This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
The paragliding club puts up literally dozens of paragliders simultaneously that completely block air navigation. This is especially hazardous when the ceiling is below the ridge line.
The NOTAM for glider activity doesn’t let pilots transiting the area understand the nature of the hazard presented by dozens of paraglider operating at once from the cloud base to the ground in a narrow gap in the hills. Anyone that’s not familiar with the hazard is likely to have an accident or near miss. It’s like a drone show at Oshkosh.
The club likes to claim operation under Part 91 when it’s convenient and under Part 105 when that suits their purposes.
I don’t remember paraglider operators having to obtain a private pilot certificate with a glider rating, and paragliders and conventional gliders have dissimilar operating characteristics.
Permitting club ops under Part 91 seems a stretch and definitely unsafe.
The paragliding operation more closely resembles a mass jump operation conducted by a large aircraft operator over an airfield or other drop zone, except there’s no radio calls to warn nearby fixed-wing aircraft. The density of paragliders in the gap makes it difficult to avoid them once you’re stuck in the valley under the cloud deck.
Some government agency needs to specify which set of rules paragliders have to play by. The laissez-faire FAA approach to regulating paragliders is the classic hole in the Swiss Cheese Safety Model.
Primary Problem: Ambiguous
ACN: 1913972
Simple fact; paragliders, parachutes, hot air balloons, gliders, and bicycles present a degree of hazard when mixed with at speed motorized traffic. There will be accidents and fatalities but they (or their family) can take comfort in that though unseen they should have had the right of way.
Dropped over the Manzano Mts, into the valley south of Albuquerque once into a hornets nest of hot air balloons. You try to dodge what you’re seeing rising in front of you and know you can’t see what’s rising under you. And of course their navigation and avoidance ability is non existent. And no notam, these activities are sometimes impromptu.
I can relate. I had an incident similar to this, but with flying monkeys over Kansas…
‘5 stars’ !!! love it.
Were you with Dorothy ?
Yeaaahhh….I don’t think so. Too many details missing to condemn the paragliders based on this narrative…as annoying as they can be…
Where was this activity relative to an actual (ZZZZZZ) airport? In the “traffic pattern”? Comparing this encounter to “a mass jump operation conducted by a large aircraft operator over an airfield or other drop zone…”, isn’t the same thing as “OMG, I almost had a mid-air with a fan-powered paprachute on base leg!”
Did this happen in an area where there was a G, H, U UA, etc., symbol on the sectional chart? In that case…why were you even near it? Especially when “the density of paragliders in the gap makes it difficult to avoid them once you’re stuck in the valley under the cloud deck.”
The problem this guy has is not the paragliders but being Stuck Under the Cloud Deck.
Where is this taking place?
Did anyone contact the paragliders to express your concerns? Communication is the first step to resolving any issue.
Amen to the author! Airports are funded by public grants – the purpose of which is to support infrastructure necessary to fixed wing operations. Fixed wing operators, in turn, are tasked with being the “adults in the room” by having to see and avoid all of the airborne population of other fixed wing, jumpers and paraglides who apparently have no similar obligation to see and avoid the fixed wing operators, Under those circumstances proper and clear notice should be afforded to fixed wing operations via notam and/or sectional symbols. This would alert the fixed wing pilot to the risks to safety in the airport airspace and to his asset on the ground. At the same time, it may help protect the jumping/paragliding population from harm.
A mass collection of paragliders isn’t an issue. Sounds like someone doesn’t like the paragliding operation.
Huh? Where?
Grants and monies devoted to a specific airport are rarely (if ever) strictly for fixed wing operations. That doesn’t mean that local organizations that are planning for some sort of group activity should not discuss said operation with the airport management/tower or whomever has control of the area. That discussion should absolutely take place and all anticipated operations should be discussed so that acceptable parameters are agreed to. This should take place far enough in advance so that the local aviation population can be made aware of, and comment on, whatever is being planned.