WPPGA National Training Center 800-707-2525   There are many key elements to getting really good instruction for paragliding and powered paragliding.  Instructor skill, location, equipment and methods play a huge part in the outcome and skill level of the students.  Sadly because it is an unregulated industry and no license is required to be an instructor, 97% of the people out there acting as instructors don’t even have the most basic skills themselves.  There are even bogus organizations out there, namely the usppa and ushpa, promoting people as “certified instructors” who don’t have even the most basic skills and don’t even follow logical practices.  Those promoting themselves as usppa or ushpa “instructors” have caused lists and lists of serious injuries & deaths that don’t need to happen if you just follow some simple logic. This is why the WPPGA National Training Center was created.  This way you can train with the best instructors in the world, in the very best location, on the absolute safest and best equipment and will 100% for sure be trained by methods PROVEN to put out the very best and most skilled paraglider and powered paragliding pilots the world has ever seen.  Aviation is something you don’t want to learn by trail and error or get wrong with poor instruction.  So how do you look for where and who to train with? First you want to make sure you train with a master pilot.  Its hard to believe there are people out there who have never had a day of real instruction themselves acting as instructors.  Seeing who has the skill level though is pretty easy thanks to youtube.  If you search youtube for “world’s best paramotor pilot” you are going to find lists of videos of Dell Schanze who is the best paramotor pilot in the history of the sport.  You can watch video after video of him demonstrating skills doing things no other pilots in the world can do.  SUPERDELL is the lead instructor at the WPPGA training center.  Finding the world’s best pilot is just the first part though.  Next you need to know that this pilot is also skilled at instruction and transfering those skills to others.  Again back to youtube you can find lists and lists of his students flying around and having a blast.  You can even seen his students setting world records during their initail training.  Yes that’s right, SUPERDELL’S students have set records DURING their training such as Tom who knocked out 271 flights on his very first day of flying.  Or Adam who knocked out 2 complete circle foot drags on his 8th day of instruction; a task only a handful of people in the world can do.  Or the 3 WPPGA students who knocked out SAT’s, a hard core acrobatic maneuver, on their 10th day of training.  Then there are those you can watch flying tandem during their 10 days of instruction.  Not as a passenger but as the tandem instructor.  The skill levels of WPPGA students are world class.  No other school in the world puts out students with THAT high of skill levels let alone consistently class after class.  Dell Schanze won the national glider control competition and is the undefeated WPPGA Paramotor World Champion.  The WPPGA championships is open to anyone anywhere in the world.  An open challenge to demonstrate the world’s highest level of skills.  Despite challenging the entire world in a simple and easy competion, still to date no other pilot has ever come close to the skill level of SUPERDELL schanze.  He is not only the best paramotor pilot in the world but is also the best instructor as is very easy to see from lists and lists and lists of videos.   Location for instruction is absolutely critical.  A huge part of mastering control of a paraglider is flying it like a great big kite.  To fly a kite you need wind.  How can you possibly get quality practicing hours in an area that doesn’t have consistent and smooth wind? Therefore trying to learn paragliding in states like Ohio, Utah, Coloroda, Illinois, Arizona and others would be a complete waste of time.  It could take you 6 months of training in order to get the same amount of practice that you can get on the beach in San Diego.  As you can imagine the beach is one of the very best places in the world to fly a kite since you can often fly a kite upwards of 8 hours a day.  If you try to master kiting in an area where you might only get 30 minutes of consistent wind per day then it would take you upwards of 16 times longer than it would on the beach in California & Mexico.  Once you learn how to fly you don’t need any wind at all so you can fly pretty much anywhere anytime but for training it is absolutely critical that you training in the perfect location so that you can get the most possible training into the shortest period of time.  Next once you master kiting and glider control and get up to speed flying you will want a huge gigantic open area to take your first flights with as many hours a day of good flying weather as possible.  The WPPGA National Training Center uses very specific locations in souther California and far northern Baja California in order to maximize the amount of practice you can get into the 10 day class.  This is how students are reporting they get upwards of 400 flights of experience into their 10 days of instruction.  The world record holder who knocked out 271 flights on his very first day of flying could not have done that without the absolute perfect location for flying.  