[Rick Masters]

I have discussed in previous posts here the severity of PG injuries vs. hang gliding injuries, emphasizing the fact that while HGs usually hit the ground at a shallow angle and are often protected by their airframe, PGs tend to fall to the ground with a vertical vector, focusing both gravitational force and pendulum force entirely on the falling human. I have just received an update on the condition of David Mazzuchini who fell on Saturday after his sail collapsed in a midair at 300 feet over a beach in Argentina.

1) a complicated pulmonary contusion
2) internal bleeding in the meiastinum
3) internal bleeding in the pleura
4) fractured right arm
5) fractured shoulder blade
6) fractured eye socket
7) broken nose
8) injuries to frontal sinus

Why are there so many midair collisions between paragliders and paragliders, and paragliders and hang gliders? Imagine a net stretched three stories high, flying through the air, sucking up other objects. Ridiculous, you say? Too much air resistance, you say? No pilot would fly such a preposterous device, you say? Not so. They really are out there.

[Bill Cummings]

In the comments section a reference to two paraglider pilot deaths due to this same improper method of hooking in. Approximate date in 2012 in Germany. (In other words the comment was posted a year ago (2013) speaking of the year prior. (2012)

Folge: Passagierin schwer verletzt German to English) = Episode: passenger seriously injured
Uploaded on Aug 8, 2009

Startcheck mangelhaft ausgeführt führte hier zu einem schweren Unfall. =

Uploaded on August 8, 2009

Run-off check deficient led here to a major accident.
Channel:WeFlyTogether
Daniela Aurora
1 year ago
in reply to Josep Bernabeu
In comments:

The Tandempilot has to fix the passenger on the right and the left side with a "carabiner" (?) hook.
Then he should doublecheck if the passenger is safe.
After the first start abort it's incredible that he made the same mistake again.
Same mistake killed a pilot and a passenger last year in Germany.

found another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsOO03dHXGg

[Bill Cummings]

Reserve save after collapse.

[Rick Masters]

In regard to the proper use of parachutes, see http://www.ejection-history.org.uk
It appears there are more paragliders killed each year than lives saved by parachuting from distressed aircraft.
My favorite page is http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/Coun ... a_USSR.htm

[Rick Masters]

Bill Degen was the editor of New Zealand Hang Gliding Association's Airborne when I wrote "End of a Legend - George Worthington's Last Ride" in 1982. So here you have a guy who's been flying hang gliders for 35 years or so - and still in one piece - sharing the air with a paragliding fadist.* Just the two of them. Who made the better choice?
----------------------
...A St John spokesman said the male paraglider was taken to Christchurch Hospital in a moderate condition. He had suffered multiple injuries, including spinal and leg injuries. Christchurch man Bill Degen saw the paraglider flying near the cliffs as he launched his hang glider from Summit Rd yesterday afternoon. He did not see the man crash, but saw the ambulance at Taylors Mistake a short time later. Degen said the winds were "strong, but very smooth", and he and the paraglider were the only two flying in the area at the time.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/1066472 ... each-crash
----------------------
*paragliding fadist: One who participates in the fad of paragliding.

fad: A fad is any form of behavior that develops among a large population and is collectively followed enthusiastically for a period of time, generally as a result of the behavior being perceived as popular by one's peers or being deemed "cool" by social media. A fad is said to "catch on" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase rapidly. The behavior will normally fade quickly once the perception of novelty of spinal injuries and broken legs is gone. - Wikipedia (slightly modified)

Note: Paragliders are easier to carry from your car to the takeoff site - especially when you are recovering from broken legs and spinal injuries.

Here is something you can do in a paraglider that nobody can do on a hang glider.
http://www.expandingknowledge.com/Jerom ... g_Tony.mp4

[Rick Masters]

Hang glider pilot Peter Strobel died in Austria last February when a paraglider failed to clear his turn and swung in front of him. Strobel stalled and dove vertically into the ground before his reserve parachute had time to deploy. He leaves an orphaned daughter (her mother was killed in a car accident.) The soaring parachutist landed unharmed and, last I heard, was the target of an official investigation for manslaughter.

Now word comes from Italy that soaring parachutist Ralf Staiger has been killed after colliding with hang glider pilot Michael Speidel of Freiburg, Germany over the Cornosega Valley. Press reports immediately speculated that the soaring parachutist, again, was at fault for not clearing his turn. Speidel's hang glider became wrapped in Staiger's sail and both fell 100 meters. Staiger hit rocks and was killed. Speidel hit a tree and escaped with minor injuries.

