Discovery paragliding in New Zealand

Wind, Air and Water sports in New Zealand are extremely popular.With the wind coming off the sea, we are a windy country. This lends itself to a plethora of activities reliant on good winds.Combined with our many waterways and coastline, along with the scenic delights from the air, these wind inspired adventure activities provide plenty of fun.Yachting or Sailing are major national sports. School children learn and compete in the small Optimists, and progress through the ranks to the America's Cup, and many classes of yachting. There are many sailing opportunities for tourists to New Zealand, from crewing on an old Tall Ship in the Hauraki Gulf of Auckland, to chartering a yacht and sailing the Bay of Islands or Marlborough Sounds.

Wind Surfing or Board Sailing is a sport enjoyed by many, and New Zealand has always excelled on the world stage in this competitive sport.You will usually see windsurfers in the harbours, and on lakes, taking on the waves and wind at a great speed of knots! If you are keen to try windsurfing, there are several popular tourist locations where you can hire windsurfers.Kite boarding is quite new, but is fast taking off. Inexpensive, and combining the skills, spills and joys of surfing, it is the perfect combination for those who love the sea, and tricks of surfing.Hang gliders have certain spots around the country where they love to soar above the crowds in solitude and peace, taking in the magnificent views below.

Simple machines steeredby the users feet and body, it is probably the nearest to flying like a bird anyone can get. It is actually a very old sport. The first known hang gliders originated in the 4th century in China! Tourists keen to try hang gliding can do a tandem hang glide. There are restrictions on those bringing their own.You do need a permit, and there are specific areas where you are permitted to hang glide, for safety reasons.Paragliders, like hang gliders, float above us with their wide sails making a colourful arch across the sky. Unlike hang gliders who face downwards, paragliders sit, harnessed into a seat. Tandem paragliding is one of the most popular tourist air adventure activities. Queenstown, Wanaka and Canterbury offer the most choices, but Taupo, Auckland and Nelson are also good locations to try this exciting activity.

Age is no barrier.The oldest person to paraglide celebrated her 100th birthday with a session!Paragliding is a simple version of Parasailing. Attached to a parachute, you are towed by a boat.You can experience the airborne nature of paragliding at a more comfortable height.Blokart Sailing is land yachting. Looking rather like a wind surfer with wheels, these land yachts race along the long wet sands.Another safe, fun activity anyone could try, there are a few rental companies where you can hire one and give it a go.Hot Air Ballooning must surely be one of the most romantic air activities you can engage in. It is also a great family activity as children over 5 years are considered old enough, and the whole family can enjoy the experience together. The ideal conditions are usually early morning, when weather is more settled, so it may mean an early start. But watching the sunrise from a hot air balloon would surely be the ultimate!Skydiving is big!

Found in most major tourist locations around the country, thousands try tandem skydiving every year. Solo skydiving is also an option for those with more experience. But by going tandem, anyone can try a sport that they would otherwise not do, due to lack of experience.With the magnificent views of mountains, lakes, rivers and coastline to soak up, the rewards when experiencing these air, wind and water sports is twofold.

We have 3 good reasons to start power paragliding

You might have heard of paragliding and how popular it is among aircraft enthusiasts. While it sure is great, it has a lot of limitations. For example, you can't control your direction as you are free-flying. In this article, you will learn how power paragliding solves these limitations.First, the added engine brings more power and navigational advantage. It allows you to take off even from a level ground - no need to look for higher elevation where wind speed is sufficient. You can just climb and glide higher with the help of the motor. Of course this means you will have to shell out a little on fuel but ask any pilot and they would say the cost far outweighs the accomplishment you feel about flying your own aircraft.Second, the simplicity in the design allows anyone to build a motorized paraglider. Just remember that if you already have a paraglider wing then you only need a paramotor to start power paragliding.

If not, looking for a canopy isn't hard at all. The purpose of the paramotor is to give you additional thrust when you are up in the air.Third, the cost. It's true that if you already do paragliding as a hobby, buying or building a paragliding would cost at least $2000 or more. But this is just the initial cost, which really depends on where you buy the needed materials. Fuel and maintenance is relatively affordable so the total cost wouldn't hurt that much compared to other ultralight aircrafts.

