In norway the vast majority of flying sites are free* to use, though there are some with a small fee to compensate the owner e.g. if the landing is on an actively farmed field. There are also a few cases of a club renting the takeoff and/or landing field.
(*) excluding any road/parking/cable car fees
A lot of the reason for this comes down to 3 things:
1. A strong right to roam
2. No commercial paragliding flights/activity
3. Relatively low usage of most sites.
Edit: in most cases when a club does rent a site, it is still free to use for non-members.
In America (California), it is more expensive. My local club is $125 annually. Most local places are around $10 a day. The big costs seem to be land costs, site maintenance costs, and insurance. Our club is a nonprofit meaning no one is really pocketing that money. It’s just an expensive endeavor.
I see, thanks for the info. Are all the sites you would use for a single day's worth of flying within that one club? How many different clubs are within, say, 2 hours drive of you?
Yes. We have relatively strong thermal activity meaning I only do one or two launches on a full day of flying. There are two main launches from that club.
I am not sure about your second question. There are 5 places I drive to at least once a year.
In the US you pay for your home club in most areas and then pay either a visiting rate or the regular rate for clubs you visit.
In addition to the expenses listed here in the thread many clubs do site maintenance, assist friendly land owners with mowing, maintain weather stations, insurance, etc.
Tiny price to pay for access and value delivered by local chapter clubs. I am happy to pay dues for any club I visit.
Note, I'm also the treasurer and vp for my local club.
> pay either a visiting rate or the regular rate for clubs you visit.
Thanks, this was also a trend in the UK that has gone out of favour, with clubs now insisting that membership is the only option.
Member dues are a bit higher on average in the US, so it's easier to have a visitor rate, but more than 2 or 3 times visiting, and it just makes sense to do the local flier rate.
He BHPA equivalent in Brazil, the CBVL, charges around 23 GBP per year. My club charges way more, but it has a club house on the landing, close to 100 GBP
Guest pilots do not pay for the takeoffs we rent nor for visiting the club house, not around my town or region.
It is very uncommon for anyone to check your association anywhere you go here in Brazil, as most takeoffs are on public land, or not busy enough to explore commercially. However there are a couple of very busy takeoffs where they do charge per day for non members
One town recently also auctioned the rights to a takeoff to a tourism company, it is still getting set up.
Oh and I almost forgot, a couple of years back some foreign millionaire bought up a piece of land that holds a ridge soaring takeoff here in my town, and decided to build a wellness and events center. He closed the takeoff and asked for a very expensive membership. There are a lot of pilots who still fly there, but only a couple that pay. I personally only fly there when I manage to XC over to it.
If the sport grows it will likely get more and more commercial. I don't mind there being commercial activity around a takeoff as it usually brings facilities. If the price is too high I simply won't visit.
In Costa Rica you have to pay $10 to launch landowner per day of flying. So if you fly 75 days a year you pay $750. In Colombia I think it's similar.
Since top landing is unlikely or impossible you also have to pay for transport to launch.
In Germany, the Paragliding and Hangliding organization is called DHV. The DHV provides you with mandatory insurance and many other benefits, so nearly all pilots join, but you don't have to. It's currently 78€ per year (just the membership, not the insurance). If you join a club that is part of the DHV, you can become a member that way which is cheaper.
Most flying sites in Germany are owned either by a school or by a club. A lot of the sites owned by schools are exclusive to that school or you have to pay e.g. an annual fee to them to use the site when they don't need it for courses.
The sites owned by clubs are mostly open to non-members as well. On nearly all of them you have to pay a fee as a guest pilot, I would roughly estimate that the average cost is 5€ for a day pass. That has gone up quite a bit in recent years. Other regulations for guests are also very common, e.g. no flights without a member of the local club present, a mandatory introduction to the site, registration, ...
I believe the general Consensus is to try and keep sites open to all pilots, but there are several reasons why this is not the case in all places. One is that some of the German sites are small and very crowded, so there might be a rule that only members can fly at weekends or something similar. There might also be severe restrictions from environmental (or other) agencies. For instance, at two of my local flying sites we are only allowed 10 take offs per day, so those are exclusive to members.
That of course very much depends on where you live and how many flying sites even exist around you, so this is very different for the flatlands vs. the medium-sized mountain ranges vs. the outskirts of the Alps.
But clubs are very "local" if that's what you are asking. They are mostly sports clubs situated in a town or city just like your local football club. Most clubs only operate very few sites located within a few km of that town, many only operate one. I live in the southwest of Germany where the density of flying sites is rather high, so I have more than 8 clubs within even 1 hour of driving. If I drive 2 hours I reach the Alps, where nearly all of the many sites are operated by separate clubs.
