The Plight of the Harnessless Larry Chamblee
“And the parachute goes right in here,� I say to the wuffos who want to know about the harness.
“Oh, you have a parachute,� they ask.
“Sure, but I’ve never had to use it, and I hope I never do.� I replied.
Last Wednesday, July 12, that era ended with a crunch in Little T canyon. No damage except minor pokes and scratches in glider and pilot from the manzanita bushes.
The Short Version - I screwed up a modification to my harness, which caused a critical rope to chafe in two where it rubbed on a sharp metal and carbon-fiber edge. Shoulda put in a grommet. Procrastinated. Parachute saves my procrastinating ass.
The Dance Mix -
There I was at 3200 feet, thought I was gonna either sink out or get up and out of there. I was pretty deep up in Little Tujunga Canyon, on the east side, working that big brown face behind the Padillas’ Rodeo Ring. I had left Lance’s Ridge at about 4400 msl, after one big soft thermal had taken me up from below the top of Lances, down where the gunfire gets loud. Fourteen hundred feet in one thermal, not bad. I was kind of low to cross Little T canyon, but I figured that I’d go until I’d lost 600 feet, and see where I was. If I decided to turn back, another 600 feet loss of altitude would put me at the top of Lances -- not precise math, but not too scary.
That thermal at Lances had drifted me quite a way back, north of the normal track to Big T, but people had told me that the big brown hillside back there really works. So, by the time I lost 600 feet, I was across the wash, almost to the Rodeo ring. I decided I could go on to Brownface, and if nothing happened, worst-case, I could bail out and land in Lovell Canyon (west side of Little T canyon) by the bee boxes. I’d done it twice before, in an Axis. Not too scary.
I bobbled up and down over Brownface for what seemed like 20 minutes, finding some light lift and a few thermal bullets, but I could never get on board and get up and out of there. I decided that I would get as high as I could and head for the southwest corner of Big T-Middle T-Tweedle Dee. That frequently works. If not, bail to the bee boxes, okay? Still not scary.
Headed south and -- “snap, crackle, pop,� goes my main suspension line on the harness, dropping me about a foot until I stopped, with my arms over the control bar at the armpits, holding on for leer dife. I could feel some support from my harness, but I was afraid that if I put any weight on it, it would break, and I’d be in freefall, or hanging by my hands from the control bar, trying to throw my chute while hanging by one hand in a wacky diving left turn. Now, it’s scary.
I decided that I would try to fly the glider away from the scary hills over some flat land to see if there might be a place to set it down. Lovell Canyon and the bee boxes are out because it’s tricky to get in there even when you have full control. I was flying at about 30-35 mph hanging from the control bar by the armpits. So I looked for a big, flat place - - There’s Dino’s Plateau, the big brown field on the east side of the Little T wash with the gigantic power poles running down its west side. But I’m way too high for that, and I don’t think I can 360 down. At some point, I remembered, “I should unzip my legs.� I let go with my right arm and unzipped. The glider went into a crazy, diving left turn and I fought to get my right arm back over the bar. I finally got the glider to fly straight again. “I can’t land this on Dino’s plateau. I might even veer out of control, into those power lines. Screw that.�
I never thought of trying to climb up in the control frame, although I have seen Andy Beem, Matt Spinelli, Paul Thornbury and Joey Fresquez do it. . I also didn’t realize that I could have leaned back and put my weight on the backup suspension line, which might have let me slow down some, although I’d be hanging way below the bar, in what they call the “Stebbins Lowrider� position - - field tested to produce lasting pain.
So, if I’m not going to land east of those high tension lines, I need to get over them to the west side, over the wash, and look for a place to put her down. “Okay, I cleared those lines, now - - where’s a good, safe place to land out here at 35 miles an hour,,,,,,? I’m heading for the paintball course, but there are some trees over there that are too big to hit. Hmmmm. What to do?�
Flashback to May. I’ve never been happy with my Woody Valley harness because I can’t get head-high enough to land. Everything else is great, but my legs are not under me, but hanging out the back, like those little sticks hanging out the back of a Mosquito harness. No good for running. The good pilots who use these low-drag, carbon backplate harnesses time their flares perfectly, so there’s never any question of having to run out a landing.
