http://www.porterville.co.za/
http://www.sahpa.co.za/sahpa/sahpa_office.jsp?section=main

G.Kuhn <<email>> writes:

I'm trying to get some international hang gliding interest here, and have been speaking with Rob Manzoni, the owner of Porterville launch, the excellent "Flyers Lodge", and yearly host of the "All Africa Paragliding Open", about this. There is a small core of international hang glider pilots, mainly the European guys, that come fly here every year, but it seems they want to keep this place a secret.

Hang gliding in South Africa is so small, we can't offer you any financial incentive, but the local exchange rate should take care of that :-) Rob runs an excellent venue, really attractive transport and retrieve fees, transport from Cape Town, food, and cold beer! And, irrespective what you might think of Africa safety wise, Porterville is as safe as can be. I have no problem with my girlfriend driving here.

This isn't a site for really long distance flying, but it offers very interesting valley tasks, especially for the technical/weather guru type pilot. Although, 100Km + type flights are continuously being done here. I'm thinking, this could be a nice "in between" of the USA, Europe and Oz circuit, and give some impetus to grow the local hang gliding scene. The take off can cater for about 20 hangies at present, but Rob has a bunch of ideas to improve that, as the demand grows. This place will work until Feb/March, maybe longer with the way the weather is screwed up at the moment.