FlyNirvana BLOG

The wind at Shelar was bang on this weekend and conditions were buoyant not just by the ridge but all over and it was possible to sail about for hours on end. After some floating about, exploring different areas of lift and going where i pleased i headed out to land by the  car park   Colin landed soon after me and Rushikesh came in next. I sat quietly on a rock  watching the sun slip behind the hills and the paragliders fade in the dying light. Soon Sanjay came by on the bike after the training session was done and we headed back home to Native Place.

Joel a gregarios Belgian pilot visited us for the first time and made the most of the lifting conditions. Arvind and Sam came over after a long break from flying and got started once more on the ground handling field. Hiren tells me that Sunday was a good day too with many gliders in the air and lift everywhere.

 Peace Bliss & Happy Landings

Astrid Rao

Sanjay Rao Nirvana Adventures

Hi All,

The east west transition is complete and we now have a consistent west wind blowing every afternoon. Flying at Shelar is on as usual.  Here are the highlights of the last few weeks.

Mother, daughter & hammock:

Captain Shyam came for the weekend in the begining of the month. At that point we were still moving between Tower Hill and Shelar. While he was away flying Anisha and Anaya enjoy a peaceful relaxed afternoon at Native Place. 

A very special flying lesson at Native Place:   

A Pair of fledgling  bulbulls fall out of their nest in the bamboo growing inside the central courtyard at Native Place and a few of us  get to witness their parents give them thier first flying lesson.

Welcome back Michael:  

Michael is back in Kamshet once more from Hong Kong along with Ian, Mark and Ben. Shelar Mama was mighty pleased to see an old familiar face and greets him with his inimitable gusto.

Nirvana’s Air force and civilian training continues to run through the month: 

EP and CP batches in progress for the air force during the weke and all you wonderful people on weekends. 

Peace Bliss & Happy Landings

Astrid Rao

Nirvana Adventures

 Waiting for the wind - Kate, Anna, Consuelo, Steve, Chico and Asa and Anita I spent the entire month and more traveling all over the county – Coimbatore, Mysore, Bangalore, Gwalior and Delhi and missed out on all the fun and action happening back at Kamshet .  Everybody parked at Native Place was making merry with the great conditions at Tower Hill and flying back home to Native Place consistently through the week.Pushkar told me It was a common sight to see Dag in the garden in the middle of the afternoon packing his glider and chilling with a bottle of beer or to spot Sammy coming in with loads of height doing helicos and SAT’s over the lake, or to spot Steve making it home in tandem and  Vinya, Sandeep  Bandya and Ravi bringing up the rear.Happy Days Astrid Rao Nirvana Adventures

It was a solemn day for Mumba. People had gadhered  to remember the day in cities all over the country.  As I  quietly watched the emotional gatheings  on TV that night our pilot friends from Sweden  had arrived into Mumbai and begun their  journey from the airport to Kamshet.  Last year too, same date same time they landed at the Mumbai International  Airport and were transferred without incident to peaceful Kamshet as the city rocked with terror and confusion. On reading about it from quiet Kamshet it felt as if it was just a bad dream. The reaality of the situation excaped no one but life goes on and we must continue to have faith , to live and fly and that is exactly what they did.  Welcome back pilots!Astrid & Sanjay Rao Nirvana Adventures

We welcome Dag Ivar Hansen back once more to enjoy the air at Kamshet and the company of his pals at Nirvana Adventures & Native Place. This year he is joined by Rolf Dale, Luis Fonseca, Frode Fester, Dag Morten Synstad, Stig Petter Kalsen Kjetil Åsbakk and Ruth Rørvik also from Norway.They rocked the air on their first flying day at Shelar with Rolf and Louis aka Mickey Mouse doing a variety of synchronized acro maneuvers.I must confess that the finer nuances of the maneuvers eluded me and with my heart pounding just watching their antics I was just too slow to capture the excitement on camera.Here’s an excerpt from Mickey Mouse’s log:

YIHAAAAAAAAA Finally, summer, thermals, altitude, beer, smiles and FLYING!!!Rolf and me got up high, SAT, Helico, SAT2Helico, Tumble, WingOvers.Still rusty after a long winter, new glider, new site.Can it get better?N O P E

