Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 1: January 2014 | Page 23

some of these trends and that pilots
are being lulled into a false sense of
security by wings that can test in the
EN B category, for example, but actually are higher performance wings
which require more skilled piloting
than a beginner-to- intermediate
might have.
2) Alain noted that 80-90% of
pilots today are leisure pilots who
“fly around their flying site, land,
have a beer with their friends, and go
home”—pilots who will most likely
never realize the full performance
capabilities of their gliders. He
questioned the trend of manufacturers’ trying to squeeze every last drop
of performance out of the lower
category gliders.
3) Alain stressed that when selecting a glider, it is just as important to
match the performance of a glider
to the skills of the pilot as the EN
rating. A higher performance glider,
regardless of rating, flies faster and
responds more quickly, and, therefore, requires faster, more precise,
inputs from the pilot to be safely
piloted. Again, he stressed that EN
ratings are conducted in controlled
conditions. An EN rating does not
comment on how a glider reacts or
performs in turbulent/active air,
nor does an EN rating indicate how
prone a glider is to collapse.
4) Alain also commented that
some of the design ideas that are
being marketed as “new” have really
been around for a while and restated
(as in #2) that many trendy performance enhancements offer little
in achievable performance for the
average pilot and in his opinion actually sacrifice user-friendliness and
comfort in flight.
5) Alain acknowledged that it is
human nature to push the envelope
of performance in any class of glider,
especially competition gliders. He

also believes that for the sport to
continue to grow and develop, this
quest for ever-greater performance is
healthy and necessary but needs to be
kept in perspective.
Shortly after the CIVL decision
that all PWC comps had to be flown
on EN-certified gliders, Alain found
he was in the position of conducting EN certification tests on a new
generation of competition gliders,
so-called “guns.” During a test flight,
the glider responded very violently,
resulting in Alain’s having to throw
his reserve over Lake Geneva. He
awoke in the hospital with a shattered shoulder blade and several
fractured vertebrae. Shortly afterwards, Alain wrote his “Open Letter:
Where We Go with Paragliding
Sport” that was widely posted and
read on Paraglidingforum.com; I
remember reading the letter when
he first posted it. I asked Alain if his
thoughts have changed during the
two years since the CIVL decision
to ban open-class gliders and his
accident.
In response, Alain, again, made
several points:
1) He still feels that decision is
destroying the EN D category of
gliders. He believes there should be
a special category for competition
gliders. He sees the EN D category
as becoming the category of competition gliders, and feels that many
manufacturers are increasingly
reluctant to produce two levels of EN
D gliders, i.e., a “real” D glider for
“regular pilots” and a competition D
glider for competition flying.
2) This reluctance to produce
two EN D gliders puts performance
pressure on the manufacturers of EN
C category gliders to try to design
and produce gliders that have EN D
performance with an EN C rating.
Of course, it’s only human nature to

want the top-performing glider in
any given category. If you’re going to
fly a C glider, you might as well fly
the highest performance C glider on
the market.
3) This rush to have the highest
performing glider in its category is
pushing its way down to the EN B
category with manufacturers feeling increasing pressure to produce
“high-end” B gliders. Alain commented that there is