Once More (Over) the Breach My Friends! Another Day, Another Slice of Heaven
You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!
Another day, another flightโฆthis for you?
Samae Beach, Thailand, 2022
Geoff unloaded the motorbikeโs big sidecar, full of tandem seats, paragliding canopies and camera equipment. He handed the goods to everyone else until I complained. Let me carry, I said.
โBut youโre a guest!โ he argued.
Yep. A paying one, too, and I also like to work for my joy. The day was breathtakingly hot. Our little group had motored to the zigzagging hiking lane which headed straight up a steep incline to the launch zone. That cliff teetered over an inaccessible beach below. Here, the conditions were perfect to catch some excellent updrafts which would send us spiraling skyward.
Laughing, Geoff tossed a canopy bag at me. Big, clumsy, but relatively light. The bag featured thin strings, which I wrapped around my neck so that I could use my hands for balance.
The lead pilot disappeared into the bush ahead. An older Swedish man and I hiked up behind him, the trail thinning, the hike steeper, the brush scraping our sweaty faces.
I paused for a moment to take a photo and adjust the strings which were threatening to throttle me. Geoff does this eight times a day when this is his launch spot. Iโm only doing it once.
We continued, the trail thinning even more, the heat oppressive, the sweat streaming into my eyes.
Finally I saw the bright red of one of the gear bags up ahead on the left. I swerved to find the clearing, marked by a heavy plastic covering.
A thin pole to our left featured two strands of pink plastic. That was our wind sock. To the right, around the corner and obscured by the thickly-forested hills, Samae Beach, likely our landing spot. Depending on the winds.
Life for a paraglider always depends on the winds.
Our small lot gathered on the plastic, each of us assessing next steps. I was first in line today to leap off the cliff, attached to Ta this time. Ta is Thai, a pilot for seven years. Geoff trained him and others to help run his outfit:
Fly Koh Larn - Tandem Paraglding
เธเธฒเธฃเธฒเนเธเธฅเธเธดเนเธ 2เธเธตเนเธเธฑเนเธ เธเธฃเธฐเนเธเธเธฃเนเธก2เธเธตเนเธเธฑเนเธ เนเธญเธเนเธงเธเนเธเธญเธฃเนเธเธฃเธฐเนเธเธจเนเธเธข เธเธฃเธฐเธชเธเธเธฒเธฃเธเนเธเธดเธเธเธฒเธฃเธฒเนเธเธฅเธเธดเนเธ เธเธดเธ2เธเธตเนเธเธฑเนเธโฆ
Geoff, in his early fifties, once dreamed of becoming an RAF fighter pilot. We are both veterans, we both shared that dream, and it escaped us. Love of flying stuck with us for life.
While Geoff stuck with paragliding, Iโve explored everything from bungee jumping to skydiving to piloting to, well, any excuse to get airborne. Well, with the exception of idiot stunts guaranteed to get you killed. Of course there are those who would claim that all those things I just listed fall into that category, but there you go.
Geoffโs an instructor, so that more than a few of the gents who joined us this day were here for extended periods working on their skills. About the only way to subsidize this kind of adventure Jones is to get good enough to train, buy and sell gear, repair it and run an outfit like this.
Our launch area was only big enough to accommodate a single canopy. That great crescent arc of brightly-colored silk is large to provide enough lift for two people. Ta is about 82 kg, Iโm 54 kg. Today the winds are brisk.
Below is is Pha Na Yuk Beach, which is little more than a high, rocky cliff with some rough rocks below us. Not a place you want to attempt a landing.
Ta hooks himself up to the canopy, which for now lies flat on the plastic. I maneuver in front of him. Another pilot attaches all the hooks and clips so that I can slip backwards into the bucket seat the moment we are airborne. Behind us, Geoff and others get ready to lift the canopy so that it can collect the air.
The moment it does, the conditions being perfect, Ta and I step forward.
The second we are off the edge of the cliff we have to turn sharp right to face into the winds.
Thatโs not for rookies.
The updrafts capture the canopy so swiftly that the typical running start was wholly unnecessary. In seconds weโre rising, the patch of black plastic turning into a disappearing square below us, the next pilot getting ready to launch.
There really are no words for being in the air, high above brilliant seas, sugarsand beaches and all the worldโs complaints and ills. This is heaven.
Dave, an Aussie, Steve, an American and a few others were there for the fine flying days. Some are dedicated pilots who were captured by paraglidingโs predecessor, hang gliding, back in the Seventies. I was first learning to jump in 1973. Hang gliding, the use of a delta wing, is inherently more dangerous than paragliding.
All these sports have evolved. Some have been motorized. Dave also paramotors, which gives you more options to stay aloft (as long as you have forward motion over the camber of the wing you get to keep flying, no matter the source).
For those of you who are not pilots, that is why, if your plane stalls, against all otherwise knee-jerk logic, you point the nose down. The moment you do that and gain speed, the flow of air over the wingโs curved shape creates lift, and you can ease out of your dive. That is, of course, assuming you stalled with enough altitude for you to recover.
With a motor, that adds complexity, more parts, noise, weight and complications. When itโs working, it also means that if indeed you do hit a bubble of no wind, you have options. Iโve flown a powered glider and can attest to the difference between motor on and motor off in the same aircraft. I also understand the purists who only want to ride the wind.
