Meeting with Paraglider Club Official

Saturday 26th April - Well I had my meeting today with the safety officer of the South East Wales Paragliding Club.

We both now have a better understanding of each others requirements and issues regarding our respective sports/hobbies and as a consequence we both will be talking to our respective groups and he will be putting a piece in his next news letter which goes out to all their

members.

I also explained that we are not members of a club as there are usually only about 6 of us regularly flying the local slopes but they may come across other fliers, either individuals or from powered flying clubs, that we have no contact with.

He was surprised however to discover that we were not required to have a full knowledge of air law. So, when he asked me the question about the law regarding a collision situation, particularly when traversing along a slope at low altitude on the slope, I couldn't answer him. I could only say that I would take evasive action, whatever I deemed the safest action to be in that particular instance and based upon my flying situation at the time, i.e. height, speed and other air traffic. But lets say that we are both below ridge level. Neither of us can turn towards the slope so the obvious answer is to turn away from the slope, but if you both do that, then you are both still in a collision situation. The correct answer, apparently is for the flier flying from left to right to carry straight on, and the flier travelling right to left to turn right.

I have now checked the BMFA Handbook and it says model flying is exempt from most clauses of the ANO (Air Navigation Order), which is what I understood.

So he now thinks that if he tells his paraglider members that we do not know air law, that will be more incentive for them to keep clear of us.

He also said that they have some tandem paragliders and that they could give us a flight so that we have a better understanding of what they do so, I guess we could also do the same with them, offering to give them control of an RC slope soarer.

So all in all it was a good and constructive meeting and in future there will be dialogue between our respective groups on the slope to determine our respective take off, landing and flying zones.