Stall is impossible in strong thermals due to the extreme reduction of the incidence angle. The stall happen as soon as the wing exit the thermal like in this case.
Thanks for posting this and thanks to the commenters. I am learning about paragliders and I did wonder about the brake position early in this video. I imagine that is a habit we can all fall in to? I know I like to have a little pressure on both rudder pedals in a powered aircraft on approach - makes me feel more connected to the plane.
1.Not a great way to hold the brakes. 2. Too much brake. 3. Stall and still on brakes. 4. Lucky it recovered at all. 5. Active piloting goes a long way in this sport. You looked very much like a passenger. Hope things have improved and your still enjoying flying.
First thing, Keep "Nodding" (ie : looking down and at the glider), when it goes wrong. You could have hit the ground and died in the time it took to sort it out. If it doesn't immediately recover, you need to look down and throw the reserve if you are too low to recover. As everyone else said "The glider was innocent", it was FAR too much brake.
next time you go for heli entry try pulling both breaks more symmetrically, then release, then catch in deepstall, then let one hand up and start the rotation. In my opinion when learning this is easier than a spin entry.
use another grip method to hold the brake lines or close your hands, otherwise you are gonna loose them during similar rough conditions and thats the worst thing than can happen.
You were too deep on the breaks and essentially began a helo acro maneuver. It had very little to do with the thermal. A better title for this video would be "How to Enter a Helicopter Acro Maneuver"
Don't know how you stand that damned variometer?! All that noise when I'm trying to escape the noisy world would drive me crazy. Seems like you would start listening to that vs listening to your senses. Well over 3K hours and never used one, w/ lots of flight time above 10Kft, due to thermal action and the seat of my pants. To each their own.
That thermal had a nice big stable highspeed core, which you made no attempt to center correctly. If you had, you would not be flying in and out of the thermal all the time, and you would've had no collapse-problem either.
Apart from all the other stuff that has been commented so far, you have your risers attached wrong to your harness. The accelerator has to point outward, away from the pilot! You did it on both sides, which i assume is a sign that either you do it wrong every time or it has even been taught wrong. Second, don't work against the glider, give it some time to turn, use weight shift as much as possible. Your normal brake position is way too low, it should be at about half of the travel of what is seen in the video. Just look up next time you are flying straight. There shouldn't be almost any trailing edge deflection. Third, dont ever touch the risers. You should get used to not touch the risers, even when it gets unconfortable in the air. All your feel for the glider is lost, and your glider is prone to collapses. Start with easy conditions (not too demanding conditions) to get used to that feeling, even if it's at first uncomfy to not touch the risers anymore when experiencing turbulence. I bet you will improve your active flying skills a lot, as soon as you start doing that. Good luck!
