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By seza
#398435
After a break of well over two years - I managed a short top - bottom flight this aft, I was bit anxious, I sat at the hill ready and waiting to takeoff for ages ...

landed fine but I did not have enough speed as I was on the downtubes/uprights from the word go - it was a short'sh hill no more than 200ft ...
the wing is my trusty WW S2 155.
It made think of the age old question as to best practice when landing ... how early do you transition upright? how far down/up the downtubes do you place your hands? for the life of me I can never muster enough energy to pull for speed on the downtubes, what I found works sometimes is to have one hand up and one down the basebar.
All in all I am pleased that I blew up the cobwebs and enjoyed the short flight.

fly safe.
By seza
#398458
Thanks for that DMarley,
very informative, I rather like the idea of a hand/arm twist to hold the downtube from the front! as shown in the last vid.
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By TomGalvin
#398459
seza wrote:It made think of the age old question as to best practice when landing ... how early do you transition upright? how far down/up the downtubes do you place your hands?
Transition your hands when at trim speed, either immediately after your turn to final, or in ground effect after you have bled off your excess speed. Transitioning when pulled in can induce an unintended roll or yaw close to the terrain. Whether you come in on the base tube, down tubes, or up and down is a personal preference. I do any of the three approaches depending on the LZ and conditions.

Place your hands where you have the ability to rotate the nose quickly with the most authority. It can vary due to control frame rake angle, hang height, harness type, and body type. Generally when upright having your hands somewhere between shoulder height and ear height is the sweet spot.
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By aeroexperiments
#398472
seza wrote:After a break of well over two years - I managed a short top - bottom flight this aft, I was bit anxious, I sat at the hill ready and waiting to takeoff for ages ...

landed fine but I did not have enough speed as I was on the downtubes/uprights from the word go - it was a short'sh hill no more than 200ft ...
the wing is my trusty WW S2 155.
It made think of the age old question as to best practice when landing ... how early do you transition upright? how far down/up the downtubes do you place your hands? for the life of me I can never muster enough energy to pull for speed on the downtubes, what I found works sometimes is to have one hand up and one down the basebar.
All in all I am pleased that I blew up the cobwebs and enjoyed the short flight.

fly safe.
Yeah it seems like trivial stuff but still can come back to bite us. For some reason I've been recently having been problems with zooming upwards if I transition to the down tubes too soon on my Sport 2-- I just don't seem to be able to pull in much when I'm on the down tubes. On the other hand I recently flew my Falcon 3 and with that glider there's no issue whatsoever with transitioning to the down tubes too soon-- you can pull aft on the down tubes as hard as you need to keep the flight path from zooming up. Yet in theory the Sport 2 ought to have LESS pitch control pressure and the Falcon 3 ought to have MORE tendency to zoom up if you transition early and then don't pull aft on the down tubes hard enough. Not quite sure what's going on here.

With my Sport 2 I tend to go one hand on down tube, one hand on base bar, till I'm slowed down all the way to trim speed, like you suggested.

Steve
By seza
#398476
Indeed - Aeroexperiement,

Thats my issue with the S2, she seems to "balloon" upwards when I transition to upright, I think the key here is judging the speed accurately ...
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By Nicos
#398477
seza wrote:she seems to "balloon" upwards when I transition to upright, I think the key here is judging the speed accurately ...
Probs want to transition at trim speed, that'd be once there is no bar pressure... either in ground effect or before doing your final approach?
By seza
#398481
That make sense - Nicos,
bar pressure is a good marker that one can feel.