Safety notice: Icaro Gravis

March 3, 2021

With the Icaro Gravis, the gallery lines on the C and D levels can be shortened so much that the umbrellas go into deep stall when big ears. Icaro orders reviews. Icaro has issued a safety notice for the EN-B Gravis because of risky line shortening. // Photo: Lu-Glidz A check should be due if the last check was more than 12 months ago or if the glider has been in operation for more than 75 hours. All sizes of the first Gravis model series are affected. More details can be found in the associated safety notice on the DHV website. The Gravis 1 has only two main lines per line level per screen half. When big ears are used on the outer A-line, larger areas of the wing fold in. That alone carries an increased risk of deep stall, which is why the DHV generally recommends not to reach higher than the line lock when big ears and to accelerate the wing at least halfway beforehand. By shortening the rear gallery levels, which are not heavily used, the potential risk of deep stall is increased. A spicy history The security notice on the Gravis is not without its explosiveness for Icaro. Because today, too, the link to a documentation written by the paraglider check specialist Ralf Antz was made known via social media and the paraglider kite forum about the check history of a gravis with which a pilot had an accident while big ears last year. The umbrella type and manufacturer are not explicitly named in the documentation, but the connection can be seen from the data. If you follow the evidence presented, then Icaro, but also the DHV in this case did not play any particularly laudable roles. Among other things, reading leaves the impression that the manufacturer tried to cover up its own irregularities from an earlier check, while the association was not clearly in favor of examining the case and taking the affected wing out of circulation. This publication may have contributed to getting Icaro and DHV to issue the general safety notice. Ralf Antz has been fighting for years to make manufacturers, check companies, pilots and associations more aware of the safety risk of trim changes on paragliders and the need for professional, software-supported trimming during glider checks. Note: In the Podz-Glidz podcast, episode # 32 deals with trim tuning. Ralf Antz explains why this topic is so important for safety.

This article has been translated for your convenience and was originally written in 독일어.