[JoeF]

This anticipated series of videos may be interesting ...
(he might end up with an air-framed hang glider, or not ... )
Intro - Uncollapsible Paraglider Part 1 - BANDARRA

Part II might be a good while coming out, he indicated.

[Rick Masters]

The uncollapsible paraglider has already been invented.
I accumulated over 3000 miles GSD on one - often in very turbulent air full of those notorious "freak gusts of wind" that paragliders are incessantly wailing about.
All without a scratch or a reserve deployment!

Perhaps what should be developed by paragliding enthusuasts with too much time on their hands is a collapsible hang glider.    
First we will remove the control frame (10 and 11) which provides a rigid attachment between the pilot and airfoil, allowing for limited control in zero or minus g situations.
And we'll hang the pilot on strings a couple of storeys below it so his control input is delayed in positive gs and nonexistant in low or negative gs - genius!
Then we'll put lots of draggy lines on it that slow it down so much that it gets blown into things like power lines, cliffs, buildings and - especially - TREES!
And we will remove the leading edges, crossbar and keel (8 and 9) which prevent the sail from losing its shape, becoming a death trap and falling out of the sky.
Then we'll wreck its l/d by... Wait a minute.
Only an idiot would do this.    

[Bob Kuczewski]

I watched the entire video and was waiting for an actual improvement to the paraglider itself.

I was dissappionted that he only offered a vague suggestion that an automated control system might work. There's a long way between that vague idea and an actual uncollapsible paraglider.

One of my early thoughts in the video was that I wouldn't really be interested in a glider that was flying me, and he did mention that issue (without offering a solution).

But we're already on the brink of self-driving cars taking away our ability to drive ourselves (my prediction), so it's par for the course. And speaking of "par for the course", when will we get self-driving golf clubs? Won't that be more fun?

[DaveSchy]

Then no one will need insurance because the code writer and electronics manufacturer s will get sued! I watched the video and decided he is proposing a non solution based on an absurd belief in an imaginary technology. Good luck with that!
Doesn't every one prefer a huge increase in risk of injury or death over a glider rack?

[Rick Masters]

Doesn't every one prefer a huge increase in risk of injury or death over a glider rack?

When I first heard that mountain climbers were hiking to the tops of mountains and jumping off on the early paragliders to get back down, I thought that was really neat.
But ten or fifteen years later, I was trying to talk with the macho clowns on Paragliding Forum and one told me that he "would rather die than have to carry a hang glider."
What had changed was they were no longer using the need to launch a paraglider from remote, inaccessible areas as a reason to fly them.
Now they were launching from roads and flying up to the tops of mountains or even the length of entire mountain ranges, something we hang glider folks had been doing since before paragliding came along.
Now paragliders, despite their considerable drawbacks, were being accepted of as a satisfactory replacement for hang gliders.
And to counter the claims of collapse as making paragliders unairworthy, paragliding enthusiasts came up with the bizarre argument that collapses were a built-in safety feature.
They appeared to be telling this stuff to each other in their own peer group, away from the laughter of the hang gliding community.
So even if our friend in the video comes up with an uncollapsible paraglider, the paragliding community would likely regard it as unsafe.
And yes, strange as it may seem, every one does consciously choose a huge increase in risk of injury or death over a glider rack.

[ARP]

The proposed monitoring of the A riser tension could show that a leading edge collapse is about to happen. The problem with this is that in turbulence the pilots weight might be unload from all of the risers and brakes thereby preventing any pilot input to make a correction.

[Rick Masters]