This “hike and fly” video is stunning. It shows two paragliders soaring on top of an overcast in the French Alps, then descending and flying in the clouds for apparently 10 minutes before they descent below cloudbase.
How does a paraglider keep attitude and heading in IMC? Does it keep on flying if you don’t “touch the controls” ?
Would it keep heading?
Not for me. I was scared hooked up to a boat 50ft up in the air on a parasail thingy for 10 minutes. I couldn’t be doing this and letting go of straps and things. But to the question, maybe these things are somewhat aerodynamically stable and it would take a lot of consciously crazy manoeuvring to come out of a cloud upside down.
Having just hiked up an Alp the prospect of crashing back into the same Alp would be uppermost in my mind.
How does a paraglider keep attitude and heading in IMC? Does it keep on flying if you don’t “touch the controls” ?
I believe so.
Would it keep heading?
It can’t possibly. I would be seriously worried about CFIT in this situation. Possibly they used GPS.
It should be “pitch stable”, via pendular stability, but obviously won’t hold a heading (no aircraft does).
I guess they might be using a compass to keep the thing pointing the right way, and then it should fly away from the mountain from which you jumped off 
A GPS won’t give you a heading unless you have a reasonable forward speed, but maybe they are using that. However the terrain behind you could easily mask it.
A GPS won’t give you a heading unless you have a reasonable forward speed, but maybe they are using that.
Define reasonable.
My iPhone (with, say, Google Maps to navigate a walk to the next best restaurant in the random city I work in) indicates my walking direction once I made a couple of steps.
I guess it also depends on what kind of cloud you’re flying into: Link
Ewa in this case obviously lost control of her parachute, as she became unconscious, but nonetheless was able to land it safely after regaining consciousness. In the article it says another paraglider died because of the lack of oxygen and extreme cold – also didn’t crash apparently.
Define reasonable.
My iPhone (with, say, Google Maps to navigate a walk to the next best restaurant in the random city I work in) indicates my walking direction once I made a couple of steps.
That’s because the iPhone uses the built-in compass to assist with navigation, alongside the GPS. So even when you don’t have a GPS/location signal, you can always see which direction you’re heading.
As it looks in video, they spent the night on the mountain in some shelter. So they could not know how far down those clouds reach when they flew into them. How stupid can you get?
As it looks in video, they spent the night on the mountain in some shelter. So they could not know how far down those clouds reach when they flew into them. How stupid can you get?
Still less risky than free-solo climbing in the mountains, and people do that all the time. Although both climbing and flying are hobbies that could be described as applied risk management, I think pilots are the more likely bunch to label anyone taking more risks than themselves as stupid. Why is that so?
Btw. those guys could (not saying they probably did) have spoken to people in the valley to know about the cloud base.
