History of Hang Gliding, Paragliding, and Speedflying

Modern hang gliding, paragliding, and speedflying developed in part from kites, sailing, parachutes, and other sports. These lightweight, transportable gliders allow anyone to achieve the dream of flight. Read more about the history and continued evolution of these sports.

History of Hang Gliding

Although often thought of as a newcomer to aviation, hang gliding is actually among the oldest forms of human flight. Before the airplane, the first successful emulation of the birds involved running down a hill with a light weight glider, taking off into the air and gliding down. Otto Lilienthal was the most successful early aviator, and made more than two thousand successful gliding flights in the late 1800’s. After the turn of the century, two bicycle mechanics named Wilbur and Orville Wright made successful flights on gliders of their own design from the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. After developing their aircraft designs and flying techniques using gliders, they fitted a motor to one of their designs and invented the first successful airplane.

The obvious practical advantages of the powered airplane effectively ended further development of gliding, as intensive effort was devoted to the development of airplanes for both civilian and military use.

The great bird will take flight above the ridge... filling the universe with awe, filling all writings with its fame..." - Leonardo da Vinci

Unpowered gliding as a form of sport aviation saw a rebirth after World War I, starting in post war Germany. The treaty of Versailles prohibited the development of powered aircraft in Germany, and pilots who had been trained during the war, as well as people who wanted to take up flying, had no choice other than gliding. As gliding developed as a sport, and as the technology of gliders evolved towards higher performance, the concept of a light weight glider which could be picked up and launched by running down a hill was almost totally abandoned. Pilots of larger, heavier gliders, learned to use the upslope winds along ridges as well as thermal updrafts to extend the duration of their gliding flights, and the sport of soaring was born. Flights of a few minutes became flights of several hours, and cross country flying over distances of hundreds of miles became possible. Over the next forty years, great improvements were made in the design of gliders and the knowledge and techniques of glider pilots, until soaring became an activity available to anyone who wished to pursue it. During that same period, hang gliding, the first form of flying, all but disappeared.

Then in the 1960’s a number of people contributed to a re-birth of hang gliding. One major impetus for this rebirth was the adaptation to hang gliding of a new type of flexible wing, now commonly referred to as the “Rogallo Wing.” In 1948, American engineer Francis Rogallo patented a design for a simple flexible wing. Rogallo worked for NASA, and additional designs derived from the flexible wing concept were subsequently developed and extensively tested by NASA as part of the early US space program. These NASA designs, which now included airframe components that partly stiffened and supported the wing, in turn inspired adaptations for foot launched hang gliders by people like Barry Palmer and Richard Miller. The most elegant and most successful adaptation of the flexible wing concept to a human carrying aircraft was Australian John Dickenson’s design for a towed water ski kite, which he first flew in the early 1960’s, and which contained all the essential design elements of what later became known as the “Standard Rogallo.” Dickenson’s design was simple, easy to make and easy to learn to fly. When the Dickenson design was scaled up to a size appropriate for foot-launching, the simplicity of design and construction, along with its capability for slow flight and gentle landing characteristics led to an explosive growth in popularity of the “new” sport of hang gliding. Several companies began manufacturing versions of the wing, and for the first time in history simple, unencumbered bird-like flight was available to almost anyone who wanted it.

History of Paragliding

Paragliding, like hang gliding, developed partially out of designs created for the NASA space program. Other designs, along with test flights completed independently on the other side of the world, also helped provide the foundation of paragliding and contributed to its development.

American pilot David Barish created one of the first airfoils that helped jump-start the evolution of modern paragliding. After the end of WWII, Barish left the Air Force to study aerodynamics at the California Institute of Technology, then became a consultant for NASA. In 1955, he designed the Vortex Ring, a lighter, more stable parachute with improved gliding capabilities. Then, in the early 1960s, he built on his previous work to design a parachute, called the Sailwing, to aid in the return of NASA space capsules to Earth.

Barish first flew his Sailwing—a single-surface, rectangular parachute—in 1965 from a ski resort in New York. He called the activity “slope soaring,” and in the summer of 1966 he toured ski resorts all the way to California to try to popularize the ground-skimming hobby. After NASA decided on other methods to recover the space capsule, however, Barish largely shifted his focus to other projects.

Around the same time, others were also furthering parachute designs. In 1964, American Domina Jalbert patented the Parafoil, a multi-celled, double-surface, ram-air type parachute. The design used the motion of air blowing through the cells to inflate the parachute, giving it an airfoil shape that allowed it to glide.

The sport of paragliding finally took off in 1978. On June 25, skydivers Jean-Claude Bétemps and André Bohn decided to try to get aloft by launching from the steep slope of Mont Pertuiset in Mieussy, France. Bétemps took off first, and both glided to the valley below. Their flights gained attention from the media, attracting others to the sport, and Bétemps became known by many as the inventor of paragliding.

After that, the sport grew rapidly. The first paragliding school was founded in 1979, with Bétemps serving as an instructor. In 1985, Laurent de Kalbermatten began manufacturing and selling the first wing intended specifically for paragliding, and other companies soon followed. Paragliding began spreading to the U.S. in the mid-to-late 1980s and continued to grow during the 1990s.

New paraglider pilots quickly started competing. The first Paragliding World Championships were held in Austria in 1989. The same year, Hans Jörg Bachmair set the first straight distance world record of 69.15 km that was recorded by the World Air Sports Federation (FAI). It was broken by two other pilots by the end of that year, then jumped to nearly 150 km by December 1990. Records for straight distance flown on a paraglider continued to increase, breaking 400 km in 2007. The current straight distance record of 564.3 km (350 miles) was set on October 13, 2016 by Donizete Baldessar Lemos, Rafael Monteiro Saladini, and Samuel Nascimento.

Now, it’s easier, safer, and more exciting than ever to learn to paraglide. Glider designs are continuously improving, making paragliders lighter, more stable, and easier to fly, as well as giving them increasingly better performance. And with thousands of participants worldwide, paragliding has something for everyone: hiking (and even camping) with your wing, soaring the coastline, flying cross-country to beat your personal—or world—records, performing aerobatics, and participating in competitions, to list a few options. If you’ve ever dreamed of flying, paragliding offers one of the most accessible ways to soar like a bird.

History of Speedflying

Speedflying is an exhilarating air sport that combines elements of paragliding, skydiving, and often skiing. It involves flying small, highly maneuverable wings at high speeds close to the ground, typically down mountainsides.

The sport originated in the early 2000s, evolving from paragliding and parachute swooping. French pilot François Bon designed the first commercial speed wing, the Gin Nano, which helped popularize the activity. Along with Antoine Montant, Bon pioneered extreme descents, including speed riding (speedflying on skis) down the North Face of the Eiger.

Speedflying uses specialized equipment, including:

• Small wings (7-14 m²) with large cells and short lines for increased speed and maneuverability
• Lightweight, non-bulky harnesses

The sport can be divided into two main disciplines:

1. Speedflying: Foot-launched flying with a speed wing
2. Speedriding: Flying with skis, combining skiing and flying

To safely practice speedflying, pilots often start by learning paragliding to develop a solid understanding of flight dynamics and meteorology. The sport is usually performed in calm conditions during sunrise or sunset to minimize turbulence.

Learn to Fly

With over 400 paragliding instructors and 40 schools certified by the Professional Air Sports Association (PASA), you won’t have to go far to get into the air. There’s no better time to get started, so find a school or instructor and join us in the sky!