Next location is critical for getting training done the right way.  Often people first look for “local” training.  The problem with training locally though is they do the training completely differently because of the drop out rate of students.  Doing the instruction the right way takes quite a bit of time and effort.  If you work people’s butts off they might not come back the next day for training.  If however you travel to the WPPGA National Training Center then you are a captive audience for the 10 day class.  That way they know you are going to be there for the 10 days so their is no temptation to shortcut your training to the funnest parts in order to keep your business.  It works incredibly well.  Where those training locally have an 80% drop out rate the WPPGA Training Center experiences a 98% completion rate.  If you travel to take your training class the odds are 98% that you are going to actually complete your training and go home an incredibly skilled pilot instead of having things come up along the way or dropping out because of the hard parts of training.  By committing to the full 10 day class your odds of coming back a pilot are almost 100%.  There are those that are horribly uncoordinated or just not physically able who may still fail the class.  Again WPPGA training is one of the few paragliding training classes you can actually fail.  They don’t sell ratings.  You actually have to pass the class to graduate. Equipment is another huge critical part of training.  The WPPGA National Training Center is one of the only training centers in the world that provide all the equipment for the students.  It is also the ONLY training center in the world that also provides INSURANCE on that equipment.  This is a huge gigantic hidden cost elsewhere.  Many fake instructors make most of their money charging to repair the equipment you damage during training.  The WPPGA National Training Center guarantees their training and equipment is so good that if you damage any gear, THEY will pay for it and not you.  This is a huge factor as people report having spent as much as $7000-$10,000 in REPAIRS to the equipment they trained on elsewhere.  That’s just the repairs, not the equipment but just repairs to it.  It is insane but true that most training and equipment is so bad that one little oops and you are $2500 or more in damages and that doesn’t include the risks of injury.  The usppa and ushpa scams have reportled literally LISTS of serious injuries & deaths to students.  The WPPGA National Training Center has NEVER, not once, had a student seriously injured or killed during training.  Equipment is a huge factor in the WPPGA safety record.  They use only the very best and safest gear.  They also have tons of it with gliders in every size and numerous different models with many different models of paramotors all which pass the WPPGA standards for safety.  While other schools may provide one single old beat up glider to practice on, the WPPGA provides lists of gear, along with all the lastest & best models.  Plus there are different types of gear for different stagest of training.  If you only train on one single wing you don’t learn as much as you do switching from glider to glider depending on your skill level and progress.  At WPPGA training you could take your first flights on an extra large size glider for example and then work your way up in skill levels and down in glider sizes until you are safely flying even the extra extra small size.  Similar to skydiving, generally the more skill you have the smaller the wing you fly.  At the WPPGA we have gliders in all sizes so as you progress you can drop glider size after glider size so you can understand and learn the differences and it helps you know which size will be best for you when it comes to buying your gear.  If you trash a $12,000 aircraft during training at the WPPGA National Training Center, you pay ZERO.  Not one penny extra.  Again they guarantee the training and gear is so good that if you damage any gear, THEY pay for it and not you.  This is a huge gigantic hidden cost and huge factor in choosing where to train.  One single oops at any other training class and it will almost for sure cost you more than the entire cost of training at the WPPGA.  No question you will make mistakes.  Imagine making 4-5 that cost you over $2500 in damage each and every time.  WPPGA training is the lowest cost and best training in the world.  It is so critical you literally can’t afford not to get training at the WPPGA National Training Center. Training methods are another huge factor.  There are basically 2 different ones.  The WPPGA method is teach people to fly BEFORE they get in the air.  Pretty much everyone else chucks you in the air as fast as they can and claims that if you can get in the air then you are a pilot.  Yikes.  A typical day of training with a person pretending to be a “ushpa instructor” means they hook you up to a paraglider and chuck you off a hill.  Yes literally.  With seriously no real instruction on how to control the glider they seriously get you in the air on a wing you have no real ability or reflexes to control.  Now paragliders are pretty safe & stable so the odds are that the paraglider will fly itself without issue.  The problem is though if anything at all happens or any deviation in the perfect flight requires pilot skill, you are in a world of hurt.  