[Rick Masters]

In the face of so many collapse deaths, the rationalizations of soaring parachutists are incredible. I expect this guy to make the list one of these days:

Re: Bones Or Baggers?
Postby Sean Buckner » Fri Mar 02, 2012 2:08 pm

Bob,
I totally understand why HG piltos thing PG is unsafe because of the rigidity of the craft they fly. It just does not make sense to most Hg pilots why pg wings collapse. Just think if our wing was solid, and we can make them solid if they wanted to... Kite boarding wings actually pump up theleading edge with air and maintain a certain amount of air pressure to keep them ridgid.. But I beleive PG is a safer aircraft with the ability to collpase...Again it all boils down to pilots judgements and thier ability to remain calm in certain situations. Also... When a PG wing collapses,, it will reopen at some point. Usually very quick and before the pilot knows it happened... In more turbulent conditions that may give a 50% collapse, with the right training, you can manage directional control somewhat and will be able to get the wing back flying. To me that is safe... The ability to reinflate the wing. Now... What happens when you break a side wire on HG... I think if you have an issue with the mechanics of a HG,, your pretty much screwed. With PG, I have known pilots to break many lines to the glider and still fly it, and not just the flight they broke on, but have launched with up to 7 lines broken... Infact, I have seen a PG cut in half from leading edge to trailing edge an still fly with out issue. The pilot hit a kite sting right in the middle of the wing didnt even know the glider was damaged , landed perfect with no issues.

I invite all the HG pilots out to the SIV clinic this weekend and see for yourself what is involved with a collapse of a paraglider... I think youd have a change in veiws about the topic.

I will also, if any HG pilot in the club wants to take a tandem ride with me and we willl collpase the wing and you can see for yourself that its really not that big of a deal.
http://www.azhpa.org/azhpa_forum/viewto ... 0&start=10

Soaring parachutists find comfort in the fact that since paragliders are designed to fail (collapse) , it's not really an equipment failure when they do.
http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoeni ... 20Mountain

Here's an incredible rationalization from a very experienced hang glider pilot-turned-soaring-parachutist, J.C. Brown: "Yeah, I agree, surge to collapse is a safety feature of our inflatable wings. If PGs didn't do that we'd have a lot more cases of pilots being 'gift wrapped'."

Well, that sounds pretty safe to me...
http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=5931

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hi Rick,

I think you're letting them win by folding your web site.

I am not anti-paragliding, and I plan to continue flying them. But there's nothing wrong with a site that collects accident information and points out the very real dangers inherent in paragliding. As a paragliding pilot myself, the videos on your site were a strong reminder to me of the dangers in that sport. The videos and your points about the PDMC will remain strong in my mind whenever I fly a collapsable wing. In fact, I've shown those videos to a close friend who was learning to fly paragliders in the hopes that they might help keep her safe as well. Anyone who sees that as negative is just trying to suppress the truth.

So rather than allowing the PG "iron curtain crowd" to slap each other on the back in celebration, I strongly encourage you to restore your site. It's important that all PG pilots see and understand the dangers, and I think the paraglidingforum.com folks are endangering their own members by suppressing what you've tried to present.

That's just my own suggestion.

Bob

[Bill Cummings]

If you put it up Rick I will help search for both HG and PG reports for you to compare with your data base.

[Rick Masters]

you're letting them win

They're the winners? Really? Those guys make the list all the time.

[Rick Masters]

If you put it up...

Thanks Bill but they're not going to listen to anyone who actually understands aerodynamics.

After 29 years of paragliding, nowhere in their world can you find anything approaching the real numbers of their crippled and dead. They're the losers. Big losers. It goes with the territory.

Back to winners and losers. They're the losers. The winners use airframes.

[Bill Cummings]

Rick,
Several pilots in the RGSA (Rio Grande Soaring Association) are PG pilots.
Three of these pilots have shown an interest in HG and have been out to the bunny hill with an old 1980’s era hang glider. The first pilot to include hang gliding proved to be a “natural” and advanced at what I would call a frightening pace. It only took months to get his H2 rating. On his first high mountain flight (1,050’agl) he soared the rim, hooked his first thermal in a HG and did his first XC of eight miles all in one flight. It took me years to do that.

I worry for the safety of these PG pilots and every time they take to the air in a hang glider it cuts down the time they take to the air in a paraglider and that reduces my concern for them.

With skill in hang gliding and paragliding I think the scale would tip more favorably toward HG in the minds of these pilots when they decide on which equipment they are going to use on a particular day.

With access to the suppressed accident and death rates of HG and PG I see that as making it easier for pilots to make, what I feel would be, the safest choice.

[Rick Masters]

I'm not at all surprised at all that a soaring parachutist can advance quickly on a hang glider. It's similar to graduating from splashing around in the pond in water wings to zooming down a river in a kayak that's made for running the rapids. You already know how to swim. It's not hard to imagine the elation they must feel embracing speed and distance and leaving behind the fear of collapse and the Paragliding Dead Man's Curve (PDMC).



As a really ugly thought experiment, if you could take all the people who've killed themselves on paragliders and stack them up, giving them each 12 inches, the pile of corpses would be higher than this 1263-foot tower (which is taller than the Empire State Building!). What a shame they didn't move on to hang gliding! What were they trying to prove?

After all this time, I still don't get it.

[Bill Cummings]

Rick,
I’m going to get on my knees in front of this lap top podium and beg.
Damn@ I can’t evem see the jeeboard.
Pleasr tepost the the data om the Pag;iding Desd Msn’s Curvr/
Thsnks
Boll V/

[Rick Masters]

Oh, all right. I can't take it. A once proud hang glider pilot reduced to a sniveling parody of his former self. Here. Everything, even the totals, are seriously out of date. My tally now goes to the beginning - around 1986 - but this is the image of the 2011 page when I pulled the site down in the Spring of 2012.


Mythology of the Airframe 2011 - A Plague of Paragliders
A closer look at the world's most irresponsible sport -- if gambling is a sport

https://web.archive.org/web/20120326143 ... gy2011.htm

[Bill Cummings]

Thanks Rick,
I spent hours on the site yesterday. I think my online status even timed out while I was scrolling down your page. I read slow so I will have to spend more time there.
I saw where some of the videos that were on your website years back are not on the page now. Were those Youtube videos removed by the person that originally posted them to Youtube?

What time frame start to what time frame ending is the data not collected?
Thanks
Bill C.