In December 2012, my brother and I learned how to fly hang gliders - along with two other people in the course. Rohan Holtkamp was our instructor. Top bloke! If you've ever considered hang gliding, DO IT! You'll never regret it!
I did all of my training through Rohan @ Dynamic Flight Rohan and his wife Sandra have an ideal learning environment by creating their own flight park You couldn't ask for a nicer guy who takes enormous pride in his students. Well done, and thanks for sharing
I Loved this Course. Even with a Myriad of Injuries and a Very bad back I still managed to complete it safely thanks to Rowan! One of the Best things I have Ever done for myself, period! My Only regret about the course was that I did not even take One fuggen picture at all nor did I bring one of the 6 GoPro's I own or even a shitty point and shoot 10 yr old nikon! Bane.
Did you ever take it up I'm thinking about it I was going to go with gliders but the cost is lot more then hang gliding essentially the same thing with little more restriction on wind. I saved up about 15k for my PPL glider training I can get trained and buy all new hang glider for about 1/3 of the cost.
There are a few ways to stay airborne: 1) Ridge lift from a ridge (like a hill facing the sea). You fly in the wind going over the hill. Easy to fly in, you don't get very far. 2) Thermals. Bubbles of air rising from the ground that you fly in and rise with. As for launching, there are also a few methods. One way is by a car tow - which is what we did in the video mostly. Another is aerotowing (I have a video on it). A third way is from running of a hill. :D All can be done in nil wind.
It's very original to learn with a car towing you! I never practive that. but I understand when I discovered the strong dynamic conditions in the last coast fly!! amazing. Cheers from reunion island where we are a dozen hang gliders pilot.
Nice system! The lazy man's way!!!!! When I learned it was bunny hop and carry the glider back...over and over. The better you got, the further you had to walk! Lot's of work and sweat.
Well done young fella, you had a very good natural ability to absorb the instructors directions then play them out both calmly and smoothly. Let face it, everyones nervous in the early stages of their training/flying, but the most important thing is that you ALWAYS remember your training, do what you were taught by a skilled professional instructor you paid good money for for a reason, to do it the right way from the beginning. Eight years later are you still flying my friend?
I certainly am still flying! No where near as much as I'd like to be but I get a few xc flights from home a year and 2 or 3 week long competitons each year.
Harrison Rowntree that’s awesome to hear man, so many people do the AFF, PG, PPG, HG cert to say they skydive or fly but the moment they leave their last stage of the course if the last time they fly, it really saddens me man! I was 17 when I did my AFF course, so 21 years ago now, and the next youngest person above me was forty something, it was a dying sport back in the mid to late ‘90’s, there was a real concern that the sport could have died and left people to work out their own ways of jumping. It was a diverse crew at out DZ, doctors, lawyers, trademan, all walks of life, many professionals were the vets of the sport, and were the ones to really listen to when they spoke to you about flying, give you advice because these are the crazy mother fuckers who were test dummies for the now primitive flying equipment, so they were risking their lives, every skydiver, Paraglider, hang glider, they set the bench mark for us now to have such quality and advanced equipment on the market, because of these people, and I see that arrogance in a lot of cocky young kids these days whether it’s skydiving or Paragliging, they watch some RU-vid videos and are automatically experts over night haha That’s awesome bro, glad to hear you’re still flying my friend 👊🏼
Harrison Rowntree I’ve only done about 20 hours roughly, mostly coastal due to where I live, a few decent over land flights that were just within my skill levels to make it to the actual LZ... I am a 20 skydiving veteran and spend most of my days now Paragliging. I’m pretty lucky I was able to make a career out of it, but we have such an awesome flying community up here man,so many good people to help those who want to come and fly some of our many fly sites up here... If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you dude? You guys looked pretty young in that group photo at the end. Just stoked to see some young dudes not only go and get proper training, but have continued to persue that path and turn t into a lifestyle!.. huge respect brother 👊🏼
@@patrickswayze2596 I've got a bit over 500 hours - most of which was in the first 5 years of flying. I haven't done much the last few years since I stopped being a uni student with heaps of time haha. I learned when I was 19 and am 27 now so 8 years flying. There's about 5 people my age across Australia that fly which is good fun when we can get together at a competition. Thanks for all the support!
