Three days of instruction are spent on the difficult part - inflating the glide and lauching in a stable position down a hill. Days four and five are the actual flights. They are both thrilling and beautiful - into the valley towns of Chamonix and Les Houches in the French Alps.
I have been parachuting many times and that probably hindered me catching on with inflating and controlling the glide. Skydiving parachutes are smaller and have steeper glide paths - at least my old rig does. Parapente glides are meant to be controlled much more gently than I was used to. Fortunately the school attaches a radio on your harness for a ground instructor to provide steering instructions. With his help, I manged to find the center of the target field with an (almost) standup landing.
Compared to the U.S. - and many other places, activities like this are fairly unregulated. The school told me that once I was comfortable under the glide, I could get a rig, buy a lift ticket on the local gondola and fly all day long if I wanted to.
It is a much quieter experience than skydiving. There is, of course, no freefall experience, but there is also no aircraft noise. And in the case of the valley below the Mont Blanc Massif near Chamonix, the scenery is some of the most spectacular in the world.
Some more info:
The Les Ailes School Facebook Page
The paraglide school required me to visit a local doctor to certify that I am fit to launch, fly and land the glide. I was not allowed to substitute a recent Class 1 FAA medical certificate and an ATP pilot's license. So I saw the Chamonix flying doc. It took about 30 minutes on the first evening and now I have this cool letter in French saying I am good for parapente and other flying sports for 2 years.
Nine days of liability insurance are required - in case you damage someone's property on landing. This cost me about $30 and was easily bought on-line with the school's assistance.
