"These paragliders will not wear me down!" asserts Claude Rosset of the followers of this very popular sport on the side of Mt. Salève, France, since the end of the 1970s [obviously a reference to the history of hang gliding]. The Swiss farmer of 65 years is fed up seeing a a few paragliders repeatedly ransack his harvest by landing on the field of rapeseed that he pampered with agro-ecological discipline in Pas-de-L'Echelle for fifty years.
A "declaration of war"So, a month ago, the resident of Veyrier, Switzerland,
installed metal stakes connected barbed wire in the area. The peasant describes his device as an "
anti-paraglider trap", even if he only wants it to be a "
deterrent". The paragliders see this gesture as a "
declaration of war".
"The people who land there instead of on one of the three official landing zones are lazy no-goods because the Salève cable car LZ is nearby but to land in the farmer's field requires little skill," says one of them. But this member of the Salève free flight club also believes that the dispute must be resolved quickly because fellow pilots might need to land there in an emergency.
"The problem with them is that they claim the slightest whirlwind is an emergency," says Claude Rosset. The Geneven wishes only to defend himself with his action, which is not illegal. Some days, six people would land in his field and sometimes even fold up their paragliders on his crops. The paragliders interviewed claim this number is exaggerated.
Anyway, the relationship between them and the local farmers is now tense.
"A nearby farmer told me that he kept his rifle in the cab of his tractor when he ran them off. Myself, I once threatened a paraglider that I would cut his lines. "Another day, the altercation between Claude Rosset and a paraglider had resulted in a rear-view mirror vandalized with kicks!
"It has been a deplorable and thoughtless series of events to reach this point," regrets Fabrice Fleury, head of the Salève Airlines paragliding school. Which organizes 1500 flights a year close to the field of Claude Rosset, but using the other landing zones.
A question of principle
The depredations found in his crops cost almost nothing to Claude Rosset. The farmer would earn more money by renting part of his plot to the two clubs or two paragliding schools in the area. But the farmer makes it a matter of principle:
"I know I am minority, but these idiots, believing that their leisure is more important than respect for the work of others, make me very angry and I will not give in to them! " https://www.lematin.ch/suisse/barbeles-parapentes/story/14901307-----
Hang gliders, because of their superior l/d, typically do not need to use farmer Rosset's field.
However, other farmers may ban their fields to all free flight use if this keeps up.
I certainly would, if I were farming there.
In the Owens Valley in the 1980s, I stood with the farmers against hang gliders landing in their fields.
It wasn't necessary. At all.
"Don't land in alfalfa fields," I told our members of the Cross Country Pilots Association every morning from Walt's Rock. "That's about the only thing you can do to turn the locals against us. It's easy to land over the sage brush. Do that. Just flare and drop. The ground is soft."
So today the paragliders declare "declaration of war" against a local farmer? They commit vandalism on the farmer's property? You gotta be kidding me...
This isn't a declaration of war on the farmer.
This is a declaration of war by soaring parachutists on hang gliding, destroying the decades of good relations we have fostered worldwide.Hang glider pilots everywhere need to completely disassociate themselves from soaring parachutists.
They are not like us at all.
Combining hang gliding with parachuting was a BIG mistake.
We need to be able to say, "They are soaring parachutists, not hang glider pilots. We are not associated with them."
We can't do that with Frankenstein monsters like USHPA and BHPA which have mutated into something we don't recognize and have taken over our sport.
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