The Parakite Book

A parakite is a foot-launched wing that looks like a paraglider and is controlled like neither a paraglider nor a kite. The difference is entirely in how the risers are configured, and everything else follows from that.

On a paraglider you have two systems: brakes that deform the trailing edge, and a foot-operated speedbar that pulls the A and B risers down to accelerate. They are separate, and you cannot use both well at once. On a parakite, a pulley arrangement in the risers links the B and C levels to brake travel, so pulling the brakes pitches the entire wing up and releasing them pitches it down. Steering and acceleration live in the same two handles. There is no speedbar.

What this buys you is depower — the kiting concept, transplanted into free flight. Hands up, the wing sits at a low angle of attack, generates little lift and stops trying to drag you. Hands down, it pitches up and converts speed into height.

Control is not just left and right now, but in three dimensions.

XC Mag, Flare Moustache review

Where the name comes from

It is a genuine hybrid, and the parentage is corporate as well as technical. Flare is an offshoot of Skywalk Paragliders and Flysurfer — a paraglider company and a kite company in the same group. Flare avoid the word paraglider entirely; as XC Mag noted at launch, "It looks like a paraglider but Flare don't call it that", and the company coined its own verb: you don't fly it, you Flare it.

Who made it, and when

The category matured fast. By 2026 there are competing parakites from Swing, AirDesign, Ozone, BGD, Flow, Level Wings and Little Cloud.

What a parakite is not

Not a power kite or traction kite. No bar, no bridle-and-lines rig, no buggy, no board. You are not towed by it; you fly in it, in a harness, having foot-launched.

Not a kitesurfing wing. Nothing here is water-relaunchable. FlyParakite make the distinction sharply: once you are flying, "you cannot simply 'let go' as you would drop a kite bar into the water."

Not a general-purpose paraglider. Flare state plainly that the Moustache² "is not designed for thermal flying or turbulent alpine conditions." A parakite has a higher stall speed than a paraglider and cannot fly slowly. It is a strong-wind, dynamic, close-to-terrain tool.

And it is not certified. There is no EN or LTF standard for parakites — chapter 11.

This is the whole invention, and Flare publish it identically across the Moustache², Scout and Bandit:

C level moves at a 1:3 ratio to brake travel.
B level moves at a 1:6 ratio.

Flare, product specifications

A pulley arrangement in the risers ties the B and C line levels to the brake handles at those fixed ratios. Pull 30 cm of brake and the C level moves 10 cm, the B level 5 cm. The A level stays put. The result is that the wing rotates about its leading edge rather than simply curling its trailing edge.

What each input does

FlyParakite frame the distinction against paragliding as the difference between "piloting based on trailing-edge control" and "piloting based on airfoil pitch", and the key sentence is that the control input "acts on the entire geometry of the wing, not just on the curvature of the trailing edge."

Why there is no speedbar

Because the brakes already are one. Flare's own claim is that this is "the first wing in the history of flying uniting steering handles and accelerator and giving both into the brake handles".

On a paraglider you accelerate with your feet and steer with your hands, and the two fight each other: on bar you have poor roll authority and slack brakes. On a parakite the same pair of handles gives you pitch, speed and roll, continuously, without changing grip. That is what makes dynamic terrain flying possible — and why the handles must never be released in flight.

Paraglider versus parakite

Why it needs a reflex profile

A conventional wing pitched nose-down that hard would be a collapse waiting to happen. The parakite gets away with it because the aerofoil is reflexed — the trailing edge curves up, which is self-stabilising at low angles of attack.

Flare's description: the reflex "stabilises the parakite at low angles of attack and during full acceleration" and "reduces the risk of front collapse". The practical consequence, in their words, is that the wing "always wants to fly away from you and keeps line tension, even in fully accelerated flight".

That line tension is the thing you will feel first coming from kites, and it is why the wing is pleasant to handle on the ground in wind that would be unmanageable on a paraglider.

Hands up is the safe place

On a paraglider, the response to rough air is to fly actively — keep a little brake on, feel the pressure, damp the pitch. On a parakite that instinct is wrong. FlyParakite state that in moderately turbulent air the most stable configuration is generally hands up. Beni Kälin puts it more bluntly:

It's more collapse stable when flying hands up then when at best glide.

Beni Kälin, Flare development team

This is a direct consequence of the reflex profile. Hands up is where the reflex is working hardest, the wing is most pressurised, and it "always wants to fly away from you". Adding brake pitches the wing up, reduces speed, and moves it toward the part of the envelope where it is least happy.

The lesson everyone learns on their first inflation

XC Mag's reviewer brought the wing overhead, did what any paraglider pilot does — applied brake to stop it overshooting — and "the entire canopy collapses. Lesson learned: don't brake a reflex profile overhead."

If you have ground-handled a paraglider, that reflex is wired in. It has to be rewired, and the only safe place to do it is on the ground with an instructor.

What "active flying" means here

Beni Kälin's most useful and least comfortable observation, aimed at exactly the people who think they are qualified:

Just because you are an experienced speedflyer doesn't mean you can fly active. Active flying is something you learn while flying thermals and XC on paragliders.

His honesty test before taking a Moustache into turbulent air is a pair of questions worth answering truthfully: "Can you fly High-B Wings or C-Wings without ever getting collapses anymore? Can you fly 100/150/200 km XC without collapses?"

What collapses look like

Beni on the Moustache²: "the tipps do collapse sometimes, which you have to get used to. But the middle is very solid even when fully hands up." Tip collapses are normal and expected. A centre collapse is not, and points at trim, sand in the trailing edge, or genuinely unsuitable air.

You cannot fly slow

The single most consequential handling difference. Stall speed is much higher than on a normal glider. Everything downstream of that is why landing is the hard part of this sport rather than launching — chapter 16.

