This is one sport where you should learn with a suitable instructor rather than teaching yourself by trial and error. This way, you benefit from the fatal mistakes that the pioneers made, instead of repeating them.
At the bottom of the page is a list of training contacts by country.
If your country is not listed, you can find training schools in the classified section of the telephone directory, under 'Sports'. If that fails, you can contact the international hang gliding and paragliding authority, CIVL, at the top of the list.
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Training will change your view from looking up like this... | ... to looking down like this. |
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Training starts with a little theory about how to set up the equipment, how to fly it and some do and don'ts. However, weather permitting, you should be out with the hang glider or paraglider on the first day. With paragliding, in particular, you will probably spend some time on flat ground getting used to handling the wing in the wind, and inflating it ready to take off. Then you will carry it a very short way up a hill, from where you will take off and glide the few yards back down. When you've got the hang of that, you will launch a little higher up the hill and so on until you're launching it from the top. It is common to carry a radio so that the instructor can give you instructions in the air.
Thus far, you have learned how to take off and land. You will also learn how to turn left and right on the way down. Finally, you will use these skills to stay aloft indefinitely in ideal conditions. Along the way, you will be taught how to avoid and recover from potentially dangerous situations. You will also find out about conventions such as which side to overtake on, and which way to turn to avoid a collision. This completes the basic training and typically takes five to ten days of suitable weather.
An alternative way to learn is to be towed up rather than to launch from a hill, but the idea is the same. This allows you to fly a hang glider even if you don't have use of your legs because it can take off and land on small wheels rather than on foot.
Training teaches you the basics so that you can fly safely with other pilots, without an instructor. However you will probably still depend a lot on other pilots for guidance well after training. One day, a newly trained pilot will turn to you for guidance and then you will realise how far you've come.