top flex wing pilot likely to make your national team for this time period, you might want to go there and vote for the site that you want.

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Thu, Apr 24 2003, 5:00:05 pm EDT

Dragonfly|FAA|flight park|Matt Taber|sport|Sport Pilot|towing

Matt Taber <fly@hanglide.com> writes:

Thanks for your letter of support and thank you for posting our distress. It looks as though we will not be towing with the Dragonfly until the new exemption comes out. I do not know what the county commissioners are going to do, although I am hopeful.

Please post my heartfelt thanks to the many individuals that took the time to write letters of support for the flight park. We deeply appreciate the effort. I am sure that it will help. I will post a follow up when I know what is going on.

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Wed, Apr 23 2003, 4:00:02 pm EDT

aerotow|Bill Bryden|EAA|FAA|flight park|instruction|Jayne DePanfilis|Lee Gardner|Lookout Mountain Flight Park|Orlando Stephenson|parachute|sport|Sport Pilot|Sue Bunner|survival|tow|towing|USHGA

Jayne DePanfilis <jayne@ushga.org> writes:

The recent situation at Lookout Mountain Flight Park regarding the suspension of aerotow operations by an FAA field inspector from Atlanta helped to focus the FAA on the need to either issue a new Towing Exemption to the USHGA or to revise the current Towing Exemption held by the USHGA to allow for the use of heavier ultralights for the purpose of aerotow launching hang gliders.

The FAA understands the importance of aerotow instruction/flying for the survival and growth of our sport. The FAA indicated a desire to help the USHGA address the need to revise the Towing Exemption when USHGA representatives first met with them at the Spring BOD meeting in Ontario, California in February of 2002 to discuss Sport Pilot initiatives. The USHGA Sport Pilot Task Force, members of the Executive Committee, and Sue Gardner continued to address the need for an increased weight limit for the towing vehicles at the Fall USHGA BOD meeting held in Orlando last October.

The issue of primary importance during these discussions was the (excess) weight of the ultralights that are in use at flight parks for the safer conduct of aerotow operations. The FAA understands implicitly that the Bailey Moyes Dragon Fly Ultralights currently in use at LMFP is essential to most aerotow flight park operations. They know that the Dragon Fly has recently been certificated in Germany. They know that the USHGA considers it to be a "standard" for the implementation of safer aerotowing operations. The USHGA Sport Pilot Task Force provided the FAA with documentation supporting the use of these ultralights as early as the spring of 2002. This valuable information did not fall on deaf ears. The USHGA has been working very closely with Sue Gardner for more than one year now on these matters.

On Monday of this week I spoke directly with Sue Gardner, the FAA's Program Manager and Technical Expert for Sport Pilot, and I explained the situation at LMFP to her in great detail. Sue indicated to me that she intends to immediately move forward with the USHGA's request to increase the weight limit of the ultralight vehicles used to aerotow launch hang gliders. The request to increase the weight limit of the ultralights that are used to tow hang gliders was formally submitted to the FAA by me in December of last year. The request was drafted by Bill Bryden. The situation at Lookout these past two weeks has shown Sue that the USHGA needs "immediate relief" from the FAA regarding the need to increase the weight limits of these ultralights so they can be used without question to aerotow hang gliders.

It is my hope that the revision to the USHGA's current Towing Exemption can be made within the next two or three weeks. The current weight limit for these aircraft is 254 pounds. Discussions are currently underway to increase the weight limit to 496 pounds plus allowances for (more) weight similar to those that are provided to ultralights operating now under the EAA, USUA, or ASC exemption for two-place training in an ultralight. The two-place towing exemption maintained by the EAA, USUA and ASC includes allowances for a parachute system, floats, etc. Bill Bryden is currently negotiating this new weight limit with the FAA on behalf of the USHGA.

The USHGA knows that Sue Gardner is a friend to recreational aviators and while the USHGA recently recognized her with an exemplary service award, I would like to publicly thank her once again for understanding what the USHGA needs most from the FAA to ensure that we will be able to continue to conduct flight park operations, aerotow operations, in the safer manner to which we have become accustomed.

Discuss heavy tugs and the FAA at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

Discuss "FAA, Lookout and their Tugs" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Mon, Apr 21 2003, 4:00:02 pm EDT

art|FAA|flight park|G.W. Meadows|instruction|Lookout Mountain Flight Park|Oz Report|record|safety|sport|Sport Pilot|supporters|towing|USHGA

G. W. Meadows <gw@justfly.com> writes:

As many of the Oz Report readers know, Lookout Mtn. Flight Park's towing operation has been shut down due to the FAA's citing of heavy tugs. One popular opinion is that this was brought about by neighbors complaining to the FAA to try to restrict the noise in the area. This is a terrible situation and one that could affect the future of hang gliding in the U.S. as we know it.

The USHGA is working with Matt to remedy this situation and it's important to let them speak officially as one voice. However, Matt has a community/country meeting on this Thursday that will involve the county commissioners as well as at least one representative from the FAA. As you can imagine, this type of meeting brings out the folks that are against ultralights, but it rarely will have the supporters take the time to show up.

What we need to do is an immediate and massive letter writing campaign in support of Matt and his operation. Obviously, with this happening on Thursday, it’s too late to get something in the mail without using overnight/premium services. I suggest that each person reading this take 10 minutes of their time and write an email in support of Matt's operation. Your letter should include the following:

• The date • Subject: Aerotowing at Lookout Mountain Flight Park.

Please write that you are in support of the continued use of Aerotowing at LMFP. Please say that they have a tremendous safety record and that they utilize state-of-the-art hang gliding instruction. Please say that LMFP is one of the largest hg schools in the world and that their instruction is badly needed in the hang gliding community. Please state that you hope that all parties involved will work expeditiously to get this vital training back online as soon as possible.

• Please personalize this letter as much as possible
• Please do not use inflammatory language or call the FAA 'pinheads' (or anything that of the like).
• The reason for this letter is to show support - it will help balance out the folks who are there in person.
• It is probably best to not mention that all the other flight parks in the U.S. are doing the same thing (although the FAA is fully aware of this) - no need to stick it on this piece of paper.

•Please finish the letter with your first and last name as well as address. Please also include your telephone number and email address if possible.

I thank you in advance for doing this. We cannot afford to lose the capability of gaining hang glider pilots in this country.

Please email your letter to <mtaber@mindspring.com>.

Discuss heavy tugs and the FAA (including Sport Pilot) at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

Discuss "Lookout without tugs" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Thu, Apr 17 2003, 3:00:03 pm EDT

airspace|Belinda Boulter|Dragonfly|FAA|flight park|Florida|Jayne DePanfilis|Lookout Mountain Flight Park|Oz Report|sport|Sport Pilot|towing|trike|USHGA

Belinda and I just had a nice visit with Jayne, USHGA executive director, who is here in Florida to meet with various individuals regarding USHGA matters. She’ll be here for a week and will be in contact with the FAA regarding the ongoing Sport Pilot issues.

We’ve known about the Lookout Mountain Flight Park Dragonfly/heavy trike issue for a few days. Jayne says that she has been heavily involved in it trying to get the FAA to reopen the towing operation there. Of course, the issues involved are directly linked to our FAA towing exemption and the upcoming Sport Pilot rules.

The USHGA office and volunteers are working hard to make sure the upcoming FAA regulations are respectful of our standards and practices here in the hang gliding community. Jayne says that the FAA continues to be very impressed with the level of expertise and documentation that comes from the USHGA.

Of course, the big issue for many of us is the use of the Dragonfly and heavier trikes for towing operations. We want the FAA to approve their use for hang glider towing. The FAA wants to do this and it looks like they will. With the LMFP issue, it would be nicer that this happened sooner rather than later.

Hang glider pilots should be aware that the USHGA is not just some little reinsurance agent for hang glider pilots, but is actively working to make sure that hang gliding can continue as a viable sport even when there are other entities that would like to close down the airspace to us. It you are concerned about having continued access to the open sky’s you should support the USHGA.

Discuss "Jayne DePanfilis visits Oz Report world headquarters" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Wed, Apr 16 2003, 3:00:04 pm EDT

Jayne DePanfilis|Steve McKibbon|towing

http://www.dadesentinel.com/041603-1.htm

http://www.dadesentinel.com/

Steve P. McKibbon <mckibbon@racsa.co.cr> sends in the URLs and writes”

LMFP's towing operation has been shut down.

(editor’s note: The very brief word from Jayne is that she has been on the phone all day about this.)

Discuss "Lookout Tugs shut down" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Fri, Apr 11 2003, 12:00:04 pm EDT

accident|aerotow|Chad Elchin|Dragonfly|fatality|flight park|Highland Aerosports Flight Park|instruction|record|school|sport|tandem|tow|towing|ultralite|USHGA|world record

https://OzReport.com/Ozv5n135.htm

G W Meadows «gw» writes:

I would like to take a moment to introduce you to a great person who died today. Chad Elchin started hang gliding at Kitty Hawk Kites about 12 years ago. He was originally from Pennsylvania. During his time at Kitty Hawk Kites, Chad became quite the hang glider pilot. He could often be seen out soaring the dunes or towing up from the flight park. During his tenure there, Chad achieved his instructor rating as well as his tandem instructor rating and managed the flight park for a year.

