Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 3: March 2014 | Page 26

easily appreciate their good looks and
sleek design. However, sometimes we
may not fully appreciate the intricacies
of the airframe underneath the sail. No
annual inspection would be complete
without a comprehensive examination
of the glider’s airframe and hardware.
Depending on your glider, a complete “sail-off-the-airframe” inspection

The upper and lower nose
plates should be flat and symmetrical with
each other, sail-attachment webbing should be
clean of frays, Velcro sticky-back hook-and-loop
material should work almost as well as new.
Use a very stiff brush to clean Velcro “hooks”
material. BOTTOM Cut and round the
corners when using sail tape to repair small
tears in the sail.

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HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING MAGAZINE

provides you with the ultimate checkup of your glider’s structure. Note,
however, that if you have an advanced
glider that uses two sprogs per wing,
it is possible to inspect the entire
airframe without removing the sail. To
do this, lay the glider upside down on
saw horses, detach the sail from the
rear leading edge and simply and carefully manipulate the sail leading-edge
pocket to inspect the entire leadingedge tubing through the sprog pockets
and the undersurface center zipper.
Similarly the crossbar can be largely accessed through the undersurface center
zipper. Check each tube for creases,
dings or dents.
While you can inspect the outer
surface of advanced materials such as

carbon fiber, it is not possible to ascertain the structural integrity of a carbonfiber component of your glider through
a simple visual inspection. It is best to
contact the manufacturer of your glider
if you have a question about a carbonfiber component on your glider. Also
note that airframes made from 7075
T6 tubing are far more susceptible to
corrosion from salt water than 6061 T6
aluminum used in earlier model gliders.
If your glider has been exposed to salt
water, or if you’re a routine coastal flyer,
consider pulling the sail from your
glider, giving it a thorough inspection
and fresh water flush (particularly
through the inner tubing). In addition
to the airframe, check the other hardware components on your wing.
Check all the bolts along the nose
plate and leading edge/crossbar junction, and check that the plates are
straight and symmetrical. Be sure to
inspect the wear on your hang loop and
the hang loop attachment to the glider.
If you have a kingpost glider, check
the center bolt of your kingpost and
ascertain that the bolt hole in the keel
is not elongated, particularly if you’ve
had hard landings. Check the crossbar
center section hardware, bolts, and the
crossbar hold-down cable. Remember
to check the haul-back cable attachment
for wear or kinks in the haul-back cable.
Also check the control bar apex attachment bolts. Check the VG block, the
VG rope, and that all pulleys function
properly.
Sight down the downtubes to be
sure they are straight. The control bar’s
corner brackets are a key structural
component of your glider, yet they are
most susceptible to damage from the
ground, particularly from less-thanperfect landings. The ball lock pins that
are used to secure the downtubes to
the basetube control bar corner bracket
are critical to the structural integrity of
the glider. If a ball lock pin is hard to
remove it’s possible that it is bent, and
the glider should not be flown until it