[wingspan33]

I think the following has a VERY significant relevance to the Brad Geary (as well as the other Air California Adventure Inc. PG Tandem pilot) video "evidence" that
has been removed from YouTube -

California Penal Code SECTION 273a.

(a) (a) Any person who, under circumstances or conditions likely to produce great bodily harm or
death . . . willfully causes or permits [a] child to be placed in a situation where his or her
person or health is endangered, shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding
one year, or in the state prison for two, four, or six years.

(b) Any person who, . . . willfully causes or permits [a] child to be placed in a situation where
his or her person or health may be endangered, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

I wonder if the SD Police Department would accept a complaint on this matter? . . Or, . . . just sweep it under the rug? . . .

.

[wingspan33]

This may have been posted already (above) but I found this video on YouTube. It gives GRAPHIC detail on what happens to a person (and potentially child passengers!) when a collapsible canopy deflates/deforms near enough to the ground.

The second part of the video is from the 1st Person Crash Victim perspective. They were wearing a helmet cam! Clearly they are in pain and can not get up from where they pounded in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvYORWG-SpU




.

[Rick Masters]

Yeah. The soundtrack should go:

"Golly, look at all those hang gliders down there!
There's so many of them!
But hang gliders are so heavy!
All full of tubes and stuff!
I wonder why they're not flying paragliders like me?"

Paragliding: The closest thing to flying like a cement block.

[Rick Masters]

I run across this kind of thing all the time in my research. Ground-handling of paragliders can be dangerous. The canopy is high in the air, exposed to gusts. It can easily lift the operator off the ground. In the San Diego political incident, one USHPA member informed another that he was instructing without a helmet and should simply put one on. It should have ended there. Everything that resulted from that point reflects the appalling immaturity of the concessionaire and the USHPA Board of Directors. If you, as a USHPA member, can be put in jail and expelled from the USHPA for pointing out safety violations, what are you doing supporting the organization? It is obviously ethically crippled and not the same one you signed on to. Get out now. Start over.
_____________________________
Paraglider killed in ground-handling accident
PG fatality #926 – Seoung Man Lee, 44
October 11, 2010 Rancho Palos Verdes, California, USA
Hanging on to the control handles, he was lifted unexpectedly by “a strong gust of wind.” Unprepared for flight, without helmet or harness, he was lifted 100 feet into the air supported only by his grip on the control handles. Because the man fell after only “a few seconds” of flight, a witness said he may have panicked and let go rather than hold on until the paraglider lost altitude.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local ... 86114.html
________________________________
Paraglider injured in northeast crash
April 4, 2015 20:03
A paraglider has suffered a serious injury on Holy Saturday in Hainburg (District Bruck an der Leitha) in exercises with his paraglider. The man's canopy was suddenly pulled into the air due to a strong gust of wind. At about three meters high, the loops of the steering lines slipped from his wrist. The 48-year-old lost control and fell from two and a half meters. The paraglider, who was busy with so-called ground handling exercises, landed on his back on the grass of the airfield and was even dragged a few meters by the paraglider along the ground, said the State Police of Lower Austria. The 48-year-old was seriously injured in the accident, and then flown to Vienna's SMZ Ost hospital by the emergency helicopter Christophorus 9. The man was wearing a helmet and harness fitted with a back protector. According to the authorities, a spinal injury is suspected.
http://www.salzburg24.at/paragleiter-st ... 1422998150
__________________________________
Kitesurfing fatality
Joaquin Barbero, 33
December 14, 2011
Cerro Cathedral, ARGENTINA
Barbero died from serious head injuries received on December 10. Instructor Andres Bertoncelj reports that Barbero was ground-handling a kitesurfing wing in a level parking lot when a gust of wind lifted him unexpectedly. Frightened, he let go at 2 meters and fell backward, striking his head on the pavement. The kite was inaccurately described in most press reports as a paraglider.
___________________________________
Paragliding fatality #734
2009 ARGENTINA
The instructor set up paraglider in windy conditions to demonstrate inflation technique to students. He was lifted into air and immediately slammed to the ground. He died at the scene.
http://www.favl.org.ar/informe_accidentes.php
__________________________________
Paragliding fatality #406
Dai Jurong, 34, instructor
March 5, 2005 Jurong Akayama, Nanjing Jiangning, CHINA
The instructor held onto the brakes of a student's paraglider when it was lifted by a "violent wind." The paraglider carried them both off the ground. The instructor lost his grip and fell from 50 meters. He was fatally injured.
"New extreme sports coach killed in PG accident,” Jinling Evening News, 8 Mar 2005
_________________________________
PG serious injury -- Markus O., 10
March 9, 1998 Virgen, Lienz, AUSTRIA
The child was playing in a flat meadow with a borrowed paraglider when the wind lifted him into the air. He was dropped onto a roof, then another gust threw him onto an apiary. "Severe head injuries." Helicopter rescue.
http://flash-news.at/pdfs/news81.htm

[Bob Kuczewski]

Paraglider in ground-handling accident
...
A paraglider has suffered a serious injury on Holy Saturday in Hainburg (District Bruck an der Leitha) in exercises with his paraglider. The man's canopy was suddenly pulled into the air due to a strong gust of wind. At about three meters high, the loops of the steering lines slipped from his wrist. The 48-year-old lost control and fell from two and a half meters.

