We all understand the lure of lift, but tall clouds really suck! Learn about the physics in ua-cam.com/video/yLqHfE8A29Q/v-deo.html Thanks Ben for sharing your experience with such honesty and humility.
My friend had this happen to him in a real hard glider, he ascended to 25000 feet and went hundreds of miles before he could land. This must have been terrifying. Glad you survived.
Dude I can’t believe you’re still alive on this earth. Those people that took care of you gives me chills bc that’s just such a blessing. Happy for you brother and wish you luck on your next adventure! Cheers from East Tennessee!
Holy crap, even after all the horribleness of the storm, you came down with fucking 20m/s !!!!! Nobody talks about how lucky you are to hit a tree there and not just die from the impact.
The best of humanity on display in that family that cared for Ben, all without accepting remuneration. What an incredible story, and a good lesson for us all.
I was flying that day. I always stayed out towards the front of the clouds where I was sure I could escape if necessary. This isn't ideal since the better lift is near the mountains. Because of my position, on the way back, I could see the huge cumulus forming near launch. I was glad I'd made the more conservative decision.
you will fly for many many years that way! it's always a dance between being overconfident and underconfident, somewhere in the middle is the perfect balance where you fly beautiful lines and feel free ... with a little fizz of fear/excitement/apprehension and the music of self-belief lifting you up :-)
I was flying that day also, but did not see else than a cumulus or castelanus. At this time I was more Est. I was surprise to see so many accidents this day because of the rain.
This is probably the most respectful and informative piece I've seen on this story. Thanks for sharing this forecasting story and helping people dig deeper, through freely available teaching, to actually learn from other's mistakes.
@@ASchnacky I don't. What is being an ass to a stranger going to teach that almost dying and getting severely injured didn't? It's not helpful or productive. Kicking someone when they're down serves no purpose other than to inflate one's own ego.
Thanks to the pilot to share , very glad you survive and can enjoy life again! Thanks Greg for this very educative video, useful for all of us, let's be careful and humble! ♥
Your lucky to be alive. I did this once in a sail plane. Once. I got sucked up into a thunderstorm with absolutely no way to kill altitude. Even with full spoiler and max spiral i was climbing. Staying inside of your margins are extremely important and the difference between smart and stupid.
Funny to found my name in the video on the striking red label. Guilty as charged. It was spot on to say that we had grown accustomed to "ignoring" the warning because it hadn't materialized in the past week... I mean we knew and accepted that it could overdevelop and get nasty at any time yet decided to fly "on the edge" of what's safe until one day it actually overdeveloped to a gigantic cell after a week of epic flying under the cloud base. There were clear signs throughout the day for the slower gaggle that it might be best to land and go have a succulent lunch instead. I personally turned around almost exactly where Ben got sucked up 2 hours later because I already didn't like what was happening in the air, there was a clearing in between cumulonimbuses so I got to see what's growing above me and lastly it was too dangerous to fly any further due to strong lift and low cloud base... yet some pilots continued flying towards Dharamshala. 20 minutes later we were racing on full speed bars with other 30-50 pilots to the landing zone. It was interesting to watch pilots landing in the rain while we were already sipping masala tea oblivious to the reality that there were quite a few pilots sucked up into the clouds fighting for their live. 9 (reported) accidents in one day.
Bloody hell mate, that’s a nightmare to happen. I’m glad you made it out alive. You looked like you did ten rounds with Mike Tyson. Ref the family that helped you off the cliff and aided help to you. Can we do a gofundme so myself and others can donate to. I hope this is something we can do. Rest up buddy and please don’t stop flying.
What a beautiful family 👌🏼in all of actuality, amongst all of the bad stories on the internet and in the news, we hear of sonething like this where humans really are the best of the best. ♥
@@ohokcool thank you for catching that the thing is I didn't I think my autocorrect did this it's been bugging for a couple of days now anyways thank you Happy New Year
I remember standing in the landing field in Spain on a partially cloudy day. I was surprised to see dozens of gliders returning to land all at the same time. I asked one of the first down why and he turned to point to the moutain top, started to say, "That...", then corrected himself, "You will see shortly." Then it appeared over the moutain. No longer fluffy fair weather clouds, but a huge dark/black thunder head, a roaming single cell. Within 10 minutes the landing field was as dark as night. Hail, rain, then straight back to flying weather. Instructors congratulated everyone for getting the hint and getting down long before it hit.
Brilliant film clip with excellent storytelling and editing thanks Greg. Your knowledge and presenting skills deserve to be on mainstream media, maybe Channel 4, as well as your wonderful UA-cam channel. So pleased that Ben survived to tell the tale.
Thanks Barry, I have my own Channel 4 - my website - which is much more fun for me to deal with :-) I'm glad you enjoy the presenting, I've got a way to go yet but some rough edges make it real, yeah?
This reminds me of an old video of an FPV drone that was also sucked up into a thunderstorm, even with full down elevator it wasn't able to descend. Those updrafts are wild.
Thanks for sharing this terrible and instructive experience. Really glad Ben is still alive and I wish him many more flights and to enjoy each day of his life.
Thank you Ben and Greg for the share and insights. As a new pilot I am trying to make the right decisions early. I can appreciate the path of decisions that leads to events out of our control because I’ve made some in my flights. Looking back, talking through the poor decisions of the flight with other pilots, and being open to their insights are valuable skills to develop in the journey of becoming an old pilot. Making the right decisions early is difficult when we are striving to improve which happens more quickly as we push the limits of our skills. Ben I am grateful you survived and shared your experience. Heal and fly!