Some of you may remember the full title of my 2009-2012 website, "Mythology of the Airframe - A Plague of Paragliders." I borrowed it from a British hang glider pilot who had used the phrase "a plague of paragliders" in describing how his local, time-honored hang gliding sites had been over-run with paragliders and that flying there had become so dangerous, due not just to the high numbers of paragliders but to the incompetent flying of them, that he had stopped flying in Britain entirely and looked forward only to his frequent trips to Spain, where he felt he could fly safely.

[Rick Masters]

UPDATED

Los Angeles speedflyer Dave Pearson was killed in a spiral dive on Tuesday.
http://www.pe.com/articles/jacinto-7529 ... crash.html

Another confirmed kill for US paragliding.
What's the 2014 count, now?

Free flight PG

1) Dave Pearson (CA) spiral dive
2) Roland Carter (UT) collapse
3) Paul Macdonald (HI) powerlines
4) David Norwood, USHPA PG Safety Co-Chairman (OR) collapse
5) Bud Wruck of TX (Slovenia) collapse
6) Kevin Smith (CO) collapse
7) Eric Hill (UT) collapse
[Hang gliders can fly into powerlines, too. But if any of the other guys had been flying hang gliders, they'd still be alive.]

Power PG

8) Jeffrey Carpenter, USHPA Observer (IL)
9) Allen Spear (UT)
10) Aldaro Etcheverry (MA)
11) Eric Giles (OH)
12) Jeff Toll (VI)

This is sick.
-----
It was a tremendous learning experience for me to mount gliders on vehicles and try to break them at various angles of attack - and backwards! This mandate for empirical testing is what made the USHGA a responsible and noteworthy organization that placed the safety of its members ahead of product sales. The USHGA demonstrated admirable integrity in refusing to endorse gliders that did not pass USHGMA certification. The USHGA lost potential income but placed itself squarely before its membership as an organization that cared about safety and recognized that the commercial future of the sport depended on manufacturers being required to supply only structurally and aerodynamically competent aircraft to the general public. This was the USHGA's finest hour.

Unfortunately, a new breed of USHGA directors, led by Russ Locke, forgot all about aerodynamic integrity when paragliders arrived on the scene. After their success with hang gliding, followed by guiding the ultralight movement toward self-regulation and airframe safety, the USHGA somehow thought it could do the same thing with paragliders. This did not turn out to be the case because it required the vital function of the airframe to be relegated to the level of meaninglessness. Lured by a lucrative growth and income opportunity, the organization irresponsibly mutated into a free flight advocacy organization that suddenly accepted a newly spiraling accident rate over which it had no control. Using rationalizations such as insurance, site preservation, lobbying and, most notably, "It wasn't me!,” the new USHGPA began raking in membership dough from the ranks of paraglider pilots to justify its existence. The old USHGA was dead.

[Bob Kuczewski]

http://www.pe.com/articles/jacinto-752919-san-crash.html

SAN JACINTO: Paraglider killed during test flight (UPDATE)

BY RICHARD BROOKS / STAFF WRITER
Published: Oct. 28, 2014 Updated: 7:45 p.m.

A paraglider pilot crashed and died during a mid-morning accident in San Jacinto, say Riverside County Fire Department officials.

The crash was reported at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 28, at Soboba Flight Park, 255 Soboba Road, in a rural area near San Jacinto River Park.

Fire officials released no details of the accident. But flight instructor Richard Kennedy said in a video interview with Newspro News that 30-year-old pilot Dave Pearson of Los Angeles was killed making a test flight.

"Dave was a very experienced pilot," Kennedy recalled hours after the crash. "He was testing out a new prototype wing.

"He attempted to do so some barrel rolls, and he got into a locked-in spiral, and he spiraled into the ground."

Kennedy emphasized that the weather and flight conditions were ideal.

"There was a very light wind. There was no turbulence. There was nothing wrong with the air," he recalled.

Pearson had flown for three or four years at Soboba, making 10 to 20 flights on most weekends, his friend estimated.

"He was a very advanced pilot, and he got into a really bad situation, and he couldn't get out of it," Kennedy said. "At least he died doing something that he loved."

[Rick Masters]

I watch this and I think, "No wonder!"
http://vimeo.com/85797048
I can't believe the USHGA diluted my wonderful sport of hang gliding with this garbage.
Time to start over.

Yeah, this is the parachute Pearson killed himself on.
No wonder...

[Rick Masters]