[Rick Masters]

One of the most likely ways to to die on a paraglider is by way of a spiral dive. The spiral dive often follows a collapse, when the sail re-inflates in a "shock opening" with some lines tangled around one tip. The paraglider then enters a violent spin - a "nose-down" spiral dive" - generating centripetal accelerative forces so severe that the human "dope on a rope" blacks out or is even thrown from the paraglider when the lines snap. I have documented HUNDREDS of deaths due to spiral dives.

Many soaring parachutists have been killed after deliberately initiating spiral dives in SAT courses, which supposedly train one to exit a spiral dive, or while practicing spins. The commercial paragliding scammers will tell you that you can learn techniques to make spiral dives no different than other aerobatic maneuvers - but this is a lie. You can lose control. Many, many expert pilots have been and continue to be killed in spiral dives. A few days ago, the five-time Russian paragliding champion Alexey Miheev was killed when he became locked into a nose-down spiral dive while practicing spins at 1000 feet. Here is the video.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... death.html

Note that the impact itself is not shown. The falling human is swung around at such a speed that is common in accidents like this for the internal organs to rupture, the bones to exit through the flesh and the body to actually explode into pieces. I have come across press reports where only sixty percent of the victim's body parts were recovered from impacts on mountainous terrain.

Even if you try really, really hard, you cannot do this on a hang glider. Hang gliders are real aircraft and do not behave in such an insane manner.

[Rick Masters]

One of the many problems with paragliders is lack of penetration due to their high-drag design.

[Bob Kuczewski]

I hope that's a very sobering video for all PG pilots. Do you know if the pilot lived?

A number of years ago (when I was banned from Torrey by David Jebb) I flew my PG with a visiting friend at a site we call "Little Black". The wind at launch didn't seem very strong, and I launched first to test it out. As I climbed, it became clear that I was entering faster moving air with more altitude. I yelled to my friend below that I felt it was too strong and she shouldn't launch. She didn't.

I fly a fairly large and slow glider (Arcus Large), and I did everything I could to move forward (lay back, light brakes, speed bar). It was a long and slow creeping process, but I finally got back out in front of launch. As I descended, I eventually got below the high-speed layer and was able to move forward to a safe landing.

We went to Torrey after that. I waited off the premises while she had a nice flight.

[Rick Masters]

Soaring parachutist Jim Harris of USA after smashing into the ground in Chile yesterday. Back injuries. Numbness in legs.
"After examination and according to a first diagnosis, tourists have suffered an injury that compromised his bone, which could leave him crippled to complicate the situation."

El lesionado, presentaba entumecimiento de piernas y un fuerte dolor en la zona lumbar, pese a eso permaneció en todo momento consciente, pero de todas maneras fue ingresado al recinto médico para evaluar lesiones de mayor gravedad por medio de exámenes radiológicos.
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This is the injury we all fear. However, back injuries are much more common in paragliding, which offers no protection at all in a crash, than they are in hang gliding, where the pilot is somewhat more protected by a framework of tubing known as an airframe.

[Rick Masters]

A better video of PG champion Alexy Miheev's nose-down spiral dive has surfaced. Also, he was on a powered PG, described by many as "the safest form of flight."

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=742022312529512

Click HD and fullscreen, and listen to the sound of the sail. How many "gees" do you think he was pulling? I bet he couldn't even raise his arms.

In a hang glider, it's impossible to die like this - completely helpless, like a fly stuck to flypaper.

[Rick Masters]

"Spiral Dives -- Still a Problem" by Chris White
and the ridiculous "fix"
http://www.actionairsports.nl/download/ ... _White.pdf
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I call the "fix" ridiculous because it's just another example of taking a bad idea and installing a kludge that will move you straight to the next problem. What's the "next problem?" Well, stall speeds of paragliders are getting faster as the sails are designed for better penetration. This causes problems at landing when soaring parachutists slow down too far and become helpless falling humans. Okay, yeah, so let's try landing with a drag chute...

http://vimeo.com/67794766

I've used drag chutes on hang gliders. I don't like them because you increase the things that can go wrong -- and go wrong beyond your control. It's far better to have flaps or spoilers. Can you imagine: Some aerobatist soaring parachutists are actually flying with a paraglider and as many as -- count 'em -- three reserves. Now you add an automatically-deployed drag chute with a weight to save you from a spiral dive?????

You gotta be kidding me. But these people are doing it. And these people don't even consider hang gliding. "It's too much trouble!" and "I'd rather die than have to carry a hang glider." Ridiculous! (And I keep being asked why don't I call them "pilots.")

If you've ever seen paragliders experience a big collapse, you know they can go nuts. They'll collapse, fall, and experience a "shock opening" that turns all that kinetic energy into ape-shit action, throwing the dangling human all over the place. Recently it's been realized that a lot of past spiral dives were caused by lines wrapping around a wingtip of the collapsed sail just before the shock opening. A weight-actuated drag chute would automatically deploy at the precise moment of the shock opening; at the moment the paraglider goes nuts. Couldn't it easily wrap around the sail? Wouldn't that be even more likely than without it?

