US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Excuse my ignorance first off.....I will try to put this topic together the best I know how given my limited understanding of how forums work, what a "topic" is vs a "post" within a "forum category"....etc. This all seems very confusing to me. My intent is to initiate a "topic" that I can post to in the forum titled "Hang Gliding General". If you see I am on the wrong track, please give me some feedback earlier rather than later. The first thing I see is when I choose to start a new "topic" I am immediately asked to provide a "subject"....wtf??, is this "subject" now going to be the title of the "topic"??..... moving right along.....

Here's a blog link for another attempt to share what I am going through in getting a wrecked Easy Riser glider back in the air.
http://easyriser1.blogspot.com/
Since I had almost no luck at all finding anything else regarding the construction or repair of cloth-covered rigid wing gliders like the Icarus or Easy Riser on the web, I decided to make an effort to put something out there. Here's a copy of my first blogspot post in the event the link is messed up....



post date - 5-1-13
Ordered as a kit from John Moody/Larry Mauro in late 70's as a full motor package. Completed the non-motorized glider portion of the kit using all the original kit materials (Dacron fabric, nitrate dope, 6061 T6 .035 wall aluminum tubing). On the maiden flight, my pilot error put the ship into a whip stall after launch resulting in a dive into a large bush from approximately 60 ft. The frame was bent with the most obvious damage being the upper left wing panel leading edge which broke just outboard of the root, diagonal internal brace. The trailing edge also took a set bend near the root.

My mission is to re-rig and re-cover the entire airframe. My hope is that this blog will be discovered by other potential EasyRiser pilots/builders. I plan to break the posts up into separate parts of the process as I proceed with the repair project.

To begin, here is a photo of the left wing where you can see the upper panel leading edge spar is broken at the second rib out from the root. I have not yet removed the fabric from the lower panel.

OK, cannot figure out how to insert an image from my HD so you'll have to go to the blog or use your imagination.....

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Here's a little help from Joe Faust and the moderator:

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You can see this kit had the original foam/wood ribs which were soon replaced with stamped aluminum ribs. The hole in the second rib was where the internal brace passed through it which I had removed after the accident. You can also see the front end of the second rib is gone (broke off on impact). On close inspection, I saw no other delamination of the fabric to the rib cap strips anywhere else on the glider frame which I thought was amazing given the impact it took to break the leading edge. The fabric was not rib laced or stitched since I had no plans to ever fly it powered (made that decision after receiving the kit). The next post will include my initial assessment after removing the covering on all four panels.

Good topic, John.
General link for Easy Riser in support of the project: http://tinyurl.com/EasyRiserRETURNS
From your blog:


Comet flying ...

jcoyier wrote:Excuse my ignorance first off.....I will try to put this topic together the best I know how given my limited understanding of how forums work, what a "topic" is vs a "post" within a "forum category"....etc. This all seems very confusing to me. My intent is to initiate a "topic" that I can post to in the forum titled "Hang Gliding General". If you see I am on the wrong track, please give me some feedback earlier rather than later. The first thing I see is when I choose to start a new "topic" I am immediately asked to provide a "subject"....wtf??, is this "subject" now going to be the title of the "topic"??..... moving right along.....

Hi John,

First of all, thanks very much for taking the time to post to the US Hawks forum!!   

There's an old saying "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".      The main tool that we have running right now is a forum and a forum is mostly for back and forth communication between a bunch of people. But it can be used for other purposes (say a "blog") with just a little bit of care.

I can think of two ways to support "blog" functionality fairly easily. The first approach is to ask that any topics intended as blogs (basically monologues) should start with the word "Blog:". So this one might be titled "Blog: Easy Riser Repair Project". It could be an understanding among the US Hawks community that each such "blog" is reserved for the person who started it (unless the blogger explicitly invites people to post). There are ways that I can enforce that and even remove posts that the blogger finds objectionable (maybe put them in a special area for posts removed from blogs). The other approach would be to start a new subforum dedicated to people's blogs. The same rules would apply.

And actually, as I was typing, I just thought of an even better idea!! It turns out that topics can live in multiple places at the same time. You may have seen topics in the main forum that actually exist in the Torrey Hawks subforum or vice-versa. I mentioned the Torrey Hawks forum because that subforum has a different style, so when you go there, you immediately know you're not in Oz anymore (pun intended). The nice thing about this approach is that the blogs will be visible as regular topics in the main forum, but they'll also be collected together in a subforum if anyone wants to just see lots of blogs.

I think that's what I'll do unless anyone wants to hold a vote on it.

Are you ready to be the test pilot for that John?   

You also mentioned that you didn't know how to upload a picture, so I took the liberty of inserting it for you (please let me know if you approve or would rather have it removed).

Finally, you mentioned that you might need some help posting pictures. If you have a question or problem with the forum, please feel free to call me any time at 858-204-7499. I'll do my best to help you almost any time (and I mean that). In this case, there's a topic that describes the process at: http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=24#p4098. You might want to "right click" on that link and open it in a new window so you can follow along with the pictures as you do it. It's not quite as smooth as I would like, but once you get used to it you'll be posting pictures in your sleep.

But mostly, please feel free to use the phone any time. I'm really (really) happy to help anyone who's willing to help the US Hawks.

So thanks for posting, and I look forward to following your progress with that Easy Riser!!  

Bob,
Sure, I'll be the test pilot. You need to understand that I'm not quite "getting" the terms yet...."topics", "main forum", "sub forum". I'm guessing your second idea was to have me or maybe you, create a sub forum with the appropriate title such as "blogs" and then have me post under that. I'm not sure how my posts would show up under "hang gliding general" but let me know if I understand this right and what I should do next.

Hi John,

Thanks so much for taking the first flight in the US Hawks Blog Forum!!

Here's how to get started:

• Go to our main forum page (also known as "Board Index") and click on the "Blog Forum" link.
  
• Then click on the "New Topic" button (there are actually two of them - both on the left side - and they both do the same thing).
  
• That will open up an editing window with a place for a subject and a big space for your first post.
  
• For the Subject, please start with the word "Blog:" so everyone will know that it's a blog. Then follow that with whatever you want it to be about. So it might look like this:
  
      Blog: Easy Riser Repair Project
    
• Then, in the first post, just give an overview of the topic. If you want other people to post there, please say so explicitly. Otherwise, the assumption will be that you want to be the only person posting on that blog. Here's a suggestion:
  
  

  This Blog will follow the restoration of my Easy Riser Glider. I'll be including lots of pictures as I go.
  
  I welcome specific comments about the restoration, but please keep them short because I want the blog to focus on the actual work that's being done. If you're not sure about posting, please send me a PM about it first.
  
  I hope you enjoy watching this glider return to the sky!!   

  
  
  Just say whatever you want to introduce the project. Then after that, just post whatever you want ... day by day!!

Does that help? If not, please just give me a phone call. I'll be happy to help you over the phone as you do it. Once it gets started, I can set it up so that it appears in both the "Hang Gliding General" section and the "Blog" section. That's something that can only be done by the forum adminstrator anyway, so don't worry about it now.

Also note that the forum is set up so that you can only edit your posts for up to an hour. After that, they become history. I decided to do that because I've seen forums where people go back and change what they've written years ago and that destroys both the history and even continuity of the discussions. So I thought an hour was good. But I can go back and change things like typos and other incidental mistakes after the fact if it helps make things more clear. I generally try to avoid doing that in the main forum, but it might make more sense in the Blog forum.

Like I said, please give me a call if you have any questions. This is a very very cool project, and I'm really looking forward to following your progress!!