Reserve parachutes are an obvious safety measure, but are often misunderstood in the sport of paragliding.
It should be noted that the use of a reserve chute when paragliding is a very rare event. Many highly experienced pilots have flown for many years, even decades and never had to use one, but here's why they are carried.
When skydiving, the use of s reserve is clear. If the main parachute does not open, or opens partially tangled, the diver cuts free from one chute, and deploys the reserve parachute. Voila... safe return to earth.
Paragliding however presents its own peculiar issues. Firstly, a paraglider pilot only takes off when the main wing is open and working perfectly. So why is a spare chute needed? The answer lies in a fundamental difference in design between paragliders and parachutes. A parachute is an air brake designed to slow your descent in a controlled manner. Most parachutes descend in an aerodynamically stalled condition. That means that there is turbulent non laminar flow over the top surface of the parachute.
Paragliders however are a true wing, and only fly when the airflow is laminar and non turbulent. The wing loading is much lower in a paraglider and therefore the wing is less aerodynamically stable. If a paraglider wing is stalled, is no longer flies... it becomes very unstable, and usually folds into a horseshoe shape.
Due to this characteristic, paraglider pilots must fly there wings carefully. The relative airspeed of the wing and angle of attack need to be controlled by the pilot using the brakes. Failure to do so may lead to instability or wing collapse.
Therein lies the need for a reserve parachute in the sport of paragliding. Many pilots flying competition wings (which are extremely high performance, but very unstable) actually carry two spare chutes. This is primarily because some main wing collapses can result in the bundle spinning. Releasing a spare safety chute simply twists into the main wing in a process called candlesticking. As you can imagine a candlestick doesn't fly too well, but the pair of twisted chutes usually stop spinning. The second reserve is launched for a safe return to earth.
This raises the next issue. The whole process described above takes time, and time is altitude. There is virtually no point in carrying a spare parachute if you are flying sand dunes at 40 meters above the ground. Be guided by your instructor about actual equipment performance as it does vary. Most reserves need at least 30 to 50 meters to deploy effectively.
Naturally the market has demanded that producers develop fast opening reserve parachutes specifically for the paragliding industry. The producers have responded with a dazzling array of equipment from plain round chutes to center pull chutes to steerable arrow shaped reserves and even rocket propelled chutes for ultra fast openings.
Marco is a avid pilot of many types of aircraft. Marco recommends the following website as a complete guide to the sport of paragliding including resources and images.
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