What is Paragliding?
Paragliding is the simplest and most basic form of flight available. The necessary equipment fits into a single rucksack and can be made ready for flight in a few minutes. There are four basic parts to the equipment; the glider (a rectangular area of cloth which looks a bit like a square parachute but is fundamentally quite different), a harness which you sit in, a helmet, and an emergency parachute system which the vast majority of pilots will never use (but you should still have one for that one in a million chance).
Once you have prepared your equipment, you can launch yourself from a hillside and soar the sky like a bird, controlling your glider by a combination of moving yourself (weight shift) as well as via the control handles. If you fly into an area where the air is rising faster than your glider is sinking, you will also rise. It is by using areas of rising air that it is possible to make flights of several hours.
The landing is straightforward and gentle. Sometimes we land at the bottom of the hill, sometimes back on top where we took off from, and sometimes we fly for many miles over the countryside and land somewhere completely new.