Just wanted to take a quick moment to highlight how important it is to really think about what situations would cause you to throw your reserve
I've had a scary last week - I ended up throwing my reserve on a paragliding flight, and what's more, I had a flight on a hang glider where i should have thrown my reserve. The HG flight was first, and after barely surviving and landing, it really put fresh in my mind this anecdote
In other words, if you have serious doubts about your ability to safely fly a wing at any point after launching, find clear air and throw your reserve, period.Your job while flying is to be the pilot in command, not in flight engineer
my story ->
A friend of mine had been holding onto a moldy old U2 I've had for a while in Washington state. I've been up here visiting him, and went to fly the wing. Turns out that he had required the outboard leading edge to repair another glider, and in our haste to fly, we incorrectly installed the outboard leading edge with at least a 90 degree turn in it onto the sail.
I went to launch at Dog mountain, a popular flying site in Washington state. Here's a video https://www.facebook.com/johnjfd/videos/3455759844012/ of me launching my new wing (litespeed rx4) there successfully, it's a fantastic flying site.
- After a technically correct (good run, straight and level wings into flush relative wind) launch, the wing immediately dove left and hard into the trees to the left of launch (see video for reference on the terrain). I pulled in for even more airspeed and pushed a hard bank, and barely found my way through the slot of trees in the left of the launch clearcut.
^ That was hands down the closest i've ever been to dying. Very very very close to hitting the ground at high speed.
So after that major WTF moment, I found clear air , and tried to.... make the wing fly right. ( i had no idea why this was happening at that point). For the next 3 mins, I was trying to find a combination of pulling the bar in and right weight shift that would make the damn glider fly straight and level, and nothing i found was working. The glider just wanted to fall out of the sky at anything less than say 30 mph airspeed, with a left turn.
It was at THAT POINT that I should have thought to throw my reserve, but my brain was so locked in 'survival mode' that I didn't think to.
Instead I basically found some equilibrium at a high airspeed and right weight shift, and pointed myself at the ground, coming into ground skim at a very very high air/ ground speed, bled it off into the ground effect until i felt that the left turn was coming, and flaired with whatever I had left. Survived just fine, but I've never before had that feeling of fighting for my life for more than 5 or 6 seconds. This felt like fighting for my life for 3 minutes straight. Very scary.
In summary, know when to throw your reserve. In hindsight, I should have thrown mine even though I pulled off the flight.
Oh, but there's more. 2 days later I am flying my paraglider at a smooth coastal site when a small rain squall moves through, getting me wet for about 2 minutes. Thinking little of it, I decided not to land. Over the next few minutes the water must have accumulated in the trailing edge of my PG, for 'all of a sudden' the wing dramatically slowed down (while I was in smooth air), and entered a deep stall. At this point I was maybe 50 or 100 feet over the terrain. Having just gone through the experience on the hang glider the other day, at that point it was an immediate and instinctual reaction to find the reserve handle, chuck it and deal with my 'tree landing' under reserve.
In summary, don't just train the physical chuck and throw, but go through a mental checklist of which survival situations you might find yourself in that you will want to throw your reserve.
