I don't want the wing to pull me downslope, so (we've done this in another video) you
get the wing to be across the wind, almost 90 degrees, then I'm pulling up from there,
the wing pulls me up the hill, it's much easier to control, I'm letting the wing pull me up
the slope while I'm controlling things, if I like everything I can steady the wing into
wind, straight, and off we go.
The wind's quite strong, so I don't need to be close in on the slope, it also means it's
more turbulent close in to the slope, so it's better to just point into wind, keep riding
it until the lift stops. So I'm keeping on going, still climbing, I don't need to be
near the ridge. There we go, that's the edge of the lift band there, just there. So now
I've established where the lift band is, I can just sit on the outside of that lift band,
I don't need to be in the Venturi, and this gives me options, if the wind increases I've
got more time to get my speedbar ready. Now I'm just going to follow the seagulls around
and fly on the outside of the lift band.
When you're ridge soaring, it's a very good time to practice energy management. You want
to try and get your turns so you're not wasting energy, this will be very useful when you're
thermaling. So when you do a turn, you can do a tight turn, but try and make it so that
when you come out of the turn there's no second swing-through, controlling that pitch on the
brakes so you make it really smooth. So put in a turn, let it swing through and try and
control that energy. It's very subtle, but when you get it right you'll feel it's really
smooth.
The same you can do with pitch control, just coming down on the brakes a bit, letting the
glider dive forward, letting it swing through and now trying to smoothen this one out, now
I'm coming down on the brakes just a touch, ... and there we go, level level level. Very
useful skills to have, and the best time to do it - when it's smooth and soarable, so
there's nothing upsetting your controls.
Another thing you can practice is getting tight turns using weight shift first. So a
little bit of weightshift in my corner, now a bit of brake ... perfect thermaling turn
there. Your glider wants to flatten out a little bit after the first 180, if you keep
your weight in you get a really nice turn, play with that, come out of the turns, back
to level smooth, and the whole time you're working on getting your glider control so
that the wing is nice and smooth, you don't have these big pitches. It's also quite a
lot of fun.
OK, I'm going to do one to the right now, so I weightshift first, and then I'm turning,
getting a nice tight turn round, there's the level-out, I keep my weight in, come around
my 360, and back to level, and let's lock it in there. Lock! Find a point on the horizon
and imagine that you're coming in on rails. Lovely stuff.
When you're controlling your glider, try and avoid pushing your hands ahead of the risers.
This is a common mistake, and what it does is you're trying to stabilise your body by
pushing away, you're pushing yourself back into your harness. I'd suggest try and set
your harness up better so you don't feel the need to do that. This is also a much better
control line, it's straight down, it doesn't have anything in the way, when you go forward
like this you can start chafing the lines against the other lines, so bring it back,
in line with the riser that should be your control line.
If you're far enough away from the slope, you can practice just gentle 360 turns, but
be very careful of doing this when you're ridge soaring, because this turn here (downwind),
you'll find you'll really speed up towards the ridge. So only if you're high and well
ahead.
Oh, it's a bit thermic there, turn into wind, up we go! Steady climb all the way up.
This sort of bowl, you don't want to fly over the road, there again, you're going to get
Venturi (increased wind). I'm turning here, it's about as far back as I want to go.
What a lovely view.