r/freeflight

Been a paraglider pilot for about 2 years now. Have my p3 and have been wanting to get into speed flying and terrain descents. I’m found an awesome deal on a 16 meter dragonfly with about 10 flights from 2023, basically brand new.

Has anyone flown this wing and have thoughts they could share? I’ve flown on an ozone zero 3 15 meter for my speed flying training and liked it, but I can’t find this wing as cheap as I found the dragonfly. I’ve heard the dragonfly is a pretty docile wing. Any thoughts could be well appreciated.

i am very intrigued by high mountains. in all books I have read and personal reports, the way back from the summit is the most dangerous. You take too long up, ignore summit windows, overestimate/ use all your power. Yes, weather is very unpredictable and a good source for disaster, but often the weather is holding just fine. Why not bring a light parachute, wing and when the weather allows it, jump off after summit? Are my dreams unrealistic? thanks

I've been having a lot of fun using hikeandfly.cloud as a pilot-in-training exploring future sled ride possibilities to calculate distances from various launches to LZs, emergency LZs along the way, etc for when I'm ready for them.

What are examples of conservative and expected glide ratios to enter in for the Glide Number value? Most of the other values (trim speed, wind speed and direction, additional height, safety margin, etc) are pretty simple. I'm wondering if a glide number of 8 is to be expected, with a number of 6 to be conservative if hitting a lot of sink, etc might be best. Doing a lot of reading, the actual glide ratios seem to not vary much between modern A and B wings that are appropriately loaded. In case it helps, I'll be on an Advance Alpha DLS 24 with an all-up weight around 180 pounds, but my question is more general as far as planning and not specific to what happens to be my current wing and weight. The info at https://www.reddit.com/r/freeflight/comments/oduloi/wing_glide_ratios/ but I'm looking at what most pilots are using for practical calculations.

Hello

Due to a string of illnesses and injuries i havent been able to fly for about 2 years. One of the illnesses was neurological and really knocked me down but I am 95 percent healed. Does anyone know of courses for someone like me? Debating doing something in Columbia etc just to get my skills back under supervision.

Hi I’m interested in starting in paragliding or something adjacent.

The thing is I see, many different things similar to it. They all seem super fun but not really transferable to each other. There seems to be paragliding, speed wing, paramotor, etc.

I’m wondering which is best to start in. Which is easier to start out? Which one is most transferrable. sports? Which is most transferrable internationally?

Hey all, sorry if this question has been asked to death but here goes...

Is there any flight schools/clubs in the region that cater to English speakers or people with limited German (b1/intermediate)?

For context : im an Aussie moving to Southern Bavaria in the winter of this year for the foreseeable future and hoping to learn to paraglide. I'm an uncurrent skydiver (1 year since last jump) who wants to get in to paragliding after missing being in the sky

Hey r/freeflight,

We are a small independent dev team made up of pilots, based in Canada. 🇨🇦
We got tired of bouncing between Windy, WindGuru, Meteoblue, XCSkies, and three different windgram tools every time we wanted to check if a site was flyable.

So we built PARARIDGE: https://pararidge.com

What it does:

- Multi-model weather forecasts (GFS, ECMWF, ICON, HRRR depending on the spot)

- Windgrams and emagrams for any spot

- Color-coded flyability indicators for an instant look at which sites have potential today, with the ability to dive deeper into the raw meteorological data whenever you need it.

- 5,600+ spots loaded across 12 countries (Canada, USA, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, and more)

- Works on mobile and desktop

It is 100% free. No paywall, no ads. There is a tip jar if you want to support the running costs but nothing is locked.

We’re a small team, so you will definitely run into some bugs and missing spots. To help us improve, we'd love the community's take on a few things:

• Test your local site: Does our flyability forecast actually match your gut feeling?
• Fill in the blanks: If your favorite spot is missing, please go ahead and add it.
• The 2-hour drive test: What feature would genuinely give you the confidence to drive two hours for a flight?
• Where next? Which countries should we add to the map next?

Honest feedback is more than welcome—even the harsh kind.

Cheers, and fly safe!

Map

Dashboard

Spot infos

prototype

It has GPS, barometer, IMU. It shows vario, altitude, ground speed, heading and a few more things. There is also a "thermal" screen where circles are shown for areas of lift. No map or airspaces obviously. Honestly it's only advantage is that its readable in full sun. All the sounds are configurable, I tried to make it as customizable as possible...

What functionality should I add? What do you want from a vario?

Hello everybody! The time has come, I am starting to look for my very first wing, which will be a low EN-B. This is the recommendation from my instructor, however he has not suggested a specific wing for me. I have set my eyes on two different options. The first one is the Skywalk Tequila 6, I like this brand very much since I am currently using the Mescal 6 which is awesome, and I also like the colours. The 2nd option is the Niviuk Hook 6, which a few other students have bought and I have heard only good things about it.

Which would you suggest and why? If there are some other options that you would consider please feel free to share. Thank you!

I usually fly with xctrack, and preciously that's what I have used in the Alps. Burnair seems to have some pretty cool features in it but it is quite expensive.

Is burnair the go to app for the Alps ?

Cheers

I was looking at the buzz, phi tenor and ion nova. The buzz is hard to find. As an ambitious new pilot, I was looking for good soaring properties and good XC potential for next 100hrs. The ion 4 I am looking at has <50 hrs, like new porosity. Opinion? thanks lots!

I just did a month of course in the Als and did around 30-40 flights, most of the time using a school Advance Pi ULS - I can feel it’s more talkative compared to Alpha DLS, but still in a range acceptible for me (and the packed size is really nice!).

I’m now looking for used ultralight wings, but I don’t want any wings more unstable/active than Pi ULS. My instructor suggested against Kode P or Susi as they are probably more unstable; while Gin Yeti 5/6 sounds suitable for me. Also, I might want my wing capable for some beginner thermalling/XC (that is, not trading off too much perfomance for my next 2-3 years).

Does anyone have opinions on the beginner-friendliness and performance of other UL wings like Ozone Ultralight 4/5, Nova Doubleskin 1/2, Skywalk Spirit or Phi Sola UL? Should I avoid any of these? Also, Phi Viola and Phi Sola seems like sitting inbetween lightweight and ultralight - how’re their packing size compared to other ultralight wings?

(P.S. I know ultralight wings are much more fragile, so I probably would buy another super cheap wing for ground handling only)