Hang gliding Campaign
Vol 4 Issue 1
July 201 8
CREDITS PAPALOTES 2153 VOLUME 4 ISSUE 1 July 2018 Cover- McLovin low pass South Side Point of the Mountain, UT April 2018 Right- Above Inspiration, UT March 2018 Back Cover- Cotton Gin NC August 2017 Editor Note: Papalotes 2153 is a photo journalism project/experiment to promote the growth of hang gliding and other endeavors of free flight aviation. Papalotes 2153 is NOT an company, organization, association, or corporation. There are no officials, chiefs, directors, board members or annual elections. There are no club meetings, no membership renewals or fees. There are no ratings, sanctioned or unsanctioned competitions, or awards. There’s no points system or regulations. It’s not a Fly-In or skills clinic. It is not a report, network, Think Tank or facebook group. It’s not governmentally funded, crowd funded, or funded or a charity. It’s not a religion, or a “state of mind”. There are no admissions or initiations. It can not be bought or sold.
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Main Article EASY FLYING p.5 PILOT PROFILE Jeff Loro p.9 Pick List p.15 p.12 What is...? p.4 2
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What is PAPALOTES 2153? Is it a Place? A free flight shangrila? Where the lapse rate is always perfect and top of lift is 17999 ft and there are plenty of big grassy fields to land in. You can always get a ride because everyone who lives there loves aviation and even hang gliding is celebrated. Sounds nice don’t you think? I been to and flown some amazing places that come close. Have you been there?
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EASY FLYING
This may be the best thing for hang gliding since the use of a hang straps in stead of hanging from your armpits. No It probably not the thing that will save the sport from extinction but it’s heading in a better direction. Wills Wing has now presented and test flown the “Easy Flyer” across the country and has been flown by many pilots with all sorts of success. Some may turn their nose to flying with wheels or seated like they did in the 60s and 70s, but this isn’t for them anyway. In spite of flying upright maybe being old fashioned this is really a more futuristic concept. Do not misjudge paragliding as flying a modified parachute when it is an actual flex wing, an evolved hang glider. We all recognize that paragliding is more popular and growing much more than Hang gliding. With the recent re-engineering of the introductory level of our sport, both in equipment and instruction, there is a good chance of reinvigorating the enthusiasm and growth of Hang gliding. I’ll break down a few ways how. Now I don’t mean to say that people aren’t enthusiastic about hang gliding or that the sport is dead... yet. I mean if your reading this then your probably pretty into it. I refer to an interest in HG from the greater general public, the masses. At least enough that they even know what is. Sure, we may forever have to explain; that’s “Para-” not “hang-” gliding, similar maybe to “Futbol” vs “Football Americano” which you’d explain if you we’re from almost any other part of the world. We could come up with a name like Soccer which sounds nothing like ball or feet but works great for branding and directing US athletes and fans to the desired venues and equipment. We could call it Triangle Dangling? Well Wills Wing has the right strategy with the Easy Flyer and “Easier Flying”. We all know some of the current issues with flying hang gliders, especially new students. For starters, where do they even start? There are less and less places to learn let alone to fly once you get a rating,
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NOTICE TO PILOTS:
It is highly recommended to practice steering on flat ground or shallow slope before any high altitude launching or towing and less sites are accommodating or even safe for a beginner to gain experience at. Many schools have doubled down on when to graduate their student so that they are actually closer to having advanced skills before truly flying solo for the first time. I can attest that this is hard work, for the student and instructors, not easy. I’ll come back to how the Easy Flyer and Other training wheel design concepts can change those issues and get into some of the other hurdles. Flying upright or seated is not only comfortable, but possibly even less strenuous on the body (as long as you don’t land on your tail like PGs) but even more importantly it’s less intimidating than running head first into the unknown. It’s fun and once you do know it’s less scary to dive into the sky, but in the beginning a lot of people prefer jumping in feet first. By hanging people in seated harness it’s often already familiar, (from sitting in swing sets, roller coasters, airplanes, etc) plus they load the glider sooner or right away in the Easy flyer. They don’t even need to think about jumping. Part of the idea with Alpha shown on the left page, with what looks like it has a lift kit and balloon tires, is so that a student can still launch and on their feet but not have to hold up the glider. With both designs a pilot will still have a bit of a challenge ground handling (or taxiing) into position to launch but the earth can carry most of the weight and not have to balance awkwardly a tail heavy wing on their shoulders or back. They can learn to do that later, after they’ve flown a handful of times, if they want. Which brings up the next challenge, roll control for level take off and landings. Neither of these designs completely eliminate taking off in a turn (we know first hand), but by starting on level ground and the wheels having a much wider base than the pilot the wings stay level a lot better, and similar to most airplanes if a wheel touches down before a wing tip it levels off more often than not as energy dissipates. Obviously strong cross winds or improper input from the pilot can still cause a catastrophe but when learning we mostly already avoid those situations, by staying out of bad weather and by adding altitude incrementally as student demonstrates proficiency. Whether its starting on flat ground and low on the hill or towing and just rolling until they demonstrate straight lines before actually getting airborne. First few flights they don’t even have to run it out or flare, just keep it into the wind. They can learn those techniques on the
