There is a saying amongst pilots: There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots. This guy doesn't need to have a good retirement plan.
I have been flying for over 20 years and still have a great respect (fear) for flying, which has ensured that I am still flying injury free. Paragliding is a safe sport as long as the rules are followed. Anyone who violates them will one day experience disaster.
Looks nice , but should definitely NOT be an example to follow. Not the best place to fly so close to the cliff for 3 good reasons : - the closer you are from the ground, the more risky is it (security reason) - this is not the area where you climb best. You should a bit more ahead of the cliff (flying reason) - the closer you are from the top of the cliff, the closer you are from rotors , all the more when the break is so strong (almost vertical cliff and almost horizontal land) (security reason) So do NOT take this video as a fly to follow !!! Beautiful views, but too dangerous.
A minor risk, experienced often enough, becomes a certainty. You need additional layers of protection for this kind of stuff. It's exciting AF but the vagaries of wind and general happenstance mean that over sufficient occasions, unrecoverable situations are certain to occur. There are no "zero-zero"-type SRS devices to cushion the kinds of impacts that will occur. Emergency chutes need hundreds of ft of altitude and the equipment materials and cushioning are wholly inadequate.
Whilst I cannot dispute that lucky chimp will indeed write Shakespeare, I do think your scale is a bit off, perhaps skewing your conclusions. As we experience more, our perspective changes leading us to achieve what we once thought impossible. I understand completely if you deem this too risky, many members of the public deem flying in general too risky, we all have our view of the world. Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment, I believe sharing our experiences and the surrounding discussion helps us all stay safe.
Those brakelines are fringed and frayed to the point of snapping. Lucky moron they didn't snap in the middle of one of those near cliff deathwish wingovers... The "accident" was caused by two factors occuring simulanously (three if you count idiocy): Just as he was coming out of a wingover close to the cliff and had low airspeed, he also got a disturbance in the wing either caused by turbulence or maybe overcompensating. Either way: That close to the cliff he had no margin for error. That means that you will hit the cliff if you make an error. He did. Sadly he got away with it without learning a lesson.
10 seconds into this video I thought 'holy shit this dude is a total cowboy'... it didn't improve. Wing-overs so close to terrain, and other really careless foolhardy choices. Bliss could quickly have become a dire situation.
Having flown hang gliders at Ringstead and watched your flamboyant flying there, im impressed with this masterclass in low soaring along the coast, pretty impressive stuff on probably a high performance unforgiven paraglider wing, any more to come?
