Now im not into parragliding, but this is well worth the watch!https://www.youtube.com/embed/L62faWn-sa8

awesome parragliding? gosh awesome video and awesome pilot. i had no idea people could do such things. thanks for sharing

That was awesome! That's guy's pretty good!

Wow,just when I was thinking I was starting to feel the wing of the 180 along comes a slap in the face. I need to fly more. Awesome video,looks like a blast to fly.

I'd like to see the blooper reel. I knew he was going to drag his toes through one of those pools, hard to fathom that amount of control with, what...two toggles? Awesome flying.

Both these videos were awesome. The wingsuit flyers passing the speedgliders was amazing. That guy doing rolls in the gully was pure nutbaggery. I've seen the OP video a few times, and the production quality on that is probably as good as it gets.

I love paragliding. It's awesome. It's an inexpensive form of flight that provides you with an unparalleled level of purity in the medium. I'm getting chills just thinking about it.

Unfortunately, I had a towing accident a few years back that spooked me. I'd love to get back on the horse if it was convenient to where I live.

Zzz wrote:I love paragliding. It's awesome. It's an inexpensive form of flight that provides you with an unparalleled level of purity in the medium. I'm getting chills just thinking about it.

Unfortunately, I had a towing accident a few years back that spooked me. I'd love to get back on the horse if it was convenient to where I live.

I just started myself, and it is awesome - but definitely involves more risk than flying a plane around. Worth it though, very fun. That's a bummer to hear about your accident. What happened to you on tow? I haven't done a tow yet but may have the chance in the near future.

A note to anyone here who likes flying low and slow, maybe with the door open (all of us probably): if you ever have the chance take an intro paraglider lesson. You'll be hooked!

SamIntel wrote: That's a bummer to hear about your accident. What happened to you on tow?

I'm not sure. Undersized wing, wind shifted, riding the brakes too hard to attempt to "pop" off the ground like I was popping flaps in a Super Cub. Either way, I hit a 24" dia fir stump with my shins that was poking up out of the water about 2 feet, ended up going for a swim. Glad that bark was thin and the core was rotted out!

It was a definite revelation/reminder that like motocross or mountain biking, your body is out there with nothing to protect it.

Zzz wrote:

SamIntel wrote: That's a bummer to hear about your accident. What happened to you on tow?

I'm not sure. Undersized wing, wind shifted, riding the brakes too hard to attempt to "pop" off the ground like I was popping flaps in a Super Cub. Either way, I hit a 24" dia fir stump with my shins that was poking up out of the water about 2 feet, ended up going for a swim. Glad that bark was thin and the core was rotted out!

It was a definite revelation/reminder that like motocross or mountain biking, your body is out there with nothing to protect it.

that's no fun, i'v watched some video's of paragliding it look's like a lot of fun

SamIntel wrote:

wow! big wow! I think hose boys may have done that before!

I had a Spanish student at Ag Flight who competed in cross country with those. Went 26 miles in the Aspen area in the 90s. I was having a hard time convincing my Delta kids about thermalling. I turned to the Spanish kid and asked, "Stephen, what do you do when you hit a downdraft? He reached up like he was pulling on something and said, " Go fast! Go fast!"

Other than running into some solid object while showing off at the expert level like those videos, it's my understanding that the biggest danger in paragliding and paramotoring is having the wing "collapse" because the weight of the pilot "unloaded" from the wing.

This could happen because the pilot did something incorrectly, or it could just be the zero G you get from flying through a strong upward gust and then coming out the other side into sinking air.

I'm hoping someone in that industry will incorporate the concept of the inflatable "spar" from the kite-surfing sails (and the Woopy-Fly inflatable wing) into the standard paragliding/paramotoring canopies. Unless I'm missing something obvious, having the wing stay rigid, even partially rigid, during a zero g event would prevent a lot of the collapse issues. I've seen a few videos of a collapse hurting or killing someone.

Does anyone here have enough technical experience with paragliding to know whether this is a valid theory? The Woopy Fly uses battery powered fans to inflate the wing, and it works well enough. I think the kite-surfers use a hand pump. A modern paramotor engine's alternator would easily be able to power a small fan or HVLP pump.

The woopy fly is so cool.

I have about 400 hours under a paraglider from the late 80s to the mid 90s which was an amazing period of development. I think the single most dangerous thing in paragliding is pilot judgement, in particular in relation to the weather.

Modern paragliders are amazingly stable, reinflate well and have a glide ratio that we only dreamt about.

The type of flying in the first vid of this thread, particularly the tumbling, is of a level that very few pilots obtain.

A well trained beginner pilot who exercises a little common sense can have a really safe time IMHO.

Its a really great sport, with cool equipment and endless places to fly.

I cant recomend it enough, just doesn't fit into my life right now at the level I would like to do it.

I went out a few years ago with some of my old hang gliding buddies (who never progressed beyond hang gliders, not that there's anything wrong with that) to the King Mt site in Idaho, the Lost River Range. The FIRST para glider launch I watch, right in front of me at eye level, I see a ripple start across the wing, then it re-inflated, then it rippled again and tucked under. Now the guy is hanging under a bag of laundry, and starts going down, quick. He threw his reserve and landed safe, not in a tree. Conditions were not severe, still before noon.

Another hang gliding friend, a champion mogul skier and national ranked 25 yr hang glider pilot, broke his neck, fatally,on a very gentle hill, while still in the learning phase. Not reckless at all, we (hg and ex hg pilots) were pretty pissed at para gliding, this new sport the young guys were all getting into. Hang gliding was now for the old guys! This was 15 years ago. It cooled my desire to get into foot launched powered para gliding, with the back pack motors. Soarable once aloft, transport in a sub compact car, and no getting to the top of a hill problems, I had enough of that hang gliding. Obviously, the things are safe, they have come a long way in 15 years, really, they seem almost too good to be true, damn I want one

Courierguy, since you have the HG and foot launch experience that I do not, maybe you can take a crack at making a paraglider wing with some sort of a rigid or inflatable member.There's got to be a way. Something that splits the difference between the Woopy Fly and the paragliders.

A larger soaring-sized Woopy Fly inflatable could be really interesting... get rid of all the draggy strings, move the pilot up close under the wing to reduce trim drag, and still have something that goes home inside the car.

A couple of carbon windsurfer masts for front and rear spars, that slide inside the wing envelope. That would give you a front and rear mount to hang the pilot seat and motor mount... like the old Mitchell Wing.

There's a brilliant aerodynamicist in Germany named Martin Hepperle, who actually designed efficient airfoil sections for this type of wing. Those little Simonini engines on the paramotors apparently work pretty good, and weigh nothing.

Whaddya say...

You can bet someone will come out with something like that, something still super portable but with a more semi permanent airfoil. Back in the early rogallo hang glider days, there was a spate of what were called full luff dives: the wing would stabilize in a vert dive, with the untensioned fabric fluttering. Never a huge problem and I never knew anyone it happened too, nonetheless when the early Fledge 1 by Manta came out I got one and became a dealer. It had ribs and really was a rigid wing once set up. It morphed into the Ptrerodactyl ultralight.

I'll never forget the flight demo I saw once at the Arlington FlyIn by a foot launched para glider pilot, his entire routine took place in a 200' airspace box, very tight maneuvering. When he finished, the airshow announcer commented that the pilot's day job was as a 747 pilot