It was at KHK, that Chad met Sunny, another tandem instructor and fellow Pennsylvanian. The two of them together, decided to start a flight park. After much searching for the right location, they settled outside of Baltimore - on the 'eastern shore' of Maryland. Ridgely Maryland became the home for "Highland Aerosports". This was about 5 years ago.

Since starting the business and living on a 'shoestring' due to the nature of hang gliding schools in general, the guys grew the business until they had two Draggonfly's and had just purchased a FlightStar for 'side by side' ultralight instruction. These guys tried very hard to reinvest into the hang gliding community every way they could. They produced dozens of hang glider pilots and supplied not only product but friendship to the pilots in the area.

At this moment, Sunny must truly be wondering how he can go on without his partner. I can tell you that running a hang gliding business is a 'high wire act' of cash flow management.

It is for this reason, that I have opened a 'Chad Elchin Fund' for the hang gliding community to donate to this much needed flight park. Today, a great guy passed. Chad was a fellow who you could always depend on to be there for you. No questions asked - you needed him - he was there for you. During his accident, a $40,000 tow plane - specifically purchased for towing up tandem instructional flights was destroyed, so now not only has a major partner in the business died, but also one of the most important tools of the trade has also been rendered unusable.

We have way too few people teaching hang gliding as it is in the U.S. I am asking that we rally around Highland Aerosports and Sunny, Adam (Chad's brother) as well as the other people who have dedicated their recent lives to show the masses the beauty of our sport.

Sunny does not know that I have decided to do this and he is not asking for money. I am just intimately familiar with this (and other) hang gliding schools and I know that catastrophes like this can put them under. We need this hang gliding school to survive.

Please donate what you can to:

The Chad Elchin Fund

This paypal account: «chadfund» or

By Mail: Chad Elchin Fund attn: June Livesay BB&T (Branch Bank and Trust) North Croatan Highway Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina 27948

100% of the money raised here will go to paying the bills directly associated with this flight park. Please donate what you can.

We have lost a truly great person today.

Chad Elchin has been teaching for 10 years. He holds USHGA Advanced Pilot, Advanced Instructor & Tandem Instructor ratings along with the United States Ultralight Association Basic Flight Instructor rating. Chad is also a Tandem Administrator and Aerotow administrator for the USHGA. He has taught over 3,000 tandem lessons and towed more than 5,000 gliders in the Dragonfly. Chad is the world record holder for consecutive loops in a hang glider - 95 loops from 16,000 feet!

(editor's note: By passing the hat we raised $2,400 here at the meet.)

Discuss "Chad Elchin" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Tue, Apr 8 2003, 2:00:04 pm EDT

airline|Dirk Darling|FAA|Gary Osoba|Jayne DePanfilis|maps|Mark Forbes|Quest Air|safety|site|tow|towing|USHGA|Wallaby Ranch

Jayne DePanfilis <jayne@ushga.org> writes:

Mark Forbes has created a document template for the charting of hang gliding and paragliding sites on the Sectional VFR sectional chart. The templated MS Word document is available by contacting the USHGA (<ushga@ushga.org>). It is not online at the USHGA's website yet, but we plan to add this form, along with many other useful forms, to the USHGA's website in the upcoming months.

I am happy to help expedite this process. The template is self-explanatory and needs to be completed and sent to the USHGA office for my signature. I will expedite this request on behalf of the USHGA, its members and approved chapters, immediately upon receipt of the paperwork.

I have only expedited one request since joining the USHGA in 2001 but the process was a flawless one using this templated process.

(editor’s note: At first I couldn’t get the template to work here and when I asked about this, got some quasi religious gobbledygook. I then read the template document into MS Word XP and saved it as a template by first choosing to save as an HTML (but not saving it) then choosing to save it as a template. Word XP then successfully found the correct folder to store the template document as a template.

To use it as a template, I then clicked File, New in the MS Word XP menu, and it found the template correctly. It looks to me like the template could be stored on a web site and MS Word XP could find it their by its URL. Don’t know if earlier versions of Word can do this or not.)

Gary Osoba <wosoba@cox.net> writes:

Geoff May wrote:

"It seems ridiculous, maybe reckless, that somewhere as busy as Wallaby is not marked on the FAA air maps and has not been widely publicized among the many flying schools in the area."

My response is:

I don't know about ridiculous, but it does seem highly irresponsible that the principles at Wallaby would not have taken care of this matter. After all, it is up to them to initiate cartological identifications within the flying community. Mr. Jones regularly (and incorrectly) claims to have pioneered the aero-towing operation concept, and to be the singular person who does this properly anywhere in the world.

Why he would not have looked after an essential safety issue for the pilots flying at his facility is beyond me. I do realize that at times, people who come from a family of attorneys conduct themselves as if they are living within an insulated bubble which gives freedom from liability- after all, they can fall back upon resources not common to others. However, safety issues remain paramount, with or without tort ramifications

Spoke here at Quest Air with Jay Darling, an airline pilot who flies and lives part time with his family (wife and four boys) at Wallaby Ranch. He felt that the Dragonflies should have strobe lights. He says that it is a lot easier for the smaller plane to see the bigger plane, but not the other way around.

He also says that they should not tow in a straight line for an extended period but make turns to give a bigger profile.

Discuss "Get on the sectionals" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Mon, Apr 7 2003, 2:00:05 pm EDT

airspace|altitude|EAA|FAA|flight park|Florida|general aviation|Geoff May|maps|Miles Fagerlie|Orlando Stephenson|photo|radio|Richard Heckman|safety|sailplane|school|tandem|towing|USHGA

Geoff May <GMay@MarathonOil.com> writes:

A couple of years ago I came out to Florida, visiting the Ranch for a couple of weeks before moving on to one of the flying schools at Kissimmee to train for my pilot license. None of the instructors at the flying school were aware of Wallaby and were certainly unaware of how busy the air above it could be. Indeed, Wallaby's location just clear of the Orlando airspace meant that this region was frequently used by the school aircraft for practicing various maneuvers. I don't recall seeing Wallaby marked on any of the FAA charts I flew with at that time.

It seems ridiculous, maybe reckless, that somewhere as busy as Wallaby is not marked on the FAA air maps and has not been widely publicized among the many flying schools in the area.

Richard Heckman <hekdic@worldnet.att.net> writes:

On the marking of Quest and Wallaby on sectionals, there should still be the procedure to do this through the USHGA. I set it up when I was the interface to the FAA. A request should go first to the Regional Director who would forward it to the National Coordinating Committee. The NCC Chairman, if the request is approved, then forwards it to the relevant FAA Office that handles sectionals. I forget which it is since we set it up in the early '80s. We got a number of busy sites marked back then. The FAA then decided to use the sailplane symbol to mark them rather than use a new symbol.

Bill Berle <auster5@earthlink.net> writes:

You can contact the NOAA, which I believe publishes the sectional charts for general aviation. Although not specifically required, you might get a designation put on the charts a little faster by doing the following (doing their work for them):

Submit an identical "package" to NOAA charts division and the FAA local FSDO office containing;

Well done aerial photo of the flight park, marked with North line and the runway headings, and ID'ing the local streets and highways

A "sample" piece of a current sectional chart marked with the designators you want to have on there. The proper designator for a non-tower grass runway is a plain red outline circle (not solid) with the name, field altitude, runway length, and CTAF or common radio frequency.

The most important part is to have them add their little hang glider icon in a couple of places around this "airport" designator… one right next to the airport and another one at the "house thermal" if there is one.

Also, mark on there in small red type "Caution: Intense Hang Gliding and Air-Towing Activity Within 3 Miles of (airport name) sfc to 5000 msl (or whatever) between 0800 and 1800 local time daily (or whatever)"

If you can follow the pattern and style that is used at other major HG or sailplane fields, and do their work for them, you should get the results much sooner than if you just called the local FAA and asked them to do something.

If you are really in the mood to save lives, you can make up a flyer that has all this information, and post it on the bulletin boards at as many nearby GA airports as possible, next to their airport restaurants, on the door to the rest room, etc. You can also combine this with marketing efforts by offering to have someone make a presentation to local EAA chapters, pilot groups, airpark association meetings, at the local FAA safety seminars, etc etc. Offer a 20 minute or an hour presentation about "hang gliding today", give out a discount coupon for a tandem ride or something, have a "fly-in day" where the local GA airplanes can fly in for a breakfast and spend the day watching the HG operations, etc.

Discuss "Put flight parks on the sectionals?" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Sun, Mar 30 2003, 10:00:03 pm GMT

control frame|glider comparison|Kenneth Martin|Laminar MR700 13|landing|Mike Barber|Paris Williams|sprogs|tow|towing|wheels

http://www.Icaro2000.com/Products/Hang%20gliders/MR%202003/MR%202003.htm

Kenneth Martin <2kwm@attbi.com> writes:

Last may I bought the latest version of the Icaro topless glider from Paris at Quest, a Mylar MR700-13. I had been flying the Ddacron year 2000 model which I loved. I weigh 155 pounds and fly strong conditions at Funston, and therefore, a smaller glider is preferable. Some guys here fly 109 sq.ft. topless gliders.

