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Old 5th November 2005 | 22:42
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Cron
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Joined: Apr 2000
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From: West Midlands, UK.
We do this for reverse purposes on hang gliders when the air is laminar, you are about 20 feet too high for a hill top landing at about 15kts and don't fancy the overshoot.

We call it 'shaking it down' - you rattle the 'A' frame forward and back using about the same frequency and amplitude which you would apply to a stuck door.

The effect seems to degrade the performance but controllability is retained and a shorter landing achieved.

We don't have a clue why it works and have often discussed it.
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