New Harness and a Nice Evening Flight
Thanks to John Wright today I got to take a Rotor Vulto Harness for a spin. I have been sort of on and off looking for a harness like this for a while now. The problem with finding one seems to be that every one that flies with them is between 5'8" and 6'1", I'm 5'6". John bought this harness a while ago from a guy back east, but the harness turned out to be a bit to tight for him. It fits me pretty well, but I need a few inches of extra foam in the boot.
I launched Marshall and found myself slightly PIOing a bit. I think this was because the harness will roll about the single hang point and that is something a regular harness will not do. It was a pretty weird feeling but it didn't take more than a minute or two to get use to it. I also noticed that the harness tends to oscillate in pitch when flying at high speeds. Again, I think this is something I just need to get used to.
I really like the ability to change my pitch angle while in flight and without taking my hands off the basetube. for flying fast or going out on strait line glides I like to be in a feet up, head down position. This position sucks for thermalling though, as your arms are really close to the basetube giving you less leverage. So for flying fast and strait, I can get really head down but then rock back upright a bit when its time to thermal.
I found the harness to be pretty comfortable as well. The inside is pretty soft and there is extra padding in select places. I will have to get a good long flight on it (2 hours +) to know for sure, but I think it will be more comfortable than my old harness. The one exception to comfort is the shoulder straps, they could use a bit more padding.
The landing went pretty good. These types of harnesses seem to have a bit of a learning period which usually results in a few scraped knees on landing. You can't just pop upright like a regular harness, you have to make it go up. It's kind of like doing a push up on the basetube. There are a number of landings in this video that demonstrate this (there are also some nice low, high speed passes and a dragonfly doing barrel rolls so its worth the watch):
For my landing I had a couple of options. Conventional wisdom would say to go upright early, before starting the approach. This way you don't have to worry about any techniques, you just fly and land the glider. However I never really liked flying while upright. You either have to reach down for the basetube, or hold the downtubes. Neither of which give you the amount of pitch authority that I like to have on landing. So I opted to stay prone throughout the approach patter like I usually do. My rationale was that I would rather fly a nice fast safe approach like I always do and risk messing up the flair, then risk doing some kind of slow and possibly unsafe approach. I have wheels and an LZ with nice grass so if I ended up on my knees or belly, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
I stayed prone throughout the approach until I had rounded out on final. I was able to get it upright enough, but my feet kinda got stuck. I am used to having at least one foot out of my harness while on final, but with this harness I need both feet in the boot to make it go upright. After a little half second of scrambling, I got both feet out of the boot, both hands on the uprights and got just enough flare to land on my feet. It was a bit squarely, but I think I just need a bit of practice.
The flight was nice too. It was blowing in pretty nicely at Marshall which made it ridge soarable. The air was very buoyant which made it easy to stay up and just enjoy the moment. I got to fly with Joal and Rob (doing spins on a Falcon, show off!) I also got to watch Keith do his second radio solo and Lee his first. Congrats guys!
I launched Marshall and found myself slightly PIOing a bit. I think this was because the harness will roll about the single hang point and that is something a regular harness will not do. It was a pretty weird feeling but it didn't take more than a minute or two to get use to it. I also noticed that the harness tends to oscillate in pitch when flying at high speeds. Again, I think this is something I just need to get used to.
I really like the ability to change my pitch angle while in flight and without taking my hands off the basetube. for flying fast or going out on strait line glides I like to be in a feet up, head down position. This position sucks for thermalling though, as your arms are really close to the basetube giving you less leverage. So for flying fast and strait, I can get really head down but then rock back upright a bit when its time to thermal.
I found the harness to be pretty comfortable as well. The inside is pretty soft and there is extra padding in select places. I will have to get a good long flight on it (2 hours +) to know for sure, but I think it will be more comfortable than my old harness. The one exception to comfort is the shoulder straps, they could use a bit more padding.
The landing went pretty good. These types of harnesses seem to have a bit of a learning period which usually results in a few scraped knees on landing. You can't just pop upright like a regular harness, you have to make it go up. It's kind of like doing a push up on the basetube. There are a number of landings in this video that demonstrate this (there are also some nice low, high speed passes and a dragonfly doing barrel rolls so its worth the watch):
For my landing I had a couple of options. Conventional wisdom would say to go upright early, before starting the approach. This way you don't have to worry about any techniques, you just fly and land the glider. However I never really liked flying while upright. You either have to reach down for the basetube, or hold the downtubes. Neither of which give you the amount of pitch authority that I like to have on landing. So I opted to stay prone throughout the approach patter like I usually do. My rationale was that I would rather fly a nice fast safe approach like I always do and risk messing up the flair, then risk doing some kind of slow and possibly unsafe approach. I have wheels and an LZ with nice grass so if I ended up on my knees or belly, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
I stayed prone throughout the approach until I had rounded out on final. I was able to get it upright enough, but my feet kinda got stuck. I am used to having at least one foot out of my harness while on final, but with this harness I need both feet in the boot to make it go upright. After a little half second of scrambling, I got both feet out of the boot, both hands on the uprights and got just enough flare to land on my feet. It was a bit squarely, but I think I just need a bit of practice.
The flight was nice too. It was blowing in pretty nicely at Marshall which made it ridge soarable. The air was very buoyant which made it easy to stay up and just enjoy the moment. I got to fly with Joal and Rob (doing spins on a Falcon, show off!) I also got to watch Keith do his second radio solo and Lee his first. Congrats guys!
posted by David Aldrich at
9:21 PM
