| Company: 1Sky Paragliding |
Category: paragliding
Country: USA
url: http://www.1sky.com/pg/index.html
Paragliding Instruction and Tandems in San Francisco CA. A Modern Paraglider is classified by the FAA as a "weight shift hang-glider", and is thus exempt from most all of the FAA's rules and regulations. Technically speaking, a paraglider is a parafoil kite large enough to carry human weight. A similar design on a smaller scale has spawned an entire new sport of kite-surfing. By using the air itself as a pressure to inflate the kite into an airfoil shape, controlled gliding flight can be achieved using the falling weight of the pilot as the "motor". The glider size needed is dependent mostly then on the weight of the pilot, and square meters per kilogram is called wing-loading. Since the paraglider does not have any rigid structure, it can be easily folded into a small roll, then packed into a backpack for easy transport. The earliest paragliding flights where the rewards for a mountain sumit hike, and many prefer to keep the "hike and fly". Computers have helped in the design of modern paragliders, and flights over 200 miles are possible on thermal updrafts with favorable winds. The Bay Area airspace is quite restricted due to SFO and OAK and SJO, but 80 mile flights from Mt. Diablo are contenders for the CA state record, and flights from sunrise to sunset have been logged in the steady coastal airflow. |
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