Mysterious Floating Parachute Somersaulting

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: InachMarbank

originally posted by: REDMORGAN
The hang/para gliders in Albuquerque can stay up there all day. They dip, soar, spiral, and pretty much come down when and where they choose and they look just like that.

We can compare it to paragliders at Mt Diablo here.

youtu.be...

That would probably be the closest location to me where you would see paragliders. It is a 17 mile winding drive from where this was filmed. This was filmed in a mid sized city in a valley.

Perhaps just looking at the video, your explanation seems almost plausible to me... Up until the 4 minute mark of my video, when the concave side of the "parachute" is pointed down, the "parachuter" goes above the "parachute" and still doesn't fall.

And another point, I wouldn't think somebody would paraglide over a busy residential street with 3 lanes and lots of cars driving by at 50 mph. Must be one hell of a daredevil...

It’s possible to do loops in a paraglider:

www.youtube.com...

Not without losing a lot of altitude in the process

originally posted by: InachMarbank
Hello,

Just a short 4 minute video I recorded with my Android, and uploaded to Youtube, which I want to share, to see if somebody can offer any insight into what this object in the sky is which I can't seem to identify.

youtu.be...

I was hanging out under a bridge by a creek and I thought I saw a parachuter falling...

After 4 minutes of filming it became apparent this object was not falling to the ground. And it appeared to be doing somersaults.

Some people were walking by, so I put down the phone camera, to see if they were interested in the mysterious object in the clear day sky. They didn't seem to care or notice. This was over a pretty dense residential city in NorCal at the start of spring.

By this point the object appeared to move a mile or a few miles to the south. It became barely visible to my naked eye.

I thought, what the hell, why don't I go to the top of the nearest hill where I can see all the city. It was about a 7 minute hike. I got to the top of the hill and the object was no longer visible. My head then got swarmed by an unbelievable amount of tiny black flies. I had to run down the hill to avoid the flies. There were so many flies, swatting at them was feeble.

I have not been swarmed by flies upon that hilltop like that before or since.

Paraglider, they have a motor on their backs with a big fan blade. Or if they are really good they can ride the thermals for quite a while with no motor.

en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: InachMarbank

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: InachMarbank

originally posted by: REDMORGAN
The hang/para gliders in Albuquerque can stay up there all day. They dip, soar, spiral, and pretty much come down when and where they choose and they look just like that.

We can compare it to paragliders at Mt Diablo here.

youtu.be...

That would probably be the closest location to me where you would see paragliders. It is a 17 mile winding drive from where this was filmed. This was filmed in a mid sized city in a valley.

Perhaps just looking at the video, your explanation seems almost plausible to me... Up until the 4 minute mark of my video, when the concave side of the "parachute" is pointed down, the "parachuter" goes above the "parachute" and still doesn't fall.

And another point, I wouldn't think somebody would paraglide over a busy residential street with 3 lanes and lots of cars driving by at 50 mph. Must be one hell of a daredevil...

It’s possible to do loops in a paraglider:

www.youtube.com...

Not without losing a lot of altitude in the process

That’s not true. Check out this video of paragliders doing aerobatics in the Alps. Loops in a paraglider can be done almost instantaneously.

www.youtube.com...

originally posted by: InachMarbank

originally posted by: Alien Abduct

originally posted by: InachMarbank

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
a reply to: InachMarbank

The parachutist is riding heat thermals.

What is a heat thermal?

Read this

Ah... But see when a paraglider turns his or her chute sideways, the chute doesn't catch the updraft, and the paraglider starts falling. That doesn't happen here. It stays at the same altitude for 5 minutes doing spirals or loops.

That’s not true. At a 45 degree bank angle the paraglider is still catching 70% of the updraft.

If the updraft is sufficiently strong it can stay at a nearly constant altitude.

You’re not a pilot, are you?

a reply to: 1947boomer

At a 45 degree bank angle the paraglider is still catching 70% of the updraft.

Not exactly.