That SkewT is from the valley, not from the peaks where the cu was forecast and was moister. But you can clearly see the strong risk of epic storms on all the SkewT's shown here. In this case it was probably formed by the convergence at or above the inversion rather than the more conventional thermal driven through a weak inversion. CAPE is unfortunately not a predictor of all different types of instability that could form storms, and actually there are multiple different types of CAPE and it's important to understand the differences and which one you are using. SBCAPE (Surface-Based Convective Available Potential Energy) is a measure of instability in the troposphere. This value represents the total amount of potential energy available to a parcel of air originating at the surface and being lifted to its level of free convection (LFC). No parcel entrainment is considered. MLCAPE (Mixed Layer Convective Available Potential Energy) is a measure of instability in the troposphere. This value represents the mean potential energy conditions available to parcels of air located in the lowest 100-mb when lifted to the level of free convection (LFC). No parcel entrainment is considered. MUCAPE (Most Unstable Convective Available Potential Energy) is a measure of instability in the troposphere. This value represents the total amount of potential energy available to the most unstable parcel of air found within the lowest 300-mb of the atmosphere while being lifted to its level of free convection (LFC). No parcel entrainment is considered. SkySight shows SBCAPE which works well in thunderstorms growing out of thermals and pushing through the inversion, but MU/MLCAPE probably would have shown this specific storm possibility more clearly (but is not so reliable in flats or thermal originated storms). We might see if we can blend them all together for mountainous regions foing forwards.
Thanks Steed, don't worry it's not always like this, but if the cloud is taller than it is wide, then it's best to stay right on the edge of it ... or just avoid it altogether!
This is really sad. Please never fly when storms are predicted. They do live by breathing. God bless you sir. Learn from this, and thanks for sharing this information to spread awareness.
I’m truly sorry to hear about what happened to you, and I’m praying for your speedy recovery. I’m confident you’ll be soaring again in no time. I left Bir at the end of October. December to February can indeed be challenging times for flying in Bir.
Thank you for correcting me ben kind of looked liked you when I was watching the video. Couldn't identify it's ben. 😅 Honest mistake, couldn't wait to complete and jumped.
You need three things for a CB. Moisture, unstable air due to lapse rate, and initial lifting. When moist air is lifted it cools. As it cools it can't hold as much moisture so the humidity turns into rain. When water turns to vapor it takes a lot of heat (latent heat of vaporization). So when it goes from vapor back to water it releases that heat. Thus the heat rises in the unstable cold air. The column of warm air cools and more moisture turns to water and more heat is released, that rises again. This keeps happening until there is no more moisture to be released. That air will start to descend as the next column of moist air replaces it. As these two columns rub against each other this creates wind shear and static electricity that creates lightning. This will go until it has no energy left and can create a micro-burst where the lifted air and rain will collapse and fall like a avalanche.
One of the most stupid statements ever! Ingesting lead wont kill you either. Also substances, that cause cancer. And what about other hormoninfluencing substances in your food? They gonna drive you mad and make you fat!
Flying mountains is no joke. Stay safe out there comrades. What we do is miraculous enough without the additional risks of pushing nature. Glad you're safe!
This is such a valuable video, especially the part about the fc. Often, it's not that the forecast is wrong, but rather that we haven't understood all the clues. Thanks for sharing 👍
yeah it took me a while to puzzle it out, then I saw the large lake area upwind, and the cloudbase, and realised they'd just failed on the moisture level. I might have been tricked with the forecast too. But what you see in front of you doesn't lie.
a cautionary tale, my man you are mental I'm not flying my drone in that weather never mind about myself lol commented before I watched the whole video, I'm so glad you are ok that was wild
Hi ..sir ..always watching your videos to learn something about paragliding.. I was also flying that day n then decide fast landed but before half an hour i landed in main landing but surely weather was really bad towards palampur ..dharamshala side.. We are local here so many times its helps to take good decision..
Ben has already ordered a new wing, and is doing handstands! Super cool dude, ready to go at it again .. I suggested he might like to layer many hours of 'boring little flights' on top of that experience to get some perspective
yeah forgive me my little upsell ... there's just a lot of stuff available to study that can shortcut all these problems, so I feel kinda obligated to mention it. You're also welcome to just enjoy my films :-)
As someone more interested in weather and somehow ended up on this video, I saw sounding and it was a dead giveaway for the risk of thunderstorms because of the CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy).
I've only ever encountered cloud-suck once under my Edel Racer. Fortunately, a prolonged full stall was able to get me descending, and I had to hold it for well over 5 minutes, locking my hands into my harness to maintain the stall. I never went near a tall cumulus again.
hey, im not a paraglider pilot, i skydive though and have a bit of canopy knowledge. i might have missed the part, but why is spiraling downwards not an option? i mean, if i had uncontrolled lift and got sucked up into a cloudlayer where i had no visibility, i would grap a front riser and hook that sucker down before losing awareness of mountains and direction. what am i missing here? glad you are safe!
Have you watched the video about the lady that was sucked into a storm and spit out at like 34,000 feet? Everyone was dubious about it until the company that made the GPS/Vario confirmed her readings were accurate.
Merci du partage. Voler avec le "Dragon" doit être une drôle d'expérience. Tu t'en sors vivant, chanceux, j'espère que tu t'occuperas bien de cette famille qui t'as recueilli quand tu étais...perdu...! Merci du partage, Gratitude pour ton humilité d'homme volant. Bonjour du Sud de la France "Gourdon" 🇨🇵😉👍
Agreed. I've always thought it would be useful to have a way to drastically reduce the surface area of the paraglider, but yes, until then ... best to keep these big slow flying mattrasses in gentle air :-)
@@FlyWithGreg Hi Greg, picking up on this comment: There's been discussions of whether BASE systems for XC harnesses would be a sensible thing. Obviously as a means to save yourself in autorotation etc., but do you reckon it would have helped Ben out in this situation?
