Glider crash at Moriarty

Yes, condolences to all who knew Joe. Though I did not know him, I feel
the loss whenever one of our own passes on.

I carry my Spot on the chest strap of my parachute out of the inability
to attach it to one of the shoulder straps due to the short length of
the mounting clip. My PLB attaches nicely to the right shoulder. If I
should some day need to depart my aircraft, and am successful, I'll have
good resources to be located. Those plus my cell attached to my belt.
At least one of them should remain with me all the way to the ground.

On 6/9/2015 8:39 AM, Ramy wrote:
There are multiple advantages on strapping the spot to your parachute rather than attaching to the glider. Not only you will have it with you if you bail out, but also in a crash it will be easier to activate the sos button when it is near you. I did some test early on and found no disadvantage when strapping to my parachute. In a reclined position it is 45 degrees which is good enough. I urge everyone to strap spot/InReach to their parachute.
I think this unfortunate accident proves how well our electronics improve the chances to be found quickly. Without it, it could have taken weeks or months to find Joe, not 24 hours. I don't know if it was flarm or spot which pinpoint his location, but I think it did great job. Of course there is room to improvement, such as InReach , but we are already ahead of the airline industry which still can't find MH370 after more than a year.
My condolences to Joe's family and friends.

Ramy

--
Dan Marotta

On Tuesday, June 9, 2015 at 11:18:14 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Yes, condolences to all who knew Joe.* Though I did not know him, I
feel the loss whenever one of our own passes on.



I carry my Spot on the chest strap of my parachute out of the
inability to attach it to one of the shoulder straps due to the
short length of the mounting clip.* My PLB attaches nicely to the
right shoulder.* If I should some day need to depart my aircraft,
and am successful, I'll have good resources to be located.* Those
plus my cell attached to my belt.* At least one of them should
remain with me all the way to the ground.




On 6/9/2015 8:39 AM, Ramy wrote:



There are multiple advantages on strapping the spot to your parachute rather than attaching to the glider. Not only you will have it with you if you bail out, but also in a crash it will be easier to activate the sos button when it is near you. I did some test early on and found no disadvantage when strapping to my parachute. In a reclined position it is 45 degrees which is good enough. I urge everyone to strap spot/InReach to their parachute.
I think this unfortunate accident proves how well our electronics improve the chances to be found quickly. Without it, it could have taken weeks or months to find Joe, not 24 hours. I don't know if it was flarm or spot which pinpoint his location, but I think it did great job. Of course there is room to improvement, such as InReach , but we are already ahead of the airline industry which still can't find MH370 after more than a year.
My condolences to Joe's family and friends.

Ramy





--

Dan Marotta

A jump instructor friend of mine cautioned that having too many things attached to the top end of the parachute webbing is a recipe for hiding the one thing that matters when you're under the gun, and that's the ripcord. I have my PLB attached to the thigh straps. My phone is in my pants pocket (which is synched shut by the thigh straps). Right now I have my Delorme Inreach clipped into the pocket of my flying shirt (Columbia fishing shirt)..

Interested if anyone agrees or disagrees with the jump instructor's comment..

P3

On Tuesday, June 9, 2015 at 12:03:39 PM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote:
On Tuesday, June 9, 2015 at 11:18:14 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Yes, condolences to all who knew Joe.* Though I did not know him, I
feel the loss whenever one of our own passes on.



I carry my Spot on the chest strap of my parachute out of the
inability to attach it to one of the shoulder straps due to the
short length of the mounting clip.* My PLB attaches nicely to the
right shoulder.* If I should some day need to depart my aircraft,
and am successful, I'll have good resources to be located.* Those
plus my cell attached to my belt.* At least one of them should
remain with me all the way to the ground.




On 6/9/2015 8:39 AM, Ramy wrote:



There are multiple advantages on strapping the spot to your parachute rather than attaching to the glider. Not only you will have it with you if you bail out, but also in a crash it will be easier to activate the sos button when it is near you. I did some test early on and found no disadvantage when strapping to my parachute. In a reclined position it is 45 degrees which is good enough. I urge everyone to strap spot/InReach to their parachute.
I think this unfortunate accident proves how well our electronics improve the chances to be found quickly. Without it, it could have taken weeks or months to find Joe, not 24 hours. I don't know if it was flarm or spot which pinpoint his location, but I think it did great job. Of course there is room to improvement, such as InReach , but we are already ahead of the airline industry which still can't find MH370 after more than a year.
My condolences to Joe's family and friends.

Ramy





--

Dan Marotta

A jump instructor friend of mine cautioned that having too many things attached to the top end of the parachute webbing is a recipe for hiding the one thing that matters when you're under the gun, and that's the ripcord. I have my PLB attached to the thigh straps. My phone is in my pants pocket (which is synched shut by the thigh straps). Right now I have my Delorme Inreach clipped into the pocket of my flying shirt (Columbia fishing shirt).

Interested if anyone agrees or disagrees with the jump instructor's comment.

P3

I think your jump instructor friend has a good point!

I wear my spot 2 on the chest strap of my parachute, where it isn't in the way of anything and it doesn't drop fixes any more than it would on the glare shield. This seems like the best overall compromise. Phone goes in a pocket with some sort of positive closure (zipper, etc.).

Unfortunately, the weakest component of our in flight tracking capability seems to be the SSA/glide port aero tracker....

-Evan Ludeman / T8

It is always sad to hear of such a loss.
But in my opinion, we yet have little idea about nor do we achieve much speculating on the cause of Joe's accident.
Compared to the loss of Steve Fossett and many others, the search for Joe took very little time. Steve was using an ELT, Joe had modern tracking devices. We wish they were all still with us, but at least for Joe it was no longer a mystery for friends and family.
From personal experience with SPOT1, SPOT2, InReach and APRS, InReach SE works well on the parachute harness. SPOT works but just doesn't compare. APRS works well in the baggage compartment, even using a horizontal "stubby" antenna surrounded by a mostly carbon fuselage. No unit is absolutely perfect, but nor is cellular data, FLARM, many pilot's vision/scan, etc.
Any parachute rigger can construct a SPOT or InReach pouch and a hard point on the riser cover of a parachute harness that will not interfere with finding the ripcord or parachute deployment. The cost for those is only about $50, so no need to improvise/compromise.
In the big picture, InReach is not expensive. As mentioned earlier, the amateur radio license is easy to get too.
Jim