< PreviousMagnets and compasses Not all pilots realise that some mobile phones and other portable electronic devices contain magnetic sensors to measure the direction in which the device is pointing. Anyone using any kind of magnetic direction indicator should be aware that magnetic brake-handle keepers, camera mounts and, particularly, closures to pod harnesses and flight deck pockets, etc, have the capacity to seriously alter compass readings and render them misleading, if not useless. Magnets do not affect GPS units (though metal, carbon fibre, and human bodies can block their very low power radio signals), but some GPS units and smartphones do have magnetic compass sensors that can be affected. If your magnetic or electronic compass display is giving strange readings, including not altering with changing heading, a local magnetic field is a likely culprit. Removing the instrument from the harness, flight deck, etc, will often corroborate your findings. Resite your compass or device well away from built-in magnets, metalwork, etc. Many manufacturers avoid the use of magnets close to instrument locations to obviate this risk; if any such device incorporates magnets this is usually mentioned in the instructions. The magnetic compasses in some GPS units can be set to automatically switch out when the unit is in motion; check your manual for details. In such cases, as long as you have enough forward motion, a GPS-derived heading or compass reading will likely be reliable. Manufacturer’s Safety Notice Line connector inspection: AirDesign Eazy 2, Eazy 2 Superlight, SuSi 3, Vita 2, Vita 2 Superlight, Rise 3 and Volt 3 An isolated case of a line-tab failure has been observed during an SIV manoeuvre on a glider, produced in 2018 with around 300 hours of flight. Some of the loops on this glider were presenting visible damage on their edges, leading to low resistance. As a precaution, we ask pilots flying the following gliders produced in 2018, with the serial numbers ending between P183912A and P184417A, to carefully inspect all their glider’s line- connecting tabs. This visual inspection concerns Eazy 2, Eazy 2 Superlight, SuSi 3, Vita 2, Vita 2 Superlight, Rise 3 and Volt 3 gliders. Should you find similar damage to that shown in the photo you should immediately stop flying the glider and contact your dealer, or AirDesign at serial number and the estimated number of hours flown. Mention which loops are concerned (line plans are downloadable at and share photographs. Should you have any doubt, we recommend you to bring the glider to your dealer or to the nearest check center for further loop inspection and information. for updates. AirDesign GmbH A-6067 Absam, Innsbruck, Austria 10 SKYWINGS JANUARY 2024 safety matters GASCo safety evenings Jan 16 Compton Abbas Shaftesbury Jan 30 Biggin Hill Bromley Anna Sivyer Feb 7 Westonzoyland Bridgwater Andrew Sindrey Feb 19 Cheshire Sandbach Sharon Cox Feb 21 West London White Waltham Feb 22 LAA Kent Maidstone Steve Hoskins Mar 20 Samlesbury Blackburn Richard Hine 08.10.2023. P rated pilot aged 58 Experience: 200 hours (65) Site & conditions: Parlick, 10-15km/h, strong turbulence Glider: Phi Maestro 2 Incident: Within a minute of take-off it became clear that there was excessive turbulence. Pilot elected to landing at bottom of hill. A full frontal collapse led to spiral dive into the side of the hill. Injury: Serious: cervical spine 13.10.2023. Service report Glider: Ozone Kona 2 Incident: Paramotor wing was sent for first service after 2 years and 35 hours. Porosity measured on the leading edge top surface Dominico 30D material was much lower than expected with readings of 25, 20 and 13 seconds (JDC Porosimeter). Undersurface Porcher EasyFly material showed excellent readings of over 275 seconds. 14.10.2023. Pilot aged 46, rating not recorded Site & conditions: Devils Dyke, 10-15km/h, not turbulent Glider: Niviuk Skin P Incident: Pilot was observed attempting a 360 degree turn close to the hill. Glider started to spin but was recovered by the pilot; subsequent dive resulted in hard downwind landing. Injury: Serious: feet, legs 14.10.2023. P rated pilot aged 57 Experience: 2500 hours (40) Site & conditions: Frocester, 15-20km/h, not turbulent Glider: Ozone Zeno 2 Incident: Immediately after launching, pilot noticed the outside B line had snapped 1m from the B riser. Was able to land safely using weight shift; does not not know how line break occurred. Injury: None 19.10.2023. P rated pilot aged 46 Experience: 47 hours (5) Site & conditions: Lift Sopot, Bulgaria, 0-5km/h, moderate turbulence Glider: UP Rimo Incident: Pilot hit sink on final approach and was unable to get their legs down before catching a hump on the ground with the underside of their harness. Injury: Seriously: thoracic spine 22.10.2023. P rated pilot aged 59 Experience: 2379 hours (125) Site & conditions: Eype, 30-35km/h Glider: 777 Queen 2 Incident: Pilot accidentally touched harness on ground while soaring in strong