It was blood, sweat and tears. Hang gliding instructor Ken deRussy in the back seat of my trike, out over the Puget Sound. Photo by John Olson Towing offers a much more accelerated means to learn to fly, and safer, too. The same with footlaunching tandem. But even these methods do not always yield maximum results.
Trikes offer the best solution for an accelerated hang gliding training program.
Trikes allow a student pilot to sit down in the front seat of a two-place trainer, and in one hour, he will get an hour of flight time. This is how most other types of flying are taught, and works well for hang gliding, too. Eventually, a student needs to learn towing skills, or how to footlaunch, but when the trike student arrives on the training hill, he is much better off for having learned to fly before learning to take off and land. Trikes let a new hang glider pilot relax. I teach hang gliding at the Arlington Ultralight Center of the Universe, in Arlington, Washington in the summer season, and I wander the southland in the winter, looking for work.