Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 12:December 2014 | Page 25

Liberty

148



158

high performance with stable, responsive handling
VG Sail Control · Mylar Full Race Sail available
H3+ · for Intermediate and higher skill levels

CrosSport

Flight Helmets
 Heated Bar Mitts & Gloves
 All-Weather Glider Bags
 Lightweight XC Glider Bags

1st place, 2013 King Mountain Championships · Sports Class
1st place, 2012 Chelan XC Classic · Kingpost Class
2nd place, 2012 Spain Championships · Kingpost Class

HANG GLIDERS  ULTRALIGHT TRIKES

watching the horizon, and the feedback
felt from the wing, to feel out the best
way to get there. And they can intake,
process, and act on all of this information fast enough to make use of it at the
speeds used on performance equipment. They can do this because they’ve
practiced this over and over and over, on
lower-performing gliders that give much
better feedback as to whether a strategy
is working or failing. They’re not trying
to learn if the strategy works or not on
their high-performance gear, they’re
doing what they’ve already learned
works well.
I am not a sky god, but I aspire to be.
I have a Falcon and a T2C, and while I
love my topless, I learn immeasurably
more every time I fly my Falcon. I’ve
been hang gliding for 25 years (started
at age four flying tandem with my dad),
and I train toward sky-god status on a
single-surface glider. Both my Falcon
and T2 are the same exact colors, and

I know when I do a good job when I
land and people are surprised to find
out I was on my Falcon and not my
topless. I won’t claim I can consistently
do it yet, but when I’m having a good
day apparently I can make my single
surface appear to perform as well as my
topless—which tells me how little the
glider performance actually matters.
Don’t performance-handicap yourself by
thinking a better gliding hang glider will
improve your flying experience—only
YOU can improve your flying experience (by improving yourself). Moving to
a “higher-performance” glider too soon,
or making too big a jump when you do
switch, might initially help your flying,
but in the long run it definitely, without
a doubt, handicaps your future learning
and progression.
If you want to be a sky god and have
those amazing flights, you need to embrace the moments where you feel like
your glide performance is holding you

back! Rather than buy a new wing, ask
yourself what you could do differently,
what you could be doing better. If you
don’t know where you could improve,
that speaks volumes in itself! Seek an
advanced instructor or mentor to keep
making progress. Try lots of different
strategies, on lots of different days, and
use the instant feedback your glider
provides to continue improving. A glider
with a VG and a pointy harness might
get you to that next thermal quicker and
easier, but it’s a dead-end in the journey
to sky-god status.
I hope everyone has enjoyed the
“HG401” series, and I have helped you
to better enjoy the sport of free flight. I
would like to thank everyone for taking
the time to read and improve themselves
as pilots. By lifting ourselves individually, we also raise the flying community as
a whole—which helps everyone get more
enjoyment every time they fly!

HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING MAGAZINE

25