Flying cross country on a paraglider: narrated thermal search

[@MrKbtor2]

My favorite kind of video where you narrate the journey. More relatable.

[@trisers]

Loving it! I bought my Sonata from Flybubble last year...my first thermal flight under training in Spain took me on a 90 min flight with three thermals topping out at cloubase 2150m! That one flight doubled my total airtime....addictive? Hell YES!

[@nicolaesasu]

Very good video!!! Made me realize I don't need a higher performance wing, I just need to sharpen my skills and get more XC experience. I had a 38 km flight, just need to be patient, longer flights will surely come. Thanks Greg! ;)

[@paulcrew1314]

You convinced me the Sonata was a worth a try and I am really happy with it. It climbs very well

[@andrewcummings7822]

Great video again, some nice tips for gaining altitude. Thanks again Greg and the Flybubble team, much appreciated.

[@AndreBandarra1]

Great stuff as always :)

[@freezatron]

Liking the music :) you make climbing out look so easy !!

[@greghamerton4422]

it is easy, when you get to choose which bits of the video you publish (not the 5 or 6 slope landings) ;-)

[@freezatron]

haha, but I've watched you on the hill and you still make it look easy ;)

[@Yeloneck]

Love your videos guys! Greg looks so confident and he definitely know how to fly. Love it!

[@responderman]

another great video thank you. I hope you have a good season this year, the days are getting longer again and spring is around the corner. happy new year to you all.

[@brendanredler3666]

What an excellent flying location!

[@Hix-Design]

Great Video as usual, Greg. Thus far, I think that I've got the hang of milking any small bubbles I hit. My (and possibly quite a few other lower hours pilots') problem is that I'm still not 100% sure when deciding to explore out front, whether I have enough height to make it back to the hill, so end up returning too soon. I think that to make things stick, you have to accept a bomb out away from the hill and just take the risk. It's just having enough experience to know when to make the call to balance the risk-reward. Thanks for the info you and the FlyBubble guys impart in your vids. Great stuff!

[@greghamerton4422]

Thanks! don't just 'search out front' ... follow a line of microlift directly into wind. That way you'll easily get back on glide. flybubble.com/blog/light-wind-freedom might help. after that, flybubble.com/blog/thermal-drift

[@JohnUsp]

Awesome, congratulations.

[@fatei]

Amazing video guys, im planning a road trip from Switzerland this summer and your hills will definitely be a few days flying for me! Cheers!

[@BariFPV]

Yep you said it, flying comes from within 👍

[@monkeyonstrings3417]

Inspiring. Thanks

[@jesse2006]

For an En-a the wing has a really clean line layout minimal lines

[@greghamerton4422]

indeed! this is a feature of the whole Phi lineup.

[@adamedgar5765]

Love the video. Of course, all of us who fly high performance wings know full well that the advantage of high performance is on speedbar. When it comes to thermalling, the low end wings do perfectly fine...however, making long glides between thermals in sink with minimal height loss isnt a place for low end wings who want maximum distance.

[@greghamerton4422]

speedbar flying on downwind XC only becomes relevant at a very high level of xc flying, when consistently doing 100km+ and flying in really strong sink, or when doing an advanced style of task (triangles, out and returns). But first, I've got to help the masses leave the hill, so we can all fly xc together ... then I can make some videos about 'optimising your line'. I think the main advantage of a high performance wing is that it's damn exciting to fly and makes you feel epic, not really the performance on speedbar, which is just a relative thing.

[@lucasacg]

Amazing format of video!!

[@laniik]

great video!

[@julipegasus]

I absolutely love your videos, thanks a lot to the whole flybubble team. Greg what bugs me a little sometimes is that you kind of grab the risers and although I am sure that you would react correctly in a difficult situation holding on leads to many really bad accidents especially with untrained pilots. Maybe you can highlight that in another Video. Thanks Julian

[@greghamerton4422]

Hey Julian, sure I'll talk about it some time, there's a lot of paranoia about riser holds. I don't agree 'many bad accidents' are caused by it. A few. It's the lack of active flying input that causes problems with riser grabbers, and it's why I would also advise students and beginners to 'fly the wing' and stay in contact using the brakes. But the most common cause of cascades is balancing on the brakes (flailing arms, pulling down to get 'balance') and so in XC flying it's probably a beneficial habit to keep your hands on the risers near the brake pulleys as demonstrated at moments here. A pilot in contact with the risers is unlikely to twist. I don't advise hanging on the risers, but sliding the hands up and down them as you can see in the video to improve contact with the wing and stabilise the small movements. I use it during thermaling to 'lock in' a certain bank angle and then make smaller adjustments with the outside brake, this reduces fatigue in long flights and helps when tracking a weak core. I do understand your concern, but I also think most pilots are smart enough to see the difference between a riser touch and a riser grab.

[@julipegasus]

Thanks for the answer Greg, i think youre very right with sliding up and down for orientation and also the balancing on the brakes as a common mistake. I come from a rock climbing background and there it is absolutely forbidden to grap or bite the rope because in the case you fall goodbye teeth or hand. The reflexes in case of a fall or turbulence are always to grab or bite and if there is a riser in your hand you would automatically hold on. If youre Hands are free you tend to search for support and try to balance on the brake. Both not very Ideal situations but the short riser grab is maybe really better as long as the pilot dosn't freeze in that Position. You really have a point there. Thanks for educating us all and a safe start in the new season. Greetings Julian

[@NelsonsWings]

@@greghamerton4422 Yep. Riser touch is perfectly fine. On long flights, it can help relieve back strain to push on them a little.

