Big paragliding asymmetric collapse with twists

Two collapses, one small one, and then the biggest one I'd had in 11 years flying. The mistake? Not flying actively. Note my right hand control moving up to the keeper at exactly the wrong moment.
This was my first flight in Piedrahita on a one week visit and a big day. The Piedrahita valley was benign, but it all changed when I crossed the pass into the Ambles valley. I was thermalling at about 800M above a combine harvester when I popped out the side of a strong thermal I'd only just found. If I had applied more RH brake to get back in, I'd have probably been ok, as it was the resulting surge I failed to correct hard enough ended up with two twists which made me glad I'd just upgraded my reserve. I ended up gliding on for another 25Km as I bricked it, and so missed out on the 85Km distance done by the other two members of our group who crossed the pass that day.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• collapse
• incident
• paragliding
• paraglide
• asymmetric
• twist
• spin
• scary
• riser twist
• piedrahita
• thermal
• thermalling
• cross country
• xc
• flypiedrahhita
• CountourHD

[Flyfever]

Nice vid. I think the dab on the breaks during the second one contributed to the twist. I used to have a Sport3.... very nice glider.

[paulkazjack]

This is why i dont paraglide.

[fasteddiegr]

Ha, it won't let me post the link. I'll email it to you.

Ed

[fasteddiegr]

Mike, nice to watch it again sitting in my office in Greece. You might like to watch another twist video, a local pilot with one year's experience in hot, strong mountain conditions here. You won't believe that he walked away from it!

[Murmur2k]

Very nice Mike! Glad you made it out!