Paragliding Sketchy Mishaps For Summer 2022

[@dymanoid]

Thanks for sharing! Please, please, please - never hold on your risers! I noticed this is something you do often. It is especially important in such situations where quick and precise input is required - like it was in the moment your wing started that massive surge. But also in bumpy air, you need to feel the pressure on your brakes which is impossible when you hold on your risers. You need to prevent wing collapses by flying actively, that means - by applying a constantly changing 'right' amount of brakes, all the time. Holding on the risers gives you a false feeling of 'safety' and 'stability', but it's actually the opposite. Please, teach yourself to fly actively - do not hold on the risers, feel the brakes pressure instead. Your wing is a very safe and forgiving one, but even this wing can 'surprise' you with a very dynamic reaction to a big collapse.

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Thanks for the advise. Yes I know I do that on the risers. Actually I'm not holding them but sliding my thumb up and down along them. That way I can feel also the position of the harness. When I'm not touching the risers and the harness shifts (which it does quite a bit with the spread setting I use) I'm always worrying that I will apply more brake as my body/harness shifts. That said, I will try to stop doing that though as I do know that it reduces the feel of the wing.

[@dymanoid]

@@sandrainthesky1011 Fair point. It's difficult to learn the way of flying where your hands are 'independent' from your body, but it's a key to safe and long flights. You should be able to do weight shift and brake steering independently from each other, and also keep your brakes as needed when one harness side suddenly drops down. Easier to say than to do, I know. Maybe try to explicitly pay attention to what your hands do when the harness shifts and shakes. The hardest point is to 'forget' about our instinct to hold on something when you feel you fall down. It needs a lot of practice, but it will reward you with a lot of confidence flying in bumpy air when you realize you can actually counter-streer almost everything.

[@MikeyFirst]

Indeed, this is exactly what I was thinking too; I don't see any active flying, but a lot of holding on to the risers. You mention going to participate in an SIV, that's good, but someone has to teach you how to fly active. The things you learn in the SIV are situations you can can get in to when not applying active flying. That's really the basics of flying safely.

[@DesertWindParagliding]

Hi, thanks for sharing so everyone learns! Even if you are just guiding hands along risers it's a habit that's not helping you because you needed to be WAY deeper in the brakes/we'll below your chest area for that situation so the touching risers tends to lead to inactive piloting for a lot of pilots. I'd say flying completely independent of the risers to ensure you're being active enough may be a great idea. Thanks again for sharing.

[@dymanoid]

@@Random-es7yo Be cautious! Do not compare a beginner pilot flying on an EN-A wing with Chrigel, a multiple times world acro & XC champion & record holder. Chrigel can take off on a lee side of a mountain straight into the rotor having 20 km/h tail wind on launch, additionally being in Föhn conditions - and it's okay for him. If Chrigel does something - that doesn't mean it's okay for everyone to do this, or it's 'not a bad thing'. I believe Chigel exactly knows when it's okay to hold on the risers and when it's time to work, and he probably does this with some purpose. His yearly airtime is probably more than 1000h, and he does things 99.999% of the pilots in the world just cannot repeat. So please - don't argue 'if Chrigel does this then it's ok'.

[@TerryButcher1158]

Rule #1 Fly the glider! Love the channel Sandra. You have a great voice for this.

[@svensubunitnillson1568]

So glad to see you enjoying paragliding. i especially like that you don't get scared away from flying with incidents like these, but jump on a SIV to get more confident! way to go!!!

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Yes, I just did an SIV in October in Turkey! You are right, confidence is much higher (especially since I know now what a collapse feels like and how to correct if rolling into a spin) Happy flying!

[@bradtrites2384]

Thank you for sharing this Sandra! Hope to see you at Coppers this year. Did a tandem with Dave in the fall and I am doing P1/P2 with him this spring. It's been great watching your videos.

[@sandrainthesky1011]

That's great! Dave is the best for sure, have fun!! I'll be there ASAFP in the spring, unless I go abroad then it'll be summer, cheers!

