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AirNut
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 Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:50 pm Post subject: |
 #41 |
| Mavi Gogun wrote: |
| As of 2009, US general aviation reported an accident rate of 7.20 accidents and 1.33 fatalities per 100,000 hours. Since we don't have hard data to compare, my opinion is backed up by nothing but my subjective judgment- which is that the parity suggested by FFF is a highly unlikely fiction. Now, it could be that FFF's estimate is based not on flight hours, but number of flights, or number of pilots- either of which are meaningless metrics. |
There is a widely-accepted fatality rate statistic that comes from the U.K. which you see all over the place (e.g. Wikipedia, insurance rates, actuarial studies, comparative sports risk studies etc etc). Now I know that doesn't necessarily prove it's veracity, but it seems to be widely accepted as a valid number. And that number is for the the HG fatality rate, namely: 1 in 116,000 flights.
I can accept that number as being about right from my own personal experience in HG (started flying in 1976). If you make a guess that the average pilot flies say 100 flights per year, then you end up with a fatality rate per participant of about 1 in 1000 per year. This also fits with other evidence for HG fatalities (at least to a first approximation).
So if you take that number and look at the GA fatality rate that you mention, Mavi, (1.33 per 100,000 hours), you end up with a roughly-comparable fatality rate (if you assume that a single HG flight is about an hour).
And if you think of aviation generally, and how we participate in aviation as (flawed) human beings, I think that there is a psychological argument for rough parity of fatality rates across HG, PG, and GA. The argument would be based on the (fair I think) assumption that in all those spheres, the fatality rate is dominated by pilot attitude rather than by equipment or random factors. If you can accept that premise, then rough equivalence of fatality rate is then something to expect, rather than something to be surprised at.
Even though pilots in HG and PG are flying aircraft that may have different levels of intrinsic safety (i.e. the natural safety or otherwise of the aircraft itself), the attitude of the pilot will be the major factor in determining who gets killed. For example, a cautious and rational pilot flying a PG would (presumably) avoid those conditions that make that aircraft dangerous (e.g. strong turbulence). On the other hand, an aggressive, irrational pilot with a Jehovah complex would find ways to kill themselves regardless of whether they are flying PG or HG. So, I think that fatality rates are more a measure of the attitude spread in the flying population than the intrinsic safety features (or otherwise) of the aircraft (assuming of course that at least some part of the aircraft's flight envelope is stable and reproducible, which I think is certainly the case for both HG and PG) .
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jjcote
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| Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 1:29 pm Post subject: |
#42 |
| AirNut wrote: |
| If you make a guess that the average pilot flies say 100 flights per year, |
Sounds like a pretty dubious guess to me. I've never had 100 flights in a year. My average of 43 flights/year is a result of the early days when I did a whole lot of very short training hill flights, but if you look at the years after I got my H2, it's only 22 flights/year. I realize it may be different in other locales, but in these parts, I'm a pretty active pilot.
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AirNut
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| Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 3:01 pm Post subject: |
#43 |
| jjcote wrote: |
| AirNut wrote: |
| If you make a guess that the average pilot flies say 100 flights per year, |
Sounds like a pretty dubious guess to me. I've never had 100 flights in a year. My average of 43 flights/year is a result of the early days when I did a whole lot of very short training hill flights, but if you look at the years after I got my H2, it's only 22 flights/year. I realize it may be different in other locales, but in these parts, I'm a pretty active pilot. |
Fair enough! Actually, now that I work it out, my average is also about 40, for similar reasons to yourself. But even with that lower number, I think we can still say "roughly comparable". Given all the unknowns and the rubbery figures we're talking about here, a factor of two is probably not statistically significant (whereas a factor of ten certainly would be).
I guess my stance is that the fatality rates for PG are probably not ten times higher than HG (which is probably what a lot of HG pilots think), and similarly, the rates for HG are probably not ten times higher than GA (which is probably what a lot of GA pilots think).
In similar vein, I remember seeing a couple of comparative risk sport studies somewhere which put hang gliding and scuba diving at roughly comparable (quoting about 1 in 100,000 per flight for HG and about 1 in 200,000 per dive for scuba).