Spiral behaviour

Worth quoting Flare's own warning on the Scout, their beginner wing, because it is unusually candid for marketing copy:

The FLARE SCOUT tends towards a stable spiral dive and has above average sink rates. Active piloting is necessary to exit the stable spiral.

Flare, Scout product page

A stable spiral is one that does not self-correct when you let go. On a wing sold to beginners, that is a specification you need to have read before you need to use it.

A kiting background is a real head start here, and it is also the specific background that gets people hurt. Both things are true.

The one that will kill you: you cannot let go

In kiting, the universal answer to losing control is release. Kite killers, quick release, fifth line, flag it out, drop the bar. Every safety system you have ever used is a variant of "stop being attached to the power".

The others that do not transfer

The braking instinct is inverted. You will want to apply brake to settle the wing overhead. That collapses it.

There is no board and no water. Every mistake you have made kiting has been absorbed by water or by a board sliding out. Here you are airborne over sand, rock or snow, close to terrain by design.

Stalling is different. A power kite that runs out of pressure luffs and falls, and you walk away. A parakite has a higher stall speed than a paraglider, cannot fly slow, and a stall low down is a serious event.

Landing is the hard skill. In kiting, landing is the easy bit. Here it is the part experienced pilots warn about.

Free flight has its own rules. Airspace, right of way, ridge etiquette, site regulation. None of it is in a kiter's head, and all of it applies the moment your feet leave the ground.

The overconfidence trap, aimed directly at you

The most important passage in the whole body of research, and it describes your exact situation. FlyParakite, on why the wing's tolerance is a double-edged thing:

This tolerance increases safety, but it also removes an important pedagogical safeguard.

It is not uncommon to see near-beginner pilots initiating very committed trajectories close to the ground, with insufficient mastery but an extremely tolerant wing.

On a paraglider, a beginner in too much wind gets shut down early — they cannot control the wing on the ground, so they never launch. The parakite's depower removes that filter. You will be able to handle the wing in conditions well beyond your ability to fly in them, and your kiting experience widens that gap rather than narrowing it, because ground handling is precisely what you are already good at.

The most dangerous part about parakiting is that the pilots get really confident and overconfident really quick.

You get more range or you can handle more wind while soaring, but you should use this extra range for safety, not push yourself.

This wing is prone to make you overconfident. Be aware of this.

Beni Kälin

The three speed modes

Because the brakes carry the whole speed range, the wing has three recognisable states rather than a continuous blur.

Flare mark trim position physically on the risers with Best Trim Labels, L and R. Best glide is with the handles slightly below those flags — a rare piece of design honesty, where the wing tells you where its own best glide is rather than leaving you to guess.

Converting speed into height

This is the party trick and the reason the sport exists. Fly fast with hands up, then pull the brakes, and the wing pitches up and trades that speed for altitude.

It is also where the name of the sport's signature move comes from. Flaring — the extended ground-effect phase where you skim along at low level bleeding energy — and touch-and-gos, which Beni Kälin says are "easier then ever" on these wings.

What a session looks like

XC Mag's account of a first session on a Dutch beach runs roughly like this: sort out the riser bundle, pull the A-risers, and the wing comes up fairly quickly. Spend real time ground handling. Then kite it up the dune and fly away, holding the handles level with the trim labels.

That progression — riser sort, inflate, ground handle, walk it up the slope, fly — is the shape of every session. The soaring is generated by the wind hitting the dune face and being deflected upward; you ride that band of lift back and forth, and the depower lets you sit in it comfortably in wind that would be unflyable on a paraglider.

Flare claim soaring is possible in as little as 8 knots (15 km/h), though that figure depends enormously on how high and steep the slope is.

A course day, for calibration

FlyParakite run their Dune du Pilat courses on this shape, adapting to the wind: briefing around 10am, practical session between noon and 2pm, debriefing 3pm to 5pm. Practice is "often done barefoot". Five days on site for an introductory course, which they explain as giving enough slots to select the best days for practice — the other days get used for theory.

That ratio tells you something useful: even at a world-class site, you are not flying every day.

Coastal soaring is the centre of gravity

Everything else is a branch off this. Flare designed the Moustache for "having fun in strong winds on the dunes or at soaring sites", and Beni Kälin's framing is that "this is where it has been tested and developed".

It is also where the depower pays for itself. A paraglider pilot at a dune site is done when the wind gets above their wing's comfortable range. A parakite pilot is just getting started, because hands-up depower means the wing stops generating the lift that would otherwise overpower them.

The growth hotspots reflect this exactly: the Netherlands, Denmark, and Monterey, California — flat coastlines with reliable onshore wind and soarable dunes.

Speedriding on snow

Worth knowing because it solves the one weakness of the wing. The parakite's high stall speed makes nil-wind foot launching awkward. On skis that stops mattering — you generate the airspeed by sliding. Beni: "Taking off with no winds works great on skis."

And the move that is apparently unique to these wings: "The coolest thing is landing uphill on the moustache." You arrive with speed, pull up onto rising ground, and stop.

What parakites are explicitly not for

This list comes from the manufacturer and its own development team, not from critics, which is what makes it worth taking seriously.

MOUSTACHE² is not designed for thermal flying or turbulent alpine conditions.

Flare

not made for thermal flying, xc flying or akro flying or hike and fly.

Beni Kälin

No thermalling, no cross-country, no acrobatics, no hike-and-fly, and not in rough mountain air. That rules out most of what people imagine when they picture a paraglider, and it is a deliberate design choice — the reflex profile and high stall speed that make the wing brilliant in strong laminar wind are exactly what make it unsuitable for slow, thermic, turbulent flying.

One partial exception: AirDesign's Exta is explicitly a mountain parakite, aimed at mountain soaring and local thermic flying, with brake travel and pressure "designed to feel close to a paraglider's". The category is beginning to branch.