I bought the new glider because I was having trouble gliding with Mike Barber on his Litespeed. This is partly because I fly with wheels and stock control frame when towing. In any case, my neck was getting sore from looking up at Mikey all the time. Terry Prestley was also performing better on his Talon. The new MR700 and other new topless gliders have compensated sprogs which means that tip washout can be optimized for conditions and task.

I have never been so happy with any glider as my MR700. VG off the glider is light yet very nimble, perfect for flying close to terrain or light thermaling. Some guys like Paris prefer to thermal with a lot of VG to maximize climb. I do not. Tow with ⅓ VG for light bar pressure. Lots of VG is intended for high speed glide and it really works. Some guys like landing with about ¼ to ⅓ VG because the glider does not want to stall. I land with VG off because we have headwinds and turbulence to deal with.

I highly recommend that you test one of the factory spec MR700 gliders. The 13 is supposed to be a 13.5 now and may be a surprisingly pleasant experience for you after the Talon ride. Sorry I sound like an advertisement, but now I understand how Mikey feels about his Litespeed 4.

(editor's note: If you have a similar story about your own glider comparison, please send in an article or discuss it on the Oz Report forum.)

Discuss "Pilot report – Laminar MR700 13" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Sun, Mar 30 2003, 10:00:01 pm GMT

Andreas "Ernst" Becker|Australia|Bill Bennett|Chris Wills|communication|Florida|Oz Report|sailplane|technology|towing|trike|Ulrich Schneider|Wills Wing|Worlds

http://www.davisstraub.com/Glide/questair.htm

A little gust front, clouds, a little rain.

No flying at either park that we saw.

There are four Ecuadorian hang glider pilots at the Wills Wing Demo Days (round trip is $345) and it great to see them here lending an international flavor to the events. The Oz Report has inspired them to put up a forum for Ecuadorian pilots and they have a local version of the Oz Report. I sure hope that I can inspire more communication both locally and internationally between pilots.

We also got to see Ernst Schneider, who was the head of the German flex wing team, at the Worlds in Australia in 1998. We knew that he had moved up to Invermere in the Columbia Basin in British Columbia (Canada) and set up a sailplane port. He was flying a hang glider for the first time in a number of years (towing right behind me) and was looking forward to getting a rigid wing hang glider and was purchasing a trike at Sun ‘n Fun.

There were Israeli pilots (one, a physics professor), and Canadian pilots and even pilots from the northeast of the US at the Wills Wing Demo days.

They put on a great dinner and party on Saturday to show all their appreciation for their customers and their customers (and everyone else also) showed how much they appreciated them. On Friday Chris Wills showed his films from their early southern California flights in 1972.

What I got from Chris’s talk was how much meeting Bill Bennett changed everything for the Wills boys and their friends, as getting a hold of Bill’s kites changed their technology completely. I wasn’t there, but that’s what the pictures and his narration told me. No more hanging from your arm pits, for example. Pilots were actually soaring after that.

Discuss "Florida Report" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:05 pm GMT

cloud|competition|landing|Mike Meier|Rob Kells|towing|tug|Wills Wing Talon 140

www.willswing.com

As soon as Rob Kells heard my thoughts about the Talon 150 he wanted me up in a Talon 140 (which is actually bigger than 140 sq. ft.). Mike Meier was concerned when he heard I hooked in at 195 as he thought that I would be happier in the smaller Talon 140.

I was. I took off late in the afternoon after the 3 PM lunch in light lift. In fact there wasn’t any lift and no one was staying up until I got drug to the west and got in under a cloud that was working for me. This was the western sea breeze and it was great.

Aerotowing the 140 was much better than towing with the Talon 150. The bar pressure with ½ VG was almost (but not quite) as low as the bar pressure of the U2 (both sizes). I could pull in and keep right with the tug. I even tried towing with one finger and was successful.

I got off at 2,500’ and flew west to the cloud that turned out to offer about 100 fpm to cloud base. It was an easy climb with no VG. The glider thermaled easily with no high siding at all. I just put it in a circle and it stayed there.

The glider had a heavier feel than the U2-145, a slower response rate and it would yaw a bit reacting to pilot inputs. I didn’t have to bump it at all though to get it to turn.

The VG was the same as the VG on its bigger brother, and as much of a pain to use. Sure you can get use to it, but the U2 version was so much nicer.

I had no trouble flying in light lift and controlling the glider, although I noticed that it got knocked about a bit coming into the landing zone, and the glider would yaw when hit. Disconcerting, but normal for a topless glider, it seems to me.

I came into land in a good breeze and had an uneventful landing.

The Talons are competition topless gliders for pilots willing to put up with a more demanding flight experience, getting yawed about a bit, and a good workout with your right arm. Pull in the VG and the bar and you go fast with reasonable but more than double the bar pressure of the U2.

I wouldn’t recommend these gliders to anyone but competition pilots and competition pilot wannabees. Why fly them when Wills Wing and other manufacturers have so many other choices that are more fun to fly?

Discuss "Wills Wing Talon 140 (actually 143 or 144)" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:04 pm GMT

aerotow|Airborne C2|ballast|cloud|Florida|landing|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Rob Kells|Steven "Steve" Pearson|tandem|towing|trike|tug|Wills Wing Talon 150

www.willswing.com

Too big for me at 195 pounds hook in weight. With no ballast this glider is a handful even in Florida air. Why would anyone want to fly a glider that was flying them? That required that they react to what the glider was doing on its own, rather than control what the glider is up to?

Apparently some people think that is what hang gliding is all about. Get on a real hang glider, that is one that is over powering and then suck it up and fight that glider as you would fight mother nature to control it. Well, let ‘em.

I had flown the WW U2 160 in light conditions and though I thought that it would have been too big, in the light conditions it wasn’t bad. Given that experience I thought I might be able to handle the Talon 150.

On aerotow I found that the pitch pressure at ½ VG was about double that of the U2’s. I couldn’t keep the glider down low enough to keep the tug’s wings on the horizon. I remember that I was having similar problems with the Airborne C2. It was a big glider. See these articles re trike towing the Airborne C2:

https://OzReport.com/Ozv6n237.shtml

https://OzReport.com/Ozv6n238.shtml

https://OzReport.com/Ozv6n239.shtml

Finally, I pin off next to Rob Kells doing a tandem flight and start circling up in broken 100 to 200 fpm with bits of 500 fpm.

The glider is being knocked about and I’m being knocked about with it. I’m not happy. I’m climbing up, but I’m thinking what is the point of this? I’ll go and land.

No. I’ve got to write up a report on the Talon 150, so I’ve got to give it a chance. I’ve been flying single surface and intermediate gliders and here I am on a big topless glider and it’s a handful partly because I’m not use to it. Just relax a bit.

So I do. Things calm down. I let the bar out to where it wants to go with the VG off, far in front my head. I climb out to cloud base. I notice that I can put the VG on and I don’t have to bump the bar around to keep it in the turn like I did on the U2 when the VG was half on. That’s a nice touch.

I also test the bar pressure with various VG settings. It is about double that of the U2 (which, after all, is my benchmark).

I count and find that it takes me eleven pulls on the VG to go from none to full. Rob says it is the difference between the CAM VG on the Talon and the standard VG that pulls back the cross bars on the U2. Steve Pearson says it is also a function of the spectra line used on the U2 which has less resistance going around the pulleys on the U2. By contrast the VG on the U2 was like a flick of the wrist.

As you may recall from my last article on the U2 and its VG, I was surprised by its VG and how I know part of the reason. The Talon VG is the VG as I recall it (see articles above about the Climax). It is quite a haul to go from no VG to lots of VG, and after a while it is too much of a bother. This VG just says to me, I’m too much trouble to deal with.

Sure if you’re a competitor, it is worth it to get every bit of performance and then handling out of your glider. I’ll just bet that most of the time most pilots just pull a little on here and let a little off there. And, wish that the VG would be a simpler matter.

I test the whether the glider spirals in at different VG settings, bank angles and speeds, and it doesn’t. Doesn’t appear to have a turn either. In turns it is steady as she goes, and just push way out on the bar. I was doing only a little bit of high siding now and then.

Still it was stiffer than the U2 in turns and “felt” heavier. A bit of yaw it seemed. (BTW, I spoke with Pete Lehmann who got a new Mylar Talon 150 and he is quite happy that it doesn’t have any of these characteristics, but is so sweet and easy. He wonders if it is the sail cloth.)

The Talon 150 has a great glide and I felt confident when I was five miles away from the Ranch that I’d make it back with out a problem. With the VG full on the bar pressure was a little more than double the U2’s bar pressure at full stuff.

I was concerned about landing the Talon after all my other good landings on the single surface and intermediate gliders. Would they screw up my flare timing? Of course, there was no wind in the landing zone, as there was no wind in the air.

