Congratulations!! You have reached the point in your instruction or budget that is allowing you to purchase the gear that will allow to fly like a bird! Let me assure you - OHGS will match or beat any local competitors price for new equipment at fair and published industry supporting margins.
But, first some caveats. Purchasing hang gliding equipment is not quite the same as going out to
the mall, plunking down your credit card, and walking out the door with
bags. First of all, you must be qualified to use the equipment you are
about to purchase. We are NOT USED CAR SALESMAN. Hang gliding comes with significant challenges that requires
the instructor to focus on teaching not bargaining. The hang gliding culture has agreed that equipment
in the hands of people that don't how to use it, can kill you and
be detrimental to the sport (the FAA is watching and bad publicity) and can endanger our negotiated flying
sites on private lands. Furthermore, hang gliding equipment manufacturers
policy is to only sell equipment to individuals associated with certified instruction. Even replacement
parts must go through approved dealers.
Second, it is to your benefit to purchase the appropriate equipment for your skill level, local flying conditions, and budget at the appropriate time in your training. There is a progression of increasingly advanced equipment as your skill level, flying goals, and budget escalates. The OHGS program is designed to introduce "one factor at at time" whether it be a new skill, new weather condition or your own personal equipment. This is the Central Principle in safely learning throughout your flying career. As your skill is developed, we incorporate your own equipment when appropriate thereby enhancing the instructional environment. For instance, a Full Face Helmet installed with a two way radio headset protects your head much better than a bell helmet and it allows to communicate with the instructor more efficiently and immediately. Then, when its time to go prone, your custom fitted harness and parachute arrives for your day long parachute clinic and going prone electronic simulator work. Finally, we incorporate your slightly more advanced glider in your high mountain flights. In the end, there are very many details regarding your equipment that must be worked out and which you must be accustomed to before arriving on the recreational hang gliding scene. It is important to look good, be authentically confident and knowledgable to engender trust in your future flying buddies. Who wants to be around an accident waiting to happen?
This strategy proves to the school you are serious about your learning, respect the flying community values and are willing to participate in the larger vision of a high quality, reliable, consistently available instructional service. You will naturally encourage all out personal attention to your learning needs. Everyone wins with this strategy since the hang gliding learning infrastructure must be supported and it assures long term support of your learning and equipment support past the hang three stage. Also, the training timeline is not impacted by the vagueries of casting far and wide for used equipment deals of questionable value and unknown performance that complicates the instructors challenges. Hang gliding teaching and learning is variable enough without these added complications. This can be very frustating at times, since you will have very particular needs in terms of sizes, fits, skill level so we can eliminate these requirements by purchasing the best equipment now, that you will be using for decades. (The durability of new equipment is amazing). Also, shipping and travel costs are expensive or buying equipment unseen can be stressful. Many novices, since they have little experience in the limitations of equipment, make expensive mistakes. Dangerous Frugality and Casual Disregard of Curriculum is the enemy to your learning safely. The major rule is:
| Skipping steps in either instruction or appropriate equipment progression because of over-confidence or excessive frugality can be very expensive in terms of slower learning and retarded confidence at best, and broken aluminuim or medical bills at worst. |
When a student pilot sees the tight interaction between instructional support, skill level/experience and appropriate equipment then you will have all the risk managment factors going for you in your hang gliding career. We want all the safety developments of hang gliding going for us.
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