New Nandi 2 Take off christned "Neembu" Take off

Chaps,

a few of you are aware that I have been flying from Nandi 2 for a couple of weeks now, from a new take off point with E to NE take off possibilities. The first flight from there was done on a tandem Firebird Twix with my wife Nirmala, so in honour of her first flight and to keep with tradition for first flights naming I have christened the place "Neembu" after my wife's nickname. So welcome to the Neembu take off :)

Below are google earth pictures of my gps tracks. The initial part is the walk up to take off from the jeep-able track at the foot of the hill.

Write-up in Sunday Daily News & Analysis, Bangalore

From pgMassala Paragliding Club

Chikamagalur Paragliding Site

the monsoon blues saw me actively searching new site with the wonderful tool that is Google maps. What did one do prior to Google maps? One wonders...

Anyhow, I posted to the club member a selection of 6 possible sites within a 5 to 6 hours drive around Bangalore. The main criteria being that the site requires a substantial elevation, 300+ m, and a motor-able access to the top.

Some of us visited a site during monsoon times, a little to the north of Bangalore but were rather disappointed with the lack of real take off opportunities.

last w.e. I set off for Deepavali celebrations to Chikmagalur with wife and family... one of the potential sites spotted. I was not disappointed.

Chikmagalur has a lot promising for paragliding and the most attractive part is its beautiful rolling mountain tops covered in grass, ideal for top landings. Just one little hick-up being that there isn't mush landing opportunities.... for now. Anyhow, there are a few options but with a little difficulty and therefore as an initial flying site I recommend it for advance pilots only. In time if we can get the local authorities to encourage the sport we may be able to clear a patch for a nice landing field.

So here are the photos, maps and GPS tracks.

Here is the GPS track of my drive up to Mullayanagiri peak. The highest peak in Karnataka apparently. More details if you click the link to everytrail.

Mullayanagiri at EveryTrail



The following image was produced using Google Earth. It shows the same GPS track (in blue this time) up to the peak. In addition I have marked out a white polygon with the landing site I have in mind. This to me was the best site for an initial landing field. There were people playing cricket there on the day I drove up. A few bushes here and there, with trees surrounding the field, but no major problems. However it does require a decent approach. I have also drawn a straight line from the peak to the site on Google, this is a line that follows the ground and not a line of site as such. It measure 2.7 km on Google earth. My GPS showed 2.1 km. Furthermore, the asl height at the landing site is 1250m (see the everytrail site for confirmation), while the peak is as 1900m. However, we would probably take a little lower at 1800 m or so. So all in all we have 550m drop to cover 2km. That's a 4:1 glide ratio, quite accessible with any basic glider.


One more thing. Both maps above are oriented N at the top. The peak is ideal for a SE winds therefore, but actually there is large bowl just below and to the right of the peak (left on the map), which can take anything from an ENE to SE wind really.

... and to finish, some photos to make you drool a little :)

Mullayangiri peak


The Road to and car park for the peak. I am thinking that the hill above the road would make an ideal take off point. This picture is facing S.


And to finish, still more promising, is the Baba Budangiri peak to the north, with several kms of SE, E and NE facing cliffs. This will require more investigation on a future trip.

For short term foreign travel insurance....

..... I've been using IMG Global for my recent trips - it is available for us Indians through travelinsuranceindia.com. The policy to go for is Patriot America with Extreme Sports rider to cover Paragliding and it includes everything from emergency medical evacuation to the expenses for getting ones bodily remains or ashes back home, if it gets to that.

Well, as to the question of whether these guys are reliable, I tried calling their call center, had a couple of mail exchanges and these were professional enough. They have a list of cashless hospitals too (the ones in Indian cities looked good, so I assume that the ones abroad will be to the same standards).

Third party liability cover is not available through these folks though.

Ramakrishna wind streamer

Roana installs a silk ribbon wind streamer in the optimal location at the Ramakrishna site (Yelagiri). For the benefit of future generations of PG pilots, or 2-3 weeks, whichever comes first...

Bali 09 - 13 Aug 09

After starting my paragliding journey near the end of 2007, I had a very long break from May of 2008. My hopes of ending this at Yelagiri in June of this year saw me hone my parawaiting skills for both the weekends that I was there :)

It was not with a small amount of trepidation that I landed in Bali - not completely sure if I would be able to get good flying weather - but the Gods were kind!

