US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

http://video.dailymail.co.uk/video/bc/rtmp_uds/1418450360/2015/12/07/1418450360_4649792556001_4649777946001.mp4
It's okay to pull in on the bar to get flying speed.
Especially if you plan to soar a ridge and initiate an immediate turn as you take off.
Remember, during a turn that inside wingtip is not going to be flying as fast as the outside wingtip.
Therefore the inside wingtip will stall if you are flying too slow.
In a turn, airspeed = airspeed of your inside wingtip.
Not what you feel on your face.
Not what your airspeed indicator says.
Think: inside wingtip.
Keep it flying!

Run fast. Get flying.
You must fly faster than your lowest flying speed to execute a turn.
Don't be shy. Pull in.
Soaring parachutists may notice how the airframe protected this hang glider pilot from serious injury.

Having just returned to hang gliding, after 36 years, and flying at Dockweiler Beach, I have discovered that pulling in right after launch is so embedded in my flying brain that it puts me right down on the beach from the little sand slope. I have to tell myself when launching; "remember to go to trim". Pulling in after getting airborne had become a normal part of launching, back in my flying years, and apparently it has stuck with me, even when I don't want it to. Ah....but better to err on that side.

When you have control issues - speed is your friend (no I don't mean a drug).

Frank C.

fcolver wrote:Having just returned to hang gliding, after 36 years, and flying at Dockweiler Beach, I have discovered that pulling in right after launch is so embedded in my flying brain that it puts me right down on the beach from the little sand slope. I have to tell myself when launching; "remember to go to trim". Pulling in after getting airborne had become a normal part of launching, back in my flying years, and apparently it has stuck with me, even when I don't want it to. Ah....but better to err on that side.

When you have control issues - speed is your friend (no I don't mean a drug).

Frank C.

With one exception that I know of and learned on some of my double surface gliders.
PIO requires that you slow down to dampen it. More speed will make it worse.

I was thinking more of roll control rather than pitch control PIO. I gave the key to avoiding pitch PIO in another post.

Frank

fcolver wrote:Having just returned to hang gliding, after 36 years, and flying at Dockweiler Beach, I have discovered that pulling in right after launch is so embedded in my flying brain that it puts me right down on the beach from the little sand slope.

A fun thing to do at Dockweiler is to run all the way down the slope converting as much of your potential energy into kinetic energy as possible. Then you can let out the bar - carefully at first!! - and actually launch from the flat beach for a nice little "hop". In addition to being a fun diversion, it helps reinforce the "speed is your friend" concept (watching out of course for Bill's PIO). Fortunately, most of the gliders we fly at Dockweiler are not generally prone to PIO.