The size number is the flat area

A Moustache² 18 is 18 m² flat. No span ratings, no marketing numbers — refreshingly simple after the kite world.

It is all-up weight, not body weight

Flare are explicit: "Always calculate your full take-off weight, including harness, reserve and equipment." Everything you leave the ground carrying counts, the wing included. For most people that is 12 to 16 kg on top of body weight.

Getting this wrong by ignoring the kit is how people end up a full size too small.

Wing loading, and what each band feels like

Flare publish this scale for the Moustache² and Bandit. Wing loading is all-up weight divided by flat area, in kg/m², and the descriptions are theirs verbatim.

Flare note the chart shows how dynamically the wing reacts "at 0 wind speed". The Scout uses a deliberately gentler version of the same scale — 3–3.5 is beginner paraglider, 3.5–4.5 standard paraglider, 4.5–5.5 sport class, 5.5–6.5 miniwing — and has no band above 6.5 at all.

The rule that settles most arguments

If in doubt – take the bigger size out.

Flare

Alongside it: "If you are developing your FLARE skills, we recommend starting on the larger size within your certified take-off weight range." And they flag that discipline changes the answer for the same person: "Take a bigger size for soaring, and a smaller size for speed flying."

Beni Kälin's trade-up table

The most directly usable sizing text anyone has published. His headline: "Buy the Moustache 1-3 meters bigger than your normal soaring wing if you want it to start as early as your other wing."

And for people with no existing soaring wing and no home site, his default: 60–80 kg all-up takes a 15; 80–105 kg takes an 18.

With two guard rails. "Only buy a 22 when you are either a heavy guy, or you live somewhere the wind is usually weak." And: "Only buy a 13 when you are either very light, or you want to soar in very strong winds, which will also be more turbulent. The 13 has a very sharp stallpoint… A 13 is only for pilots with lots of soaring experience on smaller wings."

Why smaller is not simply "more nimble"

All Moustache sizes share the same risers, and therefore the same travel. Beni: "a 13 will be percentage-wise much more accelerated than a 22. In other words, the smaller the Moustache, the more 'dive' or 'depower' it has." So sizing down does not just load the wing — it makes the whole speed system more aggressive.

Annoyingly, that lands you exactly on the seam. Beni Kälin's two default bands are 60–80 kg to a 15 and 80–105 kg to an 18, and you sit on the boundary line between them.

The answer

For soaring on a Moustache²: the 18. Flare's own tie-breaker decides it — "if in doubt, take the bigger size out", and "start on the larger size within your certified take-off weight range". At 4.4 kg/m² it sits at the top of the sports-class band, which is a sane loading rather than a spicy one. It also matches Beni's trade-up table if you think of yourself as coming off a 16 m wing.

Take the 15 only if your home site is high, steep coast rather than low dunes, or you specifically want more dive.

Scout 19 puts you at 4.2 kg/m², which on the Scout's own gentler scale is standard-paraglider behaviour. It also has the zippable winglets — on for high roll stability and calm handling while you learn, off later when you want it agile. A genuinely useful feature for a single wing you will grow through.

Scout 22 at 3.6 kg/m² is the gentler option again if your site is light-wind. Beni's warning applies: only go this big if the wind where you fly is usually weak.

The whole picture

On speedflying, Beni is specific and it inverts the soaring logic: "We generally recommend the 13 for pilots up to 80kg." You are at 80. Same pilot, same day, seven square metres of difference depending on what you are doing.

Scout — the one you want first

New for 2026, and the first wing in the category designed for people who have never flown a parakite. Before it existed, starting meant buying an oversized Moustache as a workaround.

The headline feature is adaptive zippable winglets, patent pending. Zipped on, you get high roll stability and calm handling. Unzipped, the wing becomes "more roll-active, agile, and dynamic". One wing that changes character as you improve, rather than a wing you outgrow.

Also carries Nitinol rigid foil, Shark Nose, Killer Mushroom, stabilo brake and the Riser Fix System. FlyParakite's instructor rates its slow-speed behaviour as the best he has seen "across paragliding and Parakite alike".

The caveat, in Flare's own words: "The FLARE SCOUT tends towards a stable spiral dive and has above average sink rates. Active piloting is necessary to exit the stable spiral."

Moustache² — the soaring wing

The direct descendant of the original 2022 Moustache and the wing that defines the category. Sizes 13 to 26, €3,399 direct or $3,989 through Super Fly in the US.

What the second generation added: Shark Nose, Mini Ribs, and a stabilo brake at the wingtips. Plus Automatic Drainage System, Killer Mushroom, Best Trim Labels and the Riser Fix System, in premium Dominico cloth.

The Moustache 2 is a perfect parakite for pilots that have never flown one before.

Beni Kälin

His reasons — the sharknose lowers stall speed, the airfoil is thinner, the wingtip steering helps, there are two A-line attachment options, it rolls less, it exits a deep spiral better, and the C-riser larkshead makes retrimming easier. His caveat: "the tipps do collapse sometimes, which you have to get used to. But the middle is very solid even when fully hands up."

The original Moustache is now listed under "outdated models" at around 3,333 CHF, which makes it the obvious second-hand target. The 26 was added in October 2023 and is the only Flare wing with a published weight range in text: 80–105 kg all-up.

Bandit — later, if at all

Higher aspect ratio, for "intermediate to advanced pilots with solid Parakite experience". Sizes 10 to 22, €3,449.

The interesting spec is the lines: unsheathed Kevlar rather than the Moustache's sheathed Dyneema. More stable trim over time, but abrasion-sensitive, with a line check recommended after about twelve months. A micro-trim on the B lines allows fine tuning, and concertina packing is essential rather than optional.

One useful cross-model datapoint: a Bandit 16 has a top speed close to or above a Moustache 15, while keeping low-speed behaviour comparable to a Moustache 18. More range at both ends for the same square metres.

