How Not to Land a Hang Glider. My Seventh Mountain Flight in Santa Barbara

One important lesson I have learned is, what actually happens in a flight, and what appears to happen, can be very different things. So, sometimes, even knowledgeable and experienced pilots will give you terrible advice, since they are just watching you fly, while you actually lived the flight. It's important to become very self-aware, and gain the ability to scrutinize your flights, because sometimes, you will be able to spot your flaws better than anyone. It's great to document your progress and analyze your actions on video. This is a fantastic way to learn any athletic sport, and sharing it with other new pilots is a noble endeavor, to help them learn, and attract new aviators to the sport. I commend your efforts and wish you well with your videos.

I loved this format of commented video. Even though you are a beginner and I've been flying for a while, this makes it so nice to watch! And actually valuable for other beginners too! Keep them coming! I'm sure you will make excellent videos when you get into more advanced flying.

Thanks for sharing the video! The joy of lift is palpabale, haha! Keeping your hands on the A-frame in a crash like this is a good recipe for injuries. Your hands / arms / shoulders end up absorbing not only the impact forces when the control frame hits the ground, but also a lot of your body's inertia. People break arms this way. When I learned hang gliding, we were taught to let go of the control frame right before impact, and to bring your arms to your chest in a defensive position to protect your face and neck (don't cross your arms though, that may increase chance of breaking one of them). Note that if you aren't holding on to the control frame when you impact the ground, your body will be swung forwards more than usual since your arms are not absorbing its inertia, and you might hit the sail with your helmet. Higher performance low aspect ratio gliders can even crash their nose into your neck in this case. Be aware of that risk, but if you're crash-landing on your belly, in my experience it's unlikely that you will be worse off if you let go of the control frame at the last moment. Another option is to hug one of the downtubes. Then when you crash, your body will be swung sideways instead of you flying head-first into the ground or into the sail. I've seen videos of people using that especially when they crash with a bank (hugging the top-side downtube), seemed to have worked well. None of these strategies are fool-proof or applicable in all scenarios, it is very situation-specific, so think this through yourself, and ask other pilots too. Good luck healing. Make sure that you'll get full range of motion back. A good physiotherapist can do wonders.

Grear images and narrative man! Congrats from Brazil

Love the commentary and explanation of thought process, you're making great videos, keep it up!

Brest commentary on your video. Im just starting to talk lessons and hearing your insight is awesome!

Wow... Looks like some challenging terrain to land in.

Fantastic

Hi John, nice videos...don't know if anyone else commented but, keep your hands at ear level, on the down tubes, for a good flare. This will help your future landings. Good luck!

""Loosing awareness of altitude, partly due to believing in malfunctioning variometer"" that sound was a SINK alarm from your left turn to the deck.......... As a Instructor. I commend you on realizing your errors. Yet we need to learn our gear as YOU are doing....... watch your video. From when you make the LEFT turn you can see how fast the ground is approaching. it starts just as you make the left......... ROTOR possibly. Sink 100% the dual flare where your feet touch thru the bushes needed to be the WHOLE Flare when in sink an going UP Hill Good job keep it up........ YOU are learning

by the way when the wing lifts left or right that is where the thermal is so crank it over in that direction feet first...like a shopping cart...

Pro tip that has stood the test of time. Arriving at an intended LZ with ample altitude to evaluate conditions in the LZ is prudent, monitoring the windsock, checking for other approaching air traffic, etc., and setting up a good approach IS also prudent. In this case you actually had the altitude to practice a proper approach but you overfly it because you took your eyes off of the LZ, you also didn't check around you for other air traffic, and once again, in a glider known for its ease of landing, you blow the landing and the approach.   Look, when you are flying you NEVER assume anything. To make a proper approach to any LZ requires a pilot to focus on the task at hand. Keep your head on a swivel to scan for other air traffic, keeping your eyes (peripheral vision included) on the LZ is a priority! Doing these things will improve your approaches and your landings. In this case, you way overflew the LZ because you took your eyes off the LZ! You don't rely on a vario beep to establish an approach. Poor flying techniques that are not corrected early tend to follow a pilot throughout their short flying career. You've got a lot to learn. Question. Does your instructor use the video you shoot to critique your flight?? If not, they sure should.

Great video, bummer landing but not as bad as I was expecting. Pretty amazing for flight 7! btw - you keep saying 'loops' and I think you meant 360s. Loops are where you flip upside down, that had me curious for a sec. I've only flown VAC on a PG but you Santa Barbara folks have some amazing sites.

If you see a crash coming let your hands go in the last moment. That's exactly how to break the humerus by torsion and keep you in the ground for a few months. Push the bar as much as you can in an attempt to flare then just let go. I've only had one bad landing in these years, let my hands go, bent both down tubes but didn't get hurt at all! On your specific situation, keep the air speed and do a good flare over the bushes. Better than trying to stretch a bit more and having no energy for a flare at all.

I’ve never heard of or thought, hmmm, it’s a sledride day, don’t think i’m going to fly. Think I’ll just pack it up and drive home. Are you kidding?!!! Sled or not! I’m getting air time!! Live in So Cal, one day it looked like a sled day. Hawks weren’t gaining altitude, a few took off and went straight to the LZ. I waited a little longer. Thought, well I have a bbq at my house tonight, I’ll do a sledride and go home. I launched, within a few seconds I went smack dab into a convergence 1500 feet per minute up for a while. I yelled down, jokingly, don’t launch! The air is terrible!!! Everyone scrambled for their gliders. The first guy off after me got into the same convergence, all others sank out. Me and the next pilot went to 10,000 feet, launched at 2500’. I had so much lift I had a hard time getting down. I was up for 2 hours and was so cold. I had to get into sharp hard banking turns to try and lose any altitude. As soon as I stopped the sharp banking turns and did regular 360s, I would gain altitude. It took me 1 hour to get down. You don’t want to do a sled run???? Sky out brother!! You are in the most exciting action sport there is! Have a safe and fun flying career.

Move your hands slightly higher on the down tubes and push up not out and get the full flare potential with no energy left pushing out at the bottom of the tubes just moves your weight back and doesn’t rotates the nose up much.

That's not a bad landing in lowers. It's a tricky and discouraging place to learn how to land a hang glider. It is rare that the wind gradient treats you well there. Suspect it was a little west and you flew into a shadow. It's the other way around when you have an east tailwind realized most of the time when you turn into final approach where it is getting funneled up the canyon. Try this for a better focused landing routine. You got to pick a landing spot and fly a pattern with your eye never leaving it as you fly your approach, base, and final. The angle should never change from you initial point committing to land and you can adjust to changes by flying closer or away from that point on your approach and base. 45 degrees works well for a left hand pattern with your initial point right over the road at the park entrance. Even if you are low you can pick a spot to land by learning to judge an angle even if you only have a straight in final leg to work with. Also learn to let go of the uprights when you feel that base tube hit. Pull your arms in against your chest, hands high below your chin. That is how you hurt your shoulder by not letting go in the impact.

I came here for Johnny Rain Cloud. Where did he go?

you have a lot more leverage with your hands on the side tubes...

You talk alot bla bla bla you missed the important part in your lesson.... Next time just give you. Self extra altitude Give yourself extra height just in case of a sink or rotor(cut wind) that could put you in such a situation as the video show all of us take care tnx for sharing