Raul Guerra <<dr.raulguerra>>
sends:

http://ozreport.com/pub/images/rioparagliding.MOV

Fabiano Nahoum <<marusco>>
sends:

"A speed glider takes off from Rio de Janeiro paragliding ramp on
a day with howling 25 knot gusty winds and met his fate. Despite the ramp being
closed for free-flying, speed gliders are not a part of the club and thus not
regulated. He was advised not to go, but decided to ignore the advice of the
very experienced instructors who were at the ramp and who had, just 20 minutes
before, decided to hoist the Red Flag.

It's interesting to note that even though the small canopy of a speed glider
features a much higher wing loading, that didn't prevent the strong collapse.
Also, on a day like yesterday, with Northeast winds, he should have flown to the
right of the ramp, to get away from ill venturi effects plus rotor from the huge
mountain you can discern on the left of the video, which brings up the question
of how are these speed gliders being taught about the air.

The Brazilian free-flight association has no business with speed flyers, and
does not recognize this modality in its membership, but the media nonetheless
has put everything in the same "crazy hang-gliders" tab and we are getting
unfairly tarnished. I understand the USHPA has embraced speed-gliding, but do
these guys have any idea about wind and meteorology?

This is the second death in 2 weeks in Rio, the first one being a wing suiter
who jumped from Pedra da Gávea (808mts) and miscalculated the distance from the
rock and never had a chance to open his chute. At least in that case he didn't
use our ramp. Two sad and totally avoidable accidents.

Interesting to note that tandem hang-gliding flights were being done up to about
20 minutes before this accident and even though conditions were pretty radical,
they all flew without a problem."