What's even more enticing is that you don't need to get a special license to fly a motorized paraglider, so that's less money and paperwork to worry about. It may seem like using an engine to help you fly is controlled by the government. For other ultralight aircrafts, it's true but power paragliding doesn't have much requirements to get you started.

Make your homemade rc paraglider - For real!!

Well, it's possible to 'build own paraglider'. But it's been pretty hard in the past to find a paraglider kit or a set of decent paraglider plans. So you have to admire the small number of enterprising companies on the web that have now made it possible to 'build own paraglider', and dirt cheap at that. Let's look at a few now... knitted-paragliders.com. I found this paragliding website about knitted paragliders quite useful, but only with a lot of help from my sister. Mum pitched in too. Thanks Mum! And it was good to know that those hours spent learning to knit as a 6 year-old weren't entirely wasted too.

The site offers the following information, materials and services so you can knit up your very own knitted paragliders. It's a total package, even the lines and harness are knitted from the supplied massive skein of wool. Ordering online is straight-forward, with the usual secure credit card facilities available on the order page. - Knitting patterns for all the latest DHV-1 paraglider designs (downloadable PDF) - 570 km (354 miles) of premium-grade, low-porosity sheep's wool (delivered to your door) - A knitting needle set (machined alloy, delivered to your door) - Supporting documentation for the trickier bits (downloadable text files) The beauty of knitted paragliding is that when you are confident in the air, you can unravel your DHV-1 design, download a DHV-2 pattern, and knit up your first cross-country wing! Fantastic! Yes, there are patterns for some of the higher-rated wings, but naturally the prices are a little higher. Because many pilots choose to unravel/re-knit, the knitting patterns are available separately. Good to know. Whatever you do, stick to the manufacturer's recommendations for the ratio of Pearl stitches to Plain stitches over the upper surface of the wing. Failure to do so adversely affects the low-speed performance of knitted paragliders, since it thickens the boundary-layer airflow. Here's something else to be careful about.

If you fly through some rain showers, the wool will shrink badly. But only in the fore-and-aft direction. So your wing area will go way down, and at the same time the aspect ratio goes up. So when you reach the Landing Zone, you will discover you are flying one hot racing wing buddy.. Don't say I didn't warn you. I've still got grazes on my knees. Honest. oragami-paragliders.com.jpAnother paragliding website you can try, this one offering oragami paragliders. This site has a secure order page through which you can order their CD. It costs $120, which I thought was a bit steep, but anyway.. The CD features a polite Japanese gentleman with a faint French accent who takes you step by step through the process of folding your paraglider. The design is AFNOR Standard rated, and requires just a single sheet of glossy paper! A fairly heavy grade mind you.

Why glossy paper, you ask? Turns out it's quite important for reducing the depth of the boundary layer airflow over the upper surface of paper-based paragliders. Bottom line is you get an extra 2 points of L/D. If you don't know what L/D is, you need to explore my website a bit more.:-) I must admit I had some trouble locating a stationery outlet that could source sheets of paper the size of my house roof. But really, despite this hassle, what a great idea. A shorter materials list than even the knitted paraglider, beats trying to work with dozens of fiddly bits and pieces that can roll off under the sofa and so on. Viva oragami paragliders! A warning. Quite a serious one actually. I was doing some coastal soaring, and didn't take much notice of the rain squall approaching. I should have. The handling became, you know, sort of soggy as the rain drops starting spattering my face. Next thing I knew, I was in the drink, with the sodden remains of my wing plopping down all around me. Splooosh. Plip-plup... Plop, Plip. Pip-pip-pup. Back to the living-room table, another sheet of paper. Man, folding oragami paragliders takes forever.

