UK Paragliding Instructor Teaching Student Bad Practices
- 4 years ago
Bad teaching practices. This is extremely concerning to anyone with reasonable experience in the sport.
* The launch is from a cropped field. This damages the farmer's livelihood
* There are only limited, potentially-dangerous landing options
* No pre-flight checks done for, or by, the student (the pilot with the camera) - the speedbar is disconnected and the risers are twisted
* The pilot is unable to get into his harness. While this isn't inherently dangerous, it does indicate that the pilot is very inexperienced
* The instructor attempts to communicate with the student at a coastal site over the noise of the sea, in addition to the usual noise of the wind. It's obvious this would be difficult. This demonstrates the lack of common sense and/or inexperience of the instructor.
* The student is unable to hear instructions, which would be very serious if he gets into trouble. The instructor attempts to shout his commands at each flyby of the student!
* The student is constantly grabbing risers, which is a very risky practice, as it reduces the feedback of the glider and thus the pilot's anticipation of collapses/deflations. On a coastal site, with laminar (non-turbulent) wind, this may not be an issue, but doing it is habit-forming, and so the student is likely to do the same at thermal sites.
* The student often releases the brakes, meaning he has absolutely no feel or control of a deflation.
* The launch is from a cropped field. This damages the farmer's livelihood
* There are only limited, potentially-dangerous landing options
* No pre-flight checks done for, or by, the student (the pilot with the camera) - the speedbar is disconnected and the risers are twisted
* The pilot is unable to get into his harness. While this isn't inherently dangerous, it does indicate that the pilot is very inexperienced
* The instructor attempts to communicate with the student at a coastal site over the noise of the sea, in addition to the usual noise of the wind. It's obvious this would be difficult. This demonstrates the lack of common sense and/or inexperience of the instructor.
* The student is unable to hear instructions, which would be very serious if he gets into trouble. The instructor attempts to shout his commands at each flyby of the student!
* The student is constantly grabbing risers, which is a very risky practice, as it reduces the feedback of the glider and thus the pilot's anticipation of collapses/deflations. On a coastal site, with laminar (non-turbulent) wind, this may not be an issue, but doing it is habit-forming, and so the student is likely to do the same at thermal sites.
* The student often releases the brakes, meaning he has absolutely no feel or control of a deflation.