THIS first paragraph just sounds off alarms to me. This is why I dislike package deals that promise the world.
Right from their VIP package page:
Quote:
Achieve your Hang I, beginner, and Hang II, novice, ratings, your beginner aerotow rating, and fly solo in less than one week.
And they emphasize this again in the last sentence....
Quote:
Most students fly solo from the mountain or aerotow in less than one week.
Honestly, how safe of a pilot or skilled of a pilot are they pumping out of there if they say you can fly a hang glider off a mountain in one week? I have spent quite a bit of time at the training hill and I have yet to see ONE launch from the mountain inside of a MONTH, let alone a WEEK. As a matter of fact, there are only a handful of students that even pursue this sport to the higher training hills at all.
Do students even get their 50 flights on the training hill as advertised by LMFP or are they just processed quickly to the mountain launch. H1, H2, and AT rating in 1 week? You have got to be kidding right? _________________ $!><
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OK--I'm going to go out on a limb here and post one of my own launches. There's nothing perfect about the way I fly/launch/land. But this is a steep launch, in very light conditions. At the beginning of the keel shot you can get a glimpse of a white streamer by my left hip to get an idea of how light.
The only reason I'm posting this is that of all the photos and video in this discussion--I haven't seen evidence of an AoA that actually goes negative. On a steep launch, my goal is to get the keel pointed below the horizon. I think that is evident in this clip. This is the same launch from two views.
I think that Ryan is trying to emphasize following the contour with AoA. That is what I attempt to do here.
THIS first paragraph just sounds off alarms to me. This is why I dislike package deals that promise the world.
Right from their VIP package page:
Quote:
Achieve your Hang I, beginner, and Hang II, novice, ratings, your beginner aerotow rating, and fly solo in less than one week.
And they emphasize this again in the last sentence....
Quote:
Most students fly solo from the mountain or aerotow in less than one week.
Honestly, how safe of a pilot or skilled of a pilot are they pumping out of there if they say you can fly a hang glider off a mountain in one week? I have spent quite a bit of time at the training hill and I have yet to see ONE launch from the mountain inside of a MONTH, let alone a WEEK. As a matter of fact, there are only a handful of students that even pursue this sport to the higher training hills at all.
Do students even get their 50 flights on the training hill as advertised by LMFP or are they just processed quickly to the mountain launch. H1, H2, and AT rating in 1 week? You have got to be kidding right?
I have been on the hills with pilots who were ready to mountain solo after five days of training. Personally, I needed nine (spread over two months), but I was older (49) and not very athletic. To get your Hang 2 on the hills in less than a week, you'd need some consistent weather and would have to be pretty robust physically. To get your aerotow Hang 2, I would think five days would be about average, assuming you did four flights per day, two in the morning and two in the evening. LMFP attracts a lot of travel students who stay in the LZ and train full time.
The whole process is completely task based. Your first task is to learn to launch on the small hill. Your second is to foot land. After you have performed four consecutive foot landings, you go to the big hill. There, you have to demonstrate slow flight, 45 degree turns to the left and right, 90 degree turns to the left and right, 45 degree reversing turns to the left and right, 90 degree reversing turns to the left and right, and a speed run. For all the turning tasks, you have to demonstrate two of each. Once you have done these, passed the Hang 1 and Hang 2 written tests, passed the mountain solo written test and have been briefed on your mountain solo task, you are cleared to fly the mountain. It took me more than 50 flights (plue four tandems) to do that, but I'm a little slow. Nibs, I believe, had done all that in 35 flights, but the instructors have an unofficial rule and require students to have at least 40 flights unless they have previous aerotow experience.
I've been on the hills with a couple of guys who finished their tasks in < 40 flights and were kind of annoyed that the instructors wouldn't let them go to the mountain. Instead, the instructor put targets on the LZ and had them start learining spot landings. I've also been on the hills with a pilot who needed 80 flights to clear just the small hill. Again, it's totally task based. If you need more hill flights, I think it's $150 for two years worth.
Does anyone ever make it off of the mountain? In the warm weather months it's rare to have a weekend where someone doesn't make their first solo. It's a gas hanging out at the LZ with the new pilots.
If you go to Rob McKenzie's site, he suggests that it will take 4-6 of his combo lessons for a student to be ready for his first solo. That would be 4-6 tandems and 40-60 hill flights, very similar to what Lookout expects. _________________ H2 FL CL FSL
Falcon 3 170
Here, it looks like he pops his nose (not horribly) which, if the same launch was done on that radial ramp, would be even more extreme. So like I said, I really feel practicing from the training hill, while it may not be the same, will only help launching from that radial ramp if you technique is good.
Knowing that the radial ramp is trickier, I would think that the instruction at LMFP would really focus on good AOA fundamentals BEFORE they bring their students up there. How many flights do students perform from the training hills before they are brought up to the mountain?
very good observations $!><
A better grasp of AOA might have saved me a broken keel on my Mark IV at the south side too.
