Paragliding has been around in its infancy for more than seventy years. NASA engineer Francis Melvin Rogallo received the first patent of a predecessor paraglider in 1948. Somewhat later, David Barish also developed and tested very similar gliders
In Switzerland, the German Strasilla brothers, who lived here, together with Andrea Kuhn of Switzerland, developed the world's first paraglider from drag parachutes in 1973. They registered their own paraglider patent as the Skywing. Even then, their glider had an ingenious system of arresting and control lines. Dieter and Udo Strasilla were the first people to fly together from the 3466 meter high Jungfraujoch to Lauterbrunnen, about six kilometers away, covering 2676 meters in altitude. That was the birth of paragliding in Switzerland
Even today, the world's first paraglider, an 11-cell glider made of spinnaker fabric, can still be seen. It is located in the Flugwerft Schleissheim near Munich, which belongs to the German Museum. The Bernese Alps south of Interlaken are known for their triumvirate of Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau and offer ideal conditions for paragliding with peaks above 4000 meters altitude.