Life and Death

Not trying to be dramatic or sensational, just the truth. I recently participated in paragliding advanced manoeuvres clinic and found myself getting, well... as the expression goes.... "over my head". I posted a incident report on the West Coast Soaring Club web site that pretty much describes the event. The nut shell version is, well flying my Ozone Delta (my first season on this wing) I had a stall manoeuvre go bad... very bad. Immediately on entry I entered multiple riser twists and things rapidly went for shit. You can watch the Video and judge for your self.

Under no circumstances am I going to say the event has not shaken my confidence nor will I say that I coolly fought my way out of the predicament. I was a passenger simply trying to survive. I will say fear was not a factor, more the fact that I was shocked that things could go so badly so quickly.

You could say that allot went very wrong but I would like to think that just enough went right to have a positive outcome. Over water, half a chute (better then none?) half a glider (even though it was tied to one ankle ;-).

Life and Death? Yes.... but I was not going to give up. I'm bravely look forward to next years SIV... this time with two chutes?

I will also say, stalling a paraglider is quite possibly the most dangerous manoeuvre a new paraglider pilot can perform. It is chaotic, it is unpredictable. Do your research on the net you will find plenty of examples of stalls gone bad. One thing is for sure, not a manoeuvre to be taken without respect.

BTW, 2 hours after my "event" I was nervously "back in the saddle" on Mia's Gin XS Sprint, performing another 5 stalls... some not so pretty but all were successful.

Fly safe.