Line — pure speedflying

Sizes 8 to 15, from €1,849 — much the cheapest wing in the range, and much the most demanding. Flare's own text is the strictest in the category:

The 8 m², 9 m² and 10 m² models are designed for professional pilots. Written approval from a certified FLARE partner is required before dispatch.

We do not recommend foot-launching LINE with a wing loading of 10 kg/m² or higher.

For calibration: the 13 m² Line performs like a conventional 9 m² speedflyer, and the 8 m² can exceed 100 km/h in straight flight. Flare's sizing rule if you are coming from a normal speedwing: "choose at least two square metres larger in LINE."

None of this is for you yet, and possibly ever. It is here so you can recognise it when someone offers you a cheap one.

The category went from one product to a crowded field in about eighteen months. Three major launches landed in a five-week window in August and September 2026 alone.

BGD Kiss 2 — the certified one, and why it matters to you

The only wing in the category carrying an EN rating, and at your weight it is a comfortable fit:

• 19 m²: EN-A from 55–95 kg — your ~80 kg all-up sits mid-range
• 16 m²: EN-A from 50–80 kg, EN-B from 80–90 kg
• 13 and 22 planned; 1.8–2.6 kg, aspect ratio 4.7

It converts between paraglider and parakite in two steps, after which "the brakes control the full speed range of the wing without the need for a speed bar". BGD deliberately capped the top speed "rather than the more radical characteristics of some parakites".

Swing Sonic RS

The most completely specified competitor. Four sizes: 15, 18, 21, 24, all with 52 cells, weighing 3.5 kg to 4.6 kg. Load tested to EN 926-1 — a structural test, not a flight-behaviour class.

Published all-up weights run 50–119 kg on the 15 and 70–119 kg on the 24, notably wide ranges. Reflex developed from Swing's Scorpio RS paramotor wing, with RAST internal structure, wingtip stabilos on every size, hybrid risers of Dyneema and 12 mm webbing, and a depower pod for killing lift on the ground.

One detail worth knowing: the Fidlock magnetic brake-handle holders are convenient, but Swing warn the fittings are not load tested and should not be used clipped-in for extended periods. Relevant to you: it was designed by Alessio Casolla's Italian team and refined on the South African coast.

AirDesign Exta — the mountain exception

The one wing built against the category's grain. Where Flare say a Moustache is not for turbulent alpine conditions, the Exta is aimed at mountain soaring and local thermic flying.

Four sizes: 21 (2.68 kg), 18 (2.45 kg), 16 (2.20 kg), 12 (1.85 kg). The 21 is the accessible one, "aimed at pilots learning to parakite up to 75 kg, with heavier pilots up to 85 kg finding it more playful". The 16 is the core of the range and about 30% lighter than competing wings. Crucially, AirDesign designed the brake travel and pressure to feel close to a paraglider's — the opposite philosophy to Flare.

Ozone Vapor

Ozone's first parakite, September 2026, pitched as sport class. Seven sizes from 11 to 25 with deliberately small gaps — the widest size range in the category. Technically the odd one out: a pure three-line design with a dedicated bridle system allowing "dynamic or mellow dives to suit your pilot level", and depower through a wooden safety handle.

Ozone position it as "the perfect first parakite for advanced paraglider pilots, or an intermediate parakite for newcomers to air sports" — note the asymmetry. A newcomer gets an intermediate wing, not a first one.

The rest of the field

Flow Paragliders bring a speedwing sensibility — high feedback, dynamic. The Albatroxx is the performance model; the Mullet 2 sits below it. Level Wings' Fierce is pitched as the parakite that does everything, across coastal soaring, speedriding and steep descents. Little Cloud's Mouette comes from a house known for playful, highly stable mini-wings. U-Turn's Razorblade appears in European retail around 3,200 CHF, discounted to 2,900.

I have less on these four — no size tables, no weight ranges, no certification status. Treat them as names to investigate with a dealer rather than characterised options.

Read this before you read anything else about which wing to buy.

there is no dedicated certification standard, formalised data, and relatively few documented incidents

FlyParakite

And from Beni Kälin, who is on Flare's own development team, about Flare's own wing: "It also not certified. It only has a load test."

Note that Flare's marketing copy does refer to your "certified take-off weight range". That phrasing is doing some work. Nowhere on any Flare page is an EN or LTF class stated for any of their wings.

Load testing is not flight certification

Load tested means the fabric and lines hold. It says nothing about what the wing does when it collapses. The Swing Sonic RS is load tested to EN 926-1. That is genuinely worth having, and it is not the same as knowing how it behaves after a 50% asymmetric.

Where each wing stands

What this actually means

Nobody independent has assessed how these wings recover. On a certified paraglider, an EN-A rating means a test pilot deliberately collapsed it, spun it and stalled it, and it came back by itself within defined limits. On a parakite, that work has not been done and published. You are relying on the manufacturer's development testing and the accumulated experience of a small community.

"Relatively few documented incidents" is not evidence of safety. It is a statement about a small denominator. The sport is four years old with a few thousand wings in the air.

Check your insurance wording. Third-party and personal-accident cover for free flight typically assumes a certified wing flown within its limits. An uncertified wing may sit outside the policy — a question to put to the insurer in writing rather than assume either way.

The riser hardware you need to understand before you fly

Four pieces of Flare furniture, each with a rule attached. Three of those rules are about when not to use the thing, which tells you something.

For a kiter, the Killer Mushroom is the closest thing to a familiar safety system — and the warning on it is absolute. Add the RFS to your pre-flight checklist; it is exactly the sort of thing that gets forgotten once and never again.

Harnesses

Flare's own are the Proxy loop-strap harness at €829 and the Contour lightweight at €779. You do not have to buy theirs — any paragliding or speedflying harness that suits the discipline works, and the second-hand market in harnesses is deep and cheap compared with wings.

