Paragliders priority

[wco81]

Been traveling through Switzerland and France, near the Alps.

Every scenic mountain locale, you see paragliders, a lot of them. They apparently don't have anything like the restrictions that drones have to comply with.

They are recreational as well as professionals who give tandem rides to people.

Many of these places, I scouted out by researching restrictions and maps and seeing drones are able to fly. But paragliders are there in force and often flying where you'd want to fly.

And it appears they can take off and find updraft winds to they can glide for a long time, climb well above where they took off.

So for the most part, I just don't fly. I would assume many of them, especially the professionals, have licenses which give them permission in many of these venues. They even dedicate spaces for them to take off, including ramps.

It doesn't take far for the drone to get BVLOS, once they're over 60 meters in altitude and about 100 meters away. So you can't venture too far out without worrying about a potential accident or upsetting people by getting too close. Plus as a visitor to these countries, you might be less inclined to take chances.


Anyone else run into these situations, a scenic location and there are a half dozen to a dozen paragliders circling around where you want to fly?

 

[MARK (LI)]

Years ago I flew fixed wing and used to go out to public airport with no tower to shoot touch and go practice....so you check the wind sock, check unicom and get into the pattern ..when coming in on final a guy with an ultralight decided to take off from the grass on the right side of the runway...as he came off the ground, the wind blew him right in front of me ..I was able to land and he just took off...but it was scary

 

[dronerdave]

I fly RC fixed wing and drones off a active runway in class E airspace. We have a radio but most of us are paying more attention to our RC aircraft we fly. There have been a few close calls. Several months back we had an ultralight screaming on the radio he was wanting to land. Finally seen him on approach and quickly (a couple of us in the air at the time) vacated the runway area as he landed. Our rules are avoid manned aircraft at all cost including ditching if necessary. Just me but I'd avoid high traffic areas with manned aircraft like hang gliders, ultralights, Para-sails, or any other manned aircraft. If I'm out at a reasonable distance, even though I can see my drone, it's difficult to judge my location compared to a bunch of another aircraft zippin around in my general location.

 

[tlswift58]

Been traveling through Switzerland and France, near the Alps.

Every scenic mountain locale, you see paragliders, a lot of them. They apparently don't have anything like the restrictions that drones have to comply with.

They are recreational as well as professionals who give tandem rides to people.

Many of these places, I scouted out by researching restrictions and maps and seeing drones are able to fly. But paragliders are there in force and often flying where you'd want to fly.

And it appears they can take off and find updraft winds to they can glide for a long time, climb well above where they took off.

So for the most part, I just don't fly. I would assume many of them, especially the professionals, have licenses which give them permission in many of these venues. They even dedicate spaces for them to take off, including ramps.

It doesn't take far for the drone to get BVLOS, once they're over 60 meters in altitude and about 100 meters away. So you can't venture too far out without worrying about a potential accident or upsetting people by getting too close. Plus as a visitor to these countries, you might be less inclined to take chances.


Anyone else run into these situations, a scenic location and there are a half dozen to a dozen paragliders circling around where you want to fly?

Keeping a fair distance should help make any incident far less likely to happen. If I was videoing the gliders, my Air2 with zoom to about 2x would keep me far enough out to make needed avoidance maneuvers and also get quality video of the gliders.

I have flown over a hang glider training spot in the OBX, NC; but they are way under 75 feet on take-off (off the sand dune top) and go lower on descent - so staying about 100 ft or higher - I'm safe and they are safe as well.

Watching how the paragliders fly BEFORE taking off should help you determine a safe space to fly - yet thermals do happen and who knows how the glider will react. Would not be in Cine mode for sure - more like Normal or even possibly Sport to make a quick evasive maneuver should it be necessary.

