Riding High Avid paraglider equates sport to ‘dancing in the sky’

For Rufus Hellendale, the sensation of paragliding is like no other.

“There’s a feeling of freedom,” the Brooksville resident, in his 40s, reflects. “It’s like dancing in the sky.”

When he was 21, and a poster of a hang glider adorned his wall, Hellendale thought he might like to try the sport. That was in 1977. But he didn’t actually get involved in foot-launched flight until 1994, and it was in a paraglider. That adventure in the air became a lifelong passion that has taken him to Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Mexico, Cuba and other parts.

Hellendale says part of the joy of paragliding is hiking up to a launch site.

“I find it sort of as a pilgrimage,” he says. “You get to the top of the mountain and you feel alive.”

Even though he was originally inspired by the idea of hang gliding, he was naturally drawn to paragliding when he first heard of it. Paragliders fly through the air, sitting in a harness suspended from a large kite while hang gliders literally hang suspended from a metal rigid frame. Paragliders can be packed easily in a knapsack and are not as heavy to carry up mountain trails as the metal frames of hang gliders. The weight of a paraglider is roughly 40 pounds while a hang glider weighs between 75 and 80 pounds.

On the Maine coast, weather conditions are often not ideal for paragliding. Places out West – where it is usually drier and warmer than the Pine Tree State – frequently have thermals, or rising columns of warm air, that can help keep paragliders aloft.

“Thermaling is not our dominant form of flying here, but in other places it is the dominant form,” Hellendale explains. Long ridges of landmasses that help direct wind upward are also more common in the western United States than they are here, he added.

On appropriately breezy days, paragliders can get several hours of time aloft in coastal Maine. Besides Blue Hill, good launching spots include Schoodic Mountain and Tunk Mountain in the public reserve lands of eastern Hancock County, Great Pond Mountain in Orland, Mount Waldo in Frankfort and Mount Megunticook in Camden.

In the United States, the distance record for paragliding is 153 miles. Covering distance, however, is not the primary goal for most who practice the sport.

“The ‘success’ in foot-launched aviation is not how far you go, it’s how long you stay up,” says Hellendale, whose personal record over Blue Hill is three hours 20 minutes.

The most difficult aspect of paragliding is learning how to “kite” the wing the moment before launch. “Kiting” is when the pilot pulls the kite up off the ground so it catches the wind. The pilot faces backward while kiting to make sure that none of the Kevlar lines that connect the control handles to the 34-foot Dacron wing are caught or crossed. When the pilot is confident it is OK to launch, he or she turns around and runs into the wind. They are usually airborne after running only a few steps.

One of the benefits of paragliding is that, like hang gliding or riding in an airplane-launched glider, there is no engine noise. By hearing just the wind, and by hanging out in open space, people get a more intimate sense of the world around them. People in motor-powered aircraft such as ultralights cannot get this kind of connection, according to Hellendale.

“I’ve had eye-to-eye contact with a coyote,” he recalls. “It’s like a little sacred moment. If I was in an ultralight, he would have been long gone.”

Another advantage is that paragliders do not need as much wind as hang gliders to stay up. Winds between 12 and 20 mph can keep paragliders in the air while hang gliders require higher wind speeds. Because they operate at slower speeds, paragliders do not need as much room to land as hang gliders do.

“This is of significance in Maine, which is known as the Pine Tree State,” Hellendale notes. “There are a lot of trees here.”

Some of Hellendale’s close contact with his surroundings has come at the end of flights. Open fields or even frozen lakes are good for landings, but he has sometimes wound up in the trees. He does not advise tree landings because besides the injury risk they present, they often result in pilots having to disentangle the paraglider from branches and having to pick bugs out of the wing. Helmets are an essential element of any paraglider’s gear.

Hellendale, who has taken courses at a paragliding school in Vermont, said experience is important. However, evaluating the wind conditions before launch is a major safety factor.

“Judgment is really emphasized in this sport,” Hellendale stressed. With paragliding, injury is possible at nearly any height, he said.

Hellendale, who sometimes teaches people to paraglide on the steep slope below the summit of Blue Hill Mountain, often can be seen soaring over Hancock County with other paragliders, each with rounded, colorful sails over their heads and nothing but air under their feet.

One of Hellendale’s pupils, 51-year-old Peter Williams of Blue Hill, has been paragliding for four years. He said he tends to approach paragliding cautiously.

“I’m not into thrill-seeking,” Williams says. “There’s an element of danger in this sport, there’s no question about that.”

What he is into, he continues, is enjoying the outdoors.

“You get to stay in the beauty and nature of Maine,” he says. “That’s half the whole experience.”

For more information about paragliding, contact Rufus Hellendale at 348-5602.