Flying the plank

[jimrooney]

I can remember the brochure to this day. I was in the office at Kitty Hawk Kites standing at the counter trying to figure out what to do. I knew what I really wanted to do, but appearently when the wind is blowing thirty miles an hour you have to think of something else. Kyaking? Kitesurfing? Surfing? All fun I guess. But there it was, spanning the entire page of the oversized booklet, the most beautiful hang glider I'd ever seen. Granted, I'd never really "seen" a hang glider. That's what I was doing at Kitty Hawk, or more to the point, that's what I was trying to do. The image I had in my mind was one of those things they had in National Geographic. This one was way skinnier and sleeker than that. This was something I was told that they call a "Rigid Wing".

Eventually, the wind died down and I got to fly something that did indeed look like what I imagined a Hang Glider to look like. Something called an "Eaglet". Since then I've flown all kinds of different hang gliders, all flex wings. I've seen thier strange cousin from time to time. Mostly it would be one that skies out and goes XC, only to return at dusk. Mostly I've heard things about rigids. Oppinions abound. Some good, some bad. Those that seemed to like them spoke of thier amazing glide ratios and sublimely easy handling. The ones on the other side of the fence seemed a little less specific. The big complaint seemed to be "you can't feel the air". It would also crop up as "you feel disconnected". Other dislikes were that landing was tricky because of that monster glide ratio, you really really really didn't want to spin them, they were downright expensive, extremely heavy and hard to setup. To me, they seemed like someone that speaks an other language. So much like us, yet somehow just a little different.

The more I heard, the more I wanted to fly one. So when Awesume Bob setup the Extacy, I couldn't grab my harness fast enough.

So, last minute actual flying advice...
Pitch will be extremely sensitive. Diving puts lots of slack in the rope fast. Experienced rigid pilots do pitch with flaps and feet, not moving the bar. They don't have bar preassure at high speeds, so they can tow whatever speed the tug goes and do minor adjustments. Being my first tow, I resigned myself to doing the ruberband pogo-dance and hoped to keep my pitch occillations to a minimum.

The other weird thing would be roll. Simply put, it's automatic. The wing is self leveling. Let me tell ya... that is kinda FA-REEKY! When your wing gets lifted, the spoileron is already up and correcting for it. You put roll in when you want to turn, and you have to hold the turn. It's not tiring since there is next to no bar preassure.

So the whole tow consisted of trying not to overdo the pitch. It was fairly smooth air, so I didn't expect it to be that challenging anyway.
Off tow I had a couple burbles to play with. It was fun scooting all over the sky looking. Even with big tandem gear and a draggy harness, it got a topless glide. The real fun though was playing with the flaps. I am so insainly jealous! HA. To slow down for a thermal you just pull them on. To go on glide you dump them. It's a short easy pull and kicks the crap out of VG! Flaps on it's a falcon, Flaps off it's a topless. Damn that's nice!!!

Ok, the whole "can't feel the air thing". I can kinda see what they're getting at. You can't feel the wing lift. You can tell it does, but you don't feel it. You also don't struggle with bringing it back down and banking into the thermal. Color me a snob, but I still enjoy that struggle. I like fighting with the air. Some day I might not like it so much and I'll fly something with aerodynamic surfaces. You still feel pitch.

Banking is a mixed bag. It's super easy. Even in turbulance, it takes only as much effort as it takes to activate the spoilerons. There is also no adverse yaw. When you roll the wing, the nose goes with it not against it. This is so nice. The other hand, it's a fixed roll rate. You can bank it up, but you can't bank it up quickly. That's a bit wierd.

Overshooting the LZ.
Um... YEAH RIGHT! Flaps = glideslope control. The strange thing is waiting around to land. You have so much glide that you feel "low" when you've got plenty of time left. When you're ready to land, pull on some flaps and land. The thing came down like a falcon. Now if you setup really high and don't pull on flaps (and it feels really wierd setting up so low) you can easily overshoot the feild. The trick seems to be to trust those flaps. Pull 'em on and point the nose at the ground.

I'd heard that the setup and breakdown were hard too. Yet an other myth I'm afraid. The ribs fold for god's sake... and the trailing edge is velcro! Fold the ribs, flop the sail over the leading edge, pop the nose and fold the wings. About as hard as a Falcon.

All in all I was happily impressed.
They're big, heavy and expensive. But they're very friendly in the air and quite a lot of fun to fly.
I'll be sticking with flexies for now, I still love fighting the air, but don't be shocked if you see me hop on a rigid from time to time ;)

Jim

[silverwings]

Jim,
Thanks for writing about your experience. I have wondered what it's like flying a rigid.

- john middleton