Orateur
Description
Paragliding is a new aeronautical sport popularized in the 1980s where pilots fly using fabric wings with a non-rigid structure. Unlike parachutes, paragliders must be inflated and launched before flight. Although many accidents occur at take-off we know little about the physics behind paraglider launch. We present experimental results collected using a custom test bench that simulates the launching phase with a trolley pulling the wing from a resting position causing it to inflate and get its aerodynamic shape. We simultaneously measure the aerodynamic forces and track the wing's trajectory via video analysis. We investigate the influence of wing parameters on these fluid forces, particularly that of the trim, the variation in line lengths that dictates the wing's angle of incidence. Building upon a previous study that identified a universal launch trajectory for two-dimensional paraglider wings, we use our data to investigate how these findings extend to three dimensions. Our study paves the way for a more quantitative approach to studying unsteady flight regimes in paragliding, and can be useful in the fields of parachuting, kitting, soft robotics and biomimicry.