Years ago, I ditched the factory head-high line, an ineffective design with no mechanical advantage, and installed a pully system that would yank me up to hang straight up and down like a sausage in a meat market. I used that for a long time, but it was kind of awkward. Then I figured that if the main suspension bridle could slide farther up towards my head, I’d be hanging head-higher.
On this model Woody Valley, the lower end of the main suspension strap has a slider that can move fore and aft sliding on a braided ½�rope, which I call the “slide rope.� The ends of the slide rope go down through holes in the aluminum and carbon-fiber back plate of the harness. Under the back plate, they are tied in a knot at each end, so they can’t slip back out. Those knots are bulky and poke into your back. They also slip a little, causing the slide rope to go slack, and making it harder to go head-high or head-low. These knots jam tight, so they are difficult to untie, and it’s hard to retie them to take the slack out of the slide rope.
There are several holes in the back plate, so that you can find the best position for the slide rope. There are plastic grommets in the holes through the back plate, so the slide rope doesn’t wear and chafe on the sharp corners of the holes.
I figured that I would have a better head-high position if I could move one end of the slide rope up towards my head. So I drilled another hole through the back plate, a couple of inches closer to my head. I replaced the old slide rope with a new piece that was longer - - long enough to go to the new hole and overlap about a foot, under the back plate, inside the harness. Instead of those annoying knots under the back plate, I sewed the overlapping lines of the slide rope together and “whipped� them together by wrapping the 20--pound nylon string around both lines. To be secure, I did this in three places along the one-foot overlap. At some later time, I saw that someone had thought of replacing those knots with U-clamps - - not as bulky as the knots, and they could be used to tighten the slack out of the slide rope. Cool, I’m gonna get me some of those. Pretty soon, now.
However, I didn’t have a grommet for the new hole, so the slide rope could chafe on the sharp edge of that hole. I figured that one test flight wouldn’t hurt anything, and if it worked, I’d make the job permanent by taking the slide rope back out and putting in a grommet.
It flew great! Way better landing position, and it made my pulley system work a lot better. Every flight, I’d inspect the three tie points where I had joined the slide rope inside the harness. Still holding great. I checked the rope for chafe where it went through the back plate - - no signs of wear yet. I’ll get that grommet next week, and those cool clamps.
Trouble is, I was looking for chafe on the inside of the back plate, and it was chafing on the outside corner of that new hole. I didn’t think to look on the outside of the back plate. So I’m scratching to get up at Brownface, and my slide-rope, holding the whole weight of my massive body, is on its last few strands.
Pop, snap. I thought my sewing and whipping had come apart. I thought “I probably won’t make it to Lukens today.� I was right.
Fast forward, at 35 mph to the Paintball course. Still looks bad. Matter of fact, I can’t think of anywhere I could land at 35 with no injury. Well, maybe a huge frozen lake, coated with three inches of Jello. But this is the Little T wash, at 100 degrees hot. No Jello in sight.
Looks like today is the day. I am out of choices. I need to throw my chute. Jesus! Okay, I’m still going 35, so there will be no problem with the chute opening. So, I can take this flight low, below the normal 750 feet you want to be sure your chute has time to open. I want to be out there where there are people to see me come down, but I don’t want to land on them or on a building, or a bunch of boulders. The lower I go, the less I will drift under canopy, so I can sorta control where I’ll be landing.
And manzanita bushes have been a pretty soft landing for a lot of guys. Some years ago, a pilot landed in the bushes behind the first bowl of Kagel Mountain after a midair in which one leading edge broke. He never got his chute out, but just pinwheeled down into the bushes. No significant injuries to pilot or damage to glider. Recently, an unnamed rigid pilot put it into the bushes behind the ridge, also with minor consequences. Manzanitas are the way to go.
