SIV finale

Saturday November 17, 2007

Now, having seen the pitiful videos, I was focused on getting the timing and intensity of my wingovers down. First set of wingover showed a slight improvement over day 1. Using my calibration I found a point where I always get an “out” part of the wingover. Then I focused on timing. Watching the video is painful, but I can see the incremental progress.



The night before Gabriel told me part of the problem is that I want to go too big. He said if I just focus on the timing I’d get it. Today I was set to do that.

The lines on the dragon3 are just a big longer than on the merlin. Gabe said I was getting used to that too. I really is almost as simple as developing more patience. I can feel the downswing now. I have to wait. When the pressure is highest, swing out the hips.

Flight 148

Gabe asked that I pull some SATs on my own. There is something to know about the SATs. You have to turn 180˚ before you pull hard to induce the SAT.

I was a little surprised when Gabriel asked me to pull a second SAT. I think he wanted me to just build some confidence. In truth, that’s what I needed. I was beating myself up big time over these wingovers.

I’m sure there are more difficult maneuvers, but getting wingovers right is the biggest challenge I’ve faced in paragliding. The SATs look really impressive, but they’re easy to do. For some reason asymmetric spirals are just a bit harder. But the wingovers have been it for me.

This video really shows what I’m doing wrong. It’s not about fear, strength or the desire to go big. It’s about timing. You can see how I’m way too early. Then too late. I’ve got to feel where I am in the pendulum and trust what Gabriel is telling me.

Flight 149

The second flight of the day was interrupted by a towline break. It took a while to get things back together. Main point here is if the towline breaks on your tow don’t disconnect. The guy who did made it much worse than it needed to be by disconnecting. Another boat on the lake ran over it. It was a long delay for everyone.

If the line breaks on you just fly back to the LZ with it. Gabe will tell you where to drop it.

What I liked about this flight most was canopy control. Canopy heading for the lake, brake. Control it. It’s easy now. Coming out of wingovers, asymmetrics and SATs is a piece of cake now. I almost need to shoot for the canvas to get in trouble now. That’s great and if that isn’t a fulfillment of the promise of the clinic I don’t know what is.

Flight 150

After yet another towline break I got a chance to take a 3rd run. I wanted to end the day positive.


If the line breaks on your tow, don't disconnect. Fly it back to the LZ.

The wingovers were good, likely the best of the day. I had a lot of confidence. Gabriel then explained a helicopter. You pull both brakes nearly to the point of stall, then let up and hang on to the risers. The first 3 rotations were nearly perfect. I flet some tension on my right hand and let up a bit, that caused an oscillation that ultimately ended the helo.

I started another SAT and threw it into a spiral. Gabe told me how to correct it with braking, and I felt how it could ease into the SAT but only after I stopped the spiral. I like how the wing spins while I’m out on the side. I’m going to want to induce that on purpose in the future.

I don’t want to sound smug, but the helo’s easy. After it was done I so wanted to do wingovers again.

This final time I did something different. I looked at my watch altimeter, 3500 feet. That’s 1000 over the lake. It’s likely that I can get 6 or 700 feet over the ocean at Torrey. I said to myself, “This is my lovely take-home gift.” I am going to nail some wingovers at carabiner brake strength just as I would at Torrey. If I don’t fall in my canopy this is a practice I can resume when I get back up.

It was a complete success.

Following Max’s advice on doing wingovers with eyes closed I did something just a bit different. Rather than look at the wing, which is how I’ve initiated most wingovers, I just looked at the horizon, not caring much what the wing was doing and just waiting for the feeling of the downswing. This was much easier. If you do it right the wing comes to the horizon anyway so it’s a good practice.

One more thing, I love anticipating the tug of the tow line.

Since leaving the clinic I keep thinking about that feeling, sitting in a SAT, watching the horizon spin by your wing, the security of your harness, the sound of the wind on your windward side. I love the G’s. I can’t wait to go back.

November SIV Clinic

This was a great clinic. I signed up because I took such a big fall at the last clinic. That’s when I fell nearly into the canvas after going in to a negative spin.


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 .

