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8.3 Disabling the paraglider and descending
After the reserve opens you have a short time window (typically 3-5 seconds), when the paraglider
is unloaded. If the paraglider regains airflow and airspeed, and wants to fly again, you may be faced
with an increasingly difficult handling problem. Control forces become higher and the chance of a
line twist rises.
It is strongly recommended that the pilot IMMEDIATELY does what he can to disable
the paraglider’s desire to fly!
The best tactic is to
wind in both brakes with symmetric wraps
, until the wing is completely
stalled. As many wraps as it takes. This allows the reserve to stabilise itself in a vertical flightpath
with a minimum of aerodynamic disturbances, all of which would encourage unhelpful behaviours
such as swinging, scissoring, downplaning or acquiring high tracking speeds.
Design trends for improving both paraglider and reserve performance raises the sig-
nificance of these combined problem behaviours. It is becoming increasingly impor
-
tant to allow only one of them to fly (at all).
While a reserve’s performance and behaviour are important,
disabling the paraglider
’s attempts
to fly is also very important –
right down to the landing
. The previous paragraph describes the
simplest way to prevent the paraglider trying to fly, and any lift force from it would encourage an
opposite reaction from the efficient SQR, resulting in pendulum or scissoring – a tug of war with
each flying device racing each other to the ground. Assuming the paraglider has been successfully
disabled by symmetric brake wraps, the pilot should be aware of the dangers of abandoning this
situation before the ground is reached. If the brakes are released before touchdown, the paraglider
