Hang glider training pictures

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This started as just a dump from the camera after each day's training. Some days there was virtually nothing because pictures were not the priority while at other times the other people who were there wanted a picture of themselves and this is where they were to be found. It was a simple page for just that.

However I can't help commenting on things, that's just me, and it's developed into a bit of a blog as things moved on. I've always been a bit slow at learning new motor skills so this has taken far longer than the cannonical nine days but as I've learnt things, forgotten them and relearnt them anew I've started to understand the tricks of doing things the easy way and letting the laws of physics work for you rather than struggling against them.

If, overall, all that comes over is the sheer fun I had doing it all then it's worth the bandwidth.

NB: Videos are marked with the

symbol.

Saturday 28/02/2009


Sunday 01/03/2009
Shots of the book because the school keep it and I wanted a read.



Monday 02/03/2009
The day I bent the training glider.



Sunday 15/02/2009
Sharing with some 'day one' beginners. Suddenly I'm the one who knows something.



Tueday 17/02/2009
The first day off the training ropes and after we finished I unwrapped and rigged the Rio for the first time.
Hence the smug owner shot.



Saturday 21/02/2009


Monday 30/02/2009


Tuesday 31/02/2009


Saturday 04/04/2009


Sunday 05/04/2009


Mon 06/04/2009


Friday 10/04/2009


Monday 13/04/2009


Wednesday 29/04/2009

Friday 01/05/2009


Saturday 02/05/2009
A bad wind day. I didn't even get a flight. We put Ozzy in the Fun and he ridge soared Muggary for us and then top landed it. If he wasn't such a nice guy I'd hate him.



Friday 18/09/2009
Well it was a long break but I just ran out of time as I had diving booked and paid for so Gliding had to take second place. Sadly I came back to a forecast that was trainee pilot good but the world didn't deliver. We went up to Swanbrough Down and we two EPers set up our school gliders at the bottom of the steep scarp while the CPers set up at the top. The wind wasn't good for us but it was just what they wanted and, after John talked through several flight plans, we headed up the hill to watch the fun.

It was a soaring day and I was jealous. <sigh>
When, finally, we admitted defeat and headed back down the hill it was just in time to see one of our gliders pick up in the strengthening wind and tumble over a barbed wire fence and stop upside down in the next field.
We approached it from up wind, as you do, grabbed its nose and turned it back over and assessed the damage then bagged it up.



Monday 21/09/2009
The wind was better on the Monday and Matt worked me hard. All the old bad habits had come back and needed to be slapped down. I was too tired by the end and I was making mistakes so I still didn't finish.
I only took one picture and that was a long view back up into Muggary Bottom where most of my training so far has happened.



Wednesday 23/09/2009
It was another reasonable day and all that work on Monday finally paid off and I delivered consistency and, with the required flights in the book, John signed the final page of EP. I think I was relieved more than pleased.

OK let's admit it. I took 17 days to do a five day course. Admittedly I lost some to the weather but maybe I'm not learning stuff as fast as some.



Wednesday 24/09/2009
First day of CP. No I'm not expecting to do much more this year.
Rig the roof rack, ladder and glider on the car and it takes half an hour.
Do a day in falling winds and come home. De-rig the car in 25 minutes.

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Tuesday 22/06/2010 Next year
It's June next year. I've done lots of diving but now I'm a rusty new EP back on the hill to start up again. I got too tired and lost concentration. Hands holding too tight to the uprights which transfers your weight onto them and ruins the trim. Also hands too low so it didn't flare properly so a fast approach, hit a bump and it all ended up in bent metal. Idiot. You know better than to make mistakes like that.


Tuesday 13/07/2010 Disapointment
John got me the spares from Avian but assembling things proved problematic as there were some very bent bolts. In the end I had to admit it wasn't going to happen that day so I just helped out.



The repairs
I ordered the bolts and laid things out in the garden to sort it out. It was a problem even getting the bent bolts out of the shackles but most things succumb to a hacksaw with a chrome-moly blade. I was annoyed to discover, after I has assembled most of it that the pins that attach the fly bar were handed and had to come out and be done again. The holes were just a fraction different. It was also a bit of a game sorting out the wires so they would all set true but I did it OK.



