2011

[Rick Masters]

U$HPA Director Mark Forbes is quoted as saying: "Over and over, I've heard comments from PG pilots who are interested in HG as a crossover possibility, but put off by the attitude and posturing of some in the HG community. Such as Rick Masters and Rodger Hoyt. ...If you act like a bunch of arrogant, sneering elitists, you'll attract a few like-minded souls. The rest of the crowd is going to hang out with the cool kids, flying paragliders."
    I find it amazing that a U$HPA director could turn the reaction by hang glider pilots to new research revealing over 750 paragliding deaths in just 10 years into an attack by a "a bunch of arrogant, sneering elitists." The simple truth is that the numbers of deaths are too high, we are concerned and we have the answer. But hang glider pilots should not expect the U$HPA to listen. Hang gliding effectively lost its national organization when paragliding took over the USHGA years ago as a stepping stone in its rise to prominence. In Mark's view, hang glider pilots should just shut up: "...this sort of divisive crap is the LAST thing we need."
    In my opinion, the last thing hang gliding needs is the U$HPA. Obviously, it's time to start over. From scratch.
    -- Rick Masters, Mythology of the Airframe, February 26, 2011

Unease is growing in Austria, as well as in many other European countries, over the rising costs involved in rescuing and hospitalizing, under socialized medicine, increasing numbers of injured soaring parachutists - and in some cases, the same ones again and again.
    On May 27, the CEO of Austria's mandated public insurance company Generali expressed concern over the growing number of sports injuries. He mentioned specifically the injuries common to paragliding: fractures in the areas of pelvis, lower extremities and spine, and in the extreme case severe injury, even death.
    The Generali press release refers to paragliding as "a craze" but makes no distinction between paragliding and hang gliding, lumping them together as free-flight aviation. For years, I have been warning hang glider pilots that they must disassociate themselves from paragliding and make the public and insurers understand the significance of the airframe in preventing the catastrophic aerodynamic failure of collapse that is directly responsible for so very many paragliding "accidents." Otherwise hang gliding is certain to be caught up in the coming restrictions brought about by so many foolish people flying inherently deficient and dangerous aircraft.
    -- Rick Masters, Mythology of the Airframe, June 5, 2011

In regard to FAI and CIVL, I believe there is an underlying purpose in their support of aviation competitions that has served to improve the technology, efficiency and robustness of aircraft. These benefits trickle down into popular aviation. There are thousands of specific examples that are so obvious that they need not be part of this discussion.
    However, there appears to be a unique aspect to paragliding in that these benefits are no longer occurring at a steady rate. In fact, they have dwindled to nothing and now become negative. Unlike the vector of all other aviation competitions, the evolution of paragliding has come to a screeching and devastating halt at Piedrahita.
    This is not supposed to happen. The FAI and CIVL are no doubt puzzled. Every Open Class event they sanction proceeds as expected except in paragliding. Yes, the aircraft are often tricky to fly but the pilots are expert and accidents are attributable to pilot error. But an entire field of strikingly deficient aircraft has never before occurred (with the possible exception of PWC Mexico).
    Seven or more symmetrical frontal collapses during one task? Two deaths? One need not analyze the particulars too deeply. Something is wrong.
    What is wrong is fundamental. Foundational. Unlike all other aircraft, there are no living analogues to paragliders in the aerial world. All winged creatures, from butterflies to condors, have structures in their wings to maintain shape. Only in water, where higher viscosity of the medium moderates the acceleration of gravity, do creatures without rigid structures survive and evolve.
    A fundamentally flawed concept cannot evolve to perfection. Paragliding today has reached a velocity/deformation barrier and has not found a way to move beyond it.
    I doubt that it can.
    -- Rick Masters, Mythology of the Airframe, July 13, 2011

I joined the U.S. Hawks on July 15, 2011, curious to find out why so many pathetic, self-important (in their dreams) U$HPA-loving a**holes, who seemed to be playing a part in the destruction of my beloved soaring sport, were ganging up on the one guy who wanted to re-create a real national hang gliding association in the sad vacuum left by the paragliding take-over.

The widespread concealment of accident information has led me to publish my own list of global paragliding fatalities and serious accidents. Although incomplete, this list is ugly and makes paragliding appear unattractive.
    It was a surprise to me that this list did not exist until I assembled and published it. The biggest surprise was to find that more than 800 paraglider pilots had been killed in the last 10 years! Most, of course, died when their paragliders collapsed or deformed or became uncontrollable afterwards. Now that all the national hang gliding organizations have been taken over by paragliding, it has become politically incorrect to blame the paraglider wing itself. No matter what country reports the accident, it seems that the pilot is always assumed to be at fault.
    This is the outcome that the paraglider wing manufacturers want. It also appears to be the outcome that the vast majority of paraglider pilots want to believe. The lie is that the wing is okay but the pilots are in need of more training. They point to many safe flights in calm air to show that the wings are safe, but when a paraglider wing collapses in turbulence, it is always the pilot who is presumed to be at fault.
    The truth, of course, is that the paraglider wing is bad. It loses shape in active air. It has no airframe and is not a complete flying vehicle.
    At Piedrahita, the Emporer lost his clothes. There was no hiding the fact that the pilots who died on their new 2-line paragliders were accomplished experts. There was no hiding the fact that the paraglider wings had failed (frontal collapse) in the same way.
    The worst development, however, was not discussed. This was the vertical speed of the pilot who entered a nose-down spiral dive following a collapse at altitude (approximately 1200 meters). This speed was measured by GPS live tracking to be in excess of 125 kilometers per hour. To my knowledge, this was the fastest spiral dive ever witnessed.
    The implications are staggering. The FAI and CIVL must have recognized immediately what this speed demonstrated about the evolution of paragliding. The fact is that evolution in paragliding is finished.
    Ended.
    The aerodynamic drag of the suspension and control lines was a safety factor. Reducing this drag made the paraglider wing even more dangerous. It was impossible for the FAI and CIVL to continue Open Class with an average by the second day of one death per task. The fact that evolution has ended means Open Class competition under FAI and CIVL sanction is dead. There will only be Serial Class competitions in the future unless Open Class competition is held without FAI and CIVL sanction.
    -- Rick Masters, Mythology of the Airframe, July 26, 2011
    https://web.archive.org/web/20110717082142/http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2011.htm