Paragliding – P2 Novice Pilot course and experience

The long weekend beginning with voting day on Thursday 30th April, was the one booked by me for our P2 paragliding course with Templepilots at Kamshet. We had done our P1 last year in May and this was something I was really looking forward to, as my first three solo flights were absolutely unforgettable. My nephew decided to do the P1, thus it became a long weekend outing for my brother in law and his family and my family.

The P2 is a four day course and we had only three days. The first day was at Pawna Lake site and the wind being pretty light, Pallavi got the opportunity to do the tandem as well as solo flight. Both her first P2 tandem and solo flights were about 25 minutes each. One would wonder why you need to fly tandem – but that is part of the training as the instructor teaches you how to fly the ridgeline to pick up the winds up draft, how to turn using body shifts, etc. The tandem flight is to get a feel of the glider controls and movement with an experienced flyer. After her tandem Pallavi did her solo flight doing quite a bit of the required tasks.

I was on the ground doing “kiting” – which is trying to get the glider up in the air with your feet on the ground and keeping it in the air above your head and controlling it with the two brakes. It sounds easy but is pretty hard work unless you get the technique right. The idea is to flow with the glider and not fight or resist it, feel the wind movements, feel if it is tilting and then apply the appropriate brake slightly so that the glider rights itself and then release the brake. If the glider is tilting left you pull the left brake and vice versa, you move with the glider and go behind so as to keep the risers taut and pressure in the glider cells.

The first day I did not get to fly because of light winds and had to be happy with ground handling and watching my nephew go through the grind. The second day we went to Shelar, another flying site at Kamshet but not as scenic as Pawna. The drive to Shelar is through a 4 km stretch of dirt road, then a one and half km trek with a 15kg back pack (your glider). Once at Shelar it was back to ground handling and then the trudge up 270 feet of cliff side. There were boys (kids actually – none more than 14 years in age) who carried the gliders up the hill for a small fee. They were so small that I did not have the heart to give them my glider, preferring to carry it up myself. By the time we reached the top on Saturday, it was 6 in the evening, and I was ready for my tandem flight. My flight instructor Ganpat, got into his harness, and I got into mine, and linked both together. The instructor is always behind for having good control of the glider, we took off smoothly and he showed me how to fly the ridge. We caught the updraft and rose to about a 1000 feet. The “whooooosh” of the wind as it rushes past is something that needs to be experienced. It was very windy and extremely pleasant up there with all the sweat drying off in a few minutes. I, then sat down comfortably in the harness, as Ganpat showed me the ropes on how to fly the ridge, do weight shifts and turn the glider. We flew thus for about 20 minutes and then landed. I had to go up again for my solo, so picked up my harness and trekked up the hill again for my flight. That being a weekend, there were lots of flyers, and by the time it came for my take off it was almost dark. As the sun was setting, I could not get a long flight, and just managed a 4 minute top-down flight.
The next day, we had our theory session at the farm house, with each of the P2 students having to give a small presentation on the theory part assigned to him/her. I had to speak on the right of way traffic rules and Pallavi on how to demonstrate good judgement and show a level of maturity commensurate with the Club Pilot rating. Both of us did our explanations, we were taught about the reserve parachute which is there and how to activate it in case the main glider collapses and then how to land and roll with the reserve parachute. All this was in a paragliding manual prepared for the course. When I first read the ten odd pages, I thought to myself, this is not for me, let’s go home – as the manual talks about a 100 different ways you could die (I think whoever wrote the manual needs to give it a slightly more positive spin), I prefer dying once rather than read it and die a 100 times picturising the written description in the mind!

After the theory, we again went off to Pawna where we did kiting and waited for the right wind to fly. My nephew did his first solo flight and completely freaked out at the experience. My flight was again a short one, I was a bit tense and forgot to do the weight shifts and instead used the brakes for turning, thus losing height faster than would otherwise have happened. I was in line with my landing target but missed it by about a 150 feet and had to walk back with the glider.

My solo flight and other experiences in the next blog.