Spent four days at Timbis. Met Ketut and started off day one with some kiting after which I went up for an instructional tandem - I was nervous about going solo as I had not had a flight for over one year AND also did not have any flying experience worth the name to back up this long absence.

Take off is 75 MSL facing south. From near the temple, the take off does not afford a beach landing - which the main take off (Timbis) does. The SE winds were smooth and gentle - 18/20 early in the afternoon building up slowly to around 22/24 later in the afternoon except for one day when the late afternoon winds picked up to 26/28 with some gusts and buffeting above 110MSL. The max height I attained was 192 MSL - at least that was the highest that I noticed :)

From the moment I launched for my first flight - the feeling was just exhilaration to be in the air again :) In the four days, I enjoyed lovely clear weather everyday, clocking 7 Hours and 10 flights - with the longest flight of over 90 minutes. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to start getting used to reverse inflation and crabbing in making the approach for the top landings.

On day three, the winds picked up to be a little strong for my comfort and while the resultant increase in the lift band was extremely exciting, landing was fairly nerve racking experience. As I approached the landing from the SW as normal, because of the strong lift, I was too high by the time I turned into the wind over the LZ. Attempting to move out to make the approach again, realized that I was not getting any penetration and that is when I had to use the speed bar - which again, was a first for me :)

After three aborted attempts, got the math right and made a shorter and lower approach to come in for landing.

The view from the sky is breathtaking and even though at times I did feel it was a little overcrowded, the flying was wonderful!

Managed to take some pictures - as I said earlier - not good enough yet to both fly and take good pictures :)  Some more pictures here.

Borrowing heavily from Arabind, it's true one is not allowed to fly over the temples, but, the flying is magical nonetheless :)

Cheers,

Nasser

The french flying car

Here is a flying car video, you don't even need a driving licence for one of these in france.

Paragliding Weather

Here's an introduction to the messy world of weather forecasting for paragliding, condensed from various online resources.

Based on the axiom "A little knowledge is dangerous", I hope we can be a little more wary of each other on the hillside from now on.

Yelagiri Topographic Map

Click on the image to see it in full scale

Sites : Favourable winds
Hanuman (Muthanoor) : NW
Ramakrishna (Ramakrishna Madam) : W, SW
JK (Raneri) : S, SE

Yelagiri panorama

Click on the image to see it in full scale

Ramakrishna site, Yelagiri.

Isolated cloudbursts on the plains as we perfect our parawaiting skills.

I used Autostitch to create this panorama from a series of snaps from my cellphone - that explains the twins on the left.

About my Flying in Yelagiri, last weekend

I had 4 flights in all, in the 3 full days that I was in Yelagiri last weekend. I will write about 2 of them which I enjoyed the most.

Landed at Yelagiri on Thursday evening and was all eager & charged up for my first 'flight chance' on Friday morning. I arrived at the Ramakrishna take off site with all my family - wife two kids (2 & 4 yrs) and my pet, a Labrador, just recovering from a liver infection.

It turned out to be a beautiful morning. All pilots including new P2 students were soaring so merrily on the ridge, left of take-off. When I was just about beginning to savour the exhilarating prospect of a lovely flight, My wife was offered a tandem by Temple Pilots. She was over the moon. She had a beautiful, 'mind altering' flight and I paid the bill - babysitting my kids & walking back with my glider & all mentioned 'baggage,' all the way back to parking.

With a 'mind altered' happy wife, sleeping kids & resting pet left behind, I went back to the site at about 3 PM to take my second 'flight chance'. It turned out to be my first flight of the trip and the most memorable one too.

The Southern side, west facing part of Yelagiri (left of Ramakrishna take-off) has a beautiful ridge, one of the best I have flown other than the ones in Billing. It is, I believe to be as good as the west side of Tower Hill in Kamshet - the western bowl below the tower.

The Ramakrishna takeoff is at the lowest point in the entire ridge line south of take-off and the ridge rises all the way after take-off till its peak point. Riding this beautiful & challenging ridge was the high point of my flight that first afternoon. After a 'no-abort take off' and a few minutes of settling in, in front of the take-off, I decided to ride the ridge. I was below the take-off within leaving 200 mts of the take-off and before I could reach the middle sections of the first rock face. From then on, aided by nice smooth winds, I enjoyed working hard and climbed up all the way to the peak point. Must have taken me a good 25-30 minutes to do that. A few more beats, a few facile attempts at wing overs followed by some planning for landing, I headed for landing. I was able to execute the landing plan without any major unknown surprises down the way. The landing ground discovered by Avi is 'made to order' and offers great room for practising landing skills.