I came in fast got down into the ground effect and whacked it in. No damage to the glider, me, or the nose nappy. The next landing I saw on it was worse.

Discuss "Wills Wing Talon 150" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 8:00:06 am GMT

Aeros Target|harness|Paris Williams|powered|tow|towing|Trevor Birkbeck

I mentioned that Paris and Bo were towing the Target off their shoulders and that I hadn’t basically because I had learned to tow single surface gliders off the keel/shoulder combination. I also stated that I would give the shoulder only tow a try in the near future.

Trevor Birkbeck <trev.birkbeck@freeuk.com> writes:

I don't understand why you couldn't tow the Target from normal shoulder straps. I have towed my Target (bought for powered flying) with out any problem from my Woody Valley harness and was surprised how light the bar pressure was. Normally, I fly an Aeros Oleg Racer or Combat and it didn't seem any heavier than those.

Discuss "Towing the Aeros Target" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 8:00:04 am GMT

aerotow|control frame|Icaro 2000|tow|towing|Wills Wing Attack Falcon

http://www.willswing.com

They built this is a joke. Well, the joke’s on them. This is a great little (170 sq. ft) glider. I highly praised the Icaro 2000 Relax 16 the other day. Well, this glider is almost as nice as the Relax.

First of all, the tow pressures are substantially reduced relative to the standard Falcon 2 170 and I assume that this is due to the reduced drag of the aero control frame. I was towing it off my shoulders and I found that I didn’t have to pull in nearly as much as I did on my previous aerotow with the Falcon 2 170.

Before when towing the standard Falcon 2 170 I had to make a number of quick course corrections, with this Attack Falcon it was steady and smooth as she goes. I do wonder if it is just the control frame. It was very similar on tow to the Relax.

Next, I got off in a light thermal and flew around in light thermals for about forty five minutes. I been flying the U2 a few hours previously, and without a VG to set to the wrong setting, I didn’t cause myself any problems. The glider was really sweet to fly, which was also true of the 170 that I flew two days ago to Quest from Wallaby.

The handling was very nice and easy, but this has been true of all the single surface gliders I’ve flown so far. It is hard to beat just how great they feel in the light air floating around.

Discuss "Wills Wing Attack Falcon" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Thu, Mar 27 2003, 9:00:00 pm GMT

Bart Weghorst|CIVL|competition|Competition Committee|Dennis Pagen|flight park|Florida|Gary Solomon|Jim Zeiset|Malcolm Jones|Mike Barber|Quest Air|Rob Kells|Russ Locke|Tiki Mashy|towing|USHGA|Wallaby Ranch|Worlds

https://OzReport.com/Ozv7n82.shtml

Yesterday I published a story about the USHGA Worlds Bid that included this statement from an informant:

When asked at the BOD meeting if this offer (free hotel rooms) would still apply if the bid was a joint bid between Quest and Wallaby Malcolm says yes.

Before I published this statement, I checked with a “neutral” person who was present at the USHGA BOD CC meetings to check if this indeed happened. It was confirmed (that person now states that they didn’t confirm this statement specifically.)

And "According to my confirming source, Malcolm pulled the offer from the table before the bid went to CIVL."

I published the story.

First, let me clear up a portion of the statement above. The bid from the USHGA was not a joint bid, but rather a single bid from the USHGA. The USHGA was only proposing to hire the two flight parks (Quest Air and Wallaby) to provide flight park services.

The two bids from the two flight parks were off the table when the USHGA decided not to choose between the two, but to put together their own Worlds bid. They proposed to subcontract with the two flight parks to provide towing and other services.

Today at Wallaby Ranch, I interviewed Malcolm Jones, Rob Kells, Tiki Mashy, Bart Weghorst, Russ Locke, and Mike Barber. Malcolm states that at no point was he asked nor did he offer to provide the “free hotel rooms,” as part of the USHGA bid. Rob Kells confirms Malcolm’s statements, and says that no such offer was made by Malcolm.

Tiki Mashy states that when the issue of the “free hotel rooms” was broached by Jim Zeiset at the BOD meeting as a possible part of the USHGA bid, Malcolm clearly stated that it wasn’t to be a part of the proposal. Bart Weghorst states that Malcolm didn’t offer the “free hotel rooms” as a part of the USHGA bid.

Russ Locke says that there was no offer given or requested in any of the meetings of the USHGA BOD that he attended. Mike Barber, who amazingly was also at the USHGA BOD meeting (never again, he says), states that he spoke with Malcolm as word of a proposed USHGA takeover of the Worlds bid spread and that he and Malcolm both thought that Wallaby Ranch could act as a subcontractor to provide flight park services only.

Earlier in the day, I also received two e-mails from Jim Zeiset confirming my story as originally written. (I had written him last night specifically asking for a confirmation or denial of the story).

I also received this e-mail message from Tiki Mashy <tikimashy@earthlink.net>:

The reason the free lodging was never mentioned in the CIVL Bid was because it was never part of the USHGA Bid. I was present for every meeting that involved this issue. I am a Regional Director and I am on the Competition Committee, so I have first hand knowledge of all that went on with this issue. This is how it went in a nutshell:

There were two World Meet Bids, Quest Air and Wallaby Ranch. In order to decide which bid would get the nod the USHGA formed what they called the Solomon Committee II, a subcommittee of the Competition Committee. The Solomon Committee II comprised of JZ, Dennis Pagen, and RR Rodriguez would advise the BOD on which bid would be presented to CIVL. The subcommittee determined that neither bid was acceptable so the subcommittee threw out both bids.

The USHGA then decided that the USHGA would present their own bid, and that they would subcontract with the Florida flight parks to host the World Meet. I specifically asked JZ, Dennis Pagen and RR Rodriguez, the Solomon II Committee, who specifically is the organizer of this World Meet bid, I was told by JZ that the USHGA is the Organizer.

Once the both bids were thrown out, USHGA had to formulate their own proposal, arrange sponsorship, etc. This is the task of the Organizer. The USHGA took on a weighty task when they decided to present their own bid. I honestly don't think that the Solomon Committee II had any idea what it meant to be an Organizer of such a huge competition.

They were told and understood that this was not a matter of picking the best parts of the bids they threw out. They told me specifically that the USHGA would come up with a whole new bid. As a matter of fact JZ went down a list of things the USHGA would put in their bid, one was the free lodging for all competitors and officials. I perked up my ears as did as did Malcolm, who spoke out at that time and said that the free lodging was not his or JZ's to transfer and that the free lodging was part of the Wallaby bid which was thrown out by the Solomon Committee.

There was no misunderstanding in the CIVL World Meet Bid. The bid was presented with the best the USHGA could come up with, however, it fell short. Yes, Malcolm's bid, free lodging and $20,000 in prize money, would have gone a long way in the US getting the World Meet, however, the Solomon Committee II dismissed all that and advised the BOD the USHGA to go it alone. There is no finger pointing or fault, we lost, suck it up.

I have to make a judgment call here, and in spite of Jim Zeiset’s confirmation, it looks to me like I have unfairly maligned Malcolm’s integrity by publishing what I now believe to be a misstatement of the facts of the matter. Malcolm has done nothing wrong here and it is unfortunate that apparently some people think he has.

Let me also apologize to Malcolm for causing him anguish and pain regarding this issue. I realize that an apology doesn’t make up for it.

A remaining question is how, ethically, can the USHGA, which was the agency that received and was to approve the US bid that went to CIVL, decide not to accept either bid and then send out its own bid to CIVL instead? I’m sure that folks had good motives for doing this (can’t we all just get along), but doesn’t that seem a little suspect?

Discuss CIVL and USHGA political issues on-line at: OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2.

Discuss "Full retraction and heart felt apology" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Wed, Mar 26 2003, 9:00:06 pm GMT

Aeros Discus|Aeros Target|aerotow|bridle|control frame|Dragonfly|Icaro 2000 Relax 16|Rob Kells|sport|tow|towing|tug|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Falcon|Wills Wing U2

I’ve had an opportunity to at least aerotow quite a few different gliders recently so I thought I would first speak to their aerotowing characteristics.

I’ve aerotowed the Icaro 2000 Relax 16 (170 sq ft) from my shoulder bridle, the Wills Wing Falcon 2 170 from my shoulder bridle, and the Aeros Target 180 from a bridle than went to the keel and my shoulders. Single surface gliders are normally towed with the assistance of an attachment to the keel to reduce the bar pressures. According to Rob Kells you can move the keel attachment point forward until there is no bar pressure at all. Something that would be quite useful for aerotowing newer hang glider pilots on these gliders.

I have the tow point about a foot forward of the apex on the Aeros Target , just under the cross bar, and it is not far enough forward to reduce the bar pressure to a comfortable amount. I am able to tow with it in this configuration, but it would be nice to further reduce the bar pressure.

I aerotowed the Wills Wing Falcon2 170 today just from my shoulder bridle. It was quite possible to do this but the bar pressures were moderate to moderately high and I needed to make a lot of corrections early in the flight. I was not as steady on tow as I have come to expect. Not uncomfortable, and I would definitely do it again, but not perfect. I had the bar pulled into my waist.

