Many individuals are reluctant to hang-glide because they think it is scary and inherently risky. It takes a lot of guts and practice to overcome your fear of flying. However, with the proper treatment, it is achievable.
The fear of becoming overwhelmed with anxiety during the trip is common for more than 90% of flying phobics. A flying phobia is rather prevalent, yet nearly 20% of the population claims it interferes with people’s jobs and social lives.
Most people who are scared to try hang gliding often fear flying. They are primarily afraid of things going wrong, and that uncertainty causes them to miss life-changing activities like hang gliding.
Although hang gliding remains a dangerous activity, it is substantially safer today than a few generations earlier. You can fly a hang-glider with a large margin of safety, and most pilots do so.
Here are some things to think about if you want to conquer your hang gliding fear:
- Identify the triggers that spark you off
- Research more on gliding before taking off
- Be prepared for your anxiety
- Distinguish between danger and terror
- Understand that anxiety can play tricks on you
- You can smooth over anything that bumps in the flight
- It would help if you valued each flight
Determine what scares you and how your anxiety response is triggered. Your goal should be to figure out what triggers your fear so you can manage it while your anxiety levels are low. It’s easier to turn it off if you know what triggers you.
Anxiety feeds on ignorance and provides catastrophic “what if” scenarios. However, facts soon limit your “what ifs” as you gain knowledge. Familiarize yourself with the facts. They will not make your anxiety disappear, but they will assist you in managing it.
Anticipatory anxiety is the feeling we get when we’re about to face a fear. It’s usually a lot bigger than what you’re experiencing. Although it is often the most acute anxiety you will feel during your travel. It is not a reliable indicator of how you might feel during the flight.
It might be difficult to distinguish between worry and danger since your body reacts similarly to both. Tell yourself that worry makes you more prone to have terrifying ideas and that feeling nervous does not mean you are in danger. Even if you’re experiencing severe anxiety, you’re protected.
Anxiety deceives the mind. Stress might make you believe you are in danger when you are entirely safe. In these situations, your gut instinct will always urge you to avoid it, but you’ll only be reinforcing your fear if you listen to it.
You can defeat anxiety. Fight the want to do what your concern asks you to do, but accept the suffering anxiety brings. As a general rule, ignore what your anxious feelings prompt you to do.
Learn about gliders and how manufacturers make them help understand the glider better. Understanding the glider can help you withstand turbulence to reduce worry when turbulence strikes. Instead of worrying about when the turbulence will cease or how bad it will get, concentrate on managing your anxiety. Remind yourself that you’re in good hands.
The active factor in conquering your phobia is exposure. Every flight allows you to make the next one go more smoothly. Your goal is to retrain your brain to be less sensitive to the triggers that cause you to react.
What can go wrong in hang gliding?
Pilots are suspended from the glider by a customized prone harness and control the glider by shifting their weight concerning the control bar in hang gliding.
Flying a hang glider is more challenging to master and strenuous than flying a paraglider, yet hang gliders can reach significantly higher speeds, have better gliding efficiency, and fly in stronger winds.
Hang gliding is a risky sport, and there are a variety of factors that might cause hang gliding flights to fail, resulting in injury or even death. Inadequate training and inappropriate usage of technical equipment, as well as weather misjudgment, are examples.
One contributing factor in hang gliding accidents in various studies is gusty or severe wind. Because the goal of the activity is to stay in the air in rising air, it’s customary to launch amid thermal activity.
Ground-level thermals can appear as gusts, modifying the wind’s intensity and direction laterally and vertically. Because hang gliders typically land around 15 mph, a shift in wind speed of roughly ten mph may be enough to cause their flight to become unstable.
In every given weather condition, pilot competence plays a significant role in safety, and professional pilots have far larger margins of safety. On the other hand, skilled pilots typically dominate that margin by taking higher risks, such as gliding in poor weather or using uncertified equipment, resulting in accidents.
This is likely why inexperienced hang-glider pilots are more likely to incur nonfatal injuries, whereas pilots with over 200 flights have a greater rate of fatal events.
Although equipment failures were rarely documented as a cause of mishaps and generally did not result in significant events, preliminary equipment inspection or flight planning could result in tragic circumstances. In certain studies, alcohol and drugs contribute to situations that result in injuries or deaths.
The most common injuries as a result of landing problems, notably uncontrolled landings after stalling and landings on the cold ground, according to the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (USHPA).
Uncontrolled contact with the ground when maneuvering to land can create incidents during the landing phase. This is particularly true of newer high-performance gliders, which tend to accelerate swiftly and acquire significant sink rates quickly during uncoordinated maneuvers.
Barriers in the landing zone might exacerbate accidents. On approach, precise piloting is critical. Even slight contact with an impediment like a tree can result in a loss of velocity and rapid yaw, pitch, and roll with inadequate height to recover.
How safe is gliding?
