My main concern when I heard and saw lines snap on my Rush 6 during my third auto-rotation exercise was were any others going to go as well. It’s a new wing with barely three hours on it and lines braking was completely unexpected. On the slow gentle glide to the beach I figured out the reason. On my previous flight that morning from the 1700m launch at Babadag Oludeniz, I’d taken a tumble after failing to brake my wing enough before starting my take off run. I’d suffered the inevitable deflation as a result and damaged my Advance Lightness 3 harness sliding down the sandpaper textured lower launch section. I must have damaged some lines at the same time and not noticed. On landing I checked more carefully and noted signs of wear on the broken and some remaining lines, but when they snapped during the manoeuvre it came as a nasty surprise.
My first try had gone well and is included in the video. The second was longer with about 5 turns, as I lost comms with Toby Colombe and was waiting for the instruction to “Piff Paff” to exit. When I sorted comms out I had another go and that’s when it went South. About 1.5 turns in, an A, B and C line snapped just right of centres and that was the trigger to spur me to exit with my now “hump backed” wing. I was perturbed to say the least but a calm Toby seeing the deformity, asked me to perform some slow left and right turns to check I could land on the beach. The other option was to throw my reserve and get picked up by the rescue boat waiting below, but thankfully it was still easily controllable so I made it to the beach for a gentle landing on the sand.
I’d arranged some repairs to my harness before I launched, and when I landed I asked the amiable Mehmet Unlu of Xtreme Paragliding Oludeniz if he could repair lines as well. He didn’t have the lines but knew a chap at Maya Paragliders 5km up the road who could, and I had four lines replaced that evening. The incredibly helpful Chris White from Passion Paragliding checked the repairs the next day and thought them to be ok so I decided to fly my Rush 6 again on the Wednesday. It was straight into Full Stalls, wingovers, and then spiral dives over water with the rescue boat and life vest worn, and there were no further issues. I’ll still get the lines set checked professionally however.
It was a useful learning experience and I was extremely pleased with the set-up and instruction from Toby at Passion. A brilliant course and thoroughly recommended.
A special shout out to Gary Burchett who lent me his Buzz Z5 on the Tuesday afternoon in case my R6 repairs weren’t good enough. He was an absolute star.

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