The only official-looking document (Microsoft Word, ugh) I can find on the FAA's website about paragliding:
Ultralights are relatively free from rules. Medical certificates and pilots licenses are not required. However there are some rules of the road for these craft: No passengers are allowed, no flying over towns or inhabited areas, no flying at night or in clouds, no flying in controlled airspace and no commercial operations.Sailplanes and ultralights have the right of way in the air over all other aircraft except lighter-than-aircraft: blimps and balloons.
It seems the schools that teach paragliding are pretty heavy-handed, hinting that if you don't take their courses you'll ruin the sport for everybody. In reality, you're probably only ruining it for yourself, and only if you crash-land and injure or kill yourself. Just another case of unpaid cops trying to limit people's freedom and make a few unearned bucks.
I might take a course anyway, at least an introductory one, before starting, but I don't like the bullshit, and the artificial keeping of the economically disadvantaged out of a free and exciting mode of transport.
last updated 2013-01-10 21:10:22. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com