Killing the flagman at US Contest

On Tuesday, July 1, 2014 10:39:05 AM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
How about a light bar or light gun? Red - Stop/Hold, Yellow - Takeup

Slack, Green - GO!



Or car headlights? Steady on - Takeup Slack, Flashing - GO!



Now for my pet towing peeve: Takeup slack, STOP, GO. There's no need

to stop. The glider should be ready to launch when the rope is

attached. If the pilot needs more time, he should not have the rope

attached until he is ready. Or he should find another hobby. Rant off.



Dan Marotta

Dan, I totally agree! The more complicated we make the launch process, the more chance for miscommunication and mistakes to happen.

Best solution (non-contest): RADIOS! Glider pilot says READY, tuggie says HERE WE GO. Back it up with wings level (if possible - sometimes you have to do a wing-down launch, so even that isn't a show stopper) and a vigorous rudder waggle from the glider, answered by the tug, then go.

Otherwise, I agree that once hooked up, the glider should be ready to go as soon as the rope is attached. Once the slack is taken up, the wing should be leveled and tug looks for the rudder waggle, then goes - or else the wing is dropped and the rope released.

If you can't see the rope and glider rudder from your towplane, you need better mirrors! We use a Supercub and a Pawnee and in both the rope and glider rudders are easy to see.

And I've had wing runners try to launch with the wing down, or the back canopy on a Blanik open, or the slack not out, etc - they are often students and can't be trusted! The ONLY person who can determine if the launch should go is the glider pilot, so I want to see or hear his decision to go.

Kirk

Thanks for the comments. I don't really care much how we do it as long as we get the darn flagman out of the picture.

I would say that having attended a couple contests where Barb Smith was the radio controller, that works well by my observation. Her duty cycle on the radio was certainly less than 1% so I don't think there was an impact to safety calls on the radio. With respect to the example case of interfering with a safety call from a glider to it's own tug, there wouldn't really be interference. That because the radio signal power from a glider 200 feet away will not be impaired by the signal from a handheld which is a mile or more distant; it's a 1/r^2 matter, the close radio wins. Aircraft radios use simple amplitude modulation.

I was ground operations director at the last contest Steve entered (Region 9 at Moriarty). Steve expressed his concerns to me while on the grid. I totally agree that safety of the pilots and ground crew are of paramount importance, but unfortunately, this is difficult to achieve when dealing with volunteer crews for flagging, hookup and general awareness. I would be ecstatic to have a crew that was experienced in all of these functions, but recruiting and training an efficient bunch of kids at the last minute is a problem. We had CAP volunteers, but of varying levels of attention, physical ability and general awareness. The flagman and tug positioning flagman were both very experienced glider pilots with a highly developed sense of self-preservation (i.e. they knew when to back out of the way and run if necessary)

With all of the confusion going on with an efficient launch at a contest, the last thing you would want are extraneous radio calls. The radio is for flight ops. Period. It is hard enough for multiple tow pilots to maintain a sense of awareness in the pattern without a bunch of "take up slack" or "hold" calls. And do not even suggest that the tow pilots change between ground and air frequencies.

Visual signals are the absolute best method with a properly briefed ground crew. Yes. in many instances, the risk of a dropped wing and subsequent departure is real. Unfortunately, without a system as sophisticated as something found on a Nimitz Class carrier, visual cues and volunteers are the norm..

If the pilot feels uncomfortable, launch can be declined. If the volunteer flagman feels uncomfortable, he can be advised to allow more clearance. In any case, a mature, alert flagman is a must. A sense of self preservation is a good thing to have when standing beyond the launch line of any accelerating vehicle.

I got some great photos and a couple of scars while ignoring this principle when I was shooting drag racing photos,

Please try to trust the ground crew, but do not hesitate to speak up if you see something obviously wrong or hazardous.

Mark - please don't interpret that I'm complaining about how Moriarty contest was operated. Not at all. Moriarty was run fantastically well and I'm very appreciative of that.

My issue is generic to all US contests where there's a flagman stationed in front of the launching gliders and that seems to be most contests these days. Any person given that job will assuredly become complacent about the hazard after a few hundred gliders have whizzed by without incident. The hazard is insidious most particularly because it's rare. My issue is that it really won't matter what kind of self preservation instinct someone has when there's 50 feet of wing arcing directly towards him at 30 or 40 MPH. That really can happen. We need to change the scheme before someone gets creamed.

The natural human reply to suggestions of change is to say ' we always did
it this way without a problem.' All very well until someone is killed or
seriously injured, then the lawyers get involved.