[@NelsonsWings]

I learned the hard was last year that I did not get my hand out of the brake handle loop when I threw my reserve. I had always thought it would be easy; it was not. Luckily I was able to properly throw the reserve while my hand was caught in the toggle. Since then, i have switched to using the half wrap. Of course, you were in gentle air. I was in a strong punchy spring thermal in the desert.

[@greghamerton4422]

Thanks Nelson's Wings, useful comment. Did you try to put your hands together before taking one hand out? Were you wearing thick gloves? What glider - a small brake loop?

[@NelsonsWings]

@@greghamerton4422 Ozone Alpina 3. Light winter gloves, not too bulky. I was very low, the wing was winding up into a wad, I had no time to do anything other than grab, pull, throw, let go. 8 seconds later I was on the ground, still in my pod. It was sobering. I made mistakes, but in the fear of the moment, iys hard to remember your training. More simulation would have helped.

[@greghamerton4422]

@@NelsonsWings I'm presuming that as you were able to get the reserve handle, it was possible for you to have put your hands together to remove the brake loop? With practice, this should take a microsecond, and is the best deploy sequence.

[@NelsonsWings]

Hypothetically yes, and simulating reserve deployment is extremely important, because one must react instantly and correctly. However, since reading Mastering Paragliding, and at the advice of many of my flying buddies, I'm really liking the classic half wrap.

[@BobNL1964]

It's really better not to put your hands through the loops. (Especially in training video's). I know a lot of people do it, but it'll cost you extra time or even worse when you panic.

[@crzmovie]

Great video! You should visit Hungary during the summers. The landscape is similar (flatland xc) , and you can fly 200+km (record is 280+).

[@andrewjcraig]

The record in Britain is, since last year, over 300 km!

[@crzmovie]

@@andrewjcraig Nice! I think we will break 300 this year. (Actually, it was broken several times, because people crossed the border, but that doesn't count sadly as per the Hungarian rules, making 300km a really interesting challenge)

[@yevhenleonidovytch7826]

could you gimme a spot where you are flying from? I would like to visit it someday, fly with you guys. I live only 500 km from Budapest so it won't be really challenging to get there.

[@crzmovie]

@@yevhenleonidovytch7826 multiple spots! For 200km+ I would suggest Szarsomlyo(S/SW) or Kocs. (NW/N).

[@yevhenleonidovytch7826]

@@crzmovie thanks a lot man. What is the best season there?

[@shahjahan6148]

Nice

[@woogieman02]

Such lovely weather! Dealing with this nasty snow and blizzards that keep coming through. Couple more months till I can actually get to some training to fly....... thanks for the inspiration. Question..... why do the guys that do the powered paragliding argue about not the thermaling a glider?

[@greghamerton4422]

powered pilots prefer no turbulence. Thermals usually produce turbulence. It takes a lot of skill to thermal, and takes a long time to master. I'm sure the experienced motor pilots do thermal (saves fuel) but the beginner ones most likely find them intimidating and unpredictable. Keep the faith, summer will come soon - the best cross country conditions usually turn up as early as March (cold crisp air with a good lapse rate and cumulus clouds). Good luck with your training.

[@dkailas]

Hi Greg! Was the chest strap left unfastened inadvertently? I fly the same harness and have wondered if there is any noticeable change to the behavior with the chest strap undone. If so that would be a good feedback signal for correction.

[@JoarABTheflyingraven]

So good to see a xc video on an A glider. How is the phi sonata compared to bgd adam?

[@Florentin-Parapente]

very nice video :)

[@TimoOnline]

Do you record all those videos in summer in advance? because now it's winter time and so normally no thermals

[@greghamerton4422]

yeah Timo, I've got like 1000 hours of videos on my hard drive ... a big series on xc flying filmed 3 years ago ... the problem is the editing takes so long, it's a major job. and youtube doesn't pay more than a bit of beer money. There's only so much that Flybubble can fund, in the interest of educating pilots. Everyone can help by jumping onto patreon.com/flybubble and I'll do more videos!

[@akshaykapoorss3743]

Nice background music.... mention the name plsss. And i ahve watched your videos dozen of times... These are usefulness ✌️😊

[@hgect]

Did he use the speed bar at any point, and if yes - when? Great video !!

[@greghamerton4422]

no he did. The wind near the hill is light, so I stay at trim speed even when pushing into wind because there's more feeling for identifying light lift lines that way on an EN A or B. The speedbar removes a lot of feedback. Some high performance wings don't react that way, so you can fly fast and still feel the air well. Then when going XC downwind there's no need o use bar, it's inefficient unless there's really heavy sink. More on speedbar flybubble.com/blog/speed-to-fly-basics

[@hgect]

@@greghamerton4422 thanks! really working hard on discovering the secrets of thermaling

[@robdotcom71]

Love your videos Greg.. What's your record distance you've achieved XC?

[@robdotcom71]

Hoping to learn to fly this year... learning heaps from your videos. Keep up the good work!

[@Frawer]

what's the name of the song at the beginnnig of the video?

[@andresbahnsen1440]

How much weight shift were you using?

[@greghamerton4422]

about 'that' much. :-) just enough to dictate the centre of gravity, you don't need huge weight shifts, just something to tell the wing 'left' or 'right'.

[@jaksmith6465]

paragliding looks scariest when it's leisurely . . . because then it just looks like your in a chair strapped in the air by 2 tiny loops

[@mcbrite]

I miss that sound... :-(

[@Aezyme]

I want to be a pro dandelion too. Is there a course/exam? :D

[@greghamerton4422]

I've heard there's an online academy but I think it's mostly hot air.

[@samamani5423]

got a a headache