Navigating Panchgani (Pre PWC India) : Vistasp Kharas

Aninder: Hello everyone, welcome to the very first long-form episode of 2024 in our show of Paragliding Atlas. The last one which you heard was an Ask Me Anything episode which was more or less like a bonus content supposed to tell you what the roadmap is and what the coming year has in store for us. This time around, we are back to our usual length format episode. And just to clarify, as I mentioned in the previous AMA episode, from now on, we're going to broaden the horizon and perspectives into helping you navigate the overall sport in a much more safer and enriching and fulfilling manner. Now, what that means is that we're not just going to talk about geographical locations. We're going to talk about certain

topics, certain areas of interest, which are usually a part of the banter, as I said, things that you're curious about as a paraglider pilot. So for the month of January, we're going to talk about racing paragliders. And racing paragliders, again, is a very broad topic. There are multiple subtopics that can be discussed. But this time around, we're going to focus on pre-WorldCups. Now how it caught my eye is that I was just browsing Civil Comp's website and I saw there are two really interesting pre-World Cup locations that are being put out for the pilots to join. The first one in my home country of India and it's very surprising that I haven't really flown in this location yet. But today,

to help us navigate this location, we have a wizard from there who has flown and who has lived and who has basically done everything that is needed to touch the sky with glory in this amazing location. And secondly, which is coming out next weekend, is Kenya. I thought Kenya was just about going out to see safaris and having a vacation or you know just one of those gala times when you switch off during winter and but there's another person who's been going there who's been taking tours who knows the place in and out. So that's why it got me thinking if these guys are able to push the limit and actually hold organized competitions in such exotic locations then definitely we need to bring

out their story and tell it to the world. Anyways, without further ado, I'm going to dive right into this episode. Basically, this episode is in a location called Panchgani. Now, Panchgani, as the name suggests in local language, means land of five hills, which is nestled in a volcanic plateau. I mean, it gets super interesting. If you Google this up, this dates way back to prehistoric geographical marvels that happened on its own. And it's a volcanic plateau which forms a part of a larger table land called Deccan Plateau in the whole of South Indian region. So keeping in tune with that, we have a local legend who has been flying there for more than 10 years. I mean, he grew up in this area and he has been

exploring this area with his paraglider for more than 10 years. Knows it like the back of his hand. And more often than not, he has often touched the sky with glory while pushing the limits in Panchgani. And one of the highlights of his flying career is that he has willingly gone into a cloud and come out super happy with the brightest smile that you'll ever see a person exiting a cloud for. Usually it is the other way around that people are shit scared and they don't know, but this guy has managed to have that experience, which by any means, I do not advocate going into a

cloud willingly for all the reasons that you know already. It's not the safest thing to do. However, at the end of the show, you'll get to hear a little bit of an excerpt from him about how it went and all that you need to know to be a part of this pre-World Cup and to race paragliders in PunchGaming. So let's get this going. All right, Wes, thank you so much for joining us all the way from India. We have come today for this episode to talk about Indian Nationals pre-World Cup, which is supposed to happen in the month of February, a month from now in the land of

Aninder: Panchgani, I've heard. Is there more to flying paragliders in India than just in Bir and in the Himalayas? Yeah, thank you, Andy, for having me. So yes, of course. So we've got the Sayadri Rim and Panchkini is one of the hill stations. And that's a really fascinating flying site. It's

Vistasp Kharas: far more technical than Bir. So I really enjoyed it. So you can't do really big distances because we are just about 100km from the coast. But I would say a 30km flight in panzikini is you know as good as 100k flies in beer building so that's how technical the place is all right so

Aninder: basically it won't give you your personal best but it will definitely bring out your personal best when you're trying to navigate the landscapes absolutely absolutely Wow. But, you know, just for the context of the audience of Paragliding Atlas, so far, India, I mean, India is a massive country. Everybody knows. And now I just realized you mentioned Syed Rees. So what all possibilities does this amazing country offer down there? Like most of our audiences in our show know Himalayas because they are the grandest and the longest and the mightiest. But Sayadri's look a bit humble, but again, very close to the coast. It seems like a really amazing thing. So if you can give our

audiences an idea, what all is there in India to fly paragliders at? So if you look at the geography of India, if you look at the Indian map, it's

Vistasp Kharas: roughly like an inverted triangle, right? So if you see the top side of the triangle, if you keep that, if you invert the base, so on the top, you know, along the north, running from east to west, you have the Himalayas. Okay. And then along the west coast, all along that line of the triangle, you have the Sayadi Range with Tart somewhere in Gujarat and stretches down all the way, you know, to the south, if I'm not mistaken, all the way to Kerala. So the entire range runs parallel to the west coast of India, approximately about 100 kilometers inland, and it kind of creates a plateau. So you have the coast, and then you have the Sayagri, and then you have the entire Deccan Plateau after that. So it's

quite interesting. Every evening, you have the coastal winds coming in, so your window has to be timed accordingly. But in the time that you get to do XC, it's quite glorious. So good to hear that. So basically, if I try to understand, this range extends almost the length of Himalayas or