The 'second best' flight was Yesterday morning -Sunday. Strong winds with large south component at take-off - was exactly as per XC forecast. Waited till about 1015 to settle, it came down a bi,t but was getting real thermic. Temple Pilots decided to stop further flights for students. Besides that, the forecast early morning, talked about watching out for 'wind shear'.
Launched my glider, had a partial collapse on the way up. Pumped it, inflated it & stabilized it overhead before moving forward for take-off. Thermic conditions in front of take-ff, not too worrying though. settled in & set to climb up without going too close to the ridge line, since the winds were quite cross south. Reached about 100-150 m above take-off around there and palpitating discovered that there was a different layer of winds flowing much faster with a much greater southern component. The transition to this layer was an experience that likes of Walt Disney may never be able to simulate even in the next century. The wind here was cold, moist & hazy all around while a few hundred feet below it was all lit up & hot - like watching a huge lit up room down ways, from the darkening doorsteps outside. The affects on the mind - I will leave it to all your own imagination. The affects on the glider though was very different from what I have experienced in thermic turbulence. There, if all the affects on the glider are more in the x & z axes, here they are almost entirely in the y axis. Some serious 'yawing' and you can feel the extreme stress the glider undergoes. Spent very little time on the ridge line and that too, at a good height. Came away from the ridge quickly, after the experience down back to regular happy thermic conditions which, I am slowly getting comfortable with. A nice landing in strong winds and some soothing reception by a local woman who has her house at the road edge of the landing zone. Water, coolants and flashing smile offered with great warmth. Enjoyed it.


Already looking forward to my next trip to Yelagiri.....can only get better.

A weekend at Yelagiri

Here is a first hand account of my first high altitude flying experience at Yelagiri. Since I already put it down in my personal blog, I'll just link it here.

Vijay

Liability Insurance for flying in Europe

Liability insurance covers injury to other people and damage to their property. You need liability insurance to fly legally in most European countries even if a PG rating license is not required.

Here's a contact for obtaining PG third-party liability insurance for flying in Europe.

Sepp Himberger
AXA Insurance
axa@fly-koessen.at

I've never had to actually test if they pay up (thankfully), but Sepp was friendly enough. He even invited me to fly at his home site in Koessen, Austria.

It costs 70 euros for a year. You need to fax him an application form with the details of your glider and license, in my case the FAI license from the Aero Club of India, New Delhi.

You can find more details about their third party liability insurance coverage here.

Note that emergency rescue and world wide coverage are only available to EU citizens. Last year, Sepp told me that I was covered only for liability and only for flying in the EU.

Traffic in the Sky

Was at yelagiri the past weekend, the 30th and the 31st of May.
Turned out to be rather brilliant, the monsoons hadn't quite penetrated that far east yet and for the most part, we had beautifully clear skies to dive into. :)

Got around to my first, and more importantly; solo, high altitude flight from RK (if I'm not mistaken) take off site. Was a bit nervous actually, not a simple task jumping into a 600m void for the first time, but I found that all that disappeared once I was in the air.

Wriggled into my harness, sat comfortably and had a most pleasant flight down.
While landing though, in the process of avoiding the ditch on the left side, I managed to veer off into the thorny bushes to the right, but luckily enough, I manged to land in a slight clearing so I didn't quite suffer the inch long thorns that so many of the other para-gliders faced on the same landing patch.

Managed only one flight that day though, exhausted as we were from the drive and the psychotic tamil nadu heat. Tried another by the evening after a nice lunch of parotas and curry but someone forgot to pray to the Indian wind god (Vayu) and he therefore, rather pettily, decided to punish us with the most beautiful of breezes going in entirely the wrong direction.

Sigh! C'est la vie.

Wasn't a total waste though, we manged a nice bottle of beer each, with pleasant conversations of arbitrary plans ahead of wonderful glide-able mountains in distant lands... and of course, all this sitting on top of a mountain with a view of orange lightning striking the landscape.

The next day was quite good I'd say, got to fly twice, and even managed to get a video, a minute or so long from about 400m off the ground. Lots of wind, weirdest possible positions to accommodate the camera while trying not the drop the same while I switch hands to control each of the brakes.
Attempting to maintain a course to the bases as well.