Thursday 12/08/2010 Back on the hill
Not a good day for flying but, conversely, I had two really good flights. From a proper hill, with a proper flight plan and into a proper landing field. 200 feet down and half a mile on the map in the air. Hardly heroic but a 'real' flight at last not just some bump down a slope.

The computer vario logged the flight and it looks remarkably on plan although it didn't feel like that at the time. The Rio felt rather strange after the Fun and it took a bit of time to get used to its lag. I felt I was having to make more corrections but the overall sum was that I went where I wanted to go and landed where I wanted to land going in the right direction. On the first flight Matt called me for flying too slow too high on the landing so the second one was faster. However I'm not moving my hands up to shoulder level to land <slap> so the landings don't flare to a stop nicely.

Either way it can't have been that bad as John signed off the 'Consolidation of previous training' and 'Conversion to new glider' sections of the training record. The next bit is prone conversion. That is that rather than just hanging feet down from launch to landing you put your feet away in the bag and fly with your hands down the fly bar like the guys in the magazines. That will get the hands moving about a bit better I expect.

I include the two videos partly to give a feel of the sort of thing we were doing but really so that I can sneak in the smug aside that I went further then either of them. That, I must admit, is probably down to the benefits of having a nice new Rio 15 rather than my 'elite pilot skillz'.

Annoyingly both the landing were bumpy and hauling the glider away from the second one I dislodged the pitot tube in the vario. <sigh> it's still out in the field. Now I know why you get two in the box.




Friday 13/08/2010 Wind dropped
The next day out on the hill was a disappointment. The forecast was OK but nobody told the wind it was scheduled to blow and it took a day off. We were planning to fly from the chalk cutting, the white scar in the top left of the frame the same as the previous day so I was looking forward to doing the same again but it was not to be. The second shot was taken at lunch time and you can see my glider flat on the turf just below it waiting for the forecast wind that never came.



Saturday 14/08/2010 When the wind came it rained
It was a Saturday and the forecast looked flyable but the wind was variable and we waited and hoped and hoped and waited and then it rained. One thing I will say for a hang glider is that a lot of you can shelter under one. In the end the wind dropped so we got a dry spell so we packed up and went home.



Drying it out
My garden seems quite big when the lawn needs mowing but when you present it with 5.6 meters of hang glider suddenly it seems rather small. Oh well. It dried quite quickly as it was sunny and breezy so it will not start growing fuzzy bits yet.

This did give me the chance to do something about the ever so tight pin fitting holes at the ends of the fly-bar. They had gone from easy to dead tight after the repairs but the unsubtle application of a 6.5mm bit in a power drill seemed to ease them off nicely.



Wednesday 01/09/2010 Another day
I invested some time rebuilding my glider transport. Now the ladder bolts to the roof rack using some aerial rigging clamps and I have custom made (Nig made!) straps so it is quicker and easier.

I got a day off and was hopeful of some air time but after a long wait on the hill I got a rather bumpy flight and made another bumpy landing. By the time I was told to go again I was loosing it and dipped a wing as I started forward and virtually ground-looped it. Continuing wasn't going to be good so I called the rest of the day off.

Oh and I managed to loose the other pitot tube which didn't help my state of mind any.

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Monday 03/07/2011 Another year
Well the lack of details from last year doesn't mean I wasn't trying but somehow every day I got free and booked with the school to be out on the hill either there was too much wind or too little wind so here I am, with my diving holiday for the year over, ready to go back to the task of learning to fly.
I have admitted to problems with the Rio, it is a great glider but it was too big a step up over the school initial trainers so I have temporarily dropped back to a second hand Aeros Target which should give the same sort of feel so I can get CP underway and then, with some air time bringing some experience (remember my 'flying hours' to this point are still measured in minutes) then I can upgrade.

