20 Seconds

From: SA
Activity_Date: 4/28/02
Remote Name: 4.40.157.126

Comments

Glad you found a soft spot to touch down Benson. I saw about 20 seconds of your parachutal stall. I thought it was Pete in his faded purple saber. I didn't see your assymetric deflation. I'm confused about your risers being twisted near your canopy. Your risers are right next to you, did you mean your lines were twisted near your canopy? Maybe the lines looked twisted as your deflated wingtip flopped around.

You said you began to weight shift away from the deflation, and then gave the brakes a deep pump. Adding brake to the flying wing is definitely the next step if the weight shift isn't doing the job alone, but I would be careful about getting too deep into the brake on the only part of the wing that is still flying. You risk stalling the flying wing. I believe I got the visual on you after the tip deflation came out, and you applied deep brake to the flying side and entered deep stall. This deep brake input must have caused the glider to enter a parachutal stall. You described the brakes being mushy during this decent when we spoke on the phone Sunday night, and this is what you get with a parachutal stall.

A parachutal stall, also known as a deep stall or as a constant stall, is when a paraglider wing looses enough airspeed that the air simultaneously flows around the trailing edge as well as around the leading edge of the wing. When this happens, it behaves like a parachute, producing only drag. This is caused by a loss of airspeed due to excessive braking. Most owner's manual states that "if your glider engages into a continuous parachutal descent, give the A-risers a short downward pull until the canopy resumes its forward flight". The O'connors encourage us to use the speed bar to decrease the angle of attack. This is what I was saying into the radio as I saw watched you lose altitude. "Get on your speed bar, tweak your A's, pull down on your A's."

You dropped over 1500 feet before touching down. Don't forget that your reserve parachute is your insurance policy up there. I would like to have somewhere between 300 to 500 feet for a deployment. You got lucky and landed softly, but I wonder why you didn't huck your laundry.

Good learning opportunity for all of us, and nobody got hurt. I really believe in manuevers clinics, and hope to be organizing more in our area later this year.