[Rick Masters]

Thanks for sharing



You are a USHPA member and a hang glider pilot. A paraglider collapses and falls onto parked cars. Who pays the damage?

[Rick Masters]

A young man died needlessly today, Otto Lillienthal's birthday, in Spain attempting to land a paraglider in a sunflower field. It was the one thousand, three hundred seventeenth paraglider fatality that I know of since the first paraglider fatality in 1986.

When I heard of this accident, I asked myself, "What???" You see, it is insane for a freeflight enthusiast to die in a sunflower field. A hang glider pilot, having no other options (which is unlikely because a hang glider pilot has many more landing options, due to superior range, than a soaring parachutist), would not find the task of landing in a sunflower field particularly onerous, regardless of their height. The reason a hang glider pilot would not want to land in a sunflower field is a combination of three factors, listed here in the order of importance, the most horrible one first:

1) Sunflowers can be a little sticky and get junk all over the harness and hang glider, including green stains that may not come out.
2) Somebody is growing the sunflowers and will probably be unhappy to find someone with a hang glider in the middle of a bunch of broken plants.
3) It's going to be a pain in the a** to haul the hang glider out of the sunflowers.

Dying is not part of the equation. That's a paragliding thing.

To land a hang glider in a sunflower field a hang glider pilot determines the wind direction, comes in low and hot, gradually bleeds off speed, rotates 45 degrees, maybe dragging his feet across the tops of the sunflowers. If the sunflowers are really tall, say six or seven feet (but not in May), he prepares himself to let go of one downtube the instant the glider stops flying and, grabs the other downtube with both hands to assist him from being thrown into the sail should the glider nose in, which is unlikely. The pilot flares aggressively as he approaches stall, bringing his speed down as far as possible. The hang glider drops with little forward momentum into the sunflowers. The leading edges strike the sunflowers and they bend, bleeding off kinetic energy, and the glider comes to a stop without damage, although a faster landing may cause a bent downtube. In any case, the hang glider pilot will emerge unscathed. Plowed fields are soft. I mean, in terms of safety, if you have to land "out," a sunflower field should be a top choice.

Right?

No. Not for a paraglider in distress. Following a collapse, the paraglider is descending at a high rate of speed on a much more vertical vector than a hang glider. At impact, the fact that the crash was in a sunflower field hardly matters. Paragliders don't have any leading edges to help bleed off speed with friction. Unlike the airframe or "roll bar" of a hang glider, paragliders offer no protection. None. This is a big, big deal. The "helpless falling human" will take the full brunt of the impact.

Seasoned paragliding enthusiasts tell novices that hang gliding and paragliding are just two sports with equivalent risks. This is not true. Paragliding entails additional significant risks stemming from poor penetration, low collapse, and the inevitability of traversing the PDMC at least twice every flight. Hang glider pilots need to step up and make new freeflight enthusiasts aware of the significant additional risks of soaring parachutes:

1) No actual protection in crashes higher than a few meters.
2) Reduced penetration - increased risk of being blown backwards into trees, buildings, rotors, deadly terrain and power lines.
3) The likelihood of collapse and serious injury or death over one's paragliding flying career.
4) The random nature of paragliding accidents compared to the ability to control pilot error in hang gliding.
5) The implications of the Paragliding Dead Man's Curve.
6) The numbers of paragliding fatalities compared to hang gliding - the high numbers of paragliding collapse deaths compared to essentially ZERO collapse deaths in hang gliding.
7) How hang gliders have evolved into safer aircraft while the evolution of paragliders has struck a brick wall.
8) The irresponsibility of the USHPA in presenting both forms of flight as equivalent when paragliding is much more dangerous (caveat emptor).

[Rick Masters]

No one could be this stupid.



Correction: Thousands of people are this stupid.
It remains unbelievable to me that that so many people bet their lives that they will not be killed by a simple thermal. This is a bad bet. Thermals are a natural and common occurrence in the atmosphere. It is impossible not to encounter them. Contrast this incident with a hang glider pilot in the same situation. His sail, supported by an airframe and capable of withstanding several Gs of negative load, cannot collapse or lose the airfoil shape that allows it to fly. The hang glider pilot senses the lift, turns and banks, and joyously rides the thermal into the sky.

Why would anyone chose to fly a paraglider when the risk is so extreme and clear? Why would anyone choose the risk of becoming a helpless human falling from deadly altitude over the joy of secure freeflight? The only answer is that soaring parachutists are delusional. They create a false reality and eagerly share it among themselves until they are ultimately crippled or killed. The ones who are not yet crippled or killed blame those who are for being poor pilots. Anyone outside the sport is castigated by the deluded for stating the obvious.

