Please note: You must have completed an EP and CP (Tow) Course before you can enrol on a CP (Hill) Course.
Before you can move on to this stage in your training, you will also need to have purchased your own equipment. It is important that you get used to it and have it all correctly set up before we let you loose to fly on your own (out of the school).
Once you have mastered the reverse launch and we consider your glider 'ground handling' skills good enough to keep you safe, we will teach you how to fly in the windy condtions you need to fly from hills. You will only only be charged £100.00 per day instead of the usual £170.00 providing you have completed your training and purchased your equipment from us.
Important: Trying to fly in windy conditions on a hill without having mastered the necessary 'ground handling' skills first (in a nice safe environment like our airfield) is plain stupidity in our opinion because you risk injury to yourself and your equipment. All hill flying sites have barbed wire fences and a mix of bushes, trees and rabbit/badger holes. You will need good glider control skills to be able to avoid them.
Equipment Costs
The average cost of new equipment for the beginner is:
• Paraglider - £1800.00 to £2,300.00
• Harness - £450.00 - £600.00
• Reserve Parachute £450.00 - £650.00
However, we offer a great deal for new pilots - check out our 'Club Pilot Package' deal.
Second-Hand Equipment
If you don't want to buy new, then we can sell you an ex-demonstrator or ex-school wing (we won't sell unknown secondhand wings because we can never 'truly' know their history). If you want to buy second-hand equipment (providing it's from us), you will still be entitled to same day rate charge as above.
We buy new school gliders every few months, so there is always a supply of 'almost new' gliders in stock. We only teach on them for around 25 days before we sell them on. This ensures that we have a good supply of used gliders all the time.
Please note: If you buy or intend to buy secondhand equipment from someone other than us, then that is your choice. However, we will not teach you on it. As stated elsewhere, we will only teach on NEW equipment. We consider this a very serious safety issue and there will be no exceptions.
