Push & Relax Technology

Push&Relax technology - PPG canopies marked with this symbol demonstrate exceptionally stable flight on full speed bar, that is at high speeds.

Why stability at high speeds is so important?

In free-flying speedbar is used time to time, most often as a radical measure to escape from sink area or as a defence against being blown back into lee. Still, there are many pilots who do not use speed bar at all. That's why designers so far paid little attention to paragliders stability in such configuration. On the contrary, in PPG flying a speed bar is used commonly. It is only a pilot who decides the route, not the thermals location or terrain characteristics. It is nothing uncommon when a pilot takes off, opens the trimmers, engages speed system and gets on an umpty kilometers route. In such case lack of stability and comfort would be really distressing.

How does lack of stability manifest itself?

Good stability of your canopy can be compared to proper balancing wheels in your car. When you drive slowly, this is not much of a problem, but the faster you drive the more evident vibration you get. Badly stabilized canopy will move accordion-style, quiver and resonate, causing pilot to be afraid of using speed system (and rightly so).

Why the canopy becomes unstable?

It's really all about balancing - a canopy can be trusted when the tensions run evenly all along its surface. While great majority of designers take pains to make sure their paragliders are evenly tensioned at trim speed, they are neglecting stability at max speed. That's a big mistake since increased ram effect, air pressure inside the wing and increased lift in individual areas can drastically alter distribution of loads and tensions. If it was not taken into account, the paraglider will quiver and behave accordion-wise.

How did we succeed in effective stabilising the canopy?

Push&Relax Technology is centered around fully reflex aerofoil. Basically that's why it is tuck-resistant and self stabilizing in all directions. Still, just using the reflex aerofoil is not enough. Structure of inner reinforcements, precise shape of individual surface panels tensioning all aerodynamical surfaces together with leading and trailing edges have to be carefully combined, so that canopy will remain properly tensioned not only at 40 km/h, but also at 60. In order to succeed you have to include research, a lot of trials, sophisticated software and first of all huge practical experience.
We did all of that and even more. In effect when flying Dudek paragliders marked with Push&Relax Technology sign you can safely put the pedal to the metal and enjoy fast flight.