This article has been written with the intent of teaching new pilots how to gain proficiency in this and also as a transition resource for the many pilots who learned kiting the Old School / Straight Handed style.
Kiting a paraglider is managing and sustaining a paraglider overhead in the wind. As a result of slight changes in the wind velocity and direction, the paraglider moves back and forth above you and provides feedback through the risers and brakes. The combination of body movements and brake pulls enables a pilot to not only manage the wing, but to do a dance with it.
In the early days, most pilots learned to kite without the brakes set up for the turn. That is, they had to swap the brakes after or during their rotation from facing backward to forward. By the middle to late 90s, enough accidents had happened during the brake transfers that most schools began teaching some variation of preset hands to their students.
If you can consistently lift the wing to a solid and balance overhead position, you are ready to learn kiting. Kiting should not be attempted without the ability to consistently lift and check the wing in a stable position. It is far more difficult to begin kiting when the wing is not close to center following the lift. Mastering the lifting process will enable success to happen in each kiting attempt. There are very many ways to raise a wing overhead. The most common ways are: using the A-risers in separate hands and using the brakes to stabilize the wing from overshooting (I call this “A and Brakes”), using the A/C technique, “see article”, Cobra (asymmetric) lift for high winds, and several variations of forward launching.
In a wind as light as a few miles per hour, one can do some kiting by backing up at a quicker pace. Some paragliders will kite stationary in as little as 7 mph of wind, while others need a solid 10. A steady 7–12 mph is ideal for learning to kite. In lighter winds (4–6), you can practice and work on kiting by walking backward into the wind while using standard kiting techniques.
Why Kite with Preset Hands
In the early days of paragliding, most of us learned to kite facing the wing and simply pulling the brakes on each side as we faced the wing. This was done with the brake on the same side as the hand, not preset (I like to call this “straight-handed kiting”). In straight-handed kiting, the wing is controlled similar to a two-line kite (pull right hand, wing goes to right; pull left hand, kite goes to left etc.). The major drawback of straight-handed kiting is that when it is time to turn forward, the brakes need to be swapped. During the brake swap there is a loss of control. This is one of the most critical times in the flight, and any loss of control when you are in such a situation is less than desirable.
For mountain launches and launches where a sudden gust or thermal can lift you into the air, the safer and preferred technique is any technique that includes preset hands. This is because if you get lifted into the air while reversed, you simply rotate forward and fly. There is no need for any brake swapping. Some pilots with very good kiting skills use straight-handed kiting even in mountain or thermic conditions, but for most pilots it is safer to use the preset method.
Both straight-handed and pre-set techniques can be combined with the A/C launch method. There are many benefits to the A/C or A/D launch techniques. The benefits are mainly that wing surges are easier to control and stop with the C or D risers. Perhaps even more importantly, the brakes create more lift when pulled to stop a big surge, and this can pop the pilot into the air quickly—so fast that sometimes an abort might be very dangerous from that height. In contrast, the C or D riser pull (commonly called “checking the wing”) reduces the lift of the wing much more so than a brake-induced check. During an A/C launch, if the wing comes up in any way that the pilot is not comfortable with (too fast, too slow, pops the pilot a little in the air, too crooked), the pilot has the C or D risers in their hand and can pull them hard to their belly for an abort. With a C or D riser pulled, the wing will be much less likely to drag the pilot, and even if 5 feet in the air, the float down will be much less severe than a potential stall by doing a full pull of the brakes.
When learning to kite using preset hands, each hand holds the brake that will be on the correct side when you turn to face forward. It is a bit counter intuitive when you begin to learn to kite with the brakes preset this way. Going forward, when I refer to the left brake, I am referring to the brake in the left hand, and visa-versa.
While facing the wing, the brake on the right hand will deflect the trailing edge of the wing on “your” left. Consequently, when you pull the left brake, it will deflect the trailing edge on “your” right side. This is because the risers are crossed and the brakes are preset for forward flight. This is the reason it takes some conditioning and lots of practice to get a good feel for kiting with preset hands.
I have another article called, “The 5 Keys to Kiting, which is a template to simplify the key skills that make a pilot a good kiter. After many years of teaching, I noticed that there are only five things that really help students do better to improve their kiting.
After you start to get good at the basics of kiting (use this article; it should help a lot with the basic body positions and techniques), then read the 5 Keys to Kiting article and make sure you do all five things. If you are doing all five things, odds are you are kiting really well.
Preset Hands Technique
The following steps will simplify the learning process:
- Learn how body movements affect kiting. Practice body movements by kiting the wing without using the brakes.
- Once you are moving correctly, add brakes, and combine this with proper body movements.
