It is indeed a expensive hobby. They told us for your private pilot license (when you already have it) you have to fly at least 12 hours a year to keep it. Some pilots do that by flying for little companies with sight-seiing flights. They get their flight hours and the company has a cheap pilot :). We saw para-gliders to indeed when we were skiing, awesome thing to see and the can stay in the air for a long time too..