There's a bunch of paragliding near my house

saw a bunch of para sails the other day. there’s a nice ridge here in chu shan, nantou and people sailing out over a broad, flat river plain we have here. it’s perfect cause of the lack of power lines. but i don’t know the people who are doing it. i wanna join.

I have done this before back home in the states, it was a rush! I would perfer to skydive or bungee jump(again) but not in TW…I have a gut feeling their safety standards just aren’t up to par.

Are you sure those aren’t paramotors? Paramotor or paraglider, play at your own risk, there are basically no training or safety standards whatsoever…

didn’t see any motors. i know where they’re jumping from though. that ridge is just too perfect. and you can sail that river bed for miles. it’s about 2 miles across goes to who knows where.

[quote=“rantheman”]didn’t see any motors. I know where they’re jumping from though. that ridge is just too perfect. and you can sail that river bed for miles. it’s about 2 miles across goes to who knows where.[/quote]I ask because there have paramotors operating there for years, but I haven’t heard of any paragliding there. We tend to look for different air to fly in. The motorheads like it smooth and they don’t lift natural lift. Paragliders soar on rising air and that usually entails turbulence.
Maybe if you gave more details about the launch place, map, coordinates or something?

well, i live in chu shan township (by the way i’d like to invite all of forumosa down for a weekend, one bus is all it takes! i’ll escort you guys from taipei!)
chu shan is in nantou county along highway 3. we’re only 30 minutes from tai chung. there is a ridge which i call “my mountain” that juts out over a river bed that’s about a mile or two wide and goes on to the ocean i presume. looks like a rocky bed to land in though.
i presume you’re in a club. i would really like to join and get this learned. i hope to do micro lite airplanes and micro ballooning (cloud hopping) one day. i think para would be a good start.
i also have a crazy dream:
wear a spacesuit, get attached to a balloon, and go up 100,000 feet to the edge of space, and parachute down.

100,000’ jump from a balloon has been done:
http://www.afa.org/magazine/valor/0685valor.asp

I always wondered what the collective noun for paragliding was. “Bunch” just about does it I suppose.

We use ‘gaggle’ to describe a group of pilots thermalling or flying crosscountry together :wink:

So ran lets say all of us forumosans did make it down to nantou. Where do you envision us all staying?

Well, as of around 11pm this evening, there are only 5445 of us (5444 not counting rantheman). I’m sure as long as a few of us didn’t mind sleeping on the floor, ran could probably find room for us at his place…

the hotels here would freak out!! my house is too small! but seriously, it’s a good place to go. i’m close to sway li, sun moon lake, and a lot of mountain places!