My dumbest decision yet thread...

[davidreckitt]

Oaky who's willing to admit to a dumb or poor or unsafe (or all three!) decision that did or could have ended badly??

Here's mine:

Just a week ago.

Had an awesome first flight for an hour zero wind, clear, all good. My first on the Revo2.

Next flight I head to a field I have permission to fly from but not flown it yet. Arrived to find the wind coming from the wrong direction. So, decide to go into field next door (which has a full track on it) and just maybe tinker/groundhandle. This field is owned by another farmer who then turns up (to tend to livestock elsewhere)! I ask if its okay to be there and he says fine, just make sure you shut the gate...so, can I fly from here from time to time?...sure, just close the gate..

EPIC!

So, i get the wing & motor ready and have a good look round. Field is small, sloped and has a power line running through it, trees at the border on one side, high hedge on the other...no problem! I asses the power cables are a good 100 yards away, the wind is running along the hedge..it does mean a slight uphill take off but doable...in my mind anyway

On launch the wind switches slightly to my right which mean its coming over the hedge

So, an uphill launch, light cross wind over a hedge, towards a power cable with trees to my left (downhill slightly) which have a telegraph cable running along that side by the road.

To be fair, with wind head on it would have been no problem..

I launched, the wing turns to the wind..I go for it...running uphill..bloody hell this is hard work..power cable looming...commit or stop..commit or...up I go, immediate turn left and make it over the trees - I love that Revo2...

So, a deeply unimpressive excercise..I aint doing that again..too confident after the last flight. However, I have to say I now have a reference point when I come to a slightly dodgy launch field area or slightly difficult conditions..I can say to myself 'It's bad..but it aint as bad as that day..'

Anyone else like to share a poor decision or something that could of gone bad but you got away with it??

[notch]

Good you are seeing this as a dumb move, some would think after doing that that they were a bloody legend, and try it again sometime, and end up worse for wear.

My recent dumb move was taking off at a beach site. I misjudged the wind strength, and by the time I had reversed the wing overhead, there was only ~30m of space between me and the water. Now running hard, Do I abort? Do I keep going? The motor was saying go, so hard on the brakes, lifting my legs to clear the water, I inched skyward.

The difference between taking off and damaging all my gear would have been about two inches.

If it was not shallow water, or if there were waves, the results could have been much more severe.

[Fly_mow]

My dumbest descision yet was kidding myself I could afford to run and fly flex wing ( licence, training, aircraft, kit, and then running it)

The annoying thing is if I had just gone paramotor to start off with I would have about 4 years flying experience now, instead of a getting solo on flex wing then realising I had run out of money,

I did love flying the flex wings but spent a lot to get no where when I could have completely set up on paramotors and been flying.

So not really a dumb descision but one I regret a bit in terms of flying.

[Hemberg]

Well, I wish I had this on film, it would qualify in the really dumb section.

I had been flying paramotor for about 2 years when this happened.

A friend of mine who had never seen paramotoring wanted to come by and see what is was like. But he was late and it was starting to get dew on the grass. I decided to take take off as I didn't like the glider to become wet. Flew for a while and saw that he had come to the air field so I decided to land.

I landed fine and disconnected the glider and we talked for a while about everything. Then he said "man, I wonder how fast you could run with that motor pushing you on the back"

I decided to joke with him and said something like "You can run fast, I'll show you!"

I never intended to actually run with it, just letting it push me some while fast walking forward (god knows why), started it up (without any glider) and got a quite fast pace. Then for some reason I pulled full throttle, just a squeeze. The throttle got stuck! It had never done that before ever. While thinking "wtf happened with the throttle" and also looking at it, it became like running down a steep slope. I ran with huge steps for a second or two and my car came really close so stopped hard and as you can imagine I fell forward fast and landed sideways. Luckily I had the presence enough to make sure I didn't catch my fall with the arm, If I would have done that I'm sure I would have put my hand into the propeller. Instead I landed on my shoulder and the miniplane cage got crushed and I could hear the propeller hitting the ground. The motor idled now so at least it didn't break. I couldn't get up by my self since the arm was a bit in a pain. And when I got help and saw the propeller I was chocked. It had basically exploded.

Wasn't too proud over the actions I did putting everyone nearby at risk with high speed splinters flying everywhere. Also the shoulder got broken and it still isn't okay, five years later.

Anyway, I wish I had it on film, I would have put it on youtube for sure just to see how many comments of my stupidity I would have got.

I'm normally a safe pilot and doesn't take too much of a chance I would say, but since I had already landed and disconnected the gilder my mental state was at "safety off" for some reason.

Edited November 9, 2012 by Guest

[alan_k]

Oops, well done on posting an unfortunate tale.

.........but since I had already landed and disconnected the gilder my mental state was at "safety off" for some reason.

A salutary reminder to always treat rotating props with caution.

Cheers, Alan

[davidreckitt]

yeah, wow - could you not kill it? or was that stuck too - shows me how I must never ever play with the motor..they're great machines but will bite if you let them..

[Guest]

This is a great thread guys!

It's a fun way of learning from other peoples mistakes

SW

[Hemberg]

davidreckitt, absolutely I should have used the kill switch but I was caught by surprise by the throttle getting stuck and suddenly got very busy staying on my feet and the car was getting close fast so that option just didn't occur to me.

If I would have been prepared for something to go wrong I'm sure I would have acted differently. I didn't expect anything to go wrong so it took me a while to realize that I guess. And time ran out to quickly.

I think being caught by surprise of something going wrong is a important factor of accidents in paragliding. Takes longer before one is acting right and probably often something is done wrong first so the effect is even worse.

Sometimes there just isn't enough time for that, like getting a collapse at low altitude or spinning the glider by mistake.

[davidreckitt]

yes, undertsood..everytime I need to kill the motor I still have to look...I need to practice more - muscle memory and all that so i can kill as instinct without looking.