@@knuble You would have still been going up with a base rig. Cutting away and waiting to deploy until close to the ground is for extreme base athletes.
The cutaway systems are releasing the chute immediately so they wont even theoretically help. Plus they are way to expensive and require extra training. Sorry, thats a nonsense discussion. The only thing saving you is not being in that situation by fly away early enough / not flying any more when it goes boom.
It could be a very dumb question, but i still ask it: is it ok to stall the glider right when you realize you're sucked by that kind of cloud? Because you know you're in trouble, it's just about taking another chance before you possibly die...
depends on your gear, your skill level and the terrain as well as the strength of the cloud suck. There are many things one should try before stalling. It's a good question but stalling the glider needs to be controlled to be effective. There are big ears with speed, spirals, wingovers, b-stalls, asymetric collapse, which are much more common to use to go down in emergency. Stall implies a backfly which when executed well is quite good at going down but you're also going back pretty fast so need to care about terrain behind you.
Stalling the glider is not the fastest way out of the situation, as you are not sinking that much and also not getting away from the cloud suck. Its better to try to get away from the rising air somehow, either earlier on full bar or with big ears.
Hi Greg, interesting video. Hypothetically would it make sense to have some mobile weather capability like XM-WM? I realize having the complexity and perhaps the weight of gadgets takes away from the feeling of free flight, but if you want to dance with the clouds knowing where precipitation is trending, cloud tops, lightning etc might give a pilot the under-the-cloud-belly visibility of what's happening. Also should you go IFR maybe some route guidance. I'll stick to my GA activities, but every now and then wonder about how this type of flight might feel :)
This weather happens rather frequently in the high Alps where I fly. The usual suspects rescued by helicopters are flatland pilots are so happy to go up and up, but do not have the basic acro skills necessary to stay safe. From the footage here, it may have been possible to keep the glider in flyback/full stall configuration until very near the ground, while controlling back fly direction toward the valley using the guidance of a magnetic ball compass. If you can't stay comfortably in a flyback, you are flying a wing too advanced for your skill level. I have experienced GPS compass fail in thick clouds. Please learn some basic acro skills for safer flying. I recommend Pal Takat's Master Acro videos. Personally his videos saved my life many times over as the insane spring thermals regularly exceed 10m/s in the High Alps in Switzerland. Unlike in India, if you fly in Switzerland, make sure you have a very good international rescue/med/accident insurance that will cover helicopter rescues in Switzerland. Rescue alone can cost over 15,000 CHF for the helicopter rescue alone then tons more for the medics. If the accident doesn't kill you, the rescue/med bills will probably do it.
you're right, and the rescue insurance is also necessary in India, because they will not send the helicopter out unless they know it is paid for. This has delayed recent rescues up to 48 hours (for an injured pilot hanging in a tree). I agree that backfly, deep spiral dive or collapsed spiral could all drive you down if you do them early enough, then you might be able to speedbar away below the cloudsuck. But I don't think Ben had any realistic descent options once he was in the belly of the beast. It went over 20m/s! The smart move is not flying under orographic cloud on unstable days. It's just too risky when you can't see the cloud tops.
Please don't listen to this novices advice. Don't go into back fly if you go into a cloud, you only realistically get -4ms sink which is nothing. Maybe in the conditions this kid flys in that will be fine to come down, but in any real situation like Ben was in, this is completely useless. If it looks like it is over developing, just don't fly deep under dark clouds and be ready to go and land if it does look threatening. I was in India this year, and was flying that same day in that same place before the storms. I was flying out in the flats at the edge of cloud and saw many pilots thousands of metres from me up against the mountain practically in cloud without any way out if they got sucked in. This is much bigger problem than "flat lands pilots need acro". This is an endemic problem with paragliding at the moment. Too many cocky bastards like the commenter above who think they know how to fly big conditions towing the line between life and death because of their ego. Acro won't save you when your confronted with 20ms lift. We keep flying like this and paragliding will likely not exist in the future, in this safety conscious world we live in. And in all honesty I kinda see why. Every day in Bir this year at least 5 rescues were thrown and countless more accidents on launch and landing.
@@SkyBumsI agree completely that to think some acto skill will compensate for any mistake is just nonsense and there is no such evidence that supports this. There is in fact evidence that show that more experienced pilots are responsible for a significant percent incidents and beginners contribute very little to accidents statistics and these category of pilots can’t do any acro tricks and maybe not even basic stuff very well yet. It’s possible to fly very safe without having acro skills , even if it absolutely can be useful. However, for many an siv course isn’t long enough to actually come close to master stalls or even wing overs and may actually traumatize some pilots. I think it’s important to be very familiar with the stall point of your glider and have a good harness setup that make you feeling confident. Energy management is also very important, to be able to go in and out of spiral dive and manage the the glider diving. This will help avoid trouble if the glider suddenly misbehaves. But above all, to stay out of trouble
@@SkyBumsI mean it’s pretty ignorant to assume anything about your skills. I had people say the same thing to me, I raced motorcycles, only for me to be offered a full ride, multiple sponsorships, a complete team all in the span of 10 months. Meanwhile these old bastards had been riding for 30 years and had never been offered the chance to race, still dreaming about “someday” or “what if’s”. I mean he may be horrible, maybe he isn’t, calling out someone’s skill on the internet is ignorant. Fake tough guys do that shit and then wake up in the hospital saying, “What happened?!?”
I'm really paranoid about flying near big clouds, and will land pretty soon if I see clouds growing fast, even in distance. This has lead me to miss out on some pretty great flying hours, but I'd rather fly safe another day.
