Taught myself, 100% doable. Every bit of classroom instruction you could ever need is on UA-cam. Watched 100+ hours of paramotor, paragliding, and weather videos. Taught myself to kite a wing decently well, setup hang points, drilled motor runs without wing, then with wing, then did my first flight when everything felt good. I would never ever ever advise anyone do it that way.
I self trained like 60%. It worked okay for me. I did spend two days with an instructor but i had already learned to kite by that point. I progressed slow from kiting to wearing the motor, walking with thrust, and finally to power taxi. One day the power taxi felt great and i took off. The hardest part to learn without an instructor is landing! I put up all my videos and let the internet critique them. That was a huge help.
100% self taught as well but also bought my 2nd life insurance policy the day I bought my Fb marketplace deal 😂 Sept 13 I bought it all & October 5th I took my first flight. In the past 20 days I’ve flown 13 of them. Eventually I want to go to a school or pay an instructor to clean up any bad habits I’ve picked up in the self taught process.
The way I explain self training to people is this: Think about the song on the piano called "chopsticks." The most simple song even a child can learn in a few minutes while playing it on the piano. In this example, you NEVER actually get to practice on a piano while learning the song, but instead you only study videos of how to play it 100s of times by watching. You "feel" you know it inside and out because you studied it so intently. Now--- go physically play that song. BUT here's the catch.... You only get ONE chance to play it perfectly. If you hit a wrong key, you could die or be seriously injured. In addition to your first an only chance to get it right, you are dangling from some strings hundreds of feet in the air- in a state of complete sensory overload. Some people lock up in these situations- even those who think they would not. Most people are not honest with themselves nor know themselves well enough to know how they would handle that situation. Yes, self training is 100% doable. The thing is... no one will disagree that you are adding a significant amount of risk choosing that path. I almost self trained too. 1000% glad that I did not. Worth every penny to build a great foundation for where I am now. I have been flying weekly for a few years now, and I still learn a little something every flight. I also really enjoyed every bit of my training. For context, before paramotoring I had already had a background in other extreme sports and aviation. It's already risky, don't make it more risky that it already is. Chances are, you have people that love you that wouldn't want you to "just send it."
Come to Puerto Rico and I will show you an USPPA instructor with 20 yers of the worst training instruction. Why, he just care about $$$. But with his USPPA credentials and time in business people think he know how to teach. Do not trust USPPA credentials, find from previous students, how many of them are still flying or how many fatalities of his students (2 in 2024 is not a good sign)
Taught myself, 100% doable. Every bit of classroom instruction you could ever need is on UA-cam. Watched 100+ hours of paramotor, paragliding, and weather videos. Taught myself to kite a wing decently well, setup hang points, drilled motor runs without wing, then with wing, then did my first flight when everything felt good. I would never ever ever advise anyone do it that way.
Awesome!
By far.... The BEST PPG video on UA-cam! Thank you for making this.
This video makes my life as an instructor easy!
Thanks!
Sick views dude. Be safe up there 🤙
I self trained like 60%. It worked okay for me. I did spend two days with an instructor but i had already learned to kite by that point.
I progressed slow from kiting to wearing the motor, walking with thrust, and finally to power taxi. One day the power taxi felt great and i took off.
The hardest part to learn without an instructor is landing!
I put up all my videos and let the internet critique them. That was a huge help.
100% self taught as well but also bought my 2nd life insurance policy the day I bought my Fb marketplace deal 😂 Sept 13 I bought it all & October 5th I took my first flight. In the past 20 days I’ve flown 13 of them. Eventually I want to go to a school or pay an instructor to clean up any bad habits I’ve picked up in the self taught process.
The way I explain self training to people is this: Think about the song on the piano called "chopsticks." The most simple song even a child can learn in a few minutes while playing it on the piano. In this example, you NEVER actually get to practice on a piano while learning the song, but instead you only study videos of how to play it 100s of times by watching. You "feel" you know it inside and out because you studied it so intently. Now--- go physically play that song. BUT here's the catch.... You only get ONE chance to play it perfectly. If you hit a wrong key, you could die or be seriously injured. In addition to your first an only chance to get it right, you are dangling from some strings hundreds of feet in the air- in a state of complete sensory overload. Some people lock up in these situations- even those who think they would not. Most people are not honest with themselves nor know themselves well enough to know how they would handle that situation. Yes, self training is 100% doable. The thing is... no one will disagree that you are adding a significant amount of risk choosing that path. I almost self trained too. 1000% glad that I did not. Worth every penny to build a great foundation for where I am now. I have been flying weekly for a few years now, and I still learn a little something every flight. I also really enjoyed every bit of my training. For context, before paramotoring I had already had a background in other extreme sports and aviation. It's already risky, don't make it more risky that it already is. Chances are, you have people that love you that wouldn't want you to "just send it."
Come to Puerto Rico and I will show you an USPPA instructor with 20 yers of the worst training instruction. Why, he just care about $$$. But with his USPPA credentials and time in business people think he know how to teach. Do not trust USPPA credentials, find from previous students, how many of them are still flying or how many fatalities of his students (2 in 2024 is not a good sign)