So, I got down to about 200 feet, right at the edge of the manzanitas on the east side of the wash and threw the laundry. Nice hard throw. No spinning glider to snag it. I’m waiting. “ Crap,� I thought. “I wonder when it’s gonna open! Oh, man. I’ve got to yank on the bridle and shake it out of the deployment bag. I’m kinda running out of time here. Maybe it’s the paintball course after all.�
Just as I looked down towards my chute pouch to see if I could find the parachute bridle, foomph! I hit this big, soft pillow. “All right! It’s open!�
I looked down to gauge my rate of descent and rate of drift up the canyon in the south wind. I figured I’d pound in about … there, in that bunch of bushes.
The parachute bridle was under the trailing edge of the right wing, maybe three feet out from the keel. That put the glider in a sort of a diving left turn attitude. I was being lifted up and back by the parachute bridle, but I could still hold the down tubes, and I worked to get the aluminum between me and the ground, to absorb the impact. I also tried to push out, so that the glider would help slow the descent, but it wouldn’t move that way.
In just a few seconds we crashed down into bushes about 12 feet high. I landed softly on the ground in a cloud of dust. I looked around, felt around and I could not see or feel any damage, except that the left wing was skewered through both surfaces by a stick. I unhooked, took a drink of water, and walked out of the bushes. I took off the harness and walked out to a horse trail, followed it about a hundred feet, and saw a group of horse handlers on ATV’s coming to see the man who fell to earth.
So, remember kids, don’t fly with equipment that isn’t perfect. A prudent person would have installed that 79-cent grommet before hanging his life in that harness. A professional would have knocked some sense upside my head and said, “Why you wait? Fix dee hahrness, goofball. Sheesh! �
A wise veteran of wind sports would have said, “Let’s build a couple more layers of safety into this modification.�
Thanks for the chute pack, Joe.
Throw That Chute
Moderator: Chip
Throw That Chute
Soar With Prudent Passion
Larry Chamblee
Larry Chamblee
Chute Story Continued
(When last we heard from the bald adventurer, he was talking about hanging from the harness backup suspension strap, the "Stebbins lowrider position, which has been....)
......field tested to produce lasting pain.
So, if I’m not going to land east of those high tension lines, I need to get over them to the west side, over the wash, and look for a place to put her down. “Okay, I cleared those lines, now - - where’s a good, safe place to land out here at 35 miles an hour,,,,,,? I’m heading for the paintball course, but there are some trees over there that are too big to hit. Hmmmm. What to do?�
Flashback to May. I’ve never been happy with my Woody Valley harness because I can’t get head-high enough to land. Everything else is great, but my legs are not under me, but hanging out the back, like those little sticks hanging out the back of a Mosquito harness. No good for running. The good pilots who use these low-drag, carbon backplate harnesses time their flares perfectly, so there’s never any question of having to run out a landing.
Years ago, I ditched the factory head-high line, an ineffective design with no mechanical advantage, and installed a pully system that would yank me up to hang straight up and down like a sausage in a meat market. I used that for a long time, but it was kind of awkward. Then I figured that if the main suspension bridle could slide farther up towards my head, I’d be hanging head-higher.
On this model Woody Valley, the lower end of the main suspension strap has a slider that can move fore and aft sliding on a braided ½�rope, which I call the “slide rope.� The ends of the slide rope go down through holes in the aluminum and carbon-fiber back plate of the harness. Under the back plate, they are tied in a knot at each end, so they can’t slip back out. Those knots are bulky and poke into your back. They also slip a little, causing the slide rope to go slack, and making it harder to go head-high or head-low. These knots jam tight, so they are difficult to untie, and it’s hard to retie them to take the slack out of the slide rope.
There are several holes in the back plate, so that you can find the best position for the slide rope. There are plastic grommets in the holes through the back plate, so the slide rope doesn’t wear and chafe on the sharp corners of the holes.
