it's a windy day we've got sailplanes up so it's a good day to talk about speedbar
so because the wind is strong I'm right out at the front of the lift band. if I'm
getting lift I don't need to go back on the ridge. so right in the beginning I'm
gonna just test the ridge band. being right out in the front here keeps me
safe. I'm not going too high too fast and then getting stuck at the back.
I'm still getting lift here. I'm still climbing. so that's the first thing with
flying in strong conditions: you want to be right out in front on the lift band.
I'm not using my bar and I can analyze conditions and now I can slowly drift my
way back just to stay in the lift band. The lift band will be out in front.
the stronger the wind is the more that band pushes out in front. you're using
speed bar to get yourself out of trouble. I wouldn't use speed bar just so that
you can fly, that's the first thing to say. if the wind is that strong it's not worth
flying. if you have to be on bar. the bar is only gonna give you 5
kilometers an hour maybe 10 kilometers an hour max. it depends on your wing. all
right so I've got up I'm a bit higher now I'm getting into the upper wind which is
often a bit stronger because there's no turbulence and no drag, the surface drag
that slows down the lower layers. so this upper layer is just running smoothly
across from a long way, it picks up speed so I've got slightly less penetration up
here. My forward speed I'm looking at my GPS I've got about 10, 11 at this position so
that's 12, 11 there. just going to that position with my hands up takes it up to 20,
18 ... that's quite a change from there with a little bit of feeling of the glider
you know if you're holding it back and you go - to there. let's put some music on.
sounds good? yeah, so the speed bar you want to use just to get you out of
trouble. you're only gonna get about five kilometers an hour on your glider. seriously.
most B gliders ... maybe ten kilometers an hour if you're lucky and the conditions
are smooth and you can keep the bar on sustained, it doesn't make a huge
difference. so that's your little safety margin for when you've got things wrong
and you need a little bit more oomph and you're going onto bar. So keep it
there as your safety reserve. on a wing like this, my lovely OMEGA XALPS,
I've got close to 20 km/h to speed up. again I'm only using
that extra last piece as a safety and I'm expecting to get about 10
km/h usable. our trim speed is often about 35, it's less than you think
and on full bar that's getting 45 maybe maybe 50 okay, don't expect to get 60
so now going on to the bar I want to be sure my glider is fairly stable I
don't want to just push the bar when the glider is jumping around like this so make sure
even if you need the brakes just get the glider settled and then ease it up and
let it stabilize. okay now you want to get your first foot on I've got one foot
on. I usually put my fingers against the inside of the risers just to stabilize
my body and stop yaw. I'm then pushing down half bar that's nice and easy I'm
now on half bar. now once it's stable and settled I get
my other foot my second foot back onto the second loop and I push down onto
full bar. Now I'm on full bar racing along . I'm gonna come
off the bar. I come back with one foot, let it stabilize, second foot, let it ease out
wait a second and then turn. the way it works on the risers: there is my A's
there is my B's, on your glider these Bs are in the middle.
You're pulling the front down on the speedbar, and your wing tilts
nose down. when you do that your angle of attack decreases and your wing gets closer
to the relative air flow that's coming onto the nose, and you are closer to having a collapse
from turbulence.
so you only want to do it when the air is reasonably smooth and when you are on bar
you need to be very vigilant about the turbulence. If you've got a
speed brake riser system where your back risers are connected through the B risers
to the A's or a 2 liner like mine you can use the back risers just to keep contact
with the wing while you are on speed bar and you can pull down on them a little bit
as you are guiding out the bar. so here I've got my hands on the back risers (this is
a 2 liner glider) so now I can go out onto the bar, first step, second step and
now if I wanted to slow down I can pull on the back just to control the wing and
stop pitch movements. my foot is still on full bar and this allows me to come
back off the bar without moving my feet. if it gets really rowdy I'm gonna back
off and just go back onto normal flying. if you feel that things are getting
bumpy don't use the brakes make sure that you're coming off the bar to get
back to trim speed. when using big ears it's very good to use the speed bar as
well to give yourself a little bit more tolerance for stall so check out our big
ears video and you'll learn more about that there. the other situation when you
could use speed bar is to optimize your glide angle. check out our article on
speed to fly there's quite a lot of theory behind it but I wouldn't worry too
much about using your bar if you're going downwind. It's not really gonna make
much difference, it's only when you're going into wind and you're trying to get
your best glide angle against the wind over the ground. it increases your ground
speed. usually half bar is a good position to go onto to
optimize your glide and if you're in very strong wind full bar but unless you
are on something like this kind of high aspect wing your full bar performance is gonna
be pretty dire. be very careful of this if you haven't got that speed brake
riser system, don't use your brakes while you've got
your speed bar. The on the reason for that is you're forcing a very big camber in your
wing: the trailing edge is going down and the leading edge is going down and you
can make your glider collapse, so when you're on full speed bar if you feel
turbulence you want to immediately come off the bar with your foot -- a quick
reaction. you need to move in and out with that foot so that you're backing
off the bar and not letting the glider collapse. don't use the brakes be very
careful of that. there used to be a technique that some guys recommended by
sort of pulling the brakes down first and then pushing the bar out and then
easing up on the brakes. I don't recommend that because of the problem of
the collapse on your wing make sure that you just stay on the bar when you're on
bar and only use the back risers if you've got that speed brake system. so
things that can go wrong on speed bar. well if you jam on the speed bar too
hard too fast you can get a rapid acceleration that might cause a collapse
because you just dive through into some turbulence, so take your time and ease onto
the bar. the other problem that pilots can make is coming off the bar from full
bar (I'm fully accelerated) coming off too quickly and then putting in a turn.
