Hang Gliding Beginner Lesson
Hang Gliding South Side Tandem
Hang Gliding North Side Tandem ($20 living social upgrade)
Paragliding South Side Tandem
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 few airline pilots, astronaut trainee, 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!
Want to hang glide for free? Go get some Free Bird……
Hang gliding students can come out and use available training gliders on the training hill for practice launching and landing for free once they get the hang one rating and can link 45 degree turns (usually after about 6 to 8 lessons).  At that point, training hill flights are considered “signed off” and the student can use any available training glider they are qualified to use (that  is not currently in use by a paying student) on the training hill for free as long as there is an instructor out teaching at that time.  If you want to do this, please text the day before the desired morning.
Weather Policy
If for any reason the weather prohibits us from conducting any training, you may reschedule to the next available class free of charge. Usually training can happen using different sized gliders for different wind conditions. And plus, it is the Point! The Point of the Mountain (near Salt Lake City, Utah) is known for the best locations in the world for consistent conditions. The instructor will call the night before to reschedule if necessary due to bad weather forecasts.
Legendary Conditions
The local weather conditions at the Point are legendary for producing consistent smooth training winds, which provide maximum potential for flying during the lesson. Many different training locations will familiarize students with the act of ‘hang waiting’, which is defined as waiting on launch until the wind blows in a favorable, sustained cycle.
Hang gliding lessons at the Point do sometimes involve hang waiting, but the amount of time spent waiting for wind at the Point is much less than anywhere else. The wind at the Point really loves to blow in at the south side almost every morning, which makes your job of learning to fly much easier and faster!