The Icaro 2000 Relax aerotows with no problem from the shoulder bridle. It is very steady on tow. Newer pilots will probably want to use the keel tow point method also, just to reduce how much you have to pull back the bar (which is a lot), but bar pressures are minor.

In all three cases you really have to pull the bar in to get the speed up fast enough to stay with the Dragonfly. The Relax was just a lot easier to control with the bar stuffed.

All of the intermediate gliders were much easier to tow than the single surface gliders just from the shoulder bridle. Again, you overcome this using the keel attachment.

Both the Wills Wing U2 145 and 160 were a joy to tow. This is so totally unlike their predecessors the Super Sport and the Ultra Sport which required fins for aerotowing.

Both U2’s were rock steady on toe reminding me of the ATOS and other rigid wing hang gliders on tow including the Aeros Stalker. They were a pleasure to have behind the tug. I could tow with one finger on the base bar.

The bar pressures on these two gliders are very light. This made the aerotowing even easier. Rob Kells states that with about a foot of throw around trim the bar pressure is about ½ a pound on each hand and that it rises to 3 pounds per hand at the extreme end of pull in. This is nothing. But it is there and very reassuring at speed.

The Aeros Discus was also steady and very towable with one finger on the control frame. It’s bar pressures weren’t quite as light at the Wills Wing but very close. I’m going to have to aerotow it again to remember just how close it was, but as I recall it was a pleasure to tow.

The Icaro 2000 MastR 14 was also very easy to tow, but it didn’t shock me about how easy it was like the U2’s did. I think a little more bar pressure, but I’ll have to check that again. I’ve only had one flight late in the day with it.

The Wills Wing Eagle 145 was no problem towing. Very steady with slightly more bar pressure than the U2’s. I had to pull in a bit more than the higher end intermediate gliders to get the glider flying faster.

Discuss "Aerotowing single surface and intermediate gliders" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Fri, Mar 21 2003, 6:00:03 pm GMT

dust devil|Felix Ruehle|harness|Peter Dall|tail|tip wands|tow|towing

Peter Dall <Peter.Dall@casa.gov.au> responds (finally) to my request for his story:

It is always interesting to read how outsiders perceive stressful situations we find ourselves in. My impressions of going upside down at Hay are a little different to what Grant reported (https://OzReport.com/Ozv7n24.shtml)

I had finally gotten around to trying the tail Felix sent me for my ATOS (early model). I wound the nose catch in 2 turns to compensate. Not sure why I did this – probably something I read in the Oz Report ☺ - or maybe something Tony or Johann had told me.

At first I didn’t like the way the glider felt with the tail on.

I found the yaw characteristics of the glider were changed, and I couldn’t do yawing turns like I used to when tightening up in a thermal.

I also found stall buffet to be annoying, in thermalling, and also when pushing the bar out on car tow. This problem was diminished when I moved my hang point forward, or maybe I just got used to flying faster. I guess I was in the habit of flying a bit slow. But I had gotten used to recognising the onset of stall and wing drop, and this was always benign and felt comfortable. Of course I made sure I had plenty of height before slowing right down.

On the second last day of the comp I took the tail off again, and put the nose catch back to how it was before. But now I didn’t like this either! The tail certainly does damp out the pitch twitchiness.

So on the last day I put the tail back on, readjusting the nose catch as before. I was feeling glad that I’d done this, as it was a big day, with huge dust devils. Easily the biggest diameter dusties I’ve ever seen, with dust towing to well over 1000’.

At 1100ft on tow, I flew abreast of one of these monsters, so pinged off, and headed into it. Being big, it didn’t look as violent as some of the small tornadoes. It was rough, but not too scary.

My harness zip kept catching on my pants, so this distracted me, and I was having trouble finding a nice core, but I’d climbed up to around 3000’ in turbulent lift. My team mate called up and said I should come over because he had 1600fpm of very smooth lift. Sounded good, so I opened up my circle downwind and headed over.

The next thing I know, I pitched up, then down over the falls, pointing at the ground with one wing low, but not quite under me. A few seconds later I’m upside down, looking at the sky. I’d always wondered if you could fly a hang glider inverted, and here I was doing it. Nothing seemed to be broken, but perhaps it was time to deploy the chute. I must admit that I found it a bit hard to reach for the chute while hanging on for grim death.

I had only a short time to ponder this problem, when the glider took another wild pitch and did a nice half loop. I came out flying pretty much straight and level. At no time did I lose my grip on the base bar, so when I was upside down I probably only experienced a small negative load. I don’t recall hitting the sail or the A-frame, but I guess the harness back plate supported me wedged in the A-frame.

I don’t know how fast I got up to when pointing at the ground, but I didn’t have the feeling that I might have over-speeded. I wasn’t going particularly slowly when it started. I’m guessing 50-55kph. Certainly comfortably above stall, and basically straight and level. (less than 15º)

I guess I wasn’t too shaken, since I flew back into the dust devil, climbed out to 10,000’, then flew 200km to goal.

I was expecting that this wouldn’t happen when the tail was on. I can only think that my rotation speed would have been a lot faster without it, and perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hold on the base bar.

I’ve since spent a lot of time retuning the glider. Despite flying back into the dustie, I’m finding that my confidence has been shaken.

It seems logical that the tail should add some extra static stability margin as well as improving the dynamic stability, therefore allowing a bit less washout or a bit less sweep. But I have since been told that I shouldn’t have changed the wing sweep.

(editor’s note: Not necessarily true. See Oz Report interviews with Felix Ruehle published on the first day of the Australian Nationals https://OzReport.com/Ozv7n17.shtml and https://OzReport.com/Ozv7n18.shtml before Peter had his flight.)

I checked my rib angles and adjusted a couple of outboard rib to give more washout. They weren’t perfect, but overall not too bad. One #8 rib was 0.5º low, and one #9 rib was 2º low. I’m still not sure whether to measure these with the sail on or off, or what difference this makes. To put this into perspective, 1º equates to about 1cm at the trailing edge.

My next flight back in Canberra was on a really twitchy day. Looked good with moderate winds, but there was some real awful soup up there at a shear layer that we just couldn’t get out of. I think the storm cells were dropping a cold stream that was hitting the shear layer, and spreading out in all directions. You would be flying along, at cruise, do nothing, and suddenly the glider would stall because of tail gusting. The glider was really spooking me, making me think it was going to go over any second, so I landed after 25 minutes. I was relieved to find that my two buddies also landed soon afterwards because they also found the air unpleasant, and reported similar stalling.

Nonetheless, I still kept thinking that even in shitty air, the glider should make me feel more secure than it did. Back to the drawing board.

My glider is the first one built, so the sail has a few years on it. I have noticed that the outermost seam no longer sits over the #9 rib. I figured the sail has shrunk. Maybe this would also explain why I had suddenly started breaking tip wands, after not having broken one since the glider was built. Also I could never seem to get the trailing edge Velcros to line up, especially over the flap. The top Velcro overshot the lower, almost to the point where they made no contact. I addressed the first problem by sewing an extra piece of Velcro onto each side of the centre zips, effectively moving each sail 2 or 3 cm outboard. Suddenly everything fit perfectly (well after a lot of adjusting), including the trailing edge Velcro (not sure why this would change, but it did).

Subsequent flight testing is encouraging, with the glider now flying very sweetly. Still remains to be seen how I shape up to the big air again next season. One thing I noticed is that the sail strap and rib tension seems to make a lot of difference. Probably more than playing with sweep and washout. Tight is good.

Discuss "Peter’s wild ride" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Thu, Feb 22 2001, 9:00:03 pm GMT

competition|Kerekes László|towing|Éva Menyhárt|Éva Menyhárt Memorial Competition 2001

Kerekes László «laszlo.kerekes» writes:

Éva Menyhárt Hang Gliding Competition
Date and venue: Hungary, Dunaújváros 12-19 May 2001.
The organisation team: Cumulus Club Hungary
Homepage of the Comp: http://menyhart-eva.virtualave.net
Entry: By Entry Form (you can find it on the Homepage).
If you send your entry form up to the dead line the Entry Fee 350 DM (includes the organisation, retrieval info, map, film, dinners on 11-19 May).
Entry Fee after the deadline is 400 DM
Towing fee is 35 DM/500 m
Entry deadline is 27. April 2001.
Pilot qualification: Towing licence, Save Pro 5.
Accommodation: - Rooms to rent in the nearest village (appr. 30 DM/person/night)

- In the building of the Airfield (15 DM/person/night)

- In tent or caravan (5 DM/person/night)
We are waiting for all of the pilots who knew Éva!

Discuss "Remembering Eva" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Thu, Jan 13 2000, 11:00:00 pm GMT

Andre Wolf|Attila Bertok|David Jackson|Davis Straub|Dustin Martin|Gerolf Heinrichs|Grant Heaney|Joel Rebbechi|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Rohan Holtkamp|Steve Moyes

With an east northeasterly wind, we are again in the west end of the paddock, like yesterday, and our goal is 117 kilometers to the south west. There are no (or few) cues anywhere in the sky, but the first pilots who tow up at 1:30 PM are staying up, so it's only a matter of when you want to go.