Peace Bliss & Happy Landings Astrid Rao Nirvana Adventures

Those of you who have been lurking in the Kamshet skies for a while now will have met Dinesh and Rahel who were regulars at Nirvana Adventures and the Kamshet flying scene since before 2000’ they upped and left for Switzerland a few years ago and are here on holiday. It is great to fly and catch up with old friends Doc is here too people. After saying goodbye to him in Bir in October he has made a long road trip visiting all the bird sanctuaries on the way and is presently parked at Native Place making the most of the thermals going off at Tower Hill. Have seen pix of his site at Pipalkoti and all I can say is hats off to him for his determination and passion.

As I mentioned on the face book group the conditions for the past week have fluctuated drastically from strong winds blowing all day to weak no lift conditions.I managed some long soaring flights lasting between 1 and 2.5 hours although the compression tried its best to keep me from taking off.Visiting pilots Carlo and Nancy of Fly Bubble UK came in time for one strong wind soaring day and then the conditions changed face giving them the light wind, thermic conditions that they had wished for.Witnessing them milk the conditions and make the most of each consecutive day was an inspiring experience and I simply had to share Carlo’s flying notes with you.Carlo writes -The first day we flew from Tower Hill. At first it was a little onthe windy side (we wanted some nice easy flying for our firstflights) but we enjoyed watching the ‘Acro’ brothers from Austria,and others, showing off for a few hours whilst we para-waited. Wethen enjoyed a very nice late evening soaring flight after thewind abated (a little). Our first flights in India – hooray!For the next days the wind was generally less, starting with asoar able breeze at first with weak thermals, then the wind droppedas the inversion broke and we got just what we wanted – lightwinds and good thermals! This was the general pattern for the nextseveral days, with the winds getting lighter and lighter each day,starting East in the morning and turning West by the evening.We got lucky a few times and managed to get up in tricky climbs(sometimes from very low!) to be rewarded with some lovely flyingand small XC flights around Kamshet. I was very lucky and managedto fly around Kamshet on a couple of flights, getting to about1800m ASL (6000ft), and then fly back to Sanjay and Astrid’splace. On another flight I flew about 15km to the East of takeoff,towards Pune, and then – seeing how built up it was in thatdirection – tried to fly back again into wind, landing a few Kmshort of Kamshet.On Christmas day Nancy and I were thermalling together, climbingup to 6000ft above Tower Hill, hollering “Happy Christmas” to eachother and laughing out loud. This was our Christmas present toeach other!I also was fortunate enough to fly at Shelar, and had a beautifulevening soaring flight enjoying the views with Henny, one of thegreat bunch of Dutch pilots who were also in Kamshet at the sametime, also staying at Sanjay and Astrid’s guest house, NativePlace.Carlo & Nancy————————————————————————————-Peace Bliss & Happy Landings all through the New YearAstrid Rao Nirvana Adventures

The hills behind Native Place are an amazing place to walk about. Easy meandering paths through leafy arbors, interesting boulders, caves, streams, sun bleached grasses, stunning views of the lake below and the hills all around as well as the chance to walk about in solitude are some of the things that draw me up here.The lake view site held no great attraction for me because the idea of trekking up with my glider did not sit well with me nor did a cliff launch. On a good day one can gain enough altitude to head out and pilots have made it to Shelar and even to Tower Hill from here but the access to the site is restricted as it is private land.But Philippe our friend from Moustiers Ste Marie who visits us each winter loves the site and asked me to join him for a tandem flight.  Nil wind, committed run’s ( from the both of us) and we were off. Clearing the cliff and watching the ground suddenly disappear was thrilling as was exploring our many favorite paths from the air.We flew with the swifts and swallows in an orange sky. A great landing at Uksaan village followed by interaction with a bunch of curious village kids one of whom came up to ask me if I knew Sanjay Rao :)Peace Bliss & Happy LandingsAstrid Rao Nirvana Adventures

I spent the weekend in Mumbai and felt