You know, I don’t really have a problem with old folks having access to things like wingsuits if they do it somewhere where they aren’t putting others at risk, and they fully understand what they’re getting into. Unlike something like motorcycles the accidents are unlikely to result in someone needing long-term care that puts a financial burden on family or society. Kinda a binary “you made it or you didn’t” sorta situation.
That is a good point. I wonder if that’s why some of the more “extreme” activities seem like a Rich Man’s Game"
But Insurance only goes so far. I’d hate to spend my last moments alone in the bough of a tree in the middle of nowhere…
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Yes, this is a semi-rigid wing weight shift controlled (US) FAA Part 103 ultralight aircraft. If air turbulence or ham-fisted piloting leads to a situation in which the angle of relative airflow gets just a bit out of the acceptable range, they can quickly transform into uncontrollable lawn darts (how many people remember what those were?). Many of these aircraft are equipped with either hand-thrown or rocket-propelled parachutes to handle that sort of eventuality, but you need some amount of altitude for them to work. Modern semi-rigid wings ARE a lot safer than the ancestral Rogallo Wing design, but still…
Part 103 rules limit the weight and allow only a single seat, so you are free to kill yourself, but you are unlikely to hurt anyone else. There are a lot of quite safe and proven powered and unpowered ultralight designs, just stay within the limitations and you’ll (almost always) be fine.
I say all this as a recreational pilot who used to engage in an activity that easily qualifies as “dangerous as fuck”, flying high performance racing gliders in the mountains of the western US. There were/are only a few hundred of us, I’d lose an average of one first name friend a year due to crashes. Weight shift wings (the stick moves the wing relative to the center of gravity) are nonetheless absolutely terrifying to me. I’ve happily flown a number of conventional rigid wings ultralights, but would never try one of these. Just a personal prejudice.
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Yeah, the rule there is “don’t bail out”. Like, why would you?
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It probably did not “flip”, it was more likely a “stall/spin” accident, wherein one gets a bit distracted by other things and allows the airspeed to decline such that as one turns to line up with the runway, one wing stops producing usable lift and the other soon follows. From the outside (I’ve seen one) it looks like the glider keeps rolling past level then spirals straight into the ground. Most gliders don’t have stall warning devices (unlike Cessnas and other powered planes) as we spend a lot of time flying just above stall speed to stay within lift. I’ve stalled many times while circling within lift, as long as there’s nothing hard within a few hundred feet below, it’s a non-event. Turbulence and wind gradient (wind close to ground is slower than up higher) play into this, stall speed is typically 50 MPH, normal approach to landing speed is 60 to 65 MPH, at mountain sites or on gusty days I’d approach at upwards of 75 MPH. You only need to let the approach speed get too low once, as I did, but avoided crashing. If you survive it, you won’t make that mistake again.
And, yes, flying gliders (particularly in mountains) is more dangerous than powered small planes, driving, riding motorcycles, etc. The only sport that is arguably more dangerous is skydiving.
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Personal aircraft as in homemade aircraft, or are you talking about personal cessnas and such?
I just recall recently the physician who had a practice in San Diego and Yuma (AZ) (I think), and flew his own Cessna-like aircraft back and forth. He made a series of mistakes one day and crashed into a neighborhood in Santee, Calif killing people on the ground. Was that a personal craft? Or legitimate business flying? That incident sticks in my mind because a victim was a delivery driver that was due to retire within the next week or two.
Back to the video, that was fun to watch!
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Seems that others have had the same experience in trying to compare. I dipped in because of my long-held belief that by relying on skills to stay aloft that the soaring pilot might have a keener connection to the phenomena around them. Perhaps it follows that they seek risky situations for the benefit of staying aloft, situations that powered pilots don’t need or want to take. So yes, hard to compare.
Yes, “within” infers the first 1,000 hours while he explains he means the “next” 1,000 hours. But your point still stands and is yet another variable to be explored. If I learn to ride motorcycles I’m going to skip the first 1,000 hours and start at the second, just to be safe. 
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Of course. Just wanted an excuse to post a picture of that beautiful old bird. In its defense, though, it could carry a useful payload and fly a long way.
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I recommend that any time in the first 1000 hours you find yourself feeling ‘comfortable’ or ‘having fun’ instead of thinking about your impending doom – start thinking about how close you are to dying. By the time you reach 1000 miles, you’ll never ride without wondering who will be trying to kill you next, and you’ll be properly on guard.
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I wasn’t a witness to it but the report I read of his crash was that he was trying to land in “unusual wind conditions” when the accident occurred. He was very experienced in the sport and had written articles on it for hang gliding magazines, but I suppose it’s always possible he just got distracted at the wrong moment.
Here I am about a decade ago, in the second to last glider I owned, carefully maintaining approach speed. They only produced a few of this particular type, as it had a bad tendency of stalling/spinning without the normal amount of warning signs. It was the only glider I flew which had a factory installed stall warning device, which I quickly disabled. I had about 1000 hours in high performance gliders at that point.
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Unfortunately, this is fairly common, even with highly experienced pilots. I’m not sure if this was a hang glider or the type I flew, but it happens with both. I know a lot of hang glider pilots who switched to flying sailplanes, as they think it to be safer.
One time on the way home from my parents, I saw a guy in a paraglider going parallel to the highway on I-35. You don’t see that everyday.
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This is the way.
From Proficient Motorcycling, by David Hough
ETA: The data is from the Hurt Report (the name is not a joke)
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I’ve read that sky divers think paragliders are crazy - a plurality of skydiving fatalities are from bad flying under canopy, so, weirdly, the flying part is the most dangerous. And parawings are so much wider and narrow, and eaiser to tangle.
Built and flew a Mitchell B-10 years ago. Pretty safe if you’re careful, but what skews the safety data is the few idiots out there, as it’s unregulated. Watched a guy who tried to fly one on his first flight, He’d never flown before, just hopped in and gunned it, didn’t even try short hops. Left the ground and immediately stalled, nosed in. Pretty much unhurt, but he took his new ultralight home in pieces.
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When I was a kid I saw Steelyard Blues (1973) and decided that living in a flying boat would be like one of the best things ever. Don’t remember anything else about the film, except that dream of a carefree vagabond life in a Catalina.
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Reminds me of the old joke: I’d like to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandpa instead of screaming like the passengers in his car.