( Looking back I remember my instructors at POTM spending the first couple of lessons mostly "tweeking" the launch technique I learned at LMFP as it does not work as well at 5500 ft elevation on a double surface glider)
(EDIT I realize that some of us may not be making a lot of friends with these AOA/LMFP launch threads, but someone has to speak up.......) _________________ Help preserve Hang Gliding at Torrey Pines
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Last edited by fly,surf,&ski on Fri Jul 30, 2010 2:10 pm; edited 7 times in total
It's easy to think there was nothing wrong, as the glider's nose angle never changes (relative to the horizon). On most launches this would be very solid technique- again,
But because this is a radial ramp, especially in light conditions, the angle of attack of the wing changes throughout the launch, so holding a constant nose angle relative to the horizon is just like popping your nose as you run on a 'regular' launch (hence my reference to the AofA thread, it can be a tricky concept for new pilots if they haven't been exposed to it before).
wow, you guys have a great thread here! until i read this piece, i didn't quite *get it*. i'm a newbie pilot, still running off of the dunes etc. i'm sooo glad to see this concept really explained from so many angles. it's not at all obvious to someone with barely any experience (and i've read pagan's book several times, and looked at endless hours of video). thanks!
Took me 39 flights over 3 months until I graduated to the mountain for my first flight. Then they have this requirement that you have to re-clear the big hill before every consecutive mountain launch if it's been more than 4 days until you have 10 mountain launches under instructor supervision. All in all I logged 70+ flights on the training hills before I was fully cleared to launch as an H2. Of course the 70+ doesn't include ground handling lessons or tandem aerotow lessons. I was always under the impression from my instructors that my progress was well ahead of the curve.
I don't personally know of anyone that got off the mountain in 1 week, but I suppose it could be done if, as FFF said, you were blessed with perfect weather and endless stamina for that week and trained every day.
I don't have a desire to be loyal to LMFP if they're doing stuff wrong and I don't take it personally when people take issue with their methods. I personally think the LMFP program is pretty good. I can see how it would be better to have one on one instruction with a guy like Ryan or HGFlyer, but I can also see how it could be worse if your instructor wasn't up to par.
Part of where I'm coming from is that I fully expected to have to keep learning after I received my H2 so it's no surprise when new things come up that help me improve. I don't look back and say "Why didn't they teach me that?"... that's just silly.
And just for the record I was taught about keeping proper AOA on the training hills and prior to every launch off of the mountain it was reiterated. On light days I have been told to "pull my nose down farther than I'm used to to try and get in an extra 2 steps before leaving the ramp".
my goal is to get the keel pointed below the horizon.
as was said by someone else, horizon ain't got nuthin to do with AoA. only relative wind.
Understood. Only meant that with a launch this steep (or as steep as the LMFP ramp), I would expect an AoA that follows the terrain (flight path/relative wind before takeoff) to go negative relative to the horizon.
I was trying to get AWAY from semantics and present pictures of a low angle of attack on steep launch.
Pulling with the hang straps is absolutely good technique, but it does very little for controlling the pitch... pitch tends to stay where you set it when pulling with the hang straps (about at trim, once the glider lifts off your shoulders).
Pull on the hang strap causes the glider to pitch up. Not disagreeing with you that it remains at trim, but trim becomes much higher nose angle. AoA remains the same as normal pitch, but as you're not gliding down, but rather level or climbing, the angle with respect to the horizon is higher. So when you leave the ground (and can no longer provide a forward force) you're pitch high.
=:) _________________ Jason Rogers,
Intermediate, Moyes Mars 170, Moyes GTR 162, Airborne Fun 190, Airborne Sting 168, Mosquito NRG
I reckon anything advertised below this line must be bloody good (unless it's paraglding)
At Lookout I was taught that the ramp required me to maintain a lower pitch than I might have been used to on the training hills. The horizon is only to be used as the target that I should focus my vision on NOT as a tool to judge my AOA. There not perfect and have lots of room to improve but I think they are a very good and safe place to learn. I wish we had 100 more places just like it.
I'd like to see some of the doubters come out and fly with us. _________________ Jaime Perry
H2 FL CL FSL
WW Eagle 164
Henderthing, my constructive criticism would be how after just two steps you change your grip from grapevine to bottle grip. It worked okay in those light winds but I wouldn't want to do that on a gusty day. I took my lessons at LMFP in 1980 and have been doing this HG thing for a while. As an unofficial mentor but soon to be a real live USHPA certified mentor, I always encourage pilots to keep the grapevine throughout their launch (does that mean I'm instructing rather than mentoring?). If anyone wants to see perfect launch form, just pull up some video of Rob McKenzie's tandem launches at Crestline. They are picture perfect examples of launches in my opinion (not to mention his landings). At Sandia Crest, we have a fairly "radial" dirt ramp and you had better keep that nose low at 10,600 msl. It's hard to do that with a bottle grip. That's my humble opinion on this issue.
I'd like to see some of the doubters come out and fly with us.