I figured that I would have a better head-high position if I could move one end of the slide rope up towards my head. So I drilled another hole through the back plate, a couple of inches closer to my head. I replaced the old slide rope with a new piece that was longer - - long enough to go to the new hole and overlap about a foot, under the back plate, inside the harness. Instead of those annoying knots under the back plate, I sewed the overlapping lines of the slide rope together and “whipped� them together by wrapping the 20--pound nylon string around both lines. To be secure, I did this in three places along the one-foot overlap. At some later time, I saw that someone had thought of replacing those knots with U-clamps - - not as bulky as the knots, and they could be used to tighten the slack out of the slide rope. Cool, I’m gonna get me some of those. Pretty soon, now.
However, I didn’t have a grommet for the new hole, so the slide rope could chafe on the sharp edge of that hole. I figured that one test flight wouldn’t hurt anything, and if it worked, I’d make the job permanent by taking the slide rope back out and putting in a grommet.
It flew great! Way better landing position, and it made my head-high pulley system work a lot better. Every flight, I’d inspect the three tie points where I had joined the slide rope inside the harness. Still holding great. I checked the rope for chafe where it went through the back plate - - no signs of wear yet. I’ll get that grommet next week, and those cool clamps.
Trouble is, I was looking for chafe on the inside of the back plate, and it was chafing on the outside corner of that new hole. I didn’t think to look on the outside of the back plate. So I’m scratching to get up at Brownface, and my slide-rope, holding the whole weight of my massive body, is on its last few strands.
Pop, snap. I thought my sewing and whipping had come apart. I thought “I probably won’t make it to Lukens today.� I was right.
Fast forward, at 35 mph to the Paintball course. Still looks bad. Matter of fact, I can’t think of anywhere I could land at 35 with no injury. Well, maybe a huge frozen lake, coated with three inches of Jello. But this is the Little T wash, at 100 degrees hot. No Jello in sight.
Looks like today is the day. I am out of choices. I need to throw my chute. Jesus! Okay, I’m still going 35, so there will be no problem with the chute opening. So, I can take this flight low, below the normal 750 feet you want to be sure your chute has time to open. I want to be out there where there are people to see me come down, but I don’t want to land on them or on a building, or a bunch of boulders. The lower I go, the less I will drift under canopy, so I can sorta control where I’ll be landing.
And manzanita bushes have been a pretty soft landing for a lot of guys. Some years ago, a pilot landed in the bushes behind the first bowl of Kagel Mountain after a midair in which one leading edge broke. He never got his chute out, but just pinwheeled down into the bushes. No significant injuries to pilot or damage to glider. Recently, an unnamed rigid pilot put it into the bushes behind the ridge, also with minor consequences. Manzanitas are the way to go.
So, I got down to about 200 feet, right at the edge of the manzanitas on the east side of the wash and threw the laundry. Nice hard throw. No spinning glider to snag it. I’m waiting. “ Crap,� I thought. “I wonder when it’s gonna open! Oh, man. I’ve got to yank on the bridle and shake it out of the deployment bag. I’m kinda running out of time here. Maybe it’s the paintball course after all.�
Just as I looked down towards my chute pouch to see if I could find the parachute bridle, foomph! I hit this big, soft pillow. “All right! It’s open!�
I looked down to gauge my rate of descent and rate of drift up the canyon in the south wind. I figured I’d pound in about … there, in that bunch of bushes.
The parachute bridle was under the trailing edge of the right wing, maybe three feet out from the keel. That put the glider in a sort of a diving left turn attitude. I was being lifted up, right and back by the parachute bridle, but I could still hold the down tubes, and I worked to get the aluminum between me and the ground, to absorb the impact. I also tried to push out, so that the glider would help slow the descent, but it wouldn’t move that way.