For any given bank angle and airspeed a wing will have a given sink rate through the air in which it is flying. The higher the bank angle at a given airspeed the greater the sink rate.

A gliding wing doesn't "catch" an updraft, it just flies in it. As long as the air in which the glider is flying is rising faster than the glider is descending through it, the glider will maintain or gain altitude.

Now, when thermalling, the idea is to stay in the thermal. Depending upon the characteristics of the thermal this may require a tight turn, or a larger radius turn. The smaller the radius of the turn, the greater the bank angle and the greater the sink rate.

If the thermal is a boomer (very strong), a glider in a very tight (and steep) turn will be able to gain altitude rapidly. If the thermal is not very strong and not very large, the pilot may be wasting time and altitude to try and stay in it. Best be looking for something better. But no two thermals are alike and they can change from moment to moment. And you can't see them!

www.ushpa.org...


Looping a glider is a different situation though, it requires high airspeed. This increases both the sink rate and drag, meaning your rate of descent is very high. But, if the rising air is doing so fast enough (really, really fast), it would be possible to maintain or gain altitude.


It's been said that teaching someone how to thermal is like teaching someone how to smell a rose.

To the OP:

To the unpracticed eye a high banked turn, when viewed from the ground, can be difficult to discern from a loop. There's no looping going on in your video.

I've been asked at times, "what's the difference is between flying a hang glider and flying a paraglider?"
"Would you rather be a dolphin or a jellyfish?"

a reply to: Phage

I would guess I was pointing the camera up around 60 degrees (assuming 90 degrees is straight up and 0 is flat). So now I think this footage is spiraling, not looping.

But I'm totally not convinced this is a paraglider. The wind gusts on 3.27.21 did not even exceed 8 mph in this area. The closest hill steep enough to paraglide from might be about 10 miles north in a straight line. And this object disappeared into the horizon traveling south in a time span of no more than 12 minutes. The wind alone could not have moved just a paraglider that far that fast.

A factoid I found about paragliding "10 mph is the threshold speed for you to stay up in your glider (If the wind drops to 8, you will descend slowly)."

www.skynomad.com...#:~:text=The%20wind%20is%20blowing%20between,velocity%20the%20air%20is%20at.

Perhaps you could say it is a paramotor?

But IF it's a paramotor it doesn't look like it's more than 2000, or 3000 feet high. And I think you would be able to hear a paramotor that close. I can hear the whoosh of cars traveling on pavement from 3000 feet away. Wouldn't a paramotor be even louder?

Also, could a spiraling paramotor hold that steady of an altitude??

a reply to: InachMarbank

And this object disappeared into the horizon traveling south in a time span of no more than 12 minutes.

In your OP you didn't say that, you said you couldn't see it anymore after looking away for a while. It is not unusual to lose track of a small object in the sky. Flying at 20 mph (typical "cruising" speed), the glider would have gone 4 miles in 12 minutes and could be difficult to spot at that distance. Or perhaps it landed.

The wind gusts on 3.27.21 did not even exceed 8 mph in this area. The closest hill steep enough to paraglide from might be about 10 miles north in a straight line.

Thermal soaring does not require any wind but the wind on the surface is not necessarily the same as the wind aloft. A distance of 10 miles is not an unusual distance for a thermal flight.
usapgxc.com...

Paragliding does not even require a hill in order to get into the sky. You just need to get high enough to find a thermal.

A factoid I found about paragliding "10 mph is the threshold speed for you to stay up in your glider (If the wind drops to 8, you will descend slowly)."

The factoid is in reference to ridge soaring. The glider you saw was not ridge soaring.

Wouldn't a paramotor be even louder?

Yes.

Also, could a spiraling paramotor hold that steady of an altitude??

Moot, but yes.

originally posted by: InachMarbank

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: InachMarbank

originally posted by: REDMORGAN
The hang/para gliders in Albuquerque can stay up there all day. They dip, soar, spiral, and pretty much come down when and where they choose and they look just like that.

