Here is a photograph of ~149 paragliders in the sky at one time!
http://download3-5.files-upload.com/...mpionships.JPG





On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 03:53:33 GMT, (DaveB) wrote in
:

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 02:35:24 GMT, (DaveB) wrote:

32,000 ft. must be a new worlds record for paragliding.
This gal was in really great shape and very attractive.
Suffered some frostbite and was in the hospital for an hour

Interesting

Daveb


Paragliding 2005 World Cup winner Ewa Wisnierska, 35, was lifted to
32,612
feet by a storm that apparently killed a Chinese paraglider in eastern

Australia on Wednesday. The pilots were preparing for the 10th FAI
World
Paragliding Championships next week, event organizer Godfrey Wenness
said.

He Zhongpin, 42, died during the same weather system, apparently from
a lack
of oxygen and extreme cold, Wenness said. His body was found 47 miles
from
his launch site.

Wisnierska described Friday how she attempted to skirt the
thunderstorm and
when that failed, repeatedly attempted to spiral against its powerful
lift.

She said she could see lightning around her and decided her chances of

survival were "almost zero."

She said she radioed her team leader at 13,123 feet.

"I said, 'I can't do anything,'" she told reporters at a news
conference.
"'It's raining and hailing and I'm still climbing - I'm lost.'"

Officials and Wisnierska's ground team used global positioning and
radio
equipment to track her altitude as she soared well beyond the
29,000-foot
plus height of Everest, the world's tallest peak. Wenness said she
went from
2,500 feet to the maximum in about 15 minutes.

She lost consciousness for more than 30 minutes while her glider flew
on
uncontrolled, sinking and lifting several times, he said.

She regained consciousness at about 1,640 feet and landed safely, but
had
ice in her lightweight flying suit and frost bite on her face.

She recalled feeling like an astronaut returning from the moon as her
landing approached. "I could see the Earth coming - wow, like Apollo
13 - I
can see the Earth," she said.

Wenness praised her ability to regain her senses and strength to land.

Daveb