Come meet the people who will take you flying!

Since its inception in 1997, the San Francisco Hang Gliding Center has been granted for the first time ever in the Bay Area a contract to offer Tandem instruction to the public. We have maintained our perfect safety record using extreme caution, attention to detail, and some of the best pilots around. All our instructors have between 11 and 32 years of experience. Demand has been so high that we now have a crew of the worlds most talented and dedicated instructors.

Paris Williams spent his earliest years feeling extremely jealous of the birds he saw soaring high overhead. At the age of 14, he finally got his first taste of hang gliding and realized immediately that this was the pure flight he had been longing for. He became hopelessly hooked, and as soon as he was out of the house, he dropped everything to devote his life to the pursuit of airtime. Now, 20 years later, he has been involved in nearly every aspect of the sport of hang gliding, including research and development of hang gliders, beginning and advanced instruction, and extensive domestic and international competition. In 1998, he won the World Aerobatic Championships, and then went on to become the 4-time U.S. National Champion in cross-country racing. In his long career, he has taught for many of the largest hang gliding schools in the world, and has flown over 5,000 tandem flights in numerous flying sites around the world, completely injury free!

Steve Rodrigues took his first hang gliding lesson in 1979 and found that flying was literally a dream come true. He ordered a brand new glider the very next day! Steve is also an enthusiast of rock climbing; snow skiing, scuba diving, motorcycling, and windsurfing. He has tried many other adventure sports including bungee jumping and skydiving, but in his own words: “Nothing beats flying a hang glider!”

Steve has participated in aerobatic and cross country competitions, and has flown at numerous hang gliding sites across the U.S. and Australia . He is a Master rated pilot with both a great sense of humor and a profound devotion to safety.

Ever since he was a young boy, David Beerman has been enthralled by dreams of flying. So, when the sport of hang gliding emerged in the early 70's, David seized his chance to make a dream come true! In 1974, he began flying the first gliders to be built of aluminum tubing and dacron sailcloth. By 1976, he had earned his Advanced pilot rating. In 1985, he began taking friends and family members "tandem" in his hang glider. David has always loved the sport of hang gliding for the sense of freedom it allows, and for the awesome, peaceful serenity that can come over a person when he's floating around, through the air, thousands of feet above the terrain.

Owner Pat Denevan has been providing hang glider instruction and equipment to the San Francisco Bay area since 1973.