The second module of the SIV course covers the states a wing will not come out of on its own. The full stall and backfly, the spin, autorotation, twists, the deep spiral and G-force, rear-riser control. And, separately, the hardest part of all: the decision to throw the reserve, the throwing technique, collapsing the main wing and the landing. With a decision tree for every configuration and an honest look at what happens to a pilot after the course.
⏱ 110 min📖 20 sections✓ 96 questions
How the second module differs from the first
In SIV 1 you worked with states the wing tends to leave on its own: a collapse reopens, a surge damps out, a spiral (on most wings) stops if you let go. Your job was not to get in the way, and to help at the right moment.
SIV 2 is about states the wing will not leave by itself, where the recovery depends entirely on what the pilot does and when. These are the stalls: the full stall, backfly, the spin, autorotation. Plus two “last lines of defence”: dealing with a twist, and deploying the reserve.
That division is not ours — it is how the industry draws it. At APPI, for instance, the second level starts with exactly this list: full stall, backfly, a 90° rotation, the transition from rotation into backfly, minimum speed, recovery from autorotation, recovery from a spiral, stabilising the wing. And this level is open only to pilots who already hold the first one.
Three things follow from that, and it is worth accepting them before you arrive.
A mistake costs more here. A bad exit from a full stall is not “an exercise that did not work out” — it is a violent surge and the risk of falling into the canopy.
You need noticeably more height. Every exercise is a stall phase, plus a recovery phase, plus a margin for something going wrong.
Some exercises will not be given to you. And that is right. BHPA, for example, does not include a sustained rotation, a real reserve deployment or combined manoeuvres in its recommended SIV syllabus.
A fine point for pros. There is one figure that cools the head nicely: instructors say that using the full stall as a working tool for “dumping” a situation starts to make sense only after some two hundred safely flown stalls. Before that, the full stall is an exercise, not a tool. The difference matters: a tool you apply yourself at the critical moment, an exercise you fly on command with height in hand.
The full stall: what happens, phase by phase
A full stall is when you pull both brakes symmetrically past the stall point, the airflow separates from the wing completely, and the wing stops being a wing.
Phase by phase it looks like this:
Softening. First the tips start to “swim” and the pressure goes.
Going back. The canopy jerks back behind you and disappears from view. You are tipped backwards — for a second you are almost lying on your back.
Pulsing. The canopy tries to fly: it dives forward and is pulled back again by the held brakes.
Stabilisation. Held correctly, the wing settles above you and you fly backwards — and that is backfly.
Sometimes an intermediate shape appears — the horseshoe: the wingtips fold forward and almost meet in front of you; in its steady form it descends at roughly 6 m/s.
On the descent rate in a stall the sources disagree: one manufacturer gives about 8 m/s for its wing, while SIV overview material says more than 15 m/s. Most likely they describe different phases (stabilised backfly versus the moment of dropping through), but we will not give you an exact figure, because the sources do not agree on one.
A fine point for pros. On wrapping the brakes around your hand, manufacturers disagree: some schools and manufacturers recommend one or two wraps so that you can reach the full travel, while Gin states plainly in the manual for its wing that the brakes should not be wrapped. This is a case where the answer comes not from a general rule but from your wing and your instructor.
The full stall: entry, holding, exit
Entry. Slow the wing symmetrically down to minimum speed, stabilise for a couple of seconds — and only then take your hands quickly all the way down, arms straight, elbows locked. Not a jerk: take it to the end and hold.
Holding. Brakes down, arms straight and pressed in, body under tension. Until the wing is above you again, you hold. The priority is heading: if a turn starts, you counter it with weight and brake before it develops.
The exit is the most important thing in this module. It is done in two stages:
Release about a third of the travel and pause. The wing starts to refill.
Once the wing has filled and moved forward — release fully and check the surge with a short input.
The “door” you exit through is the moment when the wing is at least 30° ahead of you. The surge is checked with an input of roughly 50–80 centimetres, as the wing passes the 30–40° zone ahead of the vertical.
The main mistake is letting go while the wing is behind your back. Then the wing shoots forward and down and you follow it: this is a very violent surge, and the sources put it bluntly — you can even fall into the canopy.
The two other mistakes mirror each other: not holding enough on the surge (which gives you big collapses and cravats) and holding too long (which gives you a second stall, usually an asymmetric one).
Case study. A pilot flies the first full stall of his life. The canopy goes behind his back, it gets loud and frightening, and he instinctively opens his hands. What happens: the wing, which is behind him, instantly accelerates forward and down, and the pilot drops into the canopy. The right way: frightening means hold. You may release only when the wing is ahead of you or above you, and only in two stages.
Backfly: the stable shelf you exit from
Backfly is a stabilised full stall. The canopy stands above and slightly behind you, mostly inflated, with only the tips folded, and you fly backwards. It feels as if you are falling backwards, and that feeling deceives you.
How it is held. Arms straight, locked along the body. The exact hand position depends on the wing: on some it is fully under the buttocks, on others about 20 centimetres below the carabiners or level with them. Your instructor will show you the right position on your wing; there is no universal one.
What to do in this configuration. Keep your body under tension (a relaxed body starts to turn the system) and keep the heading: any rotation that begins is countered at once, before it turns into a spin.
Why this matters. Three reasons:
It is a stable platform from which a controlled exit is flown. Getting out of chaos is hard; getting out of backfly is predictable.
It trains recognition: backfly and a parachutal stall feel similar, and after SIV 2 you will stop confusing them.
It removes the main fear — “the wing has gone”. The wing has not gone: it is above you, and it is controllable.
A fine point for pros. In backfly it is easy to lose track of time: the configuration is calm but the descent rate is high. Height in it is monitored on the instrument and on the instructor’s call, not by feel — feel deceives you more in stalled configurations than anywhere else.
The spin: why the cure is the opposite one
A spin is a state in which one half of the wing is stalled and travelling backwards while the other goes on flying forwards. The glider rotates about its vertical axis. The tip on the stalled side folds forward, the canopy oscillates and the pilot is thrown about.
Where it comes from: one brake pulled too deep at low speed. The classic real-life case is an over-pulled brake in a thermal or in a turn near the slope.
How to recover: release both brakes completely, all the way to the pulleys. Not one, not halfway — both, and all the way.
And here is the key distinction of the whole module:
Configuration
What to do
Spiral
Outside (opposite) brake and weight — bleed the energy off
Spin
Release both brakes
These two states are cured in opposite ways, and from the outside both look like a rotation. Confuse them and brake the outer wing in a spin, and the rotation will simply change direction while the recovery drags on.
When to recover. The earlier the calmer: a recovery within 45–90° of rotation is gentle, while after 90° the rotation accelerates and the exit becomes, as instructors put it, “sporty”. A late recovery at 180–270° gives an extreme surge. Certification measures the same thing: stopping in less than 90° is class A, 90–180° is C, 180–360° is D, and not stopping within 360° is F.
A fine point for pros. In a spin you should release when the wing is above you or ahead of you — just as in a full stall. And if the rotation does not stop after you release, the first thing to check is whether the brakes really are released all the way: a wrap around the hand or a loop on the wrist leaves a few centimetres of travel, and that is enough to keep the wing stalled.
What follows is for our students
The full module text, the practice sessions and the exams are open to those who train with us. Access to the theory is included in the course fee: it runs for the whole course and for three months after it ends.
If you are training with us now, or have trained with us before, sign in with your access code. If you are a pilot from another school, access can be bought separately.
Language: the sections above are in English. Behind the code the full module text and the question bank are currently in Russian — the English versions are being prepared.