Independence Dragon3

Flight 128 - 135

The weather at Torrey finally was good enough to fly today. This is the first day where I’ve been able to fly since the clinic.


I've got a new wing.

It took me nearly an hour to work out the tangles and straighten out the lines on my Merlin. Something just didn’t feel right. I kited for a while. At one point Dan was encouraging me to launch. I told him something just didn’t feel right to me, but Dan was insisting that conditions were perfect. Fair enough, but my personal conditions weren’t up to snuff yet.

I’ve heard many times from David and Gabriel that when you don’t feel good inside, when something tells you not to fly, don’t. Dan was applying full steam peer pressure. I’m not sure why. I told him to back off. I didn’t feel right. It’s funny how hard that is for some people to do.

Flight 128 - 131

Finally after adjusting my harness things did start to feel right, so I launched. The conditions were very north, WNW about 300˚. But, the wind was great, 12-14 mph. There was plenty of lift but maneuvering around was a bit challenging with so much north speed.

I landed and took off twice just getting readjusted to my wing. Something still didn’t feel right. It wasn’t a safety issue. I just did like the way my wing felt. Dan has the exact same wing as me, an Independence Merlin, same color too, but his is a medium whereas mine is large.

When I did my sat and wingovers at the SIV clinic I was using his wing. I felt like I had much more control in that wing. I’m sure there’s a better way to phrase it, but I felt like there was less chance of the lines going slack. I could take a wrap, turn, get out and up over the wing and not feel like I was going to throw myself in it. Since that flight I’ve thought I needed a smaller wing, but that would be a safety issue.

When I came down from my 3rd flight Gabriel arrived. While we were flying he was busy making phone calls for adaptiveNRG. He landed our first meeting with a landfill. Awesome. I complained a bit about my wing. Dan mentioned that you should have a safety check on your wing once a year. I’ve never had one and I’m in my 2nd year with this Merlin. I told Gabe, “I think I’m just going to buy the first Dragon I fly anyway.” He jumped up with enthusiasm.

When he came back he delivered my new wing. An Independence Dragon3
Large of course. My plan was to fly until 3PM and start working on adaptiveNRG’s proforma. This new wing completely threw that plan out the window.

The wing was already used once, I think by Henry at Owens so I didn’t exactly get that “new car” experience of unpacking a fresh wing. But it only used once and clearly new. I kind of liked seeing the bits of Owens sage in the lines.

I inflated the wing for the first time and immediately felt a difference, much more lift. That’s interesting because the wing is physically smaller.

It was Gabriel’s day off. He had a wing out and was doing all kinds of crazy manuvers out in the window. It was inspiring. Watching Gabriel fly is watching and expression of pure joy.

Flight 132 - 135

I took my new wing the edge and launched. There’s a lot more control and the wing moves much more dynamically than the Merlin. I got a lot of lift early and went over the ocean to do some wingovers. I immediately felt the control that I had with Dan’s wing, but this wing was built for my weight. I felt much more buoyant. This was awesome.

I noticed that my speed bar was not attached so I came in to land to attach it. This was interesting. The Dragon is faster and a bit more difficult to land. Gabriel said I’d adjust to it.

When you’re doing wingovers you need to look at your wing. I think that’s the trick. Because this wing is new I just want to keep looking at it. When I was doing my wingovers I just kept looking at the wing as the horizon came up to meet it, and they were much better. I don’t actually think it was the wing that made the wingovers better, I think it was the fact that my eyes were in the right place.

I put on full speed bar to fight the north wind heading to the golf course. I played for a while in the ravines there and came back to the north ridge for altitude. Then I pulled big ears and did some spirals.

The bottom line is everything about the wing is more dynamic. I am glad I waited before buying the wing. I don’t think I would even know what I was getting before. I came in for a few landings. This is still the tricky part. On those last landings I noticed that not only was the wing faster, but it was slower as well. It reacts much differently than the Merlin. I’m in love with this thing.

On my drive home I had to call Gabe. Somewhere in Encinitas on the 5 I noticed I was coming down from a high.

SIV 2007 Part 2

Flight 125 - 7

Day 3 here was different. We had all had at least 1 tow and all wanted to go big.

