Is paragliding a dangerous sport?
**Updated text on July 12, 2007 **
...The most crazy thing is that the Civil Aviation Authority registers the ultralights. It's just a fee, not a certificate of airworthiness! ( &&& written in 2001. A reader will tell me if things have changed since)
...Those who cling to this freedom which seems so precious to them say "it's up to users to take care of their own safety, to ensure the maintenance of their machines". Easy to say when there is no way to control the design and manufacturing of ultra-light flying machines.
**An attempt to solve the problem (1990). **
...After Katzman's death in 1990, I contacted two former schoolmates (I mean Supaéro). Laroze, head of the structural department at the school had been a victim of an ultra-light accident. Having kept some after-effects, he was motivated. The other was my friend Daniel Tennenbaum, an engineer who was then the director of the DGAC, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation. With Laroze and the technical director of the paragliding federation, we came up with a plan after meeting in Toulouse. We all agreed that static tests were totally insufficient to certify an ultra-light. Like other flying machines, it was necessary to design fatigue test benches and define standards. The best way to solve the problem once and for all was to take a young man from one of these aeronautical schools and have him do an engineering doctorate thesis, which Laroze and I could supervise. He would have had to be a pilot himself, living in close and constant contact with this sport. In two years he would have solved all the outstanding problems. What is an ultra-light for a 23-year-old who had been taught to calculate Mirage 2000s? The school offered the services of Katia, a powerful software focused on structural calculations: a sledgehammer to crush a fly. All of this, for free.
...I must admit that the wing manufacturers were ready to follow us, providing the materials to test. The federation itself agreed to participate in the funding of the operation, that is, to cover part of the scholarship for this boy, which we would have had to find. In our idea, it would not have been about locking this financially fragile sport into a rigid framework similar to the "Véritas bureau". We wanted to help the manufacturers, so that at the end of this thesis they could have software running on PCs, easy to use, allowing them to calculate their parts. Our doctoral student would, in the end, if he had proven his effectiveness, become a sort of "ultra-light expert", acting as a link between technical services and the manufacturers. We naively imagined that he could be employed by combining subsidies from the federations, the Civil Aviation Authority and the Ministry of Youth and Sports. This was in 1990.
...What happened? Nothing. The Civil Aviation Authority refused to fund the operation. The project failed. The Civil Aviation Authority staff passed the ball around. One of them even finally told me:
*- You know what will happen. One day, when all these idiots have killed themselves, this sport will disappear on its own and we will have peace. *
...The skin of these people who were dying, they didn't care at all. Things would have moved if the State had granted significant funding, allowing the installation of an entire bureaucracy, full of engineers, well paid. Then, when a hierarchical pyramid would have been set up, it would have been possible to start looking at the problems, comfortably seated in an office.
...I will tell you what I think. For now I have only spoken about the paraglider, which, among these three ultra-light sports, which also include paragliding and ULM, is the one that is doing the best. All of this should be regulated, at a minimum. But the decision can only be political. It can only come from a deputy or a senator who has had a son or a close relative killed in one of these three sports. If this man exists, let him contact me:
I will tell him the way to proceed. Otherwise, there will be more unnecessary deaths, whose graves will mark every technical advancement.
...But, you will say, how can insurance companies be so crazy as to cover these activities? It's simple: the insurers are the federations. The manufacturers are safe from any legal action, unless they make huge mistakes: there are no standards, no regulations ( &&& written in 2001. If there are modifications, inform me, I will report them).
...Nothing will move coming from within the industry. Everyone is united to "save these sports" to keep intact this "splendid freedom", to avoid at all costs that an administration locks these "feathered ones" into a rigid framework. The federations, the instructors, the schools, the manufacturers and especially the specialized newspapers: everyone is silent. It is the law of silence. If one day you die and, from your cloud, you can read the report of your accident over the shoulder of a liberal, you will probably be surprised to learn "that you made a pilot error" or "that you did not properly maintain your machine".
...Even the most competent, the "old-timers" of these sports, those with thousands of flight hours, hesitate to speak. Instructors or employees fear losing their jobs. Then, one day, when misfortune falls on the one who had until then believed himself invulnerable, two things can happen: either he is dead and this definitively removes any means of expression, or he is very injured, his morale is destroyed by the disability that will accompany him until his last days, and then he tends to hide and to snitch.
This is exactly what seems to be happening to Robert Dalmau, who became disabled following an accident on a Cosmo pendulum ULM, which I will mention later, and whose life has since become a torment. Since the trial took place, I can therefore mention my own testimony. If I had done so during this trial, which lasted for years, it would have invalidated it. see this link ).
The box parachute.
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...Initially, the so-called "hemispherical" parachutes were just simple nylon flowers. Someone invented the "box parachute".
Box parachute.
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...This system behaves like a biplane wing. When the user does nothing, the wing is configured for maximum glide. The airflow then has the following schematic appearance:
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Airflow in a box parachute **
...The piloting is done by pulling on the suspension lines that lower the rear right and rear left edges. By acting on one of these controls, you slow down this part of the wing and initiate a rotation.
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Deformation of the trailing edge of a box parachute
Under the effect of a pull on one of the controls.
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...Compared to deltas, paragliders have smaller turning radii. Once the turn is initiated, the autorotation phenomenon takes over (which the pilot must then control...)