Over the last few months, the BHPA has been working with the CAA to try to educate those who fly Paramotors with no training. Together they have worked up the Paramotor Code.

PSC Safety Bulletin

May 2019 Some thoughts from my recent SIV course. And other thoughts

This was my third SIV course; I still learned loads, and discovered how much more I don’t know. Top tip: buy a cheap Chinese radio and headset (other Nationalities are available)that you won’t care too much about getting wet. Trying to listen to a radio speaker, inside a waterproof case, while the world is going nuts around you is almost impossible. The wind noise from some of the manoeuvres wipes out everything.

Wingovers. These are more complex than they look – done well they are a delight: that feeling of body and glider in perfect harmony carving accurate, graceful arcs through the sky. Done badly, they have the potential to bite hard, and are more difficult than they look. So, please take care trying them out over land or near the terrain. We’ve had members seriously hurt doing wingovers and SATs close to the hill – you need loads of clearance horizontally and vertically, to give enough time to sort thigs out if you get it wrong. This is not the place to talk about how they’re done (and I’m not the person to do that, either), but make sure you learn progressively, in the right environment, with sound guidance.

The guidance and supervision are so important. Someone trying tumbles in Olu Deniz fell into his wing and hit the water. While there will have been some drag from the trailing fabric, he must have reached a big percentage of human terminal velocity. Sadly, he did not survive. I never found out if he was under any form of instruction but given the poor entry into his manoeuvre, I doubt it – any instructor would have been screaming at him to stop after the first loop, which clearly lacked enough energy. Water does not guarantee a soft landing.

In the papers, there are reports of a paraglider pilot airlifted to hospital from Pendle last Sunday (19^th May). The Air Accident Investigation Bureau have informed the BHPA; so far the victim is unidentified, and there are conflicting reports about the severity of his (her?) injuries. Perhaps it wasn’t one of our members, but if he/she was BHPA there is a legal duty to submit an incident report. If you have any knowledge of the incident, then please complete the online report form (https://contact.bhpa.co.uk/incident.php). Every bit of data regarding flight incidents helps to build a fuller picture of the hazards we all face.

NOTAMs. Are we all checking these carefully before picking our site and/or route? https://notaminfo.com/ is easy to use and you can set your own preferences for which areas of the country and type of NOTAM you want to see displayed. If, like me, you see very few NOTAMs on the map, have a look at your local settings – mine had somehow changed to exclude the western half of the country.

CANP. Midweek flying is likely to bring you into conflict with the military, especially in training hotspots like the Dales, Lake District and Yorkshire. It’s far from perfect, as there is little scope for XC flying, but it’s easy to use and could be a life-saver. http://www.bhpa.co.uk/documents/safety/canp/

Brian

PSC Safety Bulletin

April 2019 - Supplement

An incident with potentially serious consequences in Derbyshire reminds us of the need to take extra care when there are spectators watching. On holiday weekends with loads of pilots and members of the public around, there is a real risk of serious injury.

Without going into detail, a small boy was injured by a landing paraglider and taken to hospital – fortunately it seems the line burns were not serious.

Please take care around spectators; because they see no spinning props, no hot exhaust, no hard metal tubes, it all seems a safe as a bag of washing. We know the hazards: please ensure that members of the public are not put in danger. Suggest where they could get a better view and be safer. The consequences of a serious injury to a bystander don’t bear thinking about and would be awful for all concerned.

Issued by Angus Pinkerton Chairman of the Flying & Safety Committee 1st April 2019.
All pilots, Instructors, Coaches and Safety Officers must READ, DIGEST AND TAKE ACTION on the contents of this
Notice and keep it for future reference.
If you hold a copy of the BHPA Technical Manual this notice must be inserted into it and retained until it is
withdrawn or superseded on instructions from the Chairman FSC.

When setting up the production of the Quick-Out release buttons in January 2015, about 20 release
buttons of one side were produced incorrectly. Some of these release buttons were accidentally
mounted and at least one such faulty Quick-Out carabiner was put into circulation. The error
eliminates one of the 4 security levels: To open the carabiner, it is sufficient to press only the
correct
release button instead of pressing both release buttons simultaneously.
At the final inspection, every single Quick-Out carabiner undergoes a load test of 2,000 DaN.
However, the error was not noticeable, since the stress test is also passed with only one release
button intact.
If the Quick-Out is operated in accordance with the current version of our operating instructions,
which are available for download on our homepage, the error will be noticed immediately. There it
is
described that the insert of the Quick-Out must click into place by strongly pressing it down
(without
pressing the release buttons simultaneously). A faulty release button prevents this.
We urge all Quick-Out users to check the carabiners before the next use.
We have introduced additional testing procedures for the final inspection of the Quick-Out
carabiners to reliably prevent such errors in the future.
Link to download the operating instructions: finsterwalder-charly.de/en/downloads.html
The picture on the right shows a Quick-Out carabiner with a faulty mounted release button:

Finsterwalder GmbH • Pagodenburgstr.8 • D-81247 Munich
Phone: +49 89 8116528 • Mail: office@finsterwalder-charly.de • www.finsterwalder-charly.de