Fly Like a Bird​​​​​​​ Paragliding

The wish to fly like a bird was half fulfilled in 1903 when Wright brothers invented the first successful airplane, but it was fully accomplished when Domina C. Jalbert advanced gliding parachutes in 1952.

- Payal Sanghavi

Paragliding is a competitive adventure sport of flying and a recreational activity. Developments took place, improvements were made and Authors Patrick Gilligan (Canada) and Bertrand Dubuis (Switzerland) wrote the first flight manual, The Paragliding Manual in 1985, officially coining the word paragliding. From the 1980s, equipment has continued to improve and there is an increase in the number of paragliding pilots and established sites. Europe has seen the greatest growth in paragliding.

Alightweight, free-flying Aircraft, which is launched, by foot, has no primary firm structure. A paraglider can cover a few hundreds of kilometers in 1 or 2 hours with this engine-free glider aircraft. The pilot sits in a harness suspended below a fabric wing, which comprises a large number of cells in a series that are interconnected with an overflow weir type link between cells, baffled to avoid shortcircuiting of cells. The wing is shaped in a manner to maintain the air pressure entering in the front of the wing and allowing the aerodynamic forces of the air to flow over the outside. The wing has lines on it to maintain its shape; the pressure of air helps it to fly in required direction. Skillful exploitation of sources of lifthelps the pilot gain a height of a few thousand meters. Most pilots use variometers, radios and GPS units when flying.