Wow- glad Ben made it, and this video, to show what gliders and the human body are capable of. Particularly the composition of the video recorded by Ben, and would like to see a link to his channel.
he doesn't have a channel, I asked him to record his interview just after the event, then created the rest so you could appreciate what had really happened.
I dont see him doing any altitude losing maneuvers like b stall or even big ears? Its like he didnt care about being sucked up into a thunderstorm ? If all goes wrong just hold frontal collapse and you WILL go down!. I had goosebumps just from watching the sky in the video, those are not conditions you should fly in . The weather forecast doesnt matter because you should always observe the weather while youre in the air!! If you weather app says no thunderstorm but youre in the middle of it you wouldnt believe the app would you?- he ignored all red flags. Im glad hes safe but there is so much wrong with this …
He was climbing at 3000ft/min, don't know if anything short of cutting free would work, also time of useful consciousness past 20k is not good. He was hypoxic & not thinking at all.
@ I’ve been up at 16k in a twin otter, some people feel drunk and euphoric, for me I just feel sick. I do understand decision making can be less than ideal in those situations. Can you open a paragliding reserve at terminal velocity? If you did manage to cut your main, I feel like the reserves are designed for low velocity openings
There is one think in this trifling story which is not clear... the fall back was on reserve or on glider ? it doesn't really matter .. any way it is a miracle that Bob survived in one single piece. Good lesson for us
It's not that easy especially the higher aspect the wing. You get a lot of G forces and not much sink rate and often you just end up climbing rapidly again when you stop as you're in the same place relative to the cloud. Big ears & B-line can be useful techniques. I always use anti-G Ozone drogue-chute when flying 2-liners and high aspect wings - gives you some peace of mind when you've messed up - although spiralling in cloud is super scary as you don't know what's in there with you ..
@@CornishColin what do you mean by "often you just end up climbing rapidly again when you stop as you're in the same place relative to the cloud", why would you be in the same place relative to the cloud if you spiraled down, assuming the cloud doesn't lower itself rapidly as well (idk why it would do that). and i meant something a bit different, spiraling down at the time where you're about to get pulled into the cloud, rather than when you're in the cloud already...
@@septiq3105 I mean laterally not vertically - you want to get away from the lifting areas towards the edge of the cloud where there’s often sink (also away from the mountain) - if you spiral down then you’re not moving laterally much if any. Depends on the strength of the lift, where you are in relation to the cloud/mountain and also what type of wing you have (unless you have the anti-G drogue).
We all understand the lure of lift, but tall clouds really suck! Learn about the physics in ua-cam.com/video/yLqHfE8A29Q/v-deo.html Thanks Ben for sharing your experience with such honesty and humility.
Have you done one on the weather apps you show here?
I see what you did there.
been there done that, king mountian idaho
"Better to be down here and wish you were up there, than to be up there wishing you were down here." Glad you're alive.
Haha! No doubt
My friend had this happen to him in a real hard glider, he ascended to 25000 feet and went hundreds of miles before he could land. This must have been terrifying. Glad you survived.
He must have had oxygen kit then?
Wow, talk about keep on keeping on!
Dude I can’t believe you’re still alive on this earth. Those people that took care of you gives me chills bc that’s just such a blessing. Happy for you brother and wish you luck on your next adventure! Cheers from East Tennessee!
Holy crap, even after all the horribleness of the storm, you came down with fucking 20m/s !!!!! Nobody talks about how lucky you are to hit a tree there and not just die from the impact.
It's about 44mph, and once the air got thicker he would've slowed more but regardless its going to hurt bad.
72 km/h 🤯
The best of humanity on display in that family that cared for Ben, all without accepting remuneration. What an incredible story, and a good lesson for us all.
I was flying that day. I always stayed out towards the front of the clouds where I was sure I could escape if necessary. This isn't ideal since the better lift is near the mountains. Because of my position, on the way back, I could see the huge cumulus forming near launch. I was glad I'd made the more conservative decision.
you will fly for many many years that way! it's always a dance between being overconfident and underconfident, somewhere in the middle is the perfect balance where you fly beautiful lines and feel free ... with a little fizz of fear/excitement/apprehension and the music of self-belief lifting you up :-)
I was flying that day also, but did not see else than a cumulus or castelanus. At this time I was more Est.
I was surprise to see so many accidents this day because of the rain.
@@FlyWithGreg
I'd rather follow you than that guy any time Sir!
@@FlyWithGregTrue for surfing too!
Holy shit he climed fast. How did he survive
This is probably the most respectful and informative piece I've seen on this story. Thanks for sharing this forecasting story and helping people dig deeper, through freely available teaching, to actually learn from other's mistakes.
@@ASchnacky I don't. What is being an ass to a stranger going to teach that almost dying and getting severely injured didn't? It's not helpful or productive. Kicking someone when they're down serves no purpose other than to inflate one's own ego.
Thanks to the pilot to share , very glad you survive and can enjoy life again! Thanks Greg for this very educative video, useful for all of us, let's be careful and humble! ♥
Your lucky to be alive. I did this once in a sail plane. Once. I got sucked up into a thunderstorm with absolutely no way to kill altitude. Even with full spoiler and max spiral i was climbing. Staying inside of your margins are extremely important and the difference between smart and stupid.
