At 02:08 20 February 2014, wrote:
On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 7:36:56 PM UTC-5, Steve Leonard wrote:
Chris has hit the nail on the head with his testing and reporting. When
i=
t goes wrong, it goes wrong fast. Faster than you can possibly react. We
ca=
n try all we want to teach how to not do it, but it will sometimes
happen.
=
Why not come up with a system that will minimize the risk to the
towpilot?
=
I think we have concluded that for now, we cannot eliminate it without
crea=
ting other significant problems. If we are considering an automatic
system,=
why wait to full nose up elevator and nose down 20 degrees? As Chris
said,=
if you are there, you are probably doomed. If the nose is down 10
degrees
=
(or maybe even 5?) and the elevator is half way to full up, something is
wr=
ong. Would you agree? On tow, elevator is up, nose is up. On descent,
eleva=
tor is down, nose is down. Why not develop and test a parallel releasing
sy=
stem that has inputs from a gyro for pitch attitude and a simple sensor
for=
elevator position? Test at safe altitude, as Chris and company did. I
know=
this is not going to prevent kiting, but if we can reduce the risk when
it=
happens and maybe not even add bad failure modes, it should be well
worth
=
the effort. Just my thoughts. Steve Leonard

The least expensive improvement that many operations can make immediately
i=
s to adopt the use of longer tow ropes.The effect of pilot error is
drastic=
ally reduced by this one simple change. Many places I fly as guest use
rop=
es that are marginally short as matter of standard practice.
We try not to use ropes shorter than 200 ft.
UH


The tests I described were done with ropes about 180 feet long, I think it
would probably need ropes of 400 feet or more to give sufficient time for
there to be even a chance of releasing in time if a kiting event started.
There are practical reasons for not using ropes that long at most sites.