[Rick Masters]

Powered Paragliding        December 3, 2017

Paramotor fatality #275
It was a "mysterious crash" said the newspaper.
After nearly 2,000 paragliding and paramotor fatalities, the reasons behind these deaths remain swathed in mystery - in Great Britain, anyway.
This "expert instructor" had a paragliding school and taught people to fly them with powered backpacks.
His last lesson was particularly instructive.

When you have a slow-flying aircraft, there is less safety margin for the speed of your inside wingtip in turns.
Think about it.
On a tight turn, you can easily drop the speed at your tip to, or below, stall.
If you have an airframe, you slip, dive and recover.
If you don't have an airframe, your so-called "wing" balls up and you fall out of the sky - also balls up.
If you are flying a paraglider with an "anvil on it," as I describe paramotors, things happen even faster.
There's nothing mysterious about it.

[Rick Masters]

Powered Paragliding    September 23, 2017

PPG fatality #274
This is what a paragliding trike looks like after the canopy collapses at 100 feet and it falls straight down.
The body of the paramotorist at the feet of the investigation team has been digitally concealed to protect everybody from thinking too much about the terrible finality of death: the number one element that makes you the least enthusiastic about risking your life doing really stupid things.

[Rick Masters]

Joyriding Paragliders        July 30, 2017


The dangerously-modified soaring parachute encounters perfectly normal atmospheric turbulence, described by paragliding enthusiasts as "a freak gust of wind," and deforms.
A hang glider pilot in this air would shout, "Oh, boy!" and initiate a turn because he knows there is lift nearby. This paraglider, however, collapses.


As if it were pornography, a Slovokian newspaper digitizes out the image of a tandem paraglider dropping two helpless falling humans to their deaths within the PDMC.
The PDMC, or Paraglider Dead Man's Curve, is the zone of no recourse that exists below the lowest point at which emergency parachute can be successfully deployed.
Paragliders must travel through the PDMC at take off and landing. It is unavoidable and makes the paraglider the most dangerous soaring aircraft in turbulence.


The soaring parachute collapsed at 20 or 20 meters at the hands of the experienced joyriding commander Peter H. - PG fatality #1613


Both the commander and local matriarch Marta Privitsova, PG fatality #1614, died on impact as her family watched in horror. (Marta with her son and daughters.)


The family runs to the scene in disbelief.


The Privitsova family at the funeral.

[Rick Masters]

Paragliding - December 16, 2017
El Nino kills British PWC contestant



An un-named "top international pilot" from Great Britian has been killed at the South African Pre-PWC
when his paraglider collapsed within the Paraglider Dead Man's Curve as he approached the goal.

British contestants: James Hope-Lang, Jenni Fleming, Grant Graham, Christopher Bevins,
Jack Pimblett, Paul Hawkins, Wesley Murch, Kelly Stuart, Jack Bailey, and Thomas Cole.

It was at least PG fatality #1,651.
A spokesman for the competition blamed the accident on "the El Nino effect,"
apparantly a freak change of climate that generates freak gusts of wind that are not fair to paragliders.


The Paraglider Dead Man's Curve, which explains the vast majority of paragliding deaths, including this one, was not mentioned.

            What hardly gets mentioned is the fact that the turnover in pilots is relentless.
        Very few stick at it – most give up after 3 or 4 years.
        It’s a little like a medieval battle, with those at the back marching forwards
        over the bodies of the fallen at the front,
        unaware just how dangerous high-level competition is.
        It’s been the same ever since I started competing in 1994.
                -- Hugh Miller, Former British paragliding champion

Outside of South African paragliding venues, El Nino is regarded as a perfectly normal aspect of the ever-changing climate.
Hang glider pilots look forward to El Nino cycles as they frequently offer the greatest potential for cross-country flying.

[Rick Masters]

Paragliding        December 16, 20117


PG fatality #1,651 Lars-Anders Jonsson

The Swedish Paragliding Association now reports that it was one of their members,
not a Brit, who was killed at the South African Pre-Worlds.
Lucky Brits!

Paraglider racing involves flying a paraglider as fast as you can, which brings it closer to the edge of collapse.
Genius! Kinda like NASCAR, except you sit on the the hood.
They used to say that the PWC was really safe because the only people who got killed were in the Pre-PWCs and they were, like, amateurs.
They hardly ever talked about how many reserves were thrown.
Why should they? Reserves make the sport safe! The more reserves thrown, the safer it gets.    
Then the guy who started the Paragliding Worlds was killed in a collapse in Peru just before the 2011 PWC in Spain.
Then two of the best South Americans were killed in that comp when their snakey, high aspect ratio paragliders collapsed.
So CIVL outlawed the snakey, high aspect ratio paragliders to solve the collapse problem.
Then El Nino came along.
It's just not fair!

-----------------------

On September 22, 2002, I filmed PG fatality #278, Jody Lucas, flying a snakey, high aspect ratio paraglider in the US Paragliding Nationals in Owens Valley.
At Gunter Launch, a little thermal that might have rocked a hang glider's wings grabbed the upraised canopy,
lifted Jody off his feet, spun him around and carried him out into the valley in a twist.
It appeared that his arm was locked in the lines.
Helpless, he couldn't untwist it.
Then the paraglider began to enter a spiral dive and slammed back into the side of Gunter in a 180.
He died that winter, never awakening from his coma.
At the request of the meet organizers Peter Gray, J.C. Brown and Mark Axon, all previous hang glider pilots,
I assembled a forensic video of the launch accident - first at true speed,
then zoomed in black and white to show his line arrangement,
then a color zoom to show his actions at takeoff and in flight.
I held off publishing the high-resolution version for almost nine years, finally deciding a month after the 2011 PWC debacle
that both current and potential paraglider riders had a right to see how vulnerable
a highly-experienced instructor and competitor could be to a thermal at launch,
and to allow them to decide for themselves if inland thermal sites were the best place to practice paragliding.
Also, I was getting tired of hearing the cynical myth that paraglider pilots were spreading around:
that it was Jody's fault, that it was his pilot error that caused the accident.
They eat their own.
It had become obvious to me that the accident had been due to the lack of an airframe,
as the contortions of the snakey, high aspect ratio paraglider made that evident when the thermal hit it.
So I put the video up on YouTube but after only two weeks, I received this message:

