35 seconds

From: Benson
Activity_Date: 4.28.02
Remote Name: 208.3.185.26

Comments

My first launch from Skyport was at 09:57. I used my standby batteries, but they were low and I couldn't do a radio check in the air. It looked like a great day to fly, I got to the Antenna Farm near cloudbase, but there were pilots the whiting out. I decided to go back to Parma and get my other radio. I was hoping to fly to Ojai, and I knew Bob H was going to be coming up the hill soon with Tom B.

My second launch was at 11:57, I caught the end of a cycle at launch, and went to the Round House ridge where I found a thermal that got me high enough to transition to the Antenna Farm where I got to 3200. I went east following Bob H to the next peak where I got to 3100, but fell out in some strong sink. I headed back to the AF to re-establish some altitude. I picked up a little at the AF and headed west to the bowl behind the RH where people were getting up.

35 seconds. I took a 60% deflation. I gave my wing a couple of seconds because it usually rights itself in short order. I looked up to see what I was dealing with. The risers were twisted near the canopy, half the canopy was fifty percent deflated and flailing around while rotating to the right; it didn’t look like it was about to re-open soon. I seat steered to the left and gave the brakes a deep pump.

For an instant I thought the problem was solved but the canopy began doing left and right surges while rocking me around. I tried no brake input, light brake input and more aggressive attempts at controlling the surges. Nothing had any effect. I still had about 400 feet so I decided to do a re-boot (too low, I know). I took a wrap, put the toggles below the seatboard and held them there until the canopy stabilized overhead. I released the brakes and got ready to check the canopy as it dove forward. There was no dive; the wing was immediately back to its right and left uncontrollable surging behavior.

Now the ground was coming up fast, too late to throw the reserve so I concentrated on timing a deep flair with a wrap on impact.

My vario trace shows the deflation occurred at 2162 feet and surges were finally stopped by the chaparral 594 feet later. There was a lot of pendulum action going on, and I can see on the trace, with magnification, where the descent rate goes from 1476 fpm on the down-swing to 689 fpm on the up-swing.

I was very very lucky. The chaparral I landed in would probably have saved me even if I had hit on the downswing of the pendulum, but I was fortunate to impact on the top of the rearward up swing. It was a very strange sensation to see the ground coming up very quickly on the last forward swing, and then slow in an almost surreal fashion while riding the back swing of the pendulum motion away from the ground. The set down was so soft it was like falling into a circus net.

I sat cradled in the bushes for a couple of moments absorbing the reality that it had ended well. Meanwhile I faintly heard chatter on the radio, someone was telling the pilot of the purple paraglider, mine was yellow, to get ready to throw his reserve!

It took about 90 minutes to get the canopy in the bag, and another three hours to break trail down the ridge with the help of good friends Bob H and Tom B directing me to avoid cliffs.

I always had this image of parachutal stall as the canopy seeming to fly normally, just loosing lots of altitude and not progressing forward. Flying normally to the point that the pilot often has to be told by a spectator who notices him dropping out of the sky. My canopy was all over the place. SA came over the radio and told me to get on the speed bar, I fumbled trying to find it with my feet but I never believed I was in parachutal stall. The symptoms were there; my brake input had no effect on the movement of the canopy (except the induced full stall). Ironically just a few days earlier Bo C showed me how to grab the 'A's and twist them to lower the angle of attack in case of parachutal stall. I just didn't put it together.

Sign me up for the next SIV course.