[@bobflyman]

Glad you're OK Sandra, but sorry, I think you were lucky to get that far into the summer without injury! For one, don't get fixated on an LZ. If you doubt you're going to make it, abort and choose a safer, clearer option. In my 20 years flying I've had some bad moments too, a couple of them that still send a shiver up my back when I think back to them. Falling out of the sky after a frontal in the French Alps. (Luckily I recovered the glider, stopped the dive after recovery and regained control. I was lucky to get control after spinning my glider in Oz when I was low airtime trying to thermal. Sometimes you get away with mistakes. (If luck and a little experience is on your side.) Some of those sites look tricky for a low air time pilot and some of those 'mishaps' could have had nasty consequences? Maybe choose your time of day better at strong tricky sites? And you were way back on the mats? Do you active fly in thermic conditions? People commented on holding the risers. NO, you should be feeling the wing pressure at all times. SIV at Olu Deniz should be good for you! Enjoy and take care. I enjoy your vids! PS Checking your brake line handles is a very important part of pre flight checks. No excuse for that one!

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Yep back from the SIV learned a lot! Now have some working out to do (arms!) but a real confidence booster for sure. Not afraid of frontals or full stalls anymore, plus spiralling nose down is awesome. Anyway, yes I got injured in late august and it was bad judgement on my part. Should not have launched period. Need to be more cautious than brave ? Or stupid! Anyway I’ll have some time over winter to think about it. Going to Turkey again in spring for possible acro course. Was at international air games and many of those guys are awful on launch haha! Happy flying and thanks for chiming in!

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Oh and btw yes I do active fly in thermals for sure. They can be quite spicy there for sure

[@Henryk5161]

Thanks for sharing Sandra! I recently broke my hand during launch and i love to see your flying skills improve. Safe flights and a speedy revovery! ☺️☺️

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Eeek! That sucks! I can probably imagine how it happened though, I had a pretty nasty wrist injury last year. Back at you, hope you get that hand back soon!

[@raphaeleymann]

In all your launches I had the feeling that you were not heading the direction you wanted but the direction the Wing wanted. Maybe some Groundhandling would help in that Case?

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Thank you for the interesting observation. I do in fact have over 200 hours of kiting experience logged then stopped logging in 2021. That said, at this point of the video I would disagree as I was avoiding obstacle and being cocky! But since then I ended up in a very similar situation but with no w/s and a hard 90 cross wind just as my feet left the ground. Ended up in a small tree part way down a cliff with 2 ribs smacked in badly. Then in Turkey I recently ended up on a wall alongside the launch as a result of the same thing, sudden 90 crosswinds as I left the ground. So in conclusion I must say you’re on to something there! I will have to start turning the wing instead of moving under it to correct as we’re all taught to do. Thanks!

[@brucemcnair2]

Thanks for sharing these Sandra. Such fun

[@TheHienax]

Couple of things that i noted it.. Follow the wind during the take off check everything before launch no brake during take off. watch for rotors behind trees Ground work is always a good idea even if you fly for a long time.. goods and safe flights!

[@norfolkflyingboyz2404]

Great flying, commentary and sound effects. Love your videos. ❤️

[@faribad]

Thanks for sharing this, I really appreciate it. I am a female resident of surrey bc and I am intending to join FLYBC paragliding school next spring/summer and eventually get my paragliding license. Your videos are giving me a view of the places in BC I can paraglide and your sharing of these mishaps is very imformative as it is giving me an idea about what things I have to carefull about and will be prone to doing wrong because I am definitely scared of even thinking becoming a paragliding pilot but I have set my mind that no matter what I am going to face my fear, push my limits and never change my mind about pursuing my paragliding license. BTW I have no paragliding experience including tandem but I have done tandem skydiving and loved everything I got to see and experience after the parachute opened hence I am seriously considering paragliding rather than skydiving.

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Than you for your thoughts. I can only say a couple of things,. Just do it! Make it happen! Also check into a stay at Freedom Flight Park in Lumby. You'll be completely immersed and you'll be a pilot in no time (plus they are simply the best instructors there is, the main guy Dave, just won HPAC instructor of the year award) The site is amazing and completely dedicated to flying. If you can jump out of a plane, then you certainly can run off of a mountain ;) All the best for your upcoming adventures!

