Where should the hang check be done if not at the foot of the ramp?
In your back yard to check and, if necessary, adjust your clearance to match your new glider to your old harness - or vice versa - and never anywhere else or again.
should a pilot be hook in before he gets to the launch ramp?
The only time it's safer to be hooked into the glider than not is when you're in the air or about to voluntarily put yourself there. Think dust devils. However in many circumstances and conditions there's not enough practical difference to matter so speed and convenience can/should be the determining factors.
In strong air and/or when the approach to launch is a struggle I recommend that a couple of crewmen move the glider into position and the pilot travel separately. Saves a lot of straining and overheating.
I have heard of wire guys having their hands cut holding a hang gliders nose wires...
This is one of the primary reasons God gave us leather gloves - the kind WITHOUT the little snap hooks you use to keep them together when not in use.
...and is now walking down to the ramp hooked in, and a real strong gust of wind happens to pass by and blows the glider, hook-in pilot and wire man away; rather than just blowing the glider away with out the pilot and wire man?
If that can happen while the pilot is walking down the ramp that can also happen when the pilot is ready to launch and waiting for a cycle. Don't ever put a glider - pilot hooked in or not - on the freakin' ramp without adequate crew for the conditions.
Martin likes to do his hang check where his glider is parked then walks down 30 yards give or take to the ramp hook in, and does another hang check at the foot of the launch ramp before he steps up to the platform...
I would advise carefully studying whatever Martin does with respect to this issue and doing the precise opposite. That's not who you wanna be using as a role model.
It both has it's bad and good to it...
Nah. Just the former.
The way I see it if a pilot can't not control or, keep his wings level at the launch area he / she has no business flying in that type of conditions in the first place.
Disagree. (I was gonna say bulls*** but that would've probably gotten Bob more pissed off than I'm about to get him anyway.) Good Hang Twos can safely launch and fly in conditions in which it would be certifiably insane to be on the ramp with anything less than a seven man crew.
If a pilot feels that he is being sucked down the ramp it means that air is coming up from behind the rear of the hang glider pushing the glider and pilot foward, eddies or thermal in the area...
In the 2001/01 issue of Hang Gliding, Brian Vant-Hull published an article titled "The Geometry of Ramp Suck". He's a good smart guy and physicist, currently a PhD meteorologist. He's almost certainly nailed these issues.
But it doesn't really matter. All we gotta know is we need adequate crew and proper trim.
...the only thing I would think of is there is thermal in front of me sucking me in...
If that's happening the ribbons are all pointed the wrong way. Don't launch.
...as well as the local protocols.
Screw local protocols.
Eric Hinrichs
West Coast US
I went to Chelan for the Nationals in '95 as a free flyer. They were requiring everyone to use the Australian method, and you were also not allowed to carry a glider without being hooked in.
This was different for me, I hook in and do a full hang check just behind launch right before I go. I was also taught to do a hooked in check right before starting my run, lifting or letting the wind lift the glider to feel the tug of the leg loops.
So I used their method and I'm hooked in, carrying my glider to launch and someone yells "dust devil!" Everyone around runs for their gliders (most of which are tied down,) and I'm left standing alone in the middle of the Butte with a huge monster wandering around. I heard later that it was well over 300' tall, and some saw lightning at the top. After that it was clear that no one is going to decide for me or deride me for my own safety methods, someone else's could have easily got me killed.
Most people who fly hang gliders are total morons who have no business flying themselves - let alone telling other people what to do and how to do it. You're the goddam Pilot In Command, anybody starts telling you what to do outside of USHGA regulations, then tell him to phuck off.
I've been to sites where I do the hang check right at launch and I've been at sites where I do the hang check in the setup area.
And where I fly I do neither - 'cept for platform and dolly launching where you don't have any choice.
"Have you had a hang check?"
"Nope."
"Can I help you with one?"
"Thank you very much, but I don't do hang checks."
(Look of absolute HORROR.)
Last "person" who anybody ever gave me any crap about hang checks was Jim Rooney - and the stupid sonuvabitch was in intensive care a few months later.
One of the good things about walking to launch unhooked is that you can't get blown over. One of the bad things is that your glider is more likely to be blown out of your control and could possibly injure someone...
Earth to Bob...
You think the glider's less likely to get out of control with you hooked into it than it is with you on the nose wires? Maybe at steady and innocuous wind speeds. BUT...
...(like an innocent bystander) who might be behind you.
Tell him if he gives you a couple of bucks he can help on a sidewire.
As Tad has rightfully pointed out, the purpose of hang check is to verify the final assembly step of your hang glider (assembling yourself to the glider).
