Back to paragliding in September, flamingo flying, no skills fade here!

Time off well spent

Well, there are two reasons, firstly it's proper hot, average temps are 35 every day from mid-morning, this summer they've poped up to 45 plus. As a result, conditions are often gusty, the days long, its tough for students, we have trialed it but in truth, although Cp students can get some epic airtime late into the evenings, it's hard hot work making it happen. 

Time off is time invested

Mainly because we need a break, the best instructors and guides are the ones who manage their time and enthusiasm so they don't experience skills fade. Every teaching environment gets a taste of it, we work long days we manage and mitigate risk with good decision making, good equipment and the best possible teaching environment to make sure we get the best results out of students and instructors alike. Hence new for Autumn and Spring 2022 we will be advertising a trimmed down selection of courses on our calendar that work the best for that specific time of the year. 

Best conditions

FlySpain, having been based in Spain for almost 20 years know how to cherry pick the best conditions to suit the course we are running, which is why we don't advertise fictitious xc course over November and winter. We offer the course best suited to those times, like Paragliding tuition or paramotor courses and guided holidays that prefer lighter winds and more British Autumn style weather.

Anyways, this Summer has seen some of the paragliding team away from our delightful Andalucian village. Fred has been exploring Norway and running xc weekends in Sweden but after his Italian break will be running some courses here in Algo over October.

We hit the road the second week of August and headed north to the Pyrennes, Ager offered up some fine views over the mountains but the heat was still high. We quickly headed on to Italy and Bassano de Grappa for some fantastic food, some occasional epic Xc flying with the family, some entertaining tandem flights with my daughter, and the arrival of our new pet pink flamingo, following two great weeks of pizza, pasta, and Valpollechella and with flamingo in hand, we traveled north to Austria, a weather-based plan of course to due to stormy weather and heatwaves at our paragliding heels.

Austria and Griefenburg were our first peek at flying in the southern Austrian Alps, we timed it well, fab weather, wicked camping next to the landing field, and a lake next door for the flamingo. I'm easily thrown off course by bad weather so when the thunderstorm hit we headed back south to Bassano for an aerial tour of the vineyards of the Prosecco valley, one of our top instructors, Fred, will be running a tour there in early September, no doubt we'll visit again next summer.

After six weeks it was a time for a change, we had caught up with some old friends, flown some new mountains, and widened our horizons, the only thing now needed was some water dragging and near-drowning experiences, hence a timely trip to the Bay of Roses for some Kite surfing and a last Boogey with the Flamingo.

It's convenient a stop after a long drive out of the mountains, it can offer some tidy wind for kiting plus some other water sports, plus it signals the last stop and a re-engaging a fresh into the new September season.

Covid refinement and change.

Folk often struggle with change, I always have but Covid has given us a chance to prioritize what's important to us, family life, less stress more fun, all the usual stuff people talk about. We've always prided ourselves in offering tip-top instruction and knowledge-packed holidays and fun tours. We have rescaled our activities in Spain not because we had to but to suit us as a family. We want to bring the best we can offer to launch and no less, weather permitting!

All the courses are now run by myself Rob, Fred, Aaron & Al Roberts, even our son Dylan is now taking an enthusiastic role in helping to guide, he's proving to be a natural cheerful coach. The courses have been tweaked with the experience of twenty years of paragliding instruction and guiding in Spain and worldwide. We have plans for some more worldwide tours when covid releases its stranglehold. Until then we'll be full power back in Algo.

I hope to see you here on Launch sometime soon. I appreciate our Calendar is mostly fully booked until November but check out dates for next year, especially if you have covid credit with us.

Fly high and fly far 

Rob, Nic and the team