Flying-Related Links
and General Information

See page 2 - club and school listings by state and country

Welcome!

These are websites of, by and for the whole flying community. They're set up by category as much as possible. If you have links that are not included here or other suggestions, please send 'em to PeterB. If you find any that are no longer useful, let me know.

Weather | Useful Stuff | Safety
People and Stories | Clubs | Instructional
Museums and Historical | Associations
UL Sailplanes | HG Businesses/Harnesses/Etc. | Radios/GPS
Astronomy | Miscellaneous

Last updated: May 26, 2023

WEATHER

Astrospheric is a pretty new weather site. Lots of good stuff for astronomy as well as basic info for other ground activity. Set to the location(s) of your choice.

Great Lakes weather - Gives you the current readings and for the past 3 hours.

Dr Jack - NAP and RAP models - daily forecast  (~$40/year)
XC Skies – 6 Weather models! – hourly forecasts (~$40/year)
SkewT-log P
Skew-T Android App
skysight.io - subscribe
xcskies.com - subscribe
zoom.earth

NOAA Cmet has soundings, stability graphs and wind charts among other things.
USAIRNET - forecasted Winds Aloft - EXCELLENT!
USAIRNET - Launch Code weather... EXCELLENT!

rap.ucar.edu - images from GOES-12 and GOES-10 satellites
weather records - weather archives back to 1950

weather.com
wunderground

Flight Plaining Tasks:
FlyXC planning Open XC or Triangle with all restricted air spaces, "thermal banks" etc

Flight Analyze:
SeeYou - Great Software to check your flight, to compare your flight with other pilots to see in 3D in real time, set up tasks and lot more great feature (~$60/year)

Online World XC Competitions:
XContest - CrossCountry
Leonardo – Global Flight Database (My friends Kris Grzyb and Larry Bunner placed 1st and 3rd in 2022!)
OLC (old but some pilots submit flights there)

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WEATHER EDUCATION

Visible Earth (NASA)
USA Today - Atmospheric science resources
The above have good basics (per Davis Straub and others)

atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld - Clouds
Thermal profiles in color - "Anatomy of Thermals"
RC-SOAR - Thermals

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USEFUL STUFF

Red's Advice Page - read all the way through, there's something for everyone.
WINGS & WHEELS newsletter archive - great info!

Animated knots - learn to tie them the easy way

Flight game
Drone Equipment
Drone Info and Blog
DroneBlog

RC aircraft and drones, lots of great info
FPV (First Person View) Quadcopters and headsets

Flying stuff for the disabled - flying wheelchairs, etc. (UK-based)

USED GEAR ADS
topA FLYERS ad page

PHOTOS - from space, from gliders
Hang Gliding Posters and Prints at Barewalls
FOTO-SEARCH – Hang-Gliding Photos at Foto Search
Offers over 900 thousand images in its extensive online archive, including photography, clipart, illustrations, footage, and maps free of charge.
Can Stock Photo - Sister company to Foto-Search; has 1000 hang gliding pix.
SPACE STATION - Zoom in anywhere on Earth, download any of hundreds of photos taken from space. Views of your next cross-country flight route, eh?

topOZONE - USGS DRG topographic maps for the entire US, accessible by latitude/longitude or feature name, are now available for free
AnyPlaceAmerica - Free topographic maps for points of interest in the United States. Can also search points of interest by name or geo-location in addition to viewing images and maps.
NASA Photos - satellite pictures of many places of the earth, and some special weather effects. Download either low or high resolution

Aviation/airplane Insurance
Great SEWING info - from sailboat sailmakers
Sewing supplies

SPUD GUN - A super site with links to quite a few others. Some sell their stuff and others provide plans. Have a BLAST! (and this is useful?)

See page 2 - club and school listings by state and country

Safety

FLIGHT SAFETY FOUNDATION

Betty Pfeiffer chute clinic video.
Other chute video links and PDF information at this page (on this site)

Safety Resources, from the HPAC (Canada)

Best Practices Guide

Satellite tracking
One piece of gear that has greatly increased the safety of cross country flying in recent years is the satellite tracker. This device allows position reporting and text and/or email communication while out of cell phone service range.

