Weather Tips for Powered Paragliding

Video Transcript

"Welcome to Expert Village. My name is Hugh Murphy with Surf the Sky Paragliding. In this clip, we'll talk about weather that we want to fly in. Since we are the smallest craft in aviation, we are very susceptible to the micro-climates of winds. For instance, weather can be different on one side of a mountain than on the other, but with our motor we can fly into both. One excellent source is the internet for weather and weather forecasting. Again, the priority being understanding the weather exactly where you're going to fly because of these micro-climates. One of the best books about weather is actually printed by the FAA. And, it teaches you how to understand both the larger weather patterns and then the small local patterns. So, we want to talk about the concept also of the wind parameter. Most pilots have a fun zone where they can really enjoy winds up to say nine miles an hour, and they might have the skills to survive another five miles an hour up to as much as fifteen, but it's not fun. So, we encourage you to stay in the fun zone of your wind speed. Have good skills to do a forward launch in zero winds. Have reverse launch skills to be able to handle up to a slight soaring breeze of up to ten to twelve miles an hour."