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pmurdoch
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| Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 3:38 pm Post subject: believe yourselves |
#44 |
Seems like everyone here wants to believe what they want to believe. The numbers being thrown around really aren't valuable in a vacuum.
We will never have any sort of accurate information which says, "HGs are the best! those PG guys are fools"... or vice versa.
The US is a fairly closed sample. We have roughly similar numbers of PG and HG pilots. Let's assume their activity level is similar. Excluding the outliers, such as heart attacks, ultralights and 'suicides', there has been more HG fatalities than PG since January of 2008. Be careful of statistics. They can prove anything you want.
This argument is just stupid. Someone said it best - this is an exercise in making ourselves feel as though we chose the right sport, and 'those other guys' are fools.
Hangs are going to have more head and arm injuries. PGs will have more back and leg injuries. Both PGs and HGs will die. Does anyone find this information astonishing or enlightening? If you want to assemble data to make you feel as though you've found the perfect sport, great. Post it on your wall. Stare at it each morning and reflect on your perfect choice of aircraft. |
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AirNut
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Location: Australia
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| Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 4:47 pm Post subject: Re: believe yourselves |
#45 |
| pmurdoch wrote: |
Seems like everyone here wants to believe what they want to believe. The numbers being thrown around really aren't valuable in a vacuum.
We will never have any sort of accurate information which says, "HGs are the best! those PG guys are fools"... or vice versa.
The US is a fairly closed sample. We have roughly similar numbers of PG and HG pilots. Let's assume their activity level is similar. Excluding the outliers, such as heart attacks, ultralights and 'suicides', there has been more HG fatalities than PG since January of 2008. Be careful of statistics. They can prove anything you want.
This argument is just stupid. Someone said it best - this is an exercise in making ourselves feel as though we chose the right sport, and 'those other guys' are fools.
Hangs are going to have more head and arm injuries. PGs will have more back and leg injuries. Both PGs and HGs will die. Does anyone find this information astonishing or enlightening? If you want to assemble data to make you feel as though you've found the perfect sport, great. Post it on your wall. Stare at it each morning and reflect on your perfect choice of aircraft. |
In my career as an old fart, I've cycled through sky diving, hang gliding, paragliding and sailplanes (in that order). And I found that people are the same in all those fields (hardly surprising). There are those who realize (and accept) that they could die or get hurt doing what they do and those who don't. It's the first group who tend to think about what they're doing and assess the risks rationally. The second group often don't do either because they've convinced themselves that they're safe.
And I reckon it's mainly the latter group who often have the ax to grind as far as proving that their particular activity is safer than the next guy's. It's just another way of proving to oneself "it won't happen to me".
All that said, I think it's still useful to look at stats, not as a way of proving that one sport is safe than the other, but to help assess where the risks actually lie. One particularly valuable use of the statistics is in demonstrating to family members that HG is not much more risky than scuba diving, or GA, or whatever. Certainly most non-fliers I talk to are pretty astonished to find out that you've got slightly more chance of being killed riding your bicycle to work than hang gliding (according to official Australia Bureau of Statistics figures just recently published). And for those of us trying to fit our passion for aviation into our family lives with the least amount of friction, that's important.
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Manta_Dreaming
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Joined: 03 Jan 2012
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| Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:04 pm Post subject: |
#46 |
| AirNut wrote: |
In similar vein, I remember seeing a couple of comparative risk sport studies somewhere which put hang gliding and scuba diving at roughly comparable (quoting about 1 in 100,000 per flight for HG and about 1 in 200,000 per dive for scuba). |
Interesting, I also recall seeing these stats - I fly and dive. Although the stats show the flying is about twice as dangerous than diving, most people I know are far more concerned about me diving than flying, which is opposite the stats for actual risk.
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If you've never forgotten anything in your life, you don't need to do a hook-in check.
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old newbie
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 12:15 am Post subject: |
#47 |
Or are they more concerned with you diving your hang glider!
Steve
| Manta_Dreaming wrote: |
| AirNut wrote: |
In similar vein, I remember seeing a couple of comparative risk sport studies somewhere which put hang gliding and scuba diving at roughly comparable (quoting about 1 in 100,000 per flight for HG and about 1 in 200,000 per dive for scuba). |
Interesting, I also recall seeing these stats - I fly and dive. Although the stats show the flying is about twice as dangerous than diving, most people I know are far more concerned about me diving than flying, which is opposite the stats for actual risk. |
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ChattaroyMan
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 3:07 am Post subject: |
#48 |
So, there are/were no 'rigid' paraglider designs? Has no one experimented with inflatables or ribs/battens or some other means to keep (or help keep) an airfoil shape once the wing inflates?