Not to mention the paper cuts. I'd really hate to have to re-do a tandem design, with all that wing area. wearable-paragliders.com.frWell, trust the French to come up with wearable paragliders! In a surprise fashion hit, an almost unknown French fashion house, Para-parel, has successfully blended the long French tradition of fine fashion with the more recent French obsession with paragliding. So this paragliding website also doubles as a fashion website. Yes, a whole line of para-apparel is available for sale after the success of Para-parel's first airing (no pun intended) of their colorful togas, sarongs and shawls. Naturally, some compromises are evident in the resulting line of clothing. The main compromise is that when used as paragliders, these creations have a rather small wing area. Chief designer, Claude S'ucke, has considerable experience in Alpine paragliding, but deliberately chose to go with very small wing areas for these wearable paragliders. In fact, half the clothing range is designed to be used as training wings only.

You know, for practicing 'kiting' of a paraglider canopy. The other half are the winter collection which are more heavily constructed. Hence they have the structural strength to be used as special heavy-weather paragliders. It was not unusual last summer to spot slope-soaring pilots braving 35 or even 45 knot breezes on the western French coast, in their colorful Para-parel wings. Everyone else was on the ground of course. Heck, even some airliners were grounded on those days. Sorry, I've ignored those of you who are much more interested in the clothes. Ok, where do I start. Let's start with the shawls. These are really stuff bags for wearable paragliders. But with carefully chosen textures and shaping, Para-parel has done a lot to revitalize the popularity of this traditional concept in clothing. In a clever move, Claude managed to use a variety of special clasps to transform most of the detachable paraglider lines into underwear.

Very daring underwear, even by French standards. Ooh la la. Similarly, clasps and brooches are used to transform the canopies of wearable paragliders into loose-fitting togas for men and flowing sarongs for women. For the wearer's convenience, thin colored strips are sown into the fabric which highlight the most important fold lines to get the wearable paraglider look 'right'. As a final touch, some of the shorter detachable lines are brightly colored and double as headbands, belts and even shoelaces. Shoelaces with outrageously large and floppy bows mind you. Wearable paragliders! What a concept. Viva le para-clothing! silken-paragliders.com.chFinally, let's check out the Silken Paragliders crowd from Shenyang Province in China that exclusively uses low-quality silk. Yup, a visit to this paragliding website will get you a package delivered to your door with canopy, lines, harness, everything in one lovely soft bundle.

The only reason it's 'build own paraglider' is because you do have to attach the lines, risers etc yourself. Takes nearly three hours to put together, it's quite fiddly. The instructions are terrible, they should fire their translator. On the other hand, some parts are hilarious. Found myself searching the Silken Paragliders Instruction Book for the funniest bits actually! The whole package is only US$99. How is that possible, considering the entire paraglider + harness is pure silk? Well, remember I said it was low-quality silk they use. I emailed the webmaster and he says that only rejected skeins of silk from some of the major silk factories in China are used. Sometimes silk-worms have 'off days'. Funnily enough, if one starts going off they all do. And for people who know their silk, it's just so obvious in the finished product. So the factories can't afford to include any below-par stuff in their output of raw silk. They have to practically give it away.

So it ends up in the mail-order paragliders from the sweatshops of this remote Chinese province. If I were you, I'd order one of these beautiful hand-woven paragliders today. With the incredible growth which is occurring in the sport of paragliding, the limited supply of rejected silk is sure to prove insufficient before long. Prices will soar as the Silken Paragliders company struggles to keep up with demand. ConclusionSo there you have it. All you need to know to get out there and 'build own paraglider'. Fly these contraptions at your own risk. Maybe strap yourself into some nice big fluffy pillows before you take off. Or flap your arms hard. Good luck. You'll need it.;-)

Who can be a paragliding pilot?

Just what is a typical paraglider pilot? The short answer is 'there are none'. The slightly longer answer might be 'well, a lot of them seem to be guys in their 30s or 40s'. Surprised? Isn't paragliding one of those scary, risky, over-the-top activities in vogue with the young and daring? No, it isn't really, although there is some potential for danger as in any form of flying.So don't expect to go to a paragliding location and find pilots fitting some sort of Extreme Sports stereotype. Being more of an aviation sport, and relatively cheap and easy to get into, paragliding does attract a wide variety of participants. You too could learn to paraglide and amaze your friends! Europe is where it all started, and it is there that you are more likely to spot some interesting people in the sport. In that corner of the world, children's camps sometimes include paragliding as an activity! At the other end of the spectrum, there are many older pilots.

