Time for another Ask Me Anything show! In this episode we tackle three questions that came in from our Patreon supporters. The first was to go deep on the new class of C wing 2-Liners. To answer this I sat down (virtually) with SIV guru Malin Lobb, who sees these wings in all kinds of configurations in his SIV courses. How do you know you’re ready for a 2-liner? Any downsides? How do they behave differently than a 3-liner and what do pilots stepping up for the first time need to be aware of? And a lot more great advice on piloting in general. Then I take on a question that came in about doing a bivvy in the Alps for the first time. Where to go, what time of year, how to connect with other pilots. It’s a big arena and can be daunting for your first trip! And finally I tackle a great question about assessing when you’re ready to take on something big. A new line, a bivvy, an expedition. When are you ready? Never! So go!
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Gavin McClurg (01:04.453)
Malin, good to have you back on the show. We're gonna do a proper full length show here in a little bit, but you're traveling with your family and I just got back and we're gonna attack this question that came in for this Ask Me Anything show about two liner sea wings. This is kind of a new breed of sea wings. Several manufacturers are making them and putting them out.
and I didn't really have the expertise to answer this question. So glad you're here to be in my stead and answer professionally because you know a lot more about this stuff than I do, seeing how all these wings behave in SIV. Let me read the question first so you all can hear it and then, Mal and I'll hand it over to you. I'd like your take on the new crop of two -liner sea wings and things to consider when moving up from an ENC three -liner.
Malin Lobb (01:38.636)
you
Gavin McClurg (01:58.066)
They're becoming popular where I fly, I know of two accidents happening within the last two weeks. One happened immediately after launch where one side of the wing collapsed and the pilot ended up in the trees with no serious injury. The other happened when the pilot experienced a frontal while on bar, low over terrain, and in his words, the wing disappeared only to come forward with a vengeance that he didn't adequately control and almost ended up in the wing. He landed and was able to walk out with a fractured vertebrae.
In both cases, these are experienced pilots, but maybe not prepared for the extra control required by a two -liner. In the second case, the pilot mentioned the energy in the wing was so much greater than he expected. With only two rows of lines, it seems to me that any collapse is much more impactful as there is no extra line support to help limit the extent of the collapse. How can the difference between the two -liner and three -liner be explained scientifically to help someone understand how collapses are different between the two? So.
Yeah, take it from there. What's different from a manufacturing standpoint between a two -liner and a three -liner? How do they behave differently? What do we need to get out to the flying audience who's considering moving up to one? What are the pros? What are the cons, if any?
Malin Lobb (03:03.818)
Yeah, well thanks for having me back. I'm glad that those guys weren't seriously or too badly injured. There's quite a lot that could maybe be described a little bit better
designers, but from what I see, because we get a lot of these wings now in SIV, is if you are already on a three -liner C and you move to a two -liner C, you're not going to notice any difference. I've never got on a wing and felt that they had more or less attachment points. There's so much more involved in the span -wise cohesion of a wing, of how solid and how much feedback a wing gives or how little it gives.
And then there's a lot to play with aspect ratio, the shark knows how far back the A's are. And then the pilot itself, the harness that you have with it, there's more than just one thing at play. But essentially, if you didn't look up and you're already used to flying an ENC, then you probably wouldn't feel any difference.
