Paragliding is such an awesome sport to participate in,
I just marvel at the fact that I can fly with a brightly
colored piece of nylon hanging high overhead. My earliest
recollections as a child were vain attempts at flight. I
love free flight. Since my first inflation attempt on the
hot, dusty, training hill, I have strived to become one with
my harness and wing. I long to fly with the same ease and
grace as my favorite hawk friends do balanced perfectly above
the cliffs at Torrey Pines. They don't move an inch, up or
down, left or right, just small flicks of their feathers
keeping them in place as their eyes scan the ground for their
next meal.
I guess the problem is that birds have the instinct to fly
and I don't. For them it comes naturally, but for me it was
practiced. I am reminded of that each time I have the less
than graceful landing or the fluffed inflation attempt. I
guess I am stubborn, because I cannot think of a single site
locally (8 that I count) at which I have not crashed, missed
the LZ, tumbled down the launch, made a spectacle of myself
in the bushes, or injured myself at. Maybe I should trade
that piece of nylon in for a set of Callaway's. Yet, I fly
over the Torrey Pines Golf Course every day and think to
myself, there is no way I would trade this sport for the
other. At the end of the day I still long to soar with the
same ease and grace as my feathery friends.
Because I am about as natural as an ostrich in the air,
I appreciate the importance of good flying habits. Most of
this was learned the hard way, by screwing up while trying
to demonstrate proper technique to students. This made me
examine every detail of my flying from launching, to landing,
to turning, to thermal flying, to ground handling, etc. and
has resulted in adding numerous years of enjoyment to my
life. Despite all the embarrassment and frustration I did
manage to learn a few things that I now would like to share
with you in this series of articles on avoiding mistakes
and building good habits. My hope is that you will learn
from my mistakes.
• Good flying habits must be acquired
from the beginning . Different instructors will
argue to the merits of different techniques…but the problem
for pilots is that once a skill is acquired it becomes
a habit. Fundamental flying skills become motor memories
and reflexive responses through repetition which is what
a lot of paragliding practice is about. Eventually these
pilot instincts are created and flying become as easy as
driving a car. You are able to utilize your existing skills
to learn and master new ones and the whole system progresses.
Remember how tough inflations were the first day of training
and how you pondered why the wing wasn't coming up? How much
do you ponder that now? How about flair timing? Does it come
without thinking most of the time? If you feel uncomfortable
with your paragliding skills, perhaps you should examine
your habits. Sometimes it is easier to have friends, instructors,
and/or other pilots critique you. Better yet, video yourself
and then critique your performance.
New skills can be self-taught, but it is much easier to
create a mentoring system. Find somebody already demonstrating
proficiency in these skills and get their assistance. Try
and model your technique after theirs. For example, there
is much discussion about proper reverse launch technique.
Why not learn and practice a few of them so that you can
decide for yourself? Having more tools in your bag can only
benefit you in the long run, right? But be sure to pick the
brain of your mentor, about how and why they do certain things.
Other pilots have acquired skills too, some of which you
may not want. Always ask your mentors lots of questions .
If you are not satisfied with the answer, ask others until
you are content. Be flexible enough to understand that in
different situations, different answers may be correct.
• The pursuit of knowledge and skills
starts with a question . Continue to pursue new
skills and knowledge with every flight. I recently read
an internet thread about pilots who were bored of flying.
How can you be bored in a sport were so little has been
proven and so much is left to learn? But like any other
activity, paragliding also looses its appeal when you stop
learning or experiencing. I thought my training was complete
when I got my P2 (I took out a few parked cars and a barbed
wire fence before I realized it wasn't). A few years later
I wanted to fly at Torrey Pines so I got a P3. I passed
the test and assumed I was competent, till I broke my back.
I took my P4 test and passed so I could become an instructor.
I knew how to fly. But I didn't know how to teach forward
inflations to students. I wanted to get a tandem rating
so I could improve my love life. I worked through the tandem
ranks, but my administrator didn't sign me off. He felt
I was too immature. I had to drag a beautiful young girl,
50 yards, with her family watching, too realize, I was
too immature. I finally realize paragliding is something
I won't master… but I can always try.
After years of flying I think I get it, from watching the
new pilots that come looking for basic, tandem, and instructor
ratings. The problem with paragliding is that instruction
stops after a certain level and you are expected to learn
the rest on your own. But how do you know what you should
study? You have two options: Take the Darwinian approach
and let nature decide or go back to the basics .
• Learning is endless . There
are a finite number of skills that can be taught to a pilot,
but there are an infinite number of circumstances, which
may require variations of those skills. This is one of the
reasons that your instructor had difficulty teaching you
after the P2 level. Don't let this be a hindrance, a number
of excellent advanced courses are taught all over the world.
Use this as an opportunity to get professional critiques
from more experienced instructors and schools. Instruction
should always be sought. Even now after years of teaching
I make several trips a year and pay for the services of those
more knowledgeable than myself. The learning process really
just begins when you are free to seek and use knowledge.
So what kind of basics should we study? Take for example
turn mechanics… every pilot will agree that a proper turn
consists of three parts: 1. Looking (to check airspace and
notify other pilots of your intentions) 2. Weight shift (roll
the glider) 3. Brake application (yaw the glider). But have
you figured out how you can manipulate each axis and to what
effect? Symmetric brake application or accelerator (pitch
axis), weight shift (roll axis), and brake toggle (yaw axis).
