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By lizzard
#401841
been flying for a long while so i don't want to sound arrogant but why do i see so few top landings of late .
I won't even consider setting up unless i can put down near where I step off .
I see so many good coastal cliff top landing spots in many videos yet a beach landing is the finalae, with all that sand and salt in all that nice aluminum which hates it.
Has the skill set been lowered ? hang 3 used to be top landing competence .

Is it that newer pilots like their gopros better?
Or something I need to learn?
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By pec1985
#401843
Hey lizzard, do you have any references on that thought? Like URLs to YouTube videos, for example, Also, which places are you referring to? At Fort Funston, for example, beach-landing is the very last option, almost no one lands at the beach unless it's a very light day and there's no other option, sink out. We always top land.

Cheers,
Pedro
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By lizzard
#401847
Good to hear Pedro,

I fly alone most of the time but at sites where the beach option is available so many don,t top land .
I may just be seeing inexperience as when a few gliders are about i land and usually go home due to mid air stress and refusal to allow a parachute to be a must have .

so little space is needed for most xposed xbar gliders .. are the toplesss gliders harder to top land ?
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By lizzard
#401862
Thanks for the heads ups ..

hang gliding to me is more about glassy air and zero stress.
I will make some of what I call fly wall (cliff top)landings but almost into wind on flare.

Unless there are already many i don't know of
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By jlatorre
#401872
lizzard wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 4:26 pm
I may just be seeing inexperience as when a few gliders are about i land and usually go home due to mid air stress and refusal to allow a parachute to be a must have .
At Marina Beach in California, where I flew for a while, we seldom got high enough to worry about parachutes. On light days, we'd take them out to save weight.

Of course, Marina is not your normal site anyway. We used to not only land on top, but take off from the bottom.
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By kukailimoku2
#401902
And there's that one day at Marina when the convergence kicks in and you're in a gaggle at 2500' and you're parachute's in the truck!

Juuuuust a little bit of pucker there.