Page 24 - Chiron Autumn 2017
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22 CHIRON CALLING
Paragliding Club Pilot Course at JSMTC, Bavaria, 18-30 Jun 17
Down in the Allgau region of Southern Germany is a small Bavarian town called Oberstdorf. The familiar chimes of the town’s church bells mark the  ying time. It is a magical outdoor playground; a gift from nature wrapped up in Alpine Mountains, labelled by lakes and  nished with ribbons of rivers. In the centre of Oberstdorf is the Alpine Training Centre and I was returning for the second time in two years to complete the second phase of my paragliding training; the Paragliding Club Pilot course, which on completion allows me to begin  ying without supervision. The Club Pilot course requires you to have completed the Elementary Pilot Course and therefore assumes a certain level of ability. Most of the twelve paragliders on the course were suffering skill fade and the refresher day on the training slope was painful for everyone. The instructors were despairing at our ineptness, however after a tough day of running up and tumbling back down the mini hill we were all back to a basic standard and the instructors were prepared to consider taking us to the mountains.
Arriving at the top of Buchenberg, the smallest of the regions paragliding sites, I felt terri ed. Despite having  own off the mountain alone six times on the last course, its 1142m suddenly felt gigantic. The view over the surrounding landscape was breath taking but I had no wish to see it from a bird’s eye view; I was perfectly happy taking it in with my feet  rmly planted on the ground. However, that was not the point of the course; I had come here to learn to  y so I had to get a grip of my emotions, launch the wing and glide the 2km down to the landing  eld. To try and quieten the never-ending doomsday thoughts that were  ooding through my mind I busied myself helping the  rst few people set up their wings but I realised that if I continued to delay the  ight I would never do it so I threw on my harness and helmet and grabbed the wing. I spoke to no one and silently laid out my paraglider using muscle memory; my mind was too preoccupied by the videos that we had been shown the day before of the near deaths that happen when you do it wrong, or when you’re just unlucky. The trees lining the launch site seemed to be reaching out ready to grab me and the clouds looming above were morphing into monstrous thunderstorms, ready to suck
by Captain Nina Cooke RAVC VO 101 MWD Sqn
up anyone foolish enough to test gravity. I was brought back into the moment by “Dickie” our mischievous Welsh (although he avidly denies it) instructor, practically a god of the paragliding world with years of experience  ying and teaching. I realised my legs were trembling but I was strapped to my wing and there was nothing left to do but run down the slope, off the edge and hope that the wing would do its job. I picked a point on the horizon, shut out any negative thoughts and let autonomy take over. The voices on the radio, initially Dickie, then Alistair in the landing  eld guided me down. To be honest I don’t remember much of the  rst  ight but I survived, the landing was smooth and it was time to do it again.
Over the course of the  rst few days we experienced our fair share of mishaps; for some the landing  eld was more of an imaginary concept than something to aim to land in. On launch, on more than one occasion, one of us would end up breath-holdingly close to a tree, dodging it with millimetres to spare, causing the German spectators to gasp and shriek like pantomime. I have never experienced an activity that achieves the de nition of Adventurous Training, ‘to develop leadership and courage through controlled exposure to risk in a challenging environment in order to improve operational effectiveness’, so completely. The Alpine Mountains don’t suffer fools, and jumping off one, with an avid fear of heights, attached to a well- structured piece of fabric, literally at the mercy of the wind, certainly ticks all the boxes. It took some time for the fears to dampen, each  ight of the day would get gradually more comfortable and enjoyable but the next morning the nerves would be back with a vengeance. In a particularly dark moment, I sat under a tree at the top of the launch site and got to learn about my ‘Inner Chimp’ thanks to Dr Steve Peters and how much of a stubborn, irrational crazed monster mine was. I tried to blank him out with music but this didn’t go down well with our instructor and I had to  y in silence... literally as the radio cable disconnected itself on take off. For the  rst few seconds I didn’t notice, it wasn’t uncommon for Dickie to just watch us for a moment, but when the familiar ‘you have traf c to your right but hopefully they’ve seen you’, ‘that bumpiness there is
completely normal’, ‘turn left now or you’ll die’ comments didn’t come I realised I was on my own. I turned left just in case and then, to double check, sent a little plea over the radio ‘is anyone there?’. No answer. I had no time to panic; the air was busy, there were paragliders everywhere and the air was quite turbulent. I made a plan to get down as quickly and as alive as possible. The whole way I talked to myself, pretending it was the radio; ‘watch that lunatic over there, do some circles to lose height now, down wind leg, cross wind leg,  nal into wind and big  are now or you’ll die’. I had completed the whole  ight by myself. I was delighted and my con dence  nally improved.
We had a few days of bad weather so took the opportunity to explore the region, swimming in the warm lake nestled at the top of the local hill, visited alternate, higher paragliding sites and their landing  elds and even got to ride on a rodelbahn. I felt the pressure as I whizzed down the track with two  ghter pilots right behind me and no intention of slowing down.
The next opportunity we had we were back on Buchenberg. With a newfound con dence and motivated by the sunshine the whole group were on a roll. We began a launching conveyer belt  ying all 12 off the launch site in quick succession. With Dickie in task master mode we skipped lunch, barely had time for the toilet and racked up an impressive seven  ights each off the small mountain. We began to practice all the techniques that at one time seemed petrifying and unachievable, including the rapid descent technique named ‘Big Ears’ which involves pulling the wing tips in to reduce its surface area so that it drops through the air faster. During the  rst  ight all I had the courage to do was identify the lines and give them a feeble tug; the wing didn’t even rustle. With a big deep breath on the second  ight I pulled the lines in, prepared for death and broke the surface tension on the wing. Apart from the  apping in the wind it’s no big deal and my con dence  ourished once more. The day was a great boost for the whole group; everyone launched with perfection, putting the German school, who were sharing the launch site and botching most take offs, to shame.
The next day the weather prevented progression to the larger mountains due


































































































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