wind. Wing fell back and pilot was dragged into a bench and bushes. Injury: Minor: feet, legs 11.11.2023. P rated pilot aged 56 Experience: 800 hours Site & conditions: Carlton Bank, 5-10km/h, not turbulent Glider: Ozone Alpina 4 Incident: Pilot was scratching in light conditions and misjudged height and sink rate. Contact with the hill and heavy feet-first impact. Injury: Minor: feet, legs 20.11.2023. AP rated pilot aged 63 Experience: 800 hours (36) Site & conditions: Devil’s Dyke, 20-25km/h, not turbulent Glider: Skywalk Mint Incident: On packing up, pilot discovered a brake line was wedged into a crack in the riser maillon plastic insert and quite difficult to pull out again. Does not know how the crack in the plastic insert occurred. Injury: None 02.12.2023. CP rated pilot aged 24 Experience: 17 hours (11) Site & conditions: Rushup, 5-10km/h, light turbulence Glider: Ozone Geo 2 Incident: Pilot misjudged approach to bottom landing field having encountered sink. Was forced to make a tight turn to avoid a tree, then struck the top of a wall. Injury: Minor: pelvis BHPA club parachute repacking sessions January 14 Dales lkley Clive Sury February 3 North Wales Chester Ian Home February 25 Thames Valley (BFR) Aldershot Please book all repack places in advance; some clubs may require money up front or a deposit BHPA Accident and Incident digest The following is an edited digest of Incident Reports submitted to the FSC between October 14th and December 12th 2023. Note that we now include the pilot’s experience and recency in hours; thus ‘Experience: 20 hours (5)’ indicates 20 hours total airtime and 5 hours within the previous six months. The complete database of reports can be found BHPA club coach courses Jan 13-14 SW Wales Nick Roberts 07421 991746 Feb 10-11 Jersey Dan Wickham 07797 754618 Mar 16-17 Peak Mark Bosher 07926 298560 May 18-19 Green Dragons Andy Shaw 01883 65266612 SKYWINGS JANUARY 2024 Part 1: Inspection Damp days. Mud on launch. Bog in landing field. Long nights. Cold. Not very inspiring for going flying! But have no fear – every day is one day closer to spring, when you can play in lovely, punchy thermals. Will your glider be ready for it? Now is the perfect time to do that winter glider check. I am a firm believer that pilots should be competent and confident with looking over their own equipment. When did you last give your gear a thorough look over? There’s no time better than now. If this is not for you, there are a few places around that offer a commercial glider check-over. You can go to different levels on a glider inspection. The simplest is to rig it in your garden or a local play park (even a car park, with carefully-placed carpet offcuts to protect tubes and sail), and give it the really thorough looking over that it might not receive when our thoughts are on conditions and the upcoming flight. So pick a calm, sunny day and rig your glider for inspection. Always work methodically. A notepad to hand allows you to record the process and note items that need attention. It also gives you a kind of audit trail: when reviewing your notes you will realise ‘I never did that back up again!’ and correct it. Take photographs as you go; you’d be surprised how easy it is to forget in which order, or which orientation, parts go back together. We dealers are keen for the products we support to be safe and to fly well, so don’t hesitate to contact us for advice. And bear in mind that, with some jobs, you’ll save yourself (and the dealer) a lot of stress if you just get them to do it in the first place. It can take more time and cost to rectify something an owner has screwed up than for the dealer to have done the job from the word go. So know your limits. Know what you are competent to tackle and when you need to hand off to the dealer for their expertise and support. Go slowly as you rig and be super-critical, looking for defects. There might be items that are not yet unsafe; now would the time to sort them. You don’t want to be waiting for a simple fitting or clip from halfway around the world in mid-summer. Here are some things that you should consider. Battens If you have adjustable batten ends (clip type or Avian rotating type) they should be adjusted to give the correct sail tension. I mention them here as part of a winter check, but these should be checked, and adjusted if necessary, every time you rig. Many people still have them set where they were when the glider shipped from the factory. Our sails are in a constant state of flux dimensionally. This is to do with age, but also to being repeatedly rolled and unrolled, putting more/less/different creases in the cloth and changing the batten tension required. As you rig, adjust them to be just right. Clip type battens should be just starting to be resisted by the sail at around 30 degrees from being clipped in. The Avian style have a longer lever arm and should be just pulling tension on the sail before clipping home. You should also check that they hold enough