Why progression courses?
The more I teach and hear your stories of what you have gone through in your paragliding journey the more I am convince that there is a large gap of knowledge between the best pilots in the world and the rest of the community.
I realized that paragliding community is lacking a way to progress safely. We have plenty of schools around the world that offers beginner training, SIV courses, XC Clinics or Thermaling Clinics.
There aren’t many that focuses on pilots progression through out their paragliding journey. Right after your initial training, most places relay on some form of club and/or mentorship programs that are volunteer base and usually the ‘more experience’ pilots are low airtime pilots themselves trying their best to pass on knowledge to newcomers.
This system has it’s draw backs. Besides the courses mentioned above, there aren’t many other options for pilots to have structured long-term progression courses.
This is why I have committed to progression, in my own flying and understanding as well as in my teaching work. The goal is to do my part to help reduce the gap of knowledge between the best pilots out there and rest of the community.
Course structure.
We focus on your progression, each course is structured to help you reach your next step or level. By adapting to each student and understanding what are their goals and where they want to go in their paragliding progression is how we create the plan. We focus on explaining the theory part in detail, then set up tasks for each pilot for each day to train.
During the training we give some tips and ideas how to do it differently to see if it work better and let you work.
We film a lot of what you do, so we have clear information for de-briefs afterwards to analyze your take-off’s, ground-handling or SIV maneuvers , we will also use your GPS Track logs to analyze your thermalling and XC work in 3D which gives a great insight. We adapt this mindset for each type of the course, we want you to understand the topic/maneuver not just blindly follow our instructions.
What do we offer?
I asked myself this question – How do you help pilots to start the season safely? What would they need the most?
The answer was obvious to me. Wing control and airtime, this is how I came up with the concept for the Spring Progression. We spend 3 days over water learning or refreshing active piloting in a safe environment, after that we go straight to mountains to gain as much airtime as possible in the next 3 days, to work on thermalling and some cross country. This course is design to get you as ready as possible for the upcoming season. As the title suggest it is a progression course, progression what ever that means to you, not a check box – let’s get you through the maneuvers as quick as possible course.
Progressive SIV
During the month of April and May we run SIV courses over Lake Garda – Italy, these are progression courses, we take it at your speed. We make sure you understand the basic maneuvers before we proceed to the next one, if this is not your first SIV, we will not waste your time, we’ll use one or two flights to re-fresh everything you know and start working on new things. We spend time explaining how each maneuver is done on the ground. While you are in the air we talk only when needed, or to give a new tip in-between exercise, what we don’t do is radio guided pilot type of teaching. It is simply more effective to try do things by yourself, see what works and what dose not. Don’t worry we will have our eye’s pealed at you, ready to assist the moment you’ll need it.
Nice to Geneva
It is just that, a Grand Adventure to explore and see as much of the French Alps as possible, this is for more experience pilots who are comfortable in taking off in new places and are able to figure out how to land safe in a field they have never seen before. This trip is aimed for pilots who wants to understand how to asses a day, choose a place to fly and set up tasks for the day. We will be changing take-off’s on regular basis, we will try to fly as much as possible from Nice towards Geneva. We will have camping gear with us to be able to stay in random locations to be able to adapt to the weather as best as possible without being limited to hotels or AirBnB.
It’s all about airtime and flying and chasing weather through out French Alps to achieve just that.
This is where you can put everything to test, all the thermaling work the SIV the crossings and valley winds.
Laragne Monteglin
On the first day, we will assess areas for improvement and tailor the remainder of the course to help you take the next step forward in your paragliding progression. This course is specifically designed to meet your individual flying needs.
If you feel that there are aspects you can work on, then this course is suitable for you.
Our base will be near Laragne-Montéglin, and our main take-off point will be Chabre.
These are great for polishing your skills, we stay in one place through out the week and travel to wich ever take-off works best for any given day.
A week before the competition starts I would like to welcome any pilot for a week long paragliding progression course specifically design for competition flying and getting ready for the Chabre Open.
If you want to learn about the area, get some airtime, competition tips, setting up your flight instruments and gear as well as practice competition tasks. Then this course is for you. We will be setting tasks for each day to improve and practice before joining the Ozone Chabre Open.
Individual aproach.
It’s all about you. We will choose the days based on the weather and work on what ever you need or want to work on. This is the most flexible option as long as I am free during the season you are welcome to come and do some flying together.
Ever wanted to fly among the biggest mountains of the world? Bir Billing offers a great introduction and practice to fly among some of the most scenic mountains available. This is a two week trip focused on polishing your skills and decision making over long hours in the air and repetition over two week period. You should be independent pilot with good active piloting skills and able to make good decisions on choosing your landing options. As well as comfortable flying with pilots of all levels around you, Bir can get quite busy at times.
Morocco - Atlas mountains
It’s a low airtime friendly place, middle of winter the thermals are nice and smooth, to get away from the winter blues, and get some much needed airtime, we offer a winter gate way with incredibly high level local support and local guides.
For more questions and to reserve your dates drop as a line at letsdothis@flyingkarlis.com or use Telegram for a quick question.