Didn't quite work out though, realized that I'd drifted off too far to the right when Vrata told me so. At which point in time, I stop gawking at the beautiful scenery and concentrated on landing. Bit of a messy landing, but nothing to complain about I'd say.

We managed to get up again, and had another round of flights before lunch.
I've forgotten actually, did we have lunch? Hmmm...

Anyway, amazing flight, tried leaning and turning instead of just braking on one side, found it to be rather comfortable. The glider behaved brilliantly, and I managed not to get that bit of churning/nauseating feeling when you free fall.

We managed to get back again, hoping for another flight, though the winds had died down by then.
Vrata managed a forward take off in the low winds and some time later Robin was off and some more time later Vijay got off too.

In the process of course, we went thought around seven million forms of uncertainties, about whether we'd get to fly or not. Some times there'd be no wind, sometimes too much and other times the wind would just have some sort of mood swing and arrive towards us in the most inconceivable of directions. And of course, the rain!

I'm quite sure it was a para-glider that composed the nursery rhyme...

Rain rain go away,
Come again another day,
Little Johnny wants to fly!

I think there was some loss in translation somewhere and someone turned fly into play. :)

I wonder if there are other sports that are so heavily governed by the weather. I guess one would call off a cricket match or two if it rained, but I doubt a few degrees of change in the wind direction or a sudden lack of it ever kept anyone else from whacking a tennis ball around.
For some reason, I get the feeling that para-gliders would make excellent meteorologists!

But such is the way of the para-glider I guess, if I could call myself that quite so soon.

Yelagiri Taj gardens

Found this great little garden retreat at the entrance of Yelagiri this w.e. They are a little strict on alcohol which albeit has it's upside in that there are only quiet families staying there. Anyhow, the place is set on 12 acres with a lovely garden space and the food is quite good. So we've booked for the coming w.e. a 4 bed room suite (with bathrooms, 2000 Rs plus tax, additional bed for 200 Rs) a rather good deal if you ask me. Bfast for 100 Rs, Lunch 150 an Dinner 150, veg or non-veg. A Delux (dbl) room is 1200 + tax and the premium rooms (very nice) go at 1500 + tax.

If you guys want to book, here is the number: 04179 245 231/295 445/245 376, or you can call Mr Salman on +91 9840029445.

There is also a web site: www.zeenathtaj.com, email: zeenathtaj@gmail.com

folks, its mas(s)ala Tee time

This sketch is the basic tee concept, depending on your likes/dislikes answer the questions in the link below - the tee is (likely) to be produced based on the majority answers to each of the questions (afterall, we are a democracy)

Take the poll here

Advance course and new recruits

The one goal of the school set up between pgMassala and GetOffUrAss.com has been primarily to get get more paragliders in the air and form a critical number so as to get the snowball rolling effect for the sport here in south India. With places like Pune and Bir/Manali having really developped the sport, it is about time that South India got it's fair share of pilots as well. Hence the club, hence the school. So it is with a little pride that we announce today the start of our very first Advance course. We have already finished 3 batches of basic course out of which 6 students are now taking the next step to become paragliding pilots. We start tomorrow with Naveen, Vijay, Bharath and Sam. We hope to have Kanishk and Vinay join us next w.e. to make it 6. The outline of the course is as follows:

Day 1 & 2: Chotta Hill flying. The student will be required to continue from where (s)he left of in the basic course. Emphasis on perfecting take off technique in order to ensure a minimum amount of independence on the take off. The student will do 2 to 3 chotta hill flights with the goal of achieving autonomous flight (no guidance on the radio) by his/hers third flight.

Day 3: Tandem flying. The student will be taken on a tandem flight with the instructor. The take off will be done by the instructor from a certain hight. After settling into the flight the student will be given the commands and asked to do a few turns in order to gain an awareness of the basic piloting skills required for executing turns in the air, straight and level flight as well as maintaining a heading in a cross wind. The instructor will demonstrate the "big ears" technique to the student. We will then proceed to the landing field where the student will execute the approach to the landing field under instruction. The final approaching and landing will be done by the instructor,

Day 4, 5 and 6: The student will be guided through 3 or 4 flights from the top of the mountain. (S)he will be asked to take off from the mountain under the supervision of the assistant instructors and under radio guidance will manoeuvre over the landing field. The instructor will be at the landing field to guide the student through the approach and final landing. Eventually the student should be able to fly with minimal radio guidance in order to become autonomous in take off, flight and landing. At this point the student will be able to continue evolving within the flying club.

