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In this area you are able to find information about how to fly a wing. For now most of this is my own thoughts about hanggliding. Do NOT take this information as a manual to fly!! |
How To Hangglide
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In this area you are able to find information about how to fly a wing. For now most of this is my own thoughts about hanggliding. Do NOT take this information as a manual to fly!! |
Launching
There seems to be two ways of holding up the wing when you start. In the first case there is so little wind that you will have to uphold it on your shoulders, the second is when the wind makes the wing take off and you will have to hold it so it wont flip. I think it is a little easier to hold the wing horizontally when there is little wind, but with the right wind conditions, and more experience, it might be easier in some cases with more wind. Although it might be easier with the wing on the shoulders it feels better when the wing grabs you. That way it feels better to start, this because you donīt need to gain that much speed to take off.
In the beginning it was very hard to hold the wing steadily. It takes skilll to hold the wing horizontally by gently feeling itīs movements and redirect the bankings by steering with your hands. It is also very important to keep the speedbar very close to your legs, in many cases on your legs. That way you do not drop the wing behind you. Also remember to hold your arms a little bent just beside you hips. Do not control the wing by grabbing the bars, the idea is only to gently keep it horizontally by moving your almost open hands. When you feel that you control the wing horizontally you start accelerating. By increasing the speed the wing becomes even more steady, during the acceleration you have to keep the wing horizontally and when it lifts, start to fly. It is important to see to that the wing grabs a hold of you before lifting, do that by keeping up good speed. If you donīt you wonīt lift and if you go over a cliff you might "drop" into the wing wich makes it unsteady and the difficulties begin. The start is a very important event. A bad start might make the whole flight end badly. When accelerating down a hill remember to gently hold the bars back a little and letting them go just a bit when taking of. If you hold the bars too much back you wonīt lift and if you let them go too much you might end up with a groundloop. It is a relation between the both.
Flying
When you have lifted from the ground the most important thing to remember is speed. Without speed you can not control the wing, you can not turn, land or keep the wing straight. By pulling the speedbar a little back you always maintain your speed wich makes you fly. At the same time you try to steer it with your hands. Be gentle with the wing, too rapid attempts to steer or pull back might make the flight very unsteady. When your skill increases you can start to make small turns, like S-shaped ones. Remember to always keep the wing towards the wind. A good thing to do is to look ahead. That way you can easily plan your flight. When you are slopeflying you should remember to never make 360 turns unless you have the right altitude, and especially not when you are a beginner. Try instead to get a hold of the flying and control the wing. Fly in different slopes with different wind conditions. I like the wind at at 4 - 6 m/s. Try to aim for a particular spot to land.
Landing
Always plan your landing in good time. You must always land against the wind and also increase your speed when the ground gets closer so that you can glide a bit just over the ground before you do your landing attempt. The reason why you have to increase your speed before a landing is that the wind very often moves slower nearer the ground, so to keep the lifting power, you need more speed or you might fall to the ground in a stall. A stall occurs when you forget to keep your speed. The wing loses lifting power and you start falling to the ground. The feeling of this is kind of nasty. But if you keep you head cool, even at small altitudes, the only thing you have to do is pull the speedbar to you so that you force the wing to regain speed. Unfortunately this will also make you go down faster, but with the speed you can in the best cases make a landing without hurting yourself. It has happened to me a lot of times, but none of them has ended in a fall, because I feel the lack of speed in time. When slopegliding, this occurs often with differences in ground geology. Holes and hills might do these things to you. Also remember to try to land on a spot where the ground is more flat. That way you can get rid of stalls and sidewinds. If you have kept your wing steady and increased your speed you can level out above the ground and gently set the wing down. When you have much windspeed you do not have to do much. Just let the wing slow down by it self and set down your feet. Much wind often results in longer landing. When you have less wind you might have to stall your wing slightly just before you set down your feet. This way you stop the flight and the wing "falls" down. This kind of landing feels good. When there is much wind, a stalling attempt might make you end up in a groundloop. You will probably not be able to hold the wing.
Towing to about 250 m altitude.
When you have started to feel a bit more comfortable with your wing you might want to go on and take the next step. In my case I tried towing. My instructor took me and three friends to a field north of Hammar and there we slowly started towing. When towing the way we did, we had a wire attached in our harness. With a motor the wire was pulled and that way we were dragged up into the air. At first we practiced small starts and landings, slowly increasing the altitude until we reached about 70 meters. At that time we were instructed to make our first 360 turn. As I have said before a very important thing here is speed. In this case we needed speed to be able to make the whole turn in time before we were close to the ground. It is very dangerous to start a 360 turn too close to the ground. You must have time and altitude to make a good landing and with good conditions you need at least a 40 meter altitude and good speed. If all goes well you can come around in time and make the landing soft and gentle. As you get more experienced you can slowly train to do turns more securely and land in less time. When towing you might get up at about 250 - 300 meters the way we used the towing equipment. In the end we reached about 250 meters and the flight lasted for almost 5 minutes. I also discovered that you might experience thermals at these altitudes. I did, but didnīt realize it until I got down. All I felt was that the wing was affected by wind. At 250 meters altitude we had time to do lots of turns. Some of these turns were hard to initiate. I do not know exactly why, but despite trying to turn by banking, the wing would not turn. It might be because I had no good speed against the wind. This made a very slow and difficult turn in the beginning, but when the wing caught wind it turned swiftly and the wing increased speed quickly with the wind. Again you had to keep speed and banking to be able to make the whole turn. Elseway you wouldīve been caught up in the wind from behind and it wouldīve been hard to make that turn. In this case I must say that to make the turns was a lot more physical demanding then I first expected. I believe that the reson for this is my unexperience.
How to start hanggliding.
If you find hanggliding interesting you should first take a course of five days at one of your nearby schools. You most probably wonīt have to buy a wing or anything else to start slopegliding. With your first licence you are permitted to slopeglide at hills with a maximum height of 150 m. If you have one nearby with good conditions, I say go for it - you must try it out. Believe me, flying is nothing like what you expect, but beware, it is not an easy task in the beginning, but after the first five days, you will soon see that it feels great to be a bird in the sky. The possibilities are almost unlimited. When you have started with the course you can either go on with more smaller courses to learn how to fly at great altitude, with 360 turns and dives and fun stuff and eventually you can start hanggliding. The cost for you to start including the licence is about 5000 :- (600 dollars). Nothing more is needed until you decide to go for this kind of life. Wings are very different in prizing and quality. They range from around 800 dollars for a used one, to maybe 5000 dollars if you want the best. There are three types of wings - beginner, medium, and high quality. So - quit dreaming and start flying!