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old newbie
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 7:39 am Post subject: |
#49 |
Yes. There are two problem with making a paraglider too rigid; it won't collapse or it it does it won't recover. Imagine flying your hang from a twenty foot hang strap with limited pitch control. The collapse stops the wing from diving below you and getting too far in front. The inflatable leading edge had all sort of trouble and created more problems then it solved. There was the Woopy Fly which was a strange hybrid inflatable wing that was flown like a hang. A collapse is not a bad thing and allows us to fly suspended way below a wing that can fold up into a small bag.
Currently paragliders are using plastic rods sewn into the ribs at the leading edge and the trailing edge and or mylar. This combine with fewer and fewer lines creates more possibilities of the wing getting stuck, cravatte, during a collapse. This fold, cravatte, creates way more drag then a normal collapse and unless it is small willt lead to a spiral and deployment if the pilot can't clear it. Bruce Goldsmith, former hang champ who races and is involved with designing testing paragliders is convinced that this trend toward more rigid structure is the wrong way to go and that we need to keep the wings soft so that they do recover.
Steve
| ChattaroyMan wrote: |
| So, there are/were no 'rigid' paraglider designs? Has no one experimented with inflatables or ribs/battens or some other means to keep (or help keep) an airfoil shape once the wing inflates? |
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psuguru
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 4:16 pm Post subject: |
#50 |
| Manta_Dreaming wrote: |
| AirNut wrote: |
In similar vein, I remember seeing a couple of comparative risk sport studies somewhere which put hang gliding and scuba diving at roughly comparable (quoting about 1 in 100,000 per flight for HG and about 1 in 200,000 per dive for scuba). |
Interesting, I also recall seeing these stats - I fly and dive. Although the stats show the flying is about twice as dangerous than diving, most people I know are far more concerned about me diving than flying, which is opposite the stats for actual risk. |
I recently read that hang gliding was about as dangerous as playing football (soccer) in a Sunday league.
I reckon that horse riding should be banned. Of all the horse-riding acquaintances of mine, there's not one who hasn't broken something serious, including necks and spines. BOTH daughters of a schoolfriend spent 6 months in body casts due to separate offs.
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relate2
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 5:36 pm Post subject: |
#51 |
| psuguru wrote: |
| Manta_Dreaming wrote: |
| AirNut wrote: |
In similar vein, I remember seeing a couple of comparative risk sport studies somewhere which put hang gliding and scuba diving at roughly comparable (quoting about 1 in 100,000 per flight for HG and about 1 in 200,000 per dive for scuba). |
Interesting, I also recall seeing these stats - I fly and dive. Although the stats show the flying is about twice as dangerous than diving, most people I know are far more concerned about me diving than flying, which is opposite the stats for actual risk. |
I recently read that hang gliding was about as dangerous as playing football (soccer) in a Sunday league.
I reckon that horse riding should be banned. Of all the horse-riding acquaintances of mine, there's not one who hasn't broken something serious, including necks and spines. BOTH daughters of a schoolfriend spent 6 months in body casts due to separate offs. |
I will never ever ride another horse. Stupid animals, my last ride had me on the ground watching the horse doing a somersault over the top of me. Luckily he missed me or I would certainly be dead.
You can also be riding along quite happily when all of a sudden the horse will jump sideways because it thinks it saw something in the grass. 
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sg
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 6:33 pm Post subject: |
#52 |
Horses even killed superman. Way too dangerous to ride.
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| Thomas Jefferson wrote: |
| All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. |
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Rodger
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:42 pm Post subject: |
#53 |
Rick Masters is a courageous individual who has taken much criticism from a paragliding culture which lives in total denial about the airworthiness of their craft. Use whatever techniques you wish to rationalize your defense of PGing; the facts are that, in PGing, it is much too common that the limitations of THE CRAFT ITSELF are the cause of an excessive number of injuries and fatalities. ie blowbacks, collapses, etc. It's a deadly sport, whose abysmal safety record may ultimately take hang gliding down with it.
