Let’s Go Paragliding
(with apologies to Colin Kirkus)

by A. G. Smythe

As an uninformed person there were plenty of reasons why paragliding off mountains was an activity I preferred to leave to others. Parachutes were unreliable, liable to fail to open or collapse suddenly in mid-air, and at the best of times you could hit the ground terribly hard. The wind could blow you in all directions and, if you got safely airborne (you had to throw yourself off a cliff to do this), there were the numerous obstacles of the landing over which you had little control — high-tension cables, trees, fences, lakes, buildings. It was the quickest way to break your leg, if not your neck. And what about all those cords? If you had trouble coiling a climbing-rope, the knitting you could achieve with a parachute would be horrendous.

Nevertheless, in spite of these apparently unanswerable objections I found myself reading with growing interest an article in the September 1987 issue of The Climber, in which a novice on a paragliding course in Austria described his thrills and spills. Some of the questions were answered, some of the doubts dispelled, and before I knew it I had applied for details of a weekend course in Wales. I was quite clinical in my thinking. There were dozens of sports in which one could become expensively embroiled, and this was likely to be just one more. I would do the weekend course, paying my £60, and make, I hoped, a cool, objective decision as to whether I wanted to take it further. Would it enhance or degrade my “relationship” with hills, would it be cripplingly expensive and, above all, how dangerous was it? The course, run by a proper instructor, should enable me to find all this out without risk.

Now I am fairly sceptical about innovations in the hills. Goretex was the last big advance, Vibram before that. But the weekend in South Wales, on the grassy slopes of the Black Mountains, was magic. I started by doing everything wrong — at 53, I was about 30 years older than anybody else, and was clearly a slow learner. The enormous canopy had a mind of its own, and on my first attempt I pulled hard on the wrong lines and shut my eyes. I felt three separate impacts before I finished up in a tangled heap with a bruised coccyx and ripped trousers. But I persevered and managed some short “Wright brothers” – type flights and, next day, rather to my surprise, we were taken to the top of Mynedd Troed, the local hill, and launched ourselves from there. Suddenly it was fantastic — the hill behind became a great scale-model of itself and the rush of speed settled to a silky-smooth drifting through space. Sheep, trees, farms were part of a miniature set. Then the ground came to meet me — I flared out with the brake-lines, as instructed, and the landing was as gentle as stepping from a log. I had descended some 800 feet in under two minutes. I was hooked at that moment. This was the way I was going to come down mountains from now on! If it was not too late, I could avoid becoming a “hippie” (elderly mountaineer with artificial hip(s) as a result of pounding down mountains).

The paraglider is rectangular in plan view — modern ones are more elliptical — and consists of linked cells, open at the front, closed at the back, which inflate with air on launch and remain inflated during flight by one’s passage through the air. The whole thing is like a flying mattress, although the section is an aerofoil shaped like an aircraft wing, giving powerful lift during the glide at a steady 15 mph, at an angle of about one unit of descent for four forwards (early models). This glide angle allows a descent from all but the most gentle of slopes.

The canopy is made of coated, airtight 1-ounce rip-stop nylon, and comes in different sizes, according to the weight of the “pilot”. My original one is 280 square feet, about 10 feet front to back x 28 feet wide. It packs into a bag about 18 x 12 x 6 inches and weighs 9 lbs. The harness, similar to a full climbing harness, weighs 2 lbs, and I carry it all on the hill in a medium-sized, framed rucksack. Total about 15 lbs before you add your lunch, spare sweater, etc. Light enough not to be too much of a burden, and I find I leave it behind only if the weather is certain to prevent flying.

At the time of writing, three years later, I have made about 280 flights, clocked about 38 hours total in the air, have flown a dozen different paragliders and owned three of them.

The variety of paragliders now available is considerable. Advanced models have glide angles exceeding 7 to 1 — better than the early hang-gliders. For high mountaineering they have also introduced very lightweight ones, but these would naturally glide steeper and not offer soaring flight (more about this aspect later).

We now come to the crunch (not literally!) — the operation of the beast. It should be stated that it is absolutely essential to get proper qualified instruction from the outset, and place yourself under the perhaps mildly irksome wing of the BAPC (British Association of Paragliding Clubs). If you do not, and go it alone, the chances of coming to grief are considerably enhanced! The problem with paragliding is that under friendly conditions it is incredibly easy. After my first few weeks I thought I knew it all, and then had one or two nasty moments and became much more cautious. There really is a great deal to learn and quite a bit cannot, must not, be discovered the hard way.

So, to the launch. You do not throw yourself off a cliff! The best terrain is grass, about 30 degrees in angle. The wind can be anything between flat calm and about 20 mph maximum —the ideal is about 10-12, a medium breeze, but it must be blowing straight up the slope, so a site must always be selected with this in mind. I often find myself planning a mountain walk with this option for the final descent.

