Speed-flying, Ozone paraglider ad

A friend posted this link on the local paragliding mailing list. If you've seen the Eiger speed-flying video that was posted several places recently, you may enjoy this view of how speed-gliders perform. I got a chuckle out of the "skiers versus snowboarders" angle in the ad, especially the part where the snowboarders are rushing to put their bindings on after the skier has taken off. Enjoy!

video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=-5454302234460662000

has anyone heard of a place in the US or Canada that has speedflying lessons?  I'd love to try this, but it seems like at the moment its a euro-only sport.

Speed flying is a form of paragliding. (Actually, it's a lot like paragliding was 20 years ago on the early low-performance canopies.) You should first learn to paraglide, then pursue getting a speed-gliding canopy. I'm sure some of the U.S. canopy distributors could import them, if they don't already.

I don't have a list of local instructors at my fingertips, but here is the NW Paragliding Club website:

www.nwparagliding.com/

And here is the website of the national HG/PG organization:

www.ushpa.aero/

An easy way to find an instructor (several actually) is to drop by the landing zone at the base of Tiger Mountain (on the Issaquah-Hobart road) on any sunny, north-wind day.

thanks lowell, might just have to do that.

I'd love to try this, but it seems like at the moment its a euro-only sport.

A big reason why speed paragliding hasn't taken off in the U.S. is that you have to do it on skis, I think. Those gliders are so fast that landing one on foot would be like jumping off a speeding train. In Europe there more places with ski lifts that allow paragliding than there are in the U.S. You can ski-fly in the backcountry, but it's almost not worth it. After you've climbed all the way up there with skis it's almost as much fun to ski down as it is to fly, and the chances of the conditions being skiable are usually greater than the chances of being flyable.

I did a fair amount of ski flying when I was actively paragliding. Here is a how-to article I wrote about 15 years ago. There are a few ski flying pictures on this page . Like this one:

A friend posted this link on the local paragliding mailing list. If you've seen the Eiger speed-flying video that was posted several places recently, you may enjoy this view of how speed-gliders perform. I got a chuckle out of the "skiers versus snowboarders" angle in the ad, especially the part where the snowboarders are rushing to put their bindings on after the skier as taken off. Enjoy!

video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=-5454302234460662000

That's awesome. Thanks for the link Lowell.