PAPILLON PARAGLIDERS is the paragliding brand of Papillon, Germany’s most popular flying school (according to licences issued since 2000).
It all started in the 1970s with the training of hang glider pilots. The Wasserkuppe, Hesse’s highest mountain at 950 metres, has been internationally known and loved as the “mountain of pilots” since the invention of aviation over 100 years ago.
“Rhöner Drachen- und Gleitschirmflugschulen Wasserkuppe”
After paragliding became more and more popular, Papillon expanded its training offer. Under the name “Rhöner Drachen- und Gleitschirmflugschulen Wasserkuppe” (Rhoen midlands hang-gliding and paragliding schools Wasserkuppe), the flight instructors now trained hang gliders and paragliders.
As paragliding grew in popularity, so did the demand for paragliders that could offer both the good-naturedness of a beginner’s glider and sufficient performance to meet the needs of hobby and pleasure pilots.
Safety and performance
While some manufacturers focused their development on the high performance segment and glide ratio and aspect ratio were “the measure of all things”, others had already begun to take the group of hobby and pleasure pilots into special consideration in their portfolio.
The result: countless innovations and improvements that made paragliding ever safer and easier.
New technologies also played an important role in the development, such as computer-aided development and optimisation of the profiles.
Constant further development
The materials used have also changed a great deal since the early days: apart from the basic principle, a modern paraglider has hardly anything in common with the parachute-like models from the early days of paragliding.
Back then, you needed very steep slopes to be able to take off with one of the first paragliders at all.
In order to be able to master longer thermal and cross-country flights, one had to rely on extremely challenging high-performance gliders. Compared to modern paragliders, these had hardly any performance worth mentioning and also reacted extremely dynamically to disturbances or pilot errors.
Paragliding today
With around 100,000 launches supervised by Papillon flight instructors every year, we have a wealth of experience that is probably unique in the world and from which numerous pilots benefit today:
Based on models that had already proven their safety, performance and good handling during training, advanced training and travel, we now offer paragliders that we have further developed with our practical knowledge and our own flight instructor practice tests.
Our goal: beautiful paragliders that offer maximum safety, comfortable handling and best performance in their respective class.