We can compare it to paragliders at Mt Diablo here.

youtu.be...

That would probably be the closest location to me where you would see paragliders. It is a 17 mile winding drive from where this was filmed. This was filmed in a mid sized city in a valley.

Perhaps just looking at the video, your explanation seems almost plausible to me... Up until the 4 minute mark of my video, when the concave side of the "parachute" is pointed down, the "parachuter" goes above the "parachute" and still doesn't fall.

And another point, I wouldn't think somebody would paraglide over a busy residential street with 3 lanes and lots of cars driving by at 50 mph. Must be one hell of a daredevil...

It’s possible to do loops in a paraglider:

www.youtube.com...

Not without losing a lot of altitude in the process

Oh thats simply not true I've been caught in situations where you catch an updraft and are desperately trying to go down and cant. You can circle spin any way you like but the updraft has you so you're going back up. People have actually died from exposure being caught in an updraft it can take you up to 30000 ft or more. The worst time to use a paraglider is just before a storm. This may also explaine you being attacked by flies as well as that tends to happen also.

a reply to: dragonridr

This was not filmed before a storm.

a reply to: Phage

So it sounds like you're saying it's a motor powered paraglider (paramotor).

I cannot find any paramotor clips where a paramotor was filmed for more than 4 minutes, doing spirals, where the camera person maintained view of the paramotor by holding the camera in a mostly steady position. The clips I found of paramotors spiraling, filmed from the ground, are only a few seconds long, and the camera person is challenged to keep shot on the paramotor, and must move the camera.

In order to do film as I have, it makes me think the "paramotor" in my video is actually much further away than 2000 to 3000 feet high.

And then that makes me think, this object must actually be much larger than the typical sized paramotors you can find YouTube videos of.

When I said it disappeared into the horizon it reminded me of watching the ISS disappear into the horizon.

a reply to: InachMarbank

So it sounds like you're saying it's a motor powered paraglider (paramotor).

No.

When I said it disappeared into the horizon it reminded me of watching the ISS disappear into the horizon.

I've seen the ISS disappear over the horizon. I've seen ships disappear over the horizon. I've also seen paragliders (and hang gliders, and other aircraft) become too distant to see without disappearing over the horizon.

You said this in the OP:

By this point the object appeared to move a mile or a few miles to the south. It became barely visible to my naked eye.

Nothing about " disappearing into the horizon", and consistent with what I said about a glider becoming difficult to see because of its size. Not consistent with something much larger.


You then said this:

I thought, what the hell, why don't I go to the top of the nearest hill where I can see all the city. It was about a 7 minute hike. I got to the top of the hill and the object was no longer visible.

Which is also consistent with a glider being too distant to see (or landing), as I said.

Interesting, you changed your story after I provided an explanation of how it could easily be a paraglider (which is exactly what it appears to be in your video).

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that you're lying. But perhaps our memories can be affected by our preconceptions more than we may think. You don't think it was a paraglider but when it is pointed out that your original observations indicate that it could well be, those observations get modified, embellished. I think that you are not alone in this.

a reply to: Phage

After I started this post, I reviewed time stamps on text messages I sent to my wife about what I was seeing, and realized it was more like a 12 minute walk to the top of the hill, not 7. Other than that, I haven't changed the story.

If you can, please find another video of a paramotor or paraglider, doing spirals, filmed from the ground, where the camera person holds a steady position for more than 4 minutes. I suspect it will be impossible for you to find and share such footage...

Also, the ISS doesn't disappear OVER the horizon when viewed from the ground, like the sun setting. It disappears INTO the horizon, because the light becomes to small to see in the distance.

Here's an example. Time: Fri May 14 4:49 AM, Visible: 7 min, Max Height: 65°, Appears: 10° above NW, Disappears: 10° above ESE.

I don't think this object, which looks like a crescent moon, landed anywhere close to where I filmed it, is much larger than a typical paramotor, was much further away, can move much faster, and maneuver much more gracefully.