Scary hang glider incident.

tawood

tawood

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Tim
Been on a youtube kick recently, and came across this video. My first experience with piloting my own craft was when I was in high school, after I bought my own hang glider. I grew up in the Michigan flat-land area, so most of my flights were 30 seconds or less off of an old abandon ski hill. This video gives me the heebee-jeebies:

 
pmanton said:
How do you get down in a hurry. I don't see how you could slip.
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Never flown one, but from the video it appears when he pulls on the strings it dumps a lot of lift. I think I'm past the age when I'd be brave enough to try this. Maybe when I'm 80, they've taken my PP-ASEL away, and IDGAF anymore...
 
dude seemed to do a pretty darn good job until the faceplant and I'm not sure he could'a done anything about that
 
I've heard the phrase "build the plane while you're flying it" but damn
 
I would think checking to make certain that the big time wire that turns the aircraft is attached would be part of the preflight checklist. Would be were it my checklist.
 
steingar said:
I would think checking to make certain that the big time wire that turns the aircraft is attached would be part of the preflight checklist. Would be were it my checklist.
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You would think that checking that you are clipped into the glider would be on the checklist.
 
I always worried about that single point attachment from the glider to the pilot. If that breaks….
 
Morgan3820 said:
I always worried about that single point attachment from the glider to the pilot. If that breaks….
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You have two hang loops, the main and a backup, the carabiner must connect to both. And if all else fails, you throw the chute.
 
Swiss Mishap.

If that would have been me, folks all around the neighborhood would come out and look at their windshield and wonder how long cows have been flying.
 
pmanton said:
How do you get down in a hurry. I don't see how you could slip.
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To slip a hang glider, turn and pull the control bar in. Hang gliders coordinate their turns at trim speed, diving while turning causes a slip.

Jeff Oslick said:
Never flown one, but from the video it appears when he pulls on the strings it dumps a lot of lift. I think I'm past the age when I'd be brave enough to try this. Maybe when I'm 80, they've taken my PP-ASEL away, and IDGAF anymore...
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The wire that detached is not normally loose. I believe that something broke. I only recall attaching the nose wires and the top wires. If you didn't attach the nose wires I don't think you could finish assembling the glider, and if you could, it would be really obvious when you tried to pick the glider up. The top wires exist to prevent something called diving syndrome, where the glider won't recover from a steep dive. Most flights could be successfully completed with them disconnected, I think.

steingar said:
I would think checking to make certain that the big time wire that turns the aircraft is attached would be part of the preflight checklist. Would be were it my checklist.
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I believe that wire attachment broke. I've never seen a glider where the side wires routinely were disconnected. Checking all the attach points is part of a normal preflight.
 
I dunno if modern kites have the down cables permanently attached to the control bar, but when I was flying, the cables were attached with a bolt and wingnut through a tab to the control bar. I don't think the cable broke, it looked like the tab for the bolt was still attached to the down cable. It appeared he didn't put the wingnut on the bolt during assembly of the kite.

There have been failure to hook up and glider assembly fatalities for decades, and they still occur today. I've flown with guys that assembled their kites while BSing with other pilots and spectators, or paused the assembly to attach a camera, altimeter, or variometer.

I always followed the exact same procedure to prepare for flight. If I was interrupted, I would start over, checking each and every step of previously assembled connections before proceeding where I left off.

When I was done, I would go over all of the connections again. As for hooking up, I wouldn't do it while waiting for others to take off. I would only do it when I was number one for takeoff, then perform a hang check (lay out prone in the harness on the ground) before launching.

Most hookup fatalities happen when a pilot hooks up and does a hang check while waiting in line to takeoff, then unhooks to adjust something or talk to another pilot. When they get in position again and carry the kite to the launch, the memory of unhooking is lost, and they run off the launch to their death.
 
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Gotta give the guy credit for keeping his cool, though I suspect a change of shorts was on his "to do" list after that flight. :(:eek:
 
The glider in the first video is a “Rigid Wing”. The loose wire is not structural. It controls differential spoilers that roll the glider in turns. That wire in a conventional hang glider is structural and would have resulted in a failure. There is a parachute in the harness if that happened.
A rigid wing also has flaps. They can sink pretty quickly with full flap. That was the string he was pulling. A conventional hang glider can get down quickly in a spiral dive, but that generates a lot of G’s.
 
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