Well the Target and I went out with the school and, I admit, after 10 months off I was nervous. However there were only two students and Matt patiently let me work back up revising my ground handling so the thing just sits on my shoulders wings level even in the gusty, thermic conditions we had (the trick is always to turn the nose away from the dropping wing). We progressed to trotting it along with a touch of letting it pick me up for a moment then doing a landing. This was my weak point in EP. Although the thing went where I wanted it in the air it messed me about on the ground but now, finally, that bit seems to be coming together. I've paid for several more days and I just want to keep going at it until it clicks.
Tuesday 04/07/2011
Back to Muggary Bottom. I have an ambition, I confess, that when I'm competent I come back here, launch from the top and go over the fence. Since it's a school only site there might be a problem with that but I'm sure it will be training for something.

Anyhow it was a good day. After yesterday's confidence rebuilding session I did five good flights and one aborted launch and got back to flying a plan. OK, some of the landings were a bit of a run-off rather than a classy flare to a stand still and step onto the ground but I'm back in the air and flying the line. (Note to self: add Suncream to the checklist.)

It's rather embarrassing that my big smart Bräuniger Vario/logger still doesn't take my flights seriously. I suspect that anything less than 30 seconds is just an aborted takeoff in its book but at least the last one went in the log. However what that told me is that I am still flying too slowly. I could go further and with more control by going faster. The plot here is my overlay on its plot as it missed out the first bit and finished up by recording the whole pushback up the hill. It was 92 feet top to bottom, so nothing heroic, and a whole 46 more seconds to add to my flying hours. Click through it for the graphs from the logger. The plan was to launch then fly towards the gate in the fence, that's the white splodge where the track goes through then, part way, turn right for a point on the fence that would put me on slightly rising ground if I overshot the expected landing point. I think I turned a bit early and I landed a bit faster than I would have liked but bang on the line, I stayed on my feet and it was a flight with all the components of EP in it. After a ten month layoff it felt good.

I called it a day at that as, even with Matt walking down the hill to meet me half way and taking the glider back up the hill, I was getting pretty puffed so we sat on the grass and reviewed the CP theory for the exam. I used to be magic at exams but, sadly, I seem to have grown out of that now. Time to hit the swotting guides.

I lost another pitot tube but it doesn't matter now as I've discovered I can use compressed air pipe. I have miles of the stuff in a rather fetching blue. Julian, the other student, had a rather nice camera mount that went on the wing end tube so I looked on Ebay and discovered a pack of two bicycle handlebar camera mounts for a fiver. I'll try that before buying the expensive one.

I had booked three days off, on sale or return, but I don't think Wednesday is going to happen. Not only is it going to rain but the wind is in the 15 to 20mph zone so with my current lack of airspeed I'd probably be going backwards. Back to work I fear.

Thursday 21/07/2011
Another day at Beddingham and it rained again and, far worse, the wind dropped. Only two flights but, however, I took the Rio and finished the un-short-packing on it as that which involved spreading the wings out and my garden isn't up to that. OK now it needs to go back outside and be hung up to dry again but at least it's not all scrunched up any more.

Currently the things I'm doing wrong all relate to pitch control but I think the low wind was contributing. My launch needs to be more gung-ho and I'm overcorrecting in pitch on the landing. I'm booked in for tomorrow but it's forecast pretty much the same as today so I'm not hopeful for getting lots of flights and moving forward much.

The picture was taken walking back to the flying site after giving it an hour or so back at the shop to see if the wind was going to get back on plan but it didn't so we went back, packed up our gliders and went home.

Friday 22/07/2011
Beddingham again but so much better. Not only did it not rain but the sun shone and we actually had some wind.
I was sharing Ozzy, an instructor and club coach, with Apurva and Richard and we got on well together. Apu is heading towards the last stages of EP while Richard is still near the beginning and still has the supporting lines. I made five flights and although I could pick holes in my performance Ozzy was making encouraging noises and even I must admit it went a lot better that the day before. The launch is getting better and although I'm still not happy with the landing it isn't going wrong just not quite as stylish as I think it ought to be.

I shot two bits of movie on the camera of Apu as he was doing quite well and is ready to progress to higher, steeper sites. I actually shot one of Richard too but the flight ended in a gear up landing so that's not fair to publish that on the web. I do have some footage of Ozzy in my harness and my helmet flying my glider demonstrating inch perfect flight that I might just keep it and later claim it was me... Maybe I shouldn't admit to that idea here...



The next day I couldn't get on the roster because weekends are busy and get booked up well in advance so I hung the Rio out in the garden to dry.

