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Stalling
One-sided stall ( spin )
When circling tightly in a thermal the ALPHA 7 indicates early and
clearly, by strongly increasing brake load, the risk of a stall . However, if
a wing reaches its stall point you will feel a marked reduction of brake
load on the inside of the turn . If this happens you must immediately
release the brake lines, so that the ALPHA 7 can return to normal flight
by itself .
If one wing does stall the paraglider will go into a spin/negative rotation
( negative means a wing going backwards ) . The ALPHA 7 will react
dynamically, but will still be manageable by an untrained pilot . Even
so – depending on the situation from which the paraglider is allowed
to fly again – the reaction can be quite vigorous ( shooting forward with
a raised risk of collapse ) . This shooting forward can be restrained by
well-judged braking . Normal flight can then be resumed without a fur-
ther collapse .
Tip: Basically, in all out-of-control flight situations, but especially
the onset of a spin, you should immediately release both brakes
fully – hands up!
Fullstall
The ALPHA 7 quickly responds to a steering demand, but the available
brake travel is very long, and the brake loading gets very high before
the stall point . This gives the pilot a large safety margin .
Entry into a fullstall is achieved by progressively and symmetrically pull-
ing down both brake lines . Forward speed reduces . Airflow and wind
noise reduce . After reaching minimum speed the paraglider first goes
into a brief phase of deep stall . Then further brake will cause complete
airflow breakaway, and the wing will fall back in fullstall . The ALPHA 7
has a strong desire to fly again, but is easy to hold in the stall . A brake
wrap makes sense when flying a fullstall .
To recover, the canopy has to be pre-inflated . To do this the brakes
should, at first, be released slowly and symmetrically, and only fully
released when pre-inflation is complete . The ALPHA 7 then flies away
relatively gently, without shooting forward too much .
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