That's not what your instructor says.
Christian Williams - 2006/09/19
Joe Greblo teaches a hook-in check the instant before launch. To him, a hang check is part of the preflight and has no value in confirming that you are hooked in...
You should...
USHGA rating regulations don't say anything about "SHOULD". They use the word "should" in the aerotowing SOPs. That word has gotten lotsa people killed.
...always perform one additional check (called a hook-in check) just prior to launching.
It's a REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY BAD idea to think of a hook-in check as "one ADDITIONAL check".
Tad advocates that the best way to do this hook-in check is to "lift and tug" which means allowing the glider to rise up in the wind (or by hand) until you can feel it lifting you by the harness. Tad advocates that this should be part of the launch sequence so that you do it every time.
Let's not forget George Whitehill - who introduced the regulations in the magazine thirty years ago, Doug Hildreth - who as Accident Review Committee Chairman pleaded for fourteen fruitless years that people comply with the regulations, and folk like Rob Kells and Steve Kinsley.
I generally support that as well. We may split a hair regarding conditions where this might be difficult to do safely...
If it's not safe to do it, it's not safe to be on the ramp. And you can't present a single shred of evidence to support anything different. And I can make a pretty good case that - if the person is physically capable of doing it - it's always safer to launch with tight suspension anyway.
...primary and secondary...
Why do you need a secondary?
...locking your carabiner...
Luen Miller - 1994/11
After a short flight the pilot carried his glider back up a slope to relaunch. The wind was "about 10 mph or so, blowing straight in." Just before launch he reached back to make sure his carabiner was locked. A "crosswind" blew through, his right wing lifted, and before he was able to react he was gusted 60' to the left side of launch into a pile of "nasty-looking rocks." He suffered a compound fracture (bone sticking out through the skin) of his upper right leg. "Rookie mistake cost me my job and my summer. I have a lot of medical bills and will be on crutches for about five months."
Now tell me how having a locked carabiner makes you safer.
...checking your hight between you and the control bar...
Why? Has it changed since last weekend?
...(you are Hook-in)...
BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG MISTAKE. The more you're assured that you're hooked in the more likely you're gonna be to be dangling from the basetube five minutes from now.
...this is the Hang check
Is there anything in the USHGA SOPs that requires a hang check? Look around, Al. The best pilots - like Rob Kells - don't do hang checks.
...but that is the way they are teaching Preflight inspcetion and hang check you are now hooked
Who are "they"? And how pissed off would it make you if I got their appointments and ratings revoked?
At Hensen's Gap...
Henson Gap...
...I had more people helping me on launch than anywhere else in my life.
Hope they're getting gliders a lot closer to the red line than they were on 2009/11/27.
Some sites encourage a full hang check right at launch...
Which they INVARIABLY use as an excuse to violate regulations and skip the hook-in check.
...while others might find that to be annoying...
...stupid, worse than useless, and outright dangerous...
...to others waiting to launch...
...and the goddam Pilot In Command.
So the "local protocol"...
Ever notice how in REAL aviation "local protocols" tend not to be issues?
...can certainly play a role in where you choose to do a hang check.
Steve Kinsley - 2005/10/02
I already see where the anger and grief take us. We need to do hang checks, double hang checks. And who was on Bill's wire crew? How could they let that happen?
When Bob Gillisse got hurt I suggested that our local institution of the hang check is more the problem than the solution. I still believe that. It subverts the pilots responsibility to perform a hook-in check. I often do not see pilots doing a hook-in check. Why should they? They just did a hang check and they are surrounded by friends who will make sure this box is checked.
SCREW the goddam hang check. It makes the launch MORE - not LESS - dangerous.
But the hook-in check should...
Should?
The probability of launching unhooked goes up (linearly? exponentially?) with the time between your launch and your last hook-in check.
I'm not sure there's much of a correlation there. The people who are always sure of what they did two seconds ago are the ones who tend to end up on the rocks and the ones who can't remember that far back are the ones most likely to be able to fly again next weekend.
Think about a few things, Al...
ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the people who've ended up on the rocks below the ramp were ONE HUNDRED PERCENT *POSITIVE* they were hooked in before they moved a foot.
ZERO PERCENT of the people who were afraid they WEREN'T hooked in two seconds prior to moving a foot have ended up on the rocks.
ZERO PERCENT of the people who've launched with tight suspension have landed before their gliders.
ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of Aussie Methodists are idiots.
Decide which clubs you wanna join. Pick the right ones and I'll help you fill out the forms.
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