Gliding is a recreational and competitive air sport in which operators fly unpowered gliders or sailplanes that rely on rising air currents in the atmosphere to stay aloft. The sport is often referred to as soaring. Gliding became famous as a sport in the 1920s.
Gliding is relatively safe, given that mechanical or engine problems account for 15% of all aircraft crashes. This is due not only to the fact that it has no engine but also because its structure is pretty solid. However, like with all air sports, you should never forget that it is not without risk.
There are about 5-10 glider fatalities each year in the United States alone, with about 15,000 active glider pilots. On the other hand, driving has a death rate of roughly one in every 7,000 people. In a nutshell, gliding is three to four times riskier than driving.
A current pilot who flies roughly 100 hours every season has a 1 in 50 probability of dying in the sport during the next decade, making soaring 200 times riskier than flying on a commercial plane.
Unlike hang-gliders and paragliders, gliders feature sturdy structures surrounding the pilots and foundations to withstand landing impacts. These features protect people from becoming hurt in typically minor situations, but there are some risks.
Even though training and safety procedures are at the heart of the sport’s culture, a few tragic accidents occur each year, almost all of which are caused by pilot error. Because two pilots may choose to fly to nearly the same lift area and thus collide, there is a potential of mid-air accidents between gliders.
Pilots must follow the Rules of the Air and keep a sharp eye out for other gliders and general aviation traffic. They frequently wear parachutes as well. The FLARM warning system is used in different European countries and Australia to help gliders avoid mid-air crashes.
A ballistic emergency parachute is fitted to a few modern gliders to help stabilize the aircraft following a collision.
Is hang gliding scarier than skydiving?
Hang gliding is a risky activity that can result in minor injuries or death if done incorrectly. In terms of statistics, hang gliding is safer than Skydiving. Both actions, however, can be exceedingly deadly if you don’t perform them with the correct expertise and safety equipment.
Skydiving is scarier than hang gliding. During the free fall stage of skydiving, many people who tried it felt as if they were going to die. Everything building up to the moment of exiting the plane makes the experience terrifying. Moving towards the doorway of an airliner at 10,000 feet is anything but usual.
Skydiving is among the most incredible life experiences available. Moving towards the open door of an airliner at 10,000 feet is anything but usual. Everything building until the moment of exiting the plane makes the experience terrifying.
Ironically, once you’ve gotten off the plane, it’s complete happiness, leaving all the worries you had behind you.
However, mentally preparing yourself to run full speed off the brink of a cliff while clutching a light metal frame raises the question of whether you are doing this. Both skydiving and hang gliding provide spectacular views of the surrounding area.
The overall process is the decisive factor in which activity is better. Hang gliding requires you to start at the departure point, dash off the cliff, start your flight, and keep flying until you land.
On the other hand, Skydiving begins with a leap out of the plane, a free fall, a cruise when you pull the last chute, and finally, a landing.
Skydiving has swayed me as the ultimate gravity-defying action one must undertake before dying because of the range of altitudes, a very spectacular and heart-stopping experience.
Are glider accidents common?
In the United States, there are about 5-10 glider fatalities per year, with approximately 15,000 glider pilots, which means that you have a 1-in-2,000 chance of being killed while participating in the sport.
According to the Soaring Safety Foundation’s (SSF) 2017 Annual Accident Report, the number of glider accidents has been continuously dropping for the past ten years. Another study found that in-flight loss of control accounts for a significant number of glider accidents.
A significant gap between the glider’s flying parameters and the parameters sought by the pilots characterizes the loss of control in flight, to the point that the pilots cannot follow the glider’s targeted course.
These incidents usually happen during a low-speed flight in turbulent conditions near the high ground or during the take-off or forced landing stages. They can also occur at an airport when flying close to the ground and at low speeds.
The pilot’s workload is significant at this point, and you must follow the track to the letter. Environmental surveillance necessitates a well-organized focus of attention. These abilities, for example, need a significant level of energy from a learner during first training.
When a glider reaches a sufficient height, any loss of control is usually recoverable before colliding with the earth. Some accidents in this category occurred due to an in-flight rupture following a loss of power caused by external visual references.
Collision with a barrier or terrain is another major cause of gliding accidents. When pilots fly near ridges or high ground or lose control in flight, they may collide with high land or obstructions.
Several aspects of the environment or directly to the pilots, such as their portrayal of the scenario, technical skills, or personality, come into play.
Gliders, as previously said, are built for strength and safety behind their sleek exteriors. Gliders are harsh planes, and because they land at such low speeds, the risk of bodily injury is minimal, even on the rare occasion when you underestimate a landing so bad that it ruins the glider.
As a result, you must always strive to learn to fly sailplanes while being aware of their craft’s limitations and their unique personal flying abilities and planning your flights accordingly.
Good pilots always keep a safe landing site within gliding distance. Take a good training program, add a dash of self-discipline, and you have the recipe for safe, lifelong participation in a glorious sport.
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