For PG reports cut-and-pasted from the media, without judgement, see:
Paragliding News from the Worldwide Media
http://streetrodinaweekend.blogspot.com
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Paul H
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 5:30 pm Post subject: |
#54 |
What is courageous about ranting on about unsubstantiated numbers of supposed fatalities. What is his experience with flying PG's that gives him such insight into the way they fly? When was the last time he flew a HG?
| Rodger wrote: |
Rick Masters is a courageous individual who has taken much criticism from a paragliding culture which lives in total denial about the airworthiness of their craft. Use whatever techniques you wish to rationalize your defense of PGing; the facts are that, in PGing, it is much too common that the limitations of THE CRAFT ITSELF are the cause of an excessive number of injuries and fatalities. ie blowbacks, collapses, etc. It's a deadly sport, whose abysmal safety record may ultimately take hang gliding down with it.
For PG reports cut-and-pasted from the media, without judgement, see:
Paragliding News from the Worldwide Media
http://streetrodinaweekend.blogspot.com
. |
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old newbie
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 5:36 pm Post subject: |
#55 |
Rodger your other option( instead of anti-paragliding posts on hang forums) would be to get out and fly or how about a flight report?. I know it is wet and raining but Southern California is a just a one day drive. I have had great flights the last few weeks here in the NW but think it may be time to finish my chores and head south for a couple weeks since work is slow.
Steve Forslund
| Rodger wrote: |
Rick Masters is a courageous individual who has taken much criticism from a paragliding culture which lives in total denial about the airworthiness of their craft. Use whatever techniques you wish to rationalize your defense of PGing; the facts are that, in PGing, it is much too common that the limitations of THE CRAFT ITSELF are the cause of an excessive number of injuries and fatalities. ie blowbacks, collapses, etc. It's a deadly sport, whose abysmal safety record may ultimately take hang gliding down with it.
For PG reports cut-and-pasted from the media, without judgement, see:
Paragliding News from the Worldwide Media
http://streetrodinaweekend.blogspot.com
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dave hopkins
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 6:31 pm Post subject: |
#56 |
A few yrs back there where 50 pg fatalities in europe. They said it was a much more turbulent yr then usual. I think the HG deaths were about 5 that same yr. but that didn't surprise me.
Dave |
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old newbie
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 7:13 pm Post subject: |
#57 |
That was one of the hottest summers on record in Europe, I think 2004? One description I heard was it was often more like flying in the Owens then typical local conditions. I do know we have much stronger conditions in much of western USA and no doubt many pilots were not respecting conditions. It was a tragic summer.
The numbers usually don't fluctuate that wildly.
Steve |
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Manta_Dreaming
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 7:45 pm Post subject: |
#58 |
| jjcote wrote: |
| AirNut wrote: |
| If you make a guess that the average pilot flies say 100 flights per year, |
Sounds like a pretty dubious guess to me. I've never had 100 flights in a year. My average of 43 flights/year is a result of the early days when I did a whole lot of very short training hill flights, but if you look at the years after I got my H2, it's only 22 flights/year. I realize it may be different in other locales, but in these parts, I'm a pretty active pilot. |
If you do ST, I've known guys who've had 20 flights in a single day. Makes you fat and lazy compared to mountain launches, but 100-200 flights a year is doable.
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Mountains always have the right of way.
If you've never forgotten anything in your life, you don't need to do a hook-in check.
You're going to die anyway so you might as well fly. |
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jjcote
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 8:35 pm Post subject: |
#59 |
It may be doable, but it ain't average.
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WW UltraSport 147, WW Falcon2 170, PacAir Vision Mark IV 17
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Manta_Dreaming
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Joined: 03 Jan 2012
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:24 pm Post subject: |
#60 |
| jjcote wrote: |
| It may be doable, but it ain't average. |
The point is that ST will skew the average higher. For example, I average 6-8 1000+ foot altitude flights a day from ST and a third of that maybe for mountain launches.
_________________
Mountains always have the right of way.
If you've never forgotten anything in your life, you don't need to do a hook-in check.
You're going to die anyway so you might as well fly. |
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