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Picture this. You’re standing on a rounded
hilltop. A soft breeze is in your face. In front of you is a gentle, grassy
slope leading down into the valley. You step forward down the slope, letting
gravity pull you from a walk to a gentle run. Within a few steps, you
are lifted; the ground falls away beneath your feet - you’re running
on air. You’re flying.
Have you ever dreamed of flying? We don’t
mean riding in an airplane, but really flying, the way the birds fly:
gliding gently through the air with a bird’s eye view of everything
below and out to the horizon, or soaring upwards on rising thermal currents,
banking and turning to follow the lifting air. Maybe you’ve even
been aware that there are some people who do fly this way but thought
that you could never do it; that it was too difficult, or too dangerous.
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And maybe once that was true. But today, you can
fly, if you want to. The modern sports of hang gliding and paragliding offer
the easiest, safest access to personal, bird-like flight that has ever been
available. Hang glider pilots utilize lightweight wings made of aerospace
aluminum alloys covered with space-age polymer fabric, shifting their weight
to control speed and direction. Paraglider pilots fly suspended beneath
a ram-air inflated nylon parachute canopy, using brake toggles for control.
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Today’s advanced teaching methods, coupled with
modern flying equipment, make the learning process easy, safe, and fun.
You can get involved at any level and to whatever degree you choose, from
a single, introductory lesson to a full course of instruction leading to
solo flight and your own pilot rating. To start, you can fly from a mountain
in a tandem wing with an instructor at your side, or skim over soft sand
dunes under an instructor’s supervision, just a few feet off the ground.
If you choose to go farther, you’ll learn the finer points of controlling
your wing under the guidance of your instructor, while you also learn to
understand the winds and how they affect your flight. You’ll become
part of a community of pilots, and find that people who share a love of
flying are some of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet - people
who live life with a sense of adventure and with a passion that few experience.
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Whichever method of flying you choose, there is
a worldwide network of professional instructors and authorized Wills Wing
retailers to help you learn the proper way and get the best equipment.
See Ryan Voight's video showing instruction at Point of the Mountain, Utah
The sky is waiting
for you. Click on the other Learn
To Fly links at the upper left for more
detailed information.
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The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association
offers a fantastic video (DVD) "Discover Hang Gliding Today".
The video is filled with exciting video footage from around the
world and gives a superb introduction to the experience of hang
gliding and paragliding.
Click
here to order the DVD directly from USHPA
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