"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 05:17:49 -0500, "Mortimer Schnerd, RN"
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com wrote in
:

Amazing stuff. Would she not have been wearing an emergency chute?


What good would that have done her?

The implication is that she could have cut-away from her paraglider,
descended to near ground level, and deployed the emergency chute. At
least that's my inference.


On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 07:01:48 -0500, "mike regish"
wrote in
:

I've seen tests of these paragliders where the test pilot hauls in one whole
side of the chute and goes into a spiral, rapid descent. The chute needs to
be able to redeploy on its own when released. Don't know if even this would
have gotten her down, but it might have worked.

mike

That's what I was thinking too, but I have no firsthand experience
with paragliders, so I don't know how feasible this 'deflate the
chute' technique might be in reducing altitude and if recovery is
assured. But if I had a second 'chute, I'd have given it a try.

In any event, it would seem that emergency descent techniques should
be covered during instruction. But instruction isn't mandatory for
paraglider operations, is it? Perhaps it should be for flights above
a given altitude.

I'd pose this to the paragliding newsgroup if there were one.