Learn to paraglide safely, gain a paragliding instructors qualification that enables you to work anywhere in the world, help to teach paragliding to students as part of your gap year or career break, see amazing scenery on cross country flights above the stunning Swiss Alps, work as a fly guide, study French, and experience the bracing and delicious world that exists when you soar above the clouds!
Tour Itinerary:
Week 1: Learn the skills to take off and land paragliders safely, master basic manoeuvres, fly for over 20 minutes on your own, obtain your first pilot rating and learn French.
Your new home will be one of four wooden chalets located in Verbier, a stunning town located in the heart of the Swiss Alps which is part of the ‘Four Valleys’ ski area and combines beautiful scenery with a vibrant nightlife. Each morning you will wake to eat a delicious breakfast before joining your instructors and fellow students on the deck to be briefed about the day’s activities.
The first week will be based at ‘ground school’ to learn the valuable skills required to safely take off and land from a small hill, always with the watchful supervision of your qualified instructors. The week will be dedicated to learning about the paragliding equipment, safety procedures that need to be observed, and how to take off and land successfully and extremely safely. Anyone who is apprehensive about the safety of paragliding need not worry; accidents are barely ever heard of and only arise when people have not followed adequate safety procedures.
Therefore on this trip accidents simply will not occur as our instructors are so experienced, professional, and aware of the measures that need to be observed to fly safely. On roughly the third day you will progress from learning the basics to taking solo flights. By the end of the week you will have advanced so much you will be flying for twenty minutes or more on your own. Completing the BHPA (British Hang-Gliding and Paragliding Association) Elementary Pilot syllabus will give you your first pilots rating IPPI 1 license (International Pilots Proficiency Information card).
Each weekday an hour-long lesson of intensive French will be fitted around our flying adventures. The lessons are designed to teach French in a natural and spontaneous fashion by imitating the way people acquire their mother tongue, meaning by the end of your time here your French will be magnifique!
In the evenings everyone will take it in turns to help the chalet manger Jo cook the dinner, which will be enjoyed outside watching the sun descend behind the snow-capped mountains. You can have a barbecue, chat about the day’s adventures, practice your French with each other, or even head into Verbier to practice your French on the locals! On the seventh day you can have a day off to relax, explore the beautiful area, and fill your journals with the awesome adventures you have had so far.
Week 2: Learn more skills, study the physics behind paragliding to become a proficient paragliding pilot with an IPPI level 3 license, and prepare for your instructor training.
The second fortnight will take us up to the mountains again to learn the new skills and more advanced techniques that will take you soaring higher and higher. Spending some time in the classroom will teach you subjects including meteorology, aerodynamics, and the principles of flight; to give you an increased understanding of the way paragliding works and improve your paragliding technique. Modern paragliders developed from parachuting canopies and operate similarly to hang-gliders. They contain a row of cells that are open at the front and closed at the back, which inflate with air to form an aerofoil shape and produce lift. Rising air that comes from thermals (columns of rising air from the sun-heated ground) or ridge-lifts (formed when winds encounter a ridge on the landscape) keep the paraglider aloft.
Learning from the experts will give you the knowledge to master ways of staying afloat on the rising air, thus enabling you to go for hours at a time and adding to your paragliding enjoyment. Paragliding enthusiasts speak of the immense calm and tranquillity they feel when flying solo across miles of countryside, due to the amazing silence and weightlessness they feel when soaring through the air. Having lessons about the way paragliding operates will arm you with all the knowledge you need to feel entirely calm and confident in the sky.
By the end of the week you will complete the club pilot syllabus and qualify as an IPPI 3 rated pilot, an internationally recognized license that certifies a pilot has reached the standard that they can fly alone without supervision. You will continue to master your French in lessons that overlook the amazing Alps, thus completing perfect days spent on this amazing adventure.
Weeks 3-4: Increase your skills to a high level of paragliding, obtain an advanced flying license, and boost your confidence speaking French.
The final fortnight you spend as a pilot before you progress to being an instructor will involve huge amounts of airtime to progress your skills even further and obtain advanced qualifications that will allow you to fly solo for as long as you wish or as far as the thermals will allow! Our instructors will fill your brains with even more knowledge about the physics of flight, and teach you skills, including how to find thermals and use the moving warm air to keep you going for hours. You will also learn how to master more complex turns, achieved by pulling down on one side of your control and shifting in your harness.
Some of the planet’s top paragliding professionals will be there every step, turn and flight of the way, offering amazing advice and masterful words of wisdom to progress your flying safely further. All your hard work will pay off so much that by the time the month finishes, you will have soared on an amazing cross-country flight without supervision. By the end of the course everyone will have hopefully passed all the relevant tests to acquire their crème-de-la-crème IPPI 4 rating, before being given an outline of the standards you will be expected to maintain on the instructors course and the teaching techniques to take note of.
Weeks 5-8: Transform from being a pilot into being a qualified instructor, shadow instructors, become part of the instructor team, learn about safety, and be involved in the ‘behind the scenes’ running of the paragliding school.
The final four weeks of the course are designed to transform you from being humble students into being fully-fledged professionals with a Swiss Instructor Level One qualification. You will join the teaching team and will shadow instructors as they teach beginner students. This month will enable you to learn the teaching techniques the professionals’ use, the huge amount of safety procedures that must be abided, how to assess students, and the vast plethora of knowledge and tips that our instructors have gathered throughout their years of teaching. When you are not up in the mountains or soaring on thermals you will be involved in the behind the scenes running of the school to learn what needs to be done to operate a paragliding center safely and successfully.
By the end of the course you will hopefully have reached the adequate level to qualify as a Swiss Grade One Instructor (the paragliding equivalent of a ‘Divemaster’ rating in the diving world). The qualification will enable you to assist instructors teaching students and allow you to work as a guide flying with qualified pilots. Though a Grade One Instructor rating does not qualify you to teach students independently, the qualification enables you to work with paragliding schools worldwide assisting their instructors with students and fly-guiding.
The final night spent on this amazing eight week adventure will give you a chance to celebrate your amazing achievements whilst practicing your French once more. As you watch the sun going down behind the Alps on this Verbier paragliding adventure you can toast to your amazing accomplishments, bidding ‘au revoir’ to your learning extravaganza but ‘bonjour’ to the world of adventure that is out there for a newly qualified paraglider instructor!
Notes:
Airfare is not included in the tour price.
Costs £4990 / $10579 (US) / €7535
Price Includes:
* Pre-departure support
* 24 hour emergency phone line in the UK
* Transfers to and from Le Chable train station
* Breakfast
* Dinner
* Accommodation in luxury Alpine chalet
* All flying tuition
* All flying equipment
* All mountain transport
* Lift passes
* Examination applications and fees
* Third party liability insurance
* CD containing photos of your course
* 20 hours of French lessons
Also see tour packages in:
Europe
Switzerland
Paragliding
Cultural Journey
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