Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 2: February 2014 | Page 38

create a nose-up restorative force, which we experience as bar
pressure. When you pull in to lower the nose, the wing “fights”
that input. With limited airflow over the wing, the twist
of the wing and the low angle of attack of the tips produce
minimal nose-up force. Worse still, without airflow over the
wing, there is very little resistance to a nose-down “tuck” rotation. The problem can arise because we hang well below the
wing and weigh much more than our wings. In a low-airspeed,
nose-up stall, or when falling out of a thermal while pushing out, the pitching-forward rotation can happen so quickly
that the inertia of that rotation can continue past vertical and
carry you into a tumble. The glider’s swept wings and pitch
systems work against this by damping—not preventing—that
pitching rotation. The more airflow over the wing, the more
those systems can slow that nose-down rotation, limiting the
amount of inertia that builds up.
These days, a hang glider tumble is very, very rare. Most of
today’s gliders are designed, tested, and certified for strength
and stability. Today, there is no reason to risk flying a wing
that hasn’t been tested and certified. In smooth air, a pilot
would have to do everything just right (or is that just wrong?) to
cause a tumble. But when we start flying in soarable conditions, we need to be very careful not to unwittingly facilitate a
tumble. The more soarable (read: turbulent) it gets, the more
careful we need to be. The key here is to fully understand that
pushing out and flying slowly comes with significant risk.

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HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING MAGAZINE

After reading all of this, why would anyone want to push
out other than when they are landing? Well, when doing
360s, flying slower reduces the diameter of our 360s for a
given bank angle. In small and light lift, the art of staying
up is keeping the glider in that lift. Flying too fast can make
your 360s too big. If your glider is trimmed correctly, trim
speed should be right about where you get your best sink rate,
so pushing out will actually increase your sink rate. Sinking
a bit faster in rising air can be better than sinking slower in
still air, or, worse still, sinking slower in the sink surrounding
the thermal. In this situation, pushing out is both a managed
risk AND a compromise. How much pushing out is relatively
safe, or even beneficial, is highly dependent on the situation—
which only veteran pilots have the experience to evaluate
accurately.
What’s a bit safer than flying around pushed out and slow
is using short pitch inputs as a tool, when trying to position
your glider in a thermal. In a bank, a quick-but-smooth push
out can help tighten that side of your 360. If you are in a
thermal and you recognize that the strongest part is behind
you, speeding up your direction-change can make the difference between turning in light lift at the edge of the thermal
or turning in the big sink just outside of the thermal. Of
course, the risk, if you time it wrong, is that you’ll be exiting
the thermal pushed out with low airspeed/energy, which is,
again, why this is something only advanced pilots should even