RM: PGs are dangerously modified parachutes. They can lose their airfoil shape in flight.
Hang gliders are real aircraft. They cannot lose this shape in flight.
I am saying that you have chosen the wrong flying apparatus.
You will eventually overcome your fear of heights but you should fear the paraglider.
The challenge for the pilot is to turn fear into respect.
Like you, I was filled with fear but I gradually began to trust my wing.
If you continue flying the PG, you will also begin to trust it and your fear will diminish.
Unfortunately, by then you will have placed your trust in a parachute that can collapse in normal atmospheric turbulence.
That is the game you should stop.
You can become a good pilot and overcome your fear as you build faith in your wing.
What I suggest is you choose a wing with a structure that prevents collapse of the airfoil.
Buy a used hang glider and learn to fly it.
Few people these days understand the importance of this decision.
It is unbelievable to me how many people are being killed on paragliders.
I have many thousands of miles on cross country hang gliders.
But I cannot imagine myself ever flying a paraglider.
The thought of being suspended in the air, then suddenly falling beneath a deadly fluttering mess, is too frightening.
Novice: So in conclusion, the risk of PG is the design of the wings issue? RM: Yes. But it is not simply a design issue in the sense that it can be fixed. It is a fatal, inherent flaw. Otherwise it would have been rectified during the past 30 years.
Novice: So can I say this only happens when the wind speed is below 25 km? RM: No. Normal atmospheric air turbulence can, of course, be caused by wind blowing over obstructions or ridges, but most paraglider operators are killed or injured in light wind conditions due to thermal turbulence. This type of turbulence consists of rapidly rising parcels of warm air that have heated on the ground then broken free, climbing through the surrounding cooler air. The paraglider, having no structure to help maintain its shape, can flutter or collapse, partially or entirely, depending on the size and speed of the rising parcel of air. At altitude, the hang glider, on encountering this sudden turbulence, will have one side of the wing lifted. The hang glider pilot will throw his weight toward the lifting side and circle, gaining altitude. There is no fear. The worst that can happen is that the hang glider will sideslip out of the thermal, dive and recover. A hang glider has a permanent airfoil and as a real wing, the pilot knows the response in turbulence is predictable and even enjoyable.
But a paraglider is a different story. When the wing loses its airfoil shape, it loses the ability to fly and falls. All sorts of things can happen and the operator can not predict what will result. The canopy can deflate, fall and pop open, and the operator will continue on his course. But if the paraglider gains enough speed in its fall, when the canopy pops open, it can "surge" ahead of the operator. Many paraglider operators have fallen into their canopies when the canopy surged underneath them. You cannot deploy a parachute when this happens, so you will die if you cannot fight your way free.
Also common is the "asymmetric collapse," where only one side of the canopy collapses. This will cause the paraglider to lose altitude, and then, hopefully, recover - but in a different direction and frequently in a spiral that the operator must recover from. If you are low, it can send you crashing into the hillside you were working lift on.
Some spirals are so fast and tight that the operator, subject to extreme G forces, cannot recover. This is the "spiral dive." The spiral dive, once initiated, can tighten to the point where the nose of the canopy is horizontal or below the operator. This is the dreaded "nose-down spiral dive," where all hope is lost.
Spiral dives are often the result of shroud lines at the wingtip wrapping around the canopy. This is called a "cravat." When the canopy pops open or recovers, the side with the cravat will not have a proper airfoil shape and the paraglider will begin to spiral with the cravat on the inner side of the spiral. A few years ago, safety officer Angus Pinkerton of the BHGA warned that it had been determined that a greater number of spiral dive fatalities were due to cravats than had previously been thought.
Another problem resulting from asymmetric collapse is the "twist," where the control lines become locked with the shroud lines. The canopy will often "autorotate" when this happens, making matters worse. Sometimes the operator can fight to untwist the lines, but I have seen an operator get twisted in thermal turbulence at takeoff and ride the paraglider back into the hill, impacting at about 50 mph and take three months to die.
There are other things that can go wrong with parachute but my point is that you never know what is going to happen. It's a parachute. It's dangerous and unreliable. A hang glider, on the other hand, is always instantly responsive. You always know what's coming, you always know how to fix it, it always works and it only takes a moment to get right.
I contacted you because, with only a few flights, you are in a very dangerous situation. You are surrounded by people posing as experts who actually know little about aerodynamics. How many have discussed the above problems with you? I would be very suspicious of their motives.
Because your life is in danger, I would encourage you to study this now-defunct website:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120321165848/http://www.cometclones.com/ Rick Masters
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From the web page:
---- FRONT PAGE OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES ----February 3, 2012
Riding the Winds of Changehttp://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tribal-skies-20120203,0,177178,full.storyAs paragliding booms, the graying flock of hang gliders who once ruled the skies fear for the future of their sport.
Jack Dolan Los Angeles Times
...One problem with such a gentle learning curve, say some veteran hang gliders, is that naive paraglider pilots don't have the sense to stay in calm air. Instead, they'll take their fragile wings to the roaring thermal turbulence of the desert, where they can soar to 15,000 feet and cover a hundred miles in a single flight.
Reliable accident statistics are impossible to find because neither the Federal Aviation Administration nor the National Transportation Safety Board tracks fatalities involving foot-launched, engine-less aircraft. Accident reports on the hang gliding and paragliding association's website are mostly anecdotal and rely on voluntary submissions from pilots and witnesses.
But a Web search on "paraglide and collapse" turns up horrifying video clips showing what can happen when soft wings encounter strong turbulence.
With no frame, a paraglider depends on air flowing in from the front to fill the space between an upper and lower layer of fabric. When inflated, the material forms the shape of a wing and it flies. If air is suddenly forced out, however, the wing loses shape and a pilot can find himself thousands of feet above the ground with a bundle of useless cloth overhead.
Beginner wings designed for safety are supposed to reinflate when they start to fall. But that can take enough time for the pilot to drop a few hundred feet. If a wing collapses too close to the ground, there's very little a pilot can do except deploy the reserve parachute, which also takes precious seconds.
Competition paraglider wings, designed for maximum speed and range, do not reinflate so easily. Two pilots were killed on the same day at the paragliding World Championships in Spain last July after their wings collapsed, and three others saved their lives only by opening reserve chutes.
"If I thought there was any chance my aircraft was going to spontaneously stop being an aircraft in flight, I would not get on it," said Rick Masters, a onetime hang glider who, after watching two paragliders plummet to their deaths, created a website devoted to the study of fatal paragliding accidents. Combing the Web for news accounts, he's up to 873 since 2002.
When he posted his findings on a paragliding forum, he was called a "fool," a "screwball" and a "psychopath." One angry paraglider wrote: "You are an old fart who used to fly and enjoy himself. Now you see 'your' sport threatened by these upstart paraglider pilots."
Masters, 61, lives in California's Owens Valley, home to some of the best thermal soaring in the world. He said he understands the response: Paragliders are "not going to let anyone take away their toys." He felt the same way about hang gliding — which, he concedes, is also plenty dangerous.
But he swears he didn't quit out of fear. Instead, he said, after about a decade of flying, he found himself soaring one day at 17,000 feet. He looked down at the ground and thought, "I'm bored. I gotta do something else, maybe build a house."
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