What you do need is something appropriate to close-to-terrain flying: back protection and a reserve container, not a lightweight hike-and-fly harness. For calibration on rental, Speedflying School charge $20/day for a harness and $10/day for a reserve.

Reserve parachute

Not optional. It is the only thing between you and the ground when the wing stops working, because — as established — there is no release. Budget 1.5–2.5 kg of your all-up weight, and remember a reserve needs repacking at intervals.

Helmet

Required on courses. FlyParakite specify an approved helmet. A paragliding or climbing-derived helmet is the right shape; a kitesurfing helmet is usually not rated for the impacts that matter here.

Packing, and why it differs by wing

Concertina packing is essential on the Bandit, not merely recommended — the unsheathed Kevlar lines and rigid foils in the leading edge do not tolerate being stuffed. The Moustache is more forgiving but will still last longer concertina-packed.

And carry the trim discipline over from the kite world with one addition specific to these wings: check the trailing edge for sand. FlyParakite name sand accumulation there as a direct cause of degraded reflex, and degraded reflex is how a collapse starts. On a dune site, that is a per-session check, not an annual one.

Do you need a paragliding licence first?

Legally, no. Practically, in the UK, yes — and the gap between those two answers is the whole story.

FlyParakite will teach a complete beginner directly on a parakite: "Do you need to have already tried paragliding before starting parakiting? No." The introductory course is explicitly aimed at "paragliders with no experience of strong winds, as well as kiteboarders and complete beginners."

Their reasoning is the depower. On a paraglider, above about 20 km/h a beginner cannot control the wing on the ground, so they never launch — the conditions filter them out. A parakite with hands up simply does not generate enough lift to take off without deliberate input, so that filter disappears. Which, as chapter 4 covered, is both the safety feature and the trap.

The schools that actually teach parakiting

FlyParakite — Dune du Pilat, France. The flagship. Gabriel Béchier, FFVL state-certified, a Flare Pro Partner, running in partnership with Waggas School who hold the site's operating agreement.

• Introductory course: 5 days, max 4 pilots. Ground handling, body position, first barefoot runs and flares
• Progression course: 3 flying days across a 5-day window, max 4
• Masterclass Brazil, Canoa Quebrada, 7 days, four sessions Nov–Dec 2026, limited to three participants
• Minimum age 14. Equipment provided. Prices not published — booking through Waggas
• All 2026 Dune du Pilat dates are sold out. Waiting list only

Speedflying School — Interlaken, Switzerland. Beni Kälin's Parakite Week, 17–23 January 2027, 1,190 CHF. Listed as beginner level, but read the prerequisites: it is ski-based, and "We recommend a minimum of 150 paragliding flights." No licence needed to join. A van of Flare and Ozone wings, rental included. Ski passes, harness, reserve, meals and accommodation are not.

He also runs a Kronplatz week in the Dolomites (1,190 CHF) where the terrain splits usefully: "There are steep lines for speedwings to the north and flat lines for moustaches on the south side." That one needs 100 foot-launch flights on a speedwing.

Touch & Go Adventures — Sand City, California. Introduction to Parakites, two days, at 2100 California Ave. Monterey's coastline is described as "a remarkable blend of dunes and sandy training hills" with "consistent and laminar coastal winds" allowing 10am–4pm training days. Their full paragliding course to USHPA P2 is $2,750 over nine or ten days.

The UK route, costed

How long to autonomy

FlyParakite's honest answer: "Experienced paragliders → rapid progress. Complete beginners → several years to become autonomous in varied conditions."

Several years. Not several months. Your kiting background moves you up from "complete beginner" but not into "experienced paraglider", because the thing being measured is airmanship in the air.

Flare's own position on self-teaching

Flare run a free online Flare Academy — a Soaring Academy with six Scout episodes and eleven more covering inflation, ground handling, flying and landing, safety, wind range, sizes, and "Who Can Fly the MOUSTACHE²". Genuinely useful and worth working through. Their own caveat is unambiguous: "no video can replace proper in-person training with a certified Pro Partner."

First, the distinction that decides everything

There are two different kinds of credential, and they are not equivalent.

This matters directly for your plan. A UK Club Pilot rating is the weakest currency of the four. If you are choosing where to train with an eye on flying in several countries, that asymmetry is worth knowing before you book anything.

The IPPI card — the conversion mechanism

IPPI is the International Pilot Proficiency Information card, run by the FAI's CIVL commission since 1992, underpinned by the SafePro Para standard. The 2026 edition took effect 1 May 2026 and was revised by members of CIVL, USHPA, FFVL, APPI and the BHPA.

Two things it is not:

The IPPI Card is valid only together with a current national licence or rating card.

The IPPI Card does not provide any insurance coverage.

It is a translation layer, not a licence. You get one from your own national association — you cannot apply to the FAI directly.

The SafePro Para stages

You are a student through stages 1–4, and become a pilot on completing stage 4. There is a theory checkpoint before stage 3: "the student shall pass a theoretical test on air law, applicable regulations and code of good practice."

United Kingdom — BHPA

The thinnest entry here, because the BHPA site was unreachable across nine attempts. What is confirmed: the ladder is the Pilot Rating Scheme — Elementary Pilot → Club Pilot → Pilot → Advanced Pilot. "Initial training must be undertaken at a BHPA registered school." Club Pilot "marks the end of your formal instruction and qualifies you to leave the school and fly within a BHPA recreational club." The Pilot rating requires flying tasks plus a written theory exam. Membership includes £5m third-party insurance.

Germany — DHV

The best-documented system of the five, and the model for how conversion works.

Costs from 1 July 2026: theory exam €45 member / €75 non-member; practical €120 / €140; licence entry €40; IPPI card €18.50 / €35.50. Membership €89/year direct, or €56/year through a club, half price under 22.

