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By dad1966
#397843
Hello new to the sport, does anyone know of schools or instructors in Sc. I live in Aiken Sc , can travel to georgia or north carolina, but nags head is to far. thank you for any help
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By DMarley
#397848
Hey dad1966,
There are a few HG schools, two in Florida (Quest and Wallaby), Lookout Mountain Flight Park (LMFP) in Georgia, and possibly some smaller examples elsewhere. I would not recommend Kitty Hawk, as I have lived there for 15 years, and witnessed some real crazy shiite going on there. And it is a tourist trap among other things.
I can recommend LMFP, as that is the place I went for my H1 - H2 training. The instructors are very good, but they can only teach as fast as you can catch on. If you have not done any studying of HG flying, your experience there will take longer. For any new student I strongly recommend reading as much material on HG as possible. You can't read too much.

LMFP has training hills that are between 50 ft to 75 ft tall approximately. Running up and down these hills every day will kick your butt if you have not trained your body for the hill work previously. If you do nothing else before going to LMFP, please work your legs out well, doing squats, sprints, etc. No joke! It will make your experience so much better and you will learn faster without a large chance of minor leg injury (bruising, soreness, etc)

To be completely prepared for your lessons, please read all you can....Dennis Pagen's Hang Gliding Training Manual, and his Towing Aloft, and of course Understanding the Sky.

http://www.dennispagen.com/
You can purchase these on Amazon.com as well.
Also, look up Jim Rooney (landings)
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 4ead94c221
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... sc&start=0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjHqdmUAAFo
http://www.hanggliding.org/wiki/How_to_ ... ang_glider

Also, Launching technique:
https://www.ushpa.org/page/safe-hang-gl ... ches-redux
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... h&start=30
http://ozreport.com/6.144.3
These will help get you going. Read, Read, READ! And do a lot of visualizing and thinking. Try to understand all the basics before you attack the training hills. Studying before your classes will enable you to succeed quickly, economically, and most of all, painlessly whereas your fellow students who did not study will likely trail far behind.

Aslo, before committing to a school, find a local Hang Glider club near you, and introduce yourself to everyone there, especially the mentors and the observers. They can help you the most, and help guide your path to becoming a good pilot.
You have found yourself on a wonderful path for freeflight and freedom! It's a lot of fun with a lot of wonderful people!
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By dad1966
#397849
wow, thank you so much for all the information, i will be reading alot now, and looking for a local hg club, thank you
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By roarkk
#397905
Hi,

Excellent information above. Your local club is SCHGA: https://sites.google.com/site/southcarolinahanggliding/

Some of the information from that link is out of date! You're better off, as DMarley said, visiting Lookout Mountain flight park (LMFP) to get started. Their website is up to date, and they're the largest school in the southeast. Once you've been through training and are comfortable, the South Carolina sites (Glassy mountain and Pinnacle mountain) will be waiting.

Good luck, have fun, hope to see you in the air.