Getting warm out there? This may help ...

[ricki]

Alpine terrain from an interesting perspective

[conchxpress]

I'm cooled off already, but my heart is going about 120 bpm. The forward loops with the paraglider were sick! I wonder how he practiced them. I guess you have to get it right the first time. It's the equivalent of an outside loop in a plane.

F.

[ricki]

It's beyond me, never paraglided before and my hang gliding aerobatics belong in nursery school. I do recall speaking with some folks in the USHGA association about accident stats a few years back. At the time paragliders were hitting something like 88 losses per 100,000 compared to my estimate of 6 to 12 per 100,000 for kiteboarding and about 5 per 100,000 reported for SCUBA diving in the USA. Apparently the problem at least in that year was an over abundance of low altitude aerobatics. Distance in your friend in paragliding too, go figure. I saw some guys doing some pretty intense stuff by Piz Gloria near Interlaken this winter. I'll see if I can dig up some stills or video and put it up. I picked up a DVD of some low altitude aerobatic paragliding (1 ft. of altitude?) from a showing in Grindelwald that is truly amazing, suicidal, but amazing!

Do you fly powered aerobatics? That stuff is some fun, did a few hops along the coast in a Pitts S-2C. Amazing experience, at least until you feel compelled to yak due to too many high speed inverted spins!


From: http://www.aviataircraft.co.uk/

[conchxpress]

I also did aerobatic training in an S-2C. Amazing aircraft. I trained with a guy from Naples who had been on the US team at one point. Unfortunately, I later learned that he had been killed. Ironically, not in a plane, but on a motorcycle. He was so meticulous about his flying. Controlled risk applies to a lot of things that adventure seekers do. Unfortunately we can't control the risk from the other guy. Thought I would tie that in to the subject of a lot of threads on the forum.

F.