The paraglider, who was busy with so-called ground handling exercises, landed on his back on the grass of the airfield and was even dragged a few meters by the paraglider along the ground, said the State Police of Lower Austria. The 48-year-old was seriously injured in the accident, and then flown to Vienna's SMZ Ost hospital by the emergency helicopter Christophorus 9.

The man was wearing a helmet and harness fitted with a back protector. According to the authorities, a spinal injury is suspected.

Gee, I thought Gabe Jebb was demonstrating that helmets weren't needed when you're "just ground handling"?   

[Frank Colver]

As one of the founders of the USHGA (USHPA) I am extremely unhappy with what the organization has turned into, judging by Bob's experience. I had no idea the national organization had become so corrupt as to putting business first and not putting safety first in hang gliding and paragliding. Their actions have been shameful!

And as far as paragliding, as a safe sport goes, all it took was a day in the school at Santa Barbara (not saying which one) to convince me that I always wanted a rigid airframe when I leave the ground. A day on the hill told me this is something where I would be putting all of my safety into the chance that I would never hit turbulence near the ground. Guess what - that's where one has a very good chance of hitting turbulence. "Been there done that" many times in a hang glider and below is one good example.

I had enrolled in a two day paragliding class and that evening after the first day of ground handling instruction I had an Epiphany. It suddenly occurred to me that I would not be alive if I had been in a paraglider on a flight from Devils Slide near Pismo Beach, many years before. On a glide to the beach I hit extreme turbulence (rotor from mixing air masses) in my Wills SST. I had multiple sail inversions and got thrown around so much that after trying for about eight minutes to just get down on the beach I had multiple bruises from banging into my control bar. The only thing that saved me was the airframe that kept the wing's outline shape so that the sail's airfoil could re-form quickly (with loud bangs!). When I got down to about 20 feet I got below the turbulence and I was able to glide to a stand up landing. Man, beach sand never tasted so good as the handful I picked up and kissed. After realizing all of the great life time I would have missed, had I been paragliding that day, I decided I never wanted to play Russian Roulette with a paraglider and I dropped out of the school the next day.

Frank Colver, USHPA 7

[Rick Masters]

"Russian Roulette" is a term I've used many times to describe paragliding.
Freeflight is dangerous enough with an airframe.
But today, if you belong to USHPA, you are an advocate of paragliding by default.
Every USHPA member is, in part, responsible for enticing newbies into paragliding and sending them aloft and, eventually, into turbulence without an airframe.
This has got to change - or paragliding will drag hang gliding down with it.
Allow paragliding to stand or fall on its own. We don't need it sucking the blood out of our sport.
Separate hang gliding and paragliding organizations.

[Frank Colver]

I was against combining the two sports into the one organization. Even though paragliding is hang gliding (foot launch, hanging below the glider) with a different airframe design I still felt that they were different enough that I wanted the USHGA to stay with ridged frame hang gliding and paragliding to have a separate national organization. Maybe combining with a parachute organization.

However, I won't give up my membership #7 in the USHPA. If we all quit then we have no choice in how the organization operates and paragliding will get even more promotion. What we need is more hang glider pilots in the USHPA to promote HG and prevent a complete takeover of the org by PG. We need to support the H in USHPA.

Frank

[wingspan33]

Not sure if you've seen this thread -

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1836

Or the child endangerment post a few up from this one.

Or the documented Assault and Battery committed against Bob K - by a u$hPa certified instructor (kind of the main topic of this thread).

There's lots more to learn - but at this point in time certain issues, . . .

Well, . . . mum's the word for now.

[Bob Kuczewski]

As one of the founders of the USHGA (USHPA) I am extremely unhappy with what the organization has turned into, judging by Bob's experience. I had no idea the national organization had become so corrupt as to putting business first and not putting safety first in hang gliding and paragliding. Their actions have been shameful!
   :
Frank Colver, USHPA 7

Thanks Frank. Your words go right to the heart of the matter. I can't wait to thank you in person on Otto's Birthday at Dockweiler.

Regarding the "Jailed" topic, I again went to Torrey Pines today, and Robin Marien and/or Gabe Jebb again summoned the police. There was a reporter there and I showed the police the lease and the Judge's decision. One of the officers asked to borrow the Judge's decision, and I understand he quoted from it while telling Robin Marien and Gabe Jebb that they had no justification to remove me.



I ended up staying most of the day and then had a great dinner with our Torrey Hawks VP (Dave Beardslee) and the reporter!!

Thank you San Diego Police Officers Wilkinson and Nichola!!!!!