Manali Institute to teach out-of-state paragliders in safety

The AB Vajpayee Mountaineering Institute, Manali, is prepared to open windows for pilots of other states so they can hone their flying skills during unstable situations in flight, following the successful completion of a SIV course for state tandem paragliding pilots in the Pong wetland area of lower Kangra.

Avinash Negi, the head of the institution, made this claim yesterday while visiting the Pong Wetlands to assess the 150 state tandem paragliding pilots who are now undergoing SIV training.

The pilots will get SIV instruction from two specialists that the institution has engaged. The renewal of a commercial flyer’s license requires the completion of this course.

Commencing in the last week of March, the four-day instruction is scheduled to run until the end of the current month.

The director told The Tribune that the Pong wetland region was chosen for the first phase of the special SIV course because a large body of water was necessary for pilots to safely land when their paragliders crashed.

“The institute recently purchased a paraglider winch at a cost of Rs 65 lakh, which facilitates a pilot to fly up to 1.5 km in the air, since the Pong wetland area has no high altitude conducive to paragliding,” he added.

According to him, the SIV course’s objectives were to improve participants’ flying abilities, educate them how to spot dangerous circumstances, and demonstrate how to open parachute securely for a safe landing.

Negi said that the mountaineering institution possessed the necessary facilities to teach SIV pilots, and that this year’s SIV course will be held at Bilaspur’s Gobindsagar Lake after the monsoon season, starting in September. This is the first time the state’s government sector is hosting this training program. He suggested that paragliding accidents may be reduced to almost nothing by using a tandem paraglider educated by SIV.