Skyport Sat. 11/13

[oj]

Hitched a ride from Padaro with Brendan and Andy D., stopping briefly at East Beach to grab Marty, plus Len Szafaryn who was passing through town on his way up North. The Eagle van was packed as usual when we got to Parma so we continued up in Brendan's Suburban, adding instructor Heath from back East and Marge as we rolled through.

A couple of new hang pilots were first away but didn't connect, followed by a couple of Heath's crew with similar results. Brendan was the first to get above launch, looking spiffy in his new pod harness. I launched shortly after, trying out a new telemark drop-knee technique that was probably more fun to watch than perform.

The house thermal didn't work so I followed Len to the Round House, coming in on the front side a hundred below. It was working well and gained five hundred or so in a few minutes. Pushed uphill to the top of the Thermal Factory, aware that Len was always a couple hundred above me while flying with borrowed gear and no instruments.

The TF was good for consistant lift between 3600-3900 but the 4K barrier was inpenetrable at that point in the day. Andy and I made some attempts to push East but the sink towards Shadow Peak had us limping back. Marty went West to Alternator and Len to the RR, while spiffy Brendan flew high cover watching the show.

The lift was smooth, mostly in the 200-400 fpm minute range, although Marge managed to find a rough patch on the North side of the Round House in which to display her SIV skills that included a spin, helicopter, and full stall reset.

The glide to the beach was beautiful as always, double digit glide with no headwind. As I crossed the freeway at 1400, four planes at my altitude and headed my direction banked away and headed out over the water. They were part of an airshow in town, flying tight formation and trailing smoke. Three of them made multiple passes along the beach at less than 1000 ft. which made for a nice display once we were all safely on the ground.

While we packed up on the grass, Bob A. and Ty showed everyone the day was still on by punching through the 4K barrier and going East to Romero before turning around for the return leg. Nice flying!

Vario Log: 600 fpm up, 800 dn, max alt. 3937, 1 hr. 33 minutes.

[Marge]

So, I got up at launch in the house thermal and headed towards the Thermal Factory. There were several gliders already up over the Thermal Factory and we had talked about flying to Padaro in Carpenteria. I really wanted to go with them. The real reason the whole event happened was I got gready and wanted it too bad. After falling out of 2 thermals, I turned too aggressively in the next one and the wing was still behind me from being hit by the thermal. This was my first event on a DHV-2 wing. I just moved up to this wing over the summer.

Attached is a link to the video I took on Saturday. The camera was pointing up at the wing and I was going to re-set it when I got out of trashy air and went on glide but that never happened so I got this educational video instead. It's been great to get feedback from veteran pilots about what happened and how to handle the situation. I have to say the thing that made the most difference was not getting into a panic and staying calm. Having been to several SIV with Eagle Paragliding and being coached by Brad Gunniscio made all the difference in the world.

After recovering the glider I thought about pushing on and turned in the next thermal which was ratty and then decided I had enough landed in Parma.

BTW... My vario read...1628 fpm up and 3287 fpm down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztWvxWUWH0o

[Tyrone]

Hey Marge,

I'm super stoked you got this on video. This is a great video for students to watch to realize what can happen if you use too much brake, especially when the glider is behind you. We always have to let that glider fly when it is behind us. I did pretty much the same thing in Woodrat about 3 years ago on my Airwave Sport 3. I hit a boomer and had too much brake on trying to stay in the thermal. I ended up full stalling out of the event, but I had a flew thousand feet of altitude to burn and I had done at leasty 20 full stalls at SIV clinics. Paragliders like to fly at high speeds. Let it fly, don't mush it out with brake If the thermals are tight like that, and the glider is behind me, and i want to start turning the glider, i might start weight shifting to the side i want to turn, but it is more important to let that glider get back over your head before turning the glider. In Jockey Sanderson's Performance Flying DVD, one of the guys talked about doing wingovers and he said the more of your body weight you feel in the harness, the more brake you can pull. If you feel light in the harness, you cant pull that much brake, but if you feel a lot of wing loading from your body weight, you can pull more. I think this is another good way of explaining this whole concept.

Also, to touch a little more on your event, i think you didnt check the surge evenly with brake when the glider restarted. It looked to me like you got 1/2 riser twist from having one brake on more ( the right brake ) than the other after the restart. Based on what I see in the video, I would guess that your hips were thrown down and to the right (kind of like a weight shift), and you put your right hand down in an effort to push your body back to the left to get even again in the harness. this seems like it is the natural thing for your body to do in this situation. I think you wrapped your left arm around the left riser in an attempt to brace yourself and prevent yourself from being thrown to the right, and your right hand right hand was trying to push your body back to the left. this resulted in no left brake pressure, and a lot of right brake pressure, leading to a 1/2 riser twist. no matter how much you get thrown around in your harness, you still have to keep that glider flying straight and focus on even brake pressure. Letting your body fall into the side that has slack will help load that side of the glider. this is my best shot at an interpretation of the situation. Fun times on the Artik! woo hoo!!!

[Marty DeVietti]

Way to go (pro) Marge! When you asked me if I saw your little event, I had no idea I would be able to replay it in slow-mo later! Handy angle to have on that flight and you seemed to not make things worse by keeping cool. Great job. Lesson learned, lesson shared, and nobody was injured in the filming of that movie!

This is a classic pearl for all to learn when moving up the ranks in thermal flying. Glad you got it and were able to share it too. Telling the story is one thing, showing folks with the actual footage; priceless.

Marty

[sd]

[quote="Marge] It's been great to get feedback from veteran pilots about what happened and how to handle the situation. [/quote]

SD Comment http://paraglide.net/comment/10/factory_flap.htm

[Marge]

Thanks for all the great feedback. I really appreciate the in-depth analysis. Often times when we make mistakes we pay a price and sometime that price is very high (in general but especially in flying). It great to have an opportunity to learn from your mistakes when there are no consequences.