The Rational Approach to Risk
After I took up paragliding in 1998, after 40 years of aircraft flying, casual passers-by on holiday in the mountains, discovering I spoke their language, would sometimes confront me with a bald question that could get them punched in the face under some circumstances. “Are you mad!?” they would declare. The middle-aged English, as they have become, were the worst, and knowledge of my previous flying activities did not alter their ignorant prejudice; often ramped up with; ‘With your experience I would have thought that . . .’
“How did you get here?” I might answer, “In an aeroplane?”
“Oh yes,” they would invariably reply.”
“And you were quite happy with that?”
“Of course.”
Short of explaining my belief that all satisfactory piloting requires the same fundamental understandings and judgments, especially as we are not creatures of the air, I might have settled for “I can assure you that a Concorde would be a very dangerous device in the wrong hands. It all depends on who does it.”
The paraglider is yet another device that flies and, like the aeroplane, the majority of its pilots regard it as something that just flies along, specialising in relatively horizontal flight. But, also like aeroplanes, the paraglider can manoeuvre impressively in all three axes, extending the flat earth principle to the game with Newton.
This story refers to a pendulous paraglider behaviour with wing as pivot and pilot as the moving mass. A vertical circle can be achieved, but getting there is at the opposite end of the difficulty scale to an aircraft loop. Building up and down momentum is the first step, and involves a sort of wingover cum barreling behaviour, but the required one-shot transition to the vertical plane must be correct. The penalty for hesitation or incorrect timing could put you in big trouble, confront you with the most dangerous paragliding circumstance. I’ve never done this manoeuvre myself, but I know how it works.
Judith Zweifel
Judith Zweifel is a very good pilot and wanted to do paraglider aerobatics (Acro) straight from flying school. She found that the usual attraction of flying high across the countryside for many miles did not appeal: the circling round and round needed for climbing up in a thermal made her feel ill. But she became an internationally acclaimed acro competition national champion, then retired from competition with a remaining project: to learn the Infinity Tumble, safely. But I want to retain my ‘Fly like a girl’ principle, she said. This means step by step, always safe, no risk. No pressure?
Fear of perceived danger is an important survival response for the whole animal world. It’s why all those creatures present are still here. I share Judith’s caution about confronting risk. I recommend it to all who wish to fly for a long time. I suspect that many flyers who have achieved much in the face of difficulty and challenge have made the same private journey, maybe several times.
Judith’s film is the story of a quest to come to terms with a natural fear of taking that bold step across the abyss, and the success of safely continuing on the other side. I was there, and am not ashamed to admit that I am proud to be included in the credits. It is a story of the reward of courage, patience, good training, and a rational approach to risk. It’s about personal risk management. Bravery is a wonderful thing, but not quite the same.