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 Nature and evolution never intended for humans to fly. At least not without assistance. We love mother Earth, the Terra Firma, and more the firma less the terra!!
For me Paragliding has brought the most conflicting fact to the foreground, that Speed and Altitude are your best friends. Especially when you are 2000 feet above take off and wondering why every other glider seems so stable while yours is hell bent on throwing you out of the harness. While flying in thermals it has been my natural urge to lose height and come down closer to land and other gliders where it felt more comfortable. Presently that urge is something I am trying to overcome and realize that altitude is the ultimate goal in this sport. The wise sage Avi once said to me that why would you want to give up a perfectly lovely thermal and come out of it. He said its like giving a candy bar to a child and then taking it away as he starts to enjoy it.
In my 16 years at sea I have developed immense respect and awe for the forces of water and wind. This sport has showed me again that I am not wrong in doing so. It has been a great stimulant to all my senses. It has also offered a challenge to defy gravity , to harness basic elements like winds and thermals and enjoy pure flight.
I cannot explain what I , or other pilots for that matter, feel when we fly. We have all exhausted the dictionary for adjectives. Its best experienced first hand. No we don’t have a death wish walking off a mountain suspended to an air filled envelope with skin not much thicker than a couple of hair. Paragliding is no longer a sport to me , its become a way of life.
This is the tale of four Boys who became Men in the ever exciting world of Paragliding. TJ, Dhaval, Kams and I went to Beed (Bir) / Billing in Himachal to fly the big mountains. None of us had flown there before neither did we have any experience in flying in thermals. We were excited and scared at the same time.
I frankly don’t remember much of the beauty and charm of the Kangra valley as I was all engrossed in getting used to the new site and doing my homework to catch the big thermals and going cross country. It was a time for meeting the best from around the world and the best of the local pilots. Emaho café was the ideal place to gather and recount all our experiences and be overawed by the stories of more accomplished pilots who had just flown to Dharamshala in rain and fog relying on compasses to navigate in zero visibility and radios to be in touch with other pilots in the clouds. After having extensively done ridge soaring and an occasional thermal in Maharashtra, these cross country exploits were like unbelievable feats.
The first 4 days were a test of patience and a proof of our insignificance in front of Natures plans. We had heavy hail storms, fog, rain and warm fronts to give us company at the take off. During this time Reuters did an interview of mine at the site, probably because I was looking the funniest with a face full of SPF 90 sunscreen in heavy hail and temperatures close to freezing!! I am told this was telecast on news channels at 0200 hrs on someday and I am sure no one other than people waiting on railway stations saw it!! But we did fly in moderate fog and got a taste of the house thermals over Thermal Devta. This period was used to get familiar with the tricky landing area which had its share of gliders hanging off trees every evening.
All these years I had heard of the ridges at Billing which were used as stepping stones to fly greater distances. The Temple ridge , the Golf course ridge with lush green grass to land on mid-journey , The Dam ridge and of course the Big face ,which is like the holy grail for first time fliers on Billing. Our objective was to do Big face and back.
My last day provided me with the best conditions yet and no one lost any time in spreading their wings and switching on the gadgets. All four of us took off one after another and got into the first available thermal. That was the last I remember of any of them because it took all my strength and concentration to stay in the lift. I tried to remember all the salient points Avi had drilled into our heads during the training sessions in Pune. Count, brake, release, turn, wait, go, don’t go all these terms whirled in my head as I whirled upwards in the thermal. Then came the inevitable 40% collapse and I yelled out to no one in particular. But I (like every other pilot) like to believe that I have the best glider in the world and it behaved beautifully and I headed for the next newsridge.
During the transition between ridges I got my camera into action trying to catch other pilots and my friends as they took varied routes to their varied destinations. I also spent a long time trying to gain height in weak thermals over the Golf course ridge and it looked like one of the best top landing areas I have ever seen. Soon I was away again and as the Big face loomed closer the thermals got violent at the leading edge of a fast forming cumulonimbus bang on top of the Big face. Then I got a lift of 6 m/sec which is akin to being in an elevator climbing 100 floors in a minute, and I thought I was never going to come down again!! Shaken but not stirred I made it to the Big face and looked back to the take off far away ,it was a lovely feeling , a mixture of achievement, relief, exhaustion and sheer amazement at the limits to which I had managed to push myself.
After flying over the Big face for a while began the return journey, which was not easy as I had been airborne for nearly 3 hours and the thermals were weakening and I was tired too. After about 45 minutes I chose a field and landed there much to the amusement of the local kids and the farmers. A quick pack up and a lift in a tractor to the nearest village and I was soon back with my friends who were waiting for some news from me as I had landed in a shadow sector and the radios were not effective.
It has been an experience to beat all others and I will be the first in line to do it again next newsyear.
- Abhijeet Avate
1st officer
Merchant Navy |
