Horror Stories

Although these instances are not really anything to be proud of, they are part of the lore of every hang-glider pilot.  I mention my own personal incidents here. 

Flying in McConnoldburg PA around 2001, I launched without my harness buckled (though it was zipped up).  Consequently I had very poor control of the glider and  was unable to penetrate the available thermals and was descending rapidly. I decided to head for the "bail out" landing field - a small field near launch used for exactly those times you get in trouble finding lift.

On route to the landing field I managed to clear the last tree by about 5 feet so I was thankful for that, but then I found myself heading straight for a telephone wire,  and I was not going to clear it.  I quickly dived the glider and flew under the wire landing in the drive way of a house next to the landing field.  I was perfectly ok and received the Capital Hang Gliding club's annual restricted landing field award..  This award is actually a booby prize  - it is small tombstone with a plaque attached.

In 2008,   I was flying at Woodstock on a light day with a number of paragliders and a few hang gliders.  I was flying along the ridge with a paraglider about 100 yards above me and 300 yards to my left - I was aware of it but not giving it much thought and it went out of veiw because it was above me.  I hit a thermal and turned right in attempt to penetrate the thermal, and it started to lift me.. after I had turned 270 degrees,  the paraglider pilot suddenly appeared out of nowhere and flew over me.  His feet missed were about 10 feet above my king post. 

I talked to the paraglider pilot later to find out what he saw.   He started to turn left in a thermal, then suddenly I appeared out of nowhere just missing him.  It was only dumb luck that we did not collide.  This fact spooked me completely. Had we collided it is very likely that I would have become tangled in his wires and both us would have spiraled to the ground.  The secondary deployment of either of our parachutes would have been extremely complicated and not very likely to have succeeded.