Aninder: close to it. And then it involves a little bit of flatland perspective, because if it evens out in a plateau, then basically you have to bring your coastal soaring plus flatland game into the play to navigate these areas. Exactly, exactly. I think it'll be very interesting to have an

Vistasp Kharas: ex-Ayagri sometime in the future. It's been a dream and hopefully I will start working on that pretty soon. So I think it'll be one of the, you know, very interesting and technical races on the lines of X-Alp and X-Pyramids. Now, sounds exciting. And I mean, as you said, you know,

Aninder: India is a massive country full of amazing features. And I'm just looking at the photos on Civil Comp's website. And honestly, they look very enticing. I mean, this looks a little bit like Turkey or something. Is that correct? It's got its own topography. So Panchkini

Vistasp Kharas: geographically sits somewhere almost in the middle of India. If you see the north-south span of India. So very close to Pune, Pune city. So it's just about a two-hour drive from Pune. And from Bombay, it's about, I would say, four and a half to five-hour drive. south of Mumbai. So the main topography in the area is there are volcanic plateaus. So you have these stable land, you know, with very sharp vertical cliff, you know, volcanic rock, which kind of beat up in the first part of the day. And then, you know, they have their own little thing happening over there. So it's a tricky site. Like I mentioned, you know, you have your predominant wind direction and then You know, in each valley, in each

bowl of the Sayadri, you have its own little, you know, wind directions and thermal activity that happens. Sounds so good. I mean, when you talk

Aninder: about volcanic rocks and all of that, I think the curiosity that every one of our listeners must be having can pretty much be set aside for a whole different episode. So let's just talk a little bit about this. Can you give our listeners a little bit of an introduction about this pre-World Cup that is happening in this volcanic plateau, as you say it? So Panskini has been, you know, been a little, the secret of paragliding

Vistasp Kharas: for quite a long time. I did my schooling in Panskini in a boarding. And I remember in those days, I don't know what, maybe 35, 40 years ago, there used to be this one hang glider pilot. Okay. I don't know his name. He was a foreigner. And, you know, I mean, that's when I actually heard about You know, man being able to fly and, you know, my interest in flying was kind of kindled from that, you know, first sight of somebody flying, free flying in the air. After that, there have been a lot of pilots in that area. Most notably, we had somebody called Andre, Andre Savard. who was

a French Canadian, you know, married to an Indian, and he had settled down in Panchkini. He ran a little establishment called EcoCam, which was like, you know, cheap, tented accommodation, which was, you know, like home for pilots for many years. Sadly, Andres, you know, decided to move to Canada again. And we don't really have a home in Panchkini now. So I started flying there about, I think, 10 years ago. And the idea of, I mean, I was with PAI at the time. And I think that's when we did our first little competition in Panjpani, which was also a PAI event. I think this was about seven or eight years back. And I think the first event, we just had about 30 pilots. You know, it was a very informal thing. I left PAI

after that and continued, you know, I continued to want to do comps in Panchkini. So we started doing, I set up something called IPC, which is Indian Paralyzing Competitions. And almost every year since, we've been doing a competition. So the next year, we had about 60-70 pilots. And, you know, the following year, and then in 2019, we actually did the first free World Cup. This was not through PR and we had almost 100 pilots flying in Panchpini. So now this is the second pre-World Cup, but the first one that's actually been conducted by the Paragliding Association of India. So that's kind of the competition history in Panchpini. It's developed over quite a few years. And we had a very good

report from the PwC observer in the last competition. So I'm positive that next year we'll probably be able to bid for the World Cup as well.

Aninder: Super exciting. So the secret spot is definitely not going to be a secret anymore, I believe. Absolutely. I can see you have 66 pilots registered already and we are still almost a month and a half away. So it sounds like a party is coming to Panchgani finally. And I think we need to give a little bit of credit to these pioneer hang glider pilots who have literally gone out, you know, back in the 70s and the 80s, as you said, going out exploring these gems for us and finding it out and putting it out there for the paragliding community. Like they deserve a little bit more

attention than we do when we get them now. Yeah, unfortunately, I don't have names. But, you know, now that you mention it, I'm going to actually

Vistasp Kharas: find out. You know, who were the stalwarts who actually started flying in Panjtuni. But I do want to mention a prominent Indian pilot. by the name of Dilip Kotecha. He's no more, but he really set the place on fire with all his flying. You can see his tracks on Leonardo. He's done some really insane flights, flying from Pune all the way to Panchkini, going up to 4,000 meters. So it's really amazing because because the altitude you achieve in panchkindi you know between you know in season in the peak time between 3000 to 4000 meters and you know your takeoff altitude is is about 11 or 1200 so so it's really amazing you know how far you get far up you get you know in some ways you know on those good days it kind of kind of

even beats being willing you know because being willing you you do get up to four five thousand but the land is also higher. So your altitude above the land is not quite the same. So that's what's so special about it. This reminds me of these amazing flights that some pilots have been doing in