What is this? Rube Goldberg reinvents airplanes?



BTW, our modern world is filled with bad ideas that were constantly tinkered and kludged until they could be marketed to the gullible sheeple as a good idea. Paragliding may be a prominent example but other examples are everywhere. Do you recognize any of them or do you think everything that is sold is a good idea? Soaring parachutists do.

[Bob Kuczewski]

What is this? Rube Goldberg reinvents airplanes?

And these people don't even consider hang gliding. "It's too much trouble!" and "I'd rather die than have to carry a hang glider." Ridiculous! (And I keep being asked why don't I call them "pilots.")

That's a good point in many cases. But in other cases, it's not the carrying of the hang glider that makes it too much trouble as much as the transportation and storage. A lot of younger people live in apartments or campuses or barracks, and they don't have the kinds of vehicles or storage that would let them transport and keep a hang glider.

That's not intended to be a criticism of hang gliders, but a challenge for someone to come up with a more easily "short packed" glider. One of the selling features of the Falcon 3 that I bought was its ability to be short packed. But it's not something you want to do (or even should do) every time you fly. If we want to bring more younger folks into hang gliding, this would be a good problem to tackle.   

Thanks for maintaining this blog Rick. It's great to have you here.   

[Rick Masters]

1975 – Thomas Finsterwalder's adventure team flies the Bergfex off the Misti in Peru. The Bergfex was the first production hang glider of German graduate engineer Thomas Finsterwalder's renowned fiberglass kayak company, Finsterwalder gmbH. Designed for mountaineering, it was a portable model that weighed only 11 kg and fit into a 1.8m long backpack. Finsterwalder began a campaign of flying off some of the world's most famous peaks on the Bergfex, including Mexico's Popocateptl, Peru's Mount Misti and Mount Demavend in Iran. Then on New Years Eve, 1976, Finsterwalder, Albert Maier and Heinz Walter made the first successful flights from the summit of Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro.

I flew my Aolus with a couple pilots from Switzerland on Finsterwalder Bergfexes in the Owens Valley in 1981. I can still see those guys floating joyously around in our thermal at 14,000 feet -- and they were wearing shorts! Of course, Rube Goldberg had still to invent the paraglider at that time.

[wingspan33]

Rick,

I'm wondering (not wanting to automatically assume I'm right) would a PPG have a greater likelihood of getting into one of these "death" spirals? I would think so since there is a significant amount of extra weight to add acceleration (centripetally) to the curved path of the pilot - and opposing the spiraling wing.

Another question: What are "SAT"s? I've heard that acronym used in connection with maneuvers that are practiced (often over water) related to "safety training" on collapsible canopies. But I can't recall what it specifically stands for . . . ,

Safety Avoidance Training?

Spiral Approaching Terrain?

Spin And Toss?

Splat Against Terra (firma)?

Self Actualized Terror?

Simpleminded "Acrobatic" Training?

[Rick Masters]

I have gathered reports of nearly 150 PPG deaths (additional to my free-flight totals). Most are from collapses in turbulence. Of the spiral dives ending in deaths, most resulted from shock openings that hurled the dangling human and engine into a tight spiral from which he could not escape. Looking at the excellent video of the PPG acident just posted, it appears to me that the extra mass just aggravates the spiral. Once you are locked into a nose-down spiral dive, I don't think it matters if you have the engine or not. You're screwed. I figure if a champion soaring parachutist can't escape from it, even though he entered it deliberately, it should be classified as "a design defect." There is no doubt that if a design defect of a much smaller degree were recognized for hang gliders, those models would be grounded immediately, as has been the case countless time throughout our history. But due to the double standard of the U$hPA, the death spiral is essentially accepted as pilot error with brazen dishonesty. The spiral dive problem is not restricted to particular models of paragliders. It seems endemic to the sport. An organization as responsible as our lost USHGA would have no alternative but to ground all paragliders. The fix would be to add airframes. Of course, we wouldn't call them paragliders, then, would we?

SAT is a French acronym for Safe Acro Team and is a deliberate spiral maneuver used in training soaring parachutists how to escape from spiral dives - usually over water. It is viewed with apprehension by PG students and for good reason. I've lost count of those who have died attempting it over the years. Certainly over a hundred. But it is necessary to perpetuate the myth of paragliding safety so as to make it a profitable and marketable sport. But if sheeple could understand what all this means -- that paragliders are easy to fly until something goes wrong, then rapidly become increasingly difficult to control until they exceed the ability of even the most expert among them -- they wouldn't be sheeple, would they? No. They'd be pilots -- because pilots can recognize the difference between real aircraft and laundry.