A paraglider is a true wing, it flies when the airflow over the aero foil is laminar. It’s a flexible wing and due to this characteristic, paraglider pilots must fly there wings carefully. The relative airspeed of the wing and angle of attack need to be controlled by the pilot using the brakes constantly and this is what we call Active Piloting. Failure to do so may lead to instability or wing collapse.
Therein lies the need for carrying a Safety Parachute in the sport of paragliding. Most pilots doing Acrobatics & Competition flying carry two spare Reserves. If the first gets caught in the main wing the second one is launched to bring the pilot safely down.
Every year, before the start of the season we conduct a ” Safety Reserve Parachute Clinic” for the members of our Club. The recently concluded one was held at Lake Paradise, our flying base on the 21st of September 2013.
Thanks to all the participants of the Reserve Clinic: The TP team – Anita, Ganpat, Ankush, Jeetu, Ganesh, Vikas n Vikram, Vistasp Kharas, Rohit Kawale, Sajid Khan, Karthik, Badri, Jaydev Page and self. It was very educational and would go a long way in making each of us much more competent in handling emergencies and our Safety systems.
The achievement for the Club is that Senior Club Pilots took initiative to share their knowledge n expertise with the newer pilots in the Club. This workshop was a fine example of a growing flying culture in our Club. The dedication of Rohit Kawalay was evident in his preparation n presentation.
It was very professionally done as all the participants would agree.
It was wonderful for all the pilots to come together after a bit and share stories. There was a thorough class room session on all aspects concerning the Safety Reserve from new developments n designs, to aspects of the decision to throw, from 6 monthly packing to understanding the safety system on your particular harness to difficulties in deployment and so on n forth.
Then we did actual deployments to see deployment sequence n techniques, video recorded each deployment to study in slow motion and the after a demo pack, packed our Reserves with knowledge n confidence.
Club pilots enjoyed meeting Kaka and relished his signature Chicken curry. Shared pics n stories of Bali and basically had fun while learning a lot. If learning can be fun, I feel that’s true learning.
We hope to take this forward by conducting more such workshops on different aspects of our wonderful sport. I urge all Club members to participate in Club activities to educate, inspire, n motivate each other n make flying a safe, fun n transforming experience for all of us.
Here’s wishing you all a Season of epic flying 🙂
Here’s to our Brave New World !!
Big thanks for an awesome gift (GoPro Hero3, Black) that i received from my precious friends…Aarti, Kartik, Rohit, Suhas, Vistasp and Sir Sanjeev. It means a lot because i feel gratitude deep in my heart. Most apt n timely gift and i am really looking forward to getting some amazing acro footage.
Rohit’s daughter very sweetly designed a beautiful card for me…its going on our wall at lake para 🙂