Aninder: South Africa. What's the AGL that we are talking about? I mean, ASL, I understand. So you're telling me that AGL is beyond, like it blows your mind? What kind of AGL? So yeah, so AGL, sometimes you get about 3000 you can go up to 3000 a year. That's that's quite a bit. No way. No way. I think I remember seeing a video of yours where you were coming out of a cloud frosted up top to bottom and I was like, man, he is living the life. So cool. All right, quickly, before we move on to the actual flying, because, you know, this is getting super excited now. Just if a person,

if a pilot wants to come down, you know, for this World Cup, and he plans to land in Mumbai or Bombay, as you said, the airport, what are the easiest transportation options for them to kind of get to this place and make it happen? And how long does it take? Yeah. So I would, I mean, today the

Vistasp Kharas: easiest thing to do is get an Uber, which I think is also cost effective. There's something called Uber Outstation. And I'm not sure of the exact cost. I think Uber to Kamchatka would be about 2,500. So I'm thinking, you know, to Panjpani, you know, we'll be in the vicinity of say 5,000 rupees, which is pretty decent. Apart from taking a taxi, you can also get buses going to Panjgani from Mumbai and from Pune. So taxi and bus are the main. Unfortunately, trains don't go all the way to Panjgani. However, you can take a train from Bombay to Pune, which is about four hours. And then, you know, a taxi ride or a bus ride, which is again about two, two and a half hours from Pune. I mean, you know, when you talk about

Aninder: less than $100 for a chauffeur-driven car, I don't think anyone's going to miss a train ride or a bus ride. That's the beauty of flying in the Indian subcontinent. You know, you bring in all your money and you feel like a king. You literally get treated like a Maharaja in a true sense.

Vistasp Kharas: And I'm also amazed that, you know, I mean, there are a lot of foreign pilots who come and, you know, spend a lot of time in Palsu. Because, you know, if you see weather-wise, you have the bead season. which is, let's say, from October to November or maybe mid-November. After that, it's a great time to go to Goa. and you know party and do you know christmas and new year and all that and then if you come straight to panchkini it's the perfect time so you know january to march is the perfect time for panchkini and then again march onwards is the season back in bean

billing so it kind of you know it's the perfect bridge uh if you want to spend an entire you know season of flying in india So great. I mean, there are a lot of foreign pilots who do that. They come here and live for six months at a time and just do this journey, which I just told you. And the amazing part, sorry, why I mentioned it is because even for them, the retrieves are so easy. You know, you just, wherever you land, you know, you stick your thumb out, somebody will give you a ride. You know, people want to take you home. They want to feed you. You know, there's somebody

offering to drop you off on a bike. So it's quite amazing. You know, you can just get around with, you know, even on a shoestring budget. Well, I

Aninder: mean, it sounds like the perfect getaway, you know, like, as you said, if you get there in the season of September, enjoy everything that you want to touch the sky with glory and be for a while and then unwind next to the beautiful and serene beaches of Goa, which are a little bit crowded sometimes. But of course, you always have other options. You know, there are multiple things and then get stuck in Panjgani for a while and then back to be like perfect way to spend the winter. Right now I'm in Europe and this is like nothing but cold and depressive. And the FOMO, after you have told me this, is hitting me really hard. But anyways, moving on to the actual flying part, you know, I was just looking at your

website and it said that this competition even has a cross- country class for EMB category gliders. I remember in the beginning of this conversation, you said it's a lot more technical, but having an EMB class means it is accessible even to the new beginners or the fairly newer pilots in the sport. So if you can just talk about flying, like what all intricacies does the terrain throw at you and how can like a novice pilot navigate it compared to an expert one who anyways know their craft? Right. So when we talk about ENB gliders, I mean, we have a

Vistasp Kharas: category for it. Of course, you still need to be a fairly good pilot. You should be able to take off in strong winds, strong thermic conditions. Ideally, you should have done an SID because... Thermals can be pretty punchy at times and there's a component of wind as well. So, and the very interesting part about punch skinny is that, you know, you have inversions at various layers and, and you, you can get, you know, at various levels, you may have the wind coming at different direction. So, so, you know, you may climb up to a certain altitude and then, you know, you have a strong shear, you know, and a bit of rock and roll. And then again, you know, you're climbing in a different direction and then

that happens once again. So, you know, the free at every thousand meters. So that's quite common. You should have some knowledge about strong wind flying. I would not advise this for somebody who's only used to flying in alpine conditions with very little knowledge of wind because the wind here can be a killer. If you're not aware, you're not constantly aware of where the wind is and if you do manage to get into the lee side, it's not forgiving. So even though we have an ENB category, what that means is that the tasks are going to be designed in such a way that maybe the first 50% of the tasks will be relatively easy and will be designed with a lot of high safety in mind for ENB gliders. And then

progressively, the rest of the tasks will be more difficult. So that, you know, people who are taking part, they can at least finish, you know, half the task and kind of learn the ropes of how to fly a competition. This is getting very interesting, Viz, when you said that there are multiple

