Landing approach at Lake Isabella in my Dragon3.
SIV is a acronym from the French “ Simulation d'Incident en Vol”; literally “Simulated Incidence in Flight”. The purpose of the clinic is to develop your piloting skills by inducing incidents that can be remedied with active piloting. It’s also practice the maneuvers a pilot must to to master control of the canopy. SIV is a universal term for this kind of training. Gleitschirmfliegen is German for paragliding, parapente is French, but the term SIV is use in all languages for this kind of training.
This was my third clinic, so I’m getting to be somewhat experienced at this now. That doesn’t mean I’m any more expert, I just have more experience. Here are the maneuvers I’ve performed:
Collapses
- Asymetric
- Large Asymetric (over 50%)
- Frontal
Spins
Stable Spirals
Stalls
In addition to catastrophic events like these we practice descent techniques. There’s no stick on a paraglider cockpit. You need to rely on your soaring skills to ascend. When you need to descend quickly you use a descent technique:
Big Ears
- With Speed Bar
Big Big Ears
- With Speed Bar
These are the basics. If you experience rotor or perform some other move poorly in flight you can enter one of these conditions. Knowing how to get out of them is life saving.
The situation at the clinic in full swing.
After you master these it’s time to increase your canopy skills by doing tricks, or acro. Here are the maneuvers I’ve performed so far:
Whip Stalls or Porpoise Dives
Wingovers
SAT
Helicopter
Asymmetric Spiral
It’s getting to be quite a list, and especially after a clinic like this I want to write about all of them if only to reinforce my understanding. Before I do I’ve collected a list of maneuvers I haven’t performed yet as a to-do list:
Ground Spirals
Riser Twist Recovery
Reversals
Tumbles
Loops
Photos by Scott Smith .
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