I would wonder how they could deal with cumulus granitus.
Uhm… that’s Annecy, so those are more like bumps than real mountains :-).
The same guys have done similar stuff in the Himalayas:
I don’t think you can call those bumps 
Even though it feels crazy scary, I must say it looks amazing.
Uhm… that’s Annecy, so those are more like bumps than real mountains :-). They could easily check weather down low by getting the Annecy Metars (if they were so inclined). Also when they “punched under the cloud base” therê’s actually a massive blue hole in the clouds just in front of them / above them… so I think the cloud base wasn’t that thick to begin with ^^
Still less risky than free-solo climbing in the mountains…
I don’t think that these two can be compared directly. Free solo climbing means that the climber matches the difficulty of the route he is climbing to his skills. He can train and check those skills in a safe environment. It is like accepting a croswind landing when you know you have done it before. The biggest remaining uncertainty is rockfall for the climber or the unexpected very strong gust for the croswind landing.
But gliding into clouds about which you know nothing and that might reach all the way down to the surface (provided they did not talk, as you suggest, to some trustworthy person on the ground) means gambling with your life. The outcome does not depend on your training and your skills in the least, but whether there is some clear air between the rocks or not. I don’t think that one has to be a pilot to call this kind of ”risk management” stupid 
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
