1. An inch of control movement - pitch, roll, or some combination of the two - high up on the downtubes is gonna have a lot more effect than an inch of control movement down on the basetube.Many years ago, I flew a suprone harness...
2. However... that inch up high will require proportionally more muscle to effect.
3. However... in normal nasty landing turbulence at reasonable landing speed muscle will be far from a limiting factor.
4. Because your arms are just so long, you get many more inches worth of positive pitch control range high on the downtubes and can stand the glider on its tail from a bit over stall speed and stop the glider on a dime.
5. However... because you can stuff the bar a lot farther back prone with your arms straight along your body than you can pull it back upright with your arms bent perpendicular to your body, your negative pitch control range goes to hell.
6. And, for the same reason that your arms, when you're upright with them bent perpendicular to your body, won't move very far back and because your hands can't tear loose from the downtubes when the glider stops and you swing through the control frame the way they're likely to when you're prone with your hands on the basetube...
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22176
Paragliding Collapses
...your probability of breaking an arm or two when the glider stops abruptly and you don't is pretty good. (And I know a lot of people who have - some of whom haven't recovered very well.)Jim Rooney - 2011/06/12 13:57:58 UTC
Most common HG injury... spiral fracture of the humerus.
1. If you quickly go one up but low before you get to trim you can pretty easily go back down with the one hand if it becomes necessary to pour on some speed.The thing that bothers me about this approach is bleeding off speed in ground effect...
2. And then at trim or a little above you can bring the other hand up but low on the other downtube.
3. And then it's a lot harder to botch the rotation to vertical along with the slide of the hands to high on the downtubes.
Let's not forget that you're vulnerable to turbulence and gusts WHILE you're flaring - an issue Dr. Rooney conveniently ignores in his landing thesis......(not to mention leaving you vulnerable to turbulence just before you flare).
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26379
Landings
...on The Davis Show.
This forum isn't about people doing whatever works for them. It's about what works:You do whatever works for you.
- best for anybody - assuming he has no more than the usual number of arms and has - on one or more occasion - spent over one or more minutes desperately searching for something he's holding in his left hand; and
- just super for just about everybody 99.99 percent of the time but fails so catastrophically the other 0.01 percent that it's really hard to justify not using what works best for all those other flights (especially if it's you on that one flight out of ten thousand).
Yeah.Noman demonstrates good landing technique.
DO NOT do a long straight final.
...practice the low hard turns you need to get into a tight field.
- Does a low hard turn twenty seconds from touchdown for a short final without a lot of wasted runway.NOW I understand that saying about the uselessness of runway behind you!
- Leaves himself enough room so he doesn't need to generate drag by going upright to keep from overshooting.I'm of the opinion that one should have a real good reason for coming into a field in which the drag afforded by being upright versus prone is likely to be a critical factor in preventing one from overshooting the end or crest.
- Holds the bar in all the way down to skim altitude which he reaches eight seconds from touchdown.Especially if you hold that pitch down input all the way into ground effect.
Go upright AFTER the gradient. That way you'll never be wishing you had more of the glider's speed range available to you to punch through the gradient and whatever other invisible crap may be lurking below.
- Goes one up / one down and starts rocking up a second later.One up / one down is NOT upright. One up / one down can be prone, upright, or something in between but is usually the latter.
But maybe much less NEED to hug a downtube when carrying the extra speed allowed by staying prone down into ground effect?
- Carries enough speed so that he doesn't need to hug a downtube to fight a roll.If you make the strong pitch down input BEFORE a wing is forced up or down the wing is a helluva lot less likely to get forced up or down.
- Continues to rock up as he slows to trim.Go upright AFTER the gradient.
- Shifts his second hand up to the downtube at about trim four seconds from touchdown when the glider doesn't notice and where if he fucks up the transition it's not likely to be that B an F'ing D.1. IF you really wanna do "THE" transition do it AT trim 'cause the glider's a lot less likely to do anything amusing when you take a hand off the basetube.
2. And if you fuck up the transition it's not likely to be that B an F'ing D.
- Then does a gentle flare and stops on a dime.
Yeah, good landing technique all around I'd say.
. Hope I've painted the picture well enough for your advice, as trying to land/flare when wings are not level at the critical moment has probably happened to most pilots at some time or other.