When I unwrapped it it was a bit more wet than I expected so it was probably the right thing to do. I don't want it growing fuzzy bits and staining the sail before I get back to flying it again.
Wednesday 27/07/2011
Back at Beddingham again. It seems to be coming together a bit. One of the main things I learnt was not to use zoom on the new camera. The zoomed picture quality sucks. Also the video editor that comes with it is an abject waste of space. The edited form isn't available in the format it was shot in and it decompresses wildly so it ends to at least 4 times bigger than the file you snipped it from.

Flying with Adrian, nearly finished CP so John whisked him off to the top of the hill for some high flights after a quick check with us, Apu who must be finishing EP and Toby and Steve who just progressed off the lines today. A good crowd. Apu took my camera and videoed me so I actually feature for a change. Much appreciated.

I think I annoyed Matt, the instructor, by not being 'decisive' on the launch. He want 'committed'. Well those that know me know that I couldn't manage either decisive nor committed, ever (which is why after all those years on a motorcycle I never even looked like winning anything). However I mumbled "Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant" and ran like mad and he seemed to like that better. Thankfully he doesn't speak Latin.

Here are some bits of video with Matt's radio prompts coming through. There ought to be more but I deleted the 'rubbish' before I appreciated the problem with the AVI editor I was using.


Friday 29/07/2011
No pictures from the day. We, that's three CP students, were taken up to Bow-Peep (175m), another local site and I flew two top to bottoms of about, according to the map, 325 feet descent and just under half a mile over the ground. This time the instructors said nice things but I wasn't happy with myself. I think I'm not doing things as well as I could but now I'm getting time between the launch and the landing to get better. I think a lot of it is hand position. Also, although I'm feeling the airspeed on my face as described for the first time I still don't think I'm going anything like fast enough.

The Bräuniger still refuses to record things as my flying is obviously beneath its dignity. However I think I may have found the 'cut me a break' setting. Next time out I hope I can put it into 'just record stuff' mode and, as it logged me just walking up and down my garden then plotted it on Google Earth, I think I might have won.
The trick seems to be to go to Menu | Settings | Recording | Recording Mode and set that to No. Then, when you switch it on you wait two minutes until the Flt Time starts counting or until the GPS gets four satellites, which ever is longer, then fly and don't switch it off until it has at least three minutes logged. Then it seems to remember anything no matter how trivial.

John gave me the requisite 'Red Ribbon' to tie to my king post so I am now an official noob. This goes away after 10 hours flight time but, until then, it warns people to keep away a bit. However it seemed to work like Dumbo's magic feather and, aside from my tendency to land too slowly which means I can't flare well so, contradictorily, I land too fast everything was a lot better today.

The second landing was a bit heavy and I called it for the day as the bump hurt. John did some slight tube adjustments but I'll get replacements on the shelf although it's still good to fly as it is.

I've taped up the Washout bars so they'll take the wing-tip video camera mount but I think I'll hold off on fitting the camera until the flying improves a bit. While it would be nice to have a 10 minute soaring flight looking cool with a nice stand up landing on offer on the site I'm not so sure a wobbly lurch ending up in a face plant is worth risking even a cheap EBay camera on. We shall have to see how things go...

Thursday 18/08/2011
A sad day. We went to Swanbrough and it was very windy. I got frozen cold while they waited for it to calm down and in the end just shivered in the car. The other two students finally went and one impressed me with a ten minute ridge soaring flight and a couple of nice stalls but I wasn't tempted.

Friday 19/08/2011
Not a happy start as we went up to Devil's Dyke (210m), one of those sites I'd so like to fly. We briefed a flight plan, got the guy in front of me off, stood ready to launch and our lovely northerly wind just dropped to nothing. When it finally came back, about 20 minutes later, it was a westerly and the Dyke was the wrong place to be. So we packed up again and headed for Caburn.

Now Caburn (155m) has good rep as a place to fly from but the car park is at the bottom only just above sea level and the launch site is at the top, 450 feet up the hill. It's at times like this I remember my hill-walking teens, however I'm now 61 not 16 and a 450 foot climb rather does take it out of me. However I did it and John dropped the gliders and our kit as high as he could get access too and we carried them the rest of the way to the top. Well, that is I got half way to the top with mine before Matt, the other instructor, came back and took over for the last part.

