PARAGLIDING 2024-2025

Paragliding

PARAGLIDING COURSES P1, P2, P3 is the recreational and competitive adventure sport of flying paraglider lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure.The pilot sits in a harness or lies supine in a cocoon-like ‘speed bag’ suspended below a fabric wing.

Wing shape is maintained by the suspension lines, the pressure of air entering vents in the front of the wing, and the aerodynamic forces of the air flowing over the outside.Despite not using an engine, paraglider flights can last many hours and cover many hundreds of kilometres, though flights of one to two hours and covering some tens of kilometres are more the norm. By skillful exploitation of sources of lift, the pilot may gain height, often climbing to altitudes of a few thousand metres.

Paragliding in ordinary circumstances is not especially demanding in terms of strength. It sometimes needs a Pilot to walk with equipment to and from a launch site and this occasionally requires assistance from a friend or colleague. Age is more significant in people past their fifties. This especially relates to those with artificial joints. An unexpected or heavy landing can put enormous pressure on the bones which serve as anchors for hips and knee joints. Due to increasing loss of bone density in senior pilots, there is an increased risk that during a bad landing a bone may shatter and this considerably complicates moving to an appropriate treatment centre.

Currently surgeons often rate these prosthetic joints as being suitable only for smooth, steady, work loads. But even for those with ordinary knees and hips there is often a stiffness in walking and running which has a negative effect on launching. Pilots who recognise this minor debility usually avoid strong wind launches, which may demand the pilot to move briskly towards the wing during inflation.

There are pilots still flying while in their nineties but these are exceptional and they may very well depend on specific assistance. It is important that you consult your doctor if you have any doubts about your continued flying following any serious health event. It is especially important to carry, in your flight pack, an up to date list of details relating to medications and major health issues.

In 1966, Canadian Domina Jalbert was granted a patent for a multi-cell wing type aerial device—“a wing having a flexible canopy constituting an upper skin and with a plurality of longitudinally extending ribs forming in effect a wing corresponding to an airplane wing airfoil… More particularly the invention contemplates the provision of a wing of rectangular or other shape having a canopy or top skin and a lower spaced apart bottom skin”, a governable gliding parachute with multi-cells and controls for glide.