Aninder: wind shear factors and everything. So since we talked about the volcanic plateau, can you give our listeners a little bit of an idea of what kind of terrain, how does it look like, and basically what do you expect when you go on the launch? The reason I'm asking this question is because I recently had... an episode on australia come out one of the legends of our sport godfrey and he was very vocal in telling that there are some dust devils on the takeoff and you know different kind of challenges so what does punch gunny throw at you when you go out there for the first time and open up your canopy Visually, if you can explain it visually, like how does it look like? Okay, so I'll start with the

Vistasp Kharas: takeoff. We have a number of takeoffs in Panathinaik because the wind kind of changes direction, you know, through the season. So, you know, it starts with a kind of, you know, north-northeast aspect. And then as the season progresses towards spring, so I'm talking about from November to, let's say, March. So we have the wind kind of changing directions. And towards the end of the season, we've got more south, like a southeast aspect coming from there. So one has to be mindful of that. One needs to have some knowledge of that to select the correct takeoff. Because what tends to happen is that you can kind of get fooled, you know, if you're in a particular bowl. And if you wait long enough, you

know, for the bowl to start heating up, you know, you can feel that the wind is coming head on. But actually, once you go up to a certain altitude, you realize that the wind is from a different direction. So forecasts are, you know, very, very important. You know, most of the forecasts work quite accurately in terms of wind direction. However, wind strength is something you can only see once you get to the takeoff. That kind of varies. And so, so one of my favorite slides, slide routes in Panjshiri, you know, just like you have in Deer Billing, you have the, you know, Dharamshala and back, you know, kind of a route. So a couple of years back, you know, we were all trying to explore, you know, beyond

Panjshiri and quite a few of us have now flown from Panjshiri to Kamshet, which is approximately a hundred kilometers Northwest. And if I were to describe the terrain in that area, so let's say you're flying north and you have like a series of ridges. If you look in the map, they all look a bit like dragons, with arms and limbs sticking out. And on the left, you have the drop-off, which is the Western Ghats. So there's this entire drop-off from the plateau. And then you can see in the distance, all the way to the coast on a clear day. So, in between all the ridges, they're all dams, so you have

lakes. So, I like to call it the seven lake tour because in these hundred kilometers, there are seven prominent lakes that you see one after the other. So, I mean, I don't know if that gives you a kind of idea of the terrain. So, you've got the, you know, lines of ridges. In between, you've got flatlands where you've got lakes, you've got dams. So it's really interesting, really scenic. As long as you're high, you know, there's not a care in the world. If you get low and close to the terrain, you have to be very, very aware of which direction the wind is coming from. Because normally during season in the morning, you've got east winds. And, you know, by late afternoon, it kind of switches and the sea

wind starts pushing in. So, you know, there's after a certain period, you can even have west winds kicking in. uh which are not very good for thermaling but sometimes they kick up um you know huge periods of restitution where you know you can just you know be floating around at you know two two and a half thousand three thousand meters uh you know not having to thermal you know it's just amazing Free lift up to 2,000-3,000

Aninder: meters. And geographically, Panjpani itself is actually a cluster of, I mean, Panjpani means five villages. And also in that area, there are

Vistasp Kharas: five distinct tablelands. So each tableland is like, you know, it's like a volcanic, you know, plateau, you know, completely flat at the top. And we use it a lot for top landings. However, during the time of a switch, you see dust levels. So that is something you have to be very careful of. So yes, you do get dust levels, but they are always visible. And you can choose to avoid them and fly around it for sure. Because they happen in the most thermic part of the day. So you can choose to fly on instead of landing in a dust level. Makes all the more sense. Landing in a

Aninder: dust devil is not the plan for any pilot, I guess. But, you know, while we are talking about challenges, what is the most common mess up that you see a foreign or a visiting pilot make? Like, of course, the ones who fly there often enough know the red flags. But what is something that can catch you off guard as someone who has just come there for the first or the second time and doesn't really know what the nature might throw at you?

Vistasp Kharas: So we've had one incident so far, you know, in the last pre-World Cup, which I mentioned to you in 2019, you know, on the very first day of the competition, we had a trial day and we had one of the top ranking Korean pilots who, you know, had a crash and, you know, unfortunately, you know, passed away. I think the main reason was the wind, you know, he didn't, he was too close to the terrain. He was low and he did not account for the wind factor. So, you know, he got into the Lee and, you know, crashed his glider. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to

deploy the reserve. So I think that's a pretty extreme situation. I think it's the only treaty that's happened in the region in, you know, the 10 years that I've been flying there. So, so I think some no-nos are, you know, unless you really know the area well, and you've understood exactly what's happening with the hydrology in the region, don't get close to the terrain. So if you get below, I mean, we like to put it this way that if you get below 1800 meters, start looking for a safe landing. You know, don't start, you know, trying to scratch around. Don't get close to the terrain unless you really know what you're doing. If you're 100% sure that, yes, the wind is coming back on and you're not in the lee side,

