Paragliding: The Complete Guide

Introduction Paragliders are so simple and so effective that they seem almost too good to be true. Just imagine: a personal aircraft that can be kept at the bottom of a wardrobe and transported in a rucksack, yet can climb in silence for thousands of feet and carry you for hundreds of kilometres. It is a sporting pilot's dream come true. I thought that I was lucky in the 1970s when I discovered the then-new sport of hang gliding. That seemed to be aviation reduced to the minimum. Little did I know that twenty years later I would find the same thrill again with even lighter equipment in the form of the paraglider. Strictly speaking a paraglider is an aircraft which has no primary rigid structure, is capable of soaring flight and can be foot-launched from a hillside. Of course, that's not to say that you cannot tow-launch them too, if there are no hills handy. At its most basic stage, paragliding is a bit like skiing: the run is exhilarating but ends up at the bottom of the hill. However, with a little skill the energy in the wind and the sun can be exploited to extend the run almost indefinitely. It takes time and patience to leam this craft of soaring, but the rewards of moving freely in the air make every moment worthwhile.

Having introduced the comparison with skiing, I am now going to move away from it very quickly. This is because it is so easy to think of a paraglider as just another piece of sporting equipment: after all, it costs about the same as a good set of golf clubs and doesn't

Facing page: the author launching for a trial flight 7

Units of

measurement

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Aviation units are an odd and inconsistent mixture. By international aviation conventioo,heights are generally measured in feet, horizontql distances in (kilo)metres or nautical miles, and speeds in knots (nautical miles per hour) but re.cordsare given in kilometres per hour! Most of us think in miles per hour (mph) or kilometres per hour (kph), so use whatever you .are cQmf