Waiting For The Wind
The wind rules your flight. You might have to wait for hours to get the right current. Depending on the wind conditions, a paragliding flight might last a few minutes or a few hours. If you want to be a paraglider or a trainer, competent flying skills are a must, of course, but you also need a strong sense of responsibility and should know your limitations. Physical fitness is a given — no delicate darlings who can’t handle the weight of the canopy!

To be an instructor, you’ll need loads of airtime, experience of flying different sites, hours of waiting, not forgetting, a watchful eye towards safety regulations.

Learning To Fly
At Nirvana Adventures, we train students who are novices. Courses range from beginner, intermediate and advanced. We operate for eight months of the season in Kamshet and during the monsoon, teach and fly in different parts of the country and across the world.

There are no formalised training institutes in India to churn out instructors. Abroad, pilots with a certain amount of airtime and a recommendation from a flying school or club would join as a trainee instructor with a school for a period of time to learn how to teach flying.

Looking For Sky-Rocketing Salaries?
A paragliding instructor’s earnings would correspond directly to the number of students he has. Then you also have to consider the investment in equipment and logistics. A love for the sport will take you through the lean months!

Free flight can be one of the purest joys that man can achieve. In the age of technology, paragliding is a back-to-nature sport that you cannot ever get enough of. Fly once and you’re hooked for life!

As told to Vrushali Haldipur

Got any comments or questions? E-mail us at femina@timesgroup.com with ‘on the job — paragliding’ in the subject line