then go for it. You know, then scratch, do whatever you want. But if you don't know where you are, you don't know what the wind is doing at that point of time, it's quite possible. If you're high up, you can see in one valley, the wind is coming from the east. In the other valley, you'll see some smoke blowing from the west. And it can be very confusing because it's all thermic air. See what happens as the day progresses. You know, we all know that, you know, rocks take some time to heat up. But once they've, you know, they've heated up, they start pulling up strong

thermals. So what tends to happen is that if you can imagine like a volcanic plateau, you know, something like, I don't know, what are the famous ones? I think there's one in Australia. I don't know what it's called. I think the one in America is called Devil's Rock or something like that, where it has this method with a flat top. So what happens in a situation like this is all the sides which are volcanic have kind of absorbed heat. You know, let's say all morning it's been absorbing heat from the east. And, you know, in the afternoon, let's say around 2, 2.30, the predominant wind switches to the west. What's going to happen is that you're getting wind from the west. The rocks, which have heated up

all morning in the east, are still throwing up thermals. And they're sucking up all the wind from the valley below. So it's quite possible that you'll see in that valley, you're going to see wind, the smoke blowing from the east and getting pulled towards these rocks. On the west side, it's the predominant sea breeze that's pushing wind from the west. And if you are in a confusing situation like this, you should look for a safe landing. So if you don't know where you are, if you don't know where the wind is from, if you go below 1800, you know, the terrain, the mountaintops are around 11, 1200. So start looking for safe landings is what I feel. That's quite exciting the way you explain it. So basically

Aninder: anything below 5600 AGL, that means that is the cutoff line for you. You should not really try to push it. Yeah, if you're a newbie in the area,

Vistasp Kharas: definitely, you know, and play it safe when you get there till you understand, you know, exactly what's happening with the wind and the tunnels. So either it's like get high and stay high. If not, just don't put all the eggs in the one basket and then try and look for a landing.

Aninder: Makes sense. Yeah. Makes sense. You know, I was just looking at the competition page on civil comps, and there was a lot of equipment recommendations. Now, I do understand a lot of these come with the legislation that the PwC committee has put on. But usually, what kind of equipment is recommended to fly here? Because I believe the land is really barren and You know, stony at times, considering it's a volcanic plateau. And one thing that I've known that a lot of gliders come out in a different color when they go out there, probably because of the volcanic sand. So I think hike and fly equipment is definitely not recommended. So if you can just throw some light on what kind of

Aninder: equipment do you recommend visiting pilots to bring in? Yeah, so one of the main takeoffs now, we've got this green sort of fabric put on the

Vistasp Kharas: takeoff. And I think that's pretty kind to the winds. One of the earlier takeoffs that we had, which is very famous, Harrison's Polly, that is almost completely covered with red dust. So if you take off from there or you land there, you know, guaranteed that your glider, you know, if you come with a nice white colored alpine wing, it's going to go back red. And, you know, definitely it's going to affect your resale. So yeah, don't come to Panspuni with your best wing. All of us local pilots, we have two wings. So we'll have our competition wings and the beer-billing wing. And then we have a local wing, which is already red in color. But it doesn't really affect the material. You know, any rocks

that are in the area are mostly pebbles. So, you know, nicely rounded. There are no sharp rocks as such to kind of cut your glider or, you know, snag the lines and things like that. There is quite a bit of grass even till now. So if you look at the start of the season in November, there are actually photographs of green grass on the takeoffs. It's really gorgeous in November. You don't get very high, but the sheer visual beauty of the place is fabulous. After the rainfall, if flying is not your only focus, Then we've got the karst plateau close by, which is a World Heritage Site. You know, it's covered, it's green and lush with all kinds of flowers and things like that. But as it progresses into the

season, the grass kind of starts drying up, you know, slowly turns to yellow and then eventually kind of, you know, completely, you know, around March, the locals start burning the grass. For what reason, I cannot tell them. But I think they do it to control accidental fires. So they start burning regions. Late in March, you actually see entire hillside which are black in color. And that's not very nice. So yes, if you just lay your wing down anywhere, then it's not nice. But there are enough places if you plan your landings. You know, we have this beautiful lake called Om Dam. It's a lake, it's a dam on the Krishna River and which forms a V-shaped lake. And that's kind of our favorite spot.

You know, you come, you land by the lake, you have laminar winds. Even if you land on the table land, the main table land of Panchpani, which we normally do, because then it's just a short hike down to wherever you're staying. That's also quite forgiving, even late in the season. There are patches of grass, not green grass, but yellowed out grass, where you can lay out your wing and pack it without it turning a different color.

Aninder: Without Panch Ganesh putting a stamp on it saying that, yes, I've been here. Yes, but if you take over land on Harrison's Folly, it's

Vistasp Kharas: guaranteed that your wing is going to turn red. I think that's an achievement in itself. You basically kind of have earned it. Not a lot of

Aninder: glider pilots can say that we have been to a place which gave a glider a whole different hue in a sense. Yeah, that's a good way to look at it.

