Hang Glider Midair

Wonder if the hang glider made it out alright... Looks like he spun all the way into the trees.

Can definitely see him at :43, then later a lot lower.
 
Eeek, they look like fruit flies, all over the place...

at :43-:45 you see the hang glider in a spin below him, wonder if that guy recovered?
 
Aerodynamically, I don't know if that was a true Stall/Spin, or if it was, they need to make airplanes stall/spin like that... Much slower. Either way, hope the dude was allright. Did the guy filming the video land down there to try to provide additional assistance, or would that be the best course of action after something like that?
 
I didn't even notice the hang glider spinning down. How do your recover a spin in one of those? How did that thing even get so high up?
 
I read the hang glider guy deployed his reserve chute, but it tangled on the glider and caused the spinning that we saw. But the result was minor injuries to the hang glider guy as he impacted the trees.
 
I didn't even notice the hang glider spinning down. How do your recover a spin in one of those? How did that thing even get so high up?

They all probably jumped off a spot somewhere near there and were using the ridge lift of those huge hills to climb and stay up
 
I wonder if you could push a 150 off one of those ledges and stay up - think of the free time you could log!
 
I read the hang glider guy deployed his reserve chute, but it tangled on the glider and caused the spinning that we saw. But the result was minor injuries to the hang glider guy as he impacted the trees.

For lack of a better term, the hang glider was in a flat spin, most likely due to additional drag or damage on the left wing from the collision. I suspect that neither wing was stalled, but directional control was not possible. In a situation such as this, the chute doesn't help since your vertical speed is pretty low. Best bet is to climb up into the frame as far as you can and hope the downtubes take the impact.

I stopped flying hang gliders in 1992 before parasailing took off. We used to share the air with the occasional sailplane, but they used us for pylons bacause they were so much faster. Never seen that many specs in the air, though. That place was a mess.
 
I had a near hit with a powered chute in SLC bravo. That dudes eyes were huge.

Had the same thing happen with a hang-glider near the mountains south of Riverside, CA while shooting a photo mission. Those things really should be required to have a transponder, IMHO.
 
I'm sitting in a cubicle right now with one of my German co-workers who is a paraglider, he said that video is busy but not all that unusual in some of the popular areas.
 
Back
Top