*you're
Funny to found my name in the video on the striking red label. Guilty as charged. It was spot on to say that we had grown accustomed to "ignoring" the warning because it hadn't materialized in the past week... I mean we knew and accepted that it could overdevelop and get nasty at any time yet decided to fly "on the edge" of what's safe until one day it actually overdeveloped to a gigantic cell after a week of epic flying under the cloud base. There were clear signs throughout the day for the slower gaggle that it might be best to land and go have a succulent lunch instead. I personally turned around almost exactly where Ben got sucked up 2 hours later because I already didn't like what was happening in the air, there was a clearing in between cumulonimbuses so I got to see what's growing above me and lastly it was too dangerous to fly any further due to strong lift and low cloud base... yet some pilots continued flying towards Dharamshala. 20 minutes later we were racing on full speed bars with other 30-50 pilots to the landing zone. It was interesting to watch pilots landing in the rain while we were already sipping masala tea oblivious to the reality that there were quite a few pilots sucked up into the clouds fighting for their live. 9 (reported) accidents in one day.
way tl;dr
@@Tokyo-go2du Work on your attention span.
It'll do wonders in the long run.
@@Tokyo-go2du cool story thanks for sharing
@@Tokyo-go2du aka: "dUrRRr i KaNt ReEd gUd"
Bloody hell mate, that’s a nightmare to happen. I’m glad you made it out alive. You looked like you did ten rounds with Mike Tyson. Ref the family that helped you off the cliff and aided help to you. Can we do a gofundme so myself and others can donate to. I hope this is something we can do. Rest up buddy and please don’t stop flying.
bro happy ur alive man this is INSANE!
The sound of the audio in the storm is inane! You don’t realize how truly thunderous and loud those forces are.
Thx so much for sharing. I’m going flying with my son in Colombia in a month and will share this story with him.
What a beautiful family 👌🏼in all of actuality, amongst all of the bad stories on the internet and in the news, we hear of sonething like this where humans really are the best of the best. ♥
I've been doing paragliding for about 6 months now and this scared the shit out of me I'm really happy you are okay thank you for posting your Video
Why did you repeat everything you said? 👀
@@ohokcool thank you for catching that the thing is I didn't I think my autocorrect did this it's been bugging for a couple of days now anyways thank you Happy New Year
@@ASchnacky I would say the same thing to you but I'm not you so I hope someone helps you ♥️♥️
@@ASchnackycall your mom, dude. you could use some parenting.
@@ASchnacky what
I remember standing in the landing field in Spain on a partially cloudy day.
I was surprised to see dozens of gliders returning to land all at the same time.
I asked one of the first down why and he turned to point to the moutain top, started to say, "That...", then corrected himself, "You will see shortly."
Then it appeared over the moutain. No longer fluffy fair weather clouds, but a huge dark/black thunder head, a roaming single cell.
Within 10 minutes the landing field was as dark as night. Hail, rain, then straight back to flying weather.
Instructors congratulated everyone for getting the hint and getting down long before it hit.
Brilliant film clip with excellent storytelling and editing thanks Greg.
Your knowledge and presenting skills deserve to be on mainstream media, maybe Channel 4, as well as your wonderful UA-cam channel.
So pleased that Ben survived to tell the tale.
Thanks Barry, I have my own Channel 4 - my website - which is much more fun for me to deal with :-) I'm glad you enjoy the presenting, I've got a way to go yet but some rough edges make it real, yeah?
This reminds me of an old video of an FPV drone that was also sucked up into a thunderstorm, even with full down elevator it wasn't able to descend. Those updrafts are wild.
Amazing how these gliders will keep flying. Thanks for sharing - glad you are safe
Incredible story man, glad you're safe. Others will learn from this and may just save lives.
I'm glad you're ok, thanks for sharing this experience!
Thanks
Thanks MarcBrai, that's very kind of you!
"There are no old bold pilots". 👍
You got so lucky!
Godspeed!
Thank you for sharing. It’s great to hear you’re in the mend.
Take care.
Thanks for sharing this terrible and instructive experience. Really glad Ben is still alive and I wish him many more flights and to enjoy each day of his life.
Thank you Ben and Greg for the share and insights. As a new pilot I am trying to make the right decisions early. I can appreciate the path of decisions that leads to events out of our control because I’ve made some in my flights. Looking back, talking through the poor decisions of the flight with other pilots, and being open to their insights are valuable skills to develop in the journey of becoming an old pilot. Making the right decisions early is difficult when we are striving to improve which happens more quickly as we push the limits of our skills. Ben I am grateful you survived and shared your experience. Heal and fly!
That SkewT is from the valley, not from the peaks where the cu was forecast and was moister. But you can clearly see the strong risk of epic storms on all the SkewT's shown here. In this case it was probably formed by the convergence at or above the inversion rather than the more conventional thermal driven through a weak inversion.
CAPE is unfortunately not a predictor of all different types of instability that could form storms, and actually there are multiple different types of CAPE and it's important to understand the differences and which one you are using.
SBCAPE (Surface-Based Convective Available Potential Energy) is a measure of instability in the troposphere. This value represents the total amount of potential energy available to a parcel of air originating at the surface and being lifted to its level of free convection (LFC). No parcel entrainment is considered.
MLCAPE (Mixed Layer Convective Available Potential Energy) is a measure of instability in the troposphere. This value represents the mean potential energy conditions available to parcels of air located in the lowest 100-mb when lifted to the level of free convection (LFC). No parcel entrainment is considered.
MUCAPE (Most Unstable Convective Available Potential Energy) is a measure of instability in the troposphere. This value represents the total amount of potential energy available to the most unstable parcel of air found within the lowest 300-mb of the atmosphere while being lifted to its level of free convection (LFC). No parcel entrainment is considered.
SkySight shows SBCAPE which works well in thunderstorms growing out of thermals and pushing through the inversion, but MU/MLCAPE probably would have shown this specific storm possibility more clearly (but is not so reliable in flats or thermal originated storms). We might see if we can blend them all together for mountainous regions foing forwards.
What is the resolution of the skewT on skysight and how do I see where the grid I am selecting extends to? Thank you for making such a good product!
