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I used to watch Anthony Vella's paramotor videos, until he crashed and sustained life-changing injuries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-jyc2OYXsI https://www

I used to watch Anthony Vella's paramotor videos, until he crashed and sustained life-changing injuries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-jyc2OYXsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-jyc2OYXsI It appears that the difference between life and death could be something as small as a barely perceptible difference in tension between two lines. That puts paramotoring in the same safety category as hang gliding and base jumping in my mind. I.e. it is far too dangerous an activity to be doing regularly.

throwup238 2y ago
That was brutal to watch and no offense meant to Anthony Vella but this wasn’t a paramotor accident, it was a Youtube vlogger accident. It shouldn’t have happened and wouldn’t have if he had been paying attention instead of filming a max speed attempt in a glider he didn’t have much previous experience with. There are better commentaries on what happened out there so I won’t rehash but quite a lot went wrong with that flight to cause that crash while the pilot wasn’t fully engaged, including pre-flight mistakes and poor judgement.
nikitaga 2y ago
> That puts paramotoring in the same safety category as hang gliding and base jumping in my mind. Base jumping is NOT in the same category as the other two. It is riskier by one or two (or more) orders of magnitude, depending on how you count. > I.e. it is far too dangerous an activity to be doing regularly. That is not how risk works in paramotoring / paragliding / hang gliding. Doing it regularly means you're more "current" – less likely to make bad decisions, due to regularly exercising pilot skills. This more than offsets the increased risk from increased number of flights. Paramotoring, like paragliding and hang gliding, can be extremely safe – with proper skills, weather conditions, and equipment. Accidents usually happen when people decide to go beyond safe conditions, e.g. fly in too thermic / too windy conditions. Something to keep in mind is that paramotors are the easiest way to fly. And the easiest option always attracts the kind of people who look to expend the minimum amount of effort to get what they want. This attitude, predictably, results in more accidents – for this particular subgroup, not for all paramotor pilots. In these sports, the pilots rely on their self discipline to stay safe. This is the real reason why these sports can never go mainstream – the actual skills are easy to learn, but the discipline is not.
dghlsakjg 2y ago
As a paraglider: Paramotoring is definitely as dangerous as any other form of free flight, more dangerous the way it is done on a lot of youtube videos. Paramotors frequently fly in less turbulent conditions, but they seem to love flying low (for youtube anyway). This means there is no chance of recovery in the event of a collapsed wing, and there is no chance of throwing a reserve. I would say that base jumping is even more dangerous than it all by virtue of the fact that most paragliders "last chance, everything else has completely failed, emergency option" is basically what base jumpers are doing on purpose. That said. All these sports are very dangerous. People die doing all of them. Edit: just went and watched the Anthony Vella incident. I'm not a paramotor pilot, but the end result there was very predictable as a paraglider pilot. He was trying to see how fast he could go, and doing it at a low altitude (close to the one thing that can hurt you. The ground). He had intentionally lowered his angle of attack for maximum speed using the speedbar/trim, it sounds like he then slightly eased on the throttle, which would have swung him back relative to the wing, lowering the angle of attack further. If your angle of attack is too low, your wing WILL collapse. His wing collapses. His wing had almost completely recovered, but it happened to recover in a nose down attitude, where it flew him directly into the ground. If he had been at a safe altitude would have been completely fine, minus a sprained sphincter.

throwup238 2y ago

That was brutal to watch and no offense meant to Anthony Vella but this wasn’t a paramotor accident, it was a Youtube vlogger accident. It shouldn’t have happened and wouldn’t have if he had been paying attention instead of filming a max speed attempt in a glider he didn’t have much previous experience with. There are better commentaries on what happened out there so I won’t rehash but quite a lot went wrong with that flight to cause that crash while the pilot wasn’t fully engaged, including pre-flight mistakes and poor judgement.

nikitaga 2y ago

> That puts paramotoring in the same safety category as hang gliding and base jumping in my mind. Base jumping is NOT in the same category as the other two. It is riskier by one or two (or more) orders of magnitude, depending on how you count. > I.e. it is far too dangerous an activity to be doing regularly. That is not how risk works in paramotoring / paragliding / hang gliding. Doing it regularly means you're more "current" – less likely to make bad decisions, due to regularly exercising pilot skills. This more than offsets the increased risk from increased number of flights. Paramotoring, like paragliding and hang gliding, can be extremely safe – with proper skills, weather conditions, and equipment. Accidents usually happen when people decide to go beyond safe conditions, e.g. fly in too thermic / too windy conditions. Something to keep in mind is that paramotors are the easiest way to fly. And the easiest option always attracts the kind of people who look to expend the minimum amount of effort to get what they want. This attitude, predictably, results in more accidents – for this particular subgroup, not for all paramotor pilots. In these sports, the pilots rely on their self discipline to stay safe. This is the real reason why these sports can never go mainstream – the actual skills are easy to learn, but the discipline is not.

dghlsakjg 2y ago

As a paraglider: Paramotoring is definitely as dangerous as any other form of free flight, more dangerous the way it is done on a lot of youtube videos. Paramotors frequently fly in less turbulent conditions, but they seem to love flying low (for youtube anyway). This means there is no chance of recovery in the event of a collapsed wing, and there is no chance of throwing a reserve. I would say that base jumping is even more dangerous than it all by virtue of the fact that most paragliders "last chance, everything else has completely failed, emergency option" is basically what base jumpers are doing on purpose. That said. All these sports are very dangerous. People die doing all of them. Edit: just went and watched the Anthony Vella incident. I'm not a paramotor pilot, but the end result there was very predictable as a paraglider pilot. He was trying to see how fast he could go, and doing it at a low altitude (close to the one thing that can hurt you. The ground). He had intentionally lowered his angle of attack for maximum speed using the speedbar/trim, it sounds like he then slightly eased on the throttle, which would have swung him back relative to the wing, lowering the angle of attack further. If your angle of attack is too low, your wing WILL collapse. His wing collapses. His wing had almost completely recovered, but it happened to recover in a nose down attitude, where it flew him directly into the ground. If he had been at a safe altitude would have been completely fine, minus a sprained sphincter.