- Learn to center the wing visually at first, then later you can work on feel without looking to take kiting to another level.
- Learn to feel and anticipate where the wing is going or what the wing is doing.
Body Movement
The following exercise is taught to students without them holding the brakes. If there is a stronger wind, to abort, just grab the rear risers and pull hard to kill the wing.
Instead of thinking about which brake to pull and thinking left or right, it is better to learn the feel of kiting by developing a relationship with the wing. Once you have lifted the wing to a point that is mostly or perfectly centered, keep the airspeed up enough to maintain the wing overhead. Watch the wing, and if it drifts to either side, think, “Which side is the wing on?” The next task is to learn to move your body under the wing. If the wing is on the right side, think of moving to the right, under the wing. If the wing is on the left side, move to the left. In lighter winds, you will need to not only move under the wing. In fact, it is always helpful to add a little extra power as you move under the wing. Into the wind and under the wing is how you move.
Pilots new to kiting tend to have an instinct that tells them to face and pull against the wing. Instead, it is best to learn to move with and under the wing. To do this, it is necessary to turn your hips and feet towards the side the wing is on, or moving towards. It is far easier to add a burst of speed by running forward. Also, the turn of the hips in this direction will help the wing come back to center better. In stronger winds, you can move straight sideways or sideways and back. In lighter winds, move into the wind with a slight veer toward the side the wing is on. In all situations, you need to keep the pull from the body constant.
Below is a video demonstrating kiting in a steady wind. Watch this when you have read this far, and it will help you understand the proper use of your feet and hips.
When the wing is close to the center and not moving fast to either side, your lateral body movement will be faster than the wing above you. You can move your body right under the center of the wing. In a steady wind, keep these words at the front of your thoughts: “move under the wing”. If the wing is leaning toward your left side, turn left and move quicker than the wing to the left. At the same time, in lighter winds, run under the wing but veer upwind. When the wing is centered, just move backward at a pace that will be enough to keep the wing powered overhead.
The goal here is to learn the body’s power to help with kiting. It will also teach you to turn toward the low side. This is much more intuitive than trying to get the brakes involved at the same time. If you make a mistake with the brakes, the wing can be down in the blink of an eye, and this often leads to frustration. Instead, I have found that students can usually get pretty good at no-hand kiting in a very short time with good wind. Once you have a feel for this (you can keep the wing up for 10–30 seconds), the transition to full-on kiting will be much easier. Simply pull a little brake on the side you are moving toward. If the wing is a little to your right, you turn to the right, move into the wind and under the wing, and gently pull a little right brake.
Now, watch the following video for a better visual understanding!
Learning to kite is easier if youLearning to kite is easier if you first learn to do it just with your body. It is simpler, and you will learn to turn the body the right way. With this, just pull the hand you turn toward when you have the brakes… first learn to do it just with the body. It is simpler and you will learn to turn the body the right way. With this, just pull the hand you turn toward when you have the brakes…
Body and Brake Directions for Preset Kiting
Add brakes to the process
Once a pilot has learned some feel for centering, they can begin to learn how to add brakes to this process. Set up the brakes correctly for a preset launch.
The start is exactly the same as before; lift the wing as close to the center as you can. Now, if the wing moves toward or is slightly on one side, you can pull a bit of brake on the side you are moving toward. So, if the wing has drifted slightly to the right, you will be backing up a little to the right. The magic here is that you are already conscious of which direction you are moving and you just need to form the habit of pulling a little brake on that side.
How much brake to pull will depend on how far the wing is over or how fast it is moving to the side. What you want to learn to do is to react quickly and sense how much brake to pull. With the combination of correct body use and correct brake usage, you will soon be on your way to fine tuning your ability to center the wing. The key is having relaxed arms and a light touch on the brakes. As you progress, you will learn to feather the brake so that the wing moves smoothly back to the center.
One of the more common issues for students learning to kite is pulling both brakes at the same time. This usually happens when a pilot has extra tension in their arms and upper body. When pulling one brake, make sure that the other brake is not being pulled as well. If upper body tension is present, pilots can pull the opposite brake without being aware of it. If the wing is not moving back to center, check that your other (non-pulling) hand is relaxed and release the brake all the way up to its pulley. Being relaxed is the starting point to becoming aware of the hands and where the brakes are. If just a slight bit of the opposite brake is pulled, it will block the wing from moving in the direction desired. By being relaxed, you will feel what each hand is doing much better than when the upper body is tense.
In stronger winds, the paraglider will allow kiting further to the side and can come back to the center more easily. In lighter winds, if the wing goes too far to the side, it will be extremely difficult to return to the center.
