Seat Belts

[birdy]

Near enuff will always be good enuff, solong as you know where near enuff is.Iv seen plenty of shiney, sexy machines that i,d never fly.Never judge a book ( gyro) by its cover ( paint) .As Mark alluded to, all the laws in the world wont save an idiot from homself.( that includes you Paul)

[Tim]

G"day Mark.I like your suggestion re the wording of the seat belt ruling. As a motor vehicle registration inspector the age of the belts was irrelevant. You were compelled to inspect the condition of them thoroughly, looking for things like any fraying, fading due to UV exposure, mounting points and buckles, and in general anything that could possibly effect the integrity of the belt.

[gyroo]

Thanks Tim, I always appreciate your input, and it"s reassuring to know you"re watching. As to Birdy and your 15 year old seat belts that you don"t use, well, bragging as usual, eh??

[MadMuz]

My thoughts are that the date of manufacture isn"t a good place to set the beginning of a time life for a component such as a seat belt. The one I received was new, still in the packaging in its box, so it, to me was new.. zero hour. The only thing that made it unuseable to me was the fact that the date tag said it was nearly 9 years since it was manufactured.

[aussie_paul]

Near enuff will always be good enuff, solong as you know where near enuff is.Iv seen plenty of shiney, sexy machines that i,d never fly.Never judge a book ( gyro) by its cover ( paint) .As Mark alluded to, all the laws in the world wont save an idiot from homself.( that includes you Paul)Still sensitive Birdy!!! It was a joke!!!Aussie Paul.

[birdy]

Hardn up PB, i was joken.Bloodyell Mark, we need to talk.You shouldnt believe all you hear. But, my view on belts, iv been scorned before bout only ware,n a lap strap.Reason why i dont use the shoulder straps, i cant look behind me, and feel costrophobic with them on.And i figure, if i needed more n a lap strap ina bingle, im in more trouble than the harness is go,n to help.If you burner go,s cold, just land.You shouldnt be do,n more n walkn speed horisontaly on touchdown, so theres no need for the harness, even if you stuff it up n go over.If your virtical speed is higher n normal, the harness wont make a difference.Ride the bastered till it stops buckn.Believe me, iv tryed out my theory more times than ill admit, and so far, im rite.

[WEST OZ FLYER]

On the 3" webbing someone mentioned, I disagree, a quality 2" webbing harness is plenty strong enough in my own opinion, because if a pilot were to hit something or have some impact capable of failing a correctly installed 2" wide harness, I doubt that the pilots body would survive with organs where they are supposed to be. Madmuz, it is not so much the strength of the belts, but the surface area that the belt has to retrain you. 3" belts put less pressure on your body per load that that of 2" webbing. The major concern is breaking bones that can lead to the puncturing of organs. In vehicles, they have been designed them to crumple absorbing the energy. When you buy CAMS approved harnesses for motorsport you can by ones dated in this year at a cost but you can also buy 2-3 year old ones substantially

[birdy]

[i]If you have frozen it is a

[WEST OZ FLYER]

Sorry Birdy, I should have explained myself better. I was referring to once the burner goes out. I feel restricted, so i dont.I am the same. I wear my harness loose so I feel free to move around if I need to. The only time I wore one tighter than usual was when I experienced high speed blade flap on take off and crashed. The blades flapped lifting us in the air and rolling us on to the left side. From about 10-15 feet we speared into the ground at around 50 knots with the left foot pedal of a tandem hitting first followed by my head as I was in the front seat then sliding to a rest further up the grass. Good thing we ended up off the bitumen. Apart from the small cut on my head from the helmet and old mate in the back with seatbelt bruising we were extremely lucky. Valuable lesson that one. I wished at that time I had 3" wide belt as rolling race cars 3-4 times at the same speeds hurt less. As winter has set in that is a job I am now doing to my machine because I think that it is important although I will still wear them loose.Those hops are a good training tool. You have to be exact with your inputs but also the added pressure of having to do x amount before the end of the runway. Do them comfortably and you should be able to handle most pressure situations.Birdy do you accept and read PM"s? I have some questions that I would like a no BS answer. Regards Matthew

[gyroo]

Yes Matthew,The draft Technical Manual has lots of pictures I"ve collected along the way and lifted from the Internet. I need lots and lots of pictures to maintain the interest myself!

[Brian]

The way I see it is that its something that should be up to the pilot as to when belts need to be renewed. its the same with many items on the gyro that have no life span ! & I would not vote for a "life" on seatbelts.Whats the use of more rules & the associated papaerwork to prove the day you installed the new belts

[birdy]

That should take care of everything that I"ve seen brought up???Yeh, cept now ill have to get outa the frozen swag an hour earlier to get all this stuff on.Matt, yup, i allways answer searious questions without any BS.( but be quick, im off to the frozen desert for a coupla nites.)

[Tim]

Mark, you forgot the Airbags.

[MadMuz]

And ballistic parachutes, come on Mark, pick up your game