[Rick Masters]

Paragliding        August 23, 2017
Yahoo! News headline        



Two hospitalised as paragliding makes horror debut at Asian Games
https://au.sports.yahoo.com/two-hospitalised-paragliding-makes-horror-debut-asian-games-031132870.html

Are you embarrassed, yet?        
Form a national hang gliding organization only for hang glider pilots.
Let the public know that hang gliding is NOT paragliding.

[Rick Masters]

Paragliders making friends        August 29, 2018
'Evil' paraglider flying low over Sussex seafront and shouting abuse at people, police say
'His language foul and obscene,' says victim
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/paraglider-bexhill-on-sea-sussex-police-abuse-a8512746.html
“He is evil,” said one man on Facebook.
“His language foul and obscene.
We fell foul of him on more than one occasion.
My wife will no longer go up there in case he is there.”
Another added: “He flies really low, he’s a social nuisance.”

[Rick Masters]

Paragliding        September 1, 2018


Today a British paraglider demonstrates how one nitwit can give bad press headlines to the entire sport of paragliding (and hang gliding!)
Fatalities and injuries come nowhere near as bad in generating negative public feelings toward paragliding (and hang gliding!) as this parasite's actions have done.
The part where he doubles down and calls the townspeople "liars" really takes the cake. - RM
https://news.google.com/stories/CAAqSQgKIkNDQklTTERvSmMzUnZjbmt0TXpZd1NoOGFIV1JsTjBkdE1XdHVZMVZuWWtkUVRVTjZVRkoxWVRkYVdHZFJjVEZOS0FBUAE?q=paraglider&lr=English&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL55rxr5rdAhWMyrwKHax7AUkQqgIIMjAA&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

A Rude Paraglider Is Terrorizing an English Seaside Town

Police are searching for an 'evil' paraglider who has been accused of bothering vacationers

Paraglider says claims he is abusive to public on seafront are lies

'Bexhill birdman' paraglider accused of abusing beachgoers claims he is victim of defamation

Paraglider hits back at claims he is 'abusive and hostile’ branding the accusations of two year reign of terror in Sussex town as 'lies'

Police hunt ‘abusive and hostile’ paraglider after two-year reign of terror on Sussex seaside town

Sussex Police's probe is being carried out in conjunction with the Civil Aviation Authority. Sergeant Simon Barden of Sussex Police said: ‘We'd like to hear from anyone who has seen or experienced aggressive or disturbing approaches from this man.’ A spokesman for Rother District Council said it has had ‘numerous interactions with him over recent years’.

He went on: ‘Most recently we received a complaint in July from a member of the public who felt endangered when he was taking off from Galley Hill.
‘Our staff have also witnessed him flying low along the seafront in Bexhill.
‘Coastal staff have been advised not to approach him but to collect evidence and report any incidents to the police.
‘There is a bylaw restricting taking off and landing along the area of the seashore and we're currently collecting evidence of any contraventions and we will liaise with the police to support their investigation.’

Anyone with information is asked to contact Sussex Police online or phone 101 and quote Operation Surfer.

[Rick Masters]

Powered Paragliding        September 2, 2018

                                                                    Unfortunately, no egg was found.

18 kilos of marijuana on the paraglider

BUDAPEST - A 49-year-old Hungarian was arrested for trying to bring 18 kilos of marijuana from Serbia to Hungary on board a powered paraglider.
A narcotrafficante was caught by the police after being located thanks to a thermal camera
The man could also have got away with it if he had not stumbled into a thermal camera used by the Hungarian border guards. The episode occurred on Thursday but the news was given only on Sunday. The trafficker was caught just after landing near Szeged.
Vistosi surrounded, said he had injured his leg in touching the ground. Some officers took him to the hospital, while colleagues - with anti-drug dogs - scoured the paraglider, finding the amazing. The market value is 36.2 million Hungarian forints (around 120 thousand Swiss francs). The handcuffs are taken at the man's wrists directly in the hospital.
The barrier on the border between Serbia and Hungary, created to block the Balkan route of migrants in 2015, is causing some problems for drug traffickers. Hence the choice of "creative" solutions, which do not deal with the expenditure of men, funds and technology put in place by law enforcement agencies.
https://www.tio.ch/dal-mondo/cronaca/1318423/18-chili-di-marijuana-sul-parapendio

