Infinity Paragliding

Which of the twenty-one days do you think hands you the call?

Ask around and the answer comes back as day twenty-one, the day the licence gets signed.

Day one of ours never leaves the ground. Wing anatomy, launch, control, stop, flare, and not one flight all day, because the launch is the most dangerous moment of every flight you will ever fly.

People tell me that sounds slow. A whole day on the grass when they came here to get airborne.

So I ask them what they want to be holding on day twenty-two, standing on a hill with nobody from the school beside them.

The answer is never a logbook. It is being able to look at a morning and know.

That is what the sequence hands over, one day at a time. Training hill under radio. Coronet Peak at 1,177 metres on day three. Then five flights a day while the meteorology runs underneath all of it. The licence is not issued at 34 flights. It is issued when the calls are already yours.

Go back through the last course you paid for and count the days that handed you a decision of your own.

Put that number in the comments and I will tell you what it is missing.

Bookings for the next twenty-one day cohort open on 10 October.

P.S. Which day was yours?

Another amazing woman of Aviation - We salute you Choppy !!!

In honour of 40 years of Over The Top, we'd like to reintroduce you to the woman who started it all.

Louisa Patterson, aka Choppy, founded Over The Top in the mid-80s with a simple idea: to share New Zealand's most remote and breathtaking places by helicopter.

Four decades on, she and our pilots have taken thousands of visitors to some of Aotearoa's most extraordinary places.

Her flying career now spans nearly fifty years, and along the way, she's earned multiple prestigious safety awards, become Vice President of the New Zealand Helicopter Association, and continues to push aviation safety forward through the Eye In The Sky project.

We're not sure how she can top this, but we have no doubt she will 🙌

📷:

One of my mates died last week. A heart attack. Nobody saw it coming and nobody could have.

Years ago I lost my best friend Tim, so I already know the shape of the next few months.

What keeps coming back is smaller than I expected it to be. There is no later. There is only the thing you keep meaning to do, and whether you got to it.

My mum taught me that if you want something, you go out and get it. I never once heard that as a deadline. I do now.

Fly 100 hours. Then you are ready? A pilot on r/freeflight called that advice gatekeeping, and he was right.

I have watched pilots arrive at Coronet Peak with a full logbook and no process, because every hour in it was flown on a day somebody else cleared.

So I ask them one thing. Tell me about the last call you made on your own, and tell me why you made it.

Most cannot finish the sentence. Not because they are careless. Because nobody ever asked them for the because. The hours were real. The decisions belonged to an instructor.

That is what the twenty-one days are built around. Day three you are on Coronet Peak at 1,177 metres for your first solo, and by then you have already given me your go or no-go out loud, with a reason, on every day before it.

Keep logging hours. Just make sure each one holds a decision you made yourself.

Comment HOURS for the Digital School waitlist.

I get asked if paragliding is safe more than anything else.

It is the wrong question, and I still answer it.

The sport is not safe or unsafe. Neither is the weather. The safety is one pilot reading one day and making a clear go or no-go call.

So ask a school how they teach that call, and listen to how long the answer takes.

ADVANCE Paragliders TAU DLS En/C 2 liner

When two respected independent voices in the paragliding community put the TAU DLS to the test, we’re keen to hear the verdict. 🪂💬

“The TAU is a beautiful glider that strikes the balance between high performance and smooth handling. From its excellent launch behaviour and efficient climb to its glide performance, the TAU is easy to control for experienced pilots — even in rough conditions.”
— Ziad Bassil, independent paragliding reviewer

“A performance-focused two-liner that undoubtedly ranks among the very best in the EN-C class.”
— THERMIK Magazin

Two reviews. One clear picture: the TAU DLS means serious performance without compromising on precision and control.

👉 Discover the full reviews:

Video review Ziad Bassil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsoUmFirxrU

THERMIK Magazin: https://thermik.cloud/

DOC National Conservation Policy Statement – Have Your Say

The NZHGPA has lodged one of the most important national land space submissions in our Association's history.

The proposed DOC National Conservation Policy Statement will shape how recreational non-motorised foot-launched hang gliders and paragliders are treated on public conservation land for years to come. It is also a unique opportunity to address the policy issues that have impacted our DOC concession application for the past six years.
https://www.doc.govt.nz/get-involved/have-your-say/all-consultations/2026-consultations/proposals-for-new-national-direction-for-conservation

Now we need your support.

Please take one of the following actions before Monday 10 August 2026:

Sign the HG/PG_Submission_National Conservation Policy Statement Jotform Submission, or;
https://form.jotform.com/262158007178862

Read the NZHGPA Submission and lodge your own submission supporting the Association's position.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t2RcVD9j631zeMkJJGW-gvEs-w5vHCVD/view

Email your submission to: [email protected]

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to influence national policy. If we don't speak up now, it could be many years before another opportunity arises.

Please read the NZHGPA Submission , share the HG/PG Submission Jotform link with other pilots, and make your voice heard. Every submission strengthens our case and helps secure future access to fly from DOC controlled NZ public land.

NZHGPA_NCPS_submission 5 Aug 2026 .pdf

🪂 The Day I Fell From the Sky and Found Something Better

Last October, I travelled to a special place in Turkey called Ölüdeniz — the Mediterranean Sea, right next to a mountain, where paraglider pilots go to learn the most daring moves in the sky.
I was there to learn something called the infinite tumble — where your paraglider spins end over end, over and over, like a wheel rolling through the clouds.
Every single morning, I went to the top of the launch. And every single morning, a little voice inside me whispered... are you sure about this?
I had a boat on the water below me. A life jacket. A radio. An instructor watching every move. I had everything I needed to be safe.
But fear? Fear doesn't care about safety equipment. It just holds on tight.
Some of my flights were magical. Some were a mess. It was like a rollercoaster — some runs I felt like a superhero, others I felt like I had no idea what I was doing.
Then came the last morning.
One flight — perfect. Clean entry. Beautiful tumble. Smooth exit. I felt unstoppable.
The very next flight... I made a mistake. My glider tangled. It folded badly. I couldn't fly it home. So I did what pilots train for — I threw my emergency parachute and floated down into the lake below.
The boat came. They pulled me out. I sat on dry land, soaking wet, heart pounding.
And I smiled.
Because in that moment, I understood something important:
It was never about learning the infinite tumble.
It was about becoming the kind of person who goes to the top of the mountain, hears the fear, and goes anyway.
That's the real journey. Not the destination. The person you become on the way there. 🌄