[Rick Masters]

Today


Paragliding: The closest thing to flying like a rock.*
* helicopter required.
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Consumer advisory: Do not remove the tubing from your hang glider. It could deflate during flight and maim or kill you.

[Rick Masters]

Leopold Aga



On February 2, Leopold launched into a "dust devil" at takeoff. He was suddenly lifted and his canopy immediately collapsed "at a low height of several tens of meters" with "no opportunity to open the reserve parachute." He fell back onto the launch ramp. He "never had any chance of survival," said a report.
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A minor dust devil is simply a thermal core that kicks up some dust. Hang glider pilots watch for them at no-wind mountain launches to catch an elevator into the sky. Yes, we prefer big, slow, fat ones and not the narrow, fast-spinning little ones - but because the big ones are easier to work for lift, not so much because they might threaten to kill us.

The methodology I adopted early in my flying career involved placing streamers below my takeoff point - at least one about 100 feet down the hill and two about fifty feet off to each side of it. More are useful.

Thermals come in all sizes, from Volkswagen to grocery store sizes. On the ground, they spin, but as they lift and grow larger, they lift off, pulling air into them. To choose a big, fat one, the pilot watches the streamers. Until the thermal arrives, the streamers are slack.

As the thermal nears, the streamers can indicate wind blowing down the hill. This is a good sign. Air from higher up the hill is being pulled into the approaching thermal. The streamers will dance around as the thermal passes through them, then reverse direction and point up the hill. Only one or two streamers pointing up the hill can indicate a thermal passing off to the side or a smaller thermal than is desired. Wait.

When all streamers point up the hill, you know the thermal is probably large, smooth and tall. Shoulder your hang glider. Begin a ten-second count. If the streamers are still standing out toward you after ten seconds, it suggests the thermal will be smooth and lifty for another ten seconds. Those seconds - eleven to twenty - are your launch window. Don't stand there and look at it. Go. It is the safest part of the thermal to launch into.

Do not try to work the thermal for lift. Fly straight through it at good control speed. Determine its smoothness and size. As lift diminishes and you are at altitude sufficient to recover from turbulence, turn along the ridge then return to the vicinity of the thermal and, when you encounter lift, count to four then execute a turn away from the ridge. At the 180-degree point, if the thermal is smooth and you are gaining altitude, you may wish to tighten the turn and circle up.

I am a pilot, not a stuntman. I would never even consider flying a highly-modified and slow-responding parachute in thermal turbulence. For that, you must seek out the advice of soaring parachutists like Leopold Aga, Willi Muller or USHPA paragliding safety co-chairman David Norwood, to name a very few.
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More on my thermal research can be found here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120423121 ... lusion.htm

[Rick Masters]

Penetration



Penetration is the ability to move forward against rising wind.
Fly something that has it.

[DukeB]

Thanks for these posts RickMasters.

They have me recalling those aviators I've known, whom died during flight. The first two pros gave me my first jobs in aviation, number three was my then aerobatic instructor (and Bede 5J performer) and others.

Just looking at the paragliding fatalities, the weekend's news from Kagel Canyon (though it's not yet determined if the pilot died inflight or due to crash) and pondering the deaths of respected me- has been very good for me as I prepare to enter this new world.

And thanks much for sharing your experienced view on launching into thermals. Clear & concise, copied it into my training folder!

[Rick Masters]

A soaring parachutist died in France on the same day Schaedler crashed in May Canyon. His paraglider collapsed during landing approach, as it dropped into the area where ground heat turbulence is likely.

These are relatively still areas of warm air that haven't yet broken off the ground as thermals. They hug the ground in a kind of gaseous water tension, and only break free when disturbed by strong drafts of air. The thing you want to do when you fly cross country in the desert is stay aloft. If you lose lift and have to land in early or middle afternoon on a still day, you will have to deal with these pockets that are ready to break off at the slightest disturbance.

In a hang glider, they usually trigger when you begin to flare - because hang gliders are so clean. If one pops off ahead of you, it sucks away your headwind and you can stall or lose control authority and drop a wing. If one pops off to the side, you'll notice the wind switch real quick and you'll find yourself landing too fast in a crosswind. If one pops off behind you, you can do a helicopter-like vertical landing that looks impossible to onlookers.

A good pilot on a fast hang glider has the ability to reduce this threat. Choose your landing area from above and know the wind direction. Zoom low and fast over the landing zone. You'll be going fast and have good control authority for a chance low thermal encounter, and any thermals you break free with your turbulence will be behind you. Now climb with your energy retention and 180 back over the landing area. You might find a thermal and take it up. If not, you've swept the zone clean and have a better chance at a good landing.

