Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 3: March 2014 | Page 29

HG401

Advanced Techniques & Concepts

Transition
by

T

he word “transition” can be used in talking about
many things, but when we hear it in hang gliding it
has almost an iconic meaning. We fly our gliders in
the prone position, with our hands on the basetube.
We land our gliders with our bodies upright, and our
hands on the downtubes. To get from A to B we “transition.”
As simple as that may sound, it ain’t! To better understand
a topic, it’s useful to ask the W (and one H) question words:
What, When, Which, Where, Why, and How. Who is a
W word as well, but in this case that is obvious—you, me,
whoever the pilot may be.
Starting with WHAT—the transition is working from
prone to upright. Does that mean body position, hand position, or both? If I keep my hands on the basetube but rock my
body upright, have I transitioned? I would say no, because I
can’t really flare with my hands on the basetube, so I can’t be
done yet. How about if I move my hands to the downtubes
but don’t rock my body upright? Again, I probably don’t want
to land like that, so I can’t be done yet. So what I’ve come
to realize is that “the transition” actually consists of two
elements, sometimes done simultaneously, but often done at
different times. Either way can be effective with practice; I
use both, depending on the situation.
WHEN to transition is an easy answer: The transition
needs to be completed—both parts as described above—
before it’s time to flare. Unfortunately that is not very specific… because that could be the moment before you flare, or
10 seconds after launching. To narrow it down let’s first think

r ya n voig ht

about when NOT to transition. There is a specific time in
every landing where it is near impossible to maintain control
of the glider and transition, and that is on final carrying
additional airspeed. With airspeed comes bar pressure, and
letting go with one hand while there is bar pressure results in
at least a pitch “bobble” where the nose pops up, or worse still
an accidental heading change—the one hand you’re still holding on and pulling in with is on one side of the control frame,
pulling your weight toward that side and turning the glider.
Knowing when not to transition, we can clarify that we want
to transition either before we turn on final and then pull in for
extra speed, OR near the end of the ground-skim phase of the
landing when we’ve bled off the extra airspeed and are nearing
trim speed and there is little or no bar pressure.
WHICH is the next question we face, because we must
choose—transition before final or after ground skim. Both
have their pro’s and con’s and neither is a simple choice.
Transitioning before pulling in for speed gets the transition
done early, leaving you less to have to do while performing
your landing. It does, however, come with a catch: Pulling in
for speed can be more difficult when flying from the uprights.
Notice I said more difficult and not impossible; it CAN be
done. In terms of physics, the glider feels your weight hanging
from your harness mains and hooked in at the hang loop.
When flying prone, pulling in to full arm extension puts
the basetube about at your belt buckle, which is just a little
farther forward than your harness mains. When upright, we
can pull in until the basetube contacts our body—and when
it does, our harness mains will be just barely behind the base-

OPPOSITE Flying near the ground while prone means we still need to work a transition in before it’s time to
flare—and if something goes wrong our injuries will likely be much worse.

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