torrey

morey · Post by **morey** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 11:17 am

I flew for a few hours at Torrey on Monday and Tuesday. Easy, fun and pretty. Lotsa' great kiting practice, Green grass, smooth air, easy lift... and tiny naked people down below.

I nominate myself for Turkey of the month, as I had my first TIWTIWGD story on monday. After a couple hours of flying, launching and landing, I went to take a pee in the porta' potty. Not wanting to miss even 10 seconds of possible airtime, I didn't take my harness off. It (apparently) scraped against the door of the porta' potty, and when I launched a few minutes later, my parachute was hanging out. A number of people saw me launch in this condition, and told me to go land- which I did. Just as I was coming in for a landing, at about 40 feet, the chute deployed. It fully inflated by about 10 ft altitude, and I was dropped safely and softly right on target in the LZ under canopy. Could have been a nasty situation had it deployed and ran me into the cliff, but fortunately I was a lucky SOB.

Damn, there's a lot of ways to die in this sport- and complacency tops the list. I vow to take every flight (and pre-flight) much more seriously!

Eric · Post by **Eric** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 3:05 pm

Morey,
Nice to hear you are fine. I thought only my students did d ... unusual things.
We here in Tucson have been struggling to survive as well. Thanks for the heads up, on preflights.
I had a bad situation from a folded mylar on the Fusion. ( last month) WW never mentioned that the mylar would fold under on this model as well !! I missed this item in my preflight. The glider flew poorly,it fell off on the left wing when turned that way. This of course is the first turn you make after launch at the Stones. I flew for hours anyway trying to figure out what was wrong. I got real high and did not leave xc because of this. I had a terrible landing, no injury. I took the keel out of the glider with out bending an upright!! Well the back half of the keel 8.5 feet!!
One of my students landed in Miller Canyon last week.
Scott just missed a set of power lines..
Ross flew in OD`ed conditons in Salt Lake.
David got up ended in a Dust Devel while landing.
Jerry got 40 stitches at the Craters.
Your right more oportunities for injury!!!

Eric

RossinAz · Post by **RossinAz** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:23 pm

Several years ago I launched into very windy conditions at Box Canyon. In my haste to grab the speedbar with gloves on I accidently grabbed my reserve. It's a two pin diaper configuration. Luckily I realized it and scooted to the LZ asap. Upon landing I had pulled one pin out and the other was hanging in by a 1/4". It would have been ugly to get blown over Box under reserve. I ALWAYS check that pin and Never grab the speed bar on that side of the harness. LIVE and LEARN!

morey · Post by **morey** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:31 pm

Thanks for sharing your stories. I'm not sure if it makes me feel better or worse knowing that we all make mistakes. We're human, and there's no way around it.

Success breeds complacency and complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive!

Let's all be paranoid- and live to fly another day.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:45 pm

Thank you both for posting about a subject we pilots seem to collectivly ignore/deny. What we do is terribly dangerous and I think we need to own up to the risks we take every time we go out. It is amazing how often we get away unscathed and if we took inventory of all our near misses and lost friends, we would certainly have to modify our behaviour, perhaps even stop flying. It has taken me many years of painful growth to realize this. When I was a younger man and had something to prove to the world, it seemed to me that the most heroic thing to do was to escape earthly life by spiraling up into the ether (figuritively speaking). Now it seems to me that the heros are the ones who don't run away, but compassionately (com=with + passion=to suffer) choose to stay and suffer through earthly life, to be bound to the earth by love for others. It is a difficult thing for a young man to do - to allow himself to be trapped.

Well, I suppose no one has the faintest idea what I am babbling about.

BTW, the Dalai Lama is coming to Tucson in September. If you are so inclined, visit www.arizonateachings.org

torrey

Torrey

I fee for you

only the paranoid survive

Well stated