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.
