Landing Practice, Hang 3 Written Test, and a Harness Failure

This weekend is the last before the Team Challenge starts at Hensons Gap. I wanted to get some landing practice in and take my Hang 3 written test, which would be the last requirement to earn the certification. This would be necessary to attend the Team Challenge as a competitor and not just a free flyer.

The landing practice went great, and on each tow I tried pretty hard to find a bit of lift to get up, but I never managed it. Larry W. and Dan both got flights longer than 20 minutes. Larry's might have been closer to an hour, but it could have been one of those days where you needed both precise flying and some good luck to launch in time to catch a rare thermal that was well defined and workable below 600 feet.

On my 4th tow I had a failure of the dangle angle limiter on my harness. This is the cord that attaches between the carabiner at the hang point and the harness right at the back of the neck. The point is to keep the harness from tipping head down past the prone position. During scooter towing this dangle angle limiter gets loaded with some large portion of the tow force while the mains hold the force of your weight and some smaller portion of the tow force. In my case my dangle angle limiter, which was a braid-on-braid cord, (hollow single weave rope constructed around a smaller rope core) had a severely worn sheath at a point inside the harness and during tow, the sheath broke and was pulled down by the cleat holding the end. This resulted in the dangle angle limiter lengthening suddenly on tow. A longer limiter meant that my head was allowed to be pulled further beneath the control bar by the force of the tow.

Check out the video I recorded of the tow. I show my first 3 landings and then my entire 4th tow. On the 4th tow you can see the fray just barely showing behind my neck.

I went to my local Climbing Gym and bought some 5mm cordlette that I think will be a strong and appropriate replacement for the failed limiter.

I also took my hang 3 written test and missed 8 questions out of 50. So I passed. And John was finally able to sign me off for Hang 3. I don't remember all the questions I missed but a few stuck out. There was one that asked what the best approach would be for a tight landing area in high wind. I chose the traditional aircraft approach, but it's obvious to me now that I think about it that the figure 8 approach allows you to make your turn to final and almost any time so that it becomes easier to judge the altitude required to not over shoot. I also missed a question that asked about the speed to fly if you are in sinking air with a high tail wind if you want to fly the farthest over the ground. I chose best L/D thinking that no matter what kind of air you're in, sinking or rising, you go farthest at best L/D. In actuality the key is the tail wind, which pushes you much further over the ground than the difference between best L/D and min sink. Which means that the correct answer is minimum sink or equivalently slower than best L/D.

Anyway, I think I'm ready to go to Team Challenge next week.