Birdman Academy
Birdman Academy Hang Gliding L.L.C.
Hang Gliding in Utah
|
Website: http://birdmanacademy.net/ Contact Kevin Koonce USHPA Certified Rating Official Hang Gliding Sales, Service Moyes / Wills Wing: Hang Gliders Brauniger, Digifly : Varios High Energy Sports : Harness Moyes / Wills Wing : Harness Email: birdmanacademy@gmail.com Phone: (801) 448-2494 Check out the current weather conditions Connect with us on Facebook! |
Tandem Flights:
Please call (801) 448-2494 for pricing or email us for further information or availability. If a tandem off the North Side requires driving up to the top, there is an additional fee.
What does it take to learn to Hang Glide & how much does it cost?
In order for you to buy equipment you need a rating. Hang 1 is basic takeoff and landing as well as ground handling and glider assembly. In order to get a Hang 1, you must be able to set up the glider, ground handle, and launch and land the glider.
After you can assemble and launch and land the glider yourself , you get a Hang 1 (usually 4 to 6 lessons).
Then you can fly from higher hills, from 500 to 1000 feet high, where you can practice turning the glider and setting up a landing approach, which gets you ready for a hang 2!
Once you have a rating you can buy equipment. The hang 1 is the bunny hill stuff (4 to 6 lessons), and once you can launch and land the glider, we can practice flying off of bigger hills and practice setting up a landing approach which gets you a hang 2. All mountain foot launch hang gliding sites are a hang 2 or higher rated site.
So, if you want to fly and have never done so, your best bet would to read Dennis Pagan’s Hang Gliding Training Manual, and come out to the Point of the Mountain. There you can meet up with Birdman Academy. Get your training and your gear, and leave (or stay!) with the equipment and knowledge to let you fly and keep you safe.
View the complete pricing list.
Training:
Here at the Point of the Mountain (Point), we have an outstanding environment in which to safely and quickly learn and master the art of flying modern hang gliders!
With Birdman Academy, you have a chance to learn Hang Gliding at one of the best places in the world, by the most experienced instructors currently teaching hang gliding out at the Point. We use small steps: first starting out low, and then working higher, all the time with the instructor telling you exactly what to do on the radio which makes learning to fly faster and easier!
Birdman Academy specializes in foot launch solo hang gliding instruction and ratings certification, as well as helping you get the gear that you need to fly on your own.
For your first lesson, after a beginners ground school and flight demonstration, students will first run on flat ground with the glider floating over their heads. They must understand the basic radio instructions (pull in, push out, left, and right) before they are allowed to move up to the training hill. Usually a student will have a few flights, probably flying 3 feet high for about 50 or 75 feet by the end of the first lesson, all depending on weather conditions. The first lesson gets most students ready to be flying approximately 15 feet high for about 150 feet or so by the end of the second lesson, depending on both the student and the wind conditions.
Birdman Academy Instructor Experience:
We take your flight training seriously at Birdman Academy. Our founder, Kevin Koonce, had taught thousands of beginner Hang Gliding lessons while working for a few years as an instructor at Kitty Hawk Kites. Over thousands of lessons, he has seen many different people make the same beginner mistakes while learning how to Hang Glide, and has many helpful techniques to help beginning students that have been learned from spending many years travelling around the U.S. and talking to many different Hang Gliding instructors.
While working at Kitty Hawk Kites, “the Birdman” oversaw the first Hang Gliding lessons of approximately 8,000 first time Hang Gliding students.
As well as teaching Hang Gliding, “the Birdman” was not only privileged to fly a 1902 Wright Brothers Glider replica, but was key in the “figuring out” of how to fly, launch and land the glider replica; not only with the fellow Hang Gliding instructors, but also in working with the team of hot shots (an F-18 test pilot, a, astronaut, an Apache attack helicopter instructor, and others) that were trying to learn how to fly the glider replica in order to help them learn how the 1902 powered Wright Brothers glider will fly!
Birdman Academy Hang Gliding Beginner Lesson
Flying with Tunes in a hang glider, south side, point of the mountain, ut