[Bill Cummings]

Thanks Bill,

I'm gonna work on trim +1, also.

Where did you fly.

Robin Hastings and John Theoret (down from Canada) picked up my equipment and me. Next our driver Carolynn.
We drove 75 miles to Dry Canyon Launch at 7,000' msl. It was light over the back up high but thermal cycles on the front side let us launch. Robin and John got well above launch but Robin lost his and only got 15 minutes. John selected his 195 Falcon (cheater) and got a hour and sixteen minutes. My flight was a sledder 3.4 miles (10 minutes) to the LZ.
We took Carolynn to Golden Corral for supper in Alamogordo, NM

[Bill Cummings]

Hawks,
A word of caution when employing the “Trim + one second” flare technique. Jim Rooney made a point to mention that this will work with any stock glider. This means to me that the trim speed (Hands off, neither pushing or pulling on the control frame) is at the correct speed as it comes from the factory test pilots.

I would think the type of harness used could affect what you think is trim speed while upright for landing. (hands on the down tubes.)

My harness allows me to have a very light touch on the down tubes while my body position is vertical for landing.

Other harnesses’ that I have tried have required me to put a lot of down force on the down tubes just to remain vertical. This has the effect of moving your cg (center of gravity) forward.

I would bet this would have you flying a little faster while you are feeling for the trim speed. (neither pushing or pulling on the control frame.)

So maybe trim + two seconds before flaring would work in this case.
I really don’t know for sure. Does anyone else have that part figured out?

Just on a guess if your harness fights you getting and staying vertical and you try the “trim + 1” and you start to balloon when you flare, the trim + 2 is what I would try next.

[SamKellner]

Bill, that sounds like fun

Good job

I been trying to talk Terry into a road trip..

[Bob Kuczewski]

Other harnesses’ that I have tried have required me to put a lot of down force on the down tubes just to remain vertical. This has the effect of moving your cg (center of gravity) forward.

Very good observations, Bill!! I've flown a few harnesses that also had me fighting to stay upright. I usually run out my landings, and that eliminates much of the flare timing issue. But then ... I fly a Falcon.

Either way, thanks for these tips. This is exactly the kind of stuff that we should be putting into the training manual!!

(P.S. ... still working on the pilot profile)

[Bill Cummings]

Hang Glider setup tip - Tip Wand installation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6hcPuR0gNE

Some glider tip wands just go in easier.
Fitting tip wands to Lightsport
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-xfBMWRpj0&feature=related

Hang Glider setup tip - tension / detension
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=-JGtlfDmMg0

[Bill Cummings]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4auy1UET4I&feature=plcp&context=C3b15437UDOEgsToPDskKvIKjQxoHtxNMJ_cL7wYH9

Link to Hang Glider Break Down- Time Laps

[Bob Kuczewski]

I've been working in a new tool called Blender for doing animations for the training manual.

It's a great tool, but there is a bit of a learning curve (key frames, lighting, camera tracking, etc). I'm still struggling to learn it all, but here's my first (really crummy) hang gliding animation from last night using Blender:

HG_Track_001_sc.gif (653.34 KiB) Viewed 3719 times

As you can see, the camera moves around in odd ways, and the glider doesn't end up where it started for a smooth transition. The lighting is also wrong - which is why the shadow moves at a different rate than the glider. But I'll be learning more as I go.

If anyone else wants to learn animation, I strongly recommend Blender. It's available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX, and FreeBSD at:

    http://www.blender.org/

Best of all, it's FREE!!