The plan was to run straight out from the hill to get into clear air then turn and follow the line of the trees down-wind, perform a 180 turn about over the car park and land up-wind on the designated field. The navigation was now an essential part of the flight plan as the actual planned landing site was not actually visible from the launch point.

There was enough wind that the glider was flying in my hands as I held it ready to go so it was a run more to add some ground speed to my air speed while holding it down until I was going about as fast as my little old legs could go then let it lift for a moment then pull in the bar on to pile on some airspeed so I got well away from the hill. I kept watching the shed that was my up-wind target and glanced down occasionally to see how the line of trees were doing.

Well the trees were doing their bit and staying well below me but coming more into plan view so I started to bear off left. I was aware that I had a lot of height and that I was now in the downwind leg so my ground speed was up. The Bräuniger GPS recorded 36mph over the ground for this segment and after I turned over the car park that dropped to 16mph for the reverse leg so I'm going to guess a 10mph headwind although it felt like more on the hill.

I probably should have weaved a bit more on the final leg and made a much wider turn at the car park but suddenly that two hundred yard wide field with power cables on one side and a canal on the other looked a bit narrow so I rather went further down it to stay central and take my chances with the ditches. I made another poor landing: too slow on the approach, too late with the flare and too fast on the ground but at least I didn't bend anything this time and nothing hurt afterwards.

However that didn't matter. This felt like a real flight. John, the instructor, seemed pleased when he picked me up and I'm clear to start the stages of shifting into the prone flying position. Now 450 feet vertically, just over a mile across the ground and 2 minutes and 48 seconds may not be much compared to what I need to do to finish the course but it's a personal best. More than that, this felt like what I started the course wanting to do.

Here's the picture taken from the road on the way home. Yes, that is the car park I'm talking about in the bottom right corner and the 'line of trees' was the one running across from there not the one going up the slope.

Wednesday 31/08/2011

Another good day. We went back to Swanbrough, (180m) the 'by permission only' site where I got too cold to try a week or so ago. This time I had various sets of wollies and my thermal suit so I was able to start the progression to flying 'prone' ie: horizontally with hands on the bottom bar rather than the sides of A-frame. I did two good flights doing that plus the landing improved no end at last. Additionally I took both the 'ordinary' and the new HD video cameras to play with.

The flights were about half a mile over the ground and about 460ft vertically and if the Target hadn't decided to ground loop itself while parked up after I had rigged it and inspected it I would have gone for three but the bent tip strut was a 'bring it home to fix it' style bend. Moving to prone was rather an anti-climax after all the worries. It felt better but only a bit better and it wasn't as complicated to get back upright as I thought it might be. I shied away from putting my feet into the bag although I had practiced that by hanging the harness under my rear balcony at home. The second flight, where it was on my plan, was a pretty bumpy ride and I wanted to keep the complications to a minimum to ensure another better landing but I was definitely going to go for it on the third flight but which, annoyingly, never happened.

The bent tip strut was actually a pig to straighten. I was worried at first about kinking it but this aero-grade ali tube is tougher stuff than I had expected. However very little resists the machinations of a well bolted down four inch bench vice with me leaning on it for long. The pictures feature the matching item from the other wing.

So what has changed since last year when, I admit, it was all going horribly wrong for me?
Well I suspect the biggest one is that I'm tired of taking nonsense from a glider. It is doing what I want now not doing what it wants. I take 'not on course' personally and it gets bumped back onto track and the actual flight looks a lot better. Before I was rather so over-awed by just being in the air I was rather just letting it fly me.

Suddenly everything has become simpler, the glider gets told what to do and if it doesn't like it it gets told again a bit more emphatically and it gets told a lot sooner. For the second flight today I remember a rather bumpy ride where I kept getting bumped off the line so I was bumping it back "You will stay on course". I was expecting a wiggly line but the GPS plot drew a lovely straight track. For the landing too, I'm rougher with it. I want fast on the approach and then level, overcorrect to get level then negotiate and when it is running out of airspeed and won't do level any more it gets a big 'Wack' flare. It needs some tuning but it's coming back.