Changing the order you use them in changes the way your glider
turns. Turn the glider differently for different situations
and you may become a better pilot. A couple of potential
turns you might need:
- Slow flat turn with a wide radius, near
minimum sink, in light, widespread lift.
- Fast flat turn
with a wide radius in stronger consistent lift.
- Fast
banking turn with a tight radius in strong narrow cores.
- Slow banking turn with a tight radius in narrow weak
cores.
Variations on these turns could include:
- Diving turns with lots of bank for high-energy
retention (or climb out) near turn completion.
- Sinking
wide turns with lots of drag for extra wind drift.
- Crabbing
turns that don't change heading but will alter ground
drift.
- Constant 360 degree turns which require no
outside brake regulation.
- Constant 360 degree turns which
result in even turn radius regardless of wind strength
or direction.
These are just a few of the infinite number of turn variations
we can learn. You can decide if these variations will help
you refine your thermal skills, or allow you to sneak in
and top land, when everyone else sinks out.
• Don't be afraid to pursue excellence,
the alternative is not very inviting . The best
part about this formula is that we can adapt it to every
fundamental skill in paragliding. How do we do it? Make
each flight unique by working to improve one aspect of
your technique. Whether it's launching on your first attempt,
tip toeing your landing, furthering your understanding
of how the weather affects your flight, or using your body
more on the ground. If you focus on perfecting every detail
of your flying, you'll quickly realize how much more there
is to learn.
Before this attitude, I almost scared myself out of the
sport a couple of times. My initial lack of training and
understanding didn't prevent me from putting myself into
several compromising situations, while my ego did the rest.
It was during those moments of anxiety that I learned one
of the most important lessons of paragliding.
• Staying relaxed and aware is an essential part
of being a competent pilot . This is very difficult
to explain to the anxious student about to have his first
flight, or the experienced XC pilot that was just blown
into the lee. Your body's reaction timing slows down dramatically
when you are tense. The potential for over/under correction
grows exponentially as your level of frustration increases,
which can be damaging to the formation of good habits.
I find myself often reminding my students to relax and
enjoy themselves as they struggle against the nylon. As
you become more discouraged your body will seek to make
more short cuts to relieve the physical and mental anxiety.
Those short cuts become bad habits, which can be tough
to break further down the road.
So how do I relax, while I'm getting tossed about like socks
in the tumble dryer? On the ground I usually take a break,
disconnect from everything and leave the area to focus on
something non-flying related for a while. I also drink a
bit of water, because I sweat profusely in my frustration,
and I know dehydration, and exhaustion will not help my case.
I remind myself that I am flying because I love to and because
I want to have fun. Not because I am expected to nor must
I race against the clock. I realize that I can stress at
work all week long so this is my moment to do what I enjoy,
and if it doesn't happen today, I still have my whole life
to enjoy it.
In the air it's more technical. I can't just disconnect,
so I start by breathing again. Yes, when I tense up I hold
my breath, which starves my brain of precious oxygen. Then
I lean back all the way in my harness to relax my tensed
up stomach muscles which have caused me to move forward and
sit upright. This transfers some of my load down and back
in the harness and that dampens out some of the bumps. It
also helps to widen my peripheral, which has narrowed due
to my intense concentration, lack of oxygen, and general
fear. Then I unclench my sweaty little palms from the risers,
which I have grasped to ease the tension on my stomach. This
helps me become an active pilot again with my arms hanging
relaxed on the brake toggles instead of white knuckling the
risers. I remember to drop my elbows, relax my shoulders,
bring my arms back to my sides, and let the brake toggles
support the few pounds of weight that are my scrawny arms
from shoulder down. This helps my active piloting because
the circulation is returning in my shoulders and the stiffness
is leaving. I can actually feel what the glider is doing
overhead and perhaps respond to it as opposed to being locked
in at a certain brake position.
My wing becomes more aerodynamically efficient, when I return
to hanging pressure. That extra bit of slack is taken out
of the brake lines and the reflex out of the trailing edge.
More of the flow along the top surface is being deflected
downwards at the trailing edge, which increases the angle
of attack slightly. The center of pressure and cambering
area move forward and the wing becomes less prone to frontal
deflation and more stable. This helps me to relax even more.
I cross my legs at the ankle, because they are either pushing
aggressively on my stirrup, “trying to keep me in the harness” or
they are dangling from side to side. My swinging legs move
my butt more in the harness, which keeps shifting my center
of gravity. If I'm still a bit nervous, I can put both brakes
in one hand and tighten up the chest strap a bit. The cool
harness I have pulls the biners in closer together and further
limits my hip movement again stabilizing the wing. Finally
I begin to hum, whistle, or sing my favorite Brittney Spears
song that always puts a smile on my face.
Flight is magical just as Leonardo Da Vinci described. But
it is also a constant reminder that despite my passion, I
am not a bird and I must learn all I can to remain airborne.
The next few articles will share several techniques that
I have learned that have stimulated the growth of positive
habit formation. They will also detail a number of negative
habits that can develop and how to reengineer them. Hopefully
it will give us a more objective method of evaluating our
own personal strengths and weaknesses. The exciting thing
is then we have new things to work on and can better ourselves
as pilots, while having more fun. After all, it's probably
easier to learn from somebody else's mistakes than repeat
them.
By: Gabriel Jebb |
