Wake turbulence descends about 1000 feet from where it was generated so the other helicopter that was higher could also still be a threat. Just wanted to add this for others to see and learn. Thanks for sharing! As a new student pilot and long time paraglider, I'll learn from this and hopefully others will too.
You were lucky, you had no rocks bellow. Sounds like bamboo dampened your fall. Helis can make unbelievable vortices that can disturb laminar flow for a distace and you can certainly feel the effect of it mainly on a downwind side.
This confirms my suspicions I had about Mixers (we call Helicopter Mixers in our PG Community in Switzerland): they leave back heavily sturred air for a long time - once I was soaring on a Hill in Valleywind and a Mixer past below me - 10 minutes Later the dirty air hit me hard and I couldn't believe how long it took until it hit me - as he past b, me only like 100m below me...
I feel you the moment scared you a lot. The time you were thinking the rotor already passed was exactly what I felt. It reaches you much later than you think. (In mathematics calculation, it should be correct though)
Few years ago I landed on the airport +/- minutes after the small Cesna. In this day there was nearly no wind, 3m abouve the grou turbulence hit me so strong. I felt somobody cutted my lines off... Hope you are OK.
I work for the french Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety and I wonder if you could send me the camera model used to capture this video? You should be able to get this information in the metadata of the original video. Thank you in advance.
@@japacro thank you very much. Do you know which mode was used (Superview, Wide, Medium or Narrow) ? And what is the helicopter model that smashed you ? Thank you in advance
Helicopters are wretched. They constantly fly right by/over me on my ppg and they KNOW I'm there. Oh well, I wont make much mess when I go splat. Thanks for the vid!
Yeah from the video it looks like a "third" helicopter sound nearby, maybe behind on the left, otherwise it can be impossible that the turbulence caused by the second helicopter - too much time between.
The sound of the helicopter is muffled when flying in your glider but when stationary (in bamboo) the sound travels down wind the exact sound is from the rescue chopper that is well above the water no 3rd chopper involved. The second helicopter banked and powered away causing the wash to be projected down towards the ground at lower then normal and then carried up the hill with laminar air and hitting the pilot.
Don't underestimate how long a helicopter's propwash continues to disturb the air. This occurred after only about 40 seconds and the paraglider was below the point where the heli initiated the wash (the wash is angled downward). At an airport, helicopters are given separation larger than their weight would indicate, because their rotors produce such strong wash. There is at least one case of a fixed wing aircraft crashing with 39 seconds of separation from the helicopter that produced the wash. Continuing away from the wash, for well over a minute would have been called for here.
Thanks for your kind comment. This wing is Maverick 3 from Icaro paragliders. Luckily I got no injury at all. The wing got just a small rip on the wing tip.
