Taking Wing Part 2 (Paragliding at Yelagiri, Vellore) - May 30-31, 2009

Did I mention the practice flights from the BSF hill that we christened as the "Firing Hill or Bullet Hill"? Perhaps I did not. That is for another day and time. Now, shall we concentrate on our latest achievement of successfully completing high altitude solo flying? Yes, I suppose you must listen to what I have to say for you have the misfortune of chancing on my blog at this opportune moment.

Take off at roughly 1100metres above sea level and landing at 450 metres above sea level. Need I say more? Indeed I must. Yelagiri came to our rescue while Nandi repeatedly played spoil sport with the weather. One weekend saw us getting up at absurd morning hour to set off on the drive to Yelagiri. The highway is brilliant I might add, letting one cover over 150kms in less than two hours in the morning when traffic is sparse.

Saturday was not a very good start. My tandem flight with Vrata was barely ten minutes while Bharat and Naveen had both managed 45min+ tandems from Nandi2. I was not very happy with my short flight. The tandem glider it seems is a beast to control. You need to really pull at the brakes with all your might and even then the glider responds slowly and almost in protest. The landing happened right in the middle of thorny brush and Vrata happily used me as a cushion and got away unscathed. :)

The evening saw us waiting for the winds to settle down from the Hanuman takeoff but to no avail. I spent the time catching up on some reading of Ashok Banker's Ramayana Book4.

On Saturday night, I was still not sure whether I was ready for my solo the next morning given that my tandem was of a very short duration. However, I decided to take the "leap of faith" alone the next morning since I was fresh from a good sleep the previous night.

Wiggling into the harness proved a challenge on my first solo flight. I finally gave up and decided to fly standing. Landing went more or less according to plan with Vrata guiding me on the radio. Didn't really enjoy much of the first flight since there was a lot going on through my head at the time. We came back to RK take off in the afternoon for a second flight. This time, once in the air, I let go of the brakes and pulled myself into the harness with both my hands. (Its really amazing to see that the glider which can be packed into a backpack can actually carry your weight in the air while holding rock steady. You really begin to appreciate the engineering marvel. ) After that, it was really smooth sailing. I turned back to catch a view of the Yelagiri range which I am told extends for about 8kms from one end to the other. It was really a sight to behold. I was flying at the level of the mountains and from up there and close, you could see that the mountain was really lush green and beautiful as compared to the hazy brownish green look that you get when you look at it from the ground. Up there in the air, everything is very calm and pleasant and you can hear the whishing sound of the air through your glider. I only wished that I could ridge soar, so that I could stay up in the air for about an hour. Impatience, my lad. All in due course of time. Landing went well again with me landing on my feet after completing a couple of eights above the landing site.

The third flight in the evening happened in low winds. The landing site was much further than the previous sites and the lack of wind meant that I sank faster than I expected. This meant I could not reach the designated landing site and my landing turned out to be less than perfect. :P However, its all part of the learning experience I guess and I escaped unharmed.

Vrata says that we graduated to the flying club with "flying colours". Personally, I think there is quite some way to go before we perfect the landing approach. Take off seems like child's play now in comparison. But I guess thats only because I have now had seven take offs while I have only done two proper landing approaches. I guess I can maintain a flight log now. I could probably log about 50 minutes of flying time total in the book now. :P

By the way, Bharat gets adventurous on his second solo flight and gets a in-flight video. This is a must see!

To sign off, I must say that I have always been a little scared of heights and overcoming this fear was indeed an "uplifting" experience (and how!) and memories I will cherish for a very long time to come.

Thanks to Vrata, Rajesh and Robin for helping make my dream successful. And of course Bharath for learning with me and also for taking my videos.

Taking Wing (Paragliding @ Nandi Hills)

"I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky."

