Forum

Steerable or not?
 

Steerable or not?  

  RSS
Chumley warner
(@chumley-warner)
Club Member

Hi guys I need to replace my reserve and am considering purchasing a steerable one. I've researched all I can online and would appreciate others comments.

Regards Ian

 

Quote
Posted : 13/10/2020 20:38
Chris Dervin - New Members Officer
(@chrisd)
Committee

Bit of recent chat on FB about this. Copied some of it below. My take is that they are not as reliable, complex to pack, more benefit in the mountains, might need to consider a back up round or square.

Post by RC - Following on from my woopsi on August Bank Holiday Monday and my reserve parachute deployment over the edge of Sheffield. I have decided to get a stearable reserve. They seam to be very popular in central europe. I have decided to get #highadventure Beamer 3 reserve. Mainly because there promotinal youtube vidios all show them working with the main glider still attached. Ie real life flying. They deploy with the breaks locked down. So behave like a round parachute untill you release the breaks and stear to were you want to go. Ill hopefully never have to use it but should the worst happen again, at least I can stear to a safe landing spot next time instead of takeing pot luck on my landing spot.

TB - A lot of pilots avoid them because they're more expensive, heavier and viewed by some as more complex to repack, even though they're not. They're just very different from a PDA.

Bearing in mind that the average UK pilot spends a very high proportion of their time ridge soaring, they would be too low to benefit from the steerability.
For pilots who regularly fly XC or in the mountains they make more sense.
 
PD - I went down the same line. It is worth considering being able to release your glider once the Beamer is deployed. I deployed mine twice, once in anger and the other after a badly managed exit from stall in SIV. In both cases, disabling my main glider took all my attention. 99 cells full of plastic rods, really wanted to trash, dive and rotate and I was keen that it didn’t cause more problems. Steering the Beamer was not really an option as I needed both hands to stop my main glider bursting back into action. On the positive side, the Beamer descent was super stable and slow, even though I wasn’t able to steer. I saw acro pilots deploy when training over water, release their paraglider and fly their Beamer to the beach for a stand up landing. Not something I was able to achieve!!
 
KC - I have a Beamer under seat and a square/round top mounted. Beamer for higher and round/square for low. Having said I’ve only ever chucked once and it was the top mounted that I threw despite being high...
 
DB - The Charly Diamondcross/Kortel Krisis looks a nice design, IMHO. Thanks for the tip, Kirsty.

Easy to repack too, when compared to a Beamer/Rogallo.
 
MA - German research using the EHPU database, of which the UK is a member, shows that steerable parachutes mis-deploy at a massively higher rate that non-steerable reserves. Probably best to carry one of each at the very least.

JB - Yep, agree with Kirsty Cameron, overall Beamers can create more problems than they solve, as well as a longer deployment time (I believe). If you do have a beamer it is best to be as part of a 2 reserve option: one round or square to be deployed in anger, low to the ground or terrain and the beamer to be used with more altitude to spare giving more deployment time, and getting rid of the main and gaining control of the beamer

ML - .....diamond cross square steerable......I think it's the best thing on the market at the moment.

 

This looks interesting - https://youtu.be/F8cEEOoJJ3c

ReplyQuote
Posted : 21/10/2020 18:13
X
X

Please Login or Register