[Rick Masters]

Another soaring parachutist has just crashed at Point of the Mountain, breaking his back and receiving head injuries.
http://fox13now.com/2015/06/06/alaska-man-in-critical-condition-after-paragliding-accident-in-lehi/
The U$hPa will no doubt soon tell us how the operator "stalled" the aircraft.
I repeat, hang glider pilots should run, not walk, away from the U$hPa.
It has no idea what is going on.
HG pilots need to distance themselves from its myopic fantasy before the summer paragliding slaughter heats up.

[Rick Masters]

Fox News asks should Point of the Mountain be closed to flying?
VIDEO http://fox13now.com/2015/06/06/alaska-man-in-critical-condition-after-paragliding-accident-in-lehi/#ooid=BtdDlqdTrB83-vXMA9s-pJXuXdnwVO1d

Hang glider pilots need to reclaim their sport.
Separate hang gliding from parachuting.
Form a national hang gliding organization with hang glider pilots as members.

[Rick Masters]

The random nature of paragliding collapse

VIDEO http://h0059.s15.cdn.szn.cz/vod/15/0059/34492/mp4/f7ec63a3eeb285e3_360p.mp4

Paragliders, lacking an airframe to keep their airfoil shape intact, are subject to sudden deformation in normal atmospheric turbulence and can quickly fall out of the sky. It is clear to anyone that the helpless falling human in this video is suddenly without an aircraft. Such occurrences are viewed with shock by hang glider pilots who find the casual and seemingly uninformed acceptance of this level of risk utterly incomprehensible. Any hang glider pilot cruising at the altitude of this soaring parachutist would be engaged in a comfortable and stress-free flight, with several pleasant landing areas within an easy glide - although the wonderful lifty nature of the air would banish any concern about needing to land.

The man who chose to play the role of the helpless falling human in this stunning video broke his back, shattering two vertebrae. His national free-flight organization had set the standards for his training, certified his skill level and endorsed his equipment. The taxpayers and state provided the helicopter and personnel for his rescue as well as much of the medical expense for his long recovery. This is a common example of the delusional trade-off made to fly soaring parachutes instead of vastly superior hang gliders with dependable airfoils, greater range and protective airframes.



It must be understood by anyone contemplating participating in free-flight that the potential for collapse is an additional risk to the general risk inherent in flying that is borne only by soaring parachutists.



Even worse is the existence of the Paragliding Dead Man's Curve. Below the altitude of this curve, the emergency parachute is unlikely to fully or reliably deploy. In the video, the soaring parachutist who experienced canopy collapse was flying slightly above the PDMC and managed to get his reserve parachute deployed just in the nick of time. The majority of the one thousand, three hundred and sixteen deaths of soaring parachutists that I know of died as a result of either partial or full collapse below the altitude of the Paragliding Dead Man's Curve.

[Rick Masters]

Penetration

Winds and mountain flying go together. I have been flying cross-country on a fast hang glider at 16,000 feet in seemingly calm air, and looked down to see furious and frightening fingers of dust rising from the base of the alluvial fan below me, the winds easily 60 mph or greater. Mountains generate their own localized wind conditions. The penetration ability of one's aircraft becomes paramount when the wind suddenly rises, pushing you toward the crest and the deadly rotor lurking in the lee. If you want survivability, a hang glider is the only rational choice. Paragliders are too slow. I have lost count of soaring parachutists who have died by being blown into the lee.

We have to look at the odds to determine who is more likely to have the longest and most satisfying flying career. Two men, for example, fly big mountains every summer - one on a fast weight-shift flying wing and the other on a slow parachute dangerously modified for soaring. Sooner or later THEY WILL encounter strong winds that threaten to blow them over and behind the mountain crest. Are their odds the same, or is the deck stacked against one of them? Three possibilities emerge.

One: The hang glider is able to penetrate and continue beyond the flow of the strong, localized winds. The paraglider, with only half the penetration of the hang glider, is blown over the crest, into the rotor. The canopy collapses and the helpless falling human throws his reserve but it does not open in the rapidly-descending air of the rotor. He is killed. This is what happened to a soaring parachutist in Nepal in February.
VIDEO http://vid1.stirileprotv.ro/2015/02/19/61636526-2.mp4

Two: Both are blown over the back. Both turn downwind in an attempt to escape the rotor. The hang glider pilot, using the superior speed of his aircraft, passes quickly through the violent descending air and escapes. The soaring parachutist must spend twice as much time in the descending air and is sucked down until his canopy deforms and collapses in the turbulence. He killed.

Three: Both are blown over the back and sucked into the descending and turbulent air of the rotor. Both are killed but their deaths are not the same. The soaring parachutist dies, not as a pilot by any interpretation, but as a helpless falling human hopelessly pulling at useless limp strings. The hang glider pilot dies nobly, fighting as a genuine pilot of an intact aircraft to escape the rotor until his last moment.