 

[chatty]

I am a paraglider pilot and I also fly drones (soon to be 107). The licensing for paragliders is similar worldwide and ratings are usually for where they launch and land, for what it's worth I am P4 rated and an observer. The equipment is for want of better words 'string and cloth' though they are pretty strong but trust me, no paraglider pilot wants to see a drone anywhere near them. In the US we fly under FAA part 103, the rest of the world has similar rules. We are trained to recover from wing stalls, tucks and asymmetric collapses etc that require plenty of space. A drone may interfere with any of these recovery maneuvers. Also when thermaling we need to be able to turn into the thermal to gain altitude and these are the moments when wing issues often occur. My advice, stay at least 1000' from a paraglider laterally and 500' vertically. I have gained over 2000' in 1 minute in a thermal and lost 4000' in a minute in a spiral dive. The pilot will very likely be filming you from their go pro. They carry GPS, varios and altimeters and can easily mark waypoints so are good evidence collectors. Also we have to know all the same chart reading, airport and weather information part 107 pilots do (which makes 107 a little easier for paraglider pilots)
If one crashes and the pilot has an injury while you were close, especially in the US or EU expect to spend some time contemplating your mistake at your government's pleasure :-(

 

[chatty]

> They apparently don't have anything like the restrictions that drones have to comply with.
They are manned aircraft. They are never beyond visual line of sight. They actually have right of way in a lot of circumstances (think power vs sail for water) and can travel a long way when thermalling. Unstable days can easily get you 30 miles from launch. All that being said they still have common-sense rules like not flying over people & large gatherings like stadiums, no flying into clouds, minimum visibility etc. Literally everything that gets airborne has some kind of restriction. Unlike the millions of drones however, there are not that many paragliders. I'd guestimate less than 5K in the air worldwide at any point in time. The pilot has a much greater risk to themselves than any drone pilot so has a much greater interest in safety.

 

[wco81]

I meant by fewer restrictions that they seem to be able to go to places where there are CTR zones or NFZ for drones.

It would be much easier to keep a distance from them if they didn't rise, especially from these mountain venues which have the views everyone wants to see and record.

In Chamonix, France, I saw paragliders doing summersaults so their movements are hard to predict, with thermals and some of the gliders doing tricks.

In another venue, I walked up and there was a space dedicated for paraglider launches. So I walked as far away from the as I could. The whole thing has places to view a big lake below, cities along the lake and mountain ranges on the other side of the lake.

But even as far away as I could get from the paraglider launch area, you would see paragliders flying horizontally or even above all these viewing platforms.

As it turned out, there were some people taking pictures there for a wedding and one of them had a drone and was hovering over people to take pictures. They were in a part of the platform where a lot of people were and they were marked in the French map as NFZ.

To be fair, he didn't fly out beyond the platform, out where the paragliders were. I guess he was mainly going to take overhead shots and videos of the wedding party poses.

 

[chatty]

Chamonix is a bit of an exception. It is a world-renowned haven for paragliders as is the coupe icare (which is also amazing). The summersaults you mentioned are actually acro pilots. This is way beyond what I can do and is very advanced. They usually do it over a lake just in case they get 'shrink wrapped' (use your imagination). To be fair a lot of no-fly zones for drones are self-inflicted by pilots that are simply unaware of the rules. Paragliders do have to adhere to airspace rules and I have personally had to communicate with a tower as I flew through a regional airport's airspace. Other examples are things like national parks. Paragliders can fly over them, but they sure cannot launch from them (with some exceptions) and if you land in one, it had better be an emergency. Powered paragliders (PPGs) are kind of in-between. These are paragliders, with an engine, that you can launch from practically anywhere and stay airborne for hours. Unlike unpowered paragliders that are typically restricted by where they can launch PPGs do not have that problem so can run into the same issues as drone pilots through lack of training (you do not actually need a license to fly a PG or PPG in the US ) and simply being unaware.
The cool thing is all forms of aviation can learn from each other. I love to give stories of the things I've seen while flying 4000' above (prop) powered aircraft in the owens while passing tiny cars on the freeway below because I'm in a stream of air doing 75 and flying with the wind! Glider pilots have intimate knowledge of local meteorology and how the air move and reacts;, they have to Next time strike up a conversation with someone unpacking and preparing to launch, trust me they will love to talk and share what they know. They will let you know about their fears of drones and possibly (if they are very experienced) let you fly in formation with them.

 

[irpnetgb]

I live fairly close to a local small airport that has flying lessons. I'm well outside the NFZ, but some days when I want to fly my quad, I'm unable because these single plane engines just keep doing circles all day.
I once got caught out by a "microlight" who I could barely hear initially. I landed immediately and just waited until he left the area.
It sucks, but it's peoples lives at stake. I get that.
There'll be other days when we can fly without interruption!
Fly safe!!

 

[walrus]

Then there's this..

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[FASTFJR]

Then there's this..

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LOL
Little different when they are filming a commercial shoot