Emergency Parachute Selection: Buyers Guide to selecting a new emergency parachute for Hang Gliding

Buyers Guide to selecting a new emergency parachute for Hang Gliding:

So - you are looking for a new parachute to use in your hang glider harness? The options out there can seem a tad overwhelming! Here are some pointers to help you work out what it is that you are actually after. Most of this applies to both new and used.

Hang gliding parachutes are essentially the same as paraglider parachutes except that for the hang glider, we need there to be a long bridle so that the deployed parachute opens clear of what remains of our glider. You can buy extension bridles to convert a paraglider chute into a hang glider one. But it is better to buy one with a dedicated hang glider bridle from the word go as that reduces connections and possible failure/snag points. All the chutes we sell we sell as HG versions as standard (although if you are also a PG pilot and want one for that just ask as we can also supply them!).

There are expensive chutes and there are less expensive chutes. Both will save your life! Spending more doesn't mean a better chance of saving your life. So what do you get when you spend more money? You get a chute that packs smaller and is lighter. For me this is worth every penny as I hate the bulk and weight restricting my movements in my harness when launching.

The only other advantage to the expensive chutes is that they tend to be square chutes. Square chutes tend to have a more stable descent and also a slower descent rate. Not that a faster or pendulum descent will pose any greater risk to your life that is. It is again more about comfort than life saving ability.

After how much you want to spend, the biggest decision is what size you want/need. You need one that is big enough to give a sensible decent rate at your weight. 5.5m/s (meters per second) is generally agreed to be the 'comfort' limit. Faster than that and it will probably save your life but the risk of broken limbs or etc goes up. You will often see chutes certified to a higher descent rate but most give a load rating for 5.5m/s as well and that is the one you want to pay more attention to.

You don't want to go too big because that is then weight and bulk you are lugging around and moreover, a chute that is too lightly loaded can become unstable.

But it is not a simple thing to work out what weight will be under the chute!! Depending on who you talk to, you will get a different opinion on how much of the glider to factor in. Some chute manufacturers and other commentators will tell you that you should factor in all of your glider weight. But if you watch videos of HG deployments where the glider has become separated from the pilot, the pilot under their chute reaches the ground way before the mangled glider which says that the glider will not be applying any load to chute if still connected (although this is going to be somewhat case specific). Which leads some manufacturers to say to not factor any of the glider. Pretty much no current manufacturers know or even care about us HG guys. Metamorphosi (no longer available but were made by Moyes for a while) did though and if you read their manual they say to not factor any of the glider weight for a flex and then factor 50% of the glider weight for a rigid. I am not aiming to tell you what is right and wrong here! It is something you need to weigh up (pun intended!) and decide what feels right to you. Going with 50% of the glider's weight for a flex or 75% for a rigid is another option that makes some sense as you are hedging your bets between the two.

It is important to get an accurate in-flight weight for you and your gear (less glider). Most of us keep our helmet and gloves etc in our harness bag so it is worth grabbing your harness bag (with all your 'extra stuff' in it) and standing on the bathroom scales. I find most pilots greatly under-estimate how much their clip in weight actually is so you might be surprised! The switched on person might observe that weighing like this means you are also weighing your current chute (~2kg or so) which shouldn't be included as that won't be suspended under your chute if you were ever to throw it. But most of us fly with the glider bags and some water or etc in our harnesses so the chute is equivalent to that meaning it is actually quite a good indication of your actual total clip in.

So - now you have your actual clip in weight - plus however much of your glider weight you are going to factor and a good idea of what load rating chute you are after. Now you are simply spoilt for choice on what chute to buy! Have a look on the website here and see what the different offerings are.

Just a final note on swivels: pretty much all the manufacturers offer a swivel (aka: rotor) on their HG versions. The idea for the swivel came about when some aerobatic gliders folded in half and subsequently rotated violently (like a sycamore leaf) under the chute. The worry being that this rotation could in theory wind in the lines that go to the chute closing the chute up! To my knowledge this closing of a chute has only ever been theorized and have never actually happened. Not even in the cases of rapidly spinning gliders. Anyway - the idea of the rotor is to allow the glider and pilot to spin but without having any effect on the chute itself. Sounds like a no-brainer to have one but what are the negatives? Well - the swivel costs more and adds more bulk and weight to the setup. It also add a lump of metal into the system that has mass and could mess with a deployment or even worse snag one up. And they cost. So again, like all decisions about safety gear, this is something you need to weigh up and work out if it will add to your safety (and peace of mind!) or not. As someone once (allegedly) said when advising a customer with a query on safety gear: "That depends on what kind of accident you are planning on having sir"!