The canopy is laid out, top surface down, and the pilot goes through a routine of pre-flight checks. He then straps in, helmet on, and, positioning himself further down the slope, grasps part of the rigging and, with one good heave or snatch, hoists the canopy clean above his head, inflated and ready to go! Sounds easy, but it takes a bit of practice. There is another method, the reverse launch in stronger winds, where you face the laid-out canopy and allow the wind progressively to inflate the cells, then hoist it aloft and turn to head downhill.

Either way, the next stage is the moment of truth. Having visually checked that there are no problems With the canopy, now floating overhead — crossed lines, etc. (surprisingly rare) — you move forwards and downwards, at a run in little or no wind, or quite easily in a good breeze, and, when the canopy is felt to be very tight overhead, a steady pull on the two brake-line handles — the only controls — which are connected to the outer rear edges of the canopy, gives lift-off, just like the elevator of a plane. If you were then to do nothing more, the thing would glide with perfect stability onwards and downwards. Turning is achieved by pulling on one brake-line or the other and, having manoeuvred to land exactly where you want, whether you have come down 100 feet or 10,000, a gentle “stand-up” landing is achieved by flaring out at the right moment, i.e. by pulling strongly on both brakes together.

Paragliders are probably safer than any other form of light aircraft because they fly so slowly and, although the pilot is very exposed, at least his machine is soft and forgiving. However, in common with everything else which takes to the air, a paraglider will stall if it is forced to fly too slowly (e.g. by over-heavy use of the brakes in “stretching” a glide). It does give plenty of warning, rustling and crumpling before it becomes the proverbial “bag of washing”, and it is easy to recover from a stall, given sufficient height, by releasing the brakes, when the canopy will fully inflate again and resume normal flight (all prototype paragliders are subjected to rigorous official testing to check their inherent stability).

A paraglider can be mishandled, but a greater danger for the pilot exists in being tempted to fly when conditions are unsuitable, and deciding just where that borderline lies is a skill in itself. Arriving at the top of a mountain, it requires considerable discipline not to a) allow your eagerness to fly outweigh a careful assessment of the wind strength and potential launch areas, or b) allow natural nervousness, the cold, etc. to persuade you to “wimp out” unnecessarily.

So far I have dealt with only top-to-bottom type flying, beyond which many mountain walkers and climbers might not want to go. But the sport of paragliding has evolved into a quest for longer and longer soaring flights and, using dynamic lift and thermals, it has become possible to remain aloft almost indefinitely and to cover distances of 100 miles or more. I well remember the amazing thrill of tracking along Hay Bluff in South Wales for the first time, balanced by the updraught, and coming down only because hunger and thirst intervened. It was this “real flying” which led me to update my canopy twice in the next three years and I now have a high-performance “state-of-the-art” model which uses space-age materials and was probably designed on a computer.

The ability to soar in even light winds has taken me into some extraordinary places and given me literally a new perspective on the hills. I have observed from above hovering birds of prey and seen below them small rodents escaping into their holes (probably warned by me!). I have worked high along the Carnedds for an hour on a sparkling autumn day and marvelled at the three-dimensional view of the great rounded ridges, a feeling of shape and volume which you never get standing on the surface. I have been to the Alps several times to build up experience. So far I have restricted myself to recognised lower-level areas such as Mieiissy and Annecy in France and Mayrhofen in Austria. My ambition is to fly from Mont Blanc and other high “easy” peaks, such as Monte Rosa and the Dom, but I am in no hurry. Where possible I like to fly with fellow enthusiasts. It would be true to say, however, that most people who go paragliding are interested in the sport only for its own sake and are not hill walkers. This has the advantage of leaving the higher, less-accessible airspace less frequented, but does tend to make flying companions in short supply.

I cannot deny that I have had some terrifying moments. On the Black Mountain in South Wales, while soaring the great ridge of Bannau Sir Gaer, I failed to notice that the wind was slowly building in strength, until I found myself drifting backwards uncontrollably, yard by yard. I eventually became caught in the turbulent air behind the crest and was dumped from a height of 30 feet, luckily without injury. On an early flight from Snowdon I had a tangle on a brake-line while launching —totally my fault — and missed some rocks by inches. I have bodged take-offs and misjudged landings galore and have had a fair share of knocks and bruises. Nobody tries to pretend that paragliding, any more than rock climbing, is free of risk. The dangers can be minimised only by rigorous attention to detail, patience (the mountains will always be there for another time), and lots of practice.

So — does paragliding fit in with mountaineering — the question posed at the beginning? It can — it does! This assumes that one’s companions are also equipped with paragliders or, if not, are suitably tolerant, and the party is able to function, suddenly, with one member fewer. In the end one can be sure of one thing — whenever the risk of paragliding taking over begins to loom, the weather will always have the last word, and there you are, there you are going to be, tramping the hills on a windy day as you always used to, earthbound. Overhead the larks are soaring, but now it’s a bit different — you’re keenly looking forward to the next chance to join them!