Vistasp Kharas: Yeah, but we've got a lot of people coming back. So I don't think anyone's really worried about the wing changing colors so much. Now, I think the

Aninder: reward of flight is better anyways, more important than the wing, the color of the wing, because after a while, you don't really focus on resales. And ENC and beyond resale doesn't really promise big rewards anyways. You know, quickly, while we're talking about wings, it just stuck my mind. You talked a lot about wind shear and the wind playing its own role. What kind of average glides do you have in a place like this? And what is the ideal wing class that you can fly there and not get frustrated? Because I imagine A and B have their own limitations just like anywhere else in the world. So what kind of glides and what kind of transitions do we look at? If we can quickly touch upon that before we

Aninder: move on to the next topic of landing and retrieves eventually. So the first time I flew from Panjshirini to Kamshed along the Sayadwins, I

Vistasp Kharas: completed the distance of, I mean, I did spend some time for the day to actually start. But once I got the first good thermal of the day, I think that 100 kilometer transition happened in about two and a half hours. you know aided by i would say maybe a seven eight or ten kilometer you know wind slightly cross slightly tailwind transitions i think i think the whole distance was covered in approximately i think 10 or 11 climbs so so so that means you know roughly about 10 kilometer transitions So I would say 7 to 10 kilometers. I did that flight on a high ENB. It was advanced

IOTA. So I think if you have a high B glider, even the low B gliders are pretty good. Or a C glider, you know, it's great. And ENA wing will be a bit frustrating. But I think for a beginner pilot, it'll still be quite rewarding, you know. I mean, depending on what kind of distances you're focusing on. Well, I must bring to our audiences here that you fly in a glider extremely well. And a high B has been your forte for quite a while

Aninder: in B as well. And you smashed some big distances there. So not everybody can mirror your flights on a high B. But yeah, thank you for bringing out that. But two and a half hours for 100 kilometers, that sounds really fast. Yeah, so if you see the track, I mean, the entire track log is around

Vistasp Kharas: four hours. But if you actually see from the point that I started, that I left Panchpili, you know, I took my first thermal and then went towards Tamshet, it's just about two and a half hours, which actually I haven't beaten that time, even on an ENC wing. Yeah. so yeah it all depends on the day you know maybe it was just a good day with you know thermals coming along very easily you know thermal exactly where I expected them to be not having to hunt around Because it is a little different. Every day that the wind changes a little bit, a few degrees, the place where you could possibly predict the next thermal to be kind of changes. There are some days where you have to hunt for it.

There are some days where you have cloud streets. If you're high, it gets really easy. Just fly from cloud to cloud. Some days, the visibility is not so good. Those are the tough days. But you still get pretty good flight. You know, I wanted to touch upon this topic before moving on.

Aninder: What kind of visual clues are obvious for pilots when they get out in the air? I mean, of course, you know, I think in a place like this, as soon as you go out and take off, it probably is like you soar until you reach the thermal or is there a thermal directly? And once you're in the flight, then if you can just talk about the visual clues that you guys refer to and how it differs from the ground and when do you transition to the ones in the air? So most of the takeoff, you know, currently the favorite takeoff is near this place called Sydney Point. It's also known as the

Vistasp Kharas: Dilip Kotecha takeoff, the pilot I spoke to you about earlier. It's an east takeoff. Some tandem guys are using it or they've been using it for the last two years. And they really, you know, maintained it well. You know, it's completely covered by green cloth. and and yeah it's if your wind is from the east it does allow you to do a bit of soaring you know till you find the house thermal so so in that manner it's quite forgiving so you can take off and sort around you know till you find the thermal and then get up so yeah

Aninder: All right. And basically, once you're a little bit up, when the wind shear comes into play, you know, let's say a thousand meters above it, does the visual clues change? Because eventually, like cloud streets and on like less visibility days. So how does life look like once you are high enough above the ground? And then how do you choose your transition points and the way forward? So, I mean, if you're used to hill flying, if

Vistasp Kharas: you're used to flying in relatively windy and thermic conditions, I think it's pretty straightforward. So once you've taken your time, I like to take my time once I take off. I like to take my time to kind of figure out what's happening on that particular day. So I will waste some time climbing as high as I can before I actually start transitioning. A, to understand at which levels the shears are. So normally you'll expect the first one to be between 1800 to 2100 meters. Your next one will probably be at 26 or 2700 meters.

