Our curriculum is created in order of importance, if you want to build a house, you have to start with a good foundation. As we spend most of our time while paragliding in a rotation, it is important to understand and do our best to master the control of all the energies and axis there are during a turn at different energy levels and speed.
We use all of these maneuvers in the course to develop the Four Fundamentals
During our work on the maneuvers these concepts are super important to understand. All of these will be practiced in every single flight.
This is the overview of the main maneuvers, we might add others to help you get through in case you get stuck on one maneuver or another.
- Rotations
- Natural Exit
- Rapid Exit
- Asymmetric Collapse
- Frontal Collapse
- Auto-Rotation
- Cravat Clearing
- Back-fly
- Spin Appreciation
There are quite a few other maneuvers we can work on, the goal of the pre-course is to go through the main ones, all the rest is only after the maneuvers above are dialed in.
Our aim is to get you better at your own speed, one step at a time. We want to make you a more confident and aware pilot. We spend as much time as you need at any one maneuver, till you fully understand it and are able to do it on your own. How many maneuvers you’ll be able to do during one course entirely depends on you.
ROTATIONS
Natural Exit - 1st exercise
- Knowledge needed before exercise
- Roll Control
- Rotations
- Catch & Release - Pitch control
- Whip Effect - Hands up!
- Fly With Wraps
Rapid Exit - 2nd exercise
- Same knowledge as for Natural Exit
- Practice Natural Exit first
- Understanding of - Exit Brake
To prepare for Auto-Rotation we will first need to do some work with collapses. Usually these two exercises are done while working on Rapid Exits, in the same flight we will add one or both of these maneuvers to switch things up and to do the work necessary to prepare you for Auto-Rotation.
COLLAPSES
Asymmetric Collapse - 3rd exercise
- Knowledge needed before exercise
- Asymmetric Collapse exercise description
- Briefing before doing the maneuver
- Experience needed
- Roll Control to keep the wing from rolling, even when the wing is collapsed the same principles apply.
Frontal Collapse - 4th exercise
- Knowledge needed before exercise
- Frontal Collapse exercise description
- Briefing before doing the maneuver
- Experience needed
- None, the wing does everything itself.
- This is done to show that the wing is more than capable to recover from such an event as long as the pilot does not make it worse.
- Late Catch and Release is crucial here.
Auto-Rotation rapid exit - 5th exercise
- Knowledge needed before exercise
- Auto-Rotation description
- Briefing before doing the maneuver
- Experience needed
- Rapid Exit - Consistency during rapid exits, separation between all 6 stages.
- Asymmetric Collapse - able to keep the wings heading with asymmetric collapse and cancel the roll while having the wing collapsed (finesse)
- Roll Control
Cravat Clearing - 6th exercise
- Knowledge needed before exercise
- Catch & Release - Pitch control - late catch and release, not to stall the wing as it wants to refly.
- Whip Effect - Hands up!
- Briefing before doing the maneuver.
Back fly - 7th exercise
- Knowledge needed before exercise
- Back-fly description
- Whip Effect - Hands up!
- Briefing before doing the maneuver.
- Experience needed
- Catch & Release - Pitch control - Pilot needs to be comfortable to catch late and hard, to avoid re-stall
- Asymmetric Collapse - - We can come out of back-fly with cravats, it is good to be aware how to keep the wing fly straight, keep the directional control before clearing the cravat.
- Frontal Collapse - This helps pilot to trust the wing, that if it does a frontal, it isn’t a big deal.
- Rapid Exit - In case of asymmetric exit, the wing can shoot asymmetrically and put you in nose down spiral.
- Auto-Rotation - It is possible to have a cravat after exiting and it can pull into Auto-Rotation, pilot needs to be aware and needs to know exactly what to do in this situation.
- Fly With Wraps - pilot should be comfortable using wraps, as in some wing/pilot/harness configurations it might not be possible to stall the wing without using wraps and or it might be too difficult to control the Back-fly
Spin Appreciation - collision avoidance
Spin Appreciation - 8th exercise
- Knowledge needed before exercise
- Frontal Collapse exercise description
- Asymmetric Collapse
- Catch & Release - Pitch control - Pilot needs to be comfortable to catch late and hard, to avoid re-stall
- Whip Effect - Hands up!
- Briefing before doing the maneuver.