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An old crusty wing, an open field in sub 10mph winds and a couple of pilots to laugh at you and offer pointers.
90% of ground-handling is muscle memory so requires hands on experience... its not hard once you dive into "doing".
There are plenty of vids on youtube that offer the basic principles.... layout //  "A" lines // correcting errors etc.

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When I was ready to purchase and had the funds, I started checking ebay every day, yes every day.  I searched "paraglider" and "paramotor", then sort by Newly Listed.  You get to see everything related to the sport being posted daily.

The secret to find a great deal be it eBay or "craigslist", it's being one of the first people to read and act the advertisement when it's posted.  You don't see the fantastic prices because the ads get taken down right away because the sale has finalized.

 

I got a low hour 28m Universal 1.1 for $1600 shipped (1250 gpb) for example.  It's not a beater wing so I do care for it.  I think there are some heavily used wings on ebay from Bulgaria or Poland for cheap, others may chime in on the heavily used wings, but if the lines are stretched out of wack then you might be fighting a lot more with it.

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In addition to all of the above, I bought the Powered Paragliding  Bible, the 6 DVD set " Master Powered Paragliding" (one of the DVD's concentrates on ground handling specifically) some really good animations in those DVD's explaining torque and other motor/wing/weather related stuff and I also bought the Dean Eldridge Paramotoring Essential Guide. 

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  • 1 month later...

I went to kite my wing on a large recreational field where I live that’s mostly only used by dog walkers during the week.

Despite positioning myself right in the middle, away from everyone, nearly every single dog came charging over, barking like mad and it wouldn’t stretch the boundaries of possibility that a costly repair could be the result.

Even the less excitable ones seemed intent on urinating on it when it was grounded.

When apologetic and inquiring owners came to retrieve there animals it was only fair to have  a bit of a chat (forcing me to leave the wing grounded).

I also realised I had to be vigilant for dog fouling.

In short, it was a bit stressful and I didn’t get much done.

A cheap old wing just for ground handling would reduce stress.

Parks and recreational fields are not ideal by my experience so I’ll b looking to find a bit of private land.

All the best.

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I live in London and, a couple of weeks ago , I made contact with the nearest council park with a big open space.I wanted somewhere to practice kiting my wing and sought permission to do this. They had never had such a request before and wanted to meet to see what it was all about. I met with the head of the parks and we walked through it whilst I explained what I wanted to do and looked at various areas. However, as we walked I was struck by just how many dogs there were, and most of them were off their leads, racing around, barking excitedly and chasing other dogs.I could see straight away what a potential disaster that could be with one damaging my wing or just getting in the way. (I didn't even consider the dog mess!) So I talked myself out of that location and have now accepted that I will still need to drive for an hour to try and find a quiet open space... 🤷‍♂️

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