Certification Has Limits

I think the EN certification process is the best system we’ve got. A lot of work has gone into getting it to where it is, so this isn’t me criticising the certification itself. It clearly creates different classes of wings. An EN A is very different from an EN D, and the certification has made the sport safer.

Where I think the problem starts is the way we’ve interpreted it as a flying community.

We’ve taken the certification way out of context. It’s bred an accepted level of incompetence where people think the wing is "safe".

The reality is that wings can behave way outside the certification.

If you’re not a test pilot, if you’re not flying in calm air, or if the collapse isn’t exactly the same size and shape as the certification test, you’re going to get a different result. Change the kink angle, fall into the collapse, pull a little brake at the wrong moment or simply let a thermal create the collapse instead of a test pilot, and you’ll get a completely different outcome.

I can take an EN A over the lake and get EN D collapses out of it all day long. I can also take an EN D over the lake and only get EN A collapses by doing the right thing.

As pilots, we completely change the certification.

Even if we stayed perfectly still like a test pilot, the air is still different. Thermic air is different from calm air. The collapse might be bigger, smaller or a different shape. Every one of those things changes the result before we’ve even added the human factor.

The Pilot Changes the Outcome

Then you add the pilot.

If you do the right thing, you can calm the wing down. If you do the wrong thing, you can make the situation much worse.

That’s why I think it’s so important that people understand what certification is actually telling them.

An EN A wing has less energy than an EN D. It’s more pitch stable, more roll stable and generally more forgiving. It’s helping you, just like ABS brakes, airbags and modern driver-assistance systems help you in a car.

But nobody buys a car with ABS and thinks they no longer need driving lessons.

For some reason, that’s exactly how a lot of pilots think about EN A and low EN B gliders. They think the wing is safe, so they don’t need to know what to do when something goes wrong.

The old advice of put your hands up if something is going wrong has unfortunately got many people killed.

If your glider is shooting aggressively above your head, putting your hands all the way up is exactly the wrong response, and a deep input is the right thing to do. If your glider is trying to recover from the start of a spin, putting your hands up is the right thing to do and putting your hands down is exactly the wrong thing to do, the complete opposite from before! The right thing to do is the right thing to do at exactly the right time.

Understanding What EN Really Means

You have to learn that.

That’s why people are often surprised in our courses. We’ll change one small thing, like the kink angle of a collapse, and suddenly they get a completely different reaction from exactly the same wing. Then we change one parameter again, and the behaviour changes again.

It isn’t a different wing.

It’s a different situation.

That’s why I don’t think there’s such a thing as a safe paraglider. There are paragliders with characteristics that help you, and there are paragliders that demand more from the pilot, but every wing can produce situations that require the right pilot input.

The certification works. It creates different classes of wings, and it has undoubtedly made the sport safer.

The problem isn’t the certification.

The problem is that too many people misunderstand what the certification actually means.

Related reading: explore paragliding SIV training, or read what makes a good SIV course.