Parachutes are an apparent safety measure, but are frequently misunderstood in the sport of paragliding. It should be kept in mind that the utilization of a parachute is quite a rare event. Many experienced pilots have flown it for years, and they have never used one, but here are the reasons why it should be carried.
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| Paragliding |
The use of parachute while skydiving is obvious. If the main parachute doesn’t open, the diver has to cut himself free from the single parachute, and use the reserve parachute.
Paragliding nonetheless has its own peculiar issues. First of all, a paraglider simply takes off when the main wings open and start working perfectly. Therefore, why is an extra parachute required? The reason is the basic difference in design between parachutes and paragliders. A parachute is basically an air brake which will slow down your landing in a controlled way. Most of the parachutes help to land in an aerodynamically stalled condition.
After paragliding lessons, paragliders only fly when the airflow is laminar and without any kind of turbulence. The wings loading are much lower in a paraglider and hence the wing is not that stable aerodynamically.
Therefore, there is a requirement of reseve parachute in any kind of speed riding. Many pilots even carry two extra parachutes. This is basically because the main wing might collapse and may cause an accident. Releasing an extra parachute safely is a process known as candlesticking. As you can imagine that it might now work well, you can then use the second parachute to safely return to Earth.
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