If that ground loop was it throwing a strop because it doesn't like the new deal it's getting shortpacked for the winter. Yes Target. You're on a warning. Also I've got you a new A-frame strut but it's staying in the packing until you've earned it.

Finish with some HD of John showing off with one of his school novice training gliders. Can you see why I want to play this game? You might need a fancy codec on some PCs because the Hitachi HD writes a slightly funny format. Quicktime didn't like it but Windows stuff seemed OK.

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What did the Physicist learn?

Let's be frank about it. Hang gliding courses mention glider physics but they have to major on the motor skills to launch safely, fly an accurate track and do landings you walk away from. I need more than that to stay sane.
There are some little tricks the physicist learnt that didn't feature in the course.

Wings level
When you are standing at the launch point get the instructor to let go of the nose as soon as possible. They are going to be going on about 'wings level' but while they are holding the nose it isn't going happen. So what is the trick? Well a glider that is pointing into the wind sits wings level. It's designed that way, it simply can't help it. If a wing drops it is just because you are not pointing it into the wind any more. Fix it. Turn away from the dipping wing. This pobably only involves swinging the nose left or right six inches and the glider flies back to wings level. This is the 'no effort' way while trying to force something to go level when the wind is saying go not level is daft. That wing can pick you off the ground so you're better off not fighting it as it will win.

Once you have that trick settled the crosswind launch becomes easy. Point the glider into wind. Sight up your launch run and expect the the thing will dip a wing as you run faster but just keep turning the nose away from the dipping wing, which should bring it more onto the launch line as you keep coming back onto level until you feet loose the ground and you can tuck them away in the harness with a nice smug grin that comes from doing something you were told was going to be hard and it was actually easy. Get this habit and a skew gust in the middle of your run doesn't phase you in the slightest.

Weight shifting
Weigh shifting is a good way to describe how we control things but I've fallen into the trap of just twisting my body and seen countless other people do it. You are hanging from a big strap. Visualise it. If you want to bank left pull that strap to the left. It looks more stylish if you keep your body straight but us noobs really don't need to care about that one. Give the strap a bump left then let it come back to centre, give the glider a second or so to get its act back together and then decide if it needs another one. Only what you do to the strap counts.

Control inputs
A glider does not work on control forces just control positions. This sums up as don't make detail changes just do it There may be a masochistic streak in gliders but they do like nice clear orders. All those years I spent teaching racing motorcycles to go round corners just on the limits of sliding off into the gravel by being gentle with them are now wrong. If you want to go left bump it left. Bump works. You can smooth it out later once experience gives you more time to think.

This is especially true when you want to land. Go in fast. Remember a glider does not have an up/down control just a fast/slow one. Dial in fast and wings level and then, when you get low enough that the height doesn't bother you any more but the ground speed is begining too, get your hands up to ear level, give it a big bump of slow or as many as it needs and when the bar goes slack count one second then push it right out. Don't worry about getting your feet in a 'good' position to land on because when the wing stands up like that it will stop and you will be swung forward and dumped on your feet for a slick looking stand up landing. Lots of Cred for very little effort.

Where am I going to land?
This was a worry to me at first. I hadn't a clue how far it would fly and just had to rely on the instructors but once I started flying more complex plans it was my job to get it right. However it's quite simple: unless we find rising or falling air we will descend at about 10 degrees. Hold your arm out and make a fist. If your thumb is horizontally out from your eyes in no wind you will land just under your little finger. Don't actually do it, you need to keep your hands on the bars but that's the approximation, visualise it. For a ten mile per hour head wind you can roughly double that. Two fists (please don't take both hands of the bar). It's not so good as you run off from a hill as there is a lot of wind to come but it gets better and better as you close in on the landing point and it's great for decisions like 'zig-zag a bit, the canal at the far end of the field is starting to look a bit close' or 'left a bit to avoid the down slope.'

Oh and one other hint. When you're starting on flying prone make sure you empty everything out of your trouser pockets first. Don't ask why, just do it.

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The pictures can be accessed by clicking the thumbnail but they tend to be 900K+ files
Pictures by Nigel Hewitt and others