After a good summer travelling, training and competing around Europe, we are now back in Spain and ready for the upcoming SIV Courses.
We started on September 30th with a group of six pilots from Portugal, China and Japan, and good weather conditions, what more did we need? After personal interviews the rest of the morning was spent on theory, how to use the parachute, pitch control and collapses, followed by the active simulations, and after lunch we started the first round.
Day two, 9.00 am and everybody was ready to fly. A favourable eastward breeze and the sun warming early. It was time to try collapses with speed bar. The reaction of the wings are faster and more aggressive, but all the pilots knew how to control their gliders. For the second flight of the day, we practice the B Risers Stall, a common mistake and one many of the student made was to braked at the wrong moment, parachuting the glider. It's very important to let the glider fly and not to over control and break too much in order to avoid an incident, which in this case will result in parachuting or stalling the glider. After an intensive day we headed back to the classroom, for the last theory session, spirals and the 'collision avoiding manoeuvre'.
Day three, same time, but with the wind coming from west, so we had to move to the other side Bornos lake for takeoff. It was time to experience sheer G-force!
Some pilots have practiced the spirals before, so we focus on how to exit the spirals instead, smoothly and without pitching. With the rest of the pilots we started from zero, first gaining energy to then go into the spiral , holding for a couple of turns and exiting whiles maintaining the energy, but still always controlling the pitch.
The "anti-collision manoeuvre", some pilots were familiar with , it's a small controlled spin to avoid a collision in the air with another pilot or bird in some cases.
It was a pleasure working with pilots all with different levels. Most of the pilots on this course have been flying for more than ten years, without ever having done a SIV Course, and to see first hand how their flying changed after completing the course was amazing, changing bad habits and set positions when controlling the paraglider. For those pilots with less flying experience, it was a very big step forward, flying their gliders with more confidence, safely and knowing where their limits are.