CIVL safety handbook
A very comprehensive source for safety in free flight from the FAI (International Aviation Federation)

USHPA safety page
The Safety page from the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association https://www.ushpa.org/page/safety

BHPA safety page
The Safety page from the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association

FFVL safety page
The Safety page from the French Federation of Free Flight http://federation.ffvl.fr/pages/securite-et-technique and http://www.efvl.fr/sites/efvl.fr/files/2014_Livret_FFVL_9BD.pdf

Paraglidingforum.com
LOTS of info, here is the safety subform http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewforum.php?F=4

Ozreport.com For HG
Sécurité et vol libre
Reserve Deployment Articles
An Alternate View – Risk Management
Considering Controlled Airspace
Search and Rescue Initiation TC CA
Loss of Consciousness Due to G-Forces
Flying Within Your Limits

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People and Stories

Hanggliding.org
Davis Straub - OZ Report
Red's advice for new pilots

Video of Miller Stroud foot-launching his ATOS using 2 Linknife Releases with an over/under bridle.
The Vince Report - Flight narrative and photos from Vince Endter
CROSS COUNTRY MAG
ELLEFSON - Norwegian HG pilot - news, photos, links, stories
Dave Kinlan's page

ATV towing in a stadium (PG)
Cluster Balloons - Helium balloons for personal "flight", down to a science

Midwest Clubs

Hang Glide Chicago - ENJOY FIELD, west of Chebanse IL (south of Kankakee)

Whitewater WI - club site. Whitewater is the site of the highest flight in Region 7 – 9800'agl – set by Jeff Nielsen in 1997. Located some 60 miles west of Lake Michigan, it's not as influenced by the lake winds as Bong, but when the convergence sets up, there's no telling how high you'll get or how long you'll be up. The towing club is formed up and requires annual dues plus per-flight tow fees.

Ohio Flyers

Green Point Flyers Association

A simple search on the USHPA public website will turn up more nation-wide.

Instructional/Informational

"Red's" advice for new pilots - MUST READ
Aerobatics article by John Heiney

SECTIONALS and airspace explained
Comment from Doug McCleary:
Sectionals are available on-line (and for free). I use SeeYou and download the sectionals for it from www.seeyou.si. In additional to the sectionals, SeeYou displays airspace in a vector format which is quite a bit easier to use and is in three dimensions.
Becoming a Pilot - career path advice for students
Arian - learn to fly - UK company

All the main tow manuals of the world are on the Towing List web page. Join up!
Canadian Towing Manual

LANDING - Greg DeWolf's article with illustrations
LANDING - Greg's 1986 article "Returning to Earth" (follow links to Mag Articles)

AEROEXPERIMENTS - Steve Seibel

History of the Airplane
How Gliders Fly
The Parts of an Airplane
Some Aircraft History mostly for kids

Business of Aviation - History of Flight – link provided by Trevor, BSA Troop 325, for their Aviation Merit Badge.

Afraid of flying?

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Museums and Historical

SEATTLE MUSEUM of FLIGHT
NATIONAL SOARING MUSEUM
AVIATION MUSEUM LOCATOR

Glider Bible - trying to "register" every glider made (French site, the page is in English)
First Hang Glider meet, May 23, 1971 (especially humorous when the police showed up)

Flight-History is dedicated to capturing aviation history; archives feature a growing collection of photographs, stories and aircraft specifications. Site includes aviation artwork of several artists.

Cars, Tanks and Airplanes of World War II

Abandoned airfields across the USA (very interesting)

Wright Brothers Airplane Company
Wright Brothers Info - historical information
Gustav Whitehead - helped the Wrights
Reinhold Platz - early Dutch aviator (Dominique Jorand's site)
William "Bill" Birren - pioneer of postal aviation (a great uncle of this webmaster)

See page 2 - club and school listings by state and country

Associations

USHPA - USHPA's main page
CANADA HPAC - main association for Canada

Experimental Aircraft Association - Associations Section, these guys are key in FAA-NPRM Sport Pilot proposal!
Oshkosh - tickets for AirVenture 2023 on sale now
EAA Airventure Museum
Sun-N-Fun - Lakeland FL

National Aeronautic Association
US Ultralight Association
DHV - German Association
AUSTRALIA - HG Fed of Australia
AeroSports Connection
Soaring Society of America
FAI - everything you wanted to know about the politics of aviation

UL Sailplanes
Marske - Flying Wings
The Bug and Goat - Mike Sandlin's Basic Ultralight Glider

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HG Businesses

- Towing -

LINKNIFE TOW RELEASE - Your favorite webmaster highly recommends this release!
TowMeUp.com - Stuart Caruk builds payout winches and boats for towing
Dave Kinlan's payout winch - Netherlands
SPECTRA towline - 11 companies on Thomas Register

Tribal Flight WB-PY-H pay-out winch

Catch the Wind Kites - for weaklink material. The RHGPA uses 130 pound test braided dacron kite string tied with a grapevine knot for average-size pilots.

