US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Whoops!



Carry a knife.

Reminds me of something Rich Pfeiffer told me in 1981 - if he had to throw his reserve over the vertical cliffs of the Sierras, he'd jump out of his harness rather than be beaten to death tumbling down the cliff face. We were rendered speechless at that. It was pure Pfeiffer.

I scanned a bit of the video until I saw the reserve chute dangling. I then backed up to see why he deployed it. Seemed to be accidental. Probably why the "Whoops!" was used in the lead in post.

Man-O-Man! Having two "chutes" deployed as you descend toward ANY challenging terrain looks like it could complicate matters. Obviously the guy in the above video lost all/most of his equipment to that remote mountain location. Add that to the cost of rescue! $$$$$$ I had a bad landing in 2012 and "jarred" my cranium. Local EMTs figured I should be air lifted to a hospital 60 miles away. The bill was $30K+. I wonder how much an expert helicopter mountain rescue would cost? The equivalent of $50 - $60K?

Hang glider pilots have also accidentally deployed their chutes, so this incident connects with both sports. And a PG is also more likely to "snag" on rough cliff faces - so maybe that's a GOOD thing!

Tree crash

PG spiral cravat

Cravats are more of a factor in spiral dive fatalities than previously thought. By destroying lift on one side of the parachutal airfoil while the remaining side is still fully functional, the deadly thing goes into a spiral dive, then progresses to a nose-down spiral dive very quickly. This PG operator knew what could happen if he didn't throw his reserve immediately. Soaring parachutists often black out from the G-force in nose down spiral dives and die on impact. There is no comparable situation in a hang glider. Hang gliders recover quickly from stalls and spins. They don't spiral dive or get cravats. Because they have oodles of energy retention, they don't pass through a DMC. Hang gliders don't try to kill you. (You have to make them do it -- that's called genuine pilot error.) If you want to fly something that wants to kill you, join the u$hPa and become a paraglider sales victim/acolyte/PG investor.
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Nose down spiral dive paragliding*
*body bag required.

Tree crash
clip from video BillC shared: