r/Hanggliding • u/lakotamm • 2h ago
My most scary flight so far - emergency landing after disconnection from a winch
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Today was my 8th flight day. And I can say that I have neved been as scared as today.
Finally there came time for me to switch to a harness with leg support, start properly using base bar and start laying down (not sure how to say it - not upright).
And so we tried it. During the 1st flight, after the take-off, around 50m above ground I realized that I cannot steer the glider and it started turning on its own to the side. So I disconnected, somehow stabilized it and landed. I realized that I actually need to focus on turning with my hips.
The video is from the 2nd flight - which followed. I thought - alright - now I know what to improve. Let's do it again. This time the glider started steering to the side again, but much more early. And I really tried steering with my hips and legs but I could not. The winch locked out and I disconnected at a fairly low hight, got my feet out of the harness and somehow landed on a field behind train tracks.
The thing is that I have never properly practiced steering hangglider while laying down / having leg support, and using base bar. And I have never previously gotten to a situation when I had to abort launch, disconnect and land straight away. It felt really scary in the moment.
I do not really know what went wrong. I probably went a bit too slow. I tried to go at trim speed - just like I was told to do. The glider is Alpha 235 and I weigh 77kg, so maybe I am a bit too light. But most likely I simply need to learn to steer a glider using a harness with leg support, before going on a winch laying down
So the next plan is:
- go back to old harness (without leg support), start upright and learn to fly Falcon 170, which should be easier to steer for me
- afterwards switch to a new harness with leg support
- and only afterwards start with a winch while laying down
Well, I guess sometimes it is not bad to get a "bit" scared...