[@sduru]

I have broken my ankle 4 months ago during launch , Broken dreams....

[@Ripstop_pilot]

DO NOT HOLD THE RISERS. Not even to slide a thumb on them. In the collapse you can see your left hand firmly gripping thr riser rather than reacting to a wing that's not flying. Feel the harness with your butt and hips, not your hands. This is active flying.

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Coming from you now OMG dude! OK OK I promise not to do it any more. Thing is I will have to take off my gloves then run wires up the risers with 10.000 volts on them. Maybe a big foam roll like a pool noodle would work. I don't know. I was there for a week and all it did was piss down unfortunately, so saw no UK fly time, cheers!

[@GoneWrong]

Thanks for the nice video. It is very interesting and informative. At one point I thought that you are going into swimming pool :)

[@sandrainthesky1011]

I did think about it haha! It was very hot 38 deg C. I found out later that there was a pool cover on it so they would not have been very happy with me!

[@ALIENehad]

Don't even think about to hold your risers!!!! Please!!! Don't.

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Re: previous post, thanks!

[@mvn4844]

You seem to have a tendency to grab onto your risers,,, with the first collapse from the video the left risers comes into view and it seems that you are grabbing it strongly the moment the glider starts shooting to the front and to the right. Also with the last video it shows you grabbing risers probably for getting into your seat, but the thing is you are flying close to the ground and ussually just after take off you will fly through some turbulence and if you lose pressure inside the wing you will have no way of catching that and preventing a collapse. Maybe it would help to readjust your harness so it will be possible getting into your seat without the need for grabbing the risers. What helped for me was tightning up the legstraps It really is a dangerous habit grabbing those risers because you truly loose the possibility of controlling the glider if something happens

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Thanks. Yes I have already been warned umpteen times about this. It's a hard habit to kick, it really is. The only time I didn't see myself doing it was during the SIV footage, but then one isn't relaxed at all during that.

[@nicolaesasu]

at 03:18 (watch in slow motion), you lost one of the maillon o-ring.

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Very observant! I know, that’s how I discovered it too that night so went hunting for o-rings. Turns out the flight park guys had a whole case of them 👍

[@peterpadazopoulos2954]

ERRORS IN PARAGLIDING ARE NEVER A COMEDY HAVE FRIENDS WITH ALOT OF STAINLESS SCREWS IN SPINE

[@sandrainthesky1011]

IT'S JUST AN EXPRESSION. Sorry about your friends.

[@paulino3320]

You are really sympatic and please don‘t missunderstand my words but wouldn‘t it be better to search another Hobby for Your freetime? Your Skills are really Not good so please be carefull dear Lady

[@sandrainthesky1011]

-edit- My skills are fine, way better on launch than average. As a result I tend to take chances perhaps I shouldn't take. On suggestion if safer hobby would be better.. Yes it probably would, but you know you go where your heart leads you, and plus I'm not getting any younger so take the bull by the horns mentality these days. I'm sure eventually I'll lose interest, but then I said that about electronics and I have done that for 40 years so... I can picture myself getting into RC in the future, I have a drone but want to make a big airplane, so does my partner have the same interest. That way we can only be hurt if the plane hits us ;)

[@vladokyselica1107]

@@sandrainthesky1011 Vaše odpověď se mi líbí. Nenechte se odradit od něčeho, co máte rádi. Dělejte to, co vás baví. Nebudeme tady na věčnost.👍

[@freshnelly]

@@vladokyselica1107 Děkuji!

[@freshnelly]

Addition: Just finished SIV with flying colors! (excuse the pun!) Know my "weak points" now, everyone should do SIV! Posted by Sandra In The Sky

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Actually that was quite judgey from a new pilot hey?

[@CoIoneIPanic]

Oh wow I came here because I heard there's a noob white knuckling their risers. I was not disappointed

[@sandrainthesky1011]

Thankyou! I have since installed 120dB proximity alarms on the risers 🤪