October 4, 2015
Once again the paragliding community bombards us with photos of soaring parachutists going cross county on stretchers.
We would like to stop seeing these photos constantly popping up in the world press, not only because we feel sorry for the agonized aeronauts but because this stuff makes the sport of freeflight look bad to the public. We went to years of effort and sacrifice to make hang gliding safer and to present a positive image, then along come these parachutists with their soaring canopies that collapse in normal air turbulence, falling vertically out of the sky all over the world and getting their photos taken with stretchers and helicopters and rescue personnel. It presents a negative image and we would like it to stop. But rather than address the real causes, soaring parachutists can only say, "Hang gliders crash, too."
Look, you guys should think of hang gliders as soaring parachutes with an internal structure that keeps them from collapsing in normal atmospheric turbulence, okay? That's why they don't collapse and fall vertically out of the sky. This is a problem that was solved 45 years ago. Now you come along and pretend that it is a problem that doesn't exist. And you tell everybody it's pilot error when a paraglider falls vertically out of the sky because it couldn't hold its airfoil shape in normal atmospheric turbulence.
It's not pilot error. Pilot error is when you fly into things. The problem with paragliding is a design defect. A fundamental defect that can only be fixed by incorporating an airframe.
And stop telling BobK not to post these photos. They're not our photos. They're out of newspapers. Hang glider pilots had nothing to do with it. We're the ones complaining, not you. You guys don't get it. You are the problem.
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