So once you've kind of figured this out, also looking at, you know, weather forecast, charts, etc. For the various levels, you know, that's important that you look at various height levels when you're preparing for the day. So the triggers are normally, you know, if you look at the windward side of, you know, any of the table lands or the hills, you know, you get triggers of the edges. You know, most of the table lands have like a prominent kind of mound, you know, maybe in the center or somewhere that will definitely have a trigger. If you go out in the flats, then you have all your normal flat land figures as well. So that's the interesting part. You can also do flat land climb. in between

the mountain ranges. Sounds like a dream. So basically you're saying while navigating the dragon's back, as you said, like it's a spine which

Aninder: spreads out in a dragon's kind of illustration. And then that is combined with flatland flying at times, mixed with the wind coming from the sea breeze and at different shear levels. So your ridges are generally about 10 kilometers apart. So it's nice to get that little one

Vistasp Kharas: thermal in the middle of the two ridges. And they're normally rivers that are flowing in the centers of these valleys. I mean, they're not really valleys. The valley is also pretty flat. So you've got an area of flat and you've got like a vertical here and then you've got a flat tabletop. So, so very, very exciting. Yeah, very, very interesting. And, you know, a lot, lots of options to top land, you know, most of the rivers running, you know, in the middle, obviously trigger off, you know, thermals that are flowing from the flats. So, yeah. Amazing. I

Aninder: think just just by listening to this, I'm finding it hard to believe if there's any other place which offers so much excitement, because usually places are like either Alpine only or Flatlands only or, you know, like they have their very own distinctive features. But this place seems to offer everything in one place. And also, let it kind of make sense why it leaves a mark on your glider, because it is unique on itself. I think it leaves a mark on you. You know, I mean, once you've flown in Panchini, I mean, I haven't known anyone who's flown here and

Vistasp Kharas: not, you know, gone away, you know, falling completely in love with the place. So...

Because even the town itself is quite special. You know, I mean, it's a very popular destination, a hill station. So, you know, you get to taste all kinds of foods from all over India. It's very famous for its strawberries, mulberries, you know, all sorts of berries, fruits. So also a very, very special town in that way. Indeed, I think we have that as the last part of the show, like what to do on non-flyable days. But, you

Aninder: know, while we are talking about retrieves and landings and top landings, I just wanted to touch upon very quickly, what are the usual lookout things? Like, what are the hazards that you need to take care of once you're below the 500-meter AGL, as you said? Like, what should one be cautious about while coming in to land? so plan your landings earlier like i said if you get below 1800 meters you know start planning your your

Vistasp Kharas: landing only top line if you know what you're doing and it's not bang in the middle of the day because in the middle of the day you know there can be a lot of dusties so so if it's around three four in the evening and you know exactly where the wind is from you can plan a landing top line on table land if you're landing in the valley i normally look out for the road the main roads where the transport is of course and you know as you get closer you know definitely do look out for power lines Avoid fields which have standing crop. There's a lot of sugarcane crop in the area. You

definitely don't want to land in a sugarcane field. It can be really horrible for you and the glider. Rice, I think earlier in the season, there is some fields, a few fields with rice, not too many. So yeah, just all the normal stuff you need to look out for cross-country.

Aninder: Makes sense. You know, how's the local friendliness? Because as I understand, this is agricultural land and everyone kind of makes a living out of these places, the farmers over there. Unlike big European or first world economies, they kind of literally survive over this. So how is the local friendliness when you come in with your wing and if you happen to kind of... I mean, I've never met a single aggressive local in

Vistasp Kharas: the last, I mean, in the 10, 15 years, 10, 12 years I've been flying there. But yes, don't destroy somebody's crop. I think that's universal. So even, I mean, look for fields which have already been cut. I think that's the best place to land. So do not land in a field that has standing crops. There's lots of other space, lots of landings everywhere. So I don't think, if it involves a slightly longer walk to the road, choose a field like that. Don't land very close to villages because there will be power lines crisscrossing. It's India, so most of the power is above ground. There are a lot of less dangerous cable TV lines, again, above ground. So look out for those. I tend to look for poles. I tend to look for the shadow

of the poles because you don't really see the lines from the air. so so yeah locals are very friendly i mean most of the time they want to take you home they want to feed you you know they'll offer to drop you to the nearest roadhead you know any main road will have these little shuttles not just buses but there are these little kind of taxis like jeeps which are packed with locals and you know it's cheap they charge you like maybe 20 rupees till the nearest town which is why and you know i normally pay for two because my glider's kind of blocking space. So I just tell them I

want a seat for my glider, pay for two, 40 bucks, not too much. So yeah, anything, anything less than half a euro shouldn't count a payment in

Aninder: the retrieve options. It's the important message for foreign pilots is don't spoil the system. Don't pay somebody too much. You know, try and

Vistasp Kharas: find out beforehand. I know it sounds cheap, but keep it cheap. Makes sense, makes sense. Whereas quickly, if you can tell about the solo

Aninder: female pilot safety. And I mean, this is not just akin to India. I ask this to every single guest in my podcast. How does life look like if you're a solo female pilot landing in? Well, we don't have a large number of solo female pilots. But in the past, we've had a lot of female pilots come in.

Vistasp Kharas: Most of them have come with a group. So I'm not really sure. I mean, it's a gray area for me. I don't think it's dangerous.

The entire region is quite safe and respectful of women. So I don't really see a difference between a female pilot and a male pilot. I don't think there's any special precaution that needs to be taken. All right, so basically keep your guard up and do the normal, usual, you know,

Aninder: cautionary things and life will be a bliss over there. Yeah. I think with that, Wiz, we have pretty much given our audiences whatever they want to, whatever they should be having to navigate and touch the sky with glory in this gem of a place that Punch Guinea offers. You know, before we conclude on the show, we have this kind of tradition where you bring in a little bit of a story time. So if there's something or some flight or some incident that comes to your mind that gives you goosebumps and will be exciting for our audiences to hear, I'll be very thankful if you can share a part of it. Well, I think one of the most beautiful moments I had, I mean, I did tell you about the very special flights from Panjshirini to

Vistasp Kharas: Kamchatka. I look forward to these. They happen during a very small window when we get, you know, three and three, three and a half thousand meters. But apart from that, last year, it was just one of those days. I didn't feel like going anywhere. There were these lovely, fluffy clouds all around. And I was like coming up to the cloud. And it just seemed so safe that I continued tumbling through the cloud and exited from the top. And that was a really special moment. Of course, there was nobody else around. So I thought it was very safe to do that. But that kind of thinking about that still feels, you know, I get goosebumps. I think you saw a video of that as well. It was exhilarating. How does life look

Aninder: inside a cloud? If you can just explain a little. I've been always curious because a lot of people go in there and come out shit scared. But I remember the smile on your face was absolutely amazing. So how did it work when you were inside and still circling? I have kind of, you know,

Vistasp Kharas: got sucked into clouds when I don't want to. And in that case, it can be quite terrifying because You know, you don't know what you're doing. You don't know which way you're going. But in this case, I kind of mentally have decided that I will just keep firmly in the top. So I did not, I mean, you're in a white room. You have no references. But I just kept focusing on my equipment and just centered, you know, at the core and just kept terminating. And before I knew it, you know, I had popped out at the top. So I think I was inside for, you know, maybe what seemed

like an eternity, but I think it was two, two, two and a half minutes, maybe. That sounds super exciting. So, and I think I traveled about, I think the cloud base was at 3,000 and I popped out at 4,000. So it was pretty amazing. What a bliss. What a bliss. You know, what are the

Aninder: airspace restrictions? I forgot to bring in this point. How does airspace look in this area? Okay, so that's the tricky one. So airspace

Vistasp Kharas: restriction in that entire area is at around 2,000 meters. However, for the competition, we get a higher limit. So, you know, having said that, there is only one flight that, you know, goes overhead and we kind of know what time that is. And there's enough of a separation because flight level is 4,000, the lowest flight level for a commercial flight in the region. The closest airport is Bhune, which is, I think, about close to 100 kilometers away or maybe less. I'm not exactly sure on that. So it's pretty easy. There are no, as you know, in India, there's no real, you know, there are no real rules about flight. So we take our chances. So it's more established in a place like Kamshet where there are a lot of

schools operating and there's a much lower flight limit. But it's not really been a bother in this area. Anybody coming to Panjshiri, try and get onto the Panjshiri WhatsApp group. And there's somebody who gives information if there's a helicopter coming in. There are helicopter landings in Panjshiri. Whenever there's a celebrity or somebody coming in, it's not like a regular thing. So this information is shared with everyone. So I think that's the only real worry as far as the airspace rules are concerned. For the competition, it's completely safe because we take daily permission from Bombay ATC and Pune ATC. There's a very interesting thing that had happened in one of the

competitions. where we had we had been given a limit of 3000 meters so so we had a very hard penalty on that and just before the race you know everybody took off and i think all the competitors you know went about 3000 and it was impossible for them to stay down you know so it was just one one of the days where everything was lifting up and you know So everybody had zero points on that day, except this one pilot. It was a lady pilot who took off and bombed out. So she got minimum points, and she actually won the task on the day. It was quite insane. Well, put your best foot

Aninder: forward, and then everything falls in place. I think that's what happened with that pilot. But I think with that, we have come to a wrap on this episode. And it sounds like a bliss to me, as we said in the beginning, that this place will definitely bring out the best in you and enhance your skills. Airspace seems to be another such point where in Europe, you're like, oh my God, I have to keep on bopping up and down. And any of the skies in Indian subcontinent or in these countries are such a bliss to fly in because of these freedoms. But I think, Wes, for the

remaining information, people can probably hop onto the page CivilComps and contact you or the WhatsApp group, as you said. I think we can provide all of that in the show notes description, if you can send me the links later on. yeah i'll do that and i want to add for everybody who's

Vistasp Kharas: listening in that you know we have a special early bird discount which is getting over soon on the 9th of this month so you know register and and pay up quickly to avail of this it's it's a super discount i think 17 000 indian rupees probably the cheapest car in the world at the moment

Aninder: Definitely. I rarely come across European comps which cost less than 300 euros. So this place, good food, amazing flying conditions, and not a bang. I mean, basically, it's a bang on the buck and not burning a hole in your pocket. Six weeks, six days of endless fun, I believe, that shouldn't hold back anyone. Sounds like a bliss. All right, Miz, on that note, thank you so much for joining us. Do send us your links so our listeners can contact you. And from Paragliding Atlas, thank you and wish you best of luck for this competition. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Andy.