load before popping open. Some manufacturers issue a value for this; I’d just recommend applying a sensible force by hand and replacing any that don’t hold. Older gliders don’t have clip batten ends. Some have a spring end that fits into the trailing edge which can’t be adjusted, but it’s worth checking their condition and making sure they are function as they should. Non-stretch string-type batten attachments should be set so they just take a bit of a pull to get the string into the batten-end V – not so much that they are cutting into your fingers or need a tool to get them on. If you have bungees, do they still have good stretch or have they perished? Now is the time to replace them, not when one fails on launch on the best day of the year. Check your battens against the batten profile. Battens on older gliders were made of softer material that often changes shape, but are easy to re-set by carefully bending them over your knee. If you don’t have a batten profile, check for symmetry by comparing the battens from either side against each other. More recent battens are made from 7075-T6 and these rarely go out of shape. Wills Wing designer Steve Pearson says that he doesn’t worry about a batten that is within a half-inch of the profile; side-to-side symmetry is more important. All battens are prone to cracking at both ends where the plastic fittings are swaged in; closely inspect the ends for signs of this. Sail fit and symmetry The sail changes dimensionally over time in chord and span. If your glider has tip wands, be super-critical of how much tension is required to cam them over. This is where an experienced dealer or glider repair outfit is useful. Most people get used to how their glider is and may not have a good feel for what it should be like. Tip wands that are too tight spoil handling, make the glider stiff in roll and cause it to wind into turns. I find many pilots are flying with too much leading edge tension. There is no performance gain from a tight leading edge. I would always recommend having sail tension adjustments done by your glider brand’s dealer. Different manufacturers do things slightly differently, and type- specific knowledge is important to getting it just right. Gliders without tip wands are harder to check as it’s more difficult to determine how tight it is. But they too can have a big impact on handling. Check for symmetry by looking over the rigged glider. Does the sail cutout at the nose plates sit symmetrically? Check the inner leading edge sail ties – the little straps that anchor the sail to the leading edge tube. They stop the sail slipping back when the wing is folded and should not be tight on a rigged glider. Now grab the keel, stand back and look over each wing half, comparing to the other side for equal billow. A good dealer Looking after your wing HANG GLIDER DEALER PETE MONTGOMERY DELVES INTO THE MAINTENANCE ISSUE hang points Sail ties at nose plates reveal uneven leading-edge tension Clip-type batten end, just pulling tension around 30 degrees prior to latching Cracked batten tube at end fitting All photos: P ete MontgomeryJANUARY 2024 SKYWINGS 13 can spot leading-edge tension issues by looking at the billow. Tighter leading-edge tension leads to lower trailing-edge tension and gives greater billow. With a helper holding the keel up, stand back and look at the glider from the front, sighting the reflex and twist in both wings to make sure that everything looks symmetrical. An unsymmetrical glider will not fly nicely. Reflex (the upward bend in the sail at the training edge) is critical for safety, and prone to change as the sail changes dimensionally. Most manufacturers will state reflex figures in the manual. This usually involves checking the height of the training edge at multiple points on the span compared to the keel. If you find your figures don’t check out, talk to your dealer. Pretty much all luff-line equipped gliders use steel luff lines, but the sail’s changing dimensions will alter the amount these pull the trailing edge up. Some older gliders used polyester cord and these can change dimensionally a lot over time. Higher-performance gliders without luff lines but with multiple sprogs should be more stable in this regard. But they are more prone to being ‘tweaked’ by people who don’t really know what they are doing, so it is still critical to check the reflex. Hardware and fittings Be super-critical of all hardware and fittings as you rig. Look at each component and think, ‘My life depends on this – is it in the best condition?’ Hardware is cheap – if in doubt, change it out! The correct tightness of nuts and bolts is tricky as it depends where they are. Bolts through tubes shouldn’t be so tight that the tube distorts. But bolts like the heart bolt at the top of the A-frame shouldn’t be so loose that there is slop in the knuckle fittings. They should be loose enough to rotate, but not so tight that they can’t rotate easily. Side wire tangs should be just able to rotate to allow them to align correctly. Other bits of hardware might not seem that important, but it is frustrating to lose a nut or pip-pin in the grass on launch. Self-locking (metal stiff or Nyloc) nuts should not be turn-able by fingers alone. Replace any that are. Check tubes at hardware attachment points for hole elongation or deformation of the tube. Upright and base-bar ends are typical candidates for this kind of defect. Also inspect the hang loop and backup carefully. If there are any signs of wear or fraying, replace them. Tubes It is important to check all tubes for dents or deformation. Tubes can get dented from transport and storage as well as flying; knowing you haven’t had a whack doesn’t necessarily mean no damage. On most gliders the outer leading-edge tubes can be removed fairly easily, and it’s worth making this part of your winter inspection (see your glider manual for how-to). Sight down them for straightness, or roll them on a couple of horizontal rails to check for a bow along the length. For a tube inside the sail, run your hand along it to feel for defor- mations through the sail. With the outer leading edge removed, look up the inner tube from the tip end with a torch for signs of dents showing on the inside of the tube. Cross-tubes can be inspected by looking inside the sail (lower centre zipper or sprog zippers for access), but you’ll need a mirror on an extending pole to see all of it. Wires Most manufacturers use stainless steel wires. This isn’t a great material choice, engineering wise. About the only positive thing about stainless is that it looks shiny! It is very prone to fatigue when flexed. No matter how nice and shiny a wire looks, if it has a kink in it you need to replace it – every time you fly that kink is being flexed. Think about how critical each wire is to flight when you weigh up whether they should be replaced or not. Lower side wires are the most critical and take the most load. Most manufactures say these should be replaced every year or 100 hours. I think every year is rather over the top and something like every two or three years is more realistic. But do you know when yours were last changed? Probably never. It is well worth replacing them now. I always recommend using manufacturer- original equipment if you can. Failing that, Avian can copy any wire if you send them your existing one. They make their wires from galvanised steel, far stronger when new and less prone to fatigue than stainless steel. Check the wire tangs as well. Often a wire will look fine but the tang has taken damage. This often happens to lower side wire tangs when you break an upright. Take your time and look at each wire along its full length, and at each end tang. If in doubt there is no doubt – change them! Internals Have a really thorough look inside the sail at things that are normally hidden. Some gliders have shear ribs joining the top and bottom surface of the sail. Sometimes these are sewn in, but they may be removable with Velcro or zips. The latter can come loose (or be left loose after a sail refit or other work). These are very important as they have a huge impact on handling! Check the VG cord and system. A failure would probably not be life-threatening, but a VG cord letting go when fully on can be alarming. Changing one can be a puzzle (take lots of photos before removing it), but the cord itself is cheap. Change it now for peace of mind. Check the pulleys out too as they don’t last forever. If you have sprogs, check all the hardware and fittings. Sprogs should never need adjusting, but yours may have been altered by a previous owner. Only adjust them to return the glider to the manufacturer’s reflex spec. Sail off? There are certain things you will be unable to see without removing the sail. This is not for the faint of heart and I would recommend all but the most competent owners to leave this to a dealer. I have frequently seen things put back seriously wrong when someone inexperienced has done a sail refit. You should think about having the sail removed every 3-5 years, no matter how well you look after the glider. It is the only way to inspect the entire airframe. Part 2 next month will cover flight testing and rectification. Distorted lower side wire tang Shear ribs visible through clear top surface Frayed hang-strap webbing Distorted hole in base-bar end Metal self-locking nut (L) and Nyloc typeManston is an ideal venue for such an event. It comes with a long history of aviation: the Dambusters flew training flights from here; Concorde flew from here, the first Human Powered Aircraft to cross the English Channel was based here. There are acres of space for the competition deck and for camping. For foreign visitors Kent offers a stunning coastline, and a short hop into London by train from nearby Ramsgate. In 2023 we tested the site for the British Open and National Championships; our hosts at the RAF Manston History Museum and owners RSP were brilliant. We will continue to develop