Judy Leden, MBE, has held three world championships, twice in hang gliding, once in paragliding. Judy Leden was born near London in 1959. At the age of 19 whilst at studying in Wales she took up hang gliding as a hobby. She later gave up her studies to concentrate on her flying, eventually taking the world championship. Judy also flies paragliders, microlight and paramotors. Judy Leden's flying career began while she was at university in Cardiff in 1979.

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  • Judy Leden, MBE, has held three world championships, twice in hang gliding, once in paragliding. Judy Leden was born near London in 1959. At the age of 19 whilst at studying in Wales she took up hang gliding as a hobby. She later gave up her studies to concentrate on her flying, eventually taking the world championship. Judy also flies paragliders, microlight and paramotors. Judy Leden's flying career began while she was at university in Cardiff in 1979. She started competing in 1982 and broke many records in 1983. She currently holds world records for both hang gliding and paragliding. Leden turned professional in 1988, becoming the only woman to earn a living as a hang glider and paraglider pilot. Her work includes films, stunts, flying displays, lecturing, teaching and writing. In 1989 Leden crossed the English Channel when her hang glider was released from a hot air balloon 12,000 feet above the white cliffs of Dover, landing on the beach at Calais. In 1991 she made the first ever hang glider flight from one of the world's highest active volcanoes - Cotopaxi in Ecuador which rises 19,600 feet. She won the Women's World Hang Gliding Championships in 1987 and again in 1991. She has been British Women's Champion six times and won the Women's World Paragliding Championship in 1995. Leden has been part of the British Hang Gliding Team since 1984 and latterly in Paragliding. She has captained the team on several occasions. In May 1994 Leden successfully completed the “Flight For Life", by flying a microlight from England to the Kingdom of Jordan, in memory of a friend called Yasmin who died of cancer the year before. Six months later she broke the world hang gliding altitude record, being released from a balloon at 41,307 feet and experiencing a wind chill factor of -87C in the process she recently set new tandem World records, once with a co-pilot with cerebral palsy, and the other with a blind albino woman. She is well known within the disabled flying community, and instructs disabled pilots at Airways Airsports in Derbyshire.. Judy was awarded an MBE in 1989 for her services to hang gliding and has received many other awards, including the Royal Aeroclub Gold Medal, Sportswoman of the year from Cosmopolitan magazine and Middlesex county. She also received the Hussein Medal for Excellence in recognition of her flight to Jordan by microlight and the Star of the First Order, by King Hussein, after her world record balloon drop.
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  • May 2009
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  • Judy Leden, MBE, has held three world championships, twice in hang gliding, once in paragliding. Judy Leden was born near London in 1959. At the age of 19 whilst at studying in Wales she took up hang gliding as a hobby. She later gave up her studies to concentrate on her flying, eventually taking the world championship. Judy also flies paragliders, microlight and paramotors. Judy Leden's flying career began while she was at university in Cardiff in 1979.
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  • Judy Leden
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