[Rick Masters]

That looks like a Bell 412EPI.
It has enough space to carry 6 soaring parachutists on stretchers.
Buy your own for 6.7 million dollars.

[Rick Masters]

August 22, 2010

A helicopter rescue crew of the French Security Civile loads 30-year-old soaring parachutist Stephane Lefevre aboard F-ZBPE, a 2002 Eurocopter EC145.

Lefevre's canopy had collapsed above a 20,000-volt power line and he fell onto it. He suffered electrocution, receiving severe third-degree burns, then plummeted onto a hedge, dead. The rescue team found him without life signs but, incredibly, restarted his heart three times. Each time, he again died. But on the fourth try, in flight to a hospital, his heart began beating. The incident was heralded by the French press as "L'incroyable miracle du parapentiste" - the incredible miracle of the paraglider.


Eurocopter and Securite Civile - Working hand-in-hand with paragliders to keep the fatality numbers down...
or at least, not as high as you might expect.

[Rick Masters]

July 14, 2015
Video: http://www.solothurnerzeitung.ch/schweiz/helikopter-pilot-bei-absturz-im-berner-oberland-getoetet-129337764
Helicopters are not just used for rescues. Commercial helicopters are often brought into searches for downed paragliders.
Flying and riding rescue in helicopters is a dangerous profession, referred to as "high exposure" to risk of mechanical failure.
Many heroic flight crew members have died attempting to rescue soaring parachutists who experienced a collapse and crashed.


The most dangerous part of the helicopter regime is operation within the Helicopter Dead Man's Curve, which offers little chance of survival.
Helicopters enter their dead man's curve when they approach hover. Without forward momentum, there is no chance for life-saving autorotation.
In the event of engine failure, the helicopter falls vertically out of the sky like a fully-collapsed paraglider (the only other aircraft type with a dead man's curve).
Because of the dead man's curve, hover operations in search and rescue helicopters are done primarily with very expensive ($7MM) twin-turbine models.


Unlike paragliders, which must operate within their dead man's curve at least twice every flight (takeoff and landing) - which makes them the most dangerous of all aircraft - helicopters are capable of operating their entire service lifetimes without entering the dead man's curve. Only in search and rescue and operations like news gathering or construction is flight within the dead man's curve common.

[Rick Masters]

July 29, 2015

A rescue team loads a soaring parachutist (who had fallen into a stream from 15 meters) into a new Airbus Helicopters H145 / EC145T2.
This new model of the EC145 is easily recognized by its completely redesigned tail boom.


The spacious medical bay can accommodate several severely injured soaring parachutists at one time with an optional rack.

[Rick Masters]

August 6, 2015

A Eurocopter EC145 of the Securite Civile arricves to take an injured soaring parachutist to the hospital.


VIDEO http://dai.ly/x30mv1r

Originally referred to as the BK 117 C2, the EC145 is based upon the MBB/Kawasaki BK 117 C1, which became a part of the combined Eurocopter line-up in 1992 with the merger of Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm's helicopter division of Daimler-Benz and the helicopter division of Aérospatiale-Matra to form Eurocopter. Eurocopter and Kawasaki have an agreement under which both firms independently manufacture and market the aircraft, while working collaboratively on updates and further development projects. In practice, Kawasaki uses the designation BK 117 C2 for the type and sells/produces the aircraft in the Asian market; Eurocopter sells the type globally under the EC145 designation. The French Sécurité Civile (Civil Guard), French Gendarmerie and the Landespolizei (State Police) of Hesse, Germany became the first operators of the EC145 when they received initial deliveries of the helicopter in April 2002. Two of the Sécurité Civile helicopters have crashed since delivery, with one being lost during a mountain rescue operation on Mount Arbizon in the French Pyrenees on 20 July 2003 and the other crashing during a police rescue exercise near Garvarnie in the Pyrenees on 5 June 2006 with the loss of three lives. -- Wikipedia

[Rick Masters]

August 7, 2015

One of the world's busiest paraglider rescue helicopters, OE-XEZ of Austria's Christophorus Flugrettungsverein is a Eurocopter EC135 T2+ which serves, aside from socialized medical expenses, as one of the sport's most prominent taxpayer subsidies. It was used on Tuesday, August 5, to rescue a soaring parachutist with broken legs and again on Thursday, August 7, to save a 29-year-old female who had experienced a collapse and entered a spiral dive during landing approach at Fliegercamp Greifenburg. Both soaring parachutists were delivered to the BKH Hospital in Lienz, perhaps the leading hospital in the world most packed with paragliding injured.


A helicopter of the Christophorus Flugrettungsverein lands at BKH State Hospital in Lienz.


The dedicated emergency room staff at BKH Lienz.


OE-XEZ was the helicopter that rescued a German soaring parachutist from Dühnhofenliftes on July 20 and flew him to BKH Lienz; responded to the paraglider midair collision on May 19 at Emberger Alm and flew the injured soaring parachutists to hospitals in Spittal and Klagenfurt.


OE-XEZ rescues a Dutch soaring parachutist with a broken back and flies him to the BKH hospital in Lienz on May 16. On May 24, the helicopter made two rescues of crashed paragliders, both Germans in separate collapse incidents who fell on landing approach. Both were flown to BKH Lienz.

I do not have time to list all incidents involving paragliders, but be assured that on good flying days there are often more than one.
Much information can be found in the magazine of the Christophorus Flugrettungsverein. http://www.oeamtc.at/christophorus_magazin/

[Bob Kuczewski]

I do not have time to list all incidents involving paragliders, but be assured that on good flying days there are often more than one.

For some reason that sentence struck me as revealing how much certain human beings really really want to be able to fly. The fact that so many choose paragliding is probably more a matter of choices they find available in their location and circle of friends.

Many years ago I proposed a "Hang Gliding for Paraglider Pilots" event within the San Diego Hang Gliding and Paragliding community (specifically the SDHGPA). Even at that time, the situation at Torrey Pines was so toxic that not a single PG pilot took me up on that event.

Maybe this would be a good thing for the FDGS club to think about offering some time. I think I'll suggest it on the FDGS forum.

Thanks for all your hard work Rick!!!

[Rick Masters]

The fact that so many choose paragliding is probably more a matter of choices they find available in their location and circle of friends.

Yeah. I've been told by many paraglider pilots from South America that they would take up hang gliding in a second - if only hang gliders were available. They were fully aware of the additional risks, lack of penetration, potential for collapse within the dead man's curve, no protection, etc. of paragliders. For them, paragliders were a second choice. There didn't seem to be as big a promotional head game as exists here. It's just that paragliders are the only (affordable) game in town.

[Bob Kuczewski]

There didn't seem to be as big a promotional head game as exists here.

With a combined organization (like U$HPA), and with their top leadership being PG pilots, it's hard to get them to do serious hang gliding promotion. But that's not a problem with the US Hawks.

I think it's time to start making serious efforts to promote the sport of hang gliding everywhere in the US.

[Rick Masters]

The red helicopter is a Helibras (Aerospatiale) 350B2 Esquilo.
The white helicopter is a Robinson R44 Raven.