Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 12:December 2014 | Page 23

LEFT Photo by Jonathan Dietch.

I

’ve noticed a pretty reliable constant
in hang gliding and paragliding:
Great pilots consistently have great
flights. Even on marginal days where
maybe one in 20 pilots will be lucky
enough to get up, it seems like that one
out of the 20 is always the same couple
of people, and it’s hardly “luck.”
What doesn’t seem to matter,
though, is what these pilots are flying.
Wills Wing, Moyes, North Wing,
Aeros, Icaro—single-surface “floater”
or high-performance rocketship, hang
glider or paraglider—the same people go
up, and the rest of us collect our egos in
the LZ.
I think it’s a natural human tendency
to want what they have. We want those
flights! We want to get higher, stay up
longer, go farther! In a nutshell, we enjoy
flying and we want more-more-MORE
of it!
I’d like to help. In this final installment of the “HG401” series, I’m going
to share all the secrets to getting what
those other pilots have. Are you ready?!
First, we need a tremendous understanding of micro-meteorology. When
our sky-god idols walk up to launch,
they see so much more than we do. The
information is there—if only we knew
where to look and what meaning to take
from the things we see. To develop this
almost super-human ability to sniff out
lift, we must study. I know studying is
boring. But so is sitting in the LZ on
a scorching hot day while your hero is
literally chilling at cloudbase. There are
many sources for micro-meteorological
study, but I’d start with Dennis Pagen’s
Understanding the Sky. It’s a pretty dry
read (sorry, Dennis), but the content
is spot-on and it WILL make you a
smarter pilot with consistently better
flights. I re-read it every couple years and
learn more every time through.
With our thermal-snooping instincts
sharpened, we’re going to have to work

on our climbing skills. Thermals don’t
tend to stick around for slowpoke climbers, so when a thermal presents itself a
sky god capitalizes! There are some great
resources of study in this department
as well (another DP book, Secrets of
Champions, for example) but more than
anything else, practice and experience
are the keys to unlocking these skills.
Every day, and even every thermal, is
uniquely different—and yet they share
many similarities, too. Some climbing
techniques work well in everything, and
some have to be more selectively applied.
Experience is how those sky gods seem
to clairvoyantly know where to go, when
to turn, and how steep to bank. (Hint:
This constantly changes even within a
single thermal!) The bad news is that
experience takes time to develop, but the
good news is that the avenue to getting there is doing something fun you
already love—FLY FLY FLY! Get out as
often as you can. Feel out different conditions, and even different sites if you’re
able. Flying at different times of day at
the same site on the same day can teach
you volumes. Every trip into the sky
isn’t just a joyride, it’s another serving of
delectable experience!
By now you’re probably thinking
I’m an idiot, promising to unlock these
extravagant flying experiences and then
advising you to read some books, go fly
and be patient. A bit of false advertising perhaps? Well, now that I have your
attention…
The biggest key to learning to be
a better pilot is embracing learning
opportunities and feedback. Feedback
in the form of advice from others (but
make sure they know what they’re talking about!), feedback you feel from your
glider, and the feedback you glean from
observation of cause-and-effect. Just
about everyone learns to fly on docile,
forgiving, easy-handling single-surface
gliders. At some point, most people get