- Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:08 pm
#403855
Dear HG pilots,
It seems that:
Over the last 12 months I've been engaged with transitioning to a seated flying setup (neck injury), and have been left wanting in terms of control authority and available proven flight systems — no HG manufacturers seem to want to know... except perhaps Avian who also make custom suprone (seated above the bar) gliders, rigged with shorter downtubes that are raked back and different length side/front/rear wires — but I don't want a custom glider which is limited to seated flying. Nor do I have the coin or space for something like a Swift or whatever.
So against much everyone's advice, I made some handles, got a spreader bar and a PG harness. It worked, but only with some big compromises.
And when I think of our fading demographic, I wonder if seated flying might give HG a reprieve from a fizzling death... it could allow many pilots to keep flying (think: keep buying gliders) for another 10 or 20 years, and might even bring some PG pilots over to the dark side.
Visibility (therefore safety) is greatly improved. You can comfortably look in any direction.
Injuries could be somewhat minimised with a seated position too (if flying dangerously close to terrain is your thing).
I didn't want to lose much performance, but that's just not realistic when flying in a PG seated position (given I don't want to spend 5k on a PG harness). And all that bum padding doesn't help either. Though, maybe if you were flying in a flat-on-your-back, toes-first position pointing into the airflow...?
But primarily, I didn't I want to lose ANY control authority in the transition — now I believe that aim is little more than a pipe dream. If you fly seated, your authority IS somehow limited (ie. you can't flick your legs/thighs out for full roll, full pitch is problematic, and there can be flare rotation issues).
So all of this led me to realize that I want/need to be able to fly both seated AND prone, depending on conditions/mood/painLevels/etc — but there is no proven existing prone/seated harness system that's commercially available. Lately I have been working on something that provides a good a solution, which will be available very soon.
Can you help?
As part of the development process, we now need input from the wider HG community (prone, seated, prospective & retired) — would you mind doing this 2 minute survey? Your input could help a historic innovation in the free flying world — https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2JH28XQ
Exciting times!!
Here's a vid with my bars and bulky PG harness (flight #3). Checkout the first baby flare at the end.. far from anywhere near good enough — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuBz38dIYvI
It seems that:
- Many older HG pilots have stopped flying due to pain and injury issues.
- HG seems to be dying a slow fizzling death
- Some PG pilots have expressed interest in flying hang gliders in a seated position (I really don't know why... perhaps its a familiarity thing?)
Over the last 12 months I've been engaged with transitioning to a seated flying setup (neck injury), and have been left wanting in terms of control authority and available proven flight systems — no HG manufacturers seem to want to know... except perhaps Avian who also make custom suprone (seated above the bar) gliders, rigged with shorter downtubes that are raked back and different length side/front/rear wires — but I don't want a custom glider which is limited to seated flying. Nor do I have the coin or space for something like a Swift or whatever.
So against much everyone's advice, I made some handles, got a spreader bar and a PG harness. It worked, but only with some big compromises.
And when I think of our fading demographic, I wonder if seated flying might give HG a reprieve from a fizzling death... it could allow many pilots to keep flying (think: keep buying gliders) for another 10 or 20 years, and might even bring some PG pilots over to the dark side.
Visibility (therefore safety) is greatly improved. You can comfortably look in any direction.
Injuries could be somewhat minimised with a seated position too (if flying dangerously close to terrain is your thing).
I didn't want to lose much performance, but that's just not realistic when flying in a PG seated position (given I don't want to spend 5k on a PG harness). And all that bum padding doesn't help either. Though, maybe if you were flying in a flat-on-your-back, toes-first position pointing into the airflow...?
But primarily, I didn't I want to lose ANY control authority in the transition — now I believe that aim is little more than a pipe dream. If you fly seated, your authority IS somehow limited (ie. you can't flick your legs/thighs out for full roll, full pitch is problematic, and there can be flare rotation issues).
So all of this led me to realize that I want/need to be able to fly both seated AND prone, depending on conditions/mood/painLevels/etc — but there is no proven existing prone/seated harness system that's commercially available. Lately I have been working on something that provides a good a solution, which will be available very soon.
Can you help?
As part of the development process, we now need input from the wider HG community (prone, seated, prospective & retired) — would you mind doing this 2 minute survey? Your input could help a historic innovation in the free flying world — https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2JH28XQ
Exciting times!!
Here's a vid with my bars and bulky PG harness (flight #3). Checkout the first baby flare at the end.. far from anywhere near good enough — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuBz38dIYvI
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