Reflecting on the season .....

.... that just flew by

Its been an year since I acquired the then newly introduced Sprint from Gin and my flight log tells me that I have accrued 50 hours (49.7 to be precise ;) on it. What, a measly 50 hours in a whole damn year? It is nothing for an aspiring PG whatever (it feels funny to be called a pilot). In a moderately-ideal world, Nandi would have beckoned all weekend flyers, but not having it for any useful stretch of time meant that I had to travel to log some hours (well, obviously, not just to log). As most of these were weekend trips, these hours came at a cost, not just monetarily, but with the stressful late night and early morning travel involved. The past year was accommodating in a way as there were quite a few holidays which coincided next to a weekend. And it didnt help that the Bangalore airport (which incidentally is next to Nandi) is a pain to travel to. Of course, the alternative (the much better alternative), Yelagiri takes just 40 mins longer than to get to Nandi, albeit in a different direction (or bearing ;) - could not fly there much though ....... or as much as I would have liked. But thats life and I am pleased with my 49.7, which came off 63 flights from 17 different takeoffs.

So, where have I taken the Sprint to? Yelagiri, Bali, Bahau, Kamshet, Vagamon, Bir, Panchgani, Varkala and Pokhara. Of these a few were special - Varkala, as its just a little more than an hours drive from my real home; Pachgani, for its amazing teaching potential and its ability to force me to focus on the flying, specially afternoon flying in April; and Pokhara, for the varied possibilities and the vibe among the PG folks who land up there. The Pokhra trip felt like on steroids with the SIV course (and a li'l acro) and the flyable weather for all the days spent there. And yeah ... for the interesting people that you meet at all of these sites. The big disappointment of the year was Bir, with flying possible just for 3 days before the site was shut down due to (the incomprehensible) politics.

Great, so whats up? Though I have no clue on whats ahead, cant help but feel lucky for having finished the season without any physical damage to me or the glider, but as anyone who follows this particular sport knows, I am just delaying the inevitable - accidents will happen, more when the boundaries are pushed, conscious or not. Though keeping in mind these rational thoughts, I look forward to nail the big wing overs, yeah the really big ones, thats the plan :)

Cheers
Arabind

Pakasuramalai (Nilgiris) the Billing of South India

Panoramic view from the watch tower.

Last w.e. was good Friday, so I drove to Ooty to take a break. I took my wing along hoping that I would find someone to chauffeur my car back down from a potential take off. My sister obliged along with her boy friend. So saturday morning I set off for the southern peak of Pakasuramalai. A lone peak that overlooks the NH 67 on the way up from Methupalayam to Ooty. In the late 80s my father and his friends would regularly fly off from it grassy slopes to fly cross country on their hang gliders. I spoke to him before setting off to find out how to reach the place as my childhood memories were vague and I could just about remember a long hike up through dense shola forest.

On the first hair pin bend down from Coonoor, one has to take the deviation to the Nonsuch Tea Estate. It is right at the extreme end of the estate that one has to park the car and hike up the last 30 to 40 mins to the top. Most of the road are paved except for the last few kilometres. I drove there with my Maruti Versa van which had ample ground clearance and torque to make it to the end of the road, although the last 500m of the rd is steep and dangerous, my father nearly toppled a 4wd on that last stretch. Not wanting to take a change I parked on the 1st hairpin bend and hiked it to the top. The last 20 mins is through dense Shola forest, the beautiful jungle that once covered the entire region.

Reaching the top, an ugly view tower greeted us, riddled with tag marks from bored visitors. At first the view is impressive and the temptation to take off right from there was big, but following the path that leads on at the top, onto the ridge that protrudes towards the east, towards Methupalayam, one goes through an other smaller outcrops of shola forest before reaching the end of the ridge and there awaits a beautiful take off with ample space for 4 or 5 paragliders fully stretched out. Gently slopping grassy take off. The largest take off is facing east, with possibilities of taking off towards the SE as well as the S. Today the winds are none existent, but the thermals are gently rising on the eastern slope. I spread my wing out and at the first thermal I push off. The glider inflates cleanly and I start to gently step out on the slope, the glider is soon airborne and I glide out along the ridge, barely have I cleared the slope and the cliff below drops to a 1000m to the jungle covered slopes below, that a strong updraft lifts me up to a 100m above the take off, my vario record a +5m/s. Good! I catch the thermal and climb up to 300 odd m above take off when I realise my vario is not working. Damn. Ok, who needs a vario anyhow. Still I push out over the valley seeking a big one that will take me a 1000m above but soon enough I encounter a big sink, -3 to -4m/s shows my gps. I hesitate to return to the take off ridge but decide to keeping going and try to connect with the next ridge of mountain to the east that will expose me to the valley of Kotagiri. However the sink is too much and I loose all my height only to make it to the first open fields. I reach out for a small thermal above the fields and try to climb up again, but trek up has tired me and I don't have food or enough water for a long flight, so I settle on this first experience and go in to land. An hour and half of bus awaits me to get back to Ooty. the beauty of it is that no one asks me any questions, no forest guard, no police officer. Looks like I will be returning after the monsoon for some more flying. The take off is at 2000m absl, while the landing is around 400 odd m. 1600m is even better than Billing up north. This site really has excellent potential.