In just a few seconds we crashed down into bushes about 12 feet high. I landed softly on the ground in a cloud of dust. I looked around, felt around and I could not see or feel any damage, except that the left wing was skewered through both surfaces by a stick. I unhooked, took a drink of water, and walked out of the bushes. I took off the harness and walked out to a horse trail, followed it about a hundred feet, and saw a group of horse handlers on ATV’s coming to see the man who fell to earth.
So, remember kids, don’t fly with equipment that isn’t perfect. A prudent person would have installed that 79-cent grommet before hanging his life in that harness. A professional would have knocked some sense upside my head and said, “Why you wait? Fix dee hahrness, goofball. Sheesh! �
A wise veteran of wind sports would have said, “Let’s build a couple more layers of safety into this modification.�
Thanks for the chute pack, Joe.
......field tested to produce lasting pain.
So, if I’m not going to land east of those high tension lines, I need to get over them to the west side, over the wash, and look for a place to put her down. “Okay, I cleared those lines, now - - where’s a good, safe place to land out here at 35 miles an hour,,,,,,? I’m heading for the paintball course, but there are some trees over there that are too big to hit. Hmmmm. What to do?�
Flashback to May. I’ve never been happy with my Woody Valley harness because I can’t get head-high enough to land. Everything else is great, but my legs are not under me, but hanging out the back, like those little sticks hanging out the back of a Mosquito harness. No good for running. The good pilots who use these low-drag, carbon backplate harnesses time their flares perfectly, so there’s never any question of having to run out a landing.
Years ago, I ditched the factory head-high line, an ineffective design with no mechanical advantage, and installed a pully system that would yank me up to hang straight up and down like a sausage in a meat market. I used that for a long time, but it was kind of awkward. Then I figured that if the main suspension bridle could slide farther up towards my head, I’d be hanging head-higher.
On this model Woody Valley, the lower end of the main suspension strap has a slider that can move fore and aft sliding on a braided ½�rope, which I call the “slide rope.� The ends of the slide rope go down through holes in the aluminum and carbon-fiber back plate of the harness. Under the back plate, they are tied in a knot at each end, so they can’t slip back out. Those knots are bulky and poke into your back. They also slip a little, causing the slide rope to go slack, and making it harder to go head-high or head-low. These knots jam tight, so they are difficult to untie, and it’s hard to retie them to take the slack out of the slide rope.
There are several holes in the back plate, so that you can find the best position for the slide rope. There are plastic grommets in the holes through the back plate, so the slide rope doesn’t wear and chafe on the sharp corners of the holes.
I figured that I would have a better head-high position if I could move one end of the slide rope up towards my head. So I drilled another hole through the back plate, a couple of inches closer to my head. I replaced the old slide rope with a new piece that was longer - - long enough to go to the new hole and overlap about a foot, under the back plate, inside the harness. Instead of those annoying knots under the back plate, I sewed the overlapping lines of the slide rope together and “whipped� them together by wrapping the 20--pound nylon string around both lines. To be secure, I did this in three places along the one-foot overlap. At some later time, I saw that someone had thought of replacing those knots with U-clamps - - not as bulky as the knots, and they could be used to tighten the slack out of the slide rope. Cool, I’m gonna get me some of those. Pretty soon, now.
However, I didn’t have a grommet for the new hole, so the slide rope could chafe on the sharp edge of that hole. I figured that one test flight wouldn’t hurt anything, and if it worked, I’d make the job permanent by taking the slide rope back out and putting in a grommet.
It flew great! Way better landing position, and it made my head-high pulley system work a lot better. Every flight, I’d inspect the three tie points where I had joined the slide rope inside the harness. Still holding great. I checked the rope for chafe where it went through the back plate - - no signs of wear yet. I’ll get that grommet next week, and those cool clamps.
Trouble is, I was looking for chafe on the inside of the back plate, and it was chafing on the outside corner of that new hole. I didn’t think to look on the outside of the back plate. So I’m scratching to get up at Brownface, and my slide-rope, holding the whole weight of my massive body, is on its last few strands.
