[JoeF]

Condolences to his family and friends.

======================================
May they serve his legacy by now paying attention to the above post.

2PGpoorpress.png (385.69 KiB) Viewed 8288 times

[wingspan33]

Brace is not very far from Ellenville, NY where I started flying back in '75. I've never flown at Brace, but I am sad to here that a collapsible canopy pilot died there on Tuesday.

I doubt if he would have died - or even crashed - if he'd actually been flying a hang glider.

His name has been released and I was relieved to know that he wasn't someone I knew from when I was an active pilot at Ellenville. Those who where close to him are not so lucky.

[Rick Masters]

Sorry to read this. Any details on who and what we can do to help.

The big help would be to try to stop people from flying collapsible canopies in inland turbulence.
I try that a lot but without a majority of pilots acting with me, the message doesn't get across.

Otherwise, you can try tucking these little girls (or any of the hundreds of other little orphaned children) into bed every night.
Read to them. Play with them. Help them with their homework. Take them on trips to the park and the zoo and other places.
Provide for the mother and family. Keep the bad boys away. Send the girls to college. Be at their weddings when they marry.
That kind of thing. I'm sure it would help a little. Might cut into your flying time, though.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Here's a video Frank sent me yesterday:

[JoeF]

Foolkiller

and Marvel's Foolkiller


tip on Marvel from Michael Grisham. Thanks.

[wingspan33]

Joe, Earlier in July I was at the local launch on Mt Washington and I watched some PG pilots launch. One nearly clipped the trees on the south side of the "slot" launch. Another fellow got lifted up then dropped about four feet to the ground, bounced about two feet back up then "tuck and rolled" to a stationary position on the ground.

The design flaw of collapsible canopies is what allows this. I've almost never seen a hang glider clip the trees during launch. And I have NEVER seen a hang glider pilot "miss-launch" involving falling and bouncing against the ground in the process. I really and honestly can't understand why people fly collapsible canopies, or don't quit flying them shortly after things, like I've seen, happen.

I know someone with a PHD who, sometime in the last few years, stopped flying hang gliders and now only flies collapsible canopies! I really don't understand it.

[Bob Kuczewski]

There's been a good discussion on the Oz "Smashing rocks with your face" topic. It started with this harrowing video:



The discussion went back and forth (as they tend to do), and then Harry Martin dropped his classic cartoon:

Harry_Martin.png (234.68 KiB) Viewed 7085 times

Then Steve Forslund paid a nice compliment to both Ben Reese and Rick Masters by joining their names as "Ben Masters":

So the question was asked and answered. The answer was not what Ben Masters wanted so he has ignored it
We all know there are way more paraglider pilots and they fly way more often. Ben why dont you talk to Dustin Martin about paragliding, you certainly dont respect anyone here who doesn't agree with you.

Then Ben hit it out of the park - way out of the park - with this one:

I had a reply written a few days ago and it got wiped by some error..

Steve, it is not a matter of respect. That is a dumb reference..

I certainly respect Dustin.. I don’t agree with him or you regarding PG’s.

Your saying I don’t respect people who buy a blue car because I buy a white one..

The cars are exactly the same except color..

PG’s and HG’s are not the same. I am sick and tired of you and others stuffing them in the same box..

Will talking to Dustin redesign the PG into a safe canopy craft?

You and everyone else singing your tune are in denial of facts..
You and those like you are responsible for a continuing parade of death and injury that cannot be mitigated…

By not disclosing the truth about PG’s true dangers, you put the sport of HG at risk because it is locked in the “Dead Zone” with PG by the grip of USHPA..

Congratulations Steve, you have won.

I have not renewed my membership and I am seriously thinking about selling my wings.
I have other aviation choices available to me with the company of more honest pilots.

Sure I can fly without USHPA but the places I love to fly are closed to non USHPA members..

The latest drama with Reform Vote and our 1st meeting being closed to members was a complete disappointment… You deserve it… Way to go…

Enjoy the funerals and helicopter rides..

Congratulate yourselves after you grovel to the FAA for a Tandem Exemption, that pretends to be an instruction flight, when it is not! This last one took 2 years and USHPA has no explanation as to why?

What an embarrassment…

Watch more sites like Torrey get swallowed up by commercial bullies feeding USHPA.

This sport is built on a house of cards and ignorant individuals who are too lazy to clean it up..

Those that try are banned and maligned by a litany of special interests…
Throw in a truck load of mis-management and you get exactly what you got..

HG cannot be saved under USHPA while being strangled by PG mis-information..

Frankly it is criminal…

PG will survive outside USA.

But here in the States there will be a lawsuit that has every PG manufacturer fleeing this country..

I don’t want to be part of that, nor have my name associated with an Org doomed to extinct itself and betray its members…

Because I have said these things, you will blame me for them when they come to pass..

You don’t have the maturity, honesty and resolve to solve these problems among yourselves. Those people like myself abandon you…

But even though I belevive this and don’t have faith in your ranks, I hope you do survive and fix the gaping holes in your ignorant ship…

Prove my warnings a cry of Wolf…

Without me..


B R

[wingspan33]

YES! That was great!

[Bob Kuczewski]

From ushga.aero/masters:

All you really need to know about paragliding is in this video:

https://vimeo.com/356610970



The video is quite violent. Rick describes it in detail:

On July 14, 2019, Ali Paskoy launched and was immediately seized by a powerful thermal that lifted him rapidly to 150 feet. His canopy collapsed four seconds after his feet left the ground, then popped open with a suspension line wrapped around the right wing tip (cravat). The paraglider went through a 720-degree autorotation, twisting the lines and preventing Paksoy from regaining control. It then stabilized and slowed, probably with the brake lines caught in the twist and pulling down the trailing edge of the sail. Paksoy swung forward, ahead of the canopy, certain to bring on a stall, but at that moment the sail was hit by a downward element of the turbulent thermal. It collapsed violently a second time and was propelled behind and below Paksoy. He fell weightless for a moment, then pendulumed backwards as the canopy popped open again with the right wingtip still caught in the cravat. With his weight far to the rear, the paraglider entered a diving right turn around the cravat. The turn suddenly reversed and the paraglider entered a nosedown spiral dive at 80 feet, swinging the helpless Paksoy horizontal to it at several Gs as it hit the slope of the mountain. Paksoy was killed instantly.

[JoeF]

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.