It was a not-so-good day for a couple of the pilots here at Lookout.
The first one I would like to tell you about is a buddy of mine, which also is my dentist. Bill T., who lives in Birmingham, has been flying for many, many years. He is a Hang 4, tandem instructor rated pilot, and a very good one. He had a fight today. It was between his tandem glider, the tow dolly, and gravity...he lost. From what I understand from talking with the towing ground crew, his keel/wheel got hung up in the keel cradle, and gravity kicked his arse. Why he had his tandem set-up glider, sitting in a dolly to begin with, I don't know because I wasn't there. Right now, he is feeling NO pain in a hospital tonight after surgery. He broke his collar-bone, and the Doctors put in a plate & 7 screws. He should be up and about in short order. When I talked to him tonight tho',, he was,,,mmm, doing swelling, or swimmingly? No pain to be sure. Please keep in your thoughts & prayers.
The second turn of events, I got to see unfold right in front of me, literally.
Here's the situation. A pilot on his new Sport 2, first flight. Had been towing a Falcon 195 for a while. There's a lot of seasoned pilots around, end of the day, baby-butt smooth conditions. Light & variable at about 1mph. Nice time of the day to take an evening glass-off in your new glider, about an hour before sunset.
The Dragonfly gets into position, the line is drawn tight, pattern is checked for any air traffic, all clear and the signal to Go is given, the tug powers up. On the roll out, Mack(the pilot of the glider), just barely lifts out of the dolly,a couple of inches max, apparently releasing the cart as well, then settles back lower in front of the dolly. At which time, I believe that's when the handle of his chute caught on the bolt head on the dolly, or on the ground itself. The pins were checked as part of the checklist before hooking up to the line. At the time that he rose out of the cart, he was flying a little faster than the cart, and by hooking the chute handle on the bolt head, or pushing down on the ground, it pulled the pins, and opened the parachute bag. Thankfully, he was only a few feet off the ground. All of us that was standing around watched as the white bridle laid on the ground unfurling before our eyes. Every one of us was yelling to the top of our lungs, release, release. Of course, he couldn't hear any of us over the noise of the tug powering down the field. About that time, the bridal pulled tight on the chute, it partially inflated, the weak-link broke, he got pulled to the right, about 6 feet off the ground, nose pointed downward, a release with one hand, and a whack, and a broken------downtube. I would call him a lucky man. This is just my observation on this, others may have other versions, however, the results will be the same. Like I said, amazing what can change in a few minutes, or a few seconds in our great sport. You had better stay frosty, to be sure !
After watching that, there was only one thing that I could do.... I took a nice evening glass-off, of course. Short & sweet to 2,000ft. I was disappointed, because the clouds on the horizon blocked what was going to be a great sunset. I was hoping to get a nice pic to post, however, it was gone by the time I got to altitude.




The process of the work going on at our house. Quiet a change from the start. Will post a couple about the "Great Wall of Dade County" soon.