Pop, snap. I thought my sewing and whipping had come apart. I thought “I probably won’t make it to Lukens today.� I was right.
Fast forward, at 35 mph to the Paintball course. Still looks bad. Matter of fact, I can’t think of anywhere I could land at 35 with no injury. Well, maybe a huge frozen lake, coated with three inches of Jello. But this is the Little T wash, at 100 degrees hot. No Jello in sight.
Looks like today is the day. I am out of choices. I need to throw my chute. Jesus! Okay, I’m still going 35, so there will be no problem with the chute opening. So, I can take this flight low, below the normal 750 feet you want to be sure your chute has time to open. I want to be out there where there are people to see me come down, but I don’t want to land on them or on a building, or a bunch of boulders. The lower I go, the less I will drift under canopy, so I can sorta control where I’ll be landing.
And manzanita bushes have been a pretty soft landing for a lot of guys. Some years ago, a pilot landed in the bushes behind the first bowl of Kagel Mountain after a midair in which one leading edge broke. He never got his chute out, but just pinwheeled down into the bushes. No significant injuries to pilot or damage to glider. Recently, an unnamed rigid pilot put it into the bushes behind the ridge, also with minor consequences. Manzanitas are the way to go.
So, I got down to about 200 feet, right at the edge of the manzanitas on the east side of the wash and threw the laundry. Nice hard throw. No spinning glider to snag it. I’m waiting. “ Crap,� I thought. “I wonder when it’s gonna open! Oh, man. I’ve got to yank on the bridle and shake it out of the deployment bag. I’m kinda running out of time here. Maybe it’s the paintball course after all.�
Just as I looked down towards my chute pouch to see if I could find the parachute bridle, foomph! I hit this big, soft pillow. “All right! It’s open!�
I looked down to gauge my rate of descent and rate of drift up the canyon in the south wind. I figured I’d pound in about … there, in that bunch of bushes.
The parachute bridle was under the trailing edge of the right wing, maybe three feet out from the keel. That put the glider in a sort of a diving left turn attitude. I was being lifted up, right and back by the parachute bridle, but I could still hold the down tubes, and I worked to get the aluminum between me and the ground, to absorb the impact. I also tried to push out, so that the glider would help slow the descent, but it wouldn’t move that way.
In just a few seconds we crashed down into bushes about 12 feet high. I landed softly on the ground in a cloud of dust. I looked around, felt around and I could not see or feel any damage, except that the left wing was skewered through both surfaces by a stick. I unhooked, took a drink of water, and walked out of the bushes. I took off the harness and walked out to a horse trail, followed it about a hundred feet, and saw a group of horse handlers on ATV’s coming to see the man who fell to earth.
So, remember kids, don’t fly with equipment that isn’t perfect. A prudent person would have installed that 79-cent grommet before hanging his life in that harness. A professional would have knocked some sense upside my head and said, “Why you wait? Fix dee hahrness, goofball. Sheesh! �
A wise veteran of wind sports would have said, “Let’s build a couple more layers of safety into this modification.�
Thanks for the chute pack, Joe.
Soar With Prudent Passion
Larry Chamblee
Larry Chamblee
Chute Story Continued, Again
(Boy, it's really hard to put a long post on this forum)
Trouble is, I was looking for chafe on the inside of the back plate, and it was chafing on the outside corner of that new hole. I didn’t think to look on the outside of the back plate. So I’m scratching to get up at Brownface, and my slide-rope, holding the whole weight of my massive body, is on its last few strands.
Pop, snap. I thought my sewing and whipping had come apart. I thought “I probably won’t make it to Lukens today.� I was right.
Fast forward, at 35 mph to the Paintball course. Still looks bad. Matter of fact, I can’t think of anywhere I could land at 35 with no injury. Well, maybe a huge frozen lake, coated with three inches of Jello. But this is the Little T wash, at 100 degrees hot. No Jello in sight.
