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Anyone here have experience with small hang glider reserves that have their apex pulled down with a center line? My friend, BASE 58, has one that has a 16 foot diameter. It opens instantly and he can jump low bridges into water with it.

 
Pulling down the apex just about cuts the filling time in half. Depending on the design it can decrease the decent rate a bit. As an example you'll hear of an 18% increase in the drag cofecent of a flat circular. The change in a shaped canopy is not as great.

There are some nice paraglider/hangglider reserves and there are some shitty ones. Pionear made a POS that didn't even have tape on the seams. Some had line attachment problems. They were sewn with a single throw zigzag so wide that they missed the line with half or some times all of the stiches.

Mod a skydiveing reserve or get a good one. The Quantom has one of the best shapes but I'm not sure about their lines. All of them are built a little light. Not really made for opening shock.

Lee

yeah, they will oscillate quite a bit.

Pioneer makes great stuff.

Sure you measured right? Sixteen feet in diameter is way too small to bring down a hang glider and its pilot. There's a lot of companies retailing these pulled down apex rounds nowadays but they are usually in the 19 to 21 foot diameter range. Sixteen feet is more for cargo, and while you can land one in the water with no problem, miss the water and you're in deep shit.

The original rounds for hang gliders, and later for paragliders, were manufactured by FreeFlight in Lake Elsinore, a company owned by the late Gary Douris. They are still in business today and many of their canopies are sold by other outfits in re-branded form.

yes, it was measured at 16 feet. It's Kevin Venell's. It's an anomaly since such tiny canopies are hard to find for hang gliders. I found an Italian company back in 1996 that made a 16 foot round canopy.

16 feet is enough. It sucks, but you live.

how many feet would it take for some of the rounds to open..for the vast majority of rounds from 16ft to as large as they make them to open normal and then also if you pulled the apex down?

16 foot is nearly instant. You can also deploy like a pilot chute.

I've watched people during an annual Thames Valley HGC "Big Fat Repack" session deploy their reserves from hang / paraglider harnesses going down a zip wire from one end of a basketball court to another and them coming out before they reached the other end.

I recall a figure of 50m being quoted as the minimum safe height for a deployment of such a reseve in the field; however this also included the "handle-location and throw" time.

do hanglider pilots have to pull a handle and manually throw the reserve...or is there a spring loaded pilotchute?

I believe the proper term is. 'Survivable Landing'
A 16' would suckass bigtime. A Brutal PLF, no doubt, but being carried away breathing with broken ribs or a leg or ankles is better than dead in a bag.
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Amongst some other dumb playing-with-shit-I-found-in-the-loft adventures, I once jumped my paragliding reserve from a french bridge TARD style, over a grassy field. It was a 16' PDA and with a jump and a throw (Hey, I was scared!) I think it opened above the exit point...
Even though it was nil wind I osciillated pretty badly and ended up in a small tree. It would have hurt without the greenery for sure. I had landed the thing before after paragliding deployments and the wobbling was much less (dragging a deflated main was calming it down maybe - no cutaway on PG's) and was confident it would be fine, but I wouldn't do it again over hard ground... Half-way down I looked up at this thing that looked like a Smartie on a string and realised I might be in for a little pain, but now, like the knights that say Ni!, I'm a big fan of shrubbery.
If you want to jump a round, spend a little money and buy something made for the job. Take it from someone who, historically, has used pain as a learning tool. Honestly.
Dave M

my motto is no pain, no pain. thanks for sharing the info. the high pressure points on that sucker will cause it to be unstable but it can for a jumper who's doin' over deep water.

You generally grab a handle on the harness either at your chest or side, peel the velcro and throw the whole package. The reserve should be packed such that it's weight is sufficent force to pull the lines from the bungees (no PC) - so you should not be able to pick the packed reserve off the floor by it's lines.

Hang glider attachment bridles are typically long, allowing the reserve to first clear the glider structure before deploying. Paraglider bridles are short to avoid entanglement with the wing.

Some hang gliders have been fitted with automated systems that use a small amount of explosive material to fire the reserve out from a cylinder, but it's not very common.

thanks,
I appreciate the info

Dad anybody ever tried a Rogallo style Reserve and know more about it´s opening characteristics compared to a normal round reserve?
Has this canopy style any history in Base?

very limited control, terrible glide, almost no flare.

very limited control, terrible glide, almost no flare.

Ever try taking a delay with one?

Or a DC-5 canopy.

nope. I do not want to either. they open like an apex-pull-down round.

Yes, Rogalla canopies have been jumped in base, at bridge day. they are notorious for malfunctioning in skydiving, with a one out of 75 malfunction rate.