Another Camera-Induced Incident

Please tell what happened and how it might have been avoided. Names should be ommitted. This forum should help others learn from mistakes that caused or nearly caused a mishap.
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JD
Posts: 1682
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:05 am

Stop F*cking Around w/ Your Cameras!!!

Post by JD »

https://www.facebook.com/fsalvetti1/pos ... nref=story

Fabio launched unhooked after he unhooked himself in order to be able to lower his camera boom. He then proceeded to launch and realized the situation as he ran down the wooden ramp. Luckily he had a soft landing in the bushes. The fact that he had 3,000 flights while hooked in is no excuse.

If you are going to fly with distracting equipment then for crying out loud alter your pre-flight and in-flight procedures so that your excess gear does not end your flying or kill you.
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Jim
Posts: 289
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2010 5:08 pm

Post by Jim »

A friend, formerly in the harness business, told me a similar story. His friend, a fire and rescue trainer, was demonstrating how to rapel from a helicopter. He clipped his harness in, hung at the door frame, then returned to the inside. He unclipped to demonstrate something else. When finished, he turned his back to the door, held the rope to brake his decent and pushed off. The helicopter was in flight.

The point being, if you hook-in and then disconnect from your glider to do anything, walk away and completely start over. When I intend to fly, I approach the glider with my (new Stubai) carabiner in hand and hook-in immediately. If I unhook, I get out from under the glider. It may not be fool-proof, but it's worked so far. Connecting your harness to your glider before putting it on also works but, should you need to unhook, walk away.

Developing the hook-in check habit is good, too, but we often are concerned with a lot of other stuff as we approach launch and we sometimes forget. Better to start off correct than necessitate catching an error.
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