Is Skyport a good place for a first high flight?

[Bo Criss]

This question has been asked for a few years. Opinions differ. I truly believe Skyport/Eliminator is a highly technical site and the bailouts require some precision flying.

I witnessed the event in full yesterday from the landing zone and it was scary. The pilot's wingtip and 6 or so cells hit the palm tree top and the wing was held up by the tree, had it not the pilot would have fallen 30+ feet. He's very lucky.

First high flights are intense enough, Skyport adds a few factors. I hope schools will consider taking students to Alternator as a proving ground for first mountain flights.

Peace,

Bo

[Lew Riffle]

Bo how is the Alternator any safer? I can think of many scenarios off the alternator that would have the same result. Been there for a few of them in the past as well as you. I can say that Rattlesnake/Mission canyon is much more high profile when an accident happens and maybe that can be a rather lame reason not to have first high flights from the Skyport. One would think that it would be better to have students that are really aware of the consequence of letting their flight get into a bad situation and are evaluated for being able to do so before they ride up the hill for their first high flight. Admit there is just no 100% way of making this happen.
While it is easy to be glib about this and say that safe sex was practiced(it was a perfect tree condom) you are most certainly right that a horrible accident was just avoided. It would certainly had some major repercussions had he fallen and not hung up like he did. I'm sure that a lesson will be learned here.
Flying close to things has its repercussions....best to teach students the risk and results of doing so.

Lew Riffle

[Richard Saffold]

I'm with Bo because it is much lower profile and there are only a couple of houses between the alternator and the LZ..

So if any new pilot gets flushed the chance of him getting us more press like the "palm pilot" are very small, and for those of us who have been flying here since day one we really don't appreciate anything which endangers what we have here..

I think this is a perspective lost on most of the new paraglider pilots and some instuctors here..These were hangliding sites for decades before paragliding came along..

[Simon]

Is this as far as the discussion is going to go? Usually these topics are train wrecks. A mess for the people involved, but entertaining to watch by us bystanders.

I always assumed the most basic reason that Eagle goes to Skyport and Fly Above All goes to Alternator is so that either of those schools won't conflict. The only time I have flown with Bo is at a cross country league meet at Marshall over a year ago, and I have nothing bad to say about him or his concern for safety. He was very much on top of an incident that happened during that meet, and everything was cool in the end.

[Parma Chris]

Is this as far as the discussion is going to go? Usually these topics are train wrecks.

This is because, most people now know; this is a topic that should be discussed at a SBSA meeting, not here!