13 Body Position

While flying acro, and during SIV, paragliders adopt an upright body position. Pilots often tuck their heels up to their buttocks, in order to reduce the risk of twisting by decreasing rotational inertia.

I recommend that most pilots, including experienced pilots adopt a similar body position; relatively upright, but with relaxed legs, with knees kept at most shoulder-width apart. Widening your legs only increases drag, without any benefit.

The choice of harness greatly influences the range of body positions that a pilot can comfortably adopt. I recommend flying with a harness with relatively low carabineer hang-points, as this provides better response to weight-shift, which is our primary mechanism of control.

Laid Back

I recommend that only the most experienced pilots experiment with the laid back body position for a couple of reasons; reduced visibility, and risk of twist by projecting the sides of your legs to airflow. When I began experimenting with this technique, I experienced a little twist when my legs became slightly off-axis during a dive, and thus projected to airflow from the side (I was wearing trousers). At high speed, this can be a major risk, especially while flying in proximity to terrain.

The main advantage of adopting this body position is reduced drag. This is only noticeable at high speed.

In addition, your legs will be slightly lower than your upper body when holding the risers. In this position, your body acts as a spoiler, creating downforce. This effectively increases the wingload.

If you watch my videos, you will notice that I keep the wing flying steep with very little effort.

When I began with this technique, I often momentarily tucked my legs during a hard turn. I did this because it felt better for me. I don’t tend to do this now that I’m more used to this body position. I suggest that, as for the rest of this book, you try for yourself to see what works for you.

Please always keep sufficient margin from terrain, and never try any advanced piloting techniques until you are confident that you have solid fundamental abilities. If you are unsure, please reach out for advice. My intention here is not to promote dangerous practice, but to offer sound advice, also for experienced pilots wishing to further develop their piloting. As such, much of this book contains information that is inappropriate even for pilots with thousands of flights.

Centre of Mass

In addition to the points about flying Laid Back above, straightening your legs while your upper body is up-right changes something else; your centre of mass.

Your centre of mass always moves directly below the centre of lift. The centre of lift is somewhere around the centre of your glider, typically at around 25% of the chord from the leading edge.

It follows that with a constant angle of attack, moving your centre of mass forward or backward results in a change of pitch. I often use this while flying terrain.

In the near future, I will measure the differences in glide ratio for various body positions and publish the results on this website.