Bumping
In light winds, the wing should stay as directly overhead as possible. When the wind is light, if the glider starts to go over to the side, you can add power to get the wing back overhead by using a technique called “bumping the wing”. Bumping is pulling back and moving under the low side of the glider with the hips as you give the correction. Pulling too much brake when the wing is on the side will result in the wing falling back to the ground as the high side of the wing (the brake you are pulling) will back up the most stable part of the wing. Bumping allows the pilot to avoid over-pulling the brake. With the bump, the energy to get the wing to react will be increased because of the increased airflow resulting from the pilot backing up and moving under the low side of the wing. The bump will also add power to the wing, enabling it to stay overhead while adding enough brake to re-center it.
A common issue is for some students to turn to face the low side of the wing and back up, pulling in the opposite direction. Corrections will not work well with this. Instead, it is best to keep backing up and turn the feet toward the low side and then move diagonally (feet moving forward), but into the wind, under the low side of the wing.
Wings are different
Some models of paragliders need a moderate amount of brakes on both sides, pulled when kiting in lighter winds to keep from moving too far forward and collapsing. Others tend to fall back and require more power during corrections. With the first glider, you will need to keep some tension on both brakes to keep the glider from over-flying, with the second; you will have to keep the power on more for success. Play with your wing and you will get a feel for how it kites and what pitch characteristics it has.
Using Your Eyes/Sensing Feedback
On your first attempts, you will kite by watching the wing’s movements overhead. If the wing moves to the right, you pull a little right brake to stop it from moving. Continue pulling the right hand enough to get the wing to begin moving back to the center. Try to adjust the amount of pull based on what your eyes see. As soon as the wing begins moving back toward the center, you can ease off on the right brake so that it does not pass the center.
If the paraglider moves past the center point, pull just a bit of the opposite brake (enough to stop it quickly) and try to lock it in the center. Keeping the paraglider locked in the center, will make kiting much easier. This is because the most power is achieved with the wing in the center and the wing will react quicker as well.
After you have gotten to the point where you can kite using your eyes for your adjustments, you can begin to look for feedback from the harness. The wing will give some feedback when the wind gusts on one side, etc., prior to it moving. If you tune into these subtle forms of feedback, you can begin anticipating what the wings’ next move will be and what direction the wing is about to move before it begins to move in that direction. You can also feel a gust of wind before the wing reacts to it.
Body Position
In stronger winds, it is important to squat down a bit in the harness to keep your legs firmly on the ground. This means bearing most of your weight on the wing by sitting down a little in the harnesses seat area. When a gust comes along, if the wing lifts you slightly, your legs will have enough extra to remain on the ground during the gust. As soon as your weight is sufficient to drop the harness lower, do so.
In lighter winds, just find a comfortable and balanced position. Keep your weight on the balls of your feet. This will force you to keep your balance. If you find you are falling backwards repeatedly as you back up, it is likely that you are backing up on your heels instead of the balls of your feet.
Using hips
When first learning to kite, keep it simple and do not use the hips. Later, when you can keep the wing up a bit longer, you can add in some help from the hips. If the paraglider is on the left side as you face it and you are backing up to the left and pulling a bit of a left brake, you can also turn your hips to the left. By turning your hips this way, you are loading the same side of the wing as the brake you are pulling. This gives it more power to use the brake on that side.
How to hold the brakes
When you first lift the wing, it is best to hold each brake at the bottom of the handle. It is important to not have the brakes engaged when lifting the wing. Once the paraglider has become stable, walking the fingers up to grab the brake where the line attaches will provide better sensitivity for the braking action.
The arms should be relaxed and supple to feel when each brake is pulled or fully released.
Note the fingers grabbing the brakes where lines connect …
Now, watch the below video “Kiting Made Simple” to expand your understanding!
Simple explanation of the hand and body mechanics for kiting a paraglider with preset hands.
Practice and More Practice
The expression Speed to Fly represents the adjustments to a Paraglider’s speed in relation to wind, lift and sink. Maximizing glide based on this relationship is a constant process while flying. Speed to Fly is a key that not only makes you a better pilot, but helps build a connection between you and the wing.
This article was written to provide the basics of Speed to Fly and techniques to adjust your speed based on these variables. There are tools that you can use (speed rings on variometers or GPS systems), but not all pilots have these included in their gear. Besides, learning to fly without instruments is a large part of growing as a pilot.
Learning to adjust Speed to Fly continuously while in flight can be done with some simple observations. If you want to learn the math part of the equation, many articles teach about Speed to Fly by using a polar. The math part of the equation works for some, but not everyone is good with numbers or looking at graphs. It’s important to learn the theory, then practice making adjustments to hone a full understanding. Having a solid understanding of Speed to Fly will help you fly higher, stay up longer, and improve your senses of wind and lift.