That is, those well past retirement age! What better way to keep life interesting.Heck, I've even seen a video clip of a dog going for a ride, clipped into a special doggy harness alongside the pilot. Wonder how much flying time a German Shepherd needs to log before going solo. Hey, don't laugh, paragliding is almost that easy! Let's do a quick check of some possible categories for paraglider pilots.Age is one, definitely. I've already mentioned how the very young to the very old can fly. Weight is another. Little men or slightly-built ladies flying their bottom-of-the-size-range XXS wings. Sounds like a shirt size doesn't it. Right through to people of substance who are too much for anything but a tandem paraglider. Yes, a wing actually built for two. What else? Nationality of course, since this is a global sport. Although birthed in Europe, and most popular over there, every continent on the planet has its paragliding fanatics.

What about disability? Surely not! Oh yes, some companies are actively helping wheel-chair-bound people into the air. All it takes is a couple of working arms after all, to use the paraglider's brake toggles. Maybe just one more category, gender is an obvious one. As usual in flying sports, there are far more men than women in paragliding despite gender giving no special benefit for flying. If anything, women are quicker to pick up the required careful and precise style of using the controls.That just about covers the main angles on the variety to be found in paragliding pilots. Now for some real examples, some specifics.Age Particularly in Europe, you can observe people in a wide range of age groups flying their paragliders.

Even all the way back in 1994 there were some young pilots. In that year a 14 year old in Bulgaria became their youngest paraglider pilot. He had 29 flights to his credit at that tender age.In Israel, paragliding has some history, starting with the Zoom Club pioneering efforts of Yair Shachar. He in turn taught a certain Baruch Gurwitz to fly, at the age of 70! In fact, in 1998 Baruch earned an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest paraglider pilot. He was 77. That record has not lasted though! Since then, a short film has been made about the exploits of a 79 year old Polish pilot. Miroslaw Dembinski produced the film, winning a prize in the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Being a pilot is one thing, but of course age is even less of a barrier when you are only a passenger! I came across one paragliding school that recorded the names of two exceptional passengers. 95 year old Hannes Taugwalder for one.

Just to give you some idea of the weight range available to paraglider pilots, here's a couple of real paraglider designs to illustrate. Firstly, the Nova Rookie wing is available in 5 different sizes. The smallest is the XXS. Extra extra small. Just right for a featherweight pilot, most likely female, who weighs in at 55 kilograms (about 120 pounds) ready to fly. That's right, that weight includes harness, helmet and any other gear she may be wearing.At the other end of the scale, really large pilots can in fact use a tandem paraglider which is normally used for taking passengers. So, in theory, Big Bertha or Gigantic Joe who weighs 200 kilograms (about 440 pounds), could put on 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of flying gear and go for a gentle float in the Bio-Air Bi-Bio 42. This is a typical tandem paraglider.Now for a bit of trivia.

The biggest sports paraglider of all time was a one-off design with a 20 meter (66 feet) wingspan, used for filming a car commercial! This very special reinforced wing had to carry a whopping 600 kilograms (over 1300 pounds), after being dropped from a Lama heavy-lift helicopter. A real Audi A6 All-road vehicle was filmed floating through the sky under this paraglider, against spectacular mountain scenery.Nationality these days, it's hard to think of a continent that has no paragliding activity. There are excellent schools and flying locations to be found all over the world. Also, I know that my paragliding website attracts visitors from more than 60 countries!Paragliding is particularly well known and visible as a sport in England, France, Germany and South Korea. Of course there are others, but these 4 have stood out to me so far.Disability organized paragliding for the disabled exists in the U.K., Australia, South Africa, the U.S. and probably quite a few other countries as well.

