by Rick Masters » Wed Mar 21, 2018 9:50 am
Frank, I don't know if there are any soaring parachutists out there who would agree with you. You and I are old hang glider pilots so we can't possibly know anything about it, they tell me, while all their friends fly paragliders and brag about how safe they are. I guess we could ask little Arturo when he gets out of the hospital - but what do kids know? The adult usually says it wasn't his fault. Mauricio was just flying along on his paraglider with a little kid, minding his own business, when WHAMO, they were hit by a freak gust of wind!
So unexpected! Who could have known?
We could ask the Norwegian who fell in a collapse at Valle de Bravo a couple of months ago. He was winched aboard a rescue helicopter with multiple fractures and flown to the ABC Hospital in Santa Fe. I think he went back to Norway.
We could ask Jamie, who fell in collapse near the antennas at Valle de Bravo last April. Except that he's dead.
Dead people rarely express opinions. That leaves all those living parapeople out there, telling us how safe paragliding is.
Since the opinions of hang glider pilots don't matter to these oh-so-self-assured paraparents, what we need is a really smart soaring parachutist to ask how safe it is to take little children on paragliding flights in notorious thermal venues. Rafal Luckos of Poland would be a good choice. He graduated from the Silesian School of Economics with an MBA from the Maastricht School of Management. You can't do that unless you're smart.
Unfortunately, he's dead, too.
He was practicing for the upcoming World Cup Superfinals at Valle de Bravo in January 2014 when he took a collapse which developed into a cascade, then his paraglider entered an auto-rotation so severe that his helmet was ripped off his head by the G-force. He managed to throw his reserve but it did not open in time. He lost his helmet during the fall, suffered head injuries and was found dead. Oh, well...
We could ask Malena Mercado, who shattered two vertebrae upon impact at Valle de Bravo in May of 2012. Doctors warned there was a possibility she might not recover mobility of her legs. She might have an opinion about flying with little children.
We could ask Stefan Schmoker, except he had a suspension line wrap around a wingtip in turbulence above Valle de Bravo in January of 2009 and crashed hard in a ravine, dying two hours later.
We could ask Ileana Mercado what she thinks of paragliding with little children except she launched from Valle de Bravo In February of 2006 with her leg straps unfastened, flew over the town, then lost her hold at 80 meters and fell into the lake. Of course, from that altitude you can get knocked out or killed striking the water. She drowned.
One guy we could ask is former hang glider pilot Jeff Huey, who I filmed in Aoli, Comet Clones & Pod People in 1981. Launching from Valle de Bravo in January of 2006, his paraglider collapsed immediately after takeoff and fell into the side of the mountain in a spin, shattering his C7 vertebrae, resulting in paralysis below the chest. I know he still loves paragliding so his opinion on flying paragliders with little children should carry some weight.
I heard somebody got killed in Valle de Bravo in January of 2004, so we can't ask them. But we could ask the Finlander Calvin Armisen. A pretty smart guy, he was CEO of Finland's largest seaport, the Port of Kotka. But he got killed on his paraglider at Valle de Bravo in February of 2002, so that's out.
Don't know of anyone else to ask.
They don't like it when I ask them anything, anyway.
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