So we hope to have some new recruits into the pgMassala club for the start of next season.

If its spring it must be billing

Spent a month in Bir/Billing this spring. Didn't attempt a single XC flight ... while Debu Choudhry broke the Indian site record twice in the space of two weeks with flights of 176km and 211km !

Here's a video from the trip. Njoi maadi ...

Bir / Billing Spring 2009 from Hari Nair on Vimeo.

Heres whats been cooking

Spent 3 days around end Feb at Kamshet. In terms of flying the trip was just about worthwhile, with the expected West winds not stabilising and the days being spent between Shellar and Tower East face. The best flight of the trip was the day I landed at Kamshet, and it being a weekend it was just me and Anish soaring in the silky smooth evening conditions at Shellar. The rest of the 3 flights that I managed to get in the trip were bombed-out affairs with a memorable one being riding a big thermal in front of Tower taking me upto 1300m and then finding sink around it that dumped me as fast as I had gone up and with all four of us flying at that time bombing out in quick succession. But apart from flying, as usual, the Kamshet trip was fun, with all the pilots and students at Pendu's base camp at Khandala. To round off the trip, before getting on to the flight back to Bengaluru to be in time for work, had to drop a friends RD350 to his place at Chinchwad after riding for 40kms starting at 4.30 in the morning from nippy Khandala, which was an awesome trip by itself.

This was followed the week after with I, Hari and Venu driving down to Vagamon for another long weekend. Cranky weather meant that the first 2 days were spent PGwaiting with just one small exploratory flight by Hari, but with some good timepass hops at the bunny hill. Day 3 looked promising, but after launching at midday and getting caught in between the west winds at takeoff and the east ones higher up, mixed up with the infamous mid-day thermals meant that I had a tough time keeping the wing over my head. After a few botched toplanding efforts and a big assymetric, had to give in to the punchy conditions and I took the long glide down to the smallish school ground in the valley for landing. Again, though not much flying, had good fun with Vinil and friends at his new cottage. And, had an important realisation during the to and fro drive from Bengaluru - the Gypsy is fun when at the drivers seat, anywhere else sucks.

So whats been the rest of the club been upto? Vrata, Rajesh and Chetan have been flying at Yelagiri on and off, Avinash did some good airtime at Virar and Hari is just returning to base after a month long trip to Billing.

And whats coming up? With Nandi still out of bounds, the hope is that Nandi 2 and Yelagiri will get us some airtime with the west winds expected to kick in soon.

keep soaring,
arvind

Spread the word

Guys, we need to spread the word for the paragliding school.  There is a batch being organised by GetOffUrAss.com for the end of the month, I am also planning on starting an advanced course for mid-april.  Spread the word and let's get some people enrolled.

Yelagiri JK Take off videos

A couple of Videos shot by friends at take off.




A lovely frontal collapse in thermic conditions as Rajesh fails to stabilise his glider after take off resulting in a nasty surprise for him.

Next batch announced

We are planning a 2nd batch for beginners during the last w.e. of March, 26, 27, 28 and 29th. For more information please contact Robin from GetOffUrAss.com (+919980785225). We are also starting an advanced course for those who have completed the beginners batch#1 or #2. The advance course will start in mid-April.

A Sunday in Yelagiri

Some of us went out to Yelagiri last Sunday as the winds were predicted from the SSE, ideal for the Jayakrishnan take off. It was a wonderful day, hot and with a lovely set of smooth thermals kicking in at regular intervals. Rajesh had a short flight to start with and then I managed a respectable 45 mins as I caught several thermals that sent me some 500 m above take off over the Yelagiri plateau. I eventually landed back on the plateau in order to grab some lunch and get a good nap under a tree. The afternoon saw pleanty of restitution winds sweeping in and I had a lovely little flight down to the landing field in order to reception Akshay on his first solo flight. Akshay has enrolled on the advance course and has really got to grips with the paraliding. We need to work on his landing aproach, but overall he was happy with his first flight.

