airplanes and sailboats

[BobA]

How about "Grasshopper" !?

[Parma Chris]

<<salts a fresh bucket of popcorn and looks around for Andy,...Andy?>>

[Ron M]

Where's Andy Palmer gone? Tom Truax Jr. has given him a round kick to the snout and Andy just disappears? hmmn.

[Simon]

Remind me to buy Ron M a beer too. Shee golly, this topic is going to cost me a lot of beers. So I am going to start a new topic with a 3-axis glider i just designed in my head that, judging by this topic, has never been built before.

[andy]

Alright Ron You called me out! So What I thought I said was stop talking, and start flying. This would give a more reasoned approach to flying rather than speculation.

I once speculated that the laws of gravity/airflow would change as I approached the ground in a crabbing configuration at 30 miles an hour and made contact only to find that what I thought-(just as Simon proposed) would save me. It didn't. Seven broken ribs, a broken back, lacerated lung, and 10 grueling days in the hospital proved that . What finally saved me from my own insanity of thinking I could think my may way out of badness was to go spend endless hours flying with a really badass pilot named Enleau Oconner, and really getting the shit scared out of me. And when I came back from there I followed Dean and Marty and then learned how to fly XC.

I have flown airplanes, and have flown them in scary places, but none of that really crosses over to paragliders, because we don't have motors! We have gravity! And relative wind.

So Simon I'll drink your beer, just do me a favor, stop thinking about flying and how you can make it different/better, and just go out and fly, and use what is there. It is good!

Andy

PS Tom Truax would would always test his theories before asking!!

[Dave B]

The sailboat is not a comparison you want to use... the sailboat has no forward speed directly into the wind. A sailboat will have a greater airspeed as you turn away from the wind... the paraglider will have the same airspeed only the groundspeed will change. Also the sailboat's keel increases the speed through the water due to the lateral pressure form the sail. None of this applies to the paraglider.