Once they chuck you off the hill 25 times they even sign you off and tell you that you are now a pilot.  Again... Yikes!! It would be better to self train then train with the nightmares at the ushpa and usppa scams.  Those that are foolish enough to self train at least know they don’t know what they are doing.  The problem with training with fake instructors is they try to build your confidence that you do know what you are doing when in reality you don’t.  False confidence is deadly.  At the WPPGA National Training Center you will master control of the paraglider BEFORE you fly.  Can you even imagine solo flights on an aircraft you never truly learned to control??!! The reason the ushpa scam has such a long list of serious injuries & deaths is because they literally force people into the air when they don’t have a clue how to really control the aircraft yet.  If one single thing goes wrong, untrained students will over react or even react backwards to what is correct creating extremely dangerous situations.  Do not let ANY instructor get you into the air on an aircraft you can’t properly control.  It takes about  20 hours minimum, of real glider control practice before you really can control a paraglider properly.  Because things happen quickly the only way it will be possible for you to respond correctly is if you respond by reflexes without having to think about what you are doing.  There is no possible way you can really properly control a paraglider with less than 10 hours of practice.  Those chucking people into the air BEFORE you properly learn how to really control the wing are the bane of the industry and should be avoided and warned against.  You don’t actually learn much from flying.  You could fly for years and still not gain the basic skills.  You can see those who trained with the scams who literally have been flying over 10 years but still don’t have even the most basic glider conrol skills you see in the WPPGA videos of brand new students.  Once in the sky if you haven’t learned to properly control the glider people often tend to just let the glider fly itself.  It is easy to get lazy and defer control to the wing instead of the pilot staying on top of it and reacting instinctively to ever tiny detail.  Flying as a passenger on a 737 your whole life doesn’t do anything at all in making you a skilled pilot.  Skills come from controllling the aircraft and practicing the control for so many hours it turns to reflexes where you don’t even have to think about it anymore, your body just reacts to what it sees & feels.  That’s why when you watch videos of WPPGA students you can see them kite with their eyes closed no problem at all.  So the very best and most logical method of training is to actually train to master control of the glider, then and only then move to flying the glider and of course finish up with a complete and lengthy ground school on everything you could possibly ever want or need to know about the sport.  That ground school is given to you as an MP3 so you can listen to it anytime, anywhere and all you would like.  With the WPPGA you will feel 100% confident in your skills BEFORE you get in the air.  We don’t push people into the sky unless they are 100% ready and know they are ready to fly. Paragliding or paragliding with a motor known as paramotoring or powered paragliding is absolutely incredible.  That is IF you get the right gear and training.  At the WPPGA National Training Center you get to train with the world’s best paramotor pilot and instructor, in the perfect location so you can get the most possible training into the shortest period of time, the best equipment is provided and you will master control of the aircraft before you get into the sky.  THAT is the very best way to do the training. The WPPGA National Training Center also makes it fun and easy to get the world’s best training.  We provide the lodging and equipment and even pick you up at the airport and drive you around so you don’t even need a rental car.  For $2500 all you do is show up at the airport or school ready to have fun and everything else but food is provided for you.   We rent multi million dollar houses right on the beach so your trip is a total blast with exceptional comfort and convenience and the training is very laid back and simple so you can get up when you feel like it, train when you feel like it and take a break when you need to.  Since it is all one on one personal instruction with the experts you don’t have to get up at 6am and don’t have to worry about where to be or exactly when.  The gear and training is right there and available when you are ready and when you are practicing and having fun the instructors are right there to help you and share tip after tip to help you progress as fast as you possibly can.  No matter your skill level, since the instruction is all one on one your skills progress at your speed, not the speed of the slowest student.  So even if you are a skilled pilot working on your tandem rating or acrobatics or a brand new prospect to the sport, the training moves as fast as you do and at your pace.  It is the funnest adventure vacation you will ever take and odds are extremely good you will come back an exceptionally well training paraglider and powered paragliding pilot.  Let’s go flying!!!!