History
David Barish – the Paragliding Pionner.
The paraglider becomes a professional sport
The American David Barish, engineer in aerodynamics and parachutist, was tasked with making a parachute for the Apollo program. After some prototypes, in 1965, David builds a kind of canopy and he conducts some tests at Mount Hunter, in the United States, to adjust the equipment.
Possessing a different form of paragliders, this equipment already counted with the leading edge composed of Extrados and Intrados (photo alongside) and two independent panels. The lower fabric covered a third of the rope and it consisted initially of three buds and, soon after, went on to have five buds.
David came to build a rig with a glide ratio of 4.2: 1 (plan) means the ability to displacement of an aircraft in which, in this case, each metre that the paraglider moved down, three, so a plan progressed from 3: 1).
In the year 1966, David held several demonstration flights, however, aroused the interest of the people. Later, in one of the first free flight manuals, Hangliding, Manual published in 1973, which was based on the research of David Barish, would serve as reference for the pioneers of didactics Mieussy and their first flights.
In the year 1982, Roger Fillon, took off at a height of 4,121 meters in Chamonix, France. In 1985, Oliver Jousse managed to remain flying during 1:0 and 45 minutes in Mieussy. Roger Bedouet flew 2:0 and 40 minutes and Gerard Bosson got 3:0.
Every flight a record was broken. Richard Trinquier managed to remain in the air for 5:0 and 20 minutes with a paraglider of 11 cells, Surfair. Ten days later, all this in the year 1982, in Pakistan, of Mount Gasherbrum, Pierre Gevaux was the first paragliding flight to eight thousand feet high.
Due to the improvement plan, the paragliding competitions started becomes more common. Countries like France and Switzerland, started national championships. Initially, the evidence was only permanence and landing, later, came the proof of the distance traveled.
From 1989, the two bands (between the lines) gave rise to three or four and stretching (which is the ratio between area and wingspan), began to increase. Currently, only in Europe, it is estimated that more than 250 thousand people fly paragliding and the sport is growing in the world of hang gliding.
As a sporting activity, integrating the hang gliding, paragliding, is practiced in terms of recreation, Competition and in terms of Acrobatics. The improvement in the design of new materials, such as fabric, cables and fundamentally, developments in aerodynamics of wings, raised not only the enormous ability of flight of these magnificent machines, but also established new standards of security. The evolution of this sport is due also to a better and better training of its practitioners, existing for such specific regulation, presented by clubs and schools Hang gliding, scattered around the world, accredited and recognised by their respective National Federations.