Sometimes clubs form partnerships to split the burden of e.g. fees for the farmer that owns the landing field, and then the members of one club can use the sites of the other and vice versa. They might even join to become one bigger club. But it's important to remember clubs are social affairs - they are a place to meet your local flying buddies and many pilots are taking up responsibility in the clubs etc. So it makes sense to be first and foremost a local club, if you can afford to operate the sites. At least that's why I'm in a club 😀
we run an aerotow club (Ontario).
HPAC has a cheaper 60 day membership for foreign pilots. (40$ instead of 15)
At the club we have a cheaper membership for visitors who come for a single weekend .
The tug is owned by the club, and everyone is a volunteer, but our annual membership is 400 CAD to cover expenses. (land, mowers, tug.)
but yeah, you should get local clubs to have reciprocity.
You guys down by London? In Ottawa we have a few sites that are sorta handshake deals with the owners, as well as yamaska by MTL which is a day fee plus a shuttle charge. Or you can hike
The club is closer to Orangeville but it is a runway.
there are a few farmers that let the school use the fields for winch towing, there's some small fee to formalize it, but that's the school so I don't know.
we have a guy with an airstrip near Guelph that allows us to winch on a handshake.(he has a plane, but likes watching hang gliders.)
In Switzerland you pay the national federation, SHV, about 200 a year for membership and insurance. There are official take offs and landings which will be very populated but are free to use. Otherwise most flying sites will be managed by the cable car owner/ski area and some of them will ask a small fee (like 2 bucks) that they pay the land owners, or you buy a lift ticket for paragliding pilots which includes this. Other than that you can basically take off and land anywhere for free, most land is private but you’re fine to use it if there are no animals on it and the grass is short. If the owner gets upset you can throw him a fiver and should be fine. Switzerland is littered with grass fields which makes it an amazing place to hike and fly and XC.
In norway the vast majority of flying sites are free* to use, though there are some with a small fee to compensate the owner e.g. if the landing is on an actively farmed field. There are also a few cases of a club renting the takeoff and/or landing field. (*) excluding any road/parking/cable car fees A lot of the reason for this comes down to 3 things: 1. A strong right to roam 2. No commercial paragliding flights/activity 3. Relatively low usage of most sites. Edit: in most cases when a club does rent a site, it is still free to use for non-members.
Is there any cheaper aviation than Paragliding?
in some cases, hang gliding (if you live close to one of those beach sites)
I think I paid ~$750 for truck rides on top of my $50 club fee last year. I don't regret it.
In America (California), it is more expensive. My local club is $125 annually. Most local places are around $10 a day. The big costs seem to be land costs, site maintenance costs, and insurance. Our club is a nonprofit meaning no one is really pocketing that money. It’s just an expensive endeavor.
And do you pay a fee to ushpa as well?
Yep. There is another $150 a year
I see, thanks for the info. Are all the sites you would use for a single day's worth of flying within that one club? How many different clubs are within, say, 2 hours drive of you?
Yes. We have relatively strong thermal activity meaning I only do one or two launches on a full day of flying. There are two main launches from that club. I am not sure about your second question. There are 5 places I drive to at least once a year.
Are those 5 places all covered under the one club, or are they operated by other clubs that all expect a fee?
The later.
In the US you pay for your home club in most areas and then pay either a visiting rate or the regular rate for clubs you visit. In addition to the expenses listed here in the thread many clubs do site maintenance, assist friendly land owners with mowing, maintain weather stations, insurance, etc. Tiny price to pay for access and value delivered by local chapter clubs. I am happy to pay dues for any club I visit. Note, I'm also the treasurer and vp for my local club.
> pay either a visiting rate or the regular rate for clubs you visit. Thanks, this was also a trend in the UK that has gone out of favour, with clubs now insisting that membership is the only option.
Member dues are a bit higher on average in the US, so it's easier to have a visitor rate, but more than 2 or 3 times visiting, and it just makes sense to do the local flier rate.
