Well, today was cloudy, windy, gusty again. No sense in going to the flying sites, so I went over to my local village green to get more experience with my Paradigm2-30. The wind was strong enough to easily inflate with big ears already pulled on. I practiced both techniques of holding onto the two middle "A" lines with my thumbs (that makes the centre panels come up first), and also without holding them. It all depends on the situation, whether you need to or not, and how the wing is laid out in its "wall". The wind was strong enough to make leaps into the air (the field is slightly sloping down into the wind, real nice), even with big ears on.

With the big ears off, I could lift off the ground easily. But what I practiced doing was laying back with my back arched, back to 45°, then all the way until my head just touched the ground, but my body was suspended, held up by the wing's pull, my feet just touching the ground. In that position you could really say I was flying, at least anti-gravity, just like flying. And thus I "flew " the wing for half an hour at a time, hardly moving my feet, and bouncing up and down in the inclination of my body. No danger of falling, and I learned a lot about the wing, which will serve me well in flight.

It's amazing how much it's like really flying it, when in strong wind I lay back and hover inches off the ground, with only my feet touching, and "fly" it like that for a long time. After about 15 minutes like that, I get real "in tune" with the wing, and the cage becomes an extension of my hands, in connecting me to the wing. I just know for sure this kind of training will come in useful when I really fly the wing high.

Something interesting I find about using the big ears, at least in these ground exercises (that is, I wonder if it will be the same in the air ): is that, when the Paradigm2-30 is full open, it is fairly sensitive in roll ,and one has to anticipate more the roll control than with the more docile Lagon, in order not to let the wing slide to right or left too fast and provoke a tip tuck. Perhaps on the ground that is more so than in the air (when the wing will be constantly loaded ). So, with the big ears pulled FULL on, that is, the handle pulled out long and wrapped around the cage handlebars then back up to where the hands are placed (I dangle the big ears handle on my thumb in such a way that when I do the wrap it goes around smoothly and my hand naturally grips again the black rubber coated bar, with the big ears handle pivoting in my thumb only.), then the wing becomes quite docile and pitch stable.

HOWEVER, when I just pull on small big ears, that is, just pulling the handle on over to the handlebar directly without wrapping the line around the back and front of the handlebar to whichever hand I choose, then with these "small ears", I notice that the wing is still rather twitchy, and these small ears tend to flop in and out of action, one side after the other. Perhaps again that is only on the ground, but I wonder how it will be in the air, too.

Another thing to notice about the Paradigm2, is that when during inflation (or speed up from a stall when ground handling ) the wing can really gather speed and shoot ahead, and the pitch has to be anticipated too, and often the cage structure has to be tilted up dramatically, almost to vertical, to slow the wing down. Otherwise if delayed too long, the wing can frontal tuck when speeding it up too fast while ground handling. Well, that can also be a way to get the wing down on the ground in heavy wind, when laying it down towards the rear would be too dangerous and get you dragged. If you provoke a frontal collapse by speeding it up suddenly, you can get a massive frontal collapse and it will fall. Be careful afterwards that it doesn't re-inflate!

I preferred to pull on big ears in heavy wind, and get the wing stabilized, then roll it over to one side and accordion it to the ground to one side, collapsing to the ground, and then take the appropriate motions to keep it from re-inflating. It's true that to get the big ears to come out, when letting go of the big ears line, one has to vigorously shake them out side to side, with the appropriate pitch out movement to re-inflate them. From these ground handling sessions on the village green, my confidence in handling the Paradigm2-30 wing in all types of wind, has GREATLY improved.


Karl purchased his Paradigme 2 at the same time as I got my Lagon, having owned a Lagon for some time himself. It's nice to see him going back to basics to increase his skill set on the much more lively canopy, and proves that you should never be too proud to learn.