SAFA Skysailor Magazine

22 SKY SAILOR March | April 2020 I wrote this article back in 2012, after hear- ing of multiple reserve deployment accidents during that season (both here and abroad). I’ve been asked to update and re-submit this to SkySailor as there are still many pilots who either haven’t thought enough about deploying their reserve, or planned adequately for each phase of a successful deployment. Enjoy... After seven years of running SIV courses with Jocky Sanderson and the SkyOut Team, I have seen reserves of all shapes and sizes and witnessed many deployments. I have also experienced the effects of a down-planing reserve and was shocked at how quickly it can happen, as well as the force of impact with the ground (I landed in water, had I descended on hard ground I would have suffered serious injury). After leaving flight school, most pilots spend all their time accumulating knowledge and experience on how to stay up and thermal efficiently, go XC, understand the weather and what the sky is doing around them. Other than buying a reserve and fitting it to the harness, often no more thought is directed towards emergencies and reserves until the moment when the pilot needs it. Visualisation is a tool used by sports psycholo- gists and coaches to help athletes prepare before their event. It has been proven to cultivate not only a competitive edge, but also to create renewed mental awareness and a heightened sense of well- being and confidence. Pilots who make a ‘Visual Emergency Plan’ react better in an emergency as they have already thought about and planned the sequence of events that would take place before and after a reserve deployment. There are four vital stages to consider when throwing your reserve. Stage 1: The decision to throw Altitude and circumstance are the key factors in your decision to throw your reserve. If you are at low altitude and suffer an uncontrollable collapse, then the reserve should be thrown immediately. This gives the reserve more time to open into a controlled descent, and the pilot ample time to de-power and bring in the main (more on this during Stage 3). If you’re high when your collapse occurs, and you are attempting to recover the wing into a controlled flying configuration, then you must keep checking your altitude to ensure you can still deploy the reserve if you need to. Recognise what the wing is doing and the effect your brake inputs are having on the collapse/cascade. If your wing is in a cravat- ted spiral and accelerating, throw your reserve immediately as the increasing G forces can cause you to black out very quickly. I recommend pilots have an AGL (Above Ground Level) altitude field box on their flight instruments, especially when flying in the mountains. It is hard to judge exact AGL when flying in high alpine environ- You’re working hard to make the most of the small, punchy thermals, slowly working your way up the mountain, you’re already thinking of cloudbase and your next glide, when BANG – a big asymmetric collapse quickly turns into a cravatted spiral dive. You check your altitude and decide to throw your reserve… by Roger Stanford Reserve Deployments and Down-Planing Reserve down-planing: Notice the position of the reserve behind the pilot with the wing actively flying in front