Name: Matt Henzi
Hometown: Vancouver, WA
Favorite flying site: Bir, India
Cloudsurf Paragliding began in 2011 as a standard paragliding school for pilot training, tandem training and gear sales. We quickly realized that training a human to fly a bedsheet with strings required more skills, knowledge and judgement than the 'standard' training program typically provided. Owner-operator Matt Henzi was already an experienced and professional outdoor instructor and mountain guide. He had helped run a ski and snowboard school, developed instructor training programs, and reached the highest level of AASI snowboard instructor rating possible. He guided clients to the summits of Mt. Rainier and Denali with world-renowned guide company RMI for 4 seasons where he learned professional guiding, emergency care and high angle rope rescue skills within a truly professional and elite group of AMGA guides.
Matt is passionate about training the right students to a high level of competency with their initial training course and being around to remain a valuable mentoring resource throughout their flying careers. For Cloudsurf's Intensive Novice Pilot (P2) Training Course this means: An Intensive 14 day training program at several different flying sites around Oregon and Washington. Students will fly way more than the minimum required flights for a standard P2 course and gain hours of airtime with extended ridge soaring flights, beginner thermal flights, high altitude flights and will also get to train on a tandem glider as they experience and explore acrobatic and cross country (XC) flights with Matt as their pilot/guide. You will learn Ninja kiting skills, perfect launch and landing technique, a thorough understanding of the aerodynamics and theory of flight, a solid start on your meteorological training (a lifetime of learning to follow), risk vs. reward judgement, risk management, beginner thermal flying, ridge soaring, and active piloting skills. We also get you set up with a plan for safe progression after you leave the nest.
We truly feel that flying a paraglider is a sacred experience and your safety should not be left to chance or the passive safety of your glider alone. We want to give every student the opportunity to take charge of their flying careers and become a pilot who is totally in control, measured in their judgement of risk and capable of flying for decades in the manner they desire.
