Joe, I'm sure you are aware of the skydiving simulator in Las Vegas.
https://vegasindoorskydiving.com/It occurred to me, after reading your typically outside-the-box post, that an indoor training simulator could be designed on the same principle.
Large fans would be installed beneath a floor grate to create an updraft. These need not be such powerful fans as you might think, because the hang glider would be suspended on, say, a 100-foot+ vertical line with a counterweight, like an elevator has, so the glider is lifted at perhaps as little as 0.25 lb/sq ft.
At the connection point to the glider, a pitch and roll axis linkage would allow identical simulation and response to actual flight.
The wall structure would be far enough away to prevent the glider from making contact, allowing full 360-degree turns and figure-8s.
The fans would be computer-controlled to simulate the type of conditions a pilot encounters in actual flight, such as turbulence, thermal lift and ridge lift.
Fans on the walls would provide headwinds, tailwinds and crosswinds.
The walls would be white screens. Video projectors would project the terrain the glider is flying over in concert with the artificial updraft.
The experience for anyone would be astounding and perfectly safe.
Genuine hang gliders would be used and interchanged, from prototypes to vintage to contemporary to even a pilot's own glider.
It would be extremely valuable in training, from teaching neophyte pilots to launch, to turn, to work ridge lift, learn thermalling techniques and even to make safe landings.
Personally, I think it would be more attractive and more lucrative than the skydiving simulator, but with the added potential for bringing new participants into hang gliding.
For a higher volume commercial operation in the realm of an amusement park ride, the glider could be suspended from an overhead beam trolley that would take the glider "cross country" above arrays of fans and traveling scenery.
Investors interested in exploring the details of such a "gold standard experience" project should contact me privately through the U.S. Hawks.
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