The wind speeds are about 5 to 10 mph, with occasional gusts, but I'm sure that I'm not the only one having feelings about the previous day.

I'm too impatient to wait for all the Moyes pilots to launch (especially Joel and Gerolf) so I'm off at 2:30 PM, and climb out with about five other pilots in the middle of the paddock. We're drifting pretty fast to the west, but we're also getting up to 5,400' AGL, the inversion layer.

I decide to go off by myself straight to the south to get the most southerly start gates. This will put me over the main highway (the Sturt), and allow for a straight downwind shot to goal. None of the hot flex wing pilots have felt the tow paddock as I round the start gate at 3 PM.

With a start gate altitude of almost 5,000', it seems like a run downwind will be no problem. Unfortunately I hit the big time sink and within a few miles I'm groveling down to 300' AGL. There is the slightest evidence of broken lift just before I'm ready to land. With the winds at 15 mph, I'm drifting fast and low over open paddocks, driving toward whatever lift the glider and vario show me.

It's weak, the climb is slow, but I finally think that I have a chance to save the flight. One hawk after another comes by to give me a hand in finding a core, and after a long twirl down wind, I find myself back up to 3,500' AGL. This is where Gerolf, Joel, and Rohan come in. I guess they wouldn't have joined me when I was in trouble.

We really start climbing out now. Andrew Wolf comes by, flying right underneath me and keeps going. He decks it a short ways up the course line.

Joel, Gerolf and I fly the rest of the course together very quickly, averaging about 60 kilometers per hour. We all make goal first within a minute of each other.

The last thermal at 25 kilometers out gets us way too high, but that's because it is way too strong. The inversion broke soon after these other pilots and I joined up, and we quickly get about 7,000' AGL. The cues start showing up when the inversion breaks, and there are plenty of dots to connect on the way in.

By flying at Speed-To-Fly, I'm able to get fly faster between thermals and climb above Joel and Gerolf, but I'm unwilling to fly as fast into goal. There is plenty of lift in the final glide, and the gliders are getting tossed about at high speeds. I'm keeping it at 50 mph, and Gerolf and Joel at in the sixties or seventies. Gerolf mentions how much turbulence he experienced after we get to goal.

Last day's results:

Rohan Holtkamp – Litespeed
Gerolf Heinrich – small Litespeed
Joel Rebbechi - Litespeed
Grant Heaney - Litespeed
Jon Durand, Jr. - Litespeed
Davis Straub - ATOS
Atilla Bertok – CSX/Litespeed
Hush Satchell – CSX
Grant Heaney - Litespeed
Len Patton - Topless
Steve Moyes – small Litespeed

50 others (22 people made goal)

Overall Results:

Joel Rebbechi - Litespeed
Gerolf Heinrich – small Litespeed
Rohan Holtkamp – Litespeed
Davis Straub - ATOS
Grant Heaney - Litespeed
Andre Wolf - Litespeed
Atilla Bertok – CSX/Litespeed
Alan Beavis - CSX
Mike Jackson – Litespeed
Dustin Martin - Litespeed

50 others

The complete results can be found at http://www.ozemail.com.au/~zupy. Click Competitions, Results.

Discuss "Oz Nats – a cruise on the last day" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Mon, Dec 20 1999, 6:00:02 pm EST

aerotow|battery|crash|dolly|job|movie|NASA|nylon|power|powered|record|sailplane|tandem|tow|towing|transport|tug|TV|Wallaby Ranch|weaklink|winch

Mark Stucky, «stucky_mark», writes:

Many months ago I wrote to you with the idea of trying to do some hang glider aerotow testing, the intent of which was to define the actual loads encountered under differing conditions of tugs (low and high power), gliders (beginner, intermediate, and advanced), and pilot weights (single and tandem). Due to the magic of your Straub Report, instant interest was gathered and Malcolm at Wallaby Ranch was quick to call, leaving a message that he would be glad to sponsor the testing.

The brains behind the effort was Jim Murray, a NASA engineer who specializes in flight dynamics and is a true-life "Maguiver" with a reputation of being able to instrument a gnat's knee. Early in the Eclipse (aerotowed F-106) program, in which I was the test pilot, the computer simulation revealed the existence of an oscillatory tension mode in the towrope. The computer predicted something like a 12,000-pound steady-state tension value but overlaid on top of it was a continuous cycling value of several thousand pounds. In some cases this "bungee" mode would grow unstable and eventually exceeding the 24,000-pound weaklink. The level of bungee present was dependent upon the two aircraft, the stability characteristics of the tethered pair, the towrope attachment points, and the towrope itself.

Like the Spectra line used in many hang glider tow operations, the exceptionally strong Vectran towrope we were planning on using had low stretch characteristics. This meant low shock absorption and increased chances of encountering the bungee mode. At the other extreme a nylon towrope would have been too springy and it too could result in dramatic (traumatic?) bungee oscillations. The computer predicted a certain level of stretch would give the best tow characteristics. For our initial flights we planned on adding a 50 foot section of nylon strapping in the middle of the 1000 foot length of the ¾" diameter Vectran rope.

There was some skepticism about the mere existence of this bungee mode. The Germans had towed unconventional aircraft during the war years -- large troop-carrying transport aircraft, even multiple aircraft were towed. They also towed the swept wing Me-103 Komet, the first rocket-powered fighter. Pilots hated towing the Komet and a USAF test pilot who got the lucky straw to tow a captured Komet described the tow as the scariest experience of his life. Even NASA's predecessor, NACA had towed a propeller-less P-51 Mustang in an aborted attempt to compare it's real world L/D to what had been obtained through wind tunnel testing. The steel tow cable broke wrapping around the aircraft, interfering with control, and resulting in a crash.

In all these tests there was never any mention of any bungee mode - did it really exist or was it some computer artifact? The answer was to run the simulation using conventional glider and tow aircraft numbers. The simulation indicated the bungee mode existed in normal everyday towing of sailplanes. Some of the old-time sailplane pilots expressed doubt over the simulation because over their years of towing experience they hadn't noticed any bungee mode. One said, "I've never felt no stinking bungee" (or words to that effect).

So Murray made up a couple of battery powered instrumentation packages, each about the size of a lunch box. We put one in a rented Pawnee tug plane and one in a rented Grob sailplane. The one at the front of the towrope read tow tension (using a solid state metal link at the attach point). The package in the Grob read longitudinal acceleration.

We launched in early morning conditions and the tug looked for level flight in smooth air. We flew at a couple different speeds and tow positions but most of the data was gathered at 55 mph, which was published L/D max for the Grob.

The data showed the bungee mode was very evident and I swear I could feel it. It was always present to a minor extent but was easily excited by turbulence or maneuvering, in which case it took several cycles and perhaps twenty to thirty seconds to reduce it back down to it's normal small oscillations. Probably the greatest excitation of the bungee occurred during the takeoff roll, most likely due to bumps in the dirt runway.

So what about the issue of the bungee mode and its effect on the Eclipse program? We found that as predicted, there was a stable region on low tow where the bungee was minimized and where the F-106 was extremely easy to fly on tow. Outside of that stable region the bungee became more of a factor and the F-106 became more and more of a handful to fly. In fact, in a conventional high tow position it was quite unstable and if I wasn't extremely careful the weak link would fail within several seconds.

Without doing any dedicated tests with hang gliders I can only guess but I think it is reasonable to expect the bungee mode is present in hang glider towing. In fact, I think we've all felt it while platform towing, the surging of tension that occurs when the drum is slowly unwinding at the end of the tow. I attributed the pulsing in tension to the difference in the static and dynamic friction coefficients of the disk brake. While this may partly be true, the cycle itself could be caused by the bungee mode of the towrope.

So what does this mean to hang glider towing and weak links? It means that a weak link that is the perfect value on a spectra towline would be the wrong value on a polypropylene rope. It means a weak link that is perfect on a 150 foot towline could be less-than-perfect on a 200 foot length. It means that a weak link that is perfect on a large-diameter wheeled dolly on a concrete runway could be too weak on a rough runway or a less absorbing dolly. It means a weak link that works with a lightweight tug won't be right for a high-power, high mass tug. It means the towrope attachment point can be critical and the effect may be exacerbated if not in the proper tow position or if flying tandem.

It means that towing may be easier and weak links less prone to breaking if a small amount of shock absorption was added to low-stretch towlines. Perhaps a few feet of nylon rope on the end next to the pilot would be sufficient. I remember the smoothest tow I ever had was on a stationary hydraulic winch in Canada. I attributed the smoothness to the hydraulics but perhaps a contributing factor was the twenty feet of ½" nylon rope that was added to the end of the towline so it would hang down below the inside wingtip during turns on a step tow.

One last point to make is the breaking strength of rope is very dependent on the radius of any knot or bend in it. A weak link that is looped around a metal ring will fail at a higher value than one looped around a narrow loop of nylon.

