DIY - r4XC Mod for Supair Acro 3

Optional homemade legbag for the SupAir Acro3 harness.

The story behind:

Most of the time I fly acrobatics. But sometimes I also go for some cross country flights. On this XC flights I always used my main harness, the Sol Slider Acro, and now the Supair Acro 3.
So if you fly in Spring time at an altitude of 3000m and more with an acro harness, you have to wear the same clothes like you wear when you are skiing in winter. And even with this outfit you will freeze your feet off. On the starting place, while you are waiting for the right thermals for your XC flight, you will swet a lot.
So what can you do against this? Right, get yourself an XC harnes with legbag!
One of the reasons why I don't like to buy one of these harness is, that when i go flying I take nearly every part of my paragliding equipment with me, because you may need it?! With tandem pg + harness, XC wing, acro wing, speedglider, girlfriends pg, sometimes Phil's wing, ... it's a lot of stuff to carry around, even in a VW T5 Bus. I don't want to drive around another equipment.
So I thougt it should be possible to design an optional legbag for my Acroharness. 

... and this is what I did :D

 

Infos:

This project is not easygoing. I am no professional sewer or similar. I know a little bit how to handle the sewing machine. So if you want to try yourself out in making this legbag, you hav to see this "how to" just to give you some hints and not as a step by step guideline from zero to working legbag. I tried to make photos from every step I was doing, but sometimes I didn't think to make photos. so there is not every single detail, but a detailed overview of the whole project. If you ask for patterns, I have to disapoint you, because it was all made by adjusting and sewing.

What do you need?

Most of the stuff I bouht from www.extremtextil.de

Here is my order list:

• 2.3 Meter x Softshell 04 (dreilagig, wärmend, imprägniert) Nr.: 70329
• 6.0 Meter x Elastisches Einfassband 25mm Nr.: 70109
• 1.5 Meter x Häkchenband zum Aufnähen, 025mm Nr.: 50413
• 1.5 Meter x Flauschband zum Aufnähen, 025mm Nr.: 50414
• 2 Stück x YKK 5VS Profilreißverschluß, teilbar, einwege, 50 cm Nr.: 70563

I bought a few meters of webbing, a plywood3(0,6 x 80 x 30 cm) plate from the construction market.
For the straps, zippers and small stuff I used an old paraglider bag and got everything out of it i wanted to use. 
For the sewing I used a normal 100€ sewing machine (I needed straight an zigzag stitch). The thread I used was a serafil 4000 R6403.

All in all I payd not much more than 100€.

I spend about 40 hours in this project. I overestimated it and thought it will be easier.

Making the feetplate:

For the feetplate i took my shoes, put it on the plywoodplate and drew around them. Then I sawed it out.

The plate on this picture was cutten out wrong. Later I had to round it a little bit on the top for the legbag to look nice.

The next step was to adjust the plate to the harness. I used the original legstrap from the Acro 3 and some other legstrap. I cuttet out the aluminium tube of the legstraps and puttet in some shorter carbon rod from an old tent. I had to do this to make the plate more stable. Maybe if you take a thicker plate than 6mm it will be stable enough. If you want to make it real nice you can put some glassfiber mat around it and fix it with epoxy. But this shows how I did it.

The legstrap was stapled onto the plywoodplate. The original Acro3 legstrap goes to the original fixture, and the other one goes to the carabiner.

The third belt was fixed onto the bottom of the plate for adjusting the angle.

The plate should be adjusted like that your feet don't fall down if you sit in loose (not hard stretched, just a little bend in the knees).

The next step was to get an idea of the size of the softshellmaterial wich will be used. So I took some paper and put it arround the plate and the harness and cut it out.

Don't use this piece of paper as a pattern, because the textile is stretchable and has to be adjusted! I just used it to make the first hole for the carabiner.

The next thing was to reinforce this carabinerhole with some webbing. 

For the other hole you have to hang up the harness with the legbag textile, and stretch it around your protector (a little bit over the velcro for the containerplate).

For the zipper you have to adjust the textile while someone is sitting inside your harness. It should be tight and make a nice line from the zipper to the bottom of the feetplate.

The next step is to sew the zipper onto the harness and onto the legbag. For the harness you have to sew with your hand. With a round needle it is a lot easier than with a straight one. For the legbag just fold the textile that you get a straight hem where you want your zipper. Use some needles to hold it in position. Watch out that the stitches of your seam are not to short, otherwise you will cut your textile. Sew the zipper twice and maybe strenghten it with some webbing.

The next thing is to tight the legbag while someone is sitting inside the harness. I clipped the textile onto the feetplate with a few clips (will be removed again after). Then it's time to cut the textile. Just be sure you have enough overlapping on each side for closing the legbag. Once cuttet it won't grow again ;)

At this point I recognized, that the feetplate is too edgy on the top and it makes a not nice rounding into the legbag. So I cutted again to make it look nicer.

The next step was to sew the edge of the closing part of the legbag. Make sure that it is overlapping, but not too much so you can get out and in easily. Use the flexible band and a flexible zigzag stitch.

Now you have to make it closing. For the edge I used a small metal carabiner wich you can find on some keyholders. On the other side i sewed a metal ring on the carabinerwebbing. A line goes throuGh this metalring and was fixed onto the footplate. So if you relax your feet it will loosen its strength. 

For the other side I just fixed a clip onto the carabinerwebbing.

If your sewing machine is not strong enough you can do this by hand.

The next thing I did was to remove the clips from the feetplate and put some velcro on it. Also i sewed some velcro onto the legbag. So you easy can tighten or loosen the strenght of your legbag a little bit. For this step I have no picturesso i hope you know what i mean.

Next I did was the round airfilled front of the legbag. I used some paper and ducktape to get some patterns. Sew this patterns together and make it a little bit smaller, so you can wrap it around the legbag. I fixed it with velcro.

Sew it inside out.

Sew a net into the hole for the air intake.

If it won't work with the airpressure to stay in shape, i have also the option to put it down and stuff it with the gliders inside packing bag before flight. (but in my case worked well on first flight, see pictures on top).

Now to the part wich caused me a lot of thinking and headache. The bottom reserve chute. But at least i had an idea  how to do this and it works really well :)

I cutted out two pieces of strong cordura from the old glider bag, sew them together to get more strenght, make a slot (just as big as the reserve handle) in every piece, make a slot into the legbag, and sew the two pieces of cordura onto it. Now you can stuck the handle through these slots and when you pull, it falls apart. Just look the pictures to get an idea.

 

Legbag is now ready to fly :D

... Last but not least I also make myself a cockpit and a new speedbar (double). Inside the speedbar is a carbon rod from an old tent, and the flexible bart is filled with the same plastik that is in the leading edge of the wing.

The cockpit is zippable and has one big pocket for food and stuff and one small pocket for the USB powerbanks.

I do not have detailed photos how I made it, but if you did this project until here you will be able to do it on your own.

Cockpit zipped to the legbag.

Now Spring can come :D

CYa in the sky Laisch :D