How to Land a Hang Glider

Video Transcript

"Hi this is David Duke, welcome to Expert Village. And in this clip, I'm going to talk about the landing sequence. As we come in for landing, we switch one hand up at a time, get our body upright, if I was in my other harness, I'd unzip and get my landing gear out, I'd be like this, and I'm now on approach, flying in, I'm ready to put my landing gear down, I'm going to take a couple steps as I run, and then I'm going to purposely stall the glider. I'm on the ground, and when the glider stalls, we stop. Just like a bird flapping in, and we do that little maneuver that they do, and they put their feet down, and they stop right on a dime. We do the same thing. If you flare too high, you will be parked at whatever level that you are above the ground, and the glider will then fall down to the ground. The fortunate thing about this glider in particular, but most gliders, is this glider in particular will act like a parachute, and so suppose we're coming over, we've flown cross-country, we've flown two hundred miles through the desert, and we're coming over some chaparral, and we want to drop in between the bushes, we will actually stall at about four feet high, drop, drop down in between the weeds. If you have knee injuries, or are, I know some people who fly in wheelchairs, they purposely land the glider, on wheels, just as if it was an airplane, they don't have to use their legs at all."