Looks like today is the day. I am out of choices. I need to throw my chute. Jesus! Okay, I’m still going 35, so there will be no problem with the chute opening. So, I can take this flight low, below the normal 750 feet you want to be sure your chute has time to open. I want to be out there where there are people to see me come down, but I don’t want to land on them or on a building, or a bunch of boulders. The lower I go, the less I will drift under canopy, so I can sorta control where I’ll be landing.
And manzanita bushes have been a pretty soft landing for a lot of guys. Some years ago, a pilot landed in the bushes behind the first bowl of Kagel Mountain after a midair in which one leading edge broke. He never got his chute out, but just pinwheeled down into the bushes. No significant injuries to pilot or damage to glider. Recently, an unnamed rigid pilot put it into the bushes behind the ridge, also with minor consequences. Manzanitas are the way to go.
So, I got down to about 200 feet, right at the edge of the manzanitas on the east side of the wash and threw the laundry. Nice hard throw. No spinning glider to snag it. I’m waiting. “ Crap,� I thought. “I wonder when it’s gonna open! Oh, man. I’ve got to yank on the bridle and shake it out of the deployment bag. I’m kinda running out of time here. Maybe it’s the paintball course after all.�
Just as I looked down towards my chute pouch to see if I could find the parachute bridle, foomph! I hit this big, soft pillow. “All right! It’s open!�
I looked down to gauge my rate of descent and rate of drift up the canyon in the south wind. I figured I’d pound in about … there, in that bunch of bushes.
The parachute bridle was under the trailing edge of the right wing, maybe three feet out from the keel. That put the glider in a sort of a diving left turn attitude. I was being lifted up and back by the parachute bridle, but I could still hold the down tubes, and I worked to get the aluminum between me and the ground, to absorb the impact. I also tried to push out, so that the glider would help slow the descent, but it wouldn’t move that way.
In just a few seconds we crashed down into bushes about 12 feet high. I landed softly on the ground in a cloud of dust. I looked around, felt around and I could not see or feel any damage, except that the left wing was skewered through both surfaces by a stick. I unhooked, took a drink of water, and walked out of the bushes. I took off the harness and walked out to a horse trail, followed it about a hundred feet, and saw a group of horse handlers on ATV’s coming to see the man who fell to earth.
So, remember kids, don’t fly with equipment that isn’t perfect. A prudent person would have installed that 79-cent grommet before hanging his life in that harness. A professional would have knocked some sense upside my head and said, “Why you wait? Fix dee hahrness, goofball. Sheesh! �
A wise veteran of wind sports would have said, “Let’s build a couple more layers of safety into this modification.�
Thanks for the chute pack, Joe.
Trouble is, I was looking for chafe on the inside of the back plate, and it was chafing on the outside corner of that new hole. I didn’t think to look on the outside of the back plate. So I’m scratching to get up at Brownface, and my slide-rope, holding the whole weight of my massive body, is on its last few strands.
Pop, snap. I thought my sewing and whipping had come apart. I thought “I probably won’t make it to Lukens today.� I was right.
Fast forward, at 35 mph to the Paintball course. Still looks bad. Matter of fact, I can’t think of anywhere I could land at 35 with no injury. Well, maybe a huge frozen lake, coated with three inches of Jello. But this is the Little T wash, at 100 degrees hot. No Jello in sight.
Looks like today is the day. I am out of choices. I need to throw my chute. Jesus! Okay, I’m still going 35, so there will be no problem with the chute opening. So, I can take this flight low, below the normal 750 feet you want to be sure your chute has time to open. I want to be out there where there are people to see me come down, but I don’t want to land on them or on a building, or a bunch of boulders. The lower I go, the less I will drift under canopy, so I can sorta control where I’ll be landing.
And manzanita bushes have been a pretty soft landing for a lot of guys. Some years ago, a pilot landed in the bushes behind the first bowl of Kagel Mountain after a midair in which one leading edge broke. He never got his chute out, but just pinwheeled down into the bushes. No significant injuries to pilot or damage to glider. Recently, an unnamed rigid pilot put it into the bushes behind the ridge, also with minor consequences. Manzanitas are the way to go.
