Site Use Instructions | Soaringroadtrip

How to use this site

This website was designed so that hang glider and paraglider pilots don't miss any flying opportunities in the North East region. It aims to make it easy to identify what flying sites are near your location, which sites may be flyable in the next 48 hours and possibly the next 10 days, and who else is planning to fly the same sites. If nobody has made plans to fly the site you are interested in, you can alert others to invite them to join you. We have included camping and hotel / motel locations near the flying sites in case you plan to fly regions outside your homesite.

We recommend that you:

1. Open the flying site index on your mobile phone, and use your browser's settings menu to ADD TO YOUR HOME SCREEN. This will put the Flying Sites index page on your mobile phone for easy access.

2. Use the overview map to find flying sites near you, or in regions outside your homesite.

3. Use the 48 Hour live wind forecast to see a spreadsheet of which sites have a wind direction favorable for launching for the next 48 hours.

4. Click on SEE FLYING ALERTS at the footer of the page. This will take you to the flyable-site-alerts google group where you can check Windy alerts for sites that might be flyable in the next 10 days. There may also be discussions created by other pilots who are planning to fly certain sites. You can join the discussion if you wish to fly with them. You can SUBSCRIBE to the flyable-sites-alert google group so that any new Windy alerts and new pilot alerts get sent to your email inbox. Subscribing is OPTIONAL. If you subscribe, you will get every Windy and pilot alert in the North East, including flying sites that you might not be interested in. You can use your email client's filter feature to retain only those alerts for specific flying sites that interest you, then send all other alerts to your email trash.

5. If you see a Windy alert on a site that you wish to fly and no other pilot has started a discussion on flying it, you can click on SEND FLYING ALERT. This will open your email client and send an alert to the flyable-sites-alert google group. If you are a member of RAF, FSF or UpstateNY clubs, you can add their google group email address as additional email recipients to inform pilots in those regions of your interest in flying a particular launch site. On the subject line please write the name of the flying site you wish to go to and what date you plan to fly. On the text of the email, indicate your interest in flying the site and invite others to join you, then write your name at the end of the invite. Click SEND on your email client. This will add your alert to the flyable-sites-alert google group where other pilots will be alerted to your interest. If other pilots respond, their response will show up in your email inbox if you're subscribed to the flyable-site-alerts google group, otherwise, you can manually check SEE FLYING ALERTS for any new responses to your invite.

6. After you fly a site, we request that you write a post-flight report on the discussion thread you started on flyable-site-alerts. We will be posting your flight report to the website so that others can read about your flight experience. Photos are very much appreciated and will be added to the image slideshow that may appear at the top of the site description. We will include links to your video if you include them in your post-flight report.

Tell your pilot friends about this website. The more pilots who use this site, the easier it will be to find buddies you can go to launch and fly with. Buddy rides are always easier than hiking back to launch!