Soaring Accident in Washington State

On 10/16/11 7:19 AM, Andy wrote:
A reasonable scenario for the shoot would have been for the glider to
become airborne for a few seconds and then release to land ahead while
the truck accelerated out of the way. On the face of it the risks
seem manageable and no worse than the initial segment of an aerotow
from the same runway.

Perhaps the intent was to do the equivalent of a telephoto compression
looking head on at an auto tow with a reasonable length rope, say 1000'.

But they picked a short field so decided to use a short rope and catch
the first 100' of climb. This would require a reasonable pitch-up in
order to look "cool". But pitching up on a short rope like this will
result in a nearly instant climb ...and the rest is history.

A gentle climb using the nose hook seems like the only sane thing that
could be done with a 200' rope. But I'm not sure it would look very
exciting on video.

-Tom