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CanuckInUSA
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Paragliding Accident Conditions
In reply to:
"I thought 'That's weird, this is clearly not a day to fly,'" Tauscher said, noting the wind was blowing the wrong direction. "Anybody who's been through proper training knows today is not the day to fly."

Paragliders launching from Wonderland Lake need winds to be moving in an easterly direction to fly safely, Tauscher said, not from the west like it was blowing Monday morning. When the wind is at a paraglider's back, it creates a condition known as a "rotor," Tauscher said, and paragliders are not engineered to fly in that "kind of air."

Dang Matt, as a pilot I thought you would have known not to launch at Wonderland with western winds. There's two reasons why Wonderland Lake is not a great site for Ground Launching. Number one is that there are thousands and thousands of small, medium and large bone breaking rocks on this site and unless you can make it to the soccer field (not a big issue for paragliders but an issue for Ground Launching), you're landing in this rock field (which is where Matt most likely crashed?). And the second reason is that most of the time the winds are coming from the west and one really needs winds out of the east at this site.

Here's hoping that Matt will be up an at it soon. Get well bro ...


edit for thread name ~TA
lifewithoutanet
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Post deleted by lifewithoutanet
 
CanuckInUSA
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Re: [lifewithoutanet] Sorry to report Calvin19 has been injured Paragliding.
In reply to:
Let's not let this delve into speculation. Neither of us were there.

Fair enough.
skreamer
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Re: [lifewithoutanet] Sorry to report Calvin19 has been injured Paragliding.
In reply to:
But to add some good news, there's no spinal damage and Matt has no more holes in his head than before he got to the hospital. While still serious, his docs are very optimistic about his condition and are already talking about his recovery.

Hoping for some more good news and wishing him all the best from this side of the pond.
piisfish
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Re: [lifewithoutanet] Sorry to report Calvin19 has been injured Paragliding.
In reply to:
They were launching into a headwind and even had a couple of short flights earlier that day.

I was flying on Saturday (obviously a different site) and on our way to the top, got word that the wind was blowing up from the back. We went anyway, got to the top and the wind changed twice. I launched when I had a headwind and had a great flight.
Can we have a split of this thread maybe ??
wind blowing from the bac and headwinds... this sounds like a rotor... Wind looks like a rolling wave after an obstacle. can give you headwind close to the edge of the mountain.
TomAiello
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Re: [piisfish] Sorry to report Calvin19 has been injured Paragliding.
In reply to:
Can we have a split of this thread maybe ??

Done.

I'll leave this in BASE because there is no paragliding forum to move it to.

All, please remember that Matt is a friend of many of us here, and post appropriately.

Thanks!
CanuckInUSA
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Re: [TomAiello] Sorry to report Calvin19 has been injured Paragliding.
I wish my name didn't appear as the creator of this thread as I can see a lot of potential angry flak coming from this thread. Crazy

Let me just state that I believe Matt is a very competent aviator as I have experienced an aircraft emergency up close and personal with Matt as PIC last summer and he did a very good job handling the situation once it yielded it's ugly face at us.

When I first read the newspaper article which stated that the winds were out of the west that day (which it usually comes from on most days on the front range), my immediate reaction was, dang you don't launch from the Wonderland Lake slope in those type of WX conditions. But as Colin and Nick pointed out, we weren't there. So I'm am going to accept Nick's explaination that he thinks this accident was the result of a rigging mistake and/or a gear malfunction instead of poor weather judgement. As I said, I believe Matt is a competent aviator and he's very knowledgeable about flying in different weather conditions.

Sending get well vibes to Calvin19.