our plans for the WPEC event when we run the British Open Paramotor Championships (BOPC) here in June. We will publish more details nearer the time through the championship website, not least about opportunities for spectators to come along and see some of the action. The final award ceremony will take place in the afternoon of Saturday August 10th. The Endurance competition format has been extensively tested and developed in the UK since we adopted it as the annual BOPC format in 2018. It is based on the FAI ‘classic’ format, and in principle it contains many of the same tasks and tests the same pilot skills. But in delivery it differs greatly: pilots are given a much larger area over which to fly, over longer periods, during which they make their own choices as to which routes and tasks they undertake. This brings additional challenges for the pilots, both in strategic ground planning based on weather forecasts over the period, and in aerial decision-making, adjusting routes and plans on the fly as conditions vary from those forecast. This delivers a much more enjoyable experience for the pilots, who also get several times as many hours airtime as they would in an equivalent classic competition. The map area available to pilots covers the whole of Kent, from Manston in the north- east corner down to Dungeness and Rye in the south-west (around 3,000 square km). Across this are distributed in excess of 100 turnpoints and a series of precision routes. On a typical ‘open navigation’ day the flying window might be open from 0700 to 1800. Pilots are free to decide when they fly within this, up to a specific maximum airtime (typically five hours). They may choose which precision routes they want to take, or simply collect turnpoints, and may make any number of refuelling stops within each daily flying period. The three types of precision navigation route mirror the classic FAI tasks. Precision curve navigation (‘snake’) requires pilots to accurately follow a curved line within a 250m corridor. Declared speed navigation requires pilots to pre-declare, before take-off, their time of arrival at each turnpoint (in seconds from crossing the start), requiring some ground-based navigation planning. Constant speed navigation requires them to fly each leg of a given course at constant ground speed – particularly challenging when the legs are curved! Balanced equipment selection will therefore be essential to maximise the distance/fuel economy of these long-distance flights. Ultra-reliability of engines also comes into play. The competition will also test fuel economy more specifically, through either a classic thermalling task with limited fuel, or an FAI triangle distance task: pilots must fly, with limited fuel, the largest equilateral triangle that they can, returning to the airfield at the end of the flight. Finally, classic precision tasks are also included. These typically bring pilots back to the airfield from their XC by 18:00 for an evening of spot landing, bowling landing or similar. A recommendation for any spectators: a lot of the local action will take place in the evenings. Each national team will consist of up to 14 pilots – seven in foot launch and seven in the trike class. This number is reduced to six in each class if there is no female pilot in the team. We anticipate a total of around 70 pilots altogether. The UK now has an excellent squad of pilots who have more training at this type of flying, from our national championships, than those of any other nation. Please join me in wishing them the very best of luck in bringing home a few medals for Team GB! Final selection for the British paramotor team will be made after the BOPC (June 18th-23rd). The top three scoring British pilots in each class will be guaranteed a place on the team. The paramotor competitions committee will allocate the remaining places from British squad members, based on BOPC ranking and previous performance at competitions, and also at squad training events during the year. Any pilots interested in joining the squad, to participate in training and put themselves forward for a team place, should contact Training Officer Ric Womersley at I am honoured to be directing this event, which I hope will be the pinnacle of my own experience and contribution to our sport. And I take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of the team who will be supporting me to deliver it: the committee, the marshal teams and other assistants, the sponsors, and of course the BHPA. All these have played an essential role during the last six years in helping to reshape the landscape of British Paramotor Competitions to this point. Updates and news will be available through the official championship website: 14 SKYWINGS JANUARY 2024 FAI World Paramotor Endurance Championships 2024 THE PARAMOTOR WORLDS ARE COMING TO THE UK IN A NEW GUISE. BARNEY TOWNSEND EXPLAINS … propellerhead I am delighted to announce that the first FAI World Paramotor Endurance Championships (WPEC) will take place from August 3rd to 10th 2024, at Manston Airport in Kent. Nations from around the world will send teams of pilots to compete in both foot-launch and trike classes. It will be the first time that the Endurance format, ratified by CIMA for FAI Category 1 status in 2019, is delivered as a championship at this level. Photo: Neil IrwinHANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING LIFE INSURANCE CRITICAL ILLNESS COVER APPLY ONLINE OR CALL TODAY TO COMPARE RATES WITH YOUR CURRENT COVER Sports Financial Services Ltd is an appointed representative of Suttons Independent Financial Advisers Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered in England and Wales. Registered No. 493197. 