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Would You Do It Again?

Yesterday, on a cross-country course, you slammed the 100 km mark you’d been waiting for so long. It was a great feeling. But today, from the same take-off, with the same flying conditions, but without the shepherd of the flock to guide you, left to your own devices and skills, would you do that 100 km on your own again? In fact, what did you really produce yesterday, what did you really learn yesterday, did you really become a better pilot?

Distance in XC courses, for what purpose?

Once you’ve obtained your pilot’s license, which corresponds to the blue level of the FFVL’s free flight passport, the training courses on offer to move on to the confirmed license and the contents of the brown level are reduced to cross-country courses and SIV courses. The latter are perfectly formatted, with an identified progression, and supervised by specialists with a sharp eye. What about the former, the famous cross-country courses?

For an instructor, cross-country courses are a source of personal commitment. They require a certain level of riding skills, which not everyone, not even all professionals, can achieve. They also drain energy. In fact, they represent an insurmountable challenge. Because on these courses, the birds leave the nest and are exposed to more sustained thermal conditions, longer flight times and the discovery of air routes. In short, it’s a leap into the unknown of your limits as a pilot, into the absolute uncertainty of our activity, and a good pro can’t like that. They lead to increased exposure to danger, which an instructor may legitimately prefer not to have to bear. In that case, he’ll prefer to earn his living more or less peacefully by instructing up to blue level, and that’s already a source of a fair amount of stress.

Pedagogical content for cross-country courses

So what’s to be done? Should we give up on cross-country training, particularly because of those pesky risks that are so often thrown into the mix? No, quite the opposite. Our ambition should be to train pilots. To train them to deal with reality, to educate so as to understand, to train so as to know how, to practice so as to gain experience. To provide educational content without selling meaningless kilometers. This is one of the great ambitions of Aquilae – Performance Paragliding Academy, to enable independent pilots to continue their progression.

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