How to Adjust Sitting Positions in a Paraglider

Video Transcript

Welcome to expertvillage.com. My name is Patrick Eaves with Wingenvy Paragliding. In this clip, we're going to be demonstrating what happens after launch. So you've got your wing up and you're kiting and you're running forward as you learned in the last clip. Once you take off from the ground, most harnesses are going to allow you to simply sit down. At this point, the amount of pressure you're going to have in your brake lines is going to be about hanging your hands. They say about 5 pounds of pressure. I don't know how to measure that, so I say just relax your arms, hang your hands. Having that amount of pressure on the lines is going to help you know what the wing is doing and where it's going. If you need to speed up a little, you can give a little bit of extra leeway to the brake; give a little extra slack. Otherwise, just hang your hands. Now you're in control of the glider. Make sure you're flying away from the hill. Now, once you're in the air and you've flown away the hill, if you're still kind of hanging out of your harness. There's a couple tricks you can do to get out of your harness. One is you can put both brakes into one hand. So now you're controlling the glider with one hand. With the other, you can reach down and grab your harness and pull yourself in, then grab both hands back. You never want to let go of the brakes because you're going to lose control of the glider if you do that. Another method if you're still hanging out of the glider; as soon as you're away from the hill and you're in control and in smooth flight, kick your knees up and lean back. That should get you into the glider. One last method that you can do if you're having trouble and you're still not quite getting in, keeping your hands on the brakes, push your thumbs against the risers. Remember, the whole time you're controlling the wing so you're nice and smooth and away from the hill, and just give a little pressure on your thumbs. That should wiggle you enough so that you're nice and comfortable. What you're going to do to initiate a turn is look in the direction you're turning, then you're going to weight shift into that direction. Then you're going to apply some brake on that side while letting up on the other side. That's going to start your turn. As soon as you turn as much as you want, you're going to go back to level body position and then you're going to put your hands back to a neutral position. Maybe even giving a little bit of the opposite brake to stop your turn into that direction. Same with the other way. So you can think of it in this way. You're going to look, you're going to roll, and then you're going to control. Remember to relax the weight of your hands into the lines at about ear level. All your turns should be made in small increments. Don't over control the wing and try to avoid any sharp turns low to the ground.

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