Yes, I know that figure 8s is the established pattern. The question is why? That’s the point of my last post. Why are we advocating tight maneuvers with multiple crossing flight paths all the way to short final? Why is this done close to rising terrain in a “box” that has a high probability of being congested? Yes, turbulence may be abundant, especially in the approach area, so why would you want to meander about and spend any more time than you have to in said area? It seems that Mr. Crouse was also bewildered by the pattern as depicted in the original post.

You can vary the glide between both PG and HG within certain limits, but no, you cannot simply nose a HG down to lose altitude, especially high performance gliders. You will just trade altitude for energy. The difference between HG and PG is moot because if we all stay in the appropriate side of the pattern, we are going to be flying with like wings with similar performance. It is your buddies that you have to deal with. What are you going to do when the sky shuts down and everybody shows up at in the same area at the same altitude? What if all they know is to do figure 8s inside the box, because that’s all they’re taught? Add a out of town pilot into the mix, who disregards the rules, and you have a high potential for disaster. I’ve seen too many pilots injure themselves over the years in that area to remain silent. Figure 8s going into final are not appropriate for this site. The reality of the matter is, people are going to fly poorly and make mistakes. Why not give them an advantage and teach them a superior, and safer way to land from the start? And as I said before, if they are teaching students to rely on figure 8s to lose altitude because of sloppy pattern discipline, it becomes a crutch.

I don’t fly PG, so I am only speaking from observation, but in Jana’s video of Stephen landing there is nothing that looks unsafe.  Quite the opposite, Stephen’s approach looks quite safe, as it should because he is an excellent pilot.

Certainly more safe than cutting a HG off when the HG is doing 35/40 MPH and risking both pilots lives’.  Perhaps Jana could get Stephen to give his take on the specified pattern as he is an instructor and is teaching students that pattern.

I’ve been called out as a new paraglider pilot a couple of times for being in the hang glider landing zone, and I have to say, I totally get the point(s) of how it’s supposed to be done.

I have flown private airplanes, as has my family for 3 generations, and with that type of aviation, there is a control tower watching everything. (which sometimes I think there should be at Andy Jackson!)

At Andy Jackson, there is no control tower, there is no touch and go’s (except sometimes), there is no go back around.

Hang gliders come in hot at much higher speeds than paragliders. It is potentially very obviously more difficult, committed, and more dangerous to land a hang glider than a paraglider (depending on wind speed).

The potential for a landing paraglider pilot to not see a hang glider on final approach is quite extreme. I have had it happen 2 times in my only 18 paraglider flights. That’s unacceptable.

THEREFORE– I agree and understand 100% WHY paraglider pilots need to come in over the hang glider bunny or to the right,and NEVER in the airspace of an unexpected hang glider. This can easily be the most dangerous situation of all because there is no recovery from an unexpected incident at low altitude on landing. We don’t need broken backs!!

I repeat, there is no control tower. This needs to be followed religiously. I have been guilty of it myself, so I ain’t no preach, I’m just saying I get it.

The vast majority of airports don’t have a tower.   There may be a CTAF to announce your presence and intentions, but there’s no requirement to have a radio or use one if you have it, and making an announcement doesn’t give you any sort of right-of-way.

But they do have traffic patterns.

The reason for the traffic pattern is so that people are in predictable places, even in the absence of a tower or a radio announcement.

It’s not obvious to me how turns keep you from seeing other traffic, especially from vehicles with as unobstructed a view as hang gliders and paragliders.

I suspect that in many cases, PGs just aren’t looking for/don’t recognize the consequences of a hang glider descending on the southeast corner of the LZ.  That guy that’s “way out there” and “not a factor” will shortly be going downwind at above average speeds.  That’s not to spite you. That’s the accepted pattern.

I’d also like to point out that the landing pattern is not the place to extend your flight duration.  This is true for both HGs that circle directly over the northeast corner of the LZ instead of losing altitude somewhere near the southeast corner as well as the PGs that feel duty-bound to eke every last second of flight out of the light lift over the HG training hill.  Land. Getting vertical separation from other people so you’re not landing at the same time is probably another conversation, but that should have been done earlier.

Alex:

The original scheme , as I recall it, was for PGs to fly the mirror image of the HG approach.

In both approaches, during the middle of the day, there can be significant lift, so by the time you get to where you’d like to make your turn on to base, you’re a high.  So sometimes it would be necessary to fly a small number of figure 8s instead of just a base leg.  On the HG side, one day I had to go out and start the approach over again from a lower altitude twice.

Somehow, in the PG pattern this has morphed into only doing figure 8s in the area defined by the Cross-Country Ranch.  I don’t fly PGs, so I can’t say whether this is easy or hard.  I do think if there was some initial control point upwind and away from the hill that was routinely rounded before going back downwind to do any remaining figure 8s then pilots wouldn’t come in as low over the trees.  I’ve watch Dusty make approaches like this any number of times.

Mike V. posting under Richard Viveros = Me confused. 😅

The figure 8 approach is meant to keep you away from all these obstacles you mentioned. You’ll get it eventually, and like I keep saying, the approach is not written in stone. First and foremost, the goal is always to avoid other pilots in the air with you, power lines, the trees, the shade structure and still have a safe, uneventful landing on the grass (or even the overshoot parking lot below the training hill, if that’s what you have to do).

If you make absolutely certain that you’re not getting into anyone’s way while landing, it’s not a big deal if you don’t land near the PG cone. The problem is that many say they ARE looking, and somehow still end up cutting off another pilot as they are making their final approach. That’s why IMO it’s safer to just stay on the PG side, because even if you don’t see an HG coming in to land, you’re on your own side, likely out of his/her way.

If you fly out in front of the house and trees a little bit, then slowly start turning between the white fence and somewhere before the hang glider training hill, you’ll slowly lose enough altitude to then make your final approach to the grass. If you’re landing earlier in the day, yeah, you’ll still get some lift as you’re landing (that’s why flying and landing in the early summer afternoon can be so dicey), but usually that becomes a non-issue in late afternoon at sunset.