Line material
How do the different types of line material perform, both when new and over time?
Packing your glider
Packing away your glider may be something that you’ve not given much thought. Perhaps you just follow a familiar pattern that has altered little over the years as different wings have come and gone. Or you may have carefully studied the manual for your current wing, and thoughtfully worked [...]
How long should my glider last?
One of our least favourite tasks at Aerofix is to ring up a pilot and let them know that their glider has reached the end of its life. It’s a call that is often half expected by the glider’s owner, but that doesn’t make the news any less unwelcome. But [...]
Where on the wing does porosity matter most?
We all know that the less porous our canopy fabric is, the better. It is important that our wing stays pressurised, and cloth that leaks air will reduce that pressure. But is it equally important all over the wing, on the bottom and on the top surface? The proper maintenance [...]
The risks of deep stalls
The risk of suffering a deep stall has featured in SkyWings Airmail in recent months. In March, Nigel Page observed that “porosity and line shrinkage can both make a wing more prone to deep stall”. So how serious a risk are these two factors to our flying safety? There are [...]
Making loops on lines
The lines of our paragliders have loops at each end to connect the maillon, to other lines or to the line tab on the canopy. But how are the loops made, and is there anything we should look out for? In the early days of paragliding all lines used were [...]
Avoiding mistakes
There was a safety incident reported in SkyWings last month where a paraglider service workshop had failed to attach a segment of the brake cascade. Clearly that’s a mistake that should not have happened, but how do we minimise the risk that mistakes are made in the preparation and checking [...]
Taking care of your lines
I’ve focussed before on line strength and line length, both of which are critical to the safety and performance of our gliders. But what are the practical steps we should take to make sure our lines remain up to the job? It used to be assumed more widely than it [...]
Porosity
Canopy porosity In the past two articles we’ve focussed on line length and strength. But our gliders’ performance and safety also depends critically on the porosity of the fabric because increased porosity will reduce internal pressure. So how good does the porosity have to be, and what causes it to [...]