Ratings are necessary , Proper training is essential, these guys do it right. Being able to correctly access flying conditions is absolutely crucial. Being smart enough to know when not to fly is also important. I learned in Utah, point of the mountain, flying both the north and south side are very challenging, and you had better have your shit together.
bluto212 Being proficient isn't something that happens at the same speed for everyone. It's a sport where you're forever learning new things every time you fly. At the end of this 9 day course, I knew how to set up, soar and land. That's just the beginning. Reading the weather, assessing conditions and cross country flying all came through other pilots in the later years.
To learn at this school it was $2850 Which included the accommodation. It's pretty good value for the amount of flying you get and you get to do it all over 9 days. Some schools do a few days over a few weeks. Are you in Australia?
Do you start hang gliding session at 7:00 am or 8:00 am or 9:00 am or 10:00 am or 11:00 am then finish at 1:00 pm or 2:00 pm or 3:00 pm is it a 3, 4, 5 hour session for each of the 9 days?
Haha i just watched other pilots then I took my glider to a small hill and did a bunch of sled rides then did a high flight 1988. Been flying ever since.
I want to learn hang gliding. Is there a school in UK or is it only in Australia? Is there a season or I can fly in and start learning once I register ?
A beautiful flight of a hang glider, and suddenly everything starts to twitch, flicker. There was a high-speed shooting. The operator edits such videos for days, he got bored, he decided to speed up the frame and rewind the tape at double speed. But what about us viewers? Is that a creepy flicker? Rating this shot is a big minus
How much is your training 🤔 how long does it take. Was going to visit mu cozins in Melbourne this year but with this pandemic plans were all cancelled. This is one thing I always wanned to take up would love to get more information on this
This course I did with Rohan was about $3000 at the time which included on site accommodation and a basic breakfast. There is more information and updated pricing on his website, dynamicflight.com.au
I'm in California in the USA. Can you take off and fly for hours only in a upstream wind conditions? Do you have to wait for the right wind conditions to fly? How about taking off from a flat piece of land like they show in this video, is that only doable under certain weather conditions or could you still take off like that when the wind is almost 0 mph? Thanks!
Hi im looking into it as well. Have a look at Dynamic flights website, the course takes 9 days and i think is around 3k including accomadation and continental breakfast. Hope this helps :)
please that flight safety on motor gliders in case some unforeseen critical situations in the air, as the pilot of such a dragon saves Large individual flight there parachute as with paragliders.
The towing at the school is the safest towing system I've ever used. A reserve parachute is actually not a nice way to land. It's just better than dying. You still hit the ground as if you just jumped from about 5m high. The instructor didn't want students to have them in case they panicked and threw it which is likely to cause more damage than if they flew the floater into the ground. On my course, one pilot freaked out when he first got towed to about 200ft and hugged an upright all the way to the ground. The glider gently spiralled into the ground and both he and the glider were fine. If he threw a chute, he would have been worse off.
The course lasts for 9 days but that teaches you how to set up, fly and land a glider in simple conditions. There is much more to learn but you come home with the basics. Your first few months of flying should be supervised by an experienced pilot until you're ready to fly alone. Flying is quite easy. Deciding when and where to fly and land is usually what catches people out and that's where the experienced pilot is very beneficial.
Depending on how much time you can dedicate: a number of weekends-usually a couple months until you can fly a 500' hill unsupervised. Very roughly 3-6 months of supervised flying until you are flying 'altitude' from a mountain site, but it highly depends on time availability, funds, ability, instructor and program, equipment and weather. Most people can fly from a 100' training hill in the first couple weeks. There is a LOT to learn from setting up equipment, to ground handling, to landing skills, to launch technique, to weather, advanced skills, like flying prone, setting up landing patterns, working in traffic, evaluating conditions while flying, turbulence, micrometeorology, auto mechanics, camping, finding drivers, FAR's/FAA, thermalling, map reading, navigation, camera setup and operation, hiking out of the back country, and restaurant selection.
