Sunday, October 21, 2007

Flying at Tower Hill

After looooooooong time, I finally had a flying day. I joined the gang of Temple Pilots and went to Tower Hill at Kamshet. It had been over an year (I couldn't believe it myself that it has been so long) that I was able to paraglide so obviously I was feeling a bit nervous. We gathered at a restaurant "rangoli" at the Kamshet phata on old Pune-Mumbai highway. Temple pilot guys had arranged a jeep to take us up to the launch and for retrieve. You go anywhere in the world the trip to launch is always in a some overcrowded SUV type vehicle where all you hear is paragliding talk. I think paragliding inherently is a solitary activity so when sharing a ride to launch or sitting around in LZ, pilots tend to over-socialize :) As we reached on the launch, the wind was coming in too strong. The launch is a wide , smooth grassy area quite big enough to top land easily. After para-waiting for about 3 hours I finally launched in a perfect straight cycle. Once in the air I felt much comfortable and all the nervousness of the new site was long gone. I had a really good low save and was back on top of the launch. I decided to practice my not so good top landing skills and came in and landed rather fast. Then soon enough I launched with another perfect launch! I was the last pilot to land in the LZ where we got picked up by the jeep and brought back to Rangoli. After a gap of 12 months, I was finally able to go out and fly . I had the silly-a-good-paragliding-day-grin on my face all the way back home! :)

4 comments:

Jim said...

Cool! I'm glad you eventually managed to get back into the air.

rajh said...

Great pics Suhas! Any plans to try Pavana lake or the other local sights?
ciao

Chris Amonson said...

Sounds great.

Going into the long dark winter here in seattle.

Suhas Kelkar said...

Pavana lake is a westerly site. (needs winds from the west) so it won't start working until feb/march...