Every smooth launch, every gentle turn and every safe landing is built on thousands of hours spent flying in every kind of condition, learning how the air behaves and how to work with it. Some of that experience comes from flying tandem passengers almost every day, and some comes from teaching new pilots how the air works. The rest comes from racing as a competition pilot at the highest level of our sport.
People often ask what makes Cape Hope Paragliding different. The answer has very little to do with our equipment, our location or our marketing. It comes down to one simple belief: the day you stop learning as a pilot is the day you stop becoming a better instructor.
That is why every winter, while the tandem season slows down, you’ll find our team travelling across South Africa and around the world to race.
Why do competition pilots race?
Competition paragliding is the highest level of free flight. It is not a longer joyride or a more scenic version of what a passenger experiences. It is a discipline of its own.
Paragliding World Cup Brazil Photo: Martin Scheel
Each day, pilots are given a course through the mountains, often covering well over one hundred kilometers. The only way to complete it is by finding invisible columns of rising air, climbing efficiently, and making hundreds of decisions while the weather constantly changes around you. There are no engines. No second chances. Just judgement.
Where will the next thermal form? Should I stay and climb, or leave now? Is the weather improving or shutting down? Can I glide that far? Every one of those calls has consequences, and a competition pilot may make hundreds of them in a single flight that lasts four or five hours.
Success rarely belongs to the pilot willing to take the biggest risks. It belongs to the pilot who consistently makes the best decisions. That is exactly why competition matters to someone booking a tandem flight.
Why competition pilots become better instructors
Everything that makes a strong competition pilot also makes a great tandem instructor. Reading the weather before it changes. Recognising the smallest movement in the glider and knowing what it means. Choosing comfortable, efficient lines through the air. Staying calm when conditions turn difficult.
On glide between thermals during a Paragliding World Cup task. Photo: Martin Scheel.
When one of our paragliding instructors is flying a passenger from Signal Hill or Lion’s Head, the objective is completely different, but the decision making is exactly the same. Every flight is built on years of learning how air moves and how to work with it safely. Competition is never about proving ourselves. It is about continuing our education.
The road to Barberton
The 2026 South African Paragliding Championships did not begin in Barberton. They began years earlier.
None of what happened in Barberton happened by accident. For the past few years we’ve deliberately put ourselves in challenging environments, travelling across South Africa and overseas to compete against stronger fields and different conditions.
Francois Fielies de Villiers arriving in goal at Barberton. Photo: Herman Bosua.
Every competition teaches something different. Different mountains, different weather, different flying styles, and plenty of different mistakes. Those experiences are brought home, shared openly and discussed honestly. Every flight is debriefed, every mistake becomes a lesson, and every success belongs to the team. That culture of continuous learning has become one of the foundations of Cape Hope Paragliding.
A team built on shared knowledge
This year’s championships were a special week for our entire team. Cape Hope’s competition programme- Cloudbusters was represented by Francois de Villiers Jnr, Roland de Vries, Francis Dudley de Klerk, Francois “Fielies” de Villiers and Gideon de Villiers.
Gideon is not yet one of our tandem instructors, but he has been an important part of our competition journey for a couple of years. As Francois’ cousin and Fielies’ nephew, he has travelled, trained and competed alongside us both locally and internationally. Every pilot sees the sky a little differently, and having another experienced competition pilot to analyze weather, routes and decisions has made all of us stronger.
By the end of the week, Cape Hope had won the overall Team Championship. Individually, Francois de Villiers Jnr became the 2026 South African Nationals Champion. Roland de Vries finished second overall, Francis Dudley de Klerk ninth, and Francois “Fielies” de Villiers thirteenth. All four of our instructors finished inside the top thirteen.
We were delighted with the individual results, but the Team Championship probably means the most to us. One pilot can have a great week. A team only succeeds when knowledge is shared, honest conversations happen after every flight and everyone is prepared to put the group’s success ahead of their own. That’s the culture we’ve tried to build at Cape Hope since day one.
Cape Hope with the overall Team Championship trophy at Barberton.
Twenty years later
Some stories are bigger than trophies.
Twenty years ago, Fielies stood on the top step of the podium as South African National Champion. This year he stood on launch beside the son he first taught to fly, watching him win the very same title. Moments like that don’t come around very often.
Celebrating at prize giving, twenty years after the first family title.
Today, Fielies remains one of Cape Hope’s senior instructors and mentors. His decades of experience have shaped the way we think about flying, not only for Francois, but for the entire team. A results sheet could never measure knowledge like that. You see it in the conversations after flying, in the way we make decisions and in the way every instructor keeps learning, no matter how experienced they become.
That is the competition DNA behind every tandem flight.
More than a tandem flight
If you come flying with us in Cape Town, you probably won’t be thinking about race tasks, thermal strategy or national championships. You’ll be thinking about the view. And that is exactly how it should be.
Our job is to make every flight feel effortless. We came away from the 2026 South African Paragliding Nationals happy with how the week went, but not because of the trophies or the podiums. We came away happy because the results reflect the values we have always believed in. Stay curious. Keep learning. Help each other improve. Those values make us better competitors, and more importantly, they make us better paragliding instructors.
At its heart, Cape Hope Paragliding is a tandem paragliding company and flying school based in Cape Town. Competition is simply one part of who we are. Everything we learn through racing, coaching and travelling finds its way back into the flights we share with our passengers and students.
Whether you’re joining us for your first tandem flight or taking your first steps towards becoming a pilot yourself, you’ll be learning from people who never stopped learning themselves.
We’d love to share that passion with you.
We hope to see you on the hill soon.