Here is a short video of the photos that were shot on that day



more photos on our picasa page

For those aspiring to do a cross country flight in Yelagiri, I would say the conditions are just ripe and will probably stay optimum for another couple of weeks. This is my first real season there and the thermals were very clean and large enough to catch. A couple of years back I did a 60K flight in Nandi around this time of the year, but Nandi degrades in early to mid April as large thunder clouds develop in the mid afternoon. Yelagiri I think will stay dry as it moves into April, but I do expect the increase in heat to render the air hotter and more homogeneous, thus making the thermal very choppy and small. I hope to get a little more flying experience later in April.

More photos cont...

Ramesh landing at the bottom of chotta hill

More photos from the first batch of Basic course

Climbing up to the chotta hill

Resting under the Big Banyan

Big Banyan chill out at we wait for the winds to die down

Ground handling session at the Big Banyan

Basic Course: batch 1, Jan/Feb 09

Ground Handling at Hoskote

Ground Handling at Hoskote

Chotta Hill take off

take off from chotta hill

Read up Vijay's account of his completion of the Basic Course

Completion of First Paragliding course at Bangalore

PG Massala is happy to announce that it has completed the first paragliding course conducted at Bangalore in collaboration with BMCindia.com and GetOffUrAss.com. The course saw the participation of 8 students, Akshay, Ramesh, Vijay, Anand, Barath, Krishna, Abha and Kanishk. It was a successful Basic course with everyone managing at least 1 flight from the chota hill, with the most ardent participants achieving 3 solo flights. Some videos will be posted later on.

After completion of each course, PG Massala inspects each gliders for any wear and tear, this means inspecting the sailcoth as well as each lines to make sure no damage has occured. If any are found, these are repaired in the Sailloft facility of Raj Hamsa Ultralights Pvt Ltd, the only company in Bangalore with such facilities. The gliders are then cleaned and packed properly awaiting the next batch. This inspections ensures the longevity of the gliders as well as safety for the next students.

Ten Men Flying under Giant Paraglider

A friend of mine recently sent me this video of ten mad French men taking off under a giant paraglider.... 9 men jump off in flight and sky dive. It is interesting to watch the solo landing of the pilot at the end of the flight. The wing is so large that he is barely making any head way and looking at the previous landings of the parachute jumps, it looks like there is very little wind!

Nandhi Hills Flying Permission

Dear All,

on 24th Jan, 2009 me and Arvind visited Horticulture dept at Lalbagh and DC office at Chikaballapur. Both the officers were not available to put our case and subsequently we have got the contact nos of these officers.

Horticulture dept head : Mr Vasnath Kumar - Director Ph: 26571925 (Direct) & 26579231 extn 202

Mr Anvar Pasha - DC

PA to DC Mr Salim 9880926617 & 08156 262001

Today me & Narendra met Mr Vasanth Kumar and he speaks typical government language and he says we need to take permission from all concerned depatments for flying!!! We asked him to give permission from his side then he says let him speak to Special Officer who stays at Nandhi hills to know the complete case & whether it comes under his jurisdiction to give any permissions. As of him they have control over 90 acres of land which is within boundery of Nandhi hills. Other part comes under forest and as per him, we may have to take permission from DC. We have to contact Mr Vasanth Kumar next week to know the developments.

In the mean time we have to visit DC's office this Friday to know whether there is any official order restricting paragliding at Nandhi hills. If DC clears from his side, there should not be much problems in speaking to horticulture department.

Let's hope for the best.

Regards

Venu

Crosswinds Massala

Nandi Take Off in Cross Winds from Dipankar Roy on Vimeo.


There is nothing more amusing as an after-thought than the memory of a near perfect crosswind take off. At the same place and the same time a week earlier I was all over the place trying to orient a glider that was determined to come up sideways. Of course it helps to learn from mistakes. Vrata pointed out on the previous occasion that I was tugging the brakes even before the glider came over head. So, this time I was determined to make it right. On the hill and in strong winds the wing will react fast to brakes so braking has to be at a minimum and subtle. I pulled the risers and let the wing come up on its own - its better to wait till the glider is overhead because at that point its not as wild as while its in the arc while coming up (Note to myself: the way I pulled the risers was not correct, I was tugging it towards myself when I should have stepped back a bit and pulled it upwards, will fix it next time). You will notice in the video that just after I turned around, for a brief moment, I was trying to bend forward and keep my arms behind. However, I was airborne in a split second so I had to correct my position accordingly.

