Paraglider

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

(DaveB) wrote:
32,000 ft. must be a new worlds record for paragliding.

A couple of weeks ago, another paraglider that was training for the same
competition had a little bird strike problem:

From http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070202/...ia_eagles_dc_1 :

---
CANBERRA, Feb 2 (Reuters Life!) - Britain's top female paraglider has
cheated death after being attacked by a pair of "screeching" wild eagles
while competition flying in Australia.

Nicky Moss, 38, watched terrified as two huge birds began tearing into
her parachute canopy, one becoming tangled in her lines and clawing at
her head 2,500 meters (8,200ft) in the air.

"I heard screeching behind me and a eagle flew down and attacked me,
swooping down and bouncing into the side of my wing with its claws,"
Moss told Reuters on Friday.

"Then another one appeared and together they launched a sustained
attack on my glider, tearing at the wing."
---

Matt Roberds

(Note: This post may appear twice. Since Cox outsourced their news
servers to Highwinds Media, news doesn't work worth a damn here.)

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