Switzerland — SHV/FSVL

One licence, the Brevet. A state licence delegated by the Federal Office of Civil Aviation.

• At least 50 high flights from at least 5 different sites, including one supervised solo high flight, before you can sit the practical
• Theory: 90 minutes, five subjects — flight practice, meteorology, theory of flight, equipment, legislation — 20 questions each, 80% pass (max four wrong per subject)
• Practical covers launch prep including the 5-point check, launch, flight programme, circuit planning, landing. Since April 2025 an oral question on meteorology, flight practice or airspace
• Min age 14 for training and theory, 16 for the practical

Costs: SHV membership CHF 120/year, pro-rated monthly. Liability insurance CHF 82.50/year. Licence card free with membership (otherwise CHF 100). IPPI card CHF 24 members.

Switzerland publishes the clearest rating-to-IPPI ladder anywhere. Their level 4 — which a Swiss brevet holder receives automatically — requires 60 flights, 5 sites, 20 flying hours including 5 h thermal and dynamic soaring. Level 5 needs 100 flights, 50 hours, and 5 XC flights with valley crossings ≥20 km.

Visitors: non-residents may fly occasionally on IPPI Level IV or V — Level V required for cross-country. Third-party cover of CHF 1 million minimum. Guest insurance CHF 51 for 30 days or CHF 82.50 for 120 days, the annual maximum.

South Africa — SAHPA

The strictest legal framework of the five, and the one with a rule that names parakites explicitly.

It is a SACAA state licence. Third-party aviation insurance is mandatory under the Civil Aviation Act s.8(5), membership of an Aviation Recreation Organisation is mandatory under CAR Part 94, and training must happen at a SACAA-approved Part 141 organisation.

Ratings: Basic, Sport, Tandem. Their published mapping: Basic = IPPI 4, Sport = IPPI 5, Tandem = IPPI 6.

Costs: Learner membership R440 for 6 months. Licence and membership application R1,940 for the first year. Renewal R2,194 for two years. IPPI card R100. Foreign membership R500 for 2 months or R750 for 6.

Visiting pilots: "Every visiting recreational pilot must have an IPPI 4 card (or greater.)" IPPI 3 or below means flying under school supervision. APPI licences are only accepted with an IPPI card. Foreign instructors may not teach there.

France — FFVL

Completely unreachable. The FFVL robots.txt actively blocks automated access across all three of their hosts. I have nothing on the Brevet Initial, Brevet de Pilote or Brevet de Pilote Confirmé. Two things sourced indirectly: FFVL membership carries €4.6 million third-party liability cover including search, rescue and repatriation, and France issues the IPPI annually as a logo on the national licence rather than as a separate card.

This matters because the Dune du Pilat parakite course is FFVL-framed, so the French system is the one you would meet if you train there.

How conversion actually works

Fees: converting a Swiss brevet €70; recognising a foreign licence with an IPPI card €70; without one €120.

The parakite-specific position, by country

The binding constraint is flyable days, not money. Every system demands a volume of flights before you can sit an exam — 40 launches and 40 landings in Germany, 50 high flights from 5 sites in Switzerland. What determines whether you qualify in four months or two years is how many days you can actually fly.

Only the UK publishes a course price. In the other four the national body sets exam fees and schools set their own tuition, so you have to ask individual schools.

The case for each

United Kingdom. Unavoidable, and not because of the licence — because of site access. Every worthwhile UK coastal site is club-controlled, clubs require BHPA membership, and the good sites want Club Pilot or Pilot. There is no route to flying Beachy Head or Portland that bypasses this. The weakness is weather: ten course days across a British calendar is not ten consecutive days.

South Africa. On paper the best place to accumulate hours — a season running October to March when you can fly most days, family accommodation, and costs trivial in sterling at around R1,940 for the full licence and membership. The problem is chapter 14's rule: parakites require the Sport rating, IPPI 5, not Basic. South Africa will let you build hours faster than anywhere on this list, and will not let you fly a parakite until you are a long way along.

France. Where the sport actually lives. The Dune du Pilat is the flagship site and the instruction is FFVL-framed. The catch: all 2026 Pilat dates are sold out, about forty parakite course places a year, and I could not reach a single FFVL page to tell you what the brevet requires.

Switzerland. The most interesting strategically, because it is the only country building a parakite licence. A Swiss brevet also converts to IPPI 4 automatically and is a genuine state licence. The cost of entry is 50 high flights from 5 different sites before you can even sit the practical, in a country where everything is expensive.

Germany. The most systematic and cheapest to belong to. The A-Lizenz maps to IPPI 4 cleanly, conversion rules are published in full in both directions, membership is €56 through a club. No parakite angle, but the most transparent route to a well-recognised state licence.

What I would do, in your position

Train in the UK, build hours in Cape Town, learn parakiting in France or Switzerland.

1. UK for the rating. Elementary and Club Pilot at a BHPA school, roughly £1,700. Not optional if you want to fly at home.
2. Cape Town for volume. Once you hold a rating mapping to IPPI 4, take SAHPA foreign membership — R500 for two months — and fly on every family visit through the October-to-March season. The cheapest and fastest way to turn a Club Pilot rating into real hours, during the months the UK is unflyable.
3. France or Switzerland for the parakite. Book a Dune du Pilat course for 2027 now, or Beni Kälin's Parakite Week at CHF 1,190.
4. Revisit South Africa for parakiting later, once you have the hours for a Sport rating.

Landing, not launching, is the hard part

The inverse of what your kiting instinct expects.

Launching and soaring a Moustache is easy when there is enough wind. Landing is what can be very difficult, due to it's higher stall speed and the long flare at the end.