[Rick Masters]

Another opinion on paragliding
from The Encyclapedia of Stupidity (German)
(use Google Translate)
http://www.stupidedia.org/stupi/Gleitschirmfliegen

[Rick Masters]

French police express alarm over frequent paragliding accidents on the eve of the first day of summer

Police in the vicinity of the Ariege Pyrenees Regional Park are "urging caution" today following the third paragliding accident in three days, including the one-thousand, three hundred and twenty-fourth paragliding fatality that I am aware of. As usual, it was a thermal-induced collapse during landing approach within, of course, the Paraglider Dead Man's Curve (PDMC). The so-called "aircraft" suddenly vanished in a flutter of fabric and the helpless falling human fell out of the sky like a brick, dying on impact.
_____________

Etymology for Lemmings

para

Word Origin http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/para-

a prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, most often attached to verbs and verbal derivatives, with the meanings “at or to one side of, beside, side by side” (parabola; paragraph; parallel; paralysis), “beyond, past, by” (paradox; paragogue); by extension from these senses, this prefix came to designate objects or activities auxiliary to or derivative of that denoted by the base word (parody; paronomasia), and hence abnormal or defective (paranoia), a sense now common in modern scientific coinages (parageusia*; paralexia**). As an English prefix, para, may have any of these senses; it is also productive in the naming of occupational roles considered ancillary or subsidiary to roles requiring more training***, or of a higher status, on such models as paramedical, and paraprofessional: paralegal; paralibrarian; parapolice.

* Parageusia is the medical term for a bad taste in the mouth.
** Misapprehension of written or printed words. Many soaring parachutists exhibit paralexia when reading my comments.
*** i.e., the vital further study of aerodynamics and structural engineering.

Therefore

Paragliding - misapprehension or fear of gliding.

[Rick Masters]

Practicing accidents in paragliding

Do you practice accidents with your hang glider?
Of course not.
But paragliders are so inherently dangerous that a huge business has developed around learning how to regain control after losing control.
Imagine that!
Have you ever heard of a course in hang gliding about how to regain control of your hang glider after losing it?
The very idea is preposterous.
The paragliding course is called "SIV."
A lot of soaring parachutists have died in SIV courses.
The fact that SIV courses even exists says a lot about paragliding and the people who do it.
It's not flatterieng.
In this video, a father and daughter induce a surge to see if they can recover from it.
VIDEO http://tvpot.daum.net/v/wIn7KJlBKBY$
The closest comparison to inducing a surge on a hang glider is to push out on your control bar.
Try it sometime and get back to me, if you're still alive.

[Rick Masters]

Outlook for the US Paragliding Nationals

Soaring parachutists are out to prove something to the world. We get to watch.

First, where is the safest place to fly a paraglider? Torrey Pines comes to mind. The ocean cools the air, making it smooth and well-behaved. This laminar flow meets the cliffs and rises upwards. If you're foolish enough to fly a dangerously-modified, critically-balanced parachute with dubious recovery ability, this is the place to do it.

Now, where is the most dangerous place to fly a paraglider? For that, you need to go inland on a hot day in the summertime. Find a place where it gets really hot down low and pretty cold up high. Now place a little red X where EXPERTS on paragliders have crashed and died over the years and circle the greatest concentration.

Here's a nice bunch of X's on or near Chelan Butte in Washington state, all resulting from canopy collapse in thermal turbulence within the PDMC.

July 8, 1998 Willi Muller, 53, legendary hang gliding pioneer https://vimeo.com/62506768
July 9, 2004 Reese Martin, 49, legendary alpinist
July 17, 2014 David Norwood, 55, USHPA Paragliding Accident Reporting Committee Co-Chairman

What would hang glider pilots say about such a place? Well, obviously, this would be a place never, ever to fly a paraglider.

But what do soaring parachutists say about such a place? They say:

2015 Chelan Cross Country Classic and National Open Distance Championships
USHPA Sanctioned HG AND PG Open Distance Competition
National Championship Event
Location: Chelan Butte, Chelan, WA
Event Dates: June 28 - July 3, 2015
Organizer: Lennard Baron & Lori Lawson

Next Weekend: The Best Recipe for Disaster, Ever
The wonderful thing about criticizing paragliding is that nobody listens.
http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/outdoors/2014/jul/18/paragliding-safety-questioned-after-chelan-butte-fatality/

You say, You shouldn't do that because you're likely to get maimed or killed when your paraglider collapses in thermal turbulence, nobody listens, and off they go and get maimed or killed when their paragliders collapse in thermal turbulence. You say, See, I told you so, but nobody listens and off they go again the next year.

So, how hot was it on the day my friend Willi Muller died?
Thirty miles south, at the Pangborn Memorial Airport in Wenatchee, the maximum temperature recorded that day was 89F. The dew point was 53F. The highest wind gust was recorded at 17 mph with an average wind speed of 11 mph.