The basics apply equally to ridge soaring or thermal flying. The main factors that affect Speed to Fly are only two: relative wind direction and lift or sink.
The generalized adjustments involved in Speed to Fly are:
In Lift / Sink
- Fly slower in lift
- Fly faster in sink
In Headwind / Tailwind
- Fly faster into a headwind
- Fly slower with a tailwind
Next, you need to learn why each of these statements is true. In each of the below descriptions, eliminate the secondary set of variables and imagine that there is only one. For the wind descriptions, assume there is 0 on the lift / sink components and for the lift / sink descriptions, there is no headwind or tailwind.
Fly faster into a headwind
This is perhaps the easiest of these to grasp. In still air (no wind and no lift or sink), most Paragliders get their best glide at or very near trim speed. For simplicity, let’s say that the sample Paraglider flies at 20 MPH at trim. In general, I like to promote that for any headwind above 12 – 15 MPH without lift, your best Speed to Fly will be most to full speed bar.
This is very easy to see in a stronger wind situation. Picture yourself at 100 feet above the ground, pointing straight into a 20 MPH headwind. At trim, you will hover downward toward the ground at the sink rate your glider gets at trim speed. You will land on the exact spot beneath you. If you fly any slower, you will fly backward. If you fly faster (pushing on a speed bar), you will improve your glide by moving forward. You will in fact descend faster because of a slight increase your sink rate, but the factor of forward motion will be a greater.
A slight headwind is not quite as easy to picture. Imagine yourself at 100 ft above the ground, pointing straight into a 5 MPH headwind. Flying slower will shorten your glide path. Flying full speed will also shorten your glide path. To maximize your flight path, about 25 to 50 % of the speed bar would be close. Note that in lighter headwinds, the difference in glide is not nearly as significant into stronger headwinds, but it is significant nonetheless. I recommend that up to about a 5 MPH headwind, trim is close enough to be acceptable.
Keep in mind that the speed ranges I am discussing are generalizations and not correct for all gliders.
To summarize:
- Fly at Trim in no wind or very light headwind situations.
- Fly at full Speed Bar in any wind above 12 or 15 MPH.
- Between 6 and 12 MPH wind, the speed bar will be pushed progressively.
Fly slower with a tailwind
This is very similar to the above, but instead of accelerating as the headwind increases, you will fly progressively slower as the tailwind is stronger. Here, Min Sink is like full speed bar in the above “headwind” scenario. Other than in a flair, Min Sink is as slow as you should ever fly in a Paraglider. In any tailwind above 12 or 15 MPH, you will likely get your best glide by flying at Min Sink Speed. Because of the extra 12 + MPH groundspeed you will have over your airspeed, time spent in the air gains you more distance. The combination of your slowest descent rate and the high groundspeed (Windspeed + Airspeed) will help your glide the most. Since minimum sink speed maximizes the time you are in the air, flying slower helps you fly the furthest with a tailwind.
Most gliders get their best glide in 0 wind at or very close to trim speed. With a 12 + MPH tailwind, most gliders will get their best glide at or very close to min sink speed. In a very light tailwind up to about 5 MPH, there will not be a very significant improvement in glide by adding a little brake. But, in winds above 5MPH it will begin to become much more significant. So between 5 and 15, you will fly progressively slower between light braking at 5 to min sink around 12 or 15 MPH tailwind.
Fly slower in lift
The rule with lift is pretty clear as well because if you can maintain or climb, obviously this is going to extend your glide. If you are in fact ascending, to maximize the ascent rate, you will fly minimum sink. Anytime the air is going up at least as fast as your Paraglider’s Min. Sink rate, flying Min Sink will get you the furthest. You might notice that a pattern is developing here. In 0 lift you start off at Trim and progressively go to Min. Sink as the lift increases to match your gliders Min Sink speed. For any lift that exceeds your gliders Min Sink rate, you will go up the fastest at Min Sink speed. The faster you go up, the higher you will get and with height comes distance.
Fly Faster in sink
This is true because of the shorter time you will be in the air as a result of the descending air. During this time, flying faster becomes more of a factor than how fast you are descending. This one is among the hardest to perceive, so you have to either use your vario to sense the amount of sink, or use the visual references.
Starting at 0 lift/sink you fly trim. If your glider descends at 260 ft / Min at Best L/D (trim) and the sink cycle you are in is down at 240 feet / Min you will be descending at 500 ft / Min continuing to fly at trim. By flying faster you will descend a smaller percentage than the speed you increase. In all of these examples, it is simply a vector of whether speed or sink rate is going to help you glide the furthest.