Not surprisingly, tandem paragliders are used a lot in this area.The English seem to have done a very good job of promoting paragliding for the disabled. Just look at the activities of Airways Airports, they are not hard to find! This company sometimes uses specially modified paragliding 'chariots' to give access to flying to a very wide range of disabled people.Another notable company is Handiconcept, who provide a range of activities to the disabled, including paragliding. They operate from a Swiss Alpine resort and cater for both the physically and mentally handicapped.Moving across to the U.S., an innovative company called Team Thor have set themselves up as a public charity. They cater for the physically handicapped in particular, and focus on coastal flying in tandem paragliders. Not just any old coastal flying, but the very impressive and well-known ridge-flying experience of Torrey Pines, on the Pacific coast.

Gender paragliding offers no barriers at all to female participants. The minor issue of very light weight, in some cases, is easily fixed by carrying ballast. Some of the bigger paragliding schools even offer paragliding courses specifically for women. An example is Peak to Peak Paragliding which operate out of Boulder, Colorado in the U.S.Particularly in Europe, a select few women have reached the highest standards in the sport by becoming active competition pilots. Such is the participation rate over there, there are even women-only events on the CIVL sporting calendar. CIVL is an international body that governs aspects of paragliding and hang-gliding, like the FAI in general aviation.Now for a quick mention of 2 notable women in paragliding. Firstly, Azar Mazru'ii Farahani from Iran is the director of the Women's Air Sports Federation of Tehran.

A professional paragliding instructor, she glides through the air with the greatest of ease wearing traditional Islamic clothing. That's different.Secondly, one of the U.K.'s top female pilots is Nicky Moss. She was good enough to win the women's event of the British Open Paragliding Championship when it was held in Spain. Not only that, Nicky also holds a British record in paragliding. In Conclusion maybe you might never have the opportunity to become a professional pilot. But paragliding, even if only as a passenger, is surely within your reach!

Ground handling - Practice Practice Practice

Here is one of the best and easiest ways to improve your flying: Ground handling. It is fair to say that most of the top pilots in the world have very good ground handling skills; this is not because they are gifted or super humans, it is down to practice. By practicing you improve your reactions and your understanding of the wing. Find a nice open space or the landing field and spend an hour or two just kiting and practicing both the forward and reverse launch techniques. Once you've cracked the basics don't be shy, experiment, play and learn how to recover your wing from all kinds of situations.
Mike Kung is probably the best ground handler in the world, he has taken control to another realm and I can tell you it is amazing to watch Mike as he buzzes around the launch area touching down where he chooses. His understanding of what to pull, how much and when is impeccable. This was all mastered with continual practicing.
There is lots of advice I could try to give but I think the best and most important is to be SMOOTH. It is very simple to understand, if your inputs (risers, brakes and harness) to the glider are smooth and progressive the wing will react in the same way, smooth and predictably. If however you are rough with your inputs, the wing will be much more difficult to control and react unpredictably.
Think of the wing purely as an extension of your body, don't be afraid to move around, forward and back, side to side to continually centre yourself under the centre of the wing. Kiting your wing on the ground is much harder than flying it through the air! So therefore it makes sense to practice, as it will help all aspects of your flying. By doing this regularly you will soon be arriving on take off confident you are in full control and will pull off a perfect launch. A feeling of confidence is the best way to start every flight as it means the rest of the flight is going to be good.
In the air your new learned skills will help you be more sensitive with the controls and more aware of the wings movements. This will make it easier to relax, when you are relaxed and confident the right decisions usually follow, which all adds up to more enjoyment and a better safer pilot. This does mean that you should practice and practice regularly until it becomes second nature, once will help a little but you will be amazed what ten times will do, transformation.
I personally enjoy kiting wings and being involved with design and testing we do quite a lot of it, I certainly know it helps my flying a lot.
So give it a go and don't get frustrated if you are struggling, just keep going at it until it clicks.
Good luck and successful ground handling.

How safe is paragliding?

A good question! In Japan, you will find old people serenely gliding across dormant volcano slopes. Through the Alps in France, you might spot daring young men pushing the limits of their skills and their paragliders while flying cross-country in challenging conditions.

