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Long Mynd Soaring Club
With thanks to the DHV, a useful article on active flying of paragliders, contains some useful guidance on practicing on the ground. Especially useful to low airtime pilots or those used to only flying when conditions are smooth and easy; http://www.dhv.de/typo/fileadmin/user_upload/monatsordner/2004-06/Ausbildung/activ_flying_english_text.pdf
Please fill in as many of these as possible and send an email to safety@longmynd.org;
Date
HG or PG
LMSC pilots involved or visitor
LMSC site
Pilot rating, experience and currency
Incident title
Details
Witnesses - names of anyone else who may be a witness
Suspected causes
Possible preventative measures
Please be aware that grabbing hold of paraglider lines when air is in the wing will be like grabbing a hot knife - they will cut straight through skin and bone. You will not be able to control the wing if it’s dragging you through holding the lines - any pressure you put into them will have very little effect except to increase the tension on those lines and make them cut you better. The risers are far more effective and much less painfull. It’s hard to think if you are getting dragged, or about to, but do try to think about how best to stop the wing. Also gloves may provide at least some protection.
All this is simple learn from others mistakes and not your own !
Check your equipment before you launch, don’t assume that your reserve will stay in it’s pouch like it did yesterday - having them come out on take-off or just afterwards is very very dangerous as has been proven time and time again.
Double check your pre-flight drill. If someone comes over to talk to you, start again, check your helmet strap, check that you are clipped into the harness properly, check that the lines/wing are ok, check that your instruments are attached properly, check the sky for aircraft and look at the immediate weather coming in. It only takes a few seconds to do that and it stops you looking a plonker.
Make sure that you have self briefed yourself, if not briefed by coach etc - where will you land if the wind increases/decreases becomes turbulent. Is the selected location ok and not in crop/cows etc. What is your plan immediately after take-off - left or right turn and why
Don’t change more than one thing at a time, different wing, harness, helmet, site, weather conditions. The more new things the greater the mental workload and the lower the ability to cope with unforseen conditions. This goes for Comp’ pilots just as much as new CP’s.
It is a mandatory requirement purely on safety grounds that Paragliders do no launch or attempt to do so to the left of the white marked slabs running down the field approximately 1/3 of the way across the field. If any paraglider slope lands in this area - especially low down, then they must bundle their wing up and walk across to the north to the normal Paraglider launch area. Please remember that there may not have been any hang gliders around when you launched, but they could be just out of your sight if you are low, and waiting for the right ‘safe’ moment when no paragliders are passing their launch or landing path. The comments below are from a Hang Glider pilot and should give a balanced perspective as to why this is so important.
"My main concern is for overshooting HG pilots. It has been increasingly the case that PG pilots who slope land in front of the HG take off and overshoot area, either wait where they land and take off again from there or inflate their canopy and walk it back to the PG take off area. When the conditions are marginal (hence the slope landing), it is much more likely that a HG pilot will overshoot his top landing and a canopy that pops up in front of him leaves him no where to go -> fatal accident (it has happened elsewhere). These PG pilots have no view of the top of the field, so have no idea if a hang glider is about to come over when they inflate. Other issues I have are that PG pilots have the habit of turning left after take off and staying in front of the HG take off area (and overshoot area), rather than simply transiting through. This either means that the HG pilot does not aviate at all, or takes off anyway and causes the PG pilot to take sudden avoiding action. Talking to many low time HG pilots, I know that they frequently don’t fly when it is like this for fear of collision on take off or if they overshoot their top landing. As an experienced pilot, I am happy to take my chance but still dislike the potential conflict. The ridge is 4 miles long after all, why not use it? Finally, although not so much of a safety issue, the packing up of PG wings in the middle of the LZ creates a much bigger obstacle for a HG pilot landing than a PG. This is true, not only the less experienced, but for any pilot that suffers rough air on approach."
Below is an extract from the Analysis section of a fatal accident investigation report published by the AAIB (Air Accident Investigation Branch)
The pilot arrived at the Eyam Edge site and then launched, in a relatively short period of time, with a twisted right riser. A twist in the right riser would have had the effect of increasing friction on the brake control line and making the canopy more difficult to control. It is possible that, shortly after getting airborne, the pilot became aware of this twist but was unable to correct it in flight. Having subsequently suffered an asymmetric canopy collapse and ‘Cravat’, leading to a descending spiral to the left, he would have needed to apply the right brake to recover. Friction burn marks on the twisted riser indicated that the pilot was using a great deal of force with the right brake but, demonstrably, he had insufficient height to affect a recovery.
If a pilot experiences a canopy collapse which provokes a high rate of descent, at heights of 300 feet or less, then the guidance from both the BHPA and the DHV is to use the emergency parachute immediately.
How often have you watched video’s from a paraglider pilot flying, with one or maybe both hands off the brakes, sometimes only a few hundred feet above the ground. There are many many cases throughout the world where serious accidents have happened because the pilot does not have both hands on the brakes. If you have a collapse at this point (which is much more likely because the pilot cannot be flying the wing actively but is merely a passenger at that point). How much height do you need to deploy your reserve safely, because that may be the only chance you have?. Please think, do you really need to take those pictures/video, and if so why don’t you blag a tandem flight, there are lots of tandem pilots around now and most of them are short of people who want to have a go, so just ask around. It’s much more fun with two pilots flying tandem anyway.