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To find your nearest BHPA registered school:
Please enter the first part of your postcode. For example if your post code is CF44 1BS, enter CF44.
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Information for prospective pilots
Download the BHPA Elementary Pilot Training Guide
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Buy International & UK subscriptions to Skywings, the official magazine of the British Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association, or purchase back issues.
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Welcome to the official website of the British Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association (BHPA). The BHPA supports a country-wide network of recreational clubs and registered schools, and provides the infrastructure within which hang gliding and paragliding in the United Kingdom (UK) thrive. The BHPA oversees pilot and instructor training standards, and provides technical support such as airworthiness standards, and coaching courses for qualified hang gliding and paragliding pilots.
Initial hang gliding or paragliding training must be undertaken at a BHPA registered school. Most schools offer training in a wide range of flying disciplines, so it‘s important to understand the differences between the disciplines before choosing a school. The Learn to Fly section of this web site explains the relative merits of each discipline, the types of flying involved, and provides an insight into the training methods used.
As you near the end of your initial training, it‘s important to start looking for suitable recreational club to join. The BHPA supports a network of UK hang gliding and paragliding recreational clubs who are able to offer the supportive flying and social environment vital to the safe development of your flying skills as you leave the school enviroment to join other recreational flyers on the hill.
The BHPA also publishes Skywings, a glossy full colour monthly magazine. Skywings is the only magazine dedicated to free flying in the United Kingdom, and is distributed by mail to around 6,500 BHPA members as part of their membership package, and by subscription to countless more hang gliding and paragliding pilots and organisations around the world. Back issues of Skywings can also be purchased through our on-line shop.
Skywings Only Magazine Subscriptions are available from the BHPA Shop. Our on-line shop also sells back issues of Skywings, with Three back issues costing only £6.00 including postage and packing, an absolute bargain.
As well as providing automatic third party insurance for its members the BHPA is also affiliated with the specialist insurance brokers Airsports Insurance Bureau Ltd who offers flying and non-flying cover to members and non-members alike.
We hope that when you've found a school appropriate to your needs, made contact and begun training, you‘ll discover for yourself the excitement and challenge that makes free flying such a great pastime. If you do, you‘ll also find that the level of support and camaraderie amongst pilots is one of the many great strengths of the sport. You‘ll make friends, go places and achieve things that you may have only dreamed about in the past.
It‘s a fantastic sport... join us and never look back.
The Pilot Handbook
Written by the BHPA‘s technical manager Mark Dale, the Pilot Handbook includes all the basic and advanced techniques, flight theory, specialist know-how and background studies that a pilot will require from Novice (Club) Pilot training onwards.
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Powered Paragliding Bible
From Pulling the wing out of the bag to flying confidently in the national airspace system, the PPG Bible is a concise, easy to use reference guide with over a hundred colour pictures and illustrations. Amazing value for years to come.
Find out the truth behind common myths and misconceptions. Learn the secrets to hassle-free engine maintenance. For advance pilots, learn about flag flying, competition, and precision landing techniques.
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 PG XC League.
The sophisticated interface allows for downloads of track logs, a zoomed in map, vario and speed readings and much more besides. Local club leagues are also included.
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 HG National XC League
Latest Individual and Club League Tables. Seasonal, Pilot, Glider and Flying Site Summaries, Flight Diary, Forums, Event Diary, and more. Submit your flights online, send in GPS Flight Tracks (as .igc files) for published flights. Comprehensive mapping of flight tracks & UK Airspace, in both 2D & 3D, using GoogleMaps And GoogleEarth.
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 BHPA‘s disability initiative is called Flyability and aims to promote and provide opportunities for people with disabilities to participate in the sport of hang gliding, paragliding and other related forms of flight.
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xcweather.co.uk
Detailing current conditions for wind, weather, dew point, temperature, visibility and pressure, the new design also includes forecasts for six days.
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 wendywindblows.com
The Wendy Network is a collection of Automatic Weather Stations at outdoor sporting and leisure locations in the UK. Current conditions at any of the weather stations is available by telephone or via the internet. Charges apply, please see their web site for details.
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 paraglidingmap.com
With so many flying sites in Europe, it‘s often difficult to see where you can fly on any given day. Craig‘s Live Weather Paragliding map displays live weather observations mashed up with paragliding sites to indicate which sites are flyable right now - all over the world.
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Submit Incident Reports online!
Pilots can now submit Incident Reports on the web. A new online reporting system has been extensively trialled and is now live on the BHPA website. It involves filling in a relatively simple Online Incident Report form that automatically logs your report, assigns it a specific number and generates an e-mail confirmation. The system can also accept sketches or photos if required...
UK flexie record goes to 280km!
On Sunday April 15th Carl Wallbank pushed the UK flex-wing hang gliding record to 276.93km. On a day when most pilots were grounded by high winds, Carl put into action a plan he had conceived and perfected a long time ago.
So confident was he of reaching the south coast from his home site at Llangollen that ...
Bruce takes over Airwave
In partnership with Brazilian importer Roberto Galera, Bruce Goldsmith has bought the Airwave company from longtime owner Markus Villinger.
Markus bought the defunct company in 1999, transporting the remaining assets from the Isle of Wight to a new base at Innsbruck...
BHPA integrates human-powered flying
Over the past year the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) Human Powered Aircraft group led by Dr Bill Brooks has been organising a competition for human-powered aircraft, aimed to coincide with the London Olympics and commemorate 50 years of human-powered flight.
The competition, the Icarus HPA Cup, will include 200m and 1km races, a slalom course, unassisted take-off performance and landing accuracy, and duration and speed around a triangular course. When the issue of adequate 3rd-party insurance reared its head it was agreed that HPA flying will become part of the BHPA sphere of activities and UK HPA pilots will become members...
Olympics airspace caution
All pilots should be aware of the restrictions surrounding the Olympic and Paralympic games in July, August and September.
From July 14th a Prohibited Zone will cover central London extending from surface level to the overlying controlled airspace...
last updated: 11 May 2012
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