![]() A soft wing always need more babysitting in challenging conditions. Like having an air hike along a mountain. A lot more feeling for small movements of the air around you. Starting is much easier - Landing can be a pain in the a** (especially while XC with small landing spots). The wings forces felt on ur whole body, just like its a part of you. There's this running joke among HG community that Paragliding is better in every respect. When it comes to flying there's not much to talk about and the commenters here described the difference already. PG pilot just pack his carrier-bag thingy into a rucksack and takes a bus home. When you fly XC, you must have a driver to pick you up. HG is a bigger commitment though, as you need to store the glider somewhere and transport it on a car. It really depends on you, this PG/HG has no winner and it all comes down a personal preference. We have a hidden whatsapp/skype/whatever groups so you never go fly alone, you always fly with familiar faces as there are not that many people doin it, smaller but tighter community. HG on the other hand is a dying sport but the community is extremely tight. PG is a mainstream sport nowdays so there are a lot of public stuff where you ask random people to go fly with and someone takes a car and you go. I wouldn't care about the community to be honest. I'm moving and changing my lifestyle and a hang glider and equipment is just going to be too darn bulky to do it conveniently. So I have loved hang gliding but I am going to move towards paragliding in short order. Paraglider you can throw it in a trunk, stuff it on a plane, take it on a train. Owning a car, owning a garage or some other space to hold your stuff is pretty critical. Storage and transportation of my glider was an enormous hassle. Hang gliding you have this giant 6 meter long tube that must be transported everywhere. Second, paragliding equipment itself is way more manageable. Paragliding skewed way younger and they had all the good looking girls. Hang glider pilots are cool, but the average one is a 55 year old guy. ![]() ![]() That's true in the states and I think even more so in most other parts of the world. First, the community of paragliders is bigger and skews way younger. BUT no matter how much time you spend in the air, you're going to spend most of your time on the ground. My take is it is that hang gliding is more fun when you're in the air and paragliding is more fun when you're on the ground. I'm not from the UK so I have no location-specific advice but I did hang gliding centered in California. I suppose me hanging out here is the last little bit I'm not letting go off. So I paddle my little kayak through the green fields under the blue skies these days. But in the end I figured chasing new feelings is better than desperately trying to recapture old ones. It's true what they say, once you've flown, your eyes will forever be drawn to the sky. Certainly felt more realistic, PG is pretty safe but from what I gather it's still the most unsafe flying sport by far statistically. What's the worst that can happen? I crash, break my back and screw over everyone that depends on me. I tried getting back in a couple of years ago and instead of excited or at peace I just felt stupid. Nowadays I got a mortgage, a family that relies on me, every injury is a reminder I don't heal as fast anymore. And in my 20s, I always figured what's the worst that can happen, you crash and die? Can't regret dying afterwards. At the time it was a big part of why I preferred hanggliders because PG's were too distracting. I was never a thrill seeker, it was always about the peacefulness of flying to me. And honestly, I don't think I have the nerve to get back in. And skydiving is just falling with attitude. Sailplanes are so expensive that the reality means working 8 hours for fly 30 minutes in a club owned plane. Still, hang gliding is damn near impossible to make happen for me. Paragliding is easily my least favourite way to be in the sky. Having tried hang gliding, paragliding, sailplane flying and skydiving. Paragliding is as popular as it is because of how convenient the set up is. Honestly, they both have their pro's and cons. I hate flying a soft wing that just wibble wobbles it's way through the sky. In fact, everything about paragliding is great, except for the flying. It's so convenient being able to pack everything into a big backpack, walk out to the take-off spot is a breeze. Never mind packing everything back up and getting it to the giant car you'll need to move it. I also haven't done it in a very long time because lugging a hang glider up to a take-off spot is a bitch and a half.
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