Originally Posted by
Litebulbs
So, anyone actually stalled with no premeditation?
Oh, yuss - several times
Unfortunately the last time was most unintentional at about 50 feet, only 80% of the wing stalled and thus I had both turn and rapid descent when I hit the hill, being fortunate in only gaining myself a week in hospital and a smashed wrist, which a year later still won't go more than 25 degrees backwards and will always have a plate in. Hey-ho. Could be a lot worse.
Now, I realise this started off about powered flying but we've dipped in to hang gliders and gliders, so here's a paraglider's various notes on stalling
We also refer to two types of stall - parachutal and full. One way of getting out of a parachutal stall is to deliberately full stall by pulling the controls down hard and holding them for a couple of seconds, the wing falls behind you in a "bag of washing", you let up and prepare to brake the inevitable dive as the wing reinflates as you pendulum underneath it. Interesting manoevre I carried out for the first time in 10 years in the Himalaya last year, having ended up parachutal after a cascade of upsets but with a couple of thousand feet to spare. The previous unintentional stalls I've had have all been this type of full stall and you get used to the recovery characteristics of your particular wing; as long as you have clearance it doesn't really phase you.
The only time a paraglider pilot would deliberately full stall a wing for descent reasons would actually be collision avoidance at very close quarters (this is by no means a standard procedure but I've heard it advocated by some very experienced pilots as a method of last resort).
We do use a form of stall to descend rapidly called a B line stall: the B lines are the second row of lines across the span (working from the front to back of the wing) and normally carry the majority of the weight; thus pulling them "breaks the back" of the glider across the whole span and can produce descent in excess of 1000fpm; wing-dependent, it can take an awful lot of strength to hold in for any length of time - and as you'd be doing it to avoid being sucked upwards you may have to hold it in for a very long time - and you don't feel particularly in control because you're not really actively piloting. Have done this several times, although it's not my favourite manoeuvre, the most concerning being B-lining to avoid being sucked into a snow storm in front of Hay Bluff a couple of years ago.
Turning to comments made about diving, paraglider pilots would certainly mainly prefer to rapidly descend using a spiral dive, which when "locked in" will get you up to 1200-1300fpm descent with full control.
All in all, paraglider pilots get very used to feeling for the stall and will also use it for landing in certain circumstances, "mushing" the wing onto the deck and even very occasionally just pulling the whole thing in with a couple of feet to go; for preference though, if I'm two foot off the deck and I want to be on it landing in strong winds, I'll stall one side at the same time as I deliberately collapse the other side by yanking hard on the A risers - this turns the wing as it falls, so it hopefully doesn't reinflate and drag you backwards across whatever site or field it is you're landing on!