In UK we happen to have developed procedures using a dedicated radio
frequency for launching a competition grid. It works, and we can launch
100 gliders in an hour apparently safely (the local collision risk is
another matter, but that's dealt with in other ways).

I wouldn't want to be able to say 'I told you so' in the near future.

At 03:34 02 July 2014, Steve Koerner wrote:
Mark - please don't interpret that I'm complaining about how Moriarty
conte=
st was operated. Not at all. Moriarty was run fantastically well and
I'm
=
very appreciative of that. =20

My issue is generic to all US contests where there's a flagman stationed
in=
front of the launching gliders and that seems to be most contests these
da=
ys. Any person given that job will assuredly become complacent about the
h=
azard after a few hundred gliders have whizzed by without incident. The
ha=
zard is insidious most particularly because it's rare. My issue is that
it=
really won't matter what kind of self preservation instinct someone has
wh=
en there's 50 feet of wing arcing directly towards him at 30 or 40 MPH.
Th=
at really can happen. We need to change the scheme before someone gets
cre=
amed.

On Wednesday, July 2, 2014 4:58:26 AM UTC-5, pete purdie wrote:
The natural human reply to suggestions of change is to say ' we always did

it this way without a problem.' All very well until someone is killed or

seriously injured, then the lawyers get involved.

How fast we forget. Tonopah, Nevada, July 16 2002:

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/br...LA231 &akey=1

Steve is completely right. There is NO need for someone in front of the launch, and any procedure that uses someone in that position should be changed.

Again, as a tow pilot, I would much rather look directly at the glider I'm about to launch than rely on someone else to relay the signal. In a contest, I really only need to watch the rope for slack - it's up to the glider pilot to be ready or release!

Keep it simple and put the responsibility in the hands of those directly involved: the tow pilot and the glider pilot.

Kirk
66

Don't they both have radio?

At the 78 worlds , my wing hit a TV photographer,as I was landing on the
runway, injuring him seriously. He had
walked out to get a better shot. I was leaving room for a glider landing
behind me. It certainly shook me .
JMF

At 12:50 02 July 2014, kirk.stant wrote:
On Wednesday, July 2, 2014 4:58:26 AM UTC-5, pete purdie wrote:
The natural human reply to suggestions of change is to say ' we always
did

it this way without a problem.' All very well until someone is killed
or

seriously injured, then the lawyers get involved.

How fast we forget. Tonopah, Nevada, July 16 2002:

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/br...LA231 &akey=1

Steve is completely right. There is NO need for someone in front of the
launch, and any procedure that uses someone in that position should be
changed.

Again, as a tow pilot, I would much rather look directly at the glider
I'm
about to launch than rely on someone else to relay the signal. In a
contest, I really only need to watch the rope for slack - it's up to the
glider pilot to be ready or release!

Keep it simple and put the responsibility in the hands of those directly
involved: the tow pilot and the glider pilot.

Kirk
66

On Wednesday, July 2, 2014 4:58:26 AM UTC-5, pete purdie wrote:

The natural human reply to suggestions of change is to say ' we always did it this way without a problem.

Last year my local CAP glider program had a number of bored teens to keep engaged so they put a cadet just in front of the tow plane's right wingtip.

I hear you Steve. Valid concern for sure. For some reason I thought that I had read some guidelines in the SSA Contest section of the website recommending at least a 30 degree cone ahead of the glider without people in it. Maybe 45 degrees. Now I can't find that after a short search. Maybe someone else remembers where I saw that. I recall it was in response to the Parowan accident. For a 200 foot rope that would correspond to the flagman at least 115 feet off to the side of the towplane.

On my aborted takeoff at Region 9 in 2013 I was headed right for the corner of the ramp and the runway where the flagman was standing. Crosswind, CG hook, I was heading towards the flagman and the towplane was heading down the runway.

I always thought that having someone "on point" - ahead of the towplane - was not primarily to relay signals from the wing runner but was done to monitor the area behind and out of sight of the wing runner for anything that could interfere with the launch and to stop the launch if that happened. I've only seen this happen once in my fifteen years of soaring though and when you come down to it if this was really important you could just have a person stand behind the wing runner to monitor that area.

It's SOP at my club when we have enough people at the field to have someone to do it. It has occurred to me that it does introduce the possibility of the person being hit my the glider or towplane if one of them swings exceedingly badly (to the left in our case) but has this ever happened anywhere? We have a very wide grass field and almost never have any significant amount of crosswind component so our experience probably isn't typical.