Hang gliding flight and landing

Unlike the aircraft with its large number of flaps, a traditional hang glider is controlled by the pilot shifting their weight relative to the trapeze bar moving to the wing in one direction or another. Therefore, not attached to the trapeze bar, they are used like a steering wheel.

Speed

The pilot is significantly heavier than the wings. His position therefore determines the priority. By moving the suspension, he can affect the trim of the aircraft and thus the speed. The speed of the kite is increased if you move the trapeze bar forward.

At higher speeds, it drops even faster, and the glide slope is disproportionately worse. Conversely, reducing the speed when you look at the trapezoidal plate pushes back. A typical device in Low-Speed (vmin) is a stall but the wing generates very little lift. It begins to fall, tilt the nose down and then picks up speed. Then the device is again in the normal flight condition.

Direction
Straight flight

To fly a left curve, the pilot pushes his body to the left, where he has to make sure his body is not only twisted, but weight is completely shifted to the left leg. The trapeze bar is pressed to the right. This shifts the focus of the pilot of the aircraft to the left wing. This changes because the flexible sail profiles the left and right wing.

The right wing creates more aerodynamic lift than the left, and this is the real impetus for the rolling motion of the dragon. The rolling motion is ultimately aerodynamic effect, and not because the pilot’s weight pulls the left side of the kite down.

With a fixed-wing aircraft, a lateral shift of the pilot results, therefore in no rolling movement of the dragon, and the pilot can launch fixed-wing aircraft during the rolling motion only by aerodynamic control resources in the form of unilateral or mutual actuation of brake flaps or ailerons.

Stay on top

A typical, traditional hang glider has a minimum sink rate of about 1 m/s. That is, from 300 meters high, it is in calm air for five minutes. When the air is calm, it is possible to extend this period. The trick is to fly in areas where the air has more than 1 m/s rises. This is the case with coastal dunes swept across the sea breezes.

Directly in front of the dune, the air flows diagonally upwards. In a narrow area in front of a sufficiently high dune at sufficiently strong wind, a hang glider does not fall to the ground, but increases. With elongated figure eight movements, he can hold onto this for so long in the air as the wind blows. This technique is called Soaring and has been used on the shores of Hawaii and California.

Another more affordable hang gliding updraft occurs when the sun heats the ground and this gives its heat to the air. The rising warmed air has a tendency to accumulate like a river, and at certain points on a larger scale, flow upward.

The challenge for the pilots now is to find these thermals and then be carried away by it in tight circles to the top.

Updrafts, as such, are invisible. Even if you are already in a thermal updraft, and are rising, this is not easily discernible at a few hundred meters high. Therefore, many pilots use something called a vario instrument that measures the instantaneous ascent or descent speed. In parallel to a visual display, there is the actual measured value by the pitch of a pipit. Dragon pilots fly to ear, to keep him in the regions with the best lift. A good pilot can stay this way for hours under favorable weather conditions.

Landing
Fixed-wing aircraft with extended flaps

When you start landing against the wind, running to keep the speed over the ground, the hang glider needs to land without reaching the ground too early. It is necessary for the amount to be divided and must be reduced accordingly.

For this purpose, the following procedure is standardized: The pilot approaches the landing site at any height and moves to a position that is the side of the selected landing point. Significantly, this preliminary phase is the “position” mentioned. Here, only circles are not flown (in thermals!) To reduce the amount so much so that it is just barely enough for the so-called land Volte. This procedure allows the pilot the best possible approximation to the targeted landing point and for orderly land provision.

Stall just before touchdown

An ideal landing for a hang glider is standing, like a bird. This is induced just before reaching the ground at the lowest possible speed when the trapezoidal pushes up the front. A bad landing (crash) can cause damage to the dragon and the pilot could be injured. Frowned upon, is landing only in tandem when the dragon rolls out on two wheels attached to the trapeze bar.

An impressive version of the landing is the landing slope, utilized in the slope for the reduction of speed. In addition, the pilot is flying at high speed. A rigid hang glider usually has flaps, the minimum speed at which the device can fly and therefore reducing and simplifying the landing.

Another aid that is used by some pilots is a few square meters of drogue chute, which makes the approach angles steeper. The landing is generally considered the most challenging part of the well hang gliding, which even licensed pilots often do not have one hundred percent control.

Tandem Flight

A hang glider can take, depending on their design, an additional passenger. A flight with passengers is called tandem. The passenger next to or above the pilot hangs below the wing. He does automatically, the same control movements as the pilot. Because of the additional responsibility for the passenger, a special tandem flight ticket is needed. The hang glider must be approved for the higher takeoff weight.

Many flight schools and many amateur pilots offer tandem flights for payment. A student will be mounted to the lower position, the teacher about it. In this way, the situation is for the student to be moved up to the higher weight similar to the solo flight.

The teacher may intervene at any time and from their elevated position, take control of the dragon. For example, it controls the first flights of the dragon during takeoff and landing. In addition, they can communicate directly in the training of a motor-glider or with the student.