August 3rd, 2011
First of all, I want to thank God for looking out for me. Again.
Secondly, I need to give a huge, all-caps THANK YOU to Steve, Channing, and Ollie for being such incredible friends and flying buddies. These guys didn’t even hesitate before giving up one of the best flying days of the year to hack their way through the dusty, thorny, tick-infested undergrowth in order to help me get my equipment off of the side of the ridge. You guys are amazing.
So, if you haven’t guessed yet, I crashed yesterday. Blew a launch at Whitwell and ended up in the trees maybe sixty feet below launch and to the left where, luckily, there were plenty of trees to catch my glider. The whole thing was over in about four seconds, so fast that I didn’t even have time to get scared. My life didn’t flash in front of my eyes and I didn’t shed a dramatic, solitary tear for my soon-to-be-lost loved ones right before impact, but there was a very distinct moment when I realized that I was probably going to die. That brief instant in time was captured as a snapshot, an engram, with all dimensions in perfect clarity, and now I find that my mind keeps returning to it, searching it, repeatedly probing it the way a person’s tongue might keep poking at a sore tooth. I wasn't hurt, but I’m still going to carry this with me for a long, long time.
The sequence of events was as follows: I approached the edge of the cliff in light winds under the guidance of a wire crew that I knew and trusted. I settled the wing on my shoulders, set my angle of attack, walked out to the edge, and heard calls of “neutral” from both sides. I launched. My wings were level and my attitude was good. My launch run was a little too aggressive and I could have been a step closer to the edge of the cliff, but I didn’t pop my nose or get nailed by an unexpected updraft. It seemed to be the opposite, in fact. Instead of flying away from the mountain, the glider seemed to settle directly downward, my left wing dropping a bit faster than my right wing. Only a slight imbalance, but it was enough for the left wing to scrape a bush and initiate a weird, low speed, nose-down turn that ordinary control inputs could not correct. I might have been able to save the launch if I’d climbed into the right corner of my control frame, but I’ll never know that for sure. Anyway, I tried to correct the turn and realized that I was not in proper control of the glider. It was only a few seconds, but it really seems like a lot of things happened. I pulled in and tried to roll out of the turn (though not aggressively enough), but the glider didn't respond. I saw that the trees below me were very close. I saw that I was pointed back toward the mountain realized that a crash was unavoidable. I pulled in harder for the last half-second of my brief flight then pushed out as hard as I could into the face of the cliff right at the moment of impact. I’m not sure what, exactly, happened right after I collided with the terrain, but the glider didn't actually connect with the rock face so I assume that my wings caught in the trees and stopped my forward motion. I swung forward on my hang strap as the glider slid down a few feet before catching the base tube on a 5” thick tree while pinching the right wing between that tree and another that grew up at a slightly different angle. I opened my eyes and stood up on the base-tube, checked myself for damage and making sure that the glider was secure before calling out on the radio that I was all right. Completely fine, in fact. I kept waiting for something to start hurting, but I really was fine… Thank God.
So, what went wrong? I think that it was a few things. First and foremost, I did not take the launch seriously. My attitude was that I had done it before, conditions were good, and I knew what I was doing. It wasn't a conscious attitude at all, I wasn't strutting around all puffed up and cocky, but looking back I can see that my internal attitude toward the launch and conditions was somewhat dismissive. I am a mountain pilot and cliff launches are a simple, basic skill, right? To be completely candid, I even recognized that other pilots, most with vastly more experience than I have, were having weird launches. I even went so far as to comment on those launches to a friend before my own launch... I *knew* something was off and that I should pay attention to it, but still didn't let that affect my launch procedure. Why? Because I thought I knew what I was doing, I guess. I have to think about that some more and come up with some way to temper my confidence with my ignorance and lack of experience. It's not always easy to realize when we were being foolish until after the dust has settled. Intermediate Syndrome in a nutshell, right?
From a technical perspective, the biggest problem was that my wings were not loaded when I launched. This is what Ollie, one of my wire-crew, saw and later told me. I had the wings balanced and level, but not loaded. I thought that I would fly from the cliff, but instead I did a Mary-Poppins launch and tried to use my hang glider as an umbrella. Because there was a head wind, I didn't focus on aggressively diving from the cliff’s edge at all, but launched as if I my wing were already flying. That accounts for the settling sensation that ate up my ground clearance and put me in contact with the bush that started my turn.
If I could do it over again there are, obviously, a few things I would change. Since I still haven’t managed to figure out time-travel, I will have to settle for adjusting my behavior in the future:
- I will force myself to take a moment to recognize the risk involved with launching a hang glider. To paraphrase Ollie: This isn’t a game we’re playing and if we don’t take it seriously it’s going to kill us. I never thought twice about it before launching yesterday and commented later that it was one of the first launches that I wasn't afraid of... that should have been a pretty big warning sign.
- I will always, always, every time, talk to my wire crew before launching. I knew both of the guys on my wing yesterday, I knew that they were going to follow the standard wire crew dialog that we had rehearsed before, and I saw them perfectly wire off half a dozen folks in line before me. Even so, I should have taken the time to make eye contact with each of them and to review the procedure. They did absolutely nothing wrong, but that’s not the point. I didn't need to take the time to review the procedure for their sake, but for my own – the extra 15 seconds on the ramp would have given me time to connect with reality, stop rushing, and helped to remind me that launching a hang glider was a serious business deserving my full and deliberate attention.
- I will take a few seconds to pause at the "red line" before calling clear. I’m not talking about loitering on launch while I get my courage up – just holding still for enough time to feel what the wing is really doing before I call clear. Yesterday I walked forward, felt in control, felt level, had a good nose angle, and went for it. I don’t think that I was on launch for more than three seconds, total. No hesitation, no fear. I don’t want to ever linger on the ramp, but I do need to be sure that every aspect of my body, wing, and crew are ready to launch and doing that is going to take a little extra time. If I’d taken a few seconds to stand there making sure I that I knew what the wing was doing, I think that I would have recognized that it was resting heavily on my shoulders when it should have been lifting in the light head-wind. I would have known to either wait for the lull to pass, to get the wing into the wind and under load, or to dive from the cliff in a no-wind launch. Instead I launched as if I were already under load and it nearly killed me.That’s it. I learned an important lesson from a mistake that many pilots don’t live long enough to make twice and I’m happy to have the opportunity to share it. If it helps even one person avoid making the same mistake, then I think the whole ordeal will have been worth it. If anyone would like to comment, offer advice, or share helpful suggestions then please do. I am always glad to have criticism and advice (and praise!!) about my flying.
Yesterday seems like it should have been a pretty bad day for me and I certainly would have preferred getting high and going long, but in a lot of ways that I came to realize last night over dinner (thanks again, Ollie), I think that yesterday may have been one of the best days of my life. It could have so easily been the worst, or the last, day of my life, but instead I am sitting here, one catastrophe wiser than I was a day ago, writing, drinking coffee, feeling thankful for my friends, and listening to my girlfriend sing while she paints the upstairs bedroom.
Life is good.
What happened to day two? Rain. Rain happened. Day Two was spent most definitely, most depressingly, and most decidedly not flying. So on we go to Day Three!
At about two in the afternoon the committee decided that the day over and all tasks were cancelled. Bummer. There were more than fifty gliders set up in the grassy area behind the Henson's Gap launch and more than fifty pilots eager to do some kind of flying at this hang gliding meet so something had to give. Luckily for us, the fog eventually did burn off and the wind slowed down to a very safe, comfortable level (even though it was cross) and we were able to get a little practice in. Nobody expected to have very long flights, but even a short flight is better than no flight at all!
