h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have just had a seriously good week.

I booked the week off in March on the off chance. I did not seriously expect to be able to paraglide even for a couple of days. The weather in the UK is not, usually, conducive to paragliding, which explains why I'm still trying to qualify after seven years.

As it turned out, I've spent the past five days in the Lake District under the tutelage of one of the best paraglider pilots in the country, if not the world, Jocky Sanderson. It's been scorching hot every single day, I've flown every single day, and in the space of hardly any time at all, it seems, I've achieved BHPA Club Pilot rating. I've soared ridges (once for over 20 minutes - which may not sound much to you, but it seemed like forever to me), I've top landed, I've slope landed, spot landed, and most perturbing of all, done a big ears. This last maneoeuvre sounds funny, but it's anything but - it involves deliberately collapsing part of the wing in order to descend quickly. This runs highly counter to the fairly strong survival instinct I've been cultivating for the last, ooh, nearly thirty seven years or so, but turned out not to be the stomach-churning experience I was expecting.

All of this was carried out while I was tagging on to another course that Jocky's school was running - an elementary pilot course. For people in wheelchairs. Based at a place called the Calvert Trust near Keswick, these were people who were not taking their inability to stand up sitting down, so to speak.

Not a cheap week, but the sense of satisfaction is hard to beat. So what does it mean? It means that I can now join a club. It means I can now, if I wish, turn up to a hill, look around, assess the weather, check out the possible landing field...

...

... AND FLY!



SoRB

Traveller in Time good at falling
"Congratulations "

I flew a paraglider in a lucid dream once... I'm jealous.

I don't think I could bring myself to jump off a hill top, but I can imagine the sensation of gliding is fantastic.

"... these were people who were not taking their inability to stand up sitting down..."

You were missed, SoRB.
[I thought you might have flown.....................the coop!

Woah! Seriously cool stuff! :D

Incidentally, would you happen to know if short-sightedness (reasonably bad) is grounds to block someone from participating in---or learning how to---paraglide?

---Jordan

(Nearly five years here and I *still* haven't learned to use the smiley. )

Putting my optometric hat on, I wouldn't have thought wearing specs would be a problem other than falling off or possible breakage in a bad landing. Contact lenses might be more comfortable with goggles over.

The other aspect to consider is that severely short sighted eyes are more prone to retinal detachment, so trauma/stress to the head (e.g. bungee jumping) is in general better avoided.

Just to illustrate: things are noticably distorted after about three or four inches, and about a foot away from the screen (15" monitor @ 1280x1024 resolution) I can't read the 11pt text on this site without squinting hard. Two feet away and I can barely read the header text.

I can easily make out the topography of my immediate environment without specs, just not the details. The optician was not sure that they would be able to make contact lenses for me because of my astigmatism, but since I haven't visited a specialist I can't be sure if they could or not.

A bit of googling a few nights ago and I found an article about blind people paragliding in tandem, so I assume it would be *possible*.

—Jordan

If it's more astigmatism than myopia that's the problem, retinal detachments or haemorrhages are not so likely. It is possible to get prescription goggles, thought the range is limited. I'd suggest robust specs e.g. frames that are designed for sport wear.

I would echo the thoughts above, and make some observations of my own.

Common sense would suggest that if you can't see reasonably clearly, venturing outside your own medium into a 3D space in a fast moving vehicle (a paraglider can easily achieve a GROUND speed of 50mph) where there may be other faster, much faster (e.g. other gliders) and VERY much faster (e.g. RAF jets) vehicles, and where your undercarriage is your legs and your crumple zone is your spine, would be a BAD idea.

That said, one of the pilots I was learning with last week flew a two minutes top-to-bottom with a couple of turns and a slightly heavy landing with no problems despite (a) being in a wheelchair (b) having very limited grip strength and (c) only realising AFTER he'd taken off that he was wearing his non-prescription sunglasses and therefore couldn't actually see the landing field or the instructor.



Summary - there is NO sight requirement on paraglider pilots. If your vision requires correction, wear contacts if you can, then wear some close fitting sunnies over them to keep the wind off. If you can't wear contacts, get some close fitting plastic prescription lenses, wraparound if possible. Windproofness is the key.

The above advice applies equally if all you're going to do is go on a tandem flight - you do want to be able to see what's happening, after all, don't you?

SoRB

I'm so jealous.

My eyes are both myopic and astigmatic. Something which also occured to me after reading SoRB's post is that I have no actual depth perception; I mostly judge distance by tilting my head, shading etc.

You see, I wasn't really letting common sense interfere with what sounded like something interesting and exhilirating.

—Jordan