How hot was it when Reese Martin died?
The maximum temperature recorded that day was 82F. The dew point was 44F. The highest wind gust was recorded at 23 mph with an average wind speed of 10 mph.



How hot was it when David Norwood died?
The maximum temperature recorded that day was 88F. The dew point was 40F. The highest wind gust was recorded at 33 mph with an average wind speed of 20 mph.


_______________________
Special Statement -- US Wearher Service
Statement as of 2:04 PM PDT on June 22, 2015

... Very hot temperatures return to eastern Oregon and
Washington this weekend...

High temperatures will remain in the 80s throughout the lower
Columbia Basin until Wednesday. Then a warm up will begin
Thursday and Friday with temperatures climbing into the 90s to
near 100. The real heat wave arrives over the weekend and continue
into next week with temperatures 100 to 110 degrees. This would
amount to record high temperatures during this period for many
locations. High temperatures in the mountains will be in the 90s
which would also be record setting.
Persons are urged to use caution when participating in outdoor
activities such as working or recreational events as heat
exhaustion or stroke can easily occur. If you do not have air
conditioning in your home plan an Outing that takes you to an air
conditioned location for at least part of the day. Drink plenty
of water or your favorite thirst quencher beverage to prevent
dehydration.
The heat wave is expected to continue for several days. Heat
advisories will likely be issued as the event draws closer.
_________________________

So how hot is it forecast to be next Saturday, June 27, the practice day on the eve of the U.S. Paragliding Nationals?

        106F !!!!!

Sunday, 105F. Monday, 104F.

That's right. Paragliders want to prove something. We get to watch.

On August 1, 2009, the maximum temperature recorded in Wenatchee was 107F, a record. Winds were calm until 3 pm, when they suddenly rose to near 30 mph and gusts reached 39 mph! That's right. Too dangerous for hang gliding, much less paragliding.

Look what happened.



At 3 pm the wind was calm. Over the next 60 minutes the winds rose steadily to 28 mph, followed by gusts well over 30. (Compare to David Norwood's chart.)

How many paragliders will be in the air in the middle of the afternoon? The entire field? Really?

Paragliders want to prove something. We get to watch. I am bringing my red pen.

[Rick Masters]

Updated Forecast for US Paragliding Nationals

Temperatures (F) Forecast for Chelan, WA by the Weather Channel

Sat 106
Sun 107
Mon 101
Tue 101
Wed 103
Thu 103
Fri 101
Sat 100

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SPOKANE HAS ISSUED A HEAT ADVISORY... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM FRIDAY TO 9 PM PDT SATURDAY.
* TEMPERATURES... HIGH TEMPERATURES 100 TO 105 ON FRIDAY... AND HIGH TEMPERATURES 102 TO 107 ON SATURDAY. SUNDAY HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE VERY HOT AS WELL.

[Rick Masters]

Update for the 2015 U.S. Paragliding Nationals
The worst conditions in world history for a paragliding competition!



Instability forecast
Contours of CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) which relates to energy available in the atmosphere for thunderstorm development.
NOTE: The lower left quadrant is a prediction for 00Z June 28, which is 5 pm on Saturday PST. The bottom right is 5 am Sunday morning PST, but it looks like conditions will become even more powerful than on Saturday. Low information soaring parachutists should ask a hang glider pilot what the implications of this are for paragliding. Seriously.




Chalan, WA forecast Weather Underground

While it’s been an unusually hot, muggy June across much of the Southeast, the burners will soon be going full blast out West. Models are consistent in building strong high pressure across the western states late this week into next week. The results will be scorching temperatures, especially in parts of eastern Washington and Oregon where warm, dry weather in recent weeks has left the ground already parched. Highs are projected to range from 100°F to 110°F over most of the next 4 to 6 days across a large area.

Predicted High Temperatures

Friday 06/26
102 °F --Plenty of sunshine. High 102F. Winds light and variable.
Saturday 06/27
106 °F -- Intervals of clouds and sunshine. High 106F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Sunday 06/28
106 °F -- Intervals of clouds and sunshine. High 106F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
Monday 06/29
99 °F -- Partly cloudy skies. High 99F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.
Tuesday 06/30
99 °F -- Sunny. High 99F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph.
Wednesday 07/01
103 °F -- Mainly sunny. High 103F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
Thursday 07/02
104 °F -- Sunny. High 104F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph.
Friday 07/03
103 °F -- A mainly sunny sky. High 103F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Saturday 07/04
104 °F -- Mainly sunny. High 104F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.



These conditions are so dangerous that the competition should be cancelled for paragliders, which collapse in thermal turbulence near the ground and maim or kill their operators.
Am I the only one who is saying this?
Nothing here http://www.cloudbase.org/
Nothing here https://www.ushpa.aero/compcalendar.asp
Nothing here http://www.ushawks.org