@@GeorgieWorgiey It's from our full model resolution, with about 70 layers in the bottom 50,000ft - double what you have elsewhere.
Thanks Ben for sharing your experience to prevent and save lives, hope You get well soon and Saludos desde México!!
Despite our experiences, we must remain humble. Not fearful, but humble. An instructive story with a happy ending. Thanks👍🙏
get well soon ben I learned a lot from this thanks for sharing !!
Thanks Steed, don't worry it's not always like this, but if the cloud is taller than it is wide, then it's best to stay right on the edge of it ... or just avoid it altogether!
Holy Jesus I can't even imagine. That's terrifying. I couldn't do that hobby that's too intense for me. Glad you're OK
This is really sad. Please never fly when storms are predicted. They do live by breathing. God bless you sir. Learn from this, and thanks for sharing this information to spread awareness.
00:58 Ben: "Time to gtfo of here."
01:07 The storm: "No"
Thank you Ben for sharing this story! Wishing you a speedy recovery!
Wow, you had an incredibly fortunate outcome! Kudos to the family that helped you.
this man is a miracle, thanks for sharing this experience, very informative. Glad he is okay, Universe is with you man, that wasn't your time.
I’m truly sorry to hear about what happened to you, and I’m praying for your speedy recovery. I’m confident you’ll be soaring again in no time. I left Bir at the end of October. December to February can indeed be challenging times for flying in Bir.
Ben's recovering well, back at work and doing handstands! His family is very happy he came back from the heavens.
Thank you for correcting me ben kind of looked liked you when I was watching the video. Couldn't identify it's ben. 😅 Honest mistake, couldn't wait to complete and jumped.
What a harrowing experience, thank you for sharing, hope ur healing well. Merry Christmas ❤
Thanks for sharing Greg, I bet this will save a few pilots. The knee is fine again. Cheers.
Thank you for sharing. Glad you made it out safe
Glad you made it out alive. Great family that helped rescue you. Your eye still looks bad, hope that improves.
a magnitude 7.1 earthquake just happened near this area earlier… damn you lucky
You need three things for a CB. Moisture, unstable air due to lapse rate, and initial lifting. When moist air is lifted it cools. As it cools it can't hold as much moisture so the humidity turns into rain. When water turns to vapor it takes a lot of heat (latent heat of vaporization). So when it goes from vapor back to water it releases that heat. Thus the heat rises in the unstable cold air. The column of warm air cools and more moisture turns to water and more heat is released, that rises again. This keeps happening until there is no more moisture to be released. That air will start to descend as the next column of moist air replaces it. As these two columns rub against each other this creates wind shear and static electricity that creates lightning.
This will go until it has no energy left and can create a micro-burst where the lifted air and rain will collapse and fall like a avalanche.
What does not kill you, makes you stronger! Stay positive, Ben, and keep loving life.
Greg, thank you for posting Ben's story!
One of the most stupid statements ever! Ingesting lead wont kill you either. Also substances, that cause cancer. And what about other hormoninfluencing substances in your food? They gonna drive you mad and make you fat!
gfy
Thsts too heavy. So greatful your still alive ❤🙏
All the best to Ben and fly safe everyone :)
Flying mountains is no joke. Stay safe out there comrades. What we do is miraculous enough without the additional risks of pushing nature. Glad you're safe!
Wow, i didnt know mountains that can fly existed.
Wow.
The more you know.
İlk önce geçmiş olsun diyorum. Ve size çok teşekkür ediyorum. Bu tür video ile eğitime olan katkınız her zaman takdir edilecek.
Thank U for this very good RETEX, good explains about the aérologique config ! Happy that you survive Ben...
This is such a valuable video, especially the part about the fc. Often, it's not that the forecast is wrong, but rather that we haven't understood all the clues. Thanks for sharing 👍
yeah it took me a while to puzzle it out, then I saw the large lake area upwind, and the cloudbase, and realised they'd just failed on the moisture level. I might have been tricked with the forecast too. But what you see in front of you doesn't lie.
Almost 20m/s in peak!! That equates to about 4000ft/min, roughly twice the normal climb rate of a jet airliner.
And at 7000m with no oxygen mask. No wonder he blacked out.
Thanks for sharing this especially the analysis! Ive gone thrice to bir for my paragliding courses and it's a very special place
a cautionary tale, my man you are mental I'm not flying my drone in that weather never mind about myself lol
commented before I watched the whole video, I'm so glad you are ok that was wild
I would really like to see the whole recording of the flight.
I know nothing about paragliding but I am a weather enthusiast an getting sucked into a thunderstorm updraft would be terrifying.
3:36 what a beautiful heart-shaped mountain
wow crazy! blue skies indeed!
Thanks!
Always nice to wake up alive 😉 also that flight tracking software is really cool to watch.
16m/s what a nightmare
I'd love to get the full footage of this to create a 'proper' movie of it
I can't believe he woke up on the ground....alive. 😮😮😮
Hi ..sir ..always watching your videos to learn something about paragliding..
I was also flying that day n then decide fast landed but before half an hour i landed in main landing but surely weather was really bad towards palampur ..dharamshala side..
We are local here so many times its helps to take good decision..
great break down greg
I glad you're ok, Ben. Please don't stop flying
Ben has already ordered a new wing, and is doing handstands! Super cool dude, ready to go at it again .. I suggested he might like to layer many hours of 'boring little flights' on top of that experience to get some perspective
Great video! Obviously the weather course would be a wise idea.
yeah forgive me my little upsell ... there's just a lot of stuff available to study that can shortcut all these problems, so I feel kinda obligated to mention it. You're also welcome to just enjoy my films :-)
Absolutely wild
Reminds me of the story of William Rankin. So lucky to survive
As someone more interested in weather and somehow ended up on this video, I saw sounding and it was a dead giveaway for the risk of thunderstorms because of the CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy).
crazy story, i was shocked when i saw the flight record
holy shit dude! thats one hell of a story
Was this in Bir Himachal Pradesh?
