DDias wrote: ↑Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:48 pm
Really enjoyed this video, especially that climb around 5:20. I enjoy all videos that end with a sweet landing.
What is that pulley system attached to your helmet?
Is it something that helps with long flights, balancing weight of head so to be neutral?
Thank you. The whole flight was 2:05hrs and I have to keep the interesting and short. I nearly blew the flight by going OTB from Marshall Peak just 100' too low which kept me from connecting on the Crestline Ridge on the first attempt. I didn't feel as sheepish when I found myself low and sinking in front as a few PGs I had started with were on the ground or close. That's when a new lift cycle started and I climbed from just above the 750 launch to even with the back ridge and went OTB and connected after working in pretty close. The attached tracks in KML are easy to follow.
So, after I gave my neck a dumb case of whiplash during January, 2014 and returned to fly in August, I was having trouble supporting the ~2# weight of my helmet. I experimented with a variety of head support methods and eventually found that using ~5' of 1/16 ID x 1/16 wall latex tube works really well when it's stretched to the point where my helmet floats freely about 2' below the keel. When I attach the helmet and lift the glider there is no dangerous slack of cord or tubing dangling down to tangle or strangle the pilot (me). Then when I lay prone the tension only rises modestly due the the long length of the latex tube. If I pile in and get tossed forward or sideways, the helmet line just gets payed out and doesn't yank on my head and neck. Systems that use bungee cord or constant force spring reels can and will cripple or kill a pilot. It's only a matter of time before there's a fatal or paralyzing accident. For that matter it may have already happened and not been reported. I know about a lot of unreported accidents over the years. Even if they're reported they never get published anymore so pilots are free to kill and cripple themselves and claim from the great beyond how they didn't know the danger because it wasn't published. I can just hear St. Peter snickering at the Pearly gates as he hides a rolled up Darwin Award diploma behind his robe. I think I'll ask Harry Martin if he could draw this one for the magazine. But I digress.
Thanks to the late Heiner Detlef Peter (Pete) Biesel and Ozzz Report I read about his clever pulley flotation system to allow the helmet to rotate freely. I went further with this concept and use Velcro to hold the suspension lines to the helmet so that the suspension line can release itself is the force exceeds ~5# during a crash, etc. Obviously, the 5' of latex tube needs a lot of room the stretch and so I use a high quality ball bearing pulley at the top of the hang loop and the nose for the latex tube and suspension line to run through. I though I had a photo album online showing the details but can't seem to find it. Anyhow, you get the idea. I have hundreds of hours using this system and it's a Godsend that more than doubles my flying endurance.
Like the drogue, it's one of those things that I need to make a 10-minute descriptive video.