Photo by Tomas Sobek
Paragliding is a sort of flying with equipment like a parachute from a solid object like mountains. Wing and Harness are the main equipment and some use Variometer, Radio and GPS unit. You fix the harness to your body and the wing is attached to the harness with lines, you also have two handles for the control called Brakes. It’s like going at the top of a hill, open the wing on the ground and attaches it to the harness, get the lines and brakes in hands, run a little to bring the wing above your head into the wind and fly. It’s not that easy and you have to do a lot of practice to learn how to bring the wing above you and it has to be with a certified instructor.
There are two techniques to launch the wing, forward launch in low wind and reverse launch in higher wind, although you start flying from a base but you can gain height depending on weather condition, you have to find thermals (a column of warm air going up) or ridge lift and do the circle flying on it, the warm air will push the wing to upper height and you can stay in air for hours and cover kilometres.
Things you need to have for paragliding are Helmet, knife, Goggles, jumpsuit, gloves, compass, … and you need to have a Wind Sock on the ground where you want to land to know the wind direction, you have to go for landing in opposite direction of the wind.
Most flyers do paragliding for fun but there are some competitions like cross country, aerobatic competition and …
There is another kind of paraglider with a powered engine called Paramotor. It’s a paraglider with an Engine and propeller at the back of the harness so you can launch from the ground and gain heights easily. Another kind of Paramotor is the one with the wheels which instead of harness there is a cart and wheels with seats.
The world record of flying with a paraglider in the straight distance is 564 km and maximum height is 26,762 ft (8,157 m), the gain of height record is 14,849 ft (4,526 m).
Most popular paraglider manufacturers are: Phi, Nova, Skywalk, Papillon, Ozone, Gin Glider, Niviuk, U-Turn, Advance, Supair, Airdesign, UP, Black Hawk, Parajet, Air Conception, Kangook, PXP, Windtech
Most popular paramotor manufacturers are: Black Hawk, Parajet, Air Conception, Kangook, PXP
Photo by Cameron Kirby
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