The view from the ridge above has a calming effect. The rush you feel at the take off slowly dilutes and the mind now concentrates on two things - Left Brake and Right Brake. It takes a while to get into a rhythm with the beats and the turns and keeping track of other pilots. Then, you look around and start to enjoy the view. Once in a while you watch a bird fly by under you and you realize what a wonderful sport this is. Just so that I am in their good books, I thanked the hill and a bird that was soaring with me before I left the ridge and headed for the landing field.

I left the ridge a few minutes too late not realizing that it may take a while to lose height over the landing zone. It took me a good 8-10 minutes of figure of 8's and a few 360's to get down. The lights were just about switched off for the day when I touched down. I packed my glider in complete darkness, well, maybe my teeth were shining because I was grinning from ear to ear after the wonderful flight.

Alison's first flight at Chota Hill

Alison's First Flight from Dipankar Roy on Vimeo.

After days of perfecting her kiting skills Alison makes her first flight on Jan 18th from the Training Hill (Chota Hill) at Nandi under the supervision of Vrata. Welcome to the Free Flying Fraternity.

varkala (still elusive)

been to varkala for a third time since 2008, this time at least a got around to opening my wing the second day (which apparently is a far cry from the last two times when it wasnt even flyable). this time around, as soon as i reached varkala the second day at 12.30 in the afternoon i saw yaseen (?) (a french guy) take off in his second attempt (with a pretty unique style) and that was followed by ohelion (another French guy). well whats interesting about their take off was that both were (technically) doing a reverse launch, but had turned around and were running forward such a way that the risers were assymetrical, but were managing to do a forward/sideways fast run, brake, as well as control the risers to get the wing out of the rotor zone due to the sharp edge cliff, once the wing is out of the dead zone, then it is ok and the take off becomes somewhat normal and all that is left is crossing over a meter high fence around the cliff, at the takeoff (which wasnt much of a worry). gave it 4 shots (to get the wing up above my head), the fist time, run was too weak to even pick the wing up from the ground, progressing to around 60 degress by the time i reached the railings in my 4th takeoff attempt but by which time the two of them landed, i was bloody sweating with all the reverse runs, spreading the wings, maybe more than the sea lets go to the sun, and it was time for lunch (12.30 in the afternoon not far from the equator). and then the conditions were too weak to give it another shot. waited till evening, then left for trivandrum after getting some tips from ohel on the takeoff technique (who it turns out has been flying for 10 years, around 2000+ hrs, and has been camping at varkala since october). the next day, was in no mood to risk driving 120 kms without a semi-assured flight and had to be back by evening for a party which meant me sticking around trivandrum.

been to the beach at trivandrum the next day evening with an intention to kite, but the main beach shanghumugham turned out to be crowded and went for a relatively secluded spot near a fishing village to the north, but it was no fun trying to keep the wing up in light winds in narrow beach, with fishing boats as obstacles and a bunch of of rowdy kids for company. aborted the kiting, and went recce-ing for other decent places to kite - unfortunately it turns out that its the same story all the way to the north till thumba, which would mean that a shanghumugham beach would after all be the best bet to kite, unless i can get to find another beach to the south towards kovalam (my next trivandrum trip, maybe).

so, looks like I have yet to do some waiting for Varkala which is pretty sad considering thats the closest flying site to Trivandrum. but the good side of it is that i got enough time to practice a 'varkala launch'. till then, its massala at nandi.

A New Paragliding School in Bangalore

As of this coming w.e. we have a new paragliding school in Bangalore. The PG Massala Club, in collaboration with Bangalore Mountaineering Club (bmcindia.org) and Getoff Ur Ass the Adventure Store (getoffurass.com) , will be conducting courses Nandi Hills and Hoskote with 4 brand new gliders. All those interested should link up with:

bmcindia.org/paragliding

two course are offered, the initiation course and the mountain flying course. Once you have successfully graduated from both, you will be able to keep progressing by flying in a safe environment with the senior members of the PG Massala Club.

hope to catch you in the skies of Nandi!

PG Massala is to become an actuall paragliding club

Arabind, Rajesh, Vrata, Hari, Venu, Avinash and Alison be forming the new PG Massala club. I hope to be able to get some more post on this on a more regular basis. For the time being check out our photos on:

picasaweb.google.com/flying.india


A Sunset Flight at Nandi Hills from Hari Nair on Vimeo.