What is a paraglider ?

 

Paraglider is a glider, like hang glider, and despite of its similarity of appearance with a parachute, its usage has nothing to do with parachuting.

In aviation, Paraglider belongs to a class of ultralight, controllable aircrafts without engine.

As all flying birds and gliders the paraglider also uses for lasting flights thermal* and dynamic** lifting air currents, which makes possible to soar more than 7 hours, and to pass hundreds of kilometers (currently the world’s record is 580,9 km).

Paraglider is the youngest aircraft in the family of gliders. It is endowed with such characteristics of which we could have only dreamt just 30 years ago. Those are:

– The entire paragliding equipment weighs only around seventeen kilos and easily fits into a single backpack.

– Paraglider is the cheapest aircraft.

– Every healthy mature individual can fly with paraglider.

– Paraglider can fly quite slow (30km/h), which allows the pilot to use even small air currents, doing tight maneuvers, and landing on a small area with a size of car parking.

– Paraglider has an excellent maneuverability, which makes it one of the most attractive sports (aerobatics).

 

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* the sun warms the earth’s surface uneven, and air in contact with most warm parts of the ground rises up

** when the wind blows the air currents meet the mountain and rise up its slopes