Paraglider Crash, 300' tumble, pilot iced! (as in 'iced tea' ;-)

Onboard footage showing why Cwmparc is considered an extreme site! 300' tumble down 'cliff' face after hitting sink whilst scratching!
Remember, every landing you can walk away from is a good landing :-)

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Paragliding

[Reechforthesky]

Well survivied! Glad you okay. Hard to work out what happened. I got some ace crash footage but gonna have to wait until I'm well on the way to recovery before I edit it...... ;)

[OgwrDragon]

@Reechforthesky and it seemed to last a lot longer at the time, hit sink whilst scratching, clipped the cliff, unloaded the wing then did a fair few flick-flacks, 300 feets worth. Because of the steepness impacts were relatively light and i managed to miss the rocks and slow down as the gradient flared out towards the bottom! I take it you've sustained some serious injuries?

[Reechforthesky]

@OgwrDragon Smashed into a wall on 27 July. Smashed heel and broken wrist. Maybe start weight bearing in 9 days time. Expect to be healed in about 6 weeks time from now........ Just a stupid time to takeoff.

[OgwrDragon]

@Reechforthesky Ouch! My heel bone came out through my ankle time i shattered my spine, but it went back together without need of pins or plates - felt like i was standing on the edge of angle iron in bare feet for ages after i started walking again. I take it you were on your speed-wing? Hope the pain-relief is working and look forward to sharing scars next time we meet on the hill ;-)

[OgwrDragon]

@murrayhay the launch point i used is due easterly and this site works with anything from east to north, best being northeast and works when it is normally too light to soar. On this occasion it was very light and with a touch of south which can be problematic catching some rotor from the face to the right of take-off but as it was very light was unlikely to be a problem. I lost height and got too far below the ridge to make it back on top and what i should have done was flown out (cont.)

[murrayhay]

(part 2) If you study the sound track at 5:40 it 'goes quiet' BEFORE the wing spins... my guess (if thermic) is that a strong thermal was IN FRONT of the wing... resulting in a short term 'TAIL Wind' robbing the wing (and pilot) of its AIRspeed.... everything then 'Goes Soft'... as due to normal training ('Brake PRESSURE') the pilot adds brake and the wing enters a stall/spin situation... Hence I spend a LOT of time training pilots to NOT add brakes... rather just wait till good airflow returns!

[murrayhay]

Hi Dragon, the site looks fairly Ok to me, but then I fly sites where the odds of a collapse (up to 50-60%) on the launch point due to the airflow on the top of 'under cut' cliffs... and the final stage of the launch involves a 'hop' over the cliff path fence :-)

I was up there one day with Alan Coffin were we were using the 'rotor' to start the launch (pilot stands next the field/wing rests next cliff top) as the wing comes up you need to '140*' spin the wing so it's into wind! PS (part 2)