Phr00t

Ahhh, that is an interesting idea I haven't thought about before.. At the bottom of my surge, I also applied power (with brake) to help level out my flight path. I sometimes use power while flying to keep myself "level" in little bumps. But, when I get knocked back.. my only concern with power would be how delayed of a response the RPMs are.. but, while giving power on the swing forward, you may be able to use less brakes to control the surge -- just as long as your not giving any power when your still facing up.. - Jeremy

Hey all, About 10 flights ago, I hit some gusty winds in the air. I was relatively close to the ground, so I came down and landed immediately. However, I got hit by a gust that slowed me down, and threw my wing backwards. I immediately went hands up and power off. I didn't "control" the oncoming surge by pulling some brake, because I was worried about going parachutal from the speed decrease. I instead sunk quickly forward with the surge, and pulled brake when I neared the ground, resulting in a rather uneventful landing. My instructor told me I should have pulled some brake when the wing started swinging forward, which I agree. But, looking back at the situation, was there any benefit to letting the wing surge to "gain speed" and start flying again? Or is this a misconception...? Thanks! - Jeremy

Thank you for the welcomes You guys have a much better forum community than here in America

My next wing might be a reflex one.. they always sound so interesting This is the field I take off from: (url doesn't work) Moody Bridge Road, Hadley, MA, USA There are some mountains to my south.. however, not a bad place to fly (if it wasn't for the bumpy air) Here is a video of me flying in the area (except for the first faceplant ) -- no bumps during the video though.. I must have been above the bumpy air and never really "hung" out in it to really notice it before: Do a Google Video search for "phr00t's hijinks" Thanks! - Jeremy PS. I tried to put the URLs here, but I get some log_spam() missing function error

I generally only fly about an hour before sunset (and some past sunset with my strobe) -- so I can't imagine it being thermals. I say wind shear, because at the ground -- the wind is just about dead. However, once I get a few hundred feet in the air, my wing starts to sway and bump in the increasing winds aloft. I checked my GPS unit, and it said I was going 13MPH, so there was a ~11MPH wind difference between the ground and a few hundred feet. It is at this few hundred feet I start to not climb as much, because I worry about being under full power with the bumps. This causes me to stay in the "sheary" area... I should keep climbing and get out, I assume. There ARE 900ft/270m mountains 2mi/3.2km south of where I was flying from, and the ~11MPH headwind was from the south. This might be the cause of some of the bumps, but I was under the idea that they were far enough away for the winds to settle before hitting our launch site.. *shrug* Thanks again for the pointers!

Thank you for your helpful reply. I don't know how "bumpy" these other guys are in the air.. they might be just as bumpy as I, but they are not thinking about "wing loading", so they don't complain/worry like I did. I was hoping I didn't have to go for an equipment change, so it is nice to hear you think increasing my loading wouldn't help. My instructor suggested letting out my trimmers into the wind to improve penetration (which I guess would somehow reduce bumps?).. but I hear this also reduces stability.. so I haven't been to quick to try it. Generally, I just keep a constant brake pressure in bumps, and let up on the brakes if I feel the wing go back any. However, what I really want to do in bumps is gain altitude to get out of the wind shear and find smoother air -- should I keep brake pressure while giving full power to climb out of the bumps, or would this risk too high of an angle of attack? I've heard the phrase "hands-up" to go up - Jeremy

Hey all, I fly a Dudek NemoMoto Large (27 m^2). I'm 140lbs (body) + 5.5kg (wing) + 56lbs motor + 6lbs gas + 7lbs equipment, which puts me around 100kg all-up weight. If I my weight divided by the projected area of my wing, I get a hair above 4 kg/m^2 loading. However, I know it is common knowledge that for PPG flying, you want to be on the high-end of your weight range on your wing. The Dudek Nemo Large is weighted for 80kg-115kg, so I fall at just about the center of the weight range. I worry because my last few flights have been rather bumpy -- I think it might just be from some wind shear in the area, but other pilots do not complain as much as I about bumps, and they fly much faster in the air than I do (they fly Muse wings, which are also DHV-1). I know they are on the higher end of their weight ranges. However, looking at other paraglider wings, their weight ranges are much lower for comparable sizes. For instance, the APCO Karma SMALL is only around 0.4 m^2 smaller, but the weight range is 60kg-90kg... so flying "heavy" on that weight scale would equate to being at about the same wing loading as I am on my Dudek Nemo. Am I correct to be making such comparisons? Do you suspect I'd notice a reduction in bumps in the same air, if I was more heavily loaded on my wing? Any other suggestions? Thank you! - Jeremy