Hopefully I'm not misleading anyone. I really enjoy analyzing Cage flight. I discovered how to induce a frontal  in windy conditions with poor penetration. I'm looking forward to eventually getting a Seagull. The higher speed range is very appealing adding a margin of safety. But with the Lagon there is one thing that may help... porpoising.

The thing to do is get to your top speed in the way you described by pushing up on the back portion of the handles which lowers the angle of attack.  Once you have established top speed pop the wing into a pitch up attitude just for a moment. Your wing will slow, your body will swing forward and you will climb a little.

This will naturally be followed by a wing surge. Feel when your body reaches the top of the swing and the wing is going to want to fly forward. Prepare to speed the wing into the surge. I think what happens is you unload the wing at the top of the porpoise manoeuvre, reduce your 'g' (< 1gravity), then reload the wing (at a 1+ 'g') when it tries to over fly you and you swing forward with it. You are, in essence, adding a temporary ballast which increases your wing loading thereby increasing your speed, until the energy bleeds off and you come back under a normal wing loading.

It seems to me to maximize the effect, the positive control the Cage affords is a great help. At the instant your body has peaked at the top of the forward swing, you will feel a slight falling sensation. The wing will begin to shoot forward. Do not try to slow it or stop it overhead in this instance. Do exactly the opposite (but don't explain this to your buddies flying standard paragliders - they may stone you). You want to accomplish a gradual acceleration which will - actually - keep the wing over your head as your body falls forward. Again, the speed and energy will bleed off after a couple seconds. At this point you will ideally have slowed from a faster than normal top speed to your normal top speed. Then you can repeat the manoeuvre. If done right, the only time you will be flying slower than top speed will be from when you pop the wing up into the porpoise (and begin gaining elevation) until you have accelerated the wing back overhead as though you were trying to dive it forward in front of you. Try to match the speed of the wing to the speed of your body as you do this and learn to speed it to the fastest rate possible for the given wing loading. With practice you can get more aggressive with the amount of pitch up with which you initiate the porpoising climb. This will give you a longer 'dive' because you generate more inertia.

Some wing manufacturers advise against porpoising. I think JLD advises against it too though my manual is in French and I don't know where I may have read that. The things to be aware of are that you intentionally stall the wing or come close to it. Therefore, a surge will follow. Also, the wing loading increases but if the wing can handle the loading under big ears or spiral turns I think it can easily handle porpoising.

Experiment incrementally in normal wind conditions. Don't intentionally fly in situations where you NEED this manoeuvre. That would be a really bad idea. It can save you some grief when you need to penetrate, but then you should wonder, "why was I in that situation - was it dangerous - how could I have avoided it?"

This was written by Judson in June 2002