Application in the “Real World”
Most of the time there are blends of wind and lift/sink factors. You could encounter sink and a headwind at the same time. This is an easy one, as both tell you to speed up. The combination will lead you to fly faster. Contrarily, you could just as well fly into a thermal as you are penetrating a headwind. With this type of situation, you need to judge which factor is the dominant one. If the thermal in this situation is strong enough for you to maintain or climb a little near minimum sink speed and you are still moving forward, then the you would likely continue to fly near minimum sink speed (choosing that the lift is the stronger factor). But if the thermal is not so strong and the headwind is strong (at min sink you are not penetrating), then the wind is the stronger factor in this situation. It becomes pretty easy to pick the larger factor in the real world when you have ground references to check.
Imagine that you are gliding toward an LZ that has trees around it including one at the far end. The top of the tree is in front of a contrasting field. As you glide toward your LZ, you can use the top of the tree to help you adjust your Speed to Fly. By referencing the relative motion of this tree top to the background, you can determine whether your glide will take you past the tree or not. If the top of the tree is moving up relative to the field, you will land short of the tree. If the tree top is moving down relative to the field, your glide will carry you past the tree. If it is perfectly still against the background, your current glide will take you right to the tree top.
How do you use reference points to adjust your Speed to Fly? In the simplest sense, you make adjustments to speed with the goal of improving your glide via the visual reference. If the tree is moving downward relative to the field, you will try to adjust your speed to maximize the tree moving downward, or, if the tree is moving upward relative to the field, you will make adjustments to minimize how fast it is going up.
You can look in many directions and have different objects to cross reference against. In one direction it might be the top of a tree, in another the top of a ridge or mountain, in another a radio tower in the distance. You can even use other gliders in front of you if they are heading in the same direction. Although other gliders are not fixed, you can tell if you are improving your glide by adjusting the same way against them as for fixed objects. The point is that no matter what direction you are going there is almost always something to use as visual tool to help adjust your Speed to Fly (The main exception here is when you are way high over flatland or a lone mountain). Keep in mind that only references in front of you will work effectively, references to the side don’t work (because you are not gliding toward them).
Using a variometer is another tool that can help you fine tune Speed to Fly. As stated above, if you can maintain or climb in lift, then min sink will be the correct Speed to Fly. On the contrary, if at min sink speed, you are descending, you should speed up a little. If you are sinking moderate to fast, then your best Speed to Fly will likely include some speed bar.
Using the visual references can help you take Speed to Fly to the next level. After you make an initial adjustment, you can your reference point in front of you to see if there has been improvement (if it was moving up relative to its background, it would now be moving up slower … and visa versa)
All of the adjustments are a continual process and are never fixed. When the wind gusts, you need to adjust your speed (fly faster in a headwind) while flying through such a gust. As soon as the gust ends, you would readjust your speed. For each change in lift or sink, you will use the above 4 rules as an initial in seeking the right Speed to Fly. If a factor is prolonged and time permits, you can use any horizon reference to fine tune your adjustment. You can even use other gliders in front of you. The only hard and fast rule is that the reference should be in the direction you are heading.
The first step in learning this is to begin combining your awareness of the basic adjustments. Then, you can begin to improve your relative glide by managing speed to fly with better understanding.
Below is a video from a Speed to Fly – Zoom Groundschool
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Stabilize, before going
The below video emphasizes stabilizing the wing during launches. The point of kiting is to be able to handle launching in light and high winds well. This film emphasizes stabilizing the wing as the wing comes over the pilot. The term, “check the wing” is used to describe the pull of the brakes or C risers to stop the wing overhead. Instead of thinking of this a momentary check, think of stabilizing the pitching motion and kiting the wing after the check is done. This is key to great launching and kiting.
Simple explanation of the hand and body mechanics for kiting a paraglider with preset hands.
Practice and More Practice
Once you have gotten to a point where you have the basics down, you will need to practice kiting in good conditions. Kiting is a fun and rewarding activity and, with good skills, will make your launches much safer. You can even practice in winds of about 5+ mph. By walking backwards at a steady pace, you can get to the threshold wind speed to keep the wing up.
Stabilize, before turning
The below video emphasizes stabilizing the wing during launches. The point of kiting is to be able to handle launching in light and high winds well. This film emphasizes stabilizing the wing as the wing comes over the pilot. The term “check the wing” is used to describe the pull of the brakes or C-risers to stop the wing overhead. Instead of thinking of this a momentary check, think of stabilizing the pitching motion and kiting the wing after the check is done. This is the key to great launching and kiting.
