[Rick Masters]

If we take a look at the physics, it's even more scary.

I have found several instances of G-forces becoming so strong in spiral dives that the helpless human was either torn from his harness or the lines snapped.
Imagine the forces involved when each of the Kevlar lines is said to fail only above 800 pounds of tension!
Rescuers arriving upon these scenes found the ex-operators bodies hundreds of feet from the canopy.
Spiral dives are often initiated by a collapse, when lines cross the upper tip surface, destroying the airfoil shape of one side and causing the no-longer symmetrical puffwing to rotate violently around the Center of Meat (cm).


ADVICE FROM THE BHGA
Emergency Actions: Getting out of a nose-down spiral dive
    The key first step is to slow the glider* by applying both brakes. Considerable force may be required on the controls to do this – the brake pressure required may be two, three or four times normal. As the glider slows the nose will come up. Then it is important to keep the glider turning: completing another, wider, circle in the initial direction (by raising the outside brake) is a good way of dissipating the energy. Avoid exiting immediately to straight flight as you will have considerable airspeed and energy, and this will result in a surging climb followed by a dive which must be ‘damped’ out to prevent a possible collapse.
    Nose-down spiral dives are a potentially dangerous manoeuvre and should be treated with a great deal of respect. They are however a valid emergency rapid descent technique for those who are in current practice with their use – but recovery should always be completed at least 300m (1000ft) above ground level. Pilots should seek skilled instruction before attempting this manoeuvre, on a course conducted in accordance with the BHPA SIV Course Information Sheet.
___________________

* Comment by Rick Masters: Words mean things. A hang glider is a glider. A sailplane is a glider. A paraglider is a parachute. Gliders do not lose their shape in turbulence. Associations that do not recognize this difference have no business representing glider pilots.

[Rick Masters]

August 9, 2015

This is the stupidest form of flight ever invented.
Yeah. He died. He dared to fly in normal air turbulence and lost.
I've had them tell me that they'd rather die than have to carry a hang glider. Really.
Any of us, flying our hang gliders, would have thrown a turn and ridden that marvelous thermal elevator into the sky.

[Rick Masters]

[Rick Masters]

[Rick Masters]

    A precursor to paragliding injuries, the canopy of a paraglider loses its shape a few meters high in ground turbulence. During his landing approach, a hang glider pilot knows to speed up and use the kinetic energy of his real glider and body mass, which is directly connected to the glider's mass, to carry him safely through wind gradient and typically minor ground turbulence.



    But the foolish soaring parachutist does not have this ability due to the fact that his laundry essentially has no mass and can lose its airfoil shape in minor ground turbulence. Unlike a hang glider pilot, the soaring parachutist is unable to utilize the kinetic energy of his body mass to effect control authority because he has unwisely chosen to suspend himself on a string pendulum in turbulence. Ground turbulence is a frequent and natural part of the sun's effect in heating the ground. Hang glider pilots know to expect this and are prepared to deal with it on landing approach. It is not a big deal.
    The soaring parachutist, however, approaches the ground with fear. As he descends through the final 100 meters, his option to use his emergency reserve parachute vanishes and he knows his only chance to survive intact, if at all, should his canopy collapse in turbulence near the ground, will be to somehow get it inflated again. Typical injuries from falling vertically for several meters are broken backs and shattered femurs, the strongest bones in the human body. Hang glider pilots do not often suffer these types of injuries because falling vertically in a hang glider is unusual. In the event of a bad landing, he strikes the earth with a strong horizontal vector and is protected somewhat by the airframe of the hang glider. The foolish soaring parachutist, should he survive the fall, is invariably heard blaming his misfortune on "a sudden gust of wind," his description for the action of normal atmospheric turbulence on laundry.


Your U$hPa paragliding laundry ticket has been punched.
The hands tearing the ticket in half represent normal atmospheric turbulence.
The arrows indicate your new trajectory.

[Rick Masters]

[Rick Masters]

[dagobarbz]

You can't do this on a hang glider because hang gliders have air frames.
When I want to slow down to work lift, I push out, crank and bank.
My hang glider doesn't turn into a garbage bag. It handles like a sports car.
I regard this as a benefit.

You can do this on a paraglider.
If you want to slow down or even steer a paraglider, you pull the "brakes"
which is para-English for destroying the shape of the airfoil and hoping nothing terrible happens.
I also know of several relatively recent fatal impalements of paragliding victims,
a result of the unmanageable vertical trajectory after they ruined their airfoil by using the "brakes"
and their parachute suddenly turned into a garbage bag.
As the video demonstrates, this was nearly another.
I'll spare you the bloody, stomach-churning details.

I've played around with paragliders a few times. Don't much care for how the lines snatch up every twig on the ground and make a knot.

Too many lines! (and this is coming from someone who used to have an Antares!)

[Rick Masters]

Too many lines! (and this is coming from someone who used to have an Antares!)

You ain't kiddin'!                Eves Tallchief with his Eipper Antares at Yosemite, 1979


Carlos Miralles got rid of the deflexors on his Aolus design by going to big diameter leading edges and 3/16" cable.
I bought the 2nd prototype from him in 1981 and flew it mostly in Owens Valley.

[Rick Masters]

December 2015