SAFA Skysailor Magazine

60 SKY SAILOR December-January-February | SUMMER 2025/2026 AIRS Safety Wrap-up – Summer 2025 by Iain Clarke – SAFA Safety Manager Summertime and the living is… Fill in your own word here. Mine would be ‘safely’. Getting out and about is not a solitary experience these days. My wife and I are out on the motorbike a fair bit down here; our winters are not that vicious these days. During summer though the roads are clogged with more locals and tourists doing stupid things. It can make the riding experience a less than stress-free occurrence. Similarly, the experience in the air can introduce new stresses – from crowded launches to a crowded air space. Make sure you clearly understand the rules of the air to make interactions with other pilots as safe as possible. Have you completed the online ‘SAFA HG/PG Cross-Country – Understanding Airspace’ course and applied for the endorsement? Do you understand the airspace around where you are going to fly? If your flying instrument has the capability, do you have current airspace and Site Guide layers loaded? If you don’t have that capability, make sure you check online where airspace boundaries and ‘no-landing’ zones are. Are your radios charged and you have all the channels and frequencies you will need coded in? If heading to a new site, do your research. Who is the managing club and what are the site protocols? What is the weather forecast for the day, and does it suit that site? Do you know what the hazards are for that site? Do you know who to contact for a site briefing and have you reached out to them or stored their contact details? If it’s a long drive, make sure you are well-rested before the journey, and are hydrated and fed. Remember, the decision to fly is yours. Make sure all your ducks are lined up before you reach that final decision point. Now to this issue’s reports. We’ll dive into the past first, then come to more current events. Onwards… #1762 – PG tree landing, NSW A supervised paraglider pilot was flying at Stanwell Park (NSW). They found themselves flying in lee in the face of an approaching squall. Whilst attempting to push forward using their speedbar, PIC experienced a frontal collapse, which recovered, but as they were at low altitude, PIC landed in trees without injury. The wing received a hole and a broken line.