It has been 25yrs of running as a premier paragliding training school. Now, for me, I look forward to doing more specialized and advance technical courses.
I got the opportunity to train the Indian army Paragliding Team & conduct advance SIV (Simulation de Incident en Vol) Course for them. This is a Safety Clinic that includes simulations of extreme situations in paragliding over a water body with Safety of a Rescue team & Rescue boat. The army Doctor was at the SIV site during the training ops along with Army ambulance on standby.
Jets and me found ourselves in the middle of an army camp by the scenic lakeside of the vast Ranjit Sagar Dam that is a huge homesite for thousands of migratory birds.
We were nestled between the boundaries of three Indian states of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab & Himachal Pradesh. It was a beautiful site surrounded by the Himalayas on the northern side of J&K & Himachal Pradesh & Punjab plains to the south.
Next to us was the India army chopper dropping army skydivers & it was a site to behold the skydivers free falling & then opening their chutes & landing so close to our location. Although for me it was nostalgia being the army environment but for Jets it was thrilling, exciting & very new.
The SIV Course is an advance Course where we practice advance instability manoeuvers over a water body. We were using a static winch that catapults the Paragliders to a decent height (between 1400 to 1600 feet & sometimes more when the winds were good). The pilots after releasing themselves from the Winch line, head to the manoeuvring box over the lake.
The Course begins with Pitch & Roll Control exercises, followed by A-line Stalls, B-Line Stalls, Asymmetrical Collapses with & without Speedbar, Progressive Spirals, Full Stalls & Spins & Wingovers. We did about 67 Full Stalls & over 20 Spins.
There were 15 Army Pilots & three Templepilots Club Pilots. We had two Reserve deployments & overall a safe & highly rewarding SIV Course with huge learnings for all the participating pilots.
The Spirits in the army camp were generally very high with lots of singing & laughter. The camp life was an amazing experience for our SIV Instructor Jets & the three Templepilots Club pilots. They really enjoyed the taste of Indian army life & what added to the adventure were the low temperatures at night with the added flavour of foxes crying & howling near the tents. It was one helluva laugh riot listening to their stories in the mornings.
There were thorough military style Briefings & De-briefing Sessions & logistically things moved like clockwork in battle mode style.
The army had organised a born fire & a farewell ceremony, drinks & dinner.
We were pretty touched by the honour & appreciation we received for conducting this Course for the Army paragliding team. We were presented with Gorkha Regiment’s Mementos & generous words of appreciation by the Ops Commander Lt. Col Sunil Bhatt (Gorkha Regiment). There was an amazing sense of camaraderie as we drank, sang & danced together with the army pilots. Strangely, although it was a very different atmosphere & vibe but we felt at home with the Indian army.
Heartfelt thanks to Col. Sarvesh Dadwal & Col. Sunil Bhatt for this great honour & opportunity of serving the Indian army.
