The following was posted to Nova’s Facebook page and emailed to them today 🙂
Having just got your newsletter this morning on “NOVA Speedbrake Riser” and as reading the article gave me a very strong sense of Deja Vu 🙂
I just had to grab a few quick camera phone shots of the risers of one of the two Vertex PG’s that I’ve been using to ‘test bed’ paragliding Physics since the mid 90’s when I took up the sport (one of my first two gliders was a ‘second hand’ TWO flight time ‘old’ Vertex 22 (i.e. uncertified rather than a ‘2/3’) which I after I registered it has the first ever issued UK (CAA) aircraft registration, ‘G-BYLI’ (ICAO callsign ‘Fotoglider Lima India’)….!
The photographs show the ‘Rear Riser System’, which permits the pilot either by hand and/or by use of the normal speed bar system. BUT attached to the ‘RR System’ rather than to the standard system on the A riser, to alter in flight, indirectly the pitch of the wing, either ‘asymmetrically’ (One on a A riser’ One on a C Riser) to directly enter a flat spin from forward flight with little/no noticeable stall drop…. Or when both sides (if using the foot bar) are attached to the two C risers, letting the pilot (passing smoothly/quickly through the parachutal stall) fly the wing backwards i.e. moving the pilots mass ‘backwards’ in flight so as the secondary & further effects take place the trailing edge becomes lower then the leading edge hence the direction of ‘forward’ flight changes by 180* 🙂
Note: when in use the Rear Riser System is generally used with OR matched with use of the brakes (in the pilots hands), this is easiest when hand operated (takes reasonable strength) as the ‘new leading edge’ coming down with the brake handles, AND the hand operated RRS directly avoiding any kinking in the wing material between the brake fan attachments and the C riser attachment points 🙂
So in conclusion this was a world first for Nova…. it’s just that it was a first for my two Nova Vertex 24 gliders in Scotland well over a decade ago 🙂
Yours Murray ‘Fotoglider’ Hay