So, I got down to about 200 feet, right at the edge of the manzanitas on the east side of the wash and threw the laundry. Nice hard throw. No spinning glider to snag it. I’m waiting. “ Crap,� I thought. “I wonder when it’s gonna open! Oh, man. I’ve got to yank on the bridle and shake it out of the deployment bag. I’m kinda running out of time here. Maybe it’s the paintball course after all.�
Just as I looked down towards my chute pouch to see if I could find the parachute bridle, foomph! I hit this big, soft pillow. “All right! It’s open!�
I looked down to gauge my rate of descent and rate of drift up the canyon in the south wind. I figured I’d pound in about … there, in that bunch of bushes.
The parachute bridle was under the trailing edge of the right wing, maybe three feet out from the keel. That put the glider in a sort of a diving left turn attitude. I was being lifted up and back by the parachute bridle, but I could still hold the down tubes, and I worked to get the aluminum between me and the ground, to absorb the impact. I also tried to push out, so that the glider would help slow the descent, but it wouldn’t move that way.
In just a few seconds we crashed down into bushes about 12 feet high. I landed softly on the ground in a cloud of dust. I looked around, felt around and I could not see or feel any damage, except that the left wing was skewered through both surfaces by a stick. I unhooked, took a drink of water, and walked out of the bushes. I took off the harness and walked out to a horse trail, followed it about a hundred feet, and saw a group of horse handlers on ATV’s coming to see the man who fell to earth.
So, remember kids, don’t fly with equipment that isn’t perfect. A prudent person would have installed that 79-cent grommet before hanging his life in that harness. A professional would have knocked some sense upside my head and said, “Why you wait? Fix dee hahrness, goofball. Sheesh! �
A wise veteran of wind sports would have said, “Let’s build a couple more layers of safety into this modification.�
Thanks for the chute pack, Joe.
Soar With Prudent Passion
Larry Chamblee
Larry Chamblee
Great Chute Deployment Info
Go to Betty Pfeiffer's website for great information on deploying your chute.
I like her note that if your harness won't let you get head high without your hands on the control bar, you will probably land face first under canopy. Food for thought.
http://www.highenergysports.com/articles/save_life.htm
I like her note that if your harness won't let you get head high without your hands on the control bar, you will probably land face first under canopy. Food for thought.
http://www.highenergysports.com/articles/save_life.htm
Soar With Prudent Passion
Larry Chamblee
Larry Chamblee
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JT
A new member!
Your posting brought to mind Rich Grigsby who may have been the first to come up with the "Men who fell to Earth" club idea (never saw the Bowie movie). Maybe we should design a T-shirt.
It's not as exclusive a club as you might think. However, the entry qualifications are stringent. No one sane wants to become a member, either. Still it would be fun to carry the marker after the scratches heal.
Any ideas for a design?
To become a member, all anyone has to do is fall out of the sky with or without deploying a reserve 'chute... and live. Posthumous members not accepted.
Mine was 28 years ago at Parker. Tucked, broke and tumbled ~200 ft. No 'chute.
Grigsby was at Wilson in a Mariah. Threw his 'chute but didn't know if it really helped except to cushion the impact.
Anyone else want to join? Put your story here.
It's not as exclusive a club as you might think. However, the entry qualifications are stringent. No one sane wants to become a member, either. Still it would be fun to carry the marker after the scratches heal.
Any ideas for a design?
To become a member, all anyone has to do is fall out of the sky with or without deploying a reserve 'chute... and live. Posthumous members not accepted.
Mine was 28 years ago at Parker. Tucked, broke and tumbled ~200 ft. No 'chute.
Grigsby was at Wilson in a Mariah. Threw his 'chute but didn't know if it really helped except to cushion the impact.
Anyone else want to join? Put your story here.