The Good Paragliding Instructor

What can an instructor do to help you?

An advantage in paragliding that also makes it more dangerous is the easiness in getting started with the sport. Individuals who indulge in paragliding must be well instructed in the risks associated to paragliding. But often, students become fed-up and forget the simplest things that will ensure safety.

Inculcating safety as top priority in paragliding involves finding the right paragliding instructor. A skilled instructor is not only one who can paraglide expertly but more importantly one who can inspire, instruct, and inculcate the right values essential for paragliding pilots. An instructor can teach you and help you formulate systems and techniques to manage safety in paragliding. Ego and callousness are enemies of the sport. A good instructor can inspire you to continually check on these things and help you look after yourself.

There are limits to what can be taught

Attitude and perspective are vital in paragliding but attitude comes from the inside. It is impossible to teach attitude to a person, an instructor though can help mold and build a better attitude in a student. Some instructors teach students safety as the key to paragliding rather than the techniques. Still, some of the stronger points or lessons in paragliding are better learned through experience. Safety and other techniques in paragliding are forged more strongly through experience although their foundation starts during training with the help of a good instructor.

A good instructor is….

They say that the most satisfying course in paragliding is to be a paragliding instructor. But teaching paragliding to students takes more than teaching how to smoothly launch, fly, and land a paraglider. There is a need to instil an informed understanding to students that will allow them to recognize and judge for themselves the appropriate condition, site and equipment for flying. And most especially an instructor must impart to students an understanding of the effects of their mental disposition to the safety of a flight.

A good instructor does not only help a student make his or her first flight safely, a good instructor builds the foundation for a lifetime of safe paragliding flights.

Check your instructors credentials

Aspiring instructors are required to take basic instructor techniques and skills training. After this they must finish 40 hours of apprentice time from any credited school or with a professional instructor of their choice. After their apprenticeship they are required to take an exam, upon successful completion they will receive their Paragliding Basic Instructor Rating.

A paragliding instructor must have a P3 rating, a Red Cross First Aid card or equivalent, at least 200 days of flying experience with more than 300 flights. They must pass the FAA fundamentals of instruction test before starting on the above mentioned.