Obviously, the correct weak link depends on many variables and identifying what works best would take a bit flight research (perhaps just a single day worth of smooth air flights). This did not occur because several things happened since I first wrote to you. First, Jim Murray was shipped off to the east coast to work a temporary assignment on the "Mars Flyer" -- a remote aircraft designed to fly in the atmosphere of Mars on the centennial anniversary of the Wright brothers first flight. Secondly, I decided to leave what on the top surface was my dream job as a NASA research pilot to pursue a job with the airlines. There were many reasons for this decision, not the least of which was NASA's continuing aeronautical budget cuts, emphasis on unpiloted aircraft, and their seemingly inability to get things done.

The NASA administrator's "Faster, Better, Cheaper" mantra has become a joke in the industry, reminding me of Jack Nicholson's presidential proclamation in the movie "Mars Attacks" when, in the midst of mass destruction, he gets on national TV and says something along the lines of, "I know I promised you these three things but hey, two out of three ain't bad." Unfortunately, with NASA's current record the quote would be more along the lines of "hey, none out of three ain't bad."

Until we ever do a real hang glider aerotow research project we can only make semi-educated guesses on the bungee mode and its effect on the towing of hang gliders. The intent of this writing was to point out some of the issues and to apologize for my failure to follow through with the research that I hinted at so long ago. A number of pilots sent emails to me at NASA asking me about the status of the project and encouraging me to pursue it. Unfortunately, when I went to retrieve all of those archived messages in my last week at NASA I found I had already been locked me out of the email system so I can't answer those emails individually.

Someday I may be able to get together with Murray and do the research. In the meantime, if you are ever flying the "friendly skies of United" look for me in the right seat of a Boeing 737 (especially if you are flying any of the west coast "Shuttle" routes).

Discuss "Weaklinks" at the Oz Report forum   link»   »

Fri, Jun 4 1999, 10:00:01 pm GMT

David "Dave" Glover|Donnell Hewett|Donnita Holland|static tow|Stewart Midwinter|towing|weak link|William "Gary" Osoba jr.

Stewart Midwinter suggested that I might describe the equipment that we are using for static line towing here at the Ultralight Soaring Championships. I wish it could give it a bit more use.

Static line towing is the simplest and cheapest kind of towing possible. Its simplicity adds to its safety. Its cheapness makes it available to any pilot. The big cost is land, or road or runway. The longer the better. But, if you've got a good wind, you don't even need a very long field or road (3000' feet may do it, 5000' without wind).

Static line towing is simply attaching one end of a long line to the back of your truck or car, and the other end to the pilot and pulling the pilot up in the air. To make this feasible and safe, you want to modify this basic formula.

First, on the truck side attach the line to a master brake or hydraulic cylinder that is itself attached to a pressure gauge by means of 1500 psi brake line and a series of fittings. Make the hose long enough so that it can reach from the back of the truck to the cab of the truck and allow the pressure gauge to be seen easily by the driver. You assembly this yourself, or any competent hydraulics company can do it for you.

We use a brass master brake cylinder, and because this is soft metal, we tie the cylinder end of it to a self-locking steel carabineer with 3 loops of 4 mil spectra. The carabineer then is clipped to a tang on the hitch at the back bumper.

The cylinder can then hang from the bumper of the truck. To keep it off the ground, we tie a bungy to the other end of the cylinder where the hose is connected..

At the other end of the cylinder, which is attached to the plunger (or piston), we attach a horse snap shackle, which you can purchase in any tack store. We tie a loop in the tow line and attach the loop to the shackle.

Here's what it looks like:

It is possible to drill a hole in the shackle and run a thin line from it to the front seat to allow the driver to release the tow rope if there is a problem. I never saw a driver do this while I was towing in Australia.

The working principle of the cylinder, hose, and pressure gauge is that the pilot/glider pulls on the plunger, and the fluid (brake fluid, for example) pushes on the spring in the pressure gauge and tells the driver how much pressure is being exerted by the glider/pilot on tow.

The pressure gauge dial doesn't have to read the actual pressure accurately (and probably won't). You can easily calibrate the right pressure yourself for your setup and mark the spots on the gauge.

Strap the truck side of the pressure gauge up to the horizontal limb of a tree, and hang you and your pod from the plunger. The reading on the pressure gauge is your combined weight. You may want to use a light pilot, in order to mark the dial when the pilot/pod weighs 150 pounds.

You want to pull at about 150 pounds or less, so marking this pressure on the dial allows the driver to know when they are pulling too much or too little. As the driver and pilot are in radio communication, the pilot can tell the driver to slow down or speed up to decrease or increase the pressure, and the driver will learn what tow pilots are comfortable with.

The driver accelerates or de-accelerates to change the pressure on the gauge (and thereby on the pilot). The driver's speed is the only means of controlling the forces on the pilot, and is a simple (and by now natural) mechanism for control. If the pilot runs into lift, the pressure rises, and the driver can slow down. The driver can speed up in sink.

I have two 1000' lengths of polypropylene rope. Quite cheap. Gary Osoba tells me that if I pull it length wise across the concrete, it will last a very long time. If I pull it sideways, the wear goes up quite a bit.

This rope is a bit heavy, and takes up quite a bit of space on the spool. I connect the two lengths together with a swivel, which reduces the amount of twist felt by the pilot when they hook up to one end of the line.

While in Australia, the driver would just turn around at the end of a tow after the pilot released and pull the line back to the starting area. Here at the Sunflower Dome in Kansas on the concrete runway, the driver disconnects the line at the truck after the tow, drives down to the other end of the rope, assuming that the pilot has been good enough to drop it on the runway, connects that end to the truck and pulls that end back to the starting area.

It is quite possible to use a spectra line instead. David Glover tells me he did 1200 tandem tows on one spectra line and never had a break in the line. 7/64 (easier to splice) or ⅛ round braided Sprectron 12 from the Sampson Rope Company, or a flat spectra from CSR in Pennsylvania (less expensive).

You'll need a reel to roll the line up. We salvaged a wire wheel as the hose reels were plastic and way too big.

The pilot uses a weak link and an over/under bridle. Our weak links consist of a small ( 1") metal ring (tack shop), a clip about the same size (hardware store), and six stands of brick layers twine. The forces on a static tow are going to be quite a bit more than what you see while aerotowing, so the weaklink needs to be stronger.

Our birdle attaches to the keel just in front of the hang point, goes over the base tube, through a ring at the back of the two ring circus release, under the base tube, and then clips into a v-line that is clipped to either hip loops on the harness or to the bottom buckle on the harness. Again, there is one line which first above the base tube and then below. The release line goes out to the two ring circus at the point of the V-bridle that attaches to the tow rope.

The tow line has a loop tied into it at the end. The clip from the weak link clips onto it and the ring of the weak link is attached to the two ring circus on the V-bridle.

We have two other kinds of bridles that also work. A Hewett bridle, and a European over/under metal bridle. I've used the Hewett, but I haven't used the European (Finnish) one yet.

The bridle I do use was made in Australia by Wingtech. Their factory is next to the Airborne factory, in New Castle, NSW. It can be used for either aerotowing or static line towing.

The pilot stands facing into the wind. Wind is good because it means less running. He/she radios to the driver to take up slack in the rope and has them stop when the rope is quite tight. The rope under the bar will be pulling the nose of the glider up. The pilot should pull the nose level.

The pilot balances the wing into the wind, and facing into the wind or half way between the wind and the direction of the rope, tells the driver to "Go,go,go," when he/she is ready to run. Most runs last about two steps. With the truck pulling it is easy to get going.

The glider will be in a nose high attitude, so the pilot should pull in to keep the nose down a bit in case there is a weak link break below 200 feet. After that the pilot can push out to increase the climb rate.

I stay on my down tubes, and just put my feet in the bottom of my boot. In this manner I am right under the control frame and have the most roll control. You can go to the base bar after you release.

The pilot can communicate with the driver telling them to slow down or speed up. The pilot can also adjust the pressures on them by pulling in or pushing out. As the pilot climbs to about 1000' the weight and angle of the line will bring it over the top of the base tube. I find that 1500' is about all I feel comfortable with this type of bridle, but if you have the European type which allows you to release the top line, you may be able to go higher.

I keep my instruments off the base tube as they are easily hooked by the top tow rope. Again, the European over/under bridle may solve this problem for you.

One concern is how well this system handles wind gusts and thermal compared to a payout winch. The payout winch will automatically let the line out as you hit a gust or thermal, while there is no line to let out in a static line system.

First, the static line system means that the angle of the line is very low to begin with. The changes of a lock out are very much reduced because of this low angle relative to the initial short line use in aerotowing and pay out winch.

Second, 2000' of polypropylene line is very stretchy, at lease in my experience. If you hit lift, you drag up the line, and you can either just go with it, pull in, or tell the driver to slow down if it is too much. Things seem to happen very slowly on a static line of 2000'.

In Holland you have to tow with wheels if you at doing static line tows. I am using wheels here over this concrete runway. Seems like a good idea with these heavy rigid wing glider anyway.