I've only ever encountered cloud-suck once under my Edel Racer.
Fortunately, a prolonged full stall was able to get me descending, and I had to hold it for well over 5 minutes, locking my hands into my harness to maintain the stall. I never went near a tall cumulus again.
Great into!
Complimenti per l'analisi e la condivisione 👍
Great video, thanks for share! :D
hey, im not a paraglider pilot, i skydive though and have a bit of canopy knowledge.
i might have missed the part, but why is spiraling downwards not an option?
i mean, if i had uncontrolled lift and got sucked up into a cloudlayer where i had no visibility, i would grap a front riser and hook that sucker down before losing awareness of mountains and direction.
what am i missing here?
glad you are safe!
Have you watched the video about the lady that was sucked into a storm and spit out at like 34,000 feet? Everyone was dubious about it until the company that made the GPS/Vario confirmed her readings were accurate.
Im glad God was with you that day 🙏
Merci du partage.
Voler avec le "Dragon" doit être une drôle d'expérience.
Tu t'en sors vivant, chanceux, j'espère que tu t'occuperas bien de cette famille qui t'as recueilli quand tu étais...perdu...!
Merci du partage,
Gratitude pour ton humilité d'homme volant.
Bonjour du Sud de la France "Gourdon"
🇨🇵😉👍
When we want to be in the air but need to be on the ground. That is the issue. Glad you're on the ground.
Agreed. I've always thought it would be useful to have a way to drastically reduce the surface area of the paraglider, but yes, until then ... best to keep these big slow flying mattrasses in gentle air :-)
@@FlyWithGreg Hi Greg, picking up on this comment: There's been discussions of whether BASE systems for XC harnesses would be a sensible thing. Obviously as a means to save yourself in autorotation etc., but do you reckon it would have helped Ben out in this situation?
@@knuble You would have still been going up with a base rig. Cutting away and waiting to deploy until close to the ground is for extreme base athletes.
@@mtsurveyor Is this even possible with PG BASE rigs? All acro solutions I've seen release the reserve as soon as the main wing is gone
The cutaway systems are releasing the chute immediately so they wont even theoretically help. Plus they are way to expensive and require extra training. Sorry, thats a nonsense discussion. The only thing saving you is not being in that situation by fly away early enough / not flying any more when it goes boom.
It could be a very dumb question, but i still ask it:
is it ok to stall the glider right when you realize you're sucked by that kind of cloud? Because you know you're in trouble, it's just about taking another chance before you possibly die...
depends on your gear, your skill level and the terrain as well as the strength of the cloud suck. There are many things one should try before stalling. It's a good question but stalling the glider needs to be controlled to be effective. There are big ears with speed, spirals, wingovers, b-stalls, asymetric collapse, which are much more common to use to go down in emergency. Stall implies a backfly which when executed well is quite good at going down but you're also going back pretty fast so need to care about terrain behind you.
Stalling the glider is not the fastest way out of the situation, as you are not sinking that much and also not getting away from the cloud suck.
Its better to try to get away from the rising air somehow, either earlier on full bar or with big ears.
@linolafettatnet usually both is best :p
@@TheGrundigg Of course ;)
@@TheGrundigg I was talking about stalling the glider as an ultimate option. After big ears, spiral, etc :)
Hi Greg, interesting video. Hypothetically would it make sense to have some mobile weather capability like XM-WM? I realize having the complexity and perhaps the weight of gadgets takes away from the feeling of free flight, but if you want to dance with the clouds knowing where precipitation is trending, cloud tops, lightning etc might give a pilot the under-the-cloud-belly visibility of what's happening. Also should you go IFR maybe some route guidance. I'll stick to my GA activities, but every now and then wonder about how this type of flight might feel :)
Praise God you're alive!!
Mad!
This weather happens rather frequently in the high Alps where I fly. The usual suspects rescued by helicopters are flatland pilots are so happy to go up and up, but do not have the basic acro skills necessary to stay safe. From the footage here, it may have been possible to keep the glider in flyback/full stall configuration until very near the ground, while controlling back fly direction toward the valley using the guidance of a magnetic ball compass. If you can't stay comfortably in a flyback, you are flying a wing too advanced for your skill level. I have experienced GPS compass fail in thick clouds. Please learn some basic acro skills for safer flying. I recommend Pal Takat's Master Acro videos. Personally his videos saved my life many times over as the insane spring thermals regularly exceed 10m/s in the High Alps in Switzerland. Unlike in India, if you fly in Switzerland, make sure you have a very good international rescue/med/accident insurance that will cover helicopter rescues in Switzerland. Rescue alone can cost over 15,000 CHF for the helicopter rescue alone then tons more for the medics. If the accident doesn't kill you, the rescue/med bills will probably do it.
you're right, and the rescue insurance is also necessary in India, because they will not send the helicopter out unless they know it is paid for. This has delayed recent rescues up to 48 hours (for an injured pilot hanging in a tree). I agree that backfly, deep spiral dive or collapsed spiral could all drive you down if you do them early enough, then you might be able to speedbar away below the cloudsuck. But I don't think Ben had any realistic descent options once he was in the belly of the beast. It went over 20m/s! The smart move is not flying under orographic cloud on unstable days. It's just too risky when you can't see the cloud tops.
Please don't listen to this novices advice. Don't go into back fly if you go into a cloud, you only realistically get -4ms sink which is nothing. Maybe in the conditions this kid flys in that will be fine to come down, but in any real situation like Ben was in, this is completely useless.
