Paraglider

"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.

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:09:00 GMT, Larry Dighera
wrote:

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.

I fly paragliders (with motor) as well as airplanes. Paraglider
reserves aren't made for free fall deployment; they're more like a
BRS... you don't cut away the main canopy. They're made to inflate
VERY fast so you can save yourself even at very low altitudes... if
you deployed from free fall you'd probably be severely injured if you
didn't just blow the chute apart.

Paragliders are designed to reinflate after a collapse, but it's not
something that you can pull in, drop, and then redeploy. They're
wings after all, NOT parachutes, despite the resemblance.

As for training, it isn't mandatory in the US, but it is most places,
and just about everybody gets training anyway. Yes, emergency descent
techniques are covered... but so is avoiding thunderstorms. The woman
involved is a top level competitor; my understanding is that the
pilots tried to get the competition directors to cancel that flying
day due to weather but they didn't listen. In such a situation many
pilots will choose to fly rather than lose points. She wasn't the
only one, BTW, another competitor was killed.

OTOH, she probably set a new world altitude record for PG... wonder if
her datalogger was on the whole time?

-Dana
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"Dana M. Hague" d(dash)m(dash)hague(at)comcast(dot)net wrote

OTOH, she probably set a new world altitude record for PG... wonder if
her datalogger was on the whole time?

Does the record count if you achieved it by being a total moron?

BDS

"Dana M. Hague" d(dash)m(dash)hague(at)comcast(dot)net wrote

OTOH, she probably set a new world altitude record for PG... wonder if
her datalogger was on the whole time?

As I recall, she had a data transmitter that was sending the altitude and
position to her ground crew.
--
Jim in NC

On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:47:42 -0500, Dana M. Hague
d(dash)m(dash)hague(at)comcast(dot)net wrote in
:

The woman
involved is a top level competitor; my understanding is that the
pilots tried to get the competition directors to cancel that flying
day due to weather but they didn't listen.

It seems Ms. Wisnerska was only practicing, not competing, at the
time:

PARAGLIDER SURVIVES THUNDERSTORM ENCOUNTER
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#194492)
A German paraglider was frostbitten and bruised from being
pummeled by orange-sized hail, but lived to tell the tale of being
sucked up inside a thunderstorm and spit out at 30,000 feet. Ewa
Wisnerska was practicing for a meet in Australia when the storm
hit. Another competitor, He Zhongpin of China, was killed in the
storm. Wisnerska, 35, shot to 30,000 feet in about 10 minutes.
"You can't imagine the power. You feel like nothing, like a leaf
from a tree going up," she told a news conference. "I was shaking
all the time. The last thing I remember it was dark, I could hear
lightning all around me."
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#194492