Santa Claus flies into power lines, needs rescue

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/22/santa-claus-flies-into-power-lines-needs-rescue.html

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2020 strikes again!

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Blimey, that must have been scary.

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According to Vestal, the man was trying to do something nice for kids in the community.

From all reports, the kids loved the barbecued reindeer.

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I fly paragliders and I have previously seen people seriously injured by crashing into power lines. It doesn’t look funny to me at all.

Interacting with crowds on the ground (dropping things for kids for example) is inherently dangerous because people tend to be close to hazardous infrastructure like roads and buildings. He will be flying low and slow to do the drop, and a loss of power will put him in a dangerous situation.

Its a bad idea all round.

edit: oh yeah, the best way to do a drop like this is to use an aircraft with an elevator, you would establish a safe altitude and dive into the drop zone, increasing speed, then pull up and return to the safe altitude. Paragliders don’t have elevators. They have a limited ability to trim their angle of attack, but they are much less able to recover energy by turning speed into altitude at the end of a dive, because of high drag.

So in a powered paraglider you would have to reduce power as if you were coming in to land, then do the drop, then re-apply power and hope you had enough control authority to climb out of the drop zone. Losing power (or just not having enough power) at that point puts you into the trees/power lines.

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Krisp Kringle - Nice one!

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I lived in Rio Linda for a couple of years. This would have barely gotten a glance!

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Gyrocopters. Their time has finally arrived!

Just wait till Santa makes deliveries at fusion power plants. And be glad it wasn’t Satan Claus hitting the wires – a regional blackout would ensue, not to mention daemons infesting every connected digital system.

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So, Santa needs a dive bomber?

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Seems The Vanisher has started another idiotic trend.

So this is how Rudolph’s nose is so bright

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