PG TOWING AROUND THE WORLD

- Gliders and Gear -

Fly Above All
Mountain High - O2 Systems
FREE FLIGHT GEAR - Icaro helmets and other HG/PG gear

NOTE: Please let me know if you find any links that aren't working. Thanks. <email>

- Gliders -
Aeriane - Swift
Aeros
Airborne - Facebook
Airwave
Bautek
Ellipse
FexAmerica
Finsterwalder & Charly
Flight Design
Helite
Icaro 2000
Ikarus
La Mouette
Moyes - Facebook
Northwings - Facebook
ULteam
UP Gliders - Joe Spinney 619-933-2211
Wills Wing - Facebook

Glider store
Kitty Hawk Kites - hang gliders (new and used), glider accessories, and training manuals. All easy online ordering.

Varios
FLYTEC - needs "Flash" to see the page
TANGENT - Arai Designs

Harnesses/Chutes
HiEnergy HARNESSES - Betty Pfeiffer

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Radios/GPS

Radio Stuff
MODS.DK - All kinds of radio modifications
QRZ - ham radio site

GPS
FREE LIVE/real time GPS TRACKING
Garmin
The GPS Store
Macintosh CompeGPS Software - http://gpsy.com/ http://www.macgpspro.com/

Test yourself to prepare for the exams
ARRL everything you need to get started
Testing 1 - FAA and FCC practice tests
Testing 2 - Online training for the ham radio written exams ($)
Testing 3 - Online testing site
RENEW your license (ARRL)
Go to the "FCC ULS" link and from there, click on "online filing", click on CORES, apply for an FRN number. Then return to the OLS filing page to complete renewal. It's a bit of a pain, but once you have the number, you're set for 10 years, and besides, they want everyone to register anyway.

Batteries America - 800/308-4805... all types of batteries

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Astronomy

Objects in the Heavens - Peter Birren's deep-sky fieldbook and viewing list for small telescopes and binoculars, now on version 6.5 (Aug 2023). Great for use with computer-driven scopes.

Astronomy Picture of the Day - worth visiting daily and following their links to learn a whole lot, a little bit at a time. I highly recommend it.

Learning Astronomy, Teaching Astronomy
Astronomy Industry News and Reviews
View the universe within 5 million light years
Astronomy.com - lots of stuff here
Solar System Simulator

Southwest (Chicago) Astronomy Observers Group - 2-meter: 145.43 Thursdays @ 8:30pm on the DuPage IL Repeater
NW Suburban Astronomers - near Chicago
Lake County IL Astronomical Society - great articles on all aspects of astronomy. Lots of topics and a great start point for beginners.
Chicago Astronomical Society - sponsors of AstroFest
"Cloudy Nights" discussion forums for all things astronomical

Telescope Reviews - read before buying a telescope; lots of good info to help you make an informed decision
Astromart - Used equipment/classifieds

Beginners guide to Astrophotography at NightSkyPix
Beginners guide to Astrophotography at Hobby Help

Space Elevator - great concept! More astro links at this page.

Collection of astronomy games and activities for kids

Miscellaneous

Madison, Wisconsin Iceboat Club - (this looks like a great time)

Harry Martin cartoons
HG EAGLE, OSCEOLA
YOU TUBE - HG videos
Free Art featuring hang gliding, hang gliders and more searches

AppalachianTrail.com - The Longest Hiking-Only Trail in the World

Books, Toys, Miscellaneous
ByDanJohnson.com- Long-time contributor to HG Magazine with articles always on the back page.
WHAT!! A FLYING RABBIT?? Real nice kid's book about HG
BOB WANDER - Aviation Books

HG Models - 1/5 scale Radio Controlled HG models and more

Aviation Survival Gear (not to survive the flight but for outlandings)
Landing Streamer - from Ernie Comacho
RE-PUBLISHED OLD BOOKS - from Mike Markowski, including Jack Lamb's book

See page 2 - club and school listings by state and country

DISCLAIMER: As with all aviation endeavors, your choice and use of equipment is totally up to you. It is assumed you are an experienced HG or PG tow pilot who is intimately familiar with the style of towing you will be doing. As such, YOU ASSUME ALL RISK AND LIABILITY in the use of the Linknife, as well as all other parts, functions and personnel involved in the towing and flight operations. If you do not have experience in towing, please contact an instructor for expert training. Trying to learn on your own can, and probably will, result in your injury and even death. Many pilots have paid the ultimate price so we may now tow as safely as never before possible. Please learn from their lessons.