That would be fun, we'll can all go fly and then kick back to a different kind of safety meeting. We can even invite Matt
Just in case anyone missed this one here's a reposted video of my friend and one of my mentors David Beardslee doing a Tandem with Beth from the USHPA office at King Mnt. Please note the flawless launch technique from a shallow slope, light wind, high elevation all while launching Tandem.
Thanks Spark for posting/creating this killer video.
Link _________________ Help preserve Hang Gliding at Torrey Pines
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On a steep launch, my goal is to get the keel pointed below the horizon. I think that is evident in this clip. This is the same launch from two views.
I know what you mean, but as someone already pointed out, be careful mentioning AofA and the horizon in the same sentence. BUT- you bring up a good point... we can't SEE airflow, and we CAN see the horizon (maybe that's one reason people confuse the two)... so if you were teaching a beginner and wanted to keep things very simple and not delve into aerodynamic theory too much, before they launch you could say 'keep your nose a bit lower than the horizon'. There's technically right, technically wrong, and then doing the right thing whether you know why or not. Most important is DOING it, 'cause knowing it won't save you if you don't do it
I know I'm as guilty as anyone, but sometimes us long time pilots (and/or long time instructors) get too technical and need someone to remind us to step back a notch and get the critical information across in a simple, easy to digest one-liner. Thanks for that!!! _________________ Ryan Voight
BLOG: www.airthug.blogspot.com
VIDEOS: http://vimeo.com/user802494/videos
wow, you guys have a great thread here! until i read this piece, i didn't quite *get it*. i'm a newbie pilot, still running off of the dunes etc. i'm sooo glad to see this concept really explained from so many angles. it's not at all obvious to someone with barely any experience (and i've read pagan's book several times, and looked at endless hours of video). thanks!
At Lookout I was taught that the ramp required me to maintain a lower pitch than I might have been used to on the training hills. The horizon is only to be used as the target that I should focus my vision on NOT as a tool to judge my AOA. There not perfect and have lots of room to improve but I think they are a very good and safe place to learn. I wish we had 100 more places just like it.
I'd like to see some of the doubters come out and fly with us.
Thank goodness someone finally had the courage to say it!!! This is the very reason I know longer post anything whatsoever about my learning experiences on here. I just get so sick of hearing about how incompetent LMFP is...basically what is really being said is that the pilots learning at Lookout are just as incompetent.
I would estimate that I have had about 500 training hill flights. That is no joke! And I have never once had an instructor or Matt Tabor for that matter tell me that I was not welcome to keep coming back out to the hills. I have even heard instructors talk about sending students from the big hill back to the small hill,etc. Seems to me that the criticism about the videos are usually less about what Theresa can do to fix any problems she may have and more about bashing LM. That's my honest opinion. It gets really old and it is uncalled for on an open forum. Keeping someone safe is one thing but continual bashing of one school,especially by other instructors is absolutely tasteless. (Okay...let me have it!!!)
And big kudos to Theresa for continuing to post your vids on here. _________________
I haven't knocked the instruction at Lookout whatsover (I know some have).
I think the problem lies in the ramp... and like you say it's a great ramp. It's SO good, that it can be very forgiving. It can allow pilots to build bad habits and get off repeatedly with flaws in their technique.
These flaws are like ticking time bombs... which is what makes that ramp dangerous.
I've just been trying to educate and help... if I have overstepped my bounds, that's fine. I've said my peace, and if people don't want to listen and defuse their time bombs, there's no way I can help them... In the end, we're all adults, responsible for our own safety...
Sky_Walker wrote:
At Lookout I was taught that the ramp required me to maintain a lower pitch than I might have been used to on the training hills. The horizon is only to be used as the target that I should focus my vision on NOT as a tool to judge my AOA. There not perfect and have lots of room to improve but I think they are a very good and safe place to learn. I wish we had 100 more places just like it.
I'd like to see some of the doubters come out and fly with us.
Thank goodness someone finally had the courage to say it!!! This is the very reason I know longer post anything whatsoever about my learning experiences on here. I just get so sick of hearing about how incompetent LMFP is...basically what is really being said is that the pilots learning at Lookout are just as incompetent.
Well since we are being courageous for saying some sheit....I will say this:
I have heard people say:
"LOOKOUT!!!!"...... H2!!
When refering to SOME (not all) pilots that come out of LMFP. Why is that?
Quote:
I'd like to see some of the doubters come out and fly with us.
I would LOVE to see more LMFP H2 pilots fly Morningside. Last one I saw damn near killed himself off the 150 launch. (Maybe he was expecting me to hold his keel?)
I KNOW I can fly LMFP. Can you fly Morningside?
Be a PILOT, not a POSER!!
touche! _________________ $!><
____________
Live while you are alive.
Kilo-Bravo-One-Uniform-Charlie-Victor
Hang Hang
WW-Sport 2 175
Z5
http://www.vimeo.com/swineflew
This thread has morphed from a launch critique into a beat down of everything at lookout.
Lookout is a great place to learn, and a great place to fly. _________________ H3, AT, FL, CL, AWCL, 360 -- Student Pilot
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very good observations $!><