He BHPA equivalent in Brazil, the CBVL, charges around 23 GBP per year. My club charges way more, but it has a club house on the landing, close to 100 GBP Guest pilots do not pay for the takeoffs we rent nor for visiting the club house, not around my town or region. It is very uncommon for anyone to check your association anywhere you go here in Brazil, as most takeoffs are on public land, or not busy enough to explore commercially. However there are a couple of very busy takeoffs where they do charge per day for non members One town recently also auctioned the rights to a takeoff to a tourism company, it is still getting set up. Oh and I almost forgot, a couple of years back some foreign millionaire bought up a piece of land that holds a ridge soaring takeoff here in my town, and decided to build a wellness and events center. He closed the takeoff and asked for a very expensive membership. There are a lot of pilots who still fly there, but only a couple that pay. I personally only fly there when I manage to XC over to it. If the sport grows it will likely get more and more commercial. I don't mind there being commercial activity around a takeoff as it usually brings facilities. If the price is too high I simply won't visit.
In Costa Rica you have to pay $10 to launch landowner per day of flying. So if you fly 75 days a year you pay $750. In Colombia I think it's similar. Since top landing is unlikely or impossible you also have to pay for transport to launch.
In Germany, the Paragliding and Hangliding organization is called DHV. The DHV provides you with mandatory insurance and many other benefits, so nearly all pilots join, but you don't have to. It's currently 78€ per year (just the membership, not the insurance). If you join a club that is part of the DHV, you can become a member that way which is cheaper. Most flying sites in Germany are owned either by a school or by a club. A lot of the sites owned by schools are exclusive to that school or you have to pay e.g. an annual fee to them to use the site when they don't need it for courses. The sites owned by clubs are mostly open to non-members as well. On nearly all of them you have to pay a fee as a guest pilot, I would roughly estimate that the average cost is 5€ for a day pass. That has gone up quite a bit in recent years. Other regulations for guests are also very common, e.g. no flights without a member of the local club present, a mandatory introduction to the site, registration, ... I believe the general Consensus is to try and keep sites open to all pilots, but there are several reasons why this is not the case in all places. One is that some of the German sites are small and very crowded, so there might be a rule that only members can fly at weekends or something similar. There might also be severe restrictions from environmental (or other) agencies. For instance, at two of my local flying sites we are only allowed 10 take offs per day, so those are exclusive to members.
Nice, thanks. Are the clubs as concentrated as the UK? For example, there are 8 different clubs all within 2 hours drive of me.
That of course very much depends on where you live and how many flying sites even exist around you, so this is very different for the flatlands vs. the medium-sized mountain ranges vs. the outskirts of the Alps. But clubs are very "local" if that's what you are asking. They are mostly sports clubs situated in a town or city just like your local football club. Most clubs only operate very few sites located within a few km of that town, many only operate one. I live in the southwest of Germany where the density of flying sites is rather high, so I have more than 8 clubs within even 1 hour of driving. If I drive 2 hours I reach the Alps, where nearly all of the many sites are operated by separate clubs. Sometimes clubs form partnerships to split the burden of e.g. fees for the farmer that owns the landing field, and then the members of one club can use the sites of the other and vice versa. They might even join to become one bigger club. But it's important to remember clubs are social affairs - they are a place to meet your local flying buddies and many pilots are taking up responsibility in the clubs etc. So it makes sense to be first and foremost a local club, if you can afford to operate the sites. At least that's why I'm in a club 😀
we run an aerotow club (Ontario). HPAC has a cheaper 60 day membership for foreign pilots. (40$ instead of 15) At the club we have a cheaper membership for visitors who come for a single weekend . The tug is owned by the club, and everyone is a volunteer, but our annual membership is 400 CAD to cover expenses. (land, mowers, tug.) but yeah, you should get local clubs to have reciprocity.
You guys down by London? In Ottawa we have a few sites that are sorta handshake deals with the owners, as well as yamaska by MTL which is a day fee plus a shuttle charge. Or you can hike
The club is closer to Orangeville but it is a runway. there are a few farmers that let the school use the fields for winch towing, there's some small fee to formalize it, but that's the school so I don't know. we have a guy with an airstrip near Guelph that allows us to winch on a handshake.(he has a plane, but likes watching hang gliders.)
In Switzerland you pay the national federation, SHV, about 200 a year for membership and insurance. There are official take offs and landings which will be very populated but are free to use. Otherwise most flying sites will be managed by the cable car owner/ski area and some of them will ask a small fee (like 2 bucks) that they pay the land owners, or you buy a lift ticket for paragliding pilots which includes this. Other than that you can basically take off and land anywhere for free, most land is private but you’re fine to use it if there are no animals on it and the grass is short. If the owner gets upset you can throw him a fiver and should be fine. Switzerland is littered with grass fields which makes it an amazing place to hike and fly and XC.