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By Charlie Romeo
#406634
With the small beach and rocky areas, tide coming in, the odd 4wd, squalls about every 3/4-1hr and an unfamiliar area and my mates glider to match, I was a bit tense :lol: It all came back instantly, as I launched, my dune stuff from many years ago.. :thumbsup: The three of us loved it!..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceEjYnDSvM4
By blindrodie
#406636
Agreed. I read on occasion that folks get bored with this type of flying. How? I ask... It's another whole world to learn and experiment with.

Maybe get down on the deck and see how well you can control your low and slow turns and altitude based on the terrain. Test your crab to see if you can follow the best lift line. Launch and land over and over until your really tired. See where you can get to the highest altitude point. It's endless FUN.

THIS is flying... Thanks Mate.

8)
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By USHPA7
#406637
Also, try it in a swing seat, it's a "different ballgame" from that most comfortable viewpoint (we used to all do it that way).

My Vimeo of Erica trying my swing seat hartness on the dune at Dockweiler Beach, CA:

https://vimeo.com/285665477

She soared the dune on her next flight, but I was having so much fun watching that i didn't turn on my camera. :(

The second set of downtubes is so that the control bar doesn't have to be re-rigged between prone and seated positions. When seated the hand reach is about 12" farther back from prone.

This system is still under development and I'm working with High Energy Sports on the harness.

Frank Colver
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By DAVE 858
#406638
Something that you could lay prone in and switch to a seated position would be rad. There used to be a video on the northwing website that showed a dude on a freedom soaring makapuu with a harness that did exactly that. It looked awesome. I would buy one if it existed.
By Charlie Romeo
#406640
Thanks guys, you've got to keep your wits about you that close to terrain. I always remembered dune stuff was fun but I'd forgotten just how much!.. :)
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By jlatorre
#406642
sg wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 4:51 pm The BEST dune racers would lightly touch their wingtips on the sand as they BLASTED by ;-)
Most people have no idea what "close" is, until they see a really talented dune racer / dune gooner :mrgreen:
I agree. And as somebody with hundreds of hours flying Marina Beach, including doing various chores (wireman, ridge monitor, timer, etc.) for the Marina Steeplechase back in the day, I've seen the best of them ... Ken Brown, Dan Racanelli, Chris Bulger, and a bunch more ... do astonishing things with the barest minimum of altitude and lift. For me, six feet over the dune was comfortably high, but as long as I was still going, I was happy to take what I got.
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By jlatorre
#406647
BubbleBoy wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 6:38 pm Been high, gone far ... nothing better than dune gooning. Nothin'

JB
When I said "a bunch more," of course I included you.
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By jlatorre
#406652
kukailimoku2 wrote: Tue Mar 05, 2019 2:36 pm Ah, the old "drag the wingtip in the sand" ploy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCSCE2NN0YI
Or the old "scrape your side wire against the edge of the ridge" ploy.

But you know that one, too.
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By USHPA7
#406654
I think if my HG Basic Trainer flys the way I hope it will, it should also be great for dune gooning. The short span for tight turns and large tip area will make it easy as the bluff top tip will be getting a lot of air compression under it for support.

We'll see,

Frank

BTW - Many years ago i got some great dune soaring at Guadalupe Dunes, CA in my Wills SST (also swing seat).
By Charlie Romeo
#406655
Ah, you've all reminded me of a trippy thing we used to do in the blow at Rainbow Beach, Qld. Because it was an even shallow sandy slope all the way out to the steeper edge, sometimes you flew around to the back of this massive sand blow and stayed prone to land. If you just carefully slowed up and let your harness drag onto the sand as your kept increasing your slow weak flair, you came to a gentle stop with the glider just sitting there. With a clever grin to your mates, if you wriggled the harness a bit breaking the friction, while moving your basebar too, you could very slowly creep forward till just airborn mere inches off the sand till the slope finally steepened up! We would leave our gliders set up but laying flat in that sandblow and do the long walk in the next day to do it all again... Endless summer and endless time on our hands, sigh... :)