US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Joe Faust wrote:2019 Nov 24: PG fatalities tie paragliding's worst year

Hi Joe,

It looks like 2019 will be paragliding's worst year, with 120 global fatalities that I know the details of having occurred before the end of November. I am thinking the current number is tied right now with one other year, about ten years ago, but 2019 will very likely reveal itself to be much worse as additional reports come in, as they always do between December and March. It is reasonable to assume that greater numbers of people flying paragliders will result in more paragliding accidents, but where they choose to fly and what unstable conditions they allow themselves to be caught in seem to be the dominating factor. Flying paragliders in laminar air at the beach is vastly safer than moving inland to turbulent venues - but moving inland to turbulent venues seems to be the goal for many. Strangely, the choice of aircraft with collapse-proof air frames are rarely considered - a result of the myopic, politically-correct stance of the national organizations that falsely recognize hang gliders and paragliders as equals in the air.

PG enthusiasts are constantly telling everybody that paragliding is getting safer. They insist the latest paraglider designs are more resistant to collapse and recover in the air better than the previous models, and that this will become apparent in future accident numbers when the older models are retired. Although the fatality numbers do not indicate this, I actually believe this is true, to a small degree, but in my learned cynicism I doubt it will make any practical difference.

If you will remember what happened in hang gliding when double surface gliders came upon the scene in the early 1980s, we all expected the greater ability to handle turbulence, the extended glide to reach safer landing areas and the improved implementation of reflex for safer dive recovery would result in lower accident numbers. Oftentimes, however, the most daring pilots simply went deeper into mountain canyons or braved greater turbulence, continuing to get into trouble at the same rate. When the numbers didn't change, we blamed it on the older single surface models and insisted the numbers would improve as these older designs were retired.

In my opinion, what happened with hang gliding is that pilots, as a whole, got smarter. Once we had explored the limits and suffered the consequences when we surpassed them, we began respecting them. The cross country contingent tried to emulate the accomplishments of sailplanes, which flew faster but otherwise were little different. There were relatively few fatalities resulting from this challenge.

Paragliding, on the other hand, has obviously and recklessly been trying to emulate the accomplishments of hang gliders for many years. Unfortunately, the primary difference between hang gliders and paragliders is not that hang gliders fly faster. It is that paragliders collapse in turbulence, but hang gliders don't. It is evident from the fatality list that more than half of paragliding fatalities occur on cross country attempts. This leads me to believe the design is inadequate and the people doing this are not exercising mature judgement in their choice of aircraft.

This lack of judgement in paragliding has evolved into a mania. I do not expect this to change. Within the sport, peer pressure reinforces delusion and each cross country flight through turbulent areas becomes more of a gamble than in any other aviation pursuit. It has damaged the veracity, and possibly the sustainability of the national freeflight organizations worldwide, which are demanding increasing numbers of taxpayer and charity-supported rescues resulting from the failure of their inadequate aircraft.

In concert with freeflight paragliding fatalities are the now dramatically rising numbers of powered paragliding fatalities. These closely-related sports are driven by aggressive marketing forces and sporting organizations that blithely insist easily-decoupled wings are capable aircraft. Both seek out an audience less knowledgeable of aerodynamics, meteorology and piloting than what is required in more-difficult-to-master hang gliding. This ignorance is probably the single most significant contributing factor in all paragliding attrition.

Rick Masters
November 24, 2019

Thank you, Rick, for your persevering efforts to protect human life.

Davis wrote:11 paraglider deaths in the US in 2019, 2 hang glider deaths.

Bille Fly wrote:11:2 is a rather BAD statistic ; and the score was even in late
spring , so 9 of those fatalities happened over summer !!

All those students that are being turned out ; i wonder if the
training criteria, needs to be changed ?

Anyway --- i'm going powered in a rigid-wing, with a folding
prop, and will be eliminating foot-launch completely within
the next few years ; so None of those crappy pilots will be
encountering me ,on a daily basis , unless they are on an XC flight.

Bille

Steve Forslund wrote:I dont know about that Billie I keep meeting plenty of highly competent pilots that have embraced the sport and pushed the boundaries flying great xc and being trained in SIV and many in acro. Fortunately they seem to enjoy the company of old farts that have been flying a long time

Bille Fly wrote:And i enjoy flying with them ; remember i could care less, how i get
my airtime fix ; (PG or HG) both are a BLAST to me !!

Without reading the crash reports , i would have no idea how or why
the stats got so high, for this year ; it was a question , not a statement.

Bille

Bille Fly wrote:

Joe Faust wrote:…
Thank you, Rick, for your persevering efforts to protect human life.

I could go find the post, where Davis stated a current forum user was NOT allowed
to quote anyone banned from here ; that Rick-Prick, was booted off this forum
for a reason , and guy who quoted him knows that.

Bille

Then Bille Floyd cried to Davis trying to get Joe Faust banned because Joe Faust dared to publish the letter by Rick Masters that started the discussion:
"I could go find the post, where Davis stated a current forum user was NOT allowed
to quote anyone banned from here ; that Rick-Prick, was booted off this forum
for a reason , and guy who quoted him knows that.
Bille"

Joe Faust and Rick Masters are among the most important pioneers in the sport of hang gliding. Yet Bille Floyd is trying to get Joe Faust banned for even posting a letter by Rick Masters? How crazy is that?

"there is a group of people in the world who do not see good and evil the way most of us do. Their psyche functions in a completely different way, without the filter of conscience. These people exhibit the traits of narcissistic sociopaths. Full blown high level narcissistic sociopaths represent around 1% to 5% of the total human population, and most of them are born, not made by their environment. Also, 5% to 10% of people hold latent traits of either narcissism or sociopathy that generally only rise to the surface in an unstable crisis environment."

The sport of hang gliding is being strangled by the "mainstream" communications channels (hanggliding.org and ozreport.com) and the childish bans by their petulant moderators (Jack Axaopoulos and Davis Straub). Is it any wonder that the sport of hang gliding is in decline?

SteveForslund: Billie I think it comes done to number of pilots and number of flights. There is a lot more flying being done by paraglider pilots from what I can see

Bille Fly wrote:I could go find the post, where Davis stated a current forum user was NOT allowed
to quote anyone banned from here ; that Rick-Prick, was booted off this forum
for a reason , and guy who quoted him knows that.

Bille