@paranomor: No wheels, no engine... so how does a paraglider land softly? Your legs are the landing gear. Pilots always land facing into the wind. The headwind slows you down over the ground. In our rounded example, about 36 km/h through the air becomes about 21 km/h over the grass. Before touchdown you stand up in the harness, legs ready to run. At about 1 metre above the ground, you pull both brakes all the way down. That's the flare. The wing trades its speed for one last puff of lift. It doesn't stop, but it slows enough for you to step down with a few running steps. Birds do it too: an Oxford study (2022) found that Harris' hawks brake in mid-air just before they land on a perch. And if a landing is going to be hard, pilots learn a "parachute landing fall" (PLF): feet and knees together, then a roll that spreads the impact across the legs, hips and back. The timing is the tricky part. Flaring too early or too late both cause problems, and the right height depends on the wing and the wind. That's why landing is learned step by step at a school, with an instructor. Would you trust your own legs as landing gear? Save this for your first tandem flight, or share it with someone who thinks paragliders need a runway. Follow @paranomor for one sky secret a day. Sources: Ozone, Gradient and UP wing manuals, Skynomad, Flybubble, Paragliding San Francisco, University of Oxford, Wikipedia. #paragliding #parapente #landing #paraglidingschool #howitworks

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Wednesday 14 October 2026 19:31:14 GMT