0345 565 0935 INCOME PROTECTION16 SKYWINGS JANUARY 2024 comp lines XC competition results Final scores in the UK National XC League are now in and the 2024 XC League and Winter XC League have started. As we went to press Fred Robinson had taken the top spot in the latter with several flights totalling 50km from Scotland’s Moorfoot Hills. The main 2023 event was taken in some style by Richard Meek, ahead of Steve Watts and Dougie Swanson-Low. Thomas Wycherly’s declared FAI triangle from the Malverns in August was the highest scoring flight of the year, just pipping Hugh Miller with bonus points, after Hugh’s monster flight from Sharpenhoe to Devon in June scored the best free distance. UK XContest. New for this year, a best-of- three-flights no-declarations contest was taken by Hugh from Thomas and Joe Dart. The Malverns looked to be giving the Scottish Highlands a run for their money as the best UK spot for XC circuits. That said, there were some very impressive out- and-return and flat triangle flights in the lowlands this year too. Kirsty Cameron, finishing 4th and top female pilot in both UK XC contests, pulled out some stunning flights over the flatlands on tricky days. Her 100km FAI triangle in April was streets ahead of everyone else that day and the third best UK flight of the year. Worldwide XContest. Timo Leonetti won the World XContest League by a huge >10% margin. His five flights scoring over 500 points included two 300km FAI triangles in the Alps. There were big distance flights from the tow in Brazil and South Africa too. Quixada, Tacima and Ceara State, NE Brazil. This year’s XContest started on October 1st and Timo is already sitting in second place. Another trip to Brazil proved fruitful, with three of the best five flights worldwide to his name already. Two of these flights were over 500km, made on consecutive days! PWC Superfinal The culmination of the Paragliding World Cup Series season, at Baixo Guandu in Brazil in March, sees legend Robbie Whittall listed for the Superfinal with a wildcard entry. The rest of the British team and candidates look to be attending too. 2023 UK XContest winner Hugh Miller, seen here coming up on Milton Keynes in August Richard Meek, National XC League winner Kirsty Cameron, top woman and 4th in both UK XC contests French star Timo Leonetti: World XContest win and breaking records everywhere Former (1989) World Champion Rob Whittall – wild card entry at the PWC Superfinal? Photo: Rob Whit tall Photo: Jocky Sanderson Photo: Richard Meek Photo: Timo Leonet ti Photo: Andre w Kruszynski AAdv ll venture l y n live your SI SS‘‘MANMANSKY ESIR SKY ybrid single h THE SKINNGLE WERWERPOPOTTOSOSMMS SHAR S with 20% double surfskin EDMUND RFUL IS RFUL eacf K EDSIR SHARKDMUND K EDSIR cShort t pomos SHARKDMUND sttry flighounoss-ccr hermalling T ly Fe &ikH orerful single skin fwo K PG Race – Indy Flyer’s pop-up racing app Born of lockdown boredom, and brought to life by Guy Anderson and Indy Flyer – with help from others with coding, servers, testing, etc – PG Race is a free service that can be used to progress and develop your XC flying. It enables paraglider and hang glider pilots to create, share and compete in ad-hoc race tasks without the need for any formal competition structure. It employs a dedicated app for Android users, or a web app for iPhone fans and PC users. The system was primarily designed for BPRA training camps and flashmob XC pilot parties in the Malverns and Black Mountains. The gist of it, and the rules, are simple: get some mates (that bit is down to you), agree a task, enter it into your phone and fly it. Then submit your flight log and compare your results with automatic time-based scoring. Planning a task is straightforward using apps like Flyskyhy or the web-based FlyXC.app. Once set, you simply add the task to the PG Race vault and make it live. Once the task is live your mates can enter and then you can all go fly – there’s no need to run the app in the background or even have it open in flight. Submit the flight after you land and the scoring is automatic; being time based there are no lead-out points, and there is a time factor for those that don’t make goal too. Having used PG Race a few times, I can report that it’s best to create tasks the night