Turkey - SIV and Pilotage courses

Back in Oludeniz 

We took a group of 7 pilots mixed levels from 10 to 300 hrs for a mix of either Pilotage training to Siv depending on experience and desire to learn.

ARRIVAL

We arrived on Saturday, had our first briefing on Sunday morning, where introductions and itinerary for the week were made. Vital equipment checks were made to ensure everyone had fully functioning equipment for the week. You’d be surprised how out of every group there is always one reserve pack not properly installed or positioned. 

Babadag

We talked through the scope of potential manoeuvres and made an orientation flight from Babadag. The mountain itself now has a newly paved road up which has cut journey time down from 1hr20 to just 35 minutes in a comfy van.  There's an incredible bar and restaurant now up at launch so any parawaiting can be accompanied by a good coffee.

The Mountain itself has served paragliders and tandem pilots for over 25 years, launches are at a staggering 6500ft, not unusual for a mountain but super unique for a mountain so close to the coast, allowing pilots to float over the bay with 4 - 5,000 ft. Hence why Our recent change form tow SIV in Algo, The likes of Annecy and Algo are great for access and freshwater but simply can't offer such great height to experiment within one run. 

First Tasks

Monday saw us crack on with some easy manoeuvres, Pitch and roll control and wing over control. What appears to be a simple pitch control exercise will as we found out set us up for all manoeuvres. The theme on our Control courses is the need to understand and manage important airspeed and overshooting. Second sessions in the afternoon had us deal with Symmetric deflations and overshoot…B line stalls the same. The day finished with detailed debriefing and cold beers and a swim in the Sea!

Sensible progression

By Thursday, the course was in the bag, the team had achieved all varieties of deflations at trim and accelerated, B line stalls, managing energy through entry and exit into spiral dives, spins and wingovers. An action-packed week for sure but neatly mixed in with some solid theory, a relaxed coaching style. You'll note we've not mentioned stalls, Most of our group were low airtime bar one regular, who'd already done stalls with us, his main aim was to learn to SAT. We don't encourage Stalls on a first course as we believe it leads to information overload and we've found it can easily knock back a pilots confidence. 

The Siv course runs over four days, two flights per day, we cover transport, boat support and coaching. we mostly stayed in one hotel, a guy with a family stayed in nearby Likia world resort, although the town is perfect for cheap affordable accommodation with pools etc, we were just 50 meters from the beach. 

How often do they run

We run courses every Autumn and every  May, the big question is always am I ready to do a course, that sort of depends on your desire and timing to learn, these are not one-off courses but something you should schedule into your flying career every few years. The more you understand the dynamics of your glider the more you can extract from a  good thermic day.  

Any questions just ask or see our calendar to book a place on our next course in May

Of course we finished every day with a Sunset swim, without our gliders!