In terms of collapses and how it's affected, so unless you have collapse lines on the SIV, can't pull collapses. So there's a variety of other things that we get into. But I think one thing that people don't do enough of is try and fly defensively and use a bigger input when they're getting a collapse. So maybe a downside of having less lines is it's going to be a bit more
prone, but if you're flying something with more aspect ratio, then that's going to become a bit more prone as well and potentially give you more feedback. But if you're going from the same aspect ratio, then you shouldn't notice much difference. Now they are more stable, so you should suffer less collapses, but potentially the collapses you do have are then going to be from more aggressive air. So it could be that
Malin Lobb (05:23.807)
Pilots with softer wings or wings that collapse easier are used to doing smaller inputs to stop those collapses. And those are the sort of collapses that aren't even going to happen on two -liner. So they're, you know, they might be bigger or more violent than ones they used to when they do happen, but they would still happen on their, you know, their three -liner ones. But it depends on the wing you fly as to whether you're going to, you know, feel it or not. Some wings
They breathe a little bit more, they move a little bit more. What you don't want is a wing that's too solid and not giving much feedback, but these three line of C's I think they're all really good in terms of their manageability and amount of feedback. There's definitely a spread from the highest end to the more entry level ones. So there are ones that if you're a bit tentative that might be better than others to get into.
But I think people have been hurting themselves on three line of seas for as long as they've been around and the two liners are no different. It all comes back to the pilot action at the time of a collapse. That's the most important
Gavin McClurg (06:37.808)
And more, are these wings more compared to, you know, a D two liner or a CCC wing in terms of, you know, holding onto them when they go, you know, when they come back up, pretty similar, different? How would you compare them? Because you've flown them
Malin Lobb (06:59.375)
Yeah, no, think they're exactly where they should be in the category. They haven't been shoehorned into the sea category. are the way that they fly, the energy they have, the feedback they're giving. They should be directly in the sports category. Like I said, if you didn't look up and you're already used to the power and feedback of the seas, then you probably wouldn't notice any difference. The question might be, should most pilots that are on the seas
be on seas. That's probably the better question. And then, you know, if that person then hurts themselves on an ENC three liner, you know, someone might not think much of it. But if they've just moved to one with two lines, then there's something to blame it on. You know, I think the accidents that happen on these maybe because there's this fear of the unknown, they might put it down to the wing choice rather than
pilot but when someone crashes their three -liner see at the moment people just see it as as a an accident rather than something from the
Gavin McClurg (08:10.185)
Hmm, interesting. Would you still kind of classify this in the same category as what we have talked about over and over again on the show, when to move up? Do all the basic rules apply? It's when you're pushing the wing you're on as hard as you possibly can, you're using its full scope of the speed system all the time, you're basically, in Jocky's words, you're getting bored.
of the wing that you're on. You've maxed it out. You've maxed out the hours. You're observing 100%. You're not thinking about keeping the wing open. You're not looking at the wing all the time. You're in quote unquote ready. Is that any different with these? Is there any more kind of hesitancy? there any more, well, do you have X?
Malin Lobb (09:02.178)
Well, would bring it again back to wing control rather than, well, it's both things. One, when you're at that stage where you're flying a wing like that, you have freed up all the bandwidth that you can free up. You're flying automatically and that frees up as much bandwidth as possible to make good decisions.
Wind control then it comes down to because you need to have done enough that you've covered all of the asymmetric collapses, the frontals, the auto rotations, unless you're going to buy collapse lines. But really by the time you're on a two -liner C, you should have done enough collapses and collapse to rotations and auto rotations and stuff that you understand that enough that you're not going to let it happen again. And then really you don't need to bring collapse lines on the SIV because
We teach much more about how to use the bees efficiently than we do about needing to focus on the collapses of the wing itself. So like the spin point on the bees, the full range of the bees, doing rapid exits and catching on the bees, using the full, like locking your legs at full speed and then coming back to trim speed just with your hands and then finding the spin point. So there's a lot of exercises we can do
the pilot starts to learn to use the B handles just as if they were brakes. The same rules apply. If you pull the full range and you leave it there, you're gonna spin the wing. If you do a punch, you're not, and it's just like that on the brakes. And it's getting pilots confident enough that they can use the Bs to their full advantage because most people flying two -liners don't use the Bs enough. And then really they become safer. The three -liners have only got a certain amount of travel on the seas.
Even the ones with the pulley systems, it's not as effective as having the full travel of bees. So when you start to use speed bar more and you're happy to sit at half bar, two thirds, being efficient and using the wing like that, really that's where two liners not only come out in terms of efficiency and light into wind penetration and their glide efficiency.