You can't do this in a paraglider. They're too dirty, slow and laundry doesn't retain energy like aluminum and thick Dacron. But while they're no good with making the pass, they excel at popping off thermals. That's why there are so many accidents on paragliders. They generate big turbulence during landing approach, pop off a thermal, collapse - often partially, and drop you out of the sky hard enough to break something, if not kill you. In a hang glider bad landing, you let the airframe take the blow. But in a paraglider, it's all you, baby.

The Frenchman from Charente died this way. He was at least the 1,312th person to die on a paraglider.

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My friend Chuck Jones was at least the 522nd person to die on a hang glider. That was in May, back in 1986, when the first guys died in the Alps on paragliders.
Hang gliding went through some painful evolution up to then. Full luff dives. Bad designs. Structural failure. Pilot error. Most of the kinks got worked out in the late 1970s, then Roy Haggard came along with the Comet and everybody else with the Comet Clones. They're still here.

I usually start with Chuck when I measure hang gliding vs. paragliding fatalities. Schaedler was at least the 798th person to die hang gliding, so...

>798 - 522 = >266 hang glider pilots have died since the first paraglider death in 1986.

[Rick Masters]

I am puzzled.



Why didn't this guy tie his left risers to his harness with his parachute bridle or something? Or, at least, hang onto it?

I guess, when you're surviving on luck,
instead of skill and judgement,
a little more luck comes easy
Until the day it doesn't.

[Rick Masters]

Like all paragliding "Acro" pilots, Stephen Gerber was on my short list.
"Live fast and die young" screams the shrill, horrible music from his 2010 video.

https://vimeo.com/16726996

His violent death came on May 9, last Saturday, above Lake Brienz in Switzerland, when he fell into his sail and, unable to escape, plunged at terrifying speed, wrapped, to his death. Yes, it was the same day a hang glider pilot died at Sylmar and a second soaring parachutist died when his canopy collapsed at landing in the French Alps -- while yet another broke his back in a thermal collapse at takeoff. Gerber is the 1,313th paragliding fatality that I am aware of and the 24th so far this year.
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Paragliding: The nearest thing to flying like a rock.*
* Helicopter required.

[Rick Masters]

Today, this sad news: A terrible tandem paragliding accident that occurred on April 24 culminated in the death, after nearly three weeks of suffering, of a most unfortunate 25-year-old woman in the prime of her life. Just minutes before I received the report, I had written this in the Big Bloopers section in reference to a video showing a spiral dive:

Cravats are more of a factor in spiral dive fatalities than previously thought. By destroying lift on one side of the parachutal airfoil while the remaining side is still fully functional, the deadly thing goes into a spiral dive, then progresses to a nose-down spiral dive very quickly. This PG operator knew what could happen if he didn't throw his reserve immediately. Soaring parachutists often black out from the G-force in nose down spiral dives and die on impact. There is no comparable situation in a hang glider. Hang gliders recover quickly from stalls and spins. They don't spiral dive or get cravats. Because they have oodles of energy retention, they don't pass through a DMC. Hang gliders don't try to kill you. (You have to make them do it -- that's called genuine pilot error.) If you want to fly something that wants to kill you, join the u$hPa and become a paraglider sales victim/acolyte/PG investor.
http://www.youtube.com/v/5mFTYAWwidg

The father had promised he would take his daughter flying, much in the same way Santa Barbara soaring parachutist Ron Faoro had taken his daughter on his fatal flight of March 1. They had ridden to the top of the mountain, launched off and had a beautiful flight. But at 240 feet on landing approach, their paraglider was rocked by a rising thermal and the canopy partially collapsed, probably much like the asymmetric collapse with a resulting cravat (lines wrapped around the wingtip) shown in the video. The paraglider entered a spiral dive which, despite the father's no-doubt desperate efforts to free the wingtip, continued all the way to the ground. Both were "severely injured" in the "heavy impact" and flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital

I do not know much of the story following that, except for the fact that the daughter died today. I do not know the fate of the father, although I assume he is still alive and suffering one the most severe recriminations imaginable. His daughter's tragic death marks the 1,314th paragliding fatality that I am aware of.

Once again, I maintain that any aircraft that cannot sustain the integrity of its airfoil in normal atmospheric turbulence must not be accepted by real pilots.

I also maintain that any organization promoting the use of such deadly and deficient "aircraft" has no integrity at all.

[wingspan33]

. . . His daughter's tragic death marks the 1,314th paragliding fatality that I am aware of.

Once again, I maintain that any aircraft that cannot sustain the integrity of its airfoil in normal atmospheric turbulence
must not be accepted . . .

I also maintain that any organization promoting the use of such deadly and deficient "aircraft" has no integrity.

Someone has to deny common sense to disagree with what you say, Rick. They could also be taking the
seriously delusional stand that collapsible canopies are "just as safe" as hang gliders. . . .

[Rick Masters]

Paraglider Wrap



You can't do this on a hang glider.
Helpless falling humans need paragliders to die this way.
http://www.soaringmeteo.ch/incidents.pdf