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Mon, May 3 1999, 4:00:03 am GMT

Kevin Cosley|Michael Robertson

Kevin Cosley sent in a note about his upcoming static towing clinic:

The clinic will be held in the Seattle area on the weekend of May 8-9^th with a ground school and safety talk on Friday the 7^th. The cost is $250.00 Interested pilots can call me at 425-391-3631 or e-mail me at <cosley@eskimo.com>.

First of all I want to say that I don't mean to take away support for the Tiger fly-in (This clinic only has room for 10-20 folks) but it's important for me to get Michael Robertson out here and learn as much as we can from him. My goal is to get a core group of towsters off on the right foot. Not to compete with the fly-in. If there are those who want to spend the day at the fly-in but also want to go to the tow clinic, I think they can come out Friday the 7^th or Monday the 10^th to make up that day.

Also Michael would like to put on a safety talk/seminar in connection with the fly-in if possible (same night? night before?) during which he would cover (among other things) the use and theory behind the Robertson Charts of Reliability. I think this would be very valuable. Any ideas for a good place we could have this?

The tow clinic will be a weekend course. There will also be a class on an evening before the weekend. We'll say Friday night, the 7^th, although that can be flexible. We'll see if we can get everyone 20 tows at least during the weekend. With everything organized and ready, this winch can get a lot of people in the air. If the weather is a problem, or we run out of time, we'll make the rest of the flights up later. The cost will be $250.

Michael has a lot of knowledge and experience to offer. He's one of the pioneers of hang gliding, and he's been teaching since 74, when he started High Perspective. I'll attach his bio below for those of you who are not familiar with him.

If you want to reserve a spot send me a check for $75.

Kevin Cosley
25124 SE 23^rd ST
Issaquah, Wa. 98029

Ph 425-391-3631 or 425-557-8434

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Tue, Jan 26 1999, 6:00:01 pm EST

altitude|Australia|cloud|Florida|sport|towing|XC

Last year it rained all winter in central Florida - El Nino.

This year it is pretty dry, and warm - La Nina.

As far as I'm concerned, Florida and Australia offer the "best" cross country hang gliding in the world. Best, because the thermals are soft, full, and available often enough. They get you to cloud base and the ride up is enjoyable.

Having flown long and hard at many mountain sites including Telluride, Dinosaur, Golden, Sun Peaks, King Mountain, and numerous sites in the Alps, there is nothing that compares with smooth flatland flying. This is not to say that I haven't had lots of great times, especially in the Alps, and at Golden and Sun Peaks, but the pure comfort factor often isn't there. The mountains offer great scenery, big air, and high altitude gains. But, still…

I was shocked to find that great flying could be had in Florida in January. I thought that I had to wait till February for southern Florida, and March in central Florida. It is not the case at all.

I've been here for a little over a week and I've had three XC flights. Two days ago I flew 50 miles to just south of Inverness. Another pilot from Canada set their personal best that day flying to Dade City.

On the day I went 23 miles, the maximum average lift was less then 200 fpm, and the average lift was about 40 fpm. On the day I went 73 miles, the maximum 20 second average left was 540 fpm, and the average lift in thermals was 80-120 fpm. On the day I flew 50 miles, the maximum average lift was 200 fpm, and the average lift was about 60 fpm.

I know that these values are low, but so what? The thermals were there and easy to find. It just took longer to go anywhere. Climbing the in the thermals was pure fun, and I could just look to the next cloud for the lift.

Every day that I've been here has been soarable. It has been good for cross country for five days including today. My glider is on the truck some where else at the moment, or I would be going XC right now instead of writing this.

On my 50 miler I flew over the sail plane port to the north of Wallaby. There were 6 gliders in the air and 4 waiting to be towed up. The cues were popping, but it blued out at around 2 PM. Obviously there were a lot of sail plane pilots ready to have fun in the air. The Senior Nationals for sail planes happens at this port in March.

I'm hoping that more pilots get an opportunity to leave the mountains and come out for some great flatland flying wherever it may be. The fact that there are more and more towing operations, makes that possible. I continue to believe that towing is the future of hang gliding, and flight parks are the way to bring new people into the sport.

If you like flying the mountains, please don't feel that this is a slam on flying there. Of my 2,000 or so hang gliding flights, I've had many more from mountain launches then from tows. Just think about the fact that you don't need a big four wheel drive truck to get you up a mountain. That you don't need to negotiate with the DNR, or the USFS, or whoever.

Of course, we can't all get exactly what we want when we want it, but think about how you could get a towing operation going near you soon.

Ooops! This report just in. Belinda got back with the truck and my glider and I took off at 2:15 PM, about the time it blued out two days ago. Great cloud streets to the north west. Maximum averaged lift - 750 fpm. Average lift about 300 fpm. 70 miles. Man, this Florida winter flying is great!

Ok, OK. Yes this is unusual for Floridain January. It's ten degrees warmer then normal. Now, go out and scrape thesnow off the sidewalk.

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Sun, Jan 3 1999, 6:00:00 pm EST

carbon fiber|cost|Exxtacy|Felix Ruehle|Ghostbuster|news|side wires|site|tandem|towing|USHGA|Wallaby Ranch

AIR, manufacturers of the ATOS, have a new, as yet incomplete, web site:

http:/home.t-online.de/home/felixruehle/index.htm. You can also see ATOS photos athttp:/www.davisstraub.com/ATOS. We hope to add photos of other rigid wings, also.

The latest word on the production schedule for the ATOS is that we won't see the first couple here in the US until April. Hopefully just before the Wallaby Open - April 18^th - 24^th.

Felix Ruehle will be at the USHGA meeting and show in Knoxville at the end of February to show off the ATOS. There is a possibility that ATOS towing close to the site of the show will be available.

I spoke with GW Meadows (http:/www.justfly.com) today here at Wallaby Ranch. He said that he expects to see the new rigid wing glider from Aeros also available in April. Only a few details are available. It isn't flying yet. 78 pounds. There will be lower side wires to the wings to cut down on the weight. Control surfaces will be activated at the hang point. 39 foot span. 143 square feet. High aspect ratio. Carbon fiber construction with a cross bar. We expect it to come in at a considerably lower cost then other rigid wings, as per the Aeros tradition.

Matthias Betsch at Flight Design (http:/www.fun2fly.com for the US distributor) has announced the Ghostbuster as well as modifications to the Exxtacy for 1999 (should be on the new ones that have arrived lately in the US). We don't know if the Ghostbuster is flying yet. See below for more details.

QuestAir has a tandem/wheeled version of the Exxtacy. Perhaps you can contract with them for conversions.

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Sun, Jul 5 1998, 7:56:16 pm EDT

altitude|CIVL|FAI|FAI Sporting Code|flight park|Martin Henry|photo|record|speed record|towing|triangle|world record

While reading Tim's reports that I resent to the hang gliding mailing list, Michael "Hollywood" Champlin noticed that the meet organizers may have been using an incorrect specification for the required start height - too low. He immediately sent a message to Tim, to see if they could check this out.

Here is what Mike wrote:

On a related note, it was reported that the pilots flying for an official world record 100 km triangle needed to take their start photo below 3,000 feet AGL in order to meet the altitude/distance requirement. According to my copy of the FAI Sporting Code Section 7 the start height allowance should be 2% of the total distance flown. 2% of 100 km is 6,561 feet, so it seems a start height of about 6,500 feet should be allowed.

Tim responded immediately, and said that yes, Mike might be right. They are currently awaiting a clarification from CIVL. Perhaps Rohan will set the world record 100 km triangle speed record afterall.

At Hollywood's urging I also sent a message to Martin Henry, the current holder of the 100 km speed record, set last summer in Chelan. Martin lives just to the north a couple of hours, and not too far from a great flight park as well as a number of wonderful mountain hanggliding sites. Martin wrote to Tim:

I thought I would pass on some info re: the triangle records. I know that the FAI has been working on a new standard for start and finish alts but the 2% rule is as follows:

The difference between the start Altitude and the Finish Altitude must not exceed 2% of the total course length (to insure that the course is flown with out the advantage of an extremely high altitude start.)

On a 100km triangle, the difference between the start and the finish altitude cannot exceed 2km (2000 meters). This rule was intended to prevent individuals from towing to extreme altitudes and blasting around the course with the unfair advantage of the initial start.

So if a pilot Starts at 3000 meters AGL and arrives at goal at 500 meters AGL on a 100km speed course, the 2% rule has been exceeded and the speed would not be valid. A pilot must Start and Finish within the 2% rule to negate an altitude advantage.

Keep in mind that the rule is based on TOTAL COURSE LENGTH. Not the declared category. Also on a longer course the 2% rule is less and less a realistic problem. The shorter the course the more important it is to get the 2% rule correct.

It's a very difficult rule to enforce as most pilots use photographic evidence to prove start and finish.

Just thought you would appreciate the Info.

Martin Henry

PS: BTW, According to the certificate hanging on my wall… Its my 100km speed record that was broken (set July 22 1998, near Chelan WA. USA flying an Aeros Stealth 151) at 35.06 km per hour. Ah, glory is sweet, but so short…Stinking OZ comps!

When Tomas set the 150 km triangle record last year at Hay, Martin realized just how hard it would be to beat that record in Chelan.

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