Asymmetrical tuck/collapse, Front/symmetrical tuck collapse – Windtech arial User Manual

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better to under-react than to over-react. Over reacting to a situation can prevent the
glider from self-recovering, and recovering air speed, and cause it to enter further unsta-
ble situations.

-- asymmetrical tuck/collapse

An asymmetric tuck / collapse is when part (one side) of the wing ( say 20% or even any-
thing up to 90% of the span) tucks or collapses, usually induced by turbulence but some-
times also though poor pilot control in turns and wing-overs.

The ARIAL is tested and certified to automatically recover without correction by the pilot
with a maximum direction change of 90 degrees of turn, but with the correct input the
pilot can minimise any turning, and height loss, and help the glider recover more quick-
ly.

There are 3 basic steps to follow immediately if you have a collapse:

1: Weight shift to the flying side of your glider (away from the collapsed side). This helps
stop the rotation

&

increases pressure in the wing in the inflated side.

2: If needed apply the correct amount of brake to the open (flying) side to slow any rota-
tion (spiral) induced by the collapse. Be very careful not to use too much brake as its pos-
sible to stall the flying side of the glider, and enter further unstable situations which may
be harder to recover from than the collapse itself.

3: Once the glider has straightened out, or the spiral has slowed, smoothly pull down the
brake on the collapsed side, with a long stroke/pump,

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the deflated side of the glider

should re-inflate. As the glider re-opens release the brake immediately but progressively.

With instruction

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experience the above will become a reflex action, and the correct

input to give will become second nature to the experienced pilot.

-- front/symmetrical tuck collapse

A front tuck /collapse is a symmetric tuck of the leading edge of the wing, starting from
the centre of the canopy to the wing tip. This can be either a tucking of just the central
part of the leading edge of the glider, which can sometimes cause a front 'horseshoe' or
'rosette-ing' of the glider, or even a complete 'blow-out' of the whole canopy in extreme
situations.

When flying, a front tuck may occur while leaving a strong thermal, or more often while
using the speed system in turbulent air, or sometimes whilst flying down-wind of anoth-
er paraglider

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being 'waked' by the wing tip vortices of the glider and wake turbulence

of the pilot.

Remember, the pilot can learn to help stop collapses by flying 'actively', but if a front
tuck does occur it will easily clear itself. Re-inflating the wing can be helped by correct
pilot input and, once the glider is overhead, symmetrically applying 40 % of both brakes

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then releasing immediately will get pressure back in to the glider and speed up the

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