The Complete Handbook of Hang Gliding & Skydiving
A Practical Reference for Pilots, Instructors, Riggers, and Operators
by Alumigogo Books
non-fiction
The field reference for choosing, flying, maintaining, and building a business around hang gliding and skydiving equipment.
About this book
This is not a coffee-table book and it is not a beginner's brochure. It is a working reference for people who take flying seriously: instructors, tandem operators, riggers, drop-zone managers, equipment dealers, and private pilots who want to understand their gear at a technical level. The book covers both sports side by side because the equipment, safety systems, and regulatory environment overlap more than most pilots realize. You will learn how to read a wing's polar curve, what a canopy's aspect ratio actually does in the air, and why a harness's hang point geometry affects your pitch authority.
Every chapter is organized for real-world use. Specification chapters break down component materials and design choices so you can compare one glider or canopy to another based on numbers, not adjectives. Maintenance chapters give you concrete inspection intervals, wear limits, and troubleshooting flowcharts for common failures like stuck deployment bags, worn control bar bolts, or fabric porosity loss. The business chapter looks at actual revenue models in the sport: flight schools, gear resale, packing services, and private-label harness manufacturing, with guidance on margins, certification costs, and liability insurance.
Later chapters address the near-term future of the sport, including electric-assist harnesses, GPS-based airspace integration, and new porous fabric standards, along with the regulatory bodies and training organizations that set the rules. The FAQ and glossary give you immediate answers and a shared vocabulary for communicating with manufacturers, inspectors, and aviation authorities. If you work in this industry or intend to, keep this book within reach of your desk or your packing table.
Reader Reviews
Angela Brown
★★★★★I've been rigging for eleven years and I still learned things from the maintenance chapter. The inspection intervals are concrete, not vague, and the troubleshooting logic for stuck deployment bags is exactly what I needed for a client's rig last month. This is the book I wish I'd had when I started my own packing business.
Kimberly Hill
★★★★★Finally a reference that treats hang gliding and skydiving as the technical disciplines they are, not as extreme sports marketing. The comparison between glider aspect ratios and canopy cell counts is the clearest I've read anywhere. I'm buying a second copy to keep at the drop zone for the other instructors to use.
Robert Jones
★★★★★Good solid reference material, especially the chapter on choosing gear. I bought this to help decide between a used Sport 2 and a new Falcon, and the spec breakdown made the choice obvious. The business chapter felt a bit thin on actual numbers, but for a single buyer the first half is worth the price.
Sharon Williams
★★★★★It's well written and accurate, but I expected more depth on canopy aerodynamics for advanced parachute jumps. The book covers the basics thoroughly, yet the sections on high-performance elliptical canopies felt like an overview rather than a real breakdown. Still a useful desktop reference, just not the deep technical dive I was hoping for.
Jacob Adams
★★★★★The discussion of harness hang point geometry and how it affects pitch authority was genuinely useful, and I've already changed how I set up my glider. The chapters are long and dense, but that's what you want from a reference. The glossary alone has saved me from a dozen confused conversations with newer pilots.
Jennifer Nelson
★★★★★I run a small flight school and bought this mainly for the maintenance schedules and the FAQ section. The answer about reserve repack cycles and who is legally allowed to pack actually helped me settle an argument with an insurance auditor. The chapter on business opportunities gave me a couple of ideas for expanding into gear sales that I hadn't considered.
Christopher Robinson
★★★★★The book is well organized and the comparison table between different harness types is excellent. But I felt the installation chapter was too focused on glider assembly and didn't spend enough time on parachute container fitting, which is a big part of what I do as a coach. It's a solid reference, just not perfectly balanced between the two sports.
Matthew Robinson
★★★★★This is the only handbook I've found that treats a hang glider and a skydiving rig with equal technical respect. The physical principles section in Chapter 1 is exactly what I needed to understand why my student's stall behavior was so different after a freebox upgrade. I've already recommended it to three other pilots in our club.