oriol
Well-Known Member
Hi!
The other day I had a forced landing while paragliding. Long story short, the wind went down as I took off and, since it is a ridge soaring site, no wind means no ridge soaring. I could not managed to stay up, or had enough altitude to go beyond the power lines, and land in the landing site. I barely managed to land in a narrow field, between the trees and the power lines. This makes you realize that something can happen anytime, no matter what.
For a moment the idea of landing in the trees seemed unavoidable, at least those seemed much better than the power lines. It all went pretty fast; I managed to keep calm and do as best as I possibly could. It is amazing how fast everything can go wrong. In cases like that, it is good to have some basic rules to stick to. One thing that served me from ULM training, was the rule of always fly towards an obstable at 45º, so in case you can not go over it, you can always turn and avoid crashing on it. In this case the obstacle was the power lines.
As the saying goes; "There are two kinds of pilot, those who have experienced an engine failure and those who have not, yet." Those of you who have had an engine failure, and have experienced a forced landing, what have your learned from it as pilots?
Cheers,
Oriol
The other day I had a forced landing while paragliding. Long story short, the wind went down as I took off and, since it is a ridge soaring site, no wind means no ridge soaring. I could not managed to stay up, or had enough altitude to go beyond the power lines, and land in the landing site. I barely managed to land in a narrow field, between the trees and the power lines. This makes you realize that something can happen anytime, no matter what.
For a moment the idea of landing in the trees seemed unavoidable, at least those seemed much better than the power lines. It all went pretty fast; I managed to keep calm and do as best as I possibly could. It is amazing how fast everything can go wrong. In cases like that, it is good to have some basic rules to stick to. One thing that served me from ULM training, was the rule of always fly towards an obstable at 45º, so in case you can not go over it, you can always turn and avoid crashing on it. In this case the obstacle was the power lines.
As the saying goes; "There are two kinds of pilot, those who have experienced an engine failure and those who have not, yet." Those of you who have had an engine failure, and have experienced a forced landing, what have your learned from it as pilots?
Cheers,
Oriol
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