[Rick Masters]

Base Jumping


Mt. Myat-Loam (2993 meters) in the northern Caucasus, an area of previouse hostilities, has recently been opened up to wingsuit base jumping.
The vertical descent is around 1300 meters - among the best in the world. Ancient ruins pepper the landscape.

[Rick Masters]

Paragliding        September 5, 2018

Another hilarious, straight-faced claim that paragliding is "safe."

The head of the regional paragliding association yesterday said that the sport is safe after its Asian Games debut — and that riding a motorbike in Jakarta is more dangerous. Three crashes marred the competition at the Games in Indonesia, with at least two athletes helicoptered to a hospital after plunging to the ground. Paragliding’s safety has been in focus since the death of a Hong Kong flier in July, but Thapar brushed off any concerns.
    “Paragliding is safer than riding a motorbike in Jakarta,” Air Sport Federation of Asia secretary-general Sanjay Thapar told journalists, referring to the Indonesian capital’s notoriously heavy traffic.
    China’s Wang Jianwei broke a leg and Afghan competitor Lida Hozoori sustained spinal injuries after falling 15m, according to emergency services. A Japanese athlete was also hurt in a fall.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2018/09/01/2003699577

There were 98 paragliding contestants in the Asain Games.
Of these, three were injured in one day.
This represents about three percent attrition.



There are 15 million motorbikes in Jakarta and ajoining communities.
If only half of them are driven on any given day, using 3 percent of 7.5 million would result in 225,000 injuries involving hospitalization.
Greater Jakarta has 16 hospital beds for every 10,000 people and a population of 9.5 million.
This works out to 110,200 hospital beds in the city.
With 225,000 injuries per day from motorbike accidents, all hospitals will be overflowing every day.
It would be a national catastrophe.
Clearly, somebody doesn't have their facts straight.

‘We only term it an accident if somebody dies,’ says paragliding governing body as it insists sport is safe despite ‘incidents’        
https://www.scmp.com/sport/other-sport/article/2162285/asian-games-we-only-term-it-accident-if-somebody-dies-says

I guess this explains why there have only been around 1,737 "accidents" in the history of paragliding...

[JoeF]

You are nailing it, Rick.
===================================
Yeah, permanent vegetative state won't count for anything accident-wise by that PG association. Ouch!
There is a profound need to focus just on airframed recreational hang gliding.
Notice a recent note by the current president of a challenged SHGA:

WhatPGmissedFact.JPG (22.53 KiB) Viewed 11505 times

[Rick Masters]

Is this person a soaring parachutist?
They claim that hang gliders are more dangerous than parachutes.
A lot of them have even told me about hang glider collapses.
"Hang gliders collapse, too!" they say. "And hang gliders don't recover!"
All their friends agree.
Clearly, one would have to be a fool to fly a likely-to-collapse hang glider.        
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't, right?

How to collapse a hang glider:

[Rick Masters]

Paragliding        September 7, 2018

Lifeguards rescue paraglider found struggling in ocean after crash off Black's Beach
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-blacksbeach-paraglider-rescue-20180907-story.html
San Diego lifeguard on Friday afternoon rescued a paraglider who crashed into the ocean and became entangled in his glider lines about 300 feet from shore at Black’s Beach, authorities said. The lifeguard heard the paraglider’s screams for help around 1:30 p.m., San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokeswoman Mónica Muñoz said. The man was located “struggling in the water with his harness still attached and entangled in the glider line,” according to Muñoz.

[JoeF]

From the report, it seems, one may not be able to discern what happened to the canopy and its many lines.

“The lifeguard provided flotation with a rescue board, untangled the glider and paddled him to shore,” Muñoz said