How to: Fly by wire

Bastienne Wentzel explains how to get in the air from a standing start on the ground

Where there is not even a hillock in sight a winch is the only way for paragliders to get airborne. All that is needed is a long open space roughly in the direction of the current wind. “Towing opens up a completely new range of flying areas,” says Michael Gebert, a guide with the Swiss company Fly With Andy organising trips to fly from tow in Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and the Balkans. “And it’s a super-safe kind of flying,” he adds.

Flying from tow is a perfect way to explore the flatlands, in the Americas but also in Europe. Even with hills around, an additional advantage of using a winch is that you launch from the flat, avoiding the compression that often happens on a hill launch. In strong winds or thermic air, launch conditions in the hills can quickly get overpowering. Using a winch to launch helps you avoid that problem. 

When pilots are chasing records, they need these strong conditions to fly fast and far and launching with a winch can provide a more secure way to start the flight. That is how their now-famous winch trips began in Caicó, Brazil, explains Michael. “We got an old...