Hooking In

[Paul Tjaden]

If a vaccination works....I should be safe. I've told this story to some of you but now I'm going to abuse the rest of you with it.
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I got my H2 at Highland by aerowtow and then (with winter approaching and no aerotowing) I called Richard Hays and headed to the training hill for my foot launch sign off. On my first day at Smithsburg Richard teamed me up with another student that I would share a glider with.?Richard explained the basics and soon we were working our way higher up the hill. It was my turn to fly and I hooked in, or so I thought, and asked my partner for a hang check. He affirmed that I was through my primary and secondary. I then walked through the control frame and felt the tug of my harness on my shoulders (so I'm hooked in....Right?). I picked up and when the wind was right I started my run.
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As the glider started to fly I was quickly aware that something was wrong. The glider continued up but I stayed on the slope running like hell and starting to hang from the control frame. Thankfully, the glider refused to?pull me into the air?due to light winds and my weight pulling the nose down. ?Not being fleet of foot, I soon fell to my face in the corn stalks and slid through the "pungi" sticks of corn and stopped in the dust. Still stunned, I lay in the corn until I heard Richard running up to me yelling "You just launched un hooked! You're a dead Man!"
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What had happened? How could I get a hang check from my partner AND do a walk through and STILL not be hooked in? The answer:?I was using one of Richards knee hanger's and there was no rubber band holding the main riser and all other shoulder lines, etc. to the biner. The only line still left attached to the biner was the shoulder line. The main was NOT attached? and was hanging limply down my back. My partner had only seen that my biner was in the hang loop and I had not bothered to do a visual check of my own. So much for relying on others.
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Would I have caught it if I'd looked? Who knows? But it did leave a lasting impression on me. I Have been vaccinated!!!!
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Paul T.
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[Flying Lobster]

I am somewhat irritated at Lobsterman myself. He believes, wrongly, that he happened upon me unhooked and about to launch. Just not correct. I was very much aware that I was unhooked. Told him so at the time. Story goes around and around and comes back to me now and then. So to Mark C's complaint that an incident is not relevant, in my case it is not even true.

But I did have an incident where I failed to hook in . At HR. Eddie Miller saved my sorry butt. Sure woke me up. Too bad Bill did not have a scare like that. I now have a nice DSL line through the tangle of alzheimers plaque. That was at least 10 years ago and there is still not a blade of grass on that neuron path. So that is not how I am going to die.

What we really have to do is to vaccinate pilots, like I have been, but without the scare. How do you do that? How do you get them to internalize a procedure so that they do it no matter what distractions are present? I don't know. But I have come to feel that the communal effort to assure that pilots are hooked can be destructive of this purpose. I never intended to advocate that wire crews should not be vigilant; just that they avoid hijacking the process.

You're right...I did not mention that you had said you knew you were not hooked in, so I did not in fact stop you in the process of launching.

BUT...you were on launch, in your harness, kneeling down in the control frame of your glider, studying conditions intently out in front of launch. And you were unhooked. Knowingly or unknowingly--extremely dangerous. If you truly believe that it was impossible for you to be distracted by something or the continuing wait might not have culminated in seizing the moment when that small thermal finally wafted by and not tempted you to pick up and take those additional two steps to the edge--then I apologize to you as well and will also buy you the beer of your choice.

In any event thanks for your candor--which reinforces my original intent that it CAN happen to anyone--not just someone who we perceive as an inexperienced newbie to the mountains.

marc

[XCanytime]

I would be damn thankful to the wire crew for saving my butt, and vow to remain vigilant in not letting it happen again.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Bacil

[XCanytime]

What harm is there in the wire crew asking the pilot for a hang check?? That's not hijacking, that's caring.? They might save his life.

????????????????????????????????????????????????? Bacil