you can cause a spin on your glider because you've got such a high angle of
attack and then you try and turn it, so make sure rather if you're on bar
you come off and you wait one two three and your glider will come overhead
again before you put in a gentle turn input.
We've got some sailplanes joining us. whoohoo! check that out.
Just to mention that not
all gliders are as good on speed bar. there's a noticeable difference between
the classes the higher class wings go a lot faster and the the state of your
wing makes a big difference. if your glider is out of trim like if you
haven't had a trim check on your glider in the last two years it's quite likely
that the glider is going to be out of trim. That could make a big difference on
the safety when you're on speed bar you can actually start getting collapses
when you don't expect them and you can end up with a wing that either
accelerates too hard or doesn't really accelerate much at all. and it can be
skew, you can get pulled to the one side because your lines are shrunk on one
side. So make sure you get your glider trim checked. I can recommend the
loft workshop, the guys that we use down in the South. They will
take your wing, use their courier service it's nice and cheap it's very
easy so wherever you are you can send your wing to them and they'll fix it for
you. Otherwise get your local service centre to sort it out, but do get your
trim checked, it'll make a huge difference on your safety overall and it
might be affecting your speed bar too. another safety thing to check with your
speed bar is these little guys:
Flybubble Brummel Covers. They are really cheap, and well worth getting because it means that
when you have just launched and you push out on your bar you don't suddenly find that
one of your brummells has disconnected. if you can't get these you can
just use rubber o-rings but make sure you secure those little brummels.
it's a pretty common problem with speed bars. the other problem you can have is
your speed bar line that runs down through some pulleys, make sure you
include that in your preflight checks, make sure it's running free and that you
don't need to replace that line. at some point you're gonna have to replace that
line to stop it fraying and wearing out. be careful when you're on speed bar that
you don't let the glider drive into some hard sinking edge of the thermal
and you're gonna get a big collapse because on the speed bar you're gonna have more
rotation and loss of height when you have a collapse. your reaction should be
straight off the bar if you have a collapse. Feet come off the bar and
then weight shift a little, a bit of brake to counter-steer, take your time with the
glider, let it settle and then pump out the collapse. you want to be sure that you're
not doing speed bar through a very turbulent area particularly like when
you're coming into land and you're near the trees. If you're coming in below the
tree height back off the bar. Also don't use the bar too low and too early like right up
just near your launch site.
okay what happens if your speed bar breaks? you're in the air, and the speed bar
line snaps and you need to accelerate. it is possible to do this: you can hang on
the front risers and by front risers I mean A's and B's you need to be able to
grab hold of basically where the speed bar connects and hang on to that and you
can accelerate the glider a bit. it's very risky to do this if you are
in a turbulent area. just as you would with a speed bar so make sure you've got
clear space because now you're letting go the brakes and you're basically
hanging on the wing you've got to be pretty sure that you're not going to
collapse on the wing. it's possible to do this in smooth conditions let's say you're
coastal soaring and you've got a snap on your speed bar, you can hang
on the A's+B's and the way you do it, I'll show you here ... on my glider it's easy because
I just have to hang on here. so you do it the same way you're doing the big-ears
your hand that way, not this way, you've got no strength that way you're
not gonna hold yourself up but that way you can hold there, you can grab and
twist just above the maillon, grab hold twist and hang like that. good luck with
that, I've managed about two minutes like that.
it's a pretty hard challenge: see how long you can do a pull-up for with the
twisted grip. it's not going to give you much but hey, it might save your butt one day,
so just have that there as one of your options. so when I'm going onto the speed
bar I'm stabilizing with my hands here. I'm going onto the first step waiting a
second ... one, two, three ... getting a little bumpy so I'm using my back risers just to
stabilize that and straighten up and now I'm going on the second step here. now
it's superfast. It's the OMEGA XALPS. I don't know if you can hear me
I'm very ready on these back risers to jam down if I feel
any twitches of the wing that I don't like I'm gonna slow it down a little bit.
now I'm easing off the bar, stepping out, give it a second or two
and now I can weight shift and turn. Happy Days! cool, so thanks for watching. I hope
that helps you and keeps you safe when you need your speed bar. remember to not use the brakes
make sure you gliders nice and level
ease out on the speed bar, if you feel turbulence back off the bar or use your
speed brake risers if you've got them and don't use too much bar when you are
close to the ground in turbulent areas back off the bar a little bit.
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Keep yourself safe when you're flying and have fun when you blatting
out on speed bar: let's go!