Paragliding

[Paul1453]

My two oldest sons and I are paraglider pilots.
I learned to fly in S. Korea in 2006.  My oldest son started shortly after I did in 2007 at the ripe old age of 12.
My second son flew his 1st solo flight at 11 years old a few years later.  Of course they are both far better pilots than I am now.

I'm an older, fat (kind of), man who likes to launch himself off the sides of mountains and boat around in nice smooth air taking in the amazing view.

My boys like to fly in rough rowdy thermal conditions that allow them to climb up to the clouds like birds in the thermals.  They then glide downwind in search of another thermal.
I'm usually relegated to the position of their retrieve driver.  They take off, and I usually get to watch them thermal up to the clouds and disappear.  Sometimes they return 2-3 hours later and land right back at the takeoff site.  Other times I get a phone call with an address or GPS location and I jump in the car and drive up to 50 miles to go pick them up.

We usually spend our spring and summer weekends in Dunlap and Whitwell TN flying our paragliders.
This last spring my oldest son Allen set a site record for paragliders down there.  He took off at Henson's Gap launch in TN and landed at the Lookout Mountian GA LZ a well known hang gliding site.
Hang gliders fly faster and glide farther than paragliders and have made that flight many times before.  Allen was the 1st and still only paraglider pilot to make that almost 50 mile flight.

Paragliding is my favorite other hobby!

[Ritchie200]

All I can say is that you guys must clank when you walk...   Way back in the early 80's during the ultralight craze I almost pulled the trigger - until the brand I was looking at (American Aerolights Eagle) started having wing fabric separation "issues" with the local distributor/owner and customer were killed in a two place trainer.  Went on to do my private ticket but still think about going low and slow in a new Quicksilver.  I don't know, chutes scare me!   Even the powered chutes look safe, but I don't think I can get past the thought of hitting the silk other than in an emergency.  I could never skydive either.  I guess its just a mental block!  Ill bet the flights are quiet and awesome!  Got any pics to share so we can live vicariously through you!?

Jim

[Paul1453]

From the good old days in Korea, videos from my Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulinTaegu/videos

Some more from Allen's channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/parapilot1453/videos

2nd son Christopher's channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/laker1453/videos

And a favorite video of mine from one of our friends who flies in the PWC Competitions:

https://vimeo.com/64935993

He's got a number of good paragliding videos on Vimeo, but that one is exceptional.

And finally the PWC's flying cameraman Philippe.  Where the best paragliders travel the world and race their flying carpets:

https://vimeo.com/user535765

[Ritchie200]

Wow, when you loose lift you come down fast!  Are the areas of lift pretty well defined where you sail?  Or does it vary considerably?  Your son was talking about hitting the turnpoint?  Also what is the handheld device with the tone?  Those close calls your son had were pretty heart stopping!  It does look like fun but I would be looking at those strings and clips and freaking out!

Jim

[Paul1453]

Wow, when you loose lift you come down fast!  Are the areas of lift pretty well defined where you sail?  Or does it vary considerably?  Your son was talking about hitting the turnpoint?  Also what is the handheld device with the tone?  Those close calls your son had were pretty heart stopping!  It does look like fun but I would be looking at those strings and clips and freaking out!

Jim

There can be areas of lift or sink sometimes in the exact same place but at a different moment in time.  It varies based on a huge number of variables that are mostly invisible.

Turnpoints are locations you must come into a defined proximity to, in the defined order, to complete the task of a competition.  See PWC videos for more competition type flying.

The beepy thing is a vario.  It gives you and audio representation of your rising or sinking in an air mass.  Beep...beep...beep... is nice.  It means you are rising slightly.
Beep.beep.beep.BEEEEEEEEEEP means you are rising quickly.  This can be as fast as 10 meters per second in very strong thermal conditions.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH means you are sinking rapidly.  +3 m/sec thermals are usually quite nice.  +5 to +6 m/sec are about my limit for strength of thermals to fly in.

Where ever there is rising air there must be sinking air nearby to fill in the vacuum left behind.  Going from +6 to -3 at the edge of a thermal can be very rough and cause your paraglider to collapse.
This is quite scary for newbies.  Your paraglider is designed to reinflate and fly again if you just put your hands up and let the wing fly at trim speed.  Continuing to pull on the brakes and not let the wing regain flying speed is the cause of most cascading collapse events.  Advanced design racing wings often need precise pilot input on the brakes to cause them to regain their flying configuration.
Beginner wings will fix themselves every time if you just put your hands up and not pull on the brakes.  Still scares the crap out of you until you have the experience and confidence in your gear to know that it will fly if you do what it needs to fly.

I rarely if ever look at the strings or wing while flying now.  You learn to go by feeling instead of looking.  It tells you everything you need to know by the feeling in your hands and on your harness.