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next one, after they’ve smiled and giggled a bit. It’s much easier to roll the glider back into position than carry it. Especially with help and so far every time I’ve seen the Easy Flyer out there have been many helpers (‘cause they each want a turn). I’m sure over time designs will get easier to ground handle or transport whether in materials or techniques developed to do so. Along with not having to run as often using wheels and it helping keeping wings level, we found a couple other interesting benefits. Especially with the Alpha experiment, we saw the landing gear can help with hard landing impacts, similar to the gear found on bush planes. The big air filled tires and some flexibility apart from the rest of the airframe allow for pretty soft landings. We haven’t done any straight down dives into the ground and I don’t think we will, but so far we haven’t seen a whacks after a not so perfect touch down (not immune to ground loops yet). Basically there could be less broken downtubes. Another thing that maybe happening is with the extra distributed evenly underneath the glider it may actually be adding some stability and damping pilots inputs which is not a bad thing for a student who makes erratic or too many inadvertent inputs. I am not going to say that this is the future of Triangle Dangling/Hang gliding, and that we all need mud tires on our gliders now. In fact if your already an advanced HG pilot this isn’t really for you. It’s for your friends, family, your coworkers, anyone who would fly but hasn’t done yet because they or you think; “can’t run, can’t carry glider, don’t have time, can’t drive in straight line (ok maybe they need extra help). They should do a tandem and then present them the Easy Flyer, before they pick up paragliding. Actually this
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Right: Wills Wing Alpha 210 and experimental Landing Gear on sand dunes Bottom left: Mitch demonstrating Wills Wing Easy Flyer to pilots a Columbus Day Fly In at KHK Morningside, NH
might get more PG pilots to try out a flex wing with an airframe. Maybe one day some guys will even be competing seated with a version of T2C with “re-tractable gear”, but that’s not the goal. It’s not really even to sell a ton of “training wheel kits” as it is to just make hang gliding easier and more accessible to anyone. It’s already become common for many students to go through all their training up to a H2 before they own their glider, and then some of them will buy an intermediate glider (‘cause used super sports for $200 is too a good a deal to pass up right?), instead of something they can really safely build experience flying. What if schools had a few bush style trainers, always set up and ready for a beating, and then could sell/buy back they’re Falcons or other trainer type gliders to the new H1s at a more sustainable frequency and students have a lot less to figure out before they go running of a mountain... If that’s what they want to do. They also could just be tow pilots who just want to show up at the flight park and wheel out they’re Easy Flyer or similar aircraft, already set up, and get a lift to cloud base. That glider could be a “club glider”, maybe partially owned by the school or shared between a few buddies. Similar to some sailplane ops. Maybe somewhere is already doing this, I hope so, and that the idea continues to spread. I’m stoked to see what innovation comes next, very much hope to see a Tandem Easy Flyer, a way to steer for paraplegics and possibly a motor mount. I Also hope to continue experimenting with alternative ways to aid foot launching and landing. If your interested in learning more or trying out an Easy Flyer or the Alpha with experimental landing gear check out Kitty Hawk Kites on the Outer Banks or in New Hampshire. -EM
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PILOT PROFILE
Adv and Tandem HG Instructor Private Pilot Electrical Engineer Musician From: Greensboro, NC Hang gliding since: 2010 Current Wing: WW U2 145 Last year Jeff flew production tandems in Florida, Tennessee, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Virginia. Currently resides in SLC Utah. Will be competing in the Sports Class at Big Spring, TX in August 2018
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The Evolution of Surfing
Discovered in 1700s
Early 1960s
Circa 1980s
Turn of the Millenium
D ATA
In June 2018 there were 1,410 HG open class pilots but now in July there are 21 less. After the Pre-Worlds all of this Data will change but the proportions will likely look the same. maybe Johnny Durand will even move back to #1 in rankings. There are 1,389 current FAI ranked competition pilots from 50 different countries world wide. US have 93 pilots, and Austrailia makes up the largest group nationally of 137 pilots. 13.87% US
USA 6.69% 96.68% total Men
3.31% total Women
1.04% US Women
Austrailia 9.86% There are 382 total ranked pilots in Open Sports Class 1. There are 53 US ranked pilots 4 are US Women.
