British Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association Home Our Sport Schools Hang Gliding Paragliding Parascending Power Documents home - welcome to the bhpa website Visitors 12 - 22/12/2014 11:13:43 PM British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association Find a School Enter the first part of your postcode to find your nearest BHPA registered school eg. enter CF44 if your post code is CF44 1BS Please Select Hang Gliding Paragliding Parascending Paramotoring Powered Hang Gliding Post Code Or view schools location map Download the BHPA Elementary Pilot Training Guide (8.11mb) Subscribe to: BHPA e-news Subscribe to Skywings the official magazine of the BHPA, or buy back issues Visiting Overseas Hang Gliding & Paragliding Pilots please read this..... Buy the BHPA Pilot Handbook Flight theory, meteorology, basic and advanced flying skills and more. Invaluable for post-CP pilots Events & Competitions RSS e-News Submit Incident Report The BHPA is a member of The The Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom The BHPA is a member of The European Hang Gliding & Paragliding Union Personal or travel insurance is available from Airsports Insurance Bureau Ltd Welcome to the British Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association (BHPA) website. From its head office in Leicester the BHPA supports a country-wide network of recreational clubs and registered schools, and provides the infrastructure within which hang gliding and paragliding in the United Kingdom (UK) thrive. The BHPA oversees pilot and instructor training standards, and provides technical support such as airworthiness standards, and coaching courses for qualified hang gliding and paragliding pilots. Initial hang gliding or paragliding training must be undertaken at a BHPA registered school. Most schools offer training in a wide range of flying disciplines, so it's important to understand the differences between the disciplines before choosing a school. The Learn to Fly section of this web site explains the relative merits of each discipline, the types of flying involved, and provides an insight into the training methods used. As you near the end of your initial training with one of our registered schools, it's important to start looking for suitable recreational club to join. The BHPA supports a network of UK hang gliding and paragliding recreational clubs who are able to offer the supportive flying and social environment vital to the safe development of your flying skills as you leave the school enviroment to join other recreational flyers on the hill. The BHPA has a disability initiative called Flyability. This reports directly to the BHPA's Executive Council on disability related matters within the sport. Flyability doesn't simply take people with disabilities flying, it strives to motivate people with disabilities to become involved in the sport of hang gliding and paragliding and to train as pilots. Much of Flyability's work in the sport, focuses around changing peoples perception of disability and their attitudes toward people with disabilities. Disability awareness, education and advice play key roles in Flyability's aims and objectives, as does the development of specialist equipment, training and flying techniques. The BHPA also publishes Skywings, a glossy full colour monthly magazine. To wet your appetite, a small selection of past issues is available for download on our Skywings page. Skywings is the only magazine dedicated to free flying in the United Kingdom, and is distributed by mail to around 6,500 BHPA members as part of their membership package. Skywings magazine is also read by countless more hang gliding and paragliding pilots and organisations around the world who have purchased an International Skywings magazine subscription from our on-line shop. Back issues of Skywings magazine can also be purchased from our on-line shop. The BHPA provides automatic third party insurance for its members, but if personal or travel insurance is required, this should be obtained from an independent insurance broker, like Airsports Insurance Bureau Ltd. We hope that when you've found a school appropriate to your needs, made contact and begun training, you'll discover for yourself the excitement and challenge that makes free flying such a great pastime. If you do, you‘ll also find that the level of support and camaraderie amongst pilots is one of the many great strengths of the sport. You'll make friends, go places and achieve things that you may have only dreamed about in the past. It's a fantastic sport... So why don't you join us, and never look back. Whilst Skywings magazine frequently includes lively and thought provoking articles and letters about our sport, if you're looking for lively on-line debate, there are a number of independent hang gliding and paragliding forums on the internet. A few of these are listed below. HG Forum UK The Paragliding Forum The Paramotor Forum These forums are not affiliated to the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, and the views expressed in them are consequently not necessarily those of the Association. I'm afraid we can not display content here. This is because you have not agreed that we can set the necessary cookies by ticking the appropriate box in our cookie compliance notice. If our cookie compliance notice is not displayed below, please refresh your browser. If it is still not being displayed, please check that you have enabled javascript support in your browser security settings. Latest Skywings News Letters of Agreement - Urgent Action Required Flawed CAA implementation of the Standard European Rules of the Air (SERA)legislation means that widespread Air Law changes will emerge in a last-minute rush before the December deadline, and with Rules more draconian than the BHPA had been led to believe. As we go to press it is still not known exactly what the new Rules will be. It is anticipated that there will be adverse effects upon some airspace Letters of Agreement (LoAs) that Clubs, Schools and Tow Groups currently have. In order to try and limit the damage when the new Rules are known it is important that the BHPA reviews all existing LoAs. BHPA Clubs, Schools and Tow Groups should e-mail copies of all existing LoAs to Airspace Legislation Officer Tom Hardie (tom@primarysolution.co.uk) as soon as possible. UK's youngest tug pilot Tomas Frohawk has just become, at 17, the BHPA's youngest fully-qualified tug pilot. Tomas learnt to fly with Flylight Airsports at Sywell and quickly gained his NPPL (Microlights). In ten weeks Tomas has flown 180 hours and made over 103 flights and now flies his own Mainair-Pegasus Quik... Paramotor records fall to RAF team In late September an RAF team broke the paramotor world records for solo and tandem time to climb to 3000m. The UK records for these categories were also broken, along with the UK solo and tandem altitude records (19,200 and 11,309 ft). The team included Flt Lt Gordon Blackley, Sqn Ldr Suzanne Hobbs, Flt Lt Giles Fowler and Gp Capt (Ret'd) Mick Roche; the equipment was Bailey Hornet-powered Advance Epsilon 7 and Bi-Beta 5 gliders... Mark Morgan record homologated The 123.18km paramotor flight made on October 6th last year by Mark Morgan of Sussex Paramotors has been confirmed as a World and UK tandem paramotor (limited fuel) distance record. Mark flew his Bailey V5/Ozone Mag Max outfit from Hambrook, West Sussex to Camber Sands on just 7.5kg - about 10 litres - of fuel... Bursaries available! Earlier this year the Royal Aero Club Trust awarded 28 bursaries to young airsports enthusiasts to help them advance in their chosen field. Details of the 2015 bursaries are now available; changes to the scheme include lowering the minimum age to 14 and the addition of follow-on bursaries for further advancement up to age 24... last updated: 26 October 2014 BHPA » Contact » Join » Learn to Fly » Flyability » Online Shop UK Competitions » HG XC League » HG Competitions » PG XC League » PG Competitions » PPG Competitions Weather » XC Weather » Wendy Windblows » RASP » BBC Weather » BHPA Weather Links Flying Links » Links Directory » Accomodation » Advanced Courses » Holidays & Guiding » Other Associations Other » Terms & Conditions » Privacy » Cookies » Credits » Site Map