Beni Kälin

Trim degradation — the sleeper hazard

The one nobody expects, and specific to the riser system. The kite-riser pulley cord can shrink up to 10%. Normal paraglider lines shrink perhaps 1%.

the stall gets worse as they get older. So you don't get that hard point anymore before they stall, so no more warning.

Beni Kälin

A wing that used to give you a clear firm point before the stall stops doing so. The failure mode is silent and gradual: your wing slowly loses top speed, loses dive, and loses the one cue that tells you the stall is coming.

How little it takes to break the safety characteristics

"if the Cs are slightly too short or the Bs slightly too long that stability can be gone." And on brakes: 2 cm short makes a wing "collapsy and dangerous". Two centimetres.

The corollary for coastal flying is the sand warning from chapter 2: sand accumulating in the trailing edge degrades the reflex, and degraded reflex is where collapses start. Check it every session.

Beni's test for whether a wing is actually a parakite

Any good and safe parakite should be able to hold your weight only on the A-Lines. If you can't pull the A-riser on the ground hard to push the parakite forward in my opinion this is a paraglider and not a parakite.

Why the riser system itself carries risk

The most thoughtful criticism of the whole concept, from someone on the inside: "kiterisers only belong on wings that are very collapse stable at full bar in my opinion".

His point: on a paraglider, flying at full speedbar near the ground feels wrong, and that feeling stops people. A kite riser removes the psychological brake — full speed is just hands up, it is comfortable, and you will do it close to terrain without noticing you have.

Water

Relevant because coastal soaring puts you over or beside it constantly. The Wessex coastal flying safety guide is blunt: "It is well known that water landings are frequently fatal so they should never be considered."

Coming from kitesurfing, water reads as the safe option — it is where you land when things go wrong. In free flight, tangled in lines under a wet canopy in a harness, it is the opposite.

What makes a parakite site

Smooth laminar wind, open space, and a progressive slope. FlyParakite's description of why the Dune du Pilat works is effectively the specification. Beni Kälin's ranking of what determines whether a site works at all: how high and steep the face is, then wind speed, then your weight — figure 6.1.

The UK problem

Here is the thing nobody in the parakite literature says, because the sport is French, Swiss and American: the UK's coastal soaring sites are governed by rules written for paragliders, and those rules exclude the conditions a parakite is built for.

If you cannot ground handle your wing or need assistance to walk forward, then it is beyond safe limits to launch.

Do NOT fly when using speedbar would be essential.

Wessex HG&PG Club, coastal flying safety guide

A parakite is designed to be ground-handled in wind that defeats a paraglider, and hands-up full speed is its normal cruise rather than an emergency measure. Southern HGC give Beachy Head's ideal band as 8–24 km/h, amber to 32, over 32 too strong — 17 knots as a hard ceiling, which is where a Moustache starts getting interesting.

You do not resolve that tension by arguing with a club. You resolve it by getting the rating, joining, flying within the site rules, and choosing your days.

The Sussex sites

Southern Hang Gliding Club, £60/year, eight sites, BHPA membership required. Visiting UK pilots £10 for 7 days.

The Dorset and Hampshire sites

Wessex HG&PG Club, £25/year, 22 sites. "You must be a BHPA member to join."

Plus a long list of coastal no-go areas: the Abbotsbury Chesil North bird sanctuary is a no-fly zone surface to 500 ft, the Lulworth Danger Area is closed except on published dates, and there is no permission to launch or land anywhere in Poole.

A parakite is a glider, not a kite

This matters, and it is cleanly settled by the legislation. Article 23 of the Air Navigation Order 2016 exempts certain aircraft from most of the Order: "any small balloon; any kite weighing not more than 2kg; any unmanned aircraft other than an unmanned aircraft subject to certification; any parachute including a parascending parachute."

Gliders are not on that list. The kite carve-out covers a tethered kite of 2 kg or less. A parakite flown free is a glider, and it sits inside the Order rather than outside it.

The practical difference is large. A kite flown above 60 m AGL needs a CAA permission, with prescribed red-and-white streamers by day and a specified lighting array by night. A free-flown foot-launched glider needs none of that.

No licence is legally required

A person may act as the pilot in command or co-pilot of a [non-Part-21] glider without being the holder of an appropriate licence if the flight is not for the purpose of public transport.

ANO 2016, Article 146

So: no CAA licence, no rating, no medical. Every requirement below is voluntary or contractual, not statutory.

Worth flagging because you will meet the claim: at least one UK school states on its website that the BHPA qualification is "required to legally fly in the UK". That is marketing, and Article 146 contradicts it. What is true is that you will not get access to any worthwhile site without it.

What does apply

Articles 240 and 241 — it is an offence to recklessly or negligently endanger an aircraft, or any person or property. Article 265 makes contravention a criminal offence. And the CAA's standing caveat: their position "does not constitute permission to disregard the legitimate interests of site landowners". Airspace and land are separate questions.

The BHPA, and what its insurance does and does not cover

The CAA delegates: "The British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association is the governing body in the UK for hang gliding, paragliding, paramotoring and parascending."

The headline: "The BHPA provides automatic £5 million 3rd-party insurance for its members."

The exclusion, in the very next sentence: "But if you require personal or travel insurance, this should be obtained from an independent insurance broker."

So it is third-party liability only. No personal accident, no medical, no repatriation, no equipment cover. Coming from BKSA membership on the kite side — which includes personal accident and £1,000 of kit cover — that is a step down in scope.

It is also rating-conditional in at least one respect. Southern HGC state: "BHPA insurance only covers Pilot-rated (and above) pilots to fly cross-country without supervision."

How access actually works

A chain, and every link is required: train at a BHPA school → BHPA membership → club membership (£25–£60/year; at Newhaven Cliffs local by-laws make it a legal requirement) → the right rating for the site → landowner goodwill.

