Graduating to Gliders: A paraglider pilot transitions to tailplanes

摘要

Wind is blowing "over the back" and we've been waiting on launch at Ellenville, New York, for the better part of three hours, hoping conditions will settle down enough for a paraglider flight. I discovered para-gliding four years earlier, and since then, boating around a few thousand feet over the ground under my 15 lb nylon wing has become, if not my very favorite thing, a close second. A modern paraglider is a miraculous thing, emerging from a backpack and transforming in three minutes into a diminutive soaring aircraft, with a 40 ft wingspan, a comfortable seat, instruments and radio, an emergency parachute, significant back protection, and even a supply of drinking water. With a turning radius smaller than any except rotorcraft, in the right hands it's capable of coring-up in tiny wisps of lift. The current open distance record for paragliders is 263 miles, and while this may strike some as rather limited, bear in mind that after landing, the pilot simply folds the wing, tucks it with the harness back into the rucksack, and hitches a ride home.