8 different people, 1 club, 1 mission ...
Title: Basic Hill Flying course
Directed by: Aurovrata Venet (Paragliding Instructor)
Production house: Bangalore Mountaineering Club
Venue: Hoskote & Chotta hills (Nandi hills base)
Dates : 24th, 25th, 31st Jan. & 1st Feb. 09

Kitty(Krishna), Bhat(Anand), Bacat(Bharath) and I set out to see if we could fly solo. Everyone has heard of tandem paragliding flights where you are strapped to a harness along with a trained pilot. The pilot has all the controls. All you do is sit back and enjoy the scenery below. Now whats the adventure in that. Vrata had the answers...

Three days of ground handling training at a dry lake bed @ Hoskote prepared us for the reverse launch technique. For the uninitiated (which most of us are), refer to launching techniques here.

Kitty practicing some ground handling at Hoskote

The small take off zone at Chotta hills (which is actually the base of Nandi hills roughly about 10X10m), and the moderate steady winds in the mornings and late evenings makes reverse launching the most suitable launch technique.

The above is a picture of the wind sock. A steady wind sock indicates a steady wind ideal for launching.

It may look easy, but believe me, its not. It took us three days to get the basics right. Even after that, we still needed to abort some launches since the wing used to come up sideways or due to too strong or too low winds or because we were just plain scared in the beginning. Here is a look at what a strong wind can do to your ego. (Courtesy Bhat)



Here, the sideward wind seems to take the glider to the left and pulls Bhat along with him as he turns around to launch. He has no option but to kill the glider but has a hard time doing it since he is not facing the glider at this point.

Some of the things to keep in mind are the A-risers, leading edge of the wing, brakes, harness, strapping up, wind velocity and direction, flaring and a lot more. Suffice to say, there is a pretty steep learning curve initially at least.

Rajesh doing some pre-flight checks before take-off

Thanks to Kitty and his brilliant camera for all the videos. He patiently stood there and took a video of everyone's flight so that we can have something to show others and also watch it again and again and get excited all over again. Will put up Kitty's flight also here soon.



I managed to run like crazy and also seemed to get a lucky gust of wind just as I took off which took me really high up compared to others. The typical flight from Chotta hills lasts about 50 seconds. You take off from the launch site. As soon as you clear the relief of the hill, you turn right, fly parallel to the mountain for about twenty seconds and then turn left back into the wind for a landing in the fields below. A small 'Z'. However, when I turned in for the landing, I had barely lost altitude. As a result, I ended up doing one and a half S-curves to lose altitude before I could finally land safely on the fields. Just before you land, you pull on both brakes to "flare". This brakes your forward momentum. If you do it just right, you ll be able to just step down right at the spot kind of like how a chopper lands. If you don't do time it properly, you'll end up running a couple of metres or fall like a deadweight once you lose speed. As it were, my landing was perfect. :P By now, you might have noticed that I like to brag about my flight. Well, what do you expect? I just flew solo for the first time in my life!



Here, you can see how Bharath didn't pick up enough forward momentum on account of low winds. As a result, he had to do a last minute hop and run to take off right at the edge! It took me sometime to gain the confidence to just let go and run like crazy. The first time before I took off, I was nervously wondering if I would be able to generate enough forward momentum to take off before the edge. Once I saw a couple of people taking off, especially Bharath, who has a 100% success rate till now (two launch attempts and two successful take offs), I decided I could do it too. On my third attempt, I said a silent prayer and launched. And by God, what a feeling it was to be air-borne. Mindblowing! By far the most adrenaline pumping thing I have ever done in my life. Going back and listening to "Learning to fly" by Pink Floyd, I could really appreciate Roger Wate's thoughts and connect with the same emotions.

In the end, all the training came to those 2 flights of roughly a minute's duration, but it was all very well worth it. I'm definitely going back again. I always used to love water, waterfalls, rivers, beaches and oceans. Now I think I have found my new love, the sky! Can there be anything more liberating than to spread your wings and fly.

Big thanks to Rajesh and Arvind for their patience, encouragement and amazing tips! You guys rock!

For once man has tasted flight he will forever walk the earth with eyes turned skywards.
For there he has been and there he longs to return.

--Leonardo Da Vinci