Daniels 3/7

[kcarra]

I had an exciting and educational flight at Daniels. I've been a pretty (really) conservative PG pilot so far and have only flown in very mellow conditions. I've never needed to use speedbar or big ears etc. Sometimes I didn't even bother to hook up my speedbar for a flight. The speedbar had been set up for me when I was in Brazil by several very experienced pilots so I just assumed that it was adjusted to the correct length.

Since conditions had been strong earlier in the day I made sure that I connected my speedbar for the flight. I had another pilot verify that it was connected properly. After I launched I immediately started going up so I just continued heading out into the valley. I found myself parked in a thermal with no forward progress. I decided it was time to get on the speedbar. I stepped into it and I could hear and see the cord moving through the pulleys, but I was starting to go backwards. I stepped harder into it but to no effect. At that time Matthew started saying "You need to get on speedbar". I could hear my radio but I wasn't set up to transmit. I then practically stood on the speed bar but still was going backwards. Matthew couldn't tell that I was on speedbar and other pilots noted that the wing didn't change at all. Matthew suggested turning right to try to get out of the venturi to the south of launch. I turned right but that put me further behind the ridge. I looked back and shuddered at the lack of options. I was about 500 over at this point.

I decided to try pulling big ears to see if getting lower might help me escape higher winds. I did start going down and stopped going backwards. So I kept a combination of big ears (I was later told that they were kind of small ears) and speedbar and finally very slowly started inching forward. When I let up on either I stopped making progress, even when I was over the field prior to the LZ. It was very frustrating because everyone else seemed to be flying around at will wherever they wanted to.

I was very happy to finally get over the LZ and get on the ground. Lessons learned - test options like your speedbar BEFORE you need them. Down in the LZ it was determined that I needed to shorten the length of the cord by 3 inches.

Thanks for all of the encouragement and sorry for scaring people.

Karen

[davidtheamazing1]

Great post. Wish I had been there... I've been meaning to fly/try that site

[carweill]

Karen,
Thanks for sharing this.
I did hear about strong conditions earlier, but after flying in the hangglider I thought conditions got mellow enough for paragliders.
It shows how much I need to learn.

Carlos

[kcarra]

It was fine for paragliders if you had a functioning speed bar. If my speed bar had worked when I first needed it then I wouldn't have ended up in a potentially dangerous situation. Lots of other paragliders flew and they all did OK.

[mcelrah]

One thing I learned on the SIV course is the utility of combining big ears with speed bar: big ears reduces the effective wing area, so speed bar helps increase speed to conform to the higher wing loading. This may be obvious to everyone else, but came as a revelation to me... Apply speed bar AFTER big ears and release it BEFORE releasing big ears. Disadvantage of big ears is that you are reduced to weight shift for directional control. Also, the only time I ever had a (momentary partial/assymetrical)collapse was while on speed bar. After the SIV course, assymetrical collapses seem pretty tame. Ah, one other nuance: best to apply and release big ears one side at a time. And yes, it's worthwhile to practice these elementary maneuvers when you don't need them just to make sure everything is rigged correctly - I was tieing and retieing my speed bar cords in the middle of the course to make sure I could get pulley-to-pulley without having to come up out of the harness. Having my butt well seated in the harness and the shoulder straps snugged up a bit (not so much that you can't weightshift) made me feel better during the more "interesting" maneuvers... - Hugh

[Spark]

In my current flying community, BigEars are considered a suboptimal technique for descent. Pulling ears means not only loss of directional control but loss of 'collapse-control', because when in 'ears', one is not able to fly as 'actively'.

I'm not trying to imply that using 'ears' wasn't an appropriate choice in Karen's situation, only that having to choose Ears is a serious compromise. Potential food for thought.

'Spark - knee surgery tomorrow

[pink_albatross]

So, what is suggested instead of big ears as a descent technique with better directional control?
Spiral gets you down faster and is more stable, but I don't see it having much directional control.
B-Line Stall gets you down faster, too, but what about directional control?

So sorry to hear about your knee surgery today!!!

[charlieg]

My experience is that while in big ears my weight shifts are significantly more effective in steering the wing than when otherwise fully winged. I was reticent about trying big ears for the first time because I was worried about how one steers when your arms are otherwise occupied. But I shortly discovered that my concerns were unwarrented -- I was able to steer with weight shifts and get around just fine.
I suspect that when things are very turbulent one might opt for spiraling down rather than using ears due to the stability factor. All that spinning, however, tends to make me disoriented -- I clearly need to practice that more to get more comfortable with it.
Charlie