before on a proper computer, but it’s still possible to do this with phones on the hill. At Ager in September, Indy and I were loading the British and Dutch Open Continued overleaf18 SKYWINGS JANUARY 2024 comp lines tasks using the QR codes made and shared at the daily pilot briefing. It all depends on your techno skills – Indy is much more adept than I am at this sort of thing, but I can manage to get it going and entered each day. Planning a task. If you’re new to flying tasks it may be best to get your coach or local hot-shot to set tasks at first. Simple considerations like limiting the into-wind legs and thinking about the placement of turnpoints will make it easier and safer. Be careful where you set your goal too. Safety considerations during the task. Obviously there’s no meet director or weather briefing person to scrub the task and call it off. This is very much between you and your mates – remember that it’s supposed to be for learning and private kudos, not glory or trophies. PG Race gives you the ability to make it local: practice taking starts, hitting turnpoints, flying a course, judging glide to goal. You could set a task on your local ridge with a turnpoint at each end and one up- or downwind in the middle. Then fly laps with your mates and see who did best at each aspect. You might realise that you lose time going too deep in turnpoints, or that you could have taken that last leg of the course much faster. Just be mindful of the red mist and don’t get carried away with the task. Pushing bar hard and low is never a great idea, especially if you’re going to do this in spring when the weather is feisty and pilots are not so current. There are tutorial videos on the PG race website, as well as an overview and user guide. Get to grips with it over the winter months and we’ll see you above the hills in Spring! more info. Next month We hope to be able to report from Colombia on the SRS Piedechinche event in the February issue. The British Winter Open takes place later this month at Roldanillo. Good luck and tight lines to those flying south for the winter. Reports by Phil Clark Using XC Race you can set a local task with a couple of turnpoints Below: a page from the comprehensive XC Race user guide Photo: Richard SheppardJANUARY 2024 SKYWINGS 19 product news planar rescue parachute Developed in-house by Gin Gliders, our planar reserve uses new anti-billow rib technology. Lines are attached to triangular ribs deployed in a cross shape, this greatly reduces the billow of the canopy and produces an almost flat upper surface. As a consequence, the projected area is increased by 30%, giving excellent sink rates with a lower flat area and packing volume. • Stable descent with no drifting • Rapid and smooth opening • Reduced weight and packing volume • Well-considered sizing and weight range • Flat packing • Simple and neat closing Genie Race 5 The latest iteration of Gin’s top-end racing harness is claimed to have a 10-15% performance advantage over the Genie Race 4, thanks to extensive wind tunnel testing at Korea’s UNIST facility. It uses a fabric with more structure and employs plastic reinforcements in strategic places to retain its clean shape and resist any fluttering or flapping. It features adjustable geometry, 9cm Koroyd protection, and a dual zip system to make it easy to open and close the cocoon in the air. Gin says its drag coefficient is lower than anything else on the market. The Genie Race 5 comes in four sizes, the M size (1.70-1.85m pilot height) weighing 7.5kg. It’s available from Gin dealers everywhere. Yeti Cross 2 Gin have also released a completely redesigned version of their best selling Yeti Cross emergency parachute. The Cross 2 adopts the square ‘planar’ form seen on the Yeti UL to provide stability and performance in a light and compact package. Extra lines are attached to triangular ribs in a cross shape to create an almost flat upper surface, increasing projected area by 30%, yet reducing weight by 18%. Three sizes cover max loads of 85, 105 and 125kg; descent rate at max load (125 size) is 5.2m/s. Prices start at £619. From Gin dealers everywhere. Airborne: a photography book Pedro Ferrão Patrício, a former surfing photographer based in Serra da Estrela, Portugal, has published Airborne, a 170-page large-format (270 x 240mm) hardback paragliding photography book. Pedro’s debut work uses a superb selection of images and captions ‘to share the joys and tribulations one goes through while flying.’ It’s not only suitable reading for present and future pilots, but also for anyone to whom you have been been trying to explain why paragliding is so addictive. Greg Hamerton describes Airborne as, ‘A real gem, packed with deeply thoughtful moments of paragliding life, with a great sense of humour and photography.’ Photo here is ‘Flying over Broccoli’, or Phi Symphonia over São Miguel Island, Azores. Airborne (ISBN: 978-989-33- 5034-8) is available at 42 euros plus shipping, exclusively from Next >