Have you never flown in a paraglider, either alone or in a tandem wing? Are you hankering to just 'give it a try', but not yet sure whether you actually want to take it up as a sport? If the answer to both questions is 'yes', then this article is for you.

Well, the second bit is totally true, the first bit might be glossing over the occasional twisted ankle or bruise from beginners attempting their very first landings. But under ideal tourist-flying conditions, yes, it's pretty safe and secure! And of course, you can't go wrong if you are under a tandem wing with an instructor doing all the flying.

Paragliding As Aviation

Now of course, every sport has its risks. Also, aviation in general has it's risks. So Paragliding, being both an adventure sport and a form of aviation, also has a degree of risk. When it comes to safety though, the aviation side of paragliding is all-important. All pilots are trained to operate their aircraft safely, by minimizing potential risks. In some cases it's a matter of pure judgement such as during an approach and landing. Or it might mean sticking rigidly to a check list while preparing to leave the ground. The joy of flying, year after year after year, is the reward for doing it right.

It has been said that paragliding is as safe or as dangerous as the pilot makes it. There's a lot of truth in this, from at least a couple of angles. Firstly, pilot's choose what conditions to fly in. Secondly, they choose how far to stretch their piloting skills. Let's make an analogy with driving a motor vehicle now.

A learner driver can choose to drive around the back blocks for a while, or head straight out onto the freeway at rush hour. That's choosing driving conditions.

Secondly, he or she can choose to observe the speed limits and traffic signs, or push the pedal to the metal while running red lights and overtaking everyone in the way. That's choosing how far driving skills are pushed!

Just for a moment, let's consider what the most dangerous thing about paragliding might be. Many years of experience have led some instructors to believe that this is in fact the ease with which people can learn paragliding! After picking up the basics quite quickly, some novices can start to think that they know a lot more about flying than they really do. This can lead to over-confidence and increased risk-taking. The only way to get really good and fly safely in more challenging conditions is to fly frequently, over a long period of time.

Paragliding Statistics

For some reason, people who have a passing interest in paragliding also have an interest in the statistics of the sport. Particularly the fatalities count. Fair enough, I guess we all instinctively try to assess our risk of dying when trying something new and exciting! So let's get the death-and-gloom out of the way first. The figures are actually quite reassuring, given the many, many thousands of people flying and the flight hours they are accumulating.

The stats for horse-riding and paragliding make for an interesting comparison. And... you guessed it, more people die from being thrown off a horse than crashing a paraglider!

In a similar vein, I came across an insurance report that listed paragliding fatalities per participant to be less than motorcycle riding. Now that doesn't surprise me, I've never trusted those things! ;-) Motorbikes that is.

Another outdoor activity which compares with paragliding in terms of injury rate per participant is snowmobiling. Of which I know nothing, coming from The Great Dry Flat Land, Australia. :-)

Despite there being quite a few thousand active paraglider pilots in the U.S. during 2005, only 3 people died in paraglider accidents. This continued a trend towards fewer paragliding fatalities each year in the U.S.

Now, to be accurate and truthful, the situation in Europe has been much worse in recent years, in terms of total fatalities. But in Europe, there are many times as many active pilots as there are in the U.S. And a big percentage of them are 'pushing the envelope' by flying in challenging weather over very challenging terrain. The Alps, no less! As a beginner, you will not fit that category, hence those particular stats need not worry you.

Enough of death and dying, I'll just touch on a couple of U.S. stats now. In 2005, only 50 accident reports relating to paragliding were received, which was a 5 year low. Also in 2005 in the U.S., 32 pilots or passengers suffered paragliding injuries. 15 of these people required an overnight stay in hospital.

Browsing through some material the other day I came across a tandem pilot who has flown many passengers over the years. In all his 350+ hours of tandem flying, he has never had a passenger injured. This should give you a good feeling, since a great way to 'just try' paragliding is to go for a flight in a tandem paraglider! The pilot is behind, the passenger hangs in front. Air in your hair, and views to die for.. ooops.. I mean really really great views!