Malin Lobb (11:24.883)
but also the safety of being able to keep the wing open at speed. I really think that they're safer in that respect than a three -liner because you have so much more control of your angle of attack.
Gavin McClurg (11:38.59)
I'm not hearing a lot of downsides really. I mean, it sounds like if you've spent some time with wing control, you've done your SIVs, you've got the hours, then it should be a handy tool.
Malin Lobb (11:53.692)
Yeah, for sure. you know, there is different levels of them. Like the softest one we see is probably the Nova Codex. That's really quite a gentle, you know, beginner one if you are apprehensive. Like I don't really see a point in three line of seas anymore. So if you're, you know, at the high B level, you've got some good pilot actions. Because for me, it's not the amount of SIV you've done. It's the pilot actions that you've gained from it. You know, it should always be pilot focused with SIV.
So if you're a nice dynamic pilot, you've got good brake range, you can stop rotations, you're flying your EMB well, you're happy to use speed bar and actively pilot, then I wouldn't even move to a three -liner, see, I'd go straight for a two -liner. Just get one that, you know, the higher level ones, the Arctic R and the Photon, they've got the best performance, but
Gavin McClurg (12:44.123)
So
Malin Lobb (12:53.412)
you know, the kind of at the top of the category. And then you've got the kind of the vault being like mid range, Codex being quite a nice soft one. So they will have slightly different characteristics. Some are a little bit more punchy than others, but they have the performance that the ones that are slightly more, of the higher level of the category, they have the best performance. So it's always a trade off.
Gavin McClurg (13:24.741)
What are you seeing, Malin, in SIV on these wings that are catching people by surprise? Anything? Same as EMDs and CCC wings on two -liners?
Malin Lobb (13:38.074)
Yeah, exactly the same. Yeah, they're not the right wing to learn stools on. So if you haven't, you well, you can, but they don't take kindly to being stalled badly. And it's like even like a high level C wing, you know, three liner, isn't going to be very forgiving to a bad stool technique.
Most wings these days need the two stage entry, which you're not going to be doing on your first stools. They don't like being overstooled. So that's really no different to most modern wings. Even high bees these days, you need to have the two stage stool dialed to make your life easy. It's just these wings have a little bit more power again.
They're just on the aspect ratio where you can start to use a three -stage stool and choke the tips a bit, but really that doesn't come into play too much. It's where I introduced the idea of controlling the speed of the tips once you've broken the foil. But you don't really need it until you start getting into the D category.
Gavin McClurg (15:00.757)
Mal and I wanted to ask you, that just reminded me of something that's related, little unrelated. We just had US Nationals out in Chelan, and the last day we were all screaming towards gold, end of speed, and hit a pretty violent dusty that was about a thousand feet over the ground and still wound up pretty tight where most of the gaggle hit it. And it was.
rain of gliders, know, the edge of this thing was incredibly sharp. So if you didn't dive into it really hard, kind of got thrown out of the side. And so I was one of them that just glider blew up pretty fast. And I'm pretty familiar with the two stage and I've done a lot of practice with that. But in this case, being in such a hardcore kind of combat situation.
I just immediately went tail slide and hope nobody hit me because it was basically, I gotta get this thing under control immediately and there were gliders all around me. And everything worked out really well, but I've still been in, I'm always imagining the perfect scenario over the water, you're doing two stage and it's so lovely, it's such a nice way to do
but then switching that to a full combat situation, is that still your go -to in a full combat? Would you still do a two -stage stall or would you just go immediately tail slide and deal with
Malin Lobb (16:37.291)
Well, it depends what configuration the wing is in. I can't remember the last time I did a stool in anger because I'd rather the wing was flying and then recognize the situation that it was in, whether it's going into a rotation or parachutal or if there's a cravat or anything. Even though they talk about two -stage and three -stage stool, it's more about just bringing more awareness to what the wing is doing at the time. So if you've had
I don't know why you needed to take it to the tail slide whether you'd had a frontal or it had stopped flying anyway, or you were in parachutal, which we call the shit zone. But it's just about having the situational awareness of recognizing those situations and then deciding what you need to do with your hands. If it's already in parachutal or frontaled and not flying, then you can just go to tail slide because the whole point of the two -stage stool is to manage the span as it drops into a stool where...
