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By miraclepieco
#406607
Have a hang glider you'd like to get rid of?

https://redding.craigslist.org/spo/d/re ... 64558.html

Hang Glider or Para Glider wanted - $200 (Redding)
I keep seeing ads in other cities for hang gliders on the cheap, and I have the ability to repair one myself, so who in Redding has a hanglider or a paraglider that they would like to get rid of? Here's an example ad, from Sacramento:

https://sacramento.craigslist.org/spo/d ... lider.html

I'd also be interested in Paramotors or ultralight aircraft, but I have not flown one of those, so I would need to get training on that specific type of equipment so the purcase process would be longer.
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By miraclepieco
#406614
Amazed there is no hue and cry and strident warnings over a guy looking for an obsolete wing on Craiglist and apparently repairing it and teaching himself. This is the classic garage sale scenario. Not to worry, I sent him a message advising him to follow the proscribed learning procedures and he replied with his agreement.
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By DMarley
#406625
Doodeedoop, Doodeedoop, Doodeedoop, Doodeedoop, (going back in time) Doodeedoop, Doodeedoop....
Next stop: 1972......
"Hey Joe......just found some visqueen plastic, bamboo poles, duct tape and some bailing wire! Let's make a glider and go join the guys on the mountain!"

:shock:
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By DAVE 858
#406626
Unfortunately with the advent of Youtube this scenario is becoming more common place. Recently we had an incident at the Grants Pass airport where some guy bought a used airplane, had no pilot training whatsoever, and damaged runway lights trying to land it. The airport manager pad locked the airplane & this dude cut the lock and took off! Later that day he crashed the airplane attempting to land at a different airport. :roflcat:

That being said, it is not impossible to teach one's self to hang glide. A lot of people on this forum did exactly that. Its just that there is no reason for it now, and any money savings is poor justification. My instructor used to call this "dangerous frugality" I have always thought that was a profound explanation. The cartoon above is a perfect description.
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By USHPA7
#406627
I agree that times have changed and there is no reason to not take formal flight instruction now, but let me drift back in time.

There was a magical time when the forces came together to start a modern sport called hang gliding. It was from 1971 through 1973 give or take a little. It had its beginnings before that, but those were the three years that it came alive, exploding across the earth.

We built gliders, either from someone else's plans or our own. We took the hard knocks and taught ourselves to fly these gliders. In us there re-lived the spirits of Otto Lilienthal, Octave Chanute, Wilbur Wright, and the other pioneers of human flight. We gave them new life within ourselves. We watched the birds in flight just as those pioneers had done so long ago. Dave Kilborn did the impossible, a one hour ridge flight. Another pilot actually circled in a thermal and gained altitude. Jerry Katz flew 100 miles! OMG! News of these achievements spread like wildfire without an internet.

A guy named Joe Faust had a little hang gliding news magazine going called "Low and Slow" and we read it like it was a bible. Every little tidbit of news about a glider design or a flight accomplishment was absorbed by us as though we were sponges. Joe also included in his magazine what we called flights of fancy. Wild imaginations of other flight modes like "giant thistle" down structures carrying us around the world on the trade winds. It was magic .

We were the lucky ones to be re-living the days of discovery of human flight. You may think that to be an exaggeration but it is not. We were living again in those days of long ago when, as humans, we were just trying to become airborne. This time without engines, without a massive structure around us, with the wind in our hair and a wing up above which we could carry and launch by our feet. Hang glider flyers were touching the spirit of all humans who yearned to "break the surly bonds of earth". By 1973 it was becoming an established sport with gliders to buy and schools to learn. Dirt bike riders looking for a new thrill flooded into the sport, it was commercial. Those magical first years passed into history, never to come again.

So, yes, go ahead and learn through an instructor, that's the best way to do it now. But also think about a time, which can never be repeated, when hang gliding was new to the world's awareness.

I am so lucky!

Frank Colver
By Charlie Romeo
#406628
Ah, you captured some of the vibe from my mid seventies well , thanks Frank...Here in Oz was a similar feeling, the seventies were a fantastic decade! My brother and I were dirt bikers before hg, when I moved to around Byron it was ex surfers that took to hg. In fact surfing is weight shift, you do passes along the wave and you progress to faster boards, my current hg/pg club used to be called the Byron Bay Skysurfing Club...Col. :) oh I loved reading the Glider Rider newspaper!
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By bigbird
#406677
I'm not sure who's doing what up in the Redding area. Once upon a time that would have gotten a lot of attention and concern for the gliding community. I closed my small hang gliding business when I moved from the area back in the mid 90s.

Phil

miraclepieco wrote: Mon Feb 25, 2019 5:17 pm Amazed there is no hue and cry and strident warnings over a guy looking for an obsolete wing on Craiglist and apparently repairing it and teaching himself. This is the classic garage sale scenario. Not to worry, I sent him a message advising him to follow the proscribed learning procedures and he replied with his agreement.
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By miraclepieco
#406678
bigbird wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 5:51 pm I'm not sure who's doing what up in the Redding area. Once upon a time that would have gotten a lot of attention and concern for the gliding community. I closed my small hang gliding business when I moved from the area back in the mid 90s.
Phil
Thanks Phil. Last time I flew with you was in the mid 90's - I didn't know you'd left the Redding area. Where are you now?
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By bigbird
#406679
I didn't go too far. I landed a job with the City of Roseville and moved the family to a small community just below Auburn, CA. What's your name?


Phil
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By miraclepieco
#406680
bigbird wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 7:10 pm I didn't go too far. I landed a job with the City of Roseville and moved the family to a small community just below Auburn, CA. What's your name?
Phil
This is Rodger. I sent you a PM.
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By bigbird
#406687
Hey Rodger, I didn't receive your PM, did you receive mine?

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This is Rodger. I sent you a PM.
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