On Saturday, March 7, 2015 at 12:22:04 PM UTC-5, kirk.stant wrote:
On Friday, March 6, 2015 at 8:24:06 PM UTC-6, Bruce Hoult wrote:

The "Speed Gliding" proximity folks are regularly using rolls to give them a second or so (per roll) of effectively 0 G trajectory to follow terrain dropoffs down. I think some of them are even pausing inverted to get more downward acceleration, in the same way that jet fighter pilots do, while maintaining positive G to the pilot and canopy.

https://vimeo.com/108395176

Wow - I'm officially impressed! I didn't even really know there was a "speed gliding" category of paragliding (although it was on Top Gear a few years ago" - I assume they are not suitable for soaring?

Anyway - I stand corrected on the loops and rolls, and learned something.

BTW, jet fighters are accelerated by unloading to the angle of attack and g-load that produces the least drag - which isn't always zero g; in the F-15 it actually varies from "light in the seat" to several +G at high speed, due to the big, cambered wing. In the F-4 we just unloaded until it got dusty in cockpit and went for it!

Cheers,

Kirk

Speedwings will soar. Not really in thermal conditions but ridge, usually beach dunes, in strong winds. The definition of speedwing is broad and rapidly evolving. There are very small ones that wouldn't soar in a tornado up to ones that are slightly scaled down paragliders and will soar in everything except really light conditions. Example of something in the middle https://vimeo.com/38541740