you're already there or you're in a configuration where the wing is hardly flying then you don't need to do those certain inputs. So whether it's a two stage, three stage or whatever, that's kind of a very simplistic way of looking at the different phases of a stool and actually it's just about recognizing what phase you're in and what you need to do with your hands. So if what you did worked then that's what needed to be done.
Gavin McClurg (18:02.378)
Yeah, it was a big asymmetric and it was looking like cravat. We were in a very, very thick gaggle and it was just for me, was, okay, I gotta see what's going on, get control of this thing. yeah, it was pretty wild. There was a reserve toss in it and it was a pretty dynamic situation, but I was happy with how it all worked out. I can't say it was 100%.
Malin Lobb (18:28.905)
Yeah, I want some footage of this carnage. It sounds entertaining.
Gavin McClurg (18:34.056)
was awesome. It was very exciting. We were right over big high tension power lines and I think Matt Beechner was leading and he was the one that hit it and his bank up was full Yossin style, you know, just, hey, everybody come to me. It was basically a massive wing over. was like, ooh, that's a heater. Let's go there. But then it was just car. I mean, there was at least three, maybe four wings that just exploded.
Malin Lobb (18:51.598)
Ha ha ha.
Gavin McClurg (19:02.222)
One of them was right after Alex almost hit me and I was so glad he didn't. He was one of the ones that was really tight on me and kind of swerved out and then he got hit and had to throw. It was a proper shell and day. It was great. It was exciting. Well, cool. That's pretty, I think we hit what we needed to hit there. Anything in closing you wanted to hit on these sea wings? Any other words of advice or caution?
Malin Lobb (19:14.658)
no.
Malin Lobb (19:32.371)
I think that the thing with choosing any wing is that the problem with us humans is that we don't know what we don't know. We don't know the level of our incompetence. And, you know, really that is the true power is to know the extent of one's ignorance. And without going on a course or speaking to the right people, you know, it's impossible
to understand your level. So, you know, it's never the wing, it's always the pilot, or it's very rarely the wing. There have been some terrible wings made in the past, which you can blame certain things on. But generally, the accidents that happen, the things that go wrong are pilot induced. It's just a lack of knowledge. It's nothing, it's not pointing blame. It's just a very difficult thing to actually understand.
or to try and understand where we're at. if you get onto a two -liner and you think, my God, it's a two -liner, something's gonna be different, then it will be. Your mental attitude towards it will be different, which isn't gonna help things. So any wing you fly, I think I said in the last podcast, I don't look at what certification a wing is anymore because to me it's irrelevant. I trust on my piloting inputs and my situational awareness.
So if you're thinking of moving up to one, really be, the other thing is just to be really honest with your own skill set because they're really easy to fly. Any wing when it's open is pretty easy to fly. It's when it's closed that the higher up through the categories you go, the more fruity a situation you can get yourself into. So yeah, be brutally honest with your own wing control and level.
and then do something about it if there's any gaps in your knowledge. Find the pilots that can give you decent feedback or you know pay and go on a course where you can get that sort of feedback because for me I don't care what wing you turn up on, I care what inputs you are doing in what time.
Gavin McClurg (21:53.042)
Well said, my friend. Mal, thanks, man. I'll let you get back to your family. I appreciate, we all appreciate your knowledge and excited to hear you might be coming over to the States for a future SIV. And we'll catch up here very shortly for a full show.
Malin Lobb (22:09.08)
Yeah, great. Good to speak. Cheers, Gavin.
