North Korea has nine active airborne training facilities that use jump towers to qualify paratroopers. This has been a topic covered by AccessDPRK and others in the past. However, there are also at least two dedicated paraglider training sites.
As far as I’m aware, there hasn’t been any public reporting on the locations of these paraglider facilities. Information about the topic is scarce, and there is still a question of whether or not these two sites are part of special military operations forces or if they are training sites purely for exhibitions that take place during air shows at the Kamla and Mirim airports.
North Korea has also disclosed the existence of civilian "parachuting clubs", but it isn't clear if the facilities described below are part of those clubs.
In any case, these two sites are part of a little understood subject within the OSINT community. Unlike an area with continual human activity, these sites were difficult to identify. After looking through imagery from dozens of different dates going back to 2010, clear paragliding activity was only noted four times at one location and three times at the second.
Because of the amount of observation it took to identify the sites due to their sporadic activity and unassuming nature, they were not included in the AccessDPRK map until the 2023 updated pro version.
Site A (Sunan-Pyongyang)
The first site is located on a hilltop at 39.188701° 125.759280° in the Sunan District of Pyongyang, 1.4 km northeast of the Kim Jong Il Peoples’ Security University and 400 meters east of the Ministry of Social Security’s K-9 training center.
The jump facility consists of a slope cleared of trees 30-35
meters wide and nearly 200 meters long at an approximate elevation of 122 meters (400 ft). There are no paved roads leading from
this site, but a foot path appears to connect it to a series of buildings
at 39.183573° 125.761520°, suggesting that the building complex is associated
with the paragliding program.
Based on commercial satellite imagery, this site was established ca. 2015-2016 as a much smaller cleared strip which was later widened to its present dimensions in early 2021.
Imagery from April 9, 2021 shows training activities
taking place with six and possibly a seventh wing (canopies) visible. Four
wings appear to be in the air and two or three are on the ground. Using the
measuring tool in Google Earth, the wings have a span of 8-9 meters, which is on
the lower end of what’s commonly used in recreational paragliding.
Three other exercises are visible on commercial imagery from
other sources between Nov. 10, 2020 and April 9, 2021.
Site B, located at 39.087029° 125.439573°, is the largest of
the two sites. Situated south of the Chwayong Reservoir in Taedong County, it
consists of a small, cleared spot on top of a hill (coordinate center) and
landing fields 450 meters northeast at 39.089528° 125.443737°. This is in turn
part of an even larger military complex.
An image from Sept. 11, 2010 shows a single wing at the
hilltop jump site and two more in the fields below, with a small crowd watching
nearby. There is also an image on June 20, 2012 that appears to show another
exercise with one wing but it is obscured by cloud cover. One further exercise
may have taken place on Aug. 21, 2021 but the image quality isn’t optimal.
I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters who help make all of this possible: Donald Pearce, David M., Dylan D, Joe Bishop-Henchman, Joel Parish, John Pike, Jonathan J., Kbechs87, Raymond Ha, Russ Johnson, Squadfan, and Yong H.