Unlike airplanes, there is no such thing as a go-around on landing for any craft solely dependent upon winds and rising air currents to stay aloft. Hang gliders have a notorious reputation for stalling, and those pilots can pay a rough price if they arenโt high enough for a reserve chute to deploy.
None of these sports is for fools or for the inherently unsafe. Geoff reported that there had been a few deaths (not students, experienced pilots only), usually involving what Dave, the Aussie, later said that he calls โred flags.โ
As a former policeman, Daveโs perspective on safety and preparation are likely closer to what Geoff and I would consider as military veterans: lots and lots of advance work and training, site checks, and a clear-eyed assessment of potential dangers.
With that, the other safety guarantee is the willingness to call off the adventure when conditions are clearly not in your favor. When people do it anyway in search of that epic tale, that usually doesnโt entail a good ending.
That led to a lively discussion of those times when we didnโt behave so responsibly. The fact that all of us were still there spoke to a combination of pluck and luck, but also the realization of that the next time, we might not be so fortunate. Those who survive those mistakes tend to fall into two camps:
Those who will never repeat them.
Those who are emboldened by them.
The latter donโt tend to last long.
Air sports are incredibly unforgiving.
Which is why when I was in Mendoza, Argentina, a few years back, I was delighted to see that my paragliding pilot was, like Geoff, grey at the temples.
For now, however, all I had were Ta at my back, managing the toggles on the canopy as we rose in silent spirals, and a vast vision of sky and beach and ocean. Ta watched the waves below us for sea life and kept a careful eye out for others who soon joined us in the rising air.
From the very first time I ever let go of the strut of a Cessna 150 which had been stripped down to allow skydivers to cram inside, I have been hooked.
That first ride skyward is for most, a doozy, full of apprehension and grotesque fears of what might go wrong. That was back in 1973, when todayโs pillow-soft โsquaresโ were considered far too high-tech and dangerous for beginners. Now those enormous mattresses of lift are the standard, making even lousy landings a lot softer.
As Geoff said to a prospective new client yesterday, your misgivings only last about three seconds, if that. Once aloft, the sheer overwhelming joy of no longer being attached to this bubble by gravity tends to change everythingโฆor, you canโt wait to get back down. It depends.
If youโre that frightened, the landings can feel terrifying.
The landings, however, arenโt the point. Once anyone has gone aloft, at least if youโve got this gene, itโs likely going to be a lifelong journey to keep going aloft. For me that was a whole lot of ways, including the demo planes we used to have which practiced for air shows where I started my skydiving career in rural Viriginia back in 1974.
I already have 70 hoursโ flying time, 131 skydives and untold other adventures, including a Swannie off the tallest bridge in Croatia. Off the coast of the North Island of New Zealand in 1984, my instructor trained me to do barrel rolls and loops in his aerobatic plane. I love that stuff.
What does impress me is careful competence. As Ta and I rose, I closed my eyes and soaked in the feelings of gentle turbulence. For land-lubbers, turbulence in an aircraft is panic-inducing.
However, learning to relax in the bumps is as much learning to trust the air as it is learning to trust yourself in the embrace of the air. It's a liquid, just as water is. Crosswinds and thermoclines are part of the conditions. You learn as a boat captain or scuba diver to deal with the unpredictability of the ocean, the swift currents and radical changes in temperatures. This is similar but for the altitude.
After plenty of gorgeous time swirling in the bright blue sky above gemstone waters and rock-encrusted beaches, and waving at the other two pilots as we passed each other in God's swings, Ta slowly curved us towards Samae Beach, our landing zone.
Landing involves the utmost sense of timing and gentility. I have had my share of bad landings. As with all air sports you have to stall your craft, and just so, so that ideally you (and your passenger) need only to step onto the ground as though coming out of your kitchen.
Takeoffs and landings are the singular points of danger in any air sport, no matter which. That is why being utterly and totally focused on safety, competence, potential red flags and any factors which could affect your flight negatively are imperatives, not options.
Is this for you? Well, look. Unless you're a mild lunatic like this author, perhaps not. But just once? I highly recommend it. The perspective you gain from being aloft, the appreciation of the earth's curvature (YES it's round) and the insignificance of our role upon it in a universe so vast as to confound any understanding makes it worth it.
Thanks If you come here, the price is half what you'd pay in the US. There's that. Any way you call it, heading unto the breach, with or without Prince Harry (NO not that one, Shakespeare's) is, well,
HELL YEAH.
Letโs play.
Thanks for spending a little adventure time with me today. I hope youโre inspired to try something brand new, that makes you appreciate the worldโs beauty from a different perspective. You will never be the same, and you will be better for it. Please consider
If you know someone who might like some inspiration, please also consider
Either way, dare yourself to try something amazing.
I want to try! Your writing inspires me ๐
I'm good with airplanes pretty much only because my son is an airline pilot (and also has his own, teensy, glass-canopy plane for fun). Otherwise, I'm the type who gave up skiing partly because I had such bad cramps in my HANDS. From clinging onto the chair lift bars. So IDK if hang gliding will ever be for me as my skittishness might make me dangerous to others โ but I appreciate experiencing it vicariously!