Dr Matt Wilkes has produced an outstanding contribution to paragliding safety. Together with his many supporters, sports professionals, regulators and the team at the Thames Valley Club he ran a study on emergency parachute deployment during the annual reserve repacking event ... and reached some valuable conclusions about rescue systems and how to use them.
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Strong wind and paragliders don’t play well together, but at some point you’ll be flying in ‘stronger’ conditions, and knowing how to handle this can improve your safety. Here are some techniques to help you paraglide safely in strong wind.
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In the morning, the wind begins to whisper through the grass. It tickles the trees. By noon, it tugs at the flags and nudges the umbrellas at the café. Landing is easy: point into wind and touch down. But by afternoon, it’s blowing over 30km/h and you’re getting worried. You had a long flight and now you’re dangling over the town. What’s a good approach when the wind is strong?
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Continuing our series on risk analysis at flying sites, we present Mount Caburn: a small hill often flown in strong wind. You might never fly at this particular site, but understanding the airflow will help you to analyse similar sites.
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The safest paragliding sites can be made dangerous: fly a little too close to the top, and over the back you go! Fly too low behind the trees and whoops! How do you analyse the terrain to make sure you have identified the dangers? What do you need to look out for?
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Flying in paragliding traffic can be intimidating. There’s a lot to watch out for. It’s not easy because it’s a skill that you cannot practice until you get to a really crowded paragliding site. So let’s talk through some of the basics and look at some of the techniques to stay out of trouble when flying in traffic.
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Dr Matt Wilkes and Dr Lucy Hawkes led a research group investigating the effects of altitude on paraglider pilots, under the banner of the Free Flight Physiology Project. Although the high altitude research has produced many useful results, what I’ve chosen to focus on is the discovery that relates to every freeflight pilot. Something that could make a big impact on your flying safety.
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Flybubble crew member Boris Tyszko was attacked by a vicious dust devil this summer. He made a miraculous recovery and flew away. To understand what happened and how to avoid it, let’s investigate dust devils and this incident in more detail.
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When your paraglider collapses and you can't fix it, will you do the right thing? Get your thoughts in order with our quick guide to reserve parachute deployment: when to throw, an action plan, and case studies.
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With less predictable snowfall and increasing numbers of free riders year on year, it’s easy to see why the discipline of speed riding is gaining in popularity. It enables access to remote and “untracked” parts of the mountain that skiers and boarders can’t get to and it’s really easy to learn the basics if you’re a good skier or paraglider pilot.
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