Why not have landing clinics at competitions as well as flight
parks

38 58 10.92 N,75 52 0.00 W,Highland Aerosports, Ridgely,
Maryland, USA

Mitch Shipley held a landing clinic during the East Coast
Championship. It was well attended.

Mitch Shipley <<elektratow>>
writes:

There have been nice recent Oz Report threads and articles on how
to successfully land a hang glider! I particularly find Jim Rooney's stuff right
on and enlightening, mostly because he is thorough and does not present it as
"one size fits all".

So how about those landings? It's something we have to do every single time we
fly and we often struggle mightily with it. Considering how we pilots usually
learn and then practice how to land, it's little wonder why. Please excuse me as
I pontificate!

Typically we start our landing experiences on a training hill, trudging up and
down never getting high enough to learn and execute the elements of a successful
landing. Then off to the mountain, where we get one landing a day. If we learn
at an aerotow park, we start tandem with wheels or landing gear that we roll in
on. After we solo, our focus is much more on the fun part - flying and soaring -
than on the landing. Scooter towing schools do a bit better early on with
getting us high enough, often enough, to execute a good approach and landing,
but quickly our focus and aim shifts to flying high.

We spend hours in the air practicing and refining our thermaling techniques,
soaring the ridge and getting to the top of the stack. Not unexpectedly, all
those hours of practice pay off. We fly in the air pretty darn well and we love
it! When we are good and tired (or just as bad, done scratching really low
trying to get up) we go in for the inevitable landing with predictable and
sometimes painful results.

Even when the initial instruction on landing is good, we weren't experienced
enough to internalize and execute it well before we are off to soar high and get
one landing a day. Then we listen to all the armchair quarterbacks in the LZ
provide pearls of wisdom on how not to pound in. Every year we lose good
students, top competitors and all sorts of pilots in between due to poor
landings. We can do better. There are ways to make landing practice easier to do
and more effective in result.

To do anything complex well requires "practice, practice, practice". And yes,
landing a hang glider is very complex and if anyone tells you it is not, they
are a moron! There is no simple, one size fits all, cook book answer for how to
land your particular hang glider, on your particular weather condition day, in
your particular LZ. Don't get me wrong, there are absolutely principals to be
followed, physics that don't change and techniques that work well and ones that
don't. That said, a correct mix of all of these needs to be applied to the
particulars of each landing/glider/pilot system and it is very much a complex
and dynamic thing!

So why don't we practice landing after we become soaring sky gods? Well, because
it's a pain in the ass and it's more fun to fly! Go back to the training hill?
Crank out pattern tows? While everyone else is skying out? Never! I'll keep
pounding in and take it like man! After all, soaring a hang glider is the
"aiming point", the thing that captures our full attention and brings us peace.

OK, so what's a reasonable alternative and what are the required elements to
learn how to land a hang glider without being such a pain in the ass? With full
acknowledgement on how self-serving it is, I'll offer up for discussion the
landing clinic run at Highland Aerosports during the recent East Coast
Championship meet as a decent model.

Eight pilots signed up for the clinic which included three parts: 1) I start off
with one hour of video based ground school on how to successfully land a glider.
2) Three mornings (0800-1000 hours) of Elektra Tows (ET) for landing practice
(about ten tows each) that were all videoed in HD (Thanks to Rich Cizauskas!).
3) Detailed video reviews of each pilots landings, critiquing the good, bad and
uglies of the landing. All three elements are required for success. You have to
know how you are supposed to land, you have to try to land and you have to
objectively see how you did - and then repeat!

While cranking out ten or so landings in a few hours is cool and a required step
in the learning process, it is not sufficient. From the pilot feedback from
fifteen or so of these landing clinics over the last year it is clear that the
other two elements of the clinic bring tremendous value to the process. The most
highly regarded element is the HD video review of each pilot's landings. It is
the biggest eye-opener and help to the learning experience for many pilots.

A close second was the start up video review based ground school that shed light
and understanding on many elements of correctly landing a hang glider that the
pilots hadn't fully appreciated before seeing them frame-by-frame.

Now the techniques and elements for successful landings have been around for a
while. I use Paul and Ryan Voight's list of Landing Clinic Ingredients as published
here on the Oz Report
forum. Seeing a
video of those elements being properly executed (or not!), and then comparing it
to your own landing videos takes the training effectiveness of the list to a
much higher level. We are visual creatures.

Let me throw in one particular landing concept presented in my ground school
that pilots have liked - "Flying the flare". No single cookie cutter flare
approach fits all landing conditions, gliders or pilots. Paul, Jim and others
have said as much, but the point is worth making again and demonstrating in some
videos.

How a glider should be flared (or better yet flown) for landings depends on many
things - how the glider is trimmed, VG setting, and wind conditions being some
of the biggies. In a 10 MPH wind, a no flare approach works well. Just moon walk
the glider out at trim until it settles.

For lighter wind conditions that require flying the classic flare (ending with
full arm extension, glider aggressively stalled and keel near vertical)
generally three "flying the flare" flight profiles covers the landscape of what
pilots get presented with - early, on time, and late. After all the correct
preparation has been completed (carrying good speed margin into ground effect,
body upright, hands well placed, and the all important "feeling for trim") begin
to "fly the flare" by pushing out/up on downtubes.

If the glider starts to climb (early flare), pause at that arm extension and
then finish strong when the glider starts to settle back down. If the glider
continues at the same height as you fly the flare (on time) finish in a nice
crescendo flare and be smiling. If the glider starts sinking as you flare
(late), hit it with all you have and be ready to run.

The point is we all have experienced changing wind conditions (lull, gust,
gradient etc.) that alter what's required both in timing and technique on a
moment to moment basis. What was perfect timing/technique yesterday in smooth
air is late today in an abrupt, thermal induced lull/gust. It's also important
to remember that during the whole rounding out, bleeding off speed in ground
effect and "flying the flare" process, roll inputs to keep the wings level and
the glider heading in the desired direction can and should be made! It ain't
over till it's over, so don't be passive and "go along for the ride" anytime
during your landings. The videos from the ECC landing clinic published in the
next few articles demonstrate many of the elements everyone has been talking
about here on the Oz Report and Oz Report forum.