Meanwhile, hang glider pilots worldwide continue to accept and support the frauds their flying organizations have become. Hang gliding started in the United States with what became the United States Hang gliding Association. The strikingly high global death rates (but not as high as today's global paragliding rate) propelled the people behind the USHGA to force standards for dive recovery and negative loading on hang gliding manufacturers which brought to a virtual halt structural failure and divergence issues, and thereby created an environment where pilot error related injuries and deaths could be reduced through education. It was a marvel of responsible action. It essentially removed the element of random death from hang gliding.

But when paragliders were allowed into these organizations, decisions were made not to apply the safety standards of hang gliding to these critically balanced, dangerously modified parachutes. Then, as soaring parachutists filled the director's chairs, each organization began claiming the two sports were essentially equivalent, enticing new members away from hang gliding and toward the lucrative new death sport of parachute soaring. Thirty years and over 1300 paragliding deaths later, nothing has changed. I am appalled.

The caliber of men and woman from those formative years is gone.

You people have thrown away the very heart of a wonderful organization so that low information flyers could slaughter themselves like lemmings in your name - at great profit to yourselves.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hang gliding started in the United States with what became the United States Hang gliding Association. The strikingly high global death rates (but not as high as today's global paragliding rate) propelled the people behind the USHGA to force standards for dive recovery and negative loading on hang gliding manufacturers which brought to a virtual halt structural failure and divergence issues, and thereby created an environment where pilot error related injuries and deaths could be reduced through education. It was a marvel of responsible action. It essentially removed the element of random death from hang gliding.

Thanks to all the people who worked responsibly to make that happen.

[JoeF]

Rick, that video was shown CBS Morning News, June 2, 2015.
Fractures and brain concussion.
Yet, commentary did not identify the PDMC.

[Rick Masters]

Yet, commentary did not identify the PDMC.

Local soaring parachutists are already explaining to journalists how it was the helpless falling human's fault.
http://www.20min.ch/schweiz/bern/story/Gleitschirm-Pilot-stuerzt-kurz-nach-dem-Start-ab-23960305
(They eat their own.)
The ramifications of the Paraglider Dead Man's Curve are unpalatable to soaring parachutists because it invites a critical view of their sport.
I mean, which would you rather have, fun or 1300 dead friends?

The extent of their delusion is beyond measure.

[AirNut]

Yet, commentary did not identify the PDMC.

Local soaring parachutists are already explaining to journalists how it was the helpless falling human's fault.
http://www.20min.ch/schweiz/bern/story/Gleitschirm-Pilot-stuerzt-kurz-nach-dem-Start-ab-23960305
(They eat their own.)
The ramifications of the Paraglider Dead Man's Curve are unpalatable to soaring parachutists because it invites a critical view of their sport.
I mean, which would you rather have, fun or 1300 dead friends?

The extent of their delusion is beyond measure.

Rick, you might enjoy one of my favorite books, which examines your thesis of a world-wide mass delusion: "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". It chronicles a number of real-life mass delusions that have swept the world, turning otherwise sensible people into irrational idiots. It's pretty sobering to see the gullibility of the human race documented in such embarrassing detail. Sadly though, it is all true. And it was written in 1841.

If this book was updated to the modern day, there would be an embarrassment of riches from which to choose: fake moon landings, chem trails, dead Paul McCartney's, Elvis sightings, ....

Oh, and of course, paragliding.

[Bob Kuczewski]

... a world-wide mass delusion: "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". It chronicles a number of real-life mass delusions that have swept the world, turning otherwise sensible people into irrational idiots. It's pretty sobering to see the gullibility of the human race documented in such embarrassing detail. Sadly though, it is all true. And it was written in 1841.

... and re-enacted by the USHPA Board much more recently!!!   

[Rick Masters]

you might enjoy one of my favorite books

Yes, I read that years ago. It started me on the road to the study of political ponerology.
http://www.sott.net/article/159686-In-M ... obaczewski

[Frank Colver]

I've got one for you: the only way to fly a hang glider is in the prone position. Oh, yes, improved performance! I guess I never enjoyed those soaring flights I had while comfortably seated, looking around at the earth and sky. I had another pilot say to me at the Edwards Cyn launch site; "you never see a bird flying seated". My reply was; "I can't help it if birds haven't evolved enough to do that yet".

FC