If it looks like it is over developing, just don't fly deep under dark clouds and be ready to go and land if it does look threatening.
I was in India this year, and was flying that same day in that same place before the storms. I was flying out in the flats at the edge of cloud and saw many pilots thousands of metres from me up against the mountain practically in cloud without any way out if they got sucked in.
This is much bigger problem than "flat lands pilots need acro". This is an endemic problem with paragliding at the moment. Too many cocky bastards like the commenter above who think they know how to fly big conditions towing the line between life and death because of their ego. Acro won't save you when your confronted with 20ms lift.
We keep flying like this and paragliding will likely not exist in the future, in this safety conscious world we live in. And in all honesty I kinda see why. Every day in Bir this year at least 5 rescues were thrown and countless more accidents on launch and landing.
@@SkyBumsI agree completely that to think some acto skill will compensate for any mistake is just nonsense and there is no such evidence that supports this. There is in fact evidence that show that more experienced pilots are responsible for a significant percent incidents and beginners contribute very little to accidents statistics and these category of pilots can’t do any acro tricks and maybe not even basic stuff very well yet. It’s possible to fly very safe without having acro skills , even if it absolutely can be useful. However, for many an siv course isn’t long enough to actually come close to master stalls or even wing overs and may actually traumatize some pilots. I think it’s important to be very familiar with the stall point of your glider and have a good harness setup that make you feeling confident. Energy management is also very important, to be able to go in and out of spiral dive and manage the the glider diving. This will help avoid trouble if the glider suddenly misbehaves. But above all, to stay out of trouble
@@SkyBumsI mean it’s pretty ignorant to assume anything about your skills.
I had people say the same thing to me, I raced motorcycles, only for me to be offered a full ride, multiple sponsorships, a complete team all in the span of 10 months.
Meanwhile these old bastards had been riding for 30 years and had never been offered the chance to race, still dreaming about “someday” or “what if’s”.
I mean he may be horrible, maybe he isn’t, calling out someone’s skill on the internet is ignorant.
Fake tough guys do that shit and then wake up in the hospital saying, “What happened?!?”
I'm really paranoid about flying near big clouds, and will land pretty soon if I see clouds growing fast, even in distance. This has lead me to miss out on some pretty great flying hours, but I'd rather fly safe another day.
It’s better that way. This story might be cool to tell people afterwards, but that shit is genuinely traumatic.
I feel like this will happen to me when I learn to fly these things😮
much love Greg! nyc
hey it's soarable on the west side of the World Trade Centre for you today ;-)
@@FlyWithGreg that would be correct, yet, the winds are at 13/30 mph last couple days! with temps at 19* F. o u c h
Paura!!! 😱🥶
Hopefully thise video may helps for pg pilot to avoid get suck into the mighty cloud😊
One thing which is not clear is how long were you at that altitude for and did you have oxygen mask with you?
Ben seems like a great dude. And that Indian family? Peak humans they are.
Wow- glad Ben made it, and this video, to show what gliders and the human body are capable of.
Particularly the composition of the video recorded by Ben, and would like to see a link to his channel.
he doesn't have a channel, I asked him to record his interview just after the event, then created the rest so you could appreciate what had really happened.
I dont see him doing any altitude losing maneuvers like b stall or even big ears? Its like he didnt care about being sucked up into a thunderstorm ? If all goes wrong just hold frontal collapse and you WILL go down!. I had goosebumps just from watching the sky in the video, those are not conditions you should fly in . The weather forecast doesnt matter because you should always observe the weather while youre in the air!! If you weather app says no thunderstorm but youre in the middle of it you wouldnt believe the app would you?- he ignored all red flags. Im glad hes safe but there is so much wrong with this …
I’m confused by the lack of big ears or any rapid decent technique as well. Maybe he says more in the interview with Greg
If the updraft is strong enough it doesn’t matter what you do tho, not sure if that was the case here
He was climbing at 3000ft/min, don't know if anything short of cutting free would work, also time of useful consciousness past 20k is not good. He was hypoxic & not thinking at all.
@ I’ve been up at 16k in a twin otter, some people feel drunk and euphoric, for me I just feel sick. I do understand decision making can be less than ideal in those situations. Can you open a paragliding reserve at terminal velocity? If you did manage to cut your main, I feel like the reserves are designed for low velocity openings
Can we see the full uncut video
There is one think in this trifling story which is not clear... the fall back was on reserve or on glider ? it doesn't really matter .. any way it is a miracle that Bob survived in one single piece. Good lesson for us
just a genuine question, did you try to spiral to get down or not?
It's not that easy especially the higher aspect the wing. You get a lot of G forces and not much sink rate and often you just end up climbing rapidly again when you stop as you're in the same place relative to the cloud. Big ears & B-line can be useful techniques. I always use anti-G Ozone drogue-chute when flying 2-liners and high aspect wings - gives you some peace of mind when you've messed up - although spiralling in cloud is super scary as you don't know what's in there with you ..
@@CornishColin what do you mean by "often you just end up climbing rapidly again when you stop as you're in the same place relative to the cloud", why would you be in the same place relative to the cloud if you spiraled down, assuming the cloud doesn't lower itself rapidly as well (idk why it would do that). and i meant something a bit different, spiraling down at the time where you're about to get pulled into the cloud, rather than when you're in the cloud already...
@@septiq3105 I mean laterally not vertically - you want to get away from the lifting areas towards the edge of the cloud where there’s often sink (also away from the mountain) - if you spiral down then you’re not moving laterally much if any. Depends on the strength of the lift, where you are in relation to the cloud/mountain and also what type of wing you have (unless you have the anti-G drogue).
@@CornishColin i see