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Learning to Fly the Temple Pilots Way
 I’m a keen windsurfing and kite surfer and had friends that paraglide so it was a natural progression to becoming interested in this sport. I had a few months off in Lebanon which has some excellent flying sites but the winter weather wasn’t offering enough flying days to enable me to learn. I therefore started looking for options overseas.
After a lot of research I selected India due to a combination of good weather and relative low cost compared to Europe. I was initially worried about the quality of the instruction but after a lot of discussion with the two main paragliding schools I was soon satisfied that the courses met and in some cases exceeded the safety standards of schools in other countries.
I decided to learn with Temple Pilots based in Kamshet which is near Pune (2.5 hours from Mumbai). Their head instructor, Avi is an ex-air force pilot which gave me some confidence in the professionalism of his approach and he was also very flexible in designing a course to meet my specific requirements. Because I was planning to be in the UK later in 2007, I wanted to ensure my course covered all of the UK certification requirements. Temple Pilot’s certification is a combination of the US and UK approaches and is designed to meet India’s FAI requirements. Avi agreed to include any UK certification tasks that were not included in their certification along with as many flights as I could manage during my time with them which was 15 days.
I worked with all the instructors from Temple Pilots during my stay and found them all to be extremely knowledgeable, helpful and friendly. Strict safety standards were maintained at all times, but they also pushed me when I needed some added confidence to attempt some of the advanced techniques.
The first day was spent learning to handle the glider on the ground, moving from long runs down a slight slope to small hops in the air. The next morning was my first solo flight from the 170 foot training hill – believe me that 170 foot is plenty high enough when you are standing on top about to take off.
Every step from take off to landing is controlled by the instructors through radio, so it was just a matter of sitting back and enjoying the rush of my first non-powered flight. Once the adrenaline wore off, I was back up for another go – in fact I made 5 flights on the second day. I was now a fledging novice pilot and completely hooked. After a few hours it was back to the base camp for lunch, a debriefing and some theory lessons. Then in the afternoon it was time for some more flying from a much higher site.
The same approach was followed each day. Mornings were spent at the training hill practising take-off’s, basic in-flight controls, and spot landings. Then in the afternoon depending on the wind direction a different site would be selected where we could learn more advanced manoeuvres such as ridge soaring, top landings and emergency techniques.
Temple Pilots have some amazing sites to fly from with virtually every wind direction catered for. In my 15 days with them I only lost 3 afternoons to poor weather (ie. too little or too much wind). It would be difficult to find another location in the world offering such good flying conditions. There is nothing like soaring 1500 feet above a mountain range and being able to fly out across a lake looking at untouched nature at its best.
I made some good friends during my trip with all the instructors and some of the other students and intend to stay in contact. The whole team did everything they could to help ensure my stay was enjoyable as possible – both during the course and after hours. This included help in finding accommodation and in buying gifts for my family (thanks Anita!).
All in all I completed 51 flights during my trip. Although many were short duration from the training hill I managed several long flights, including a 70 minute soaring flight where I could have stayed up a lot longer except for running out of daylight. Please note that the number of flights does differ from individual to individual as everyone progresses differently. During my stay, I completed the first two levels of certification for both the UK and India. All that remains is completing the UK exam and getting my log book verified once I arrive in the UK.
In terms of planning for a trip to India allow time to get the visa which can take up to one week depending on your country of residence. Check the weather as it can differ a lot from month to month and different clothes may be required. The best time is October through to December but January through to May is still pretty awesome based on my experiences.
- Mark Rohan
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