There are 46 total woman ranked in the HG Open Class I
7.54% US Women
92.47% US Men
92.46% US Men
7.52% US Women Other 48 Countries (83.55%)
12.12% US Women
There are 7 US ranked Women in the HG Open Class I
15.21% US Women
Of All women Competing in Open Class I over 15% are from the US
Info from www.fai.org/rankings 2018-07-03
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Of All 33 women Competing in Open Sports Class 1 only 4 are from the US
64.19% US Open Class I
35.81% US Sports Class 1
Of All US Ranked FAI pilots the Majority competes in the Open class I category. In other words majority fly advanced Topless gliders. However the sports class group is growing.
There are 6,731 FAI ranked PG pilots. 566 are woman, 255 are US, 19 are US women pilots. There is no sports class for PG but there is a seprate Accuracy (spot landing) category, and two more categories for Aerobatics (solo and synchro).
0.28% US Women
3.78% US 8.2% Women
Top Ranked Open Class Pilot is Alessandro Ploner [ITY] #1 322.8 pts Top Ranked Open Class Woman is Kathleen Rigg [UK] #88 140.4 pts Top Ranked Open Class US Pilot is Zac Majors #30 214.6 pts Top Ranked Sports Class Pilot is Carlos Alvarado #1 344.6 pts Top Ranked Sports Class Woman is Sara Weaver [USA] #36 57.5 pts Top Ranked Sports Class US Pilot is Mark Vanderwerf #5 275.5 pts
HG 1,978
Above: Zac Majors getting ready to launch Inspiration UT July 2018
PG 9,026
FIFA 207
IFAF 104
You can see above the popularity of HG and PG as world Professional sports compared to Futobol and American Football. However even as popular as paragliding may appear to us any form of gliding is no where near the popularity and participation level of Futbol and Football Americano Internationally.
Jo h nny and J e f f launc hing Sara Weaver in East FL. Marc h 2017
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* PICK LISTS * Screen Time.... Already this year there have been some pretty amazing movies in the theaters. Lots of sequels and stories from connected universes with retro themes with and extreme special effects. Here is a short list of some that include some entertaining flying.
READING: The Undoing Project
-Ready Player One-
Ever think about Hang gliding into a Tornado? Steven Spielberg did and shows us what a HG game would be like in “Oasis” (the words “Hang Gliding” actually appear on screen), plus tons of other virtual flying scenes.
By: Michael Lewis
-Black Panther- Known for the movies made from How about remote flying his writtings, Money Ball, The Big of Wakanda Fighter Jets Short, the Authors latest is a wonthat look like they derful presentation of the incredcould go in space? When can we get a ible lives of Danny Kahneman... and vibranium airframe Amos Tversky. Two Phsycologist for our gliders? who, after surviving so much, chal-Avengers Infin- lenged the status quo and made ity Wars- great discoveries about the human Just... Whoa. mind and behavior which has influ-Solo: A Star Wars enced so many fields and areas of Story- life reality and even virtual reality. Lots of space ships but There are neat stories about flight watch for the Millennium Falcon. instruction and parajumping in war times and with Delta. A good read for any pilot, a great read for an inHeads up structor or flight park operator who TOP GUN 2 coming 2019 would benifit from some behavior economics and marketing ideas or potential teaching tips and tricks.
The most recent PAPALOTES 2153 Video https://youtu.be/dGETvfb4ceY
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In the L Z
This summer I hope you get outside and enjoy some f lying, as many others are. With national GDP and spending at record highs and the excitement of the World Cup watch out for others outdoors with us. For example bikers and ATVs on the roads to launch, soccer goals in the LZ, RCs and their pilots wearing FPV goggles and pizza delivering drones. You could sigh and complain about these forms of recreation affecting our f lying or... you could combine them!
Captain America 1979
FLY F LY F LY
FLY FLY FLY