        The YouTube Community has flagged one or more of your videos as inappropriate.
        Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed by the YouTube Team against our Community Guidelines.
        Upon review, we have determined that the following video(s) contain content in violation of these guidelines,
        and have been disabled: Jody's Thermal - September 22, 2002.

The individual responsible for the complaint to YouTube sent me this venomous note:

        Wow, just wow, imagine being such a low life piece of s**t that you would use
        the death of a pilot to try to make your airframe look better!!

"No wonder these guys are dying like flies!" I thought, when I realized that they were "protecting" each other
from the truth about the dangers of paragliding, actively denying and destroying the information needed to think for themselves.
So I placed this warning on CometClones:

        IF YOU ARE A NEW PILOT OR ONE CONSIDERING PARAGLIDING,
        BE AWARE THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE ACTIVELY CONCEALING FROM YOU REPORTS OF THE DEATHS
        AND HORRIBLE INJURIES THAT ARE OCCURRING ON AN ALMOST DAILY BASIS.

And although the YouTube video is forever gone, there is this frame grab from the final seconds.
It conveys the finality of death that awaits those who make poor choices of aircraft.



Paraglider operators need not express further outrage.
In fact, you can just go away.
My intent, these days, is simply to explain the dangers of paragliding to hang glider pilots
and those considering entering the realm of free flight.
If you already drank the kool-aide, it's too late.
I have no antidote.

[eagle]

~ Fly Away Dreams ~

The Last Flight.gif (1.78 MiB) Viewed 5702 times

[Frank Colver]

Yes, dreams of flight. Today marks the 114th anniversary of the Wright's first powered flight at Kittyhawk.

I took my first commercial airline flight on this day in 1965 (Boeing 707). Very cold feet, literally!

Frank

[Rick Masters]

Paragliding        December 16, 2017


                                Paulo Sérgio Trevisan launches from a hill in Pocas de Calas, Brazil, on December 12, 1976.

Brazilian hang gliding pioneer Paulo Sérgio Trevisan, known as Baiano, was the first to launch from a hill in Poços de Caldas on December 12, 1976.
    He had built the rogallo he flew by himself.
    As hang gliding grew in the area, the launch was named "Rampo do Baiano" by the Poçoscaldense Hang Gliding Club in recognition of his achievement.
    "On a paper, I drew the wing measurements," related Paulo.
    "It gave the biggest headache at the time, to get the tubing.
    "I made that big triangle, but at the time, I had no idea of what ​​the center of gravity should be."
    After learning how the center of gravity worked
    and receiving help from an engineer to develop a specific wing size for his weight,
    Baiano began to lay his hands on the parts to build the hang glider.
    "In front of my house, I put the tubes on the ground and I was able to drill the holes in the aluminum with some hand drills.
    "I was able to bend the pipe to make the trapeze on the tire of my father's truck.
    "I learned how to fasten the steel cables.
    "A friend of mine who was a mechanic, taught me," he said.
    With the project completed, it was time to test the wing.
    For this, Paulo received the help of friends, because he had no way to climb to the ramp carrying the assembled glider.
    Up there, with no helmet or spare parachute, he jumped.
    "On my very first flight, I launched from a five-meter ravine.
    "I flew right off with the glider and I landed straight.
    "It was less than fifty meters.
    "I could not believe it! I screamed like a madman!" he recalled.



On Saturday afternoon, the paraglider that 56-year-old Paulo was flying collapsed in the PDMC over the Serra de São Domingos.
    It popped open, but then collapsed again.
    He threw his reserve but was too low.
    He could not be revived by his rescuers and he died.
    Paulo Sérgio Trevisan was PG fatality #1,652.
    https://g1.globo.com/mg/sul-de-minas/noticia/piloto-morto-ao-cair-de-parapente-inaugurou-pista-de-salto-em-pocos-de-caldas-diz-clube-de-voo.ghtml

[Rick Masters]

                            "Dead Man's Curve, no place to play..."
      

[Rick Masters]

Parasmuggling - The world's heaviest paraglider!


Revenue Department finds 7 kg of hashish hidden in paraglider at the airport
Contraband was in the luggage of a man from Mato Grosso
The Federal Revenue Department found 7 kilograms of hashish, a drug derived from marijuana, in the luggage of a 30-year-old man from Mato Grosso who landed at around 10 pm at Salvador airport on Saturday (16). The Brazilian, who did not have the name published, had just arrived from Barcelona on an Air Europa flight from Madrid. It was the images obtained on the X-ray machine used by the IRS that showed the existence of the suspicious packages. The drug was found in 7 packages hidden in a paraglider.

The man was arrested and the hash tablets were sent to the Federal Police, which will continue with the investigation of the case.
http://www.correio24horas.com.br/noticia/nid/receita-acha-7-kg-de-haxixe-escondidos-em-parapente-no-aeroporto/


Paragliders prepare to introduce Brazillians to the wonders of marijuana.
"Without paragliding, we never would have gotten high," said one Brazillian, anonymously.