First tow up was a bit cold. I did some wingovers, asymmetric spirals and landed right were I need to be for the next tow.

All I really wanted to do was wingovers. I just want to get that feeling, the timing. I was still beating myself up from not going bigger the day before. I wanted to get up high and go big. Just before launch Gabe came up to me and said he wanted to see a full stall and spin in order to prepare to do a SAT. OK, I’m cool with that. Gabe knows where I’m at and what I need.

On each tow up I ask for a blessing. It’s beautiful at Lake Isabella. The tow up is a great time to just enjoy the natural beauty. I had no idea what I had coming.


Click to watch the video.

Once off the tow I pulled a full stall. I’m not sure why but I let off early. Strange. Full stalls are hard to hold. You really need to lock your arms.

Then Gabe asked for the spin. He said to let off when the wing was in front of me. Part of holding a spin is that the wing will oscillate in front and behind you. I for some reason heard him say to let off as the wing was coming to the front, which is in fact the absolute worst time to let off. The result was a fall that resulted in a cravat. As if that was not enough, Gabe’s radio went out after I fell into the cravat.

I have seen enough cravats to know that you can get out. I decided to pull a full stall, but to no effect. The brakes were stuck or they were all the way out already. My vision got very narrow at this point. I was focused nearly exclusively on the part of the wing that had power. I’m not sure why but I wasn’t looking around.

The biggest lesson I’m taking away from this fall is when things go wrong look around, see what’s available to make your recovery.

I knew I had already spiraled more than 3 times. Gabe always says to throw the reserve after the 3rd spiral. I reached around for the reserve. The handle was not immediately where I expected it. I rarely check for the reserve. I’m going to start doing that.

When I threw the reserve it didn’t open immediately. I notice the little bag it sits in just resting on my lines. This wasn’t good. I started drawing in the paraglider wing to get it out of the way. In retrospect this too was a mistake. I should tugged on the line to the reserve. It just didn’t occur to me. I just figured if I got the big wing out of the way the little one would open. It turns out I was right, but that was the wrong way to approach it.

With both wings open now I was safely descending to the water. I looked down and saw that the only tree in the whole area where we were practicing was just off to the side below me. I continued to pull in the big wing because if I could go straight down I knew I would miss it.

When I hit the water I struggled to get out of my harness. The foam from the harness makes it hard to keep your head up out of water. Robin was there in seconds. He picked me straight up into the boat. Amazing considering I weight 210 dry, and I was very wet and wearing huge boots.

I never panicked throughout this whole experience. I wasn’t always sure what to do, but I calmly performed my training. That’s awesome as well. Gabe has me well trained, and it all paid off.

On land the whole crew gave me a big cheer and a hero’s welcome. That’s really great when you’re coming in from a disaster. Danielle said, “I told you to go big and you really went big!” Arman told me later the cravat spiral I was in is the number one reason paragliders die. What a great experience! This is exactly what I took the SIV for. This was a chance to safely get out of the number 1 disaster I could get into. Awesome.

Dan offered his gear for another flight. I have to admit this one was difficult. On the one hand I wanted to get back on the horse. But, on the other my mind was clearly not on my abilities. I was scared. Was it real of fake fear?

Dan and I laid his wing out. I got in the harness and needed to make some big adjustments. I got it back on, looked at him and said, “I don’t want to go.” I took everything off. By the time Robin had come back to get me I changed my mind. That wasn’t real fear. It was natural to be reluctant to get back up there after taking a big fall. But, a great flight would be very healing.

As I went back up I asked for my blessing. As I released the tow Gabriel walked me through 2 awesome SATs, then some wingovers. I didn’t feel the joy until I hit the ground. What a rebound! Perfect. Just what I needed.

I’m still burning off the adrenaline days later as I write this. All I have to say is if you paraglide you need to take a safety clinic at least once a year. And at the clinic you need to push it. You need to get where you’ll be in trouble with the way you fly.

I’m 2 for 2 as far as going into the drink on these clinics. The last time I couldn’t make it back to shore. This time I lost my virginity: I threw my reserve for the first time. Thank God I did this over water rather than land, and under Gabe’s eye.


Click to watch my third tow with SATs.