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Strong wind ground handling is all about not panicking - have a think about that. i.e. what happens to you control inputs when you panic?... I don't normally have much problem launching in strong winds - unless it's above flying speed etc. of course. The reasons I don't have many problems is not cos I'm any better pilot than any other fucker - it's probably because I may have considered a few glider principles, and I realise that these must be attended to or things could get difficult.....Aw fuck, I don't have much else to do anyway, so I'll elaborate a bit if you like.....You can always delete this if you think it's bollocks.

Things to consider.

1. Remember all ground handling is about rhythm (sympathetic resonance etc.) - e.g. when you build a wall in light winds, you wont have much luck if you try to inflate one side by short snatches of an 'A' riser. - you must learn to 'bounce' the wing on the ground at the freq it wants to bounce at, with steady smooth inputs - also you never pull a riser towards you - you always lift it. i.e. the riser should always be more or less straight.

2. Choose a sensible launch point. e.g. launching from the flat top of myerton e.g. is stupid - you're in the fast flowing compression zone. You launch here and assuming you get it up, you've got to sweat like a bugger to push forward to the steep bit where you should've been in the first place. walk down 20 - 30 feet into the lift band - wind may be 5 - 10mph slower so easier to handle.

3. In strong winds - once you build a wall, always have the centre higher than the wingtips - remember wingtips are designed to be able to fly a bit faster than the main chord of a wing. They have to fly quite fast when you turn etc. They produce less drag etc. If you have high wingtips in your wall, 1 of at least 3 things may happen: No.1 - if your wall is directly into wind then the slightly higher wingtip will come up first, so you've a turning correction to make right away - idiot! No.2 - If you have both wingtips even height but wall not perfect into wind, the downwind tip will come up first - similar problem, (but sometimes worse - glider slews etc and lose balance etc.) No.3 - if both come up evenly they'll undoubtedly come up before the centre and 'clap hands' in the middle (horseshoe) - looks stupid and has similar effect to a full frontal i.e. if it recovers it produces a lot of drag and pulls you up hill and into compression zone which you traverse on your chin - that's entertaining (but only if it's not you).

4. You can bring a glider up by centre 'A's' if you have split risers, or with 'A's' and 'B's' if you don't. This should bring it up a little slower. If you're an insensitive bugger and lift the 'A's' with same amt of force as if it were a 5mph wind then you deserve to have the glider go vertical like the space shuttle. If you do this then you'll also be too slow to catch the frontal that follows and won't have even considered the 'banging open recovery' that follows as the wing falls back to 60 degrees and proceeds to yank you off your feet and onto your chin (see No.3 above). Just remembered. If you're one of those guys who brings the wing up and turns around and tries to race it downhill without any damping - hell mend ye! (Or maybe Ward 28 might be able to) You'll get a frontal 50% of the time I reckon. (yet again - see above). (If you choose to bin this email, obviously that's great - I'm doing a good deal on chin guards on my website next month). Not damping a wing on reverse launch is asking for it. It's a 'hope for the best' method and is absolutely because of low confidence in control ability.

5. You begin to fly your glider as soon as you pick up your harness - even before you do up the 1st buckle. (It's got air flowing over it - it's flying - just because some of it is on the ground and it's not moving through space doesn't mean it's not flying - trust me on this - after the 1st buckle, it can be dangerous. You know you don't want to disturb it while you're doing up a harness cos it can take off and kill you - so you don't annoy it when it's at this stage, do you? Let's assume you can get it moving and it's begining to come over your head. Now you need to damp it. You need to give it as much as it takes to slow it down. Pulling brakes increases angle of attack which increases coefficient of lift which produces lift which lifts you off your feet maybe - so what! Now you don't even have to read the next section! You're away - well done! Just watch the wing as you spin round in mid air and fly it the way it needs to be.

6. Ok. You got it up and it pulled you up the hill a bit. Now you're in the compression zone a little - no probs. Corrective steering in high winds is subtle. It can be slow too. (Remember you want the wing to be flying as fast as possible at this point or you won't get forward to the steep launch point). Think about this - If I tied wee Jim McColl to the tandem and pushed him off the top of myerton on a nill wind day all by himself, I reckon he'd have a ground speed of about 7mph (and that's with trimmers off). Why's that? The tandem needs about 20 stones on it before it'll fly at 20mph. It's the same idea with your wing. Remember that club pilot stuff where you learned about the lift vector having a horizontal and vertical component? Well, your glider will produce as much lift as it needs to, no matter how much weight you put on it. If the lift that it produces gets bigger, then the horizontal component of the lift vector gets bigger. What's the horizontal component of the lift vector? Well, it's the force that pushes the wing forward. If the force gets bigger, the wing flies through the air faster, easy! - Still not got it eh? - ok. Tommy and me are site officers (apparently). If you cross the wall at the top of myerton at the wrong point, then I'll punch you off it and you may land on your bum on the other side of the wall. If Tommy punches you off it, you may land at the other side of the bowl - he used a little more force. - Got it now? Yep! Thought you might... You still haven't twigged how to increase the horizontal force that will push your wing forward yet, have you? Put your weight in the godamm harness! The more weight you can get the wing to carry, the faster it will travel through the air and so you can get it forward to launch point. You can do this in 2 ways I suppose. If you're facing the glider, then you lean back to about 30 degrees to the horizontal if you can. Now you're definitely not taking much of your own weight so the glider has to be doing most of the carrying. If you're already turned around and facing launch then you lean forward to about 30 degrees and push with your toes. If you're pushing with your toes then you can't be carrying much of your own weight, unless you're a ballerina, and I reckon there are none of you out there that have that kind of grace and elegance. To aid in your concentration of minimum weight on the ground, just imagine that big Snowie was up the day before and deposited the remnants of one of his vindaloo curries all over the flat top of the hill. Now, a thin crust has formed over the snowie droppings - underneath it's still radioactive! (You definitely don't want a full frontal here). You've got to negotiate your way forward to launch point over the top of myerton - got the idea now?

7. Now you're pushing forward but the S.O.B. starts to go to the side a bit - you know, the side where the wall is! Bugger! Now, I never said you can't use your brakes here - of course you know that your brakes decreases airspeed. We want to keep airspeed to a max. You know that ground handling involves your hands and your feet too. When you're in a compression zone, trying to push forward, you want to use your feet to correct a wandering glider. You won't slow it down with your feet. Sometimes this is enough. Sometimes it isn't cos you were too slow to anticipate the side movement and you let it go too far. Now you've got to use some brake. 6 inches of brake in a 20mph wind will have a similar effect to 12 inches of brake in a 8 mph wind. i.e. use as little brake as is required for steering corrections. Be gentle or it'll lift you into the wall anyway!

8. You made it to launch point where the hill drops away fast enough and you're in the air. It's quite likely you could be lifted quite suddenly to about 100ft or so. As you are lifted the wing may pitch back. Your brakes should be off at this point. Be ready for the slight dive forward as you reach the top of the lift band - damp it! If you don't you may get a frontal 100ft above the hill and find yourself having to top land in the compression zone. If you do go backwards and land somewhere windy, remember that as you land, the flying speed of the glider will decrease suddenly as you take the weight off the glider and transfer your weight to the ground. You can either keep hands high and try to push forward again to launch, or you could keep hands high 'til your toe meets the ground, then pivot on it and use brakes or back risers to bring it down whilst breaking triple jump records as you race towards it. (Don't trip and get dragged on your chin. Big Snowie was up the day before and...).