|
For decades, Mount Tamalpais has
meant great hiking, excellent biking and the most spectacular place in the
Bay Area to soar like a hawk, with the help of a hang glider.
While the mountain still holds its allure for the hang gliding set, an
ever-growing group of adventurous fliers are taking to the Marin skies via
paragliders — air-filled parachutes that look much like skydiving canopies
— strapped to their backs.
Instead of having to mount a metal-framed hang glider onto their
vehicles, paragliders can stuff all their gear in one large backpack,
throw it in the passenger seat, and go.
‘‘Essentially, what you have is a hang glider in a backpack,’’ said
Andrew Whitehill, a 1983 Drake High grad and former longtime hang gliding
and paragliding instructor.
Paragliding was born soon after World War II in Europe, but it didn’t
hit Mount Tam until the late 1980s. Even with that late start, it’s taken
off, so to speak.
Wally Anderson of San Anselmo’s Merlin Flight Center said he’s stopped
giving hang gliding lessons to concentrate exclusively on instructing new
paragliding pilots.
‘‘The last couple of years, (paragliding) has been growing
exponentially,’’ said Anderson, whose paragliding pilot training classes
are booked almost a month in advance. ‘‘It’s going to far outstrip hang
gliding.’’
For people who don’t want to go through the training to become a
full-fledged pilot, the San Francisco Hang Gliding Center runs tandem
flights with a qualified pilot.
Martin Gross of San Francisco took a tandem flight recently to
celebrate his 44th birthday and work on his fear of heights.
‘‘It was amazing,’’ Gross said. ‘‘The views were amazing, and it was
very peaceful.’’
The main difference between a hang glider and a paraglider is the lack
of an internal frame. Instead of retaining its shape by virtue of a metal
skeleton, the paraglider is held together by hundreds of thin ropes and
keeps its shape by virtue of air pressure filling its compartments and
giving the wing solid form.
It deflates so completely, however, that you can even check a
paraglider on commercial airline flights at no extra charge, flight
instructor Brian Shock said.
The portability has made it a huge favorite in the mountainous areas of
Europe, where fliers can take a gondola or tram to the top of a peak and
float all the way down.
‘‘In Europe, everybody flies. Mom, dad, the kids, the grandmother,
everybody,’’ Whitehill said. ‘‘It’s the continental pastime over there.’’
It also makes it seem a bit more dangerous to the uninitiated.
If you pull too hard on the brakes on a hang glider — and thus lose the
crucial air speed to keep gliding — it’ll nose down until it reaches the
necessary speed and can be leveled out again. Pull too hard on a
paraglider’s brakes, and you not only drop towards the ground — you run
the risk of seeing the paraglider itself start to deflate.
And while Whitehill said confidently that, ‘‘a properly designed canopy
will recover in four seconds,’’ it’s still something that’s somewhat
worrisome to the new paraglider flier.
‘‘Every once in a while, the thought occurs to you that you could fall
straight to the ground,’’ Gross said.
Yet the feeling in flight in nothing short of exhilarating.
‘‘I used to have flying dreams when I was a kid,’’ Whitehill said. ‘‘I
don’t have flying dreams anymore, because I’m living the dream.’’
Gross was undeniably impressed.
‘‘It was so surreal,’’ he said. ‘‘We were up around 3,000 feet at one
point, looking down on the hawks circling below us. I think they were more
used to it than I was.’’
For people interested in paragliding tandem flights, the San Francisco
Hang Gliding Center can be reached at 510-528-2300. For those interested
in paragliding pilot lessons, the Merlin Flight Center can be reached at
415-456-3670.
Contact San Franscisco Hang Gliding via e-mail at info@sfhanggliding.com