Paraglider

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

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

On Feb 16, 8:35 pm, (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


Was a hang glider killed that way at Albuquerque a few years ago.
--
Gene Seibel
Tales of Flight - http://pad39a.com/gene/tales.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.

In article , (DaveB) says...
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

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

--
Duncan

Dave Doe wrote:
In article , (DaveB) says...
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

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


What good would that have done her? She wasn't having trouble staying up... she
was having trouble getting down.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

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.

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

"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.

"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.

"mike regish" wrote in message
...
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

I've seen that done with airfoil parachutes, but paragliders have far more
canopy area. I can understand how a severe updraft would overcome whatever
you tried to do to descend.

The reserve chute sounds like a great idea, but it sounds like a great idea
for those of us flying a powered aircraft too, and I don't see many GA
pilots with chutes.

KB

On Feb 17, 8:24 am, "Kyle Boatright" wrote:

The reserve chute sounds like a great idea, but it sounds like a great idea
for those of us flying a powered aircraft too, and I don't see many GA
pilots with chutes.


Funny, I've had parents/spouses of past students ask me why don't we
wear parachutes in the plane. This line of questioning stops when they
see the inside of the Cherokee/Skyhawk. I tell them you're better off
flying the plane down to the ground than jumping out anyway.