Preflight Check of a Paraglider

Video Transcript

"Welcome to expertvillage.com. I'm Patrick Eaves with Windenvy Paragliding. In this clip, we're going to talking about how to lay out your glider and preflight your glider to make sure it's ready to fly. We're going to have Ilene unfolding the wing as she's getting ready to fly. She starts by pulling and unrolling the wing and then extending each tip fully. Remember, if it's high wind when you're doing this, you're going to need to find an area where there's no wind. A wind shadow behind a building or behind a hill so you can fully layout your glider and make sure that it's ready. Go to the center of the glider to the leading edge. You're going to pull that uphill a little bit more giving the wing kind of a horseshoe shape, which will make it easier to launch. This will allow the middle of the wing to launch quicker so that the tips don't fold in. Next step, you're going to grab the risers. Be careful to grab them where they connect to the carabiners so that they don't pass through one another. Then you're going to extend them out so that you can get some pressure onto the lines and you can see your full set of lines. Good. Next, you're going to go up and check each line, carefully inspecting to make sure there's no tears or rips in the sheet and there's no broken lines. Finally, you're going to take a visual inspection of the glider, just making sure there's no rips or tears in the glider. When you do this, you can walk around both sides taking a look as carefully as you can. This is also a good step to do when you're packing up the glider just to make sure that there's no surprises when you go to launch the next time."