Take off point

Varkala, Kerala

I was in Varkala in late January 2009 for five days and never got a chance to fly. Strong north cross-winds every day. But a few weeks ago in the first week of February, Salim called me from Varkala to tell me conditions were amazing ...

I really needed to fly. I changed the lineset on my glider last November, and hadn't done anything more than one evening soaring flight from Nandi 2 to verify the overhaul was in fact an improvement (it was).

So decided to try my luck as soon as I could get away. The 5:15PM Kochuveli Express from Bangalore City Jn. got me to Kollam by 7:30am the next day. Varkala is the next station on the line, and there was a convenient train making the stop in the next half an hour. So I was in my hotel at Varkala before 10am.

Salim had informed me about a French pilot Aurelien, who was staying in the village of Kayikkara. I tracked Aurelien down by the simple but effective method of asking some locals "Parachute? French?" and flapping my arms. They stepped back warily, but pointed in the right direction.

By 11:30am I was with Aurelien at the designated launch in front of one of the gaps in the railing on the edge of the "Helipad". He turned out to be a great resource and good buddy. Also an experienced professional instructor and tandem pilot in France. He showed me the day's magic spot to lay out my glider - just so, not a metre to the left or right. Luckily the wind was head on, and maneouvring the glider through the gap and launching was a breeze. Was wondering why Aurelien had been repeatedly warning me that the launch site was not "normal". Found out why in the next few days, when the wind was a bit southish, a bit northish etc. That made launching a lot more "interesting". Some of the spectators were clearly more agonized by the thrashing/collapsing of the wing in the swirling rotor than the pilots themselves.

But once clear, there's 4km of cliffs to soar in laminar air. The north cliff and south cliff are separated by the Papanasam beach (a dip is supposed to wash away your sins). I was forced to land on Papanasam beach one day after the wind turned completely north and full speed-bar couldn't safely get me through the gap between the cliffs. But on my other flights there was never a reason to land, other than getting tired or thirsty. It was launchable by 11:30am almost every day that it was flyable.

I was told this is not the norm, that it can be un-flyable for days on end. So am happy for the 5 safely launchable days out of the 7 days I was there.

Wide range of hotels, from the Taj Garden Retreat to home-stays catering to back-packers. I stayed in the Prashanthi Garden (the Green Resort), a bit further back from the cliff. A brand new place, Rs 350/night, bed and bogs very clean and comfortable. Tel : 9995460134, 9495983083. The hotels near the cliff were charging around Rs 500/night.

Wide variety of restaurants - you can get anything in the range from traditional Kerala dishes to biryani to calamari pizza to steak to "Tibetan seafood" (wtf ?!).

An uncommonly large number of pilots were there for flying company. On some days as many as four (FOUR!!) wings were in the air simultaneously.

For the first couple of days I was entertained by Aurelien playing with his old, worn-out Airwave Magic competition glider. Later, Anita and Asa of Flying Effect fame showed up. They were on their last stop in India on their around-the-world adventure. They turned out to be remarkably normal - for Icelandic, female, paragliding pilots. As my skin turned progressively more chocolate in the broiling sun, they opted for neon lobster red.

The copper/white Brahminy and common kites sharing the skies with us were sometimes a handful. One flew into the lines of Aurelien's glider, struggling for half a minute before extricating himself. Another chased Anita, forcing her to land. The same young kite buzzed me afterwards as well. He finally satisfied his curiosity by surfing my leading edge for a while - after that I was left alone.

I had my trusty Creative Vado vidcam with me. My new modified-sock wrist-mount trial proved to be unsuccessful. I felt nauseous editing the video, got cross-eyed watching the shakes and shimmies in full resolution. But I managed to extract a few seconds of somewhat shake-free clips and put this video together.

Soaring the cliffs of Varkala from Hari Nair on Vimeo.

Ending this trip report with some lyrics from the perennial favourite - Hotel Keralafornia. Written by a Shri KM Arjun, forwarded to me by Lt. Col. BanditAsh ....

On the road to Trivaandrum
Goconut oil in my hair
Warm smell of aviyal
Rising appu through the air
...
Buxom girls in paavadas
Selling banana chips
Some roll their eyes
And some roll their hips
...
The rest of the lyrics weren't very complimentary, going from bad to verse.

How NOT to fly paragliders

Video sent to me by Avinash. Very scary operations in Manali (HP). The video is in German, but the message is very clear. The pilot and passenger do not wear appropriate foot wear, they have no helmets and their paragliding gear is worn out beyond repair. This practice would be totally banned in countries were there is a paragliding regulation in place. I feel it is important to expose this kind of practice, because at the end of the day the people who are most at risk at the innocent tourist who believe they get a fair deal. In the long run this kind of practise can only hurt the sport and it is us, the paragliding community that will bear the consequences. So much more the reason to take responsible actions and self-regulate our beloved sport.

You can see the video here

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.