I could not reach a single South African source. SAHPA's site and every Cape Town site guide were blocked rather than absent. So there is no researched site list here, and I am not going to write one from general knowledge and dress it up as findings.

The one hard datapoint

Swing's Sonic RS parakite was refined on the South African coast. That is from the launch material, and it is the only direct link between the sport and the country I could establish. A manufacturer chose that coastline to develop a parakite on, which is a meaningful signal about the conditions.

Why it looks promising on paper

Recall Beni Kälin's ranking: height and steepness of the face first, wind speed second. The Cape Peninsula has both in a way the Dutch and Danish dunes do not. And the seasonal inversion is the real prize — South Africa's season runs exactly when the UK's does not. With family in Cape Town, a December visit lands in the middle of the best flying months on a coastline a parakite manufacturer thought worth developing a wing on.

What you actually need to find out

1. Is anyone flying parakites there at all? Strong paragliding scene, yes. Parakites specifically, unknown.
2. What does SAHPA require? Ratings, membership, insurance, and whether a UK rating converts. Chapter 14 has their published rules for visitors — IPPI 4 minimum — but not the training requirements.
3. Which sites work, and on what wind? Cape Town's famous flying sites are mountain launches. A parakite wants a soarable face in strong laminar wind, which is a different requirement.
4. Is the Cape Doctor flyable, or just strong? Twenty to thirty-five knots is within a parakite's range where a paraglider's ends. Forty-five is not, for anyone.

How to close the gap

Start with SAHPA and ask directly whether any club has parakite activity, and what a visiting UK pilot needs. Then ask Swing — they developed a wing on that coast and will know exactly where and with whom. Then the Cape Town paragliding schools, who will know the sites and the wind even if they have never seen a parakite.

And remember chapter 14's rule: even once you find the sites, a Sport rating is required to fly a parakite in South Africa. Treat the next visit as research. That costs nothing and is the only way to answer these properly.

You cannot just add one to a basket

Flare deliberately gate the purchase, and every retailer follows the same pattern. The route is: talk to a Pro Partner → demo the wing → safety checkout → receive a discount code → order direct from Flare. Super Fly state it explicitly — contact them, schedule a demo, complete a safety checkout, and only then "you may be eligible for a discount code to use on the official FLARE website".

FlyParakite, as a Flare retailer, hold no permanent stock — they give you a code, Flare ship in three to four business days, and the whole range is available to try on their courses. Which is the sane way round: fly it before you buy it.

A practical consequence: there is no way to buy one of these without talking to someone who knows the sport, which given the certification position is probably deliberate and probably right.

The second-hand question, and why it is different here

The original Moustache now sits under "outdated models" at around 3,333 CHF, and it is a perfectly good wing that defined the category.

Be more careful than you would be with a used paraglider. The kite-riser pulley cord shrinks up to 10% over its life, against about 1% for conventional lines — so a used parakite of unknown history is not just a worn wing, it may be a wing whose stall warning has quietly disappeared.

1. Ask for the trim history. "When was it last retrimmed?" is the single question that matters. No answer means budget for one immediately.
2. Apply the A-line test on the ground. If you cannot pull hard on the A-riser and drive the wing forward, something is wrong.
3. Check the trailing edge for sand, and the lines for wear. On a Bandit, check the unsheathed Kevlar carefully.

What the whole setup costs

For comparison, Fly Sussex's all-in beginner package with paragliding equipment is £5,250. So the parakite route costs roughly the same as taking up paragliding properly, plus a trip abroad for the parakite-specific instruction.

The main route

Step 6 is the one to do this week. Forty places a year at the world's leading parakite school, and only twelve instructors were trained in France last year. The bottleneck is instruction, not money or ability.

The alternative route, which may suit you better

Buy the BGD Kiss 2 in 19 m² early, and use it for everything. At your ~80 kg all-up it is EN-A certified from 55–95 kg, so you learn on it as a conventional paraglider through Elementary and Club Pilot training, on a wing whose behaviour has actually been tested. Then, once you have real hours, you convert the risers in two steps and it becomes a parakite.

• One wing instead of two. No second purchase at month twelve
• Certified behaviour during the phase where you will make mistakes — the only wing in the category that offers this
• A gentler top speed, which BGD chose deliberately
• The conversion happens when you decide you are ready

What it costs you: the Kiss 2 is not a Moustache. It is a bridge, and eventually you will want a dedicated soaring parakite. But as a first eighteen months it is hard to argue against, and it is the only route where your learning happens under an EN rating.

What to do in parallel

Keep kiting. Your wind reading and ground handling are assets, and the more hours in strong coastal wind the better your judgement about when not to fly.

Email the BHPA about whether third-party cover extends to an uncertified wing, and ask for the Alternative Entry document. Contact SAHPA and Swing about South Africa. Watch the certification space — BGD have shown an EN-rated wing is possible, and if others follow, the risk profile of the whole sport changes.

What not to do

Do not buy a Moustache as your first wing. Even though it is the wing you eventually want, and even though Beni Kälin says the Moustache² suits pilots new to parakites — he means new to parakites, not new to flying.

Do not buy used in year one. The trim-degradation problem means a used parakite may have lost its stall warning, and you will not be experienced enough to notice.

Do not skip the paragliding hours. The direct route works at a school on a French dune, on their equipment, in supervised conditions. It does not get you onto a Sussex cliff.

Do not fly it in thermic air. Not this year, not next year. Coastal, laminar, and within the site rules.

Pre-flight

Your sizes at ~80 kg all-up

Body weight 67 kg + roughly 13 kg of kit = 80 kg all-up. That is the number every chart wants.

The four rules

1. Hands up is the stable place. Do not brake it overhead.
2. Never release the handles in flight. There is no kite killer up there.
3. If in doubt, take the bigger size out.
4. Retrim every 50 hours. The stall warning disappears before anything else does.

Glossary