As you say, Southern Arizona is not the place to learn this sport. With that in mind I highly recommend getting connected with an instructor _before_ buying any more gear. While your hang gliding and skydiving experience will likely accelerate your path up the paragliding learning curve, there is no substitute for quality instruction in a forgiving environment.

Do some research, talk with people you trust, and select a good paragliding school and make the commitment to get at least a P2 rating. The school will provide all the gear you need during the course, and your instructor will help you select the right equipment for purchase. Most instructors do not charge enough for their time, and selling equipment is one way they survive, so buying your gear from your instructor is fairly common way to support the flying community. Most schools have a supply of good used gear as well as the ability to sell new equipment, so your instructor will be able to find something that fits your budget and your flying needs.

After you get the P2 rating, I urge you to take an SIV (maneuvers clinic). Doing so will build skills and confidence that you simply cannot acquire safely in any other way. Don’t wait on this. From personal experience I can assure you that this is a necessary step to flying safely in Arizona.

I have direct experience with two schools, both of which I heartily recommend. Eagle Paragliding (http://eagleparagliding.com) in Santa Barbara and Paraglide Utah (http://paraglideutah.com) in Draper (at Point of the Mountain, south of Salt Lake City) are both excellent schools run by really fine instructors. In both cases the guys who own these schools have won USHPA’s Instructor of the Year award.

My son and I did our P1/P2 work in Santa Barbara with Eagle, and I continue to return there to fly with the local community, take further instruction, and use one of the best training hills in the country. It’s an absolutely lovely town, especially if you are into food and wine.

I recently completed my first SIV course with Brad Gunnuscio of Paraglide Utah, and I’m headed to Draper this Sunday for a few days of instruction and air time with Brad. While I’ve never flown in Utah, it appears to have a seriously good training hill, ridge flying sites, and some spectacular mountain flying.

Finally, you should be aware that all this advice is coming from someone with only 16 hours of airtime (spread across more than 100 flights). I started flying in 2004, took a reserve ride over Miller Canyon in 2006, and restarted flying just this year. I trust that other, more experienced, pilots within our community will supply their own advice.

I look forward to flying with you, and I hope you will come out and see our sites, even before you’re ready to fly. It’s never too early to start understanding the features of each site.

I’ll send my contact data via private message. Feel free to e-mail or call me if I can help in any way.

--JRW

Thanks John, I know that's good advice. I retired as professional pilot and worked for FlightSafety as an instructor for almost a decade.
I've looked at both the sites you mentioned and many years ago attended
Eagle's predecessor in Santa Barbara for a Hang Glider refresher.
The Utah site may be a lot less expensive just from the point of view
of accommodations and meals. Let me know when you get back would you.

AL

Hi Al- I don't know anything about the APCO Salsa but if it is only a year old with low hours, still crispy and clean, $1400 would seem fair. Make sure to kite it , so you know it flys straight. See you on the hill. Ross

The seller just suddenly said it was 'no longer available', he actually sent
a very helpful and long email back to me,so I didn't really question if it
had been sold or he just figured for that price he'd keep it.
So I'm back to looking for a cheap Kiting rig.

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=25670
http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=25254
http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=18703

Al, I taught myself to paraglide but I've been flying them since the 80's. I believe you can do it, but if you are challenged for time to dedicate to flying life, you are probably best off visiting a place like the point in Utah and hammering it out, maybe even take some instruction?

We are all self taught to some degree, tandem method with your own flights under an instructor until at some point blah blah blah...

I think if you are bent at teaching yourself, you could do it but the best advice is to at a minimum, have some sort of mentor to oversee you.

Get the Wills Wing and or Pagen's book, "The Art of..." and read. Make sure what you read matches what you think and what your flight experiences have been.

For comparison: I wanted a UP Makalu like I had before, kinda like you, I bought on my own, new the first time, used the second. I did a search at that site and that's what I came up with in a couple of minutes. I've always flown UP paragliders like I flew Wills Wing hang gliders.

I'm thinking you have done your homework on any wing you are choosing. There are wings out there with traits you may want to know about before you buy...

Anyway.

Good luck and take care.

Hi Hangwind,
Thanks to your advice I actually found my harness and recently a
wing. The wing was a $250 delivered perfectly serviceable for Kiting ONLY
(OK maybe 3 feet up) practice. It's a 2002 Wings of Change Taifun DHV1-2

I absolutely do NOT intended to do this without quality instruction.
It's just that I can't hang glide anymore because of my back and I wanted
to make sure I wasn't going to spend MANY thousands of dollars and then
realize I couldn't handle the ground handling/take off exertions on my back.

I also realize there is probably no more important aspect in paragliding
then everything involved in the takeoff phase.

This rig gives me the chance to practice the kiting -running aspect as many times as I want until I'm satisfied that I have
a good handle on it and am comfortable.

I have had the Pagen book for about 3 weeks and spend time with it every nite.

Thanks again for your thoughts, AL

Nice.

Excellent move.

When you do a reverse, you are doing some twisting and resistance with your knees and back.

Be careful.


Don't set yourself back.



I think the guys who do a lot of kiting are pretty smart, it really helps to know what your wing "feels" like when you are ready to aviate. It's just one really big aspect to have, already proficient when you go to a launch like South Mountain where it's crowded and you have to take off and others are waiting in line.

When you go to the crators, give me a ring (PM) and maybe I will meet you up there if everything is cool with my world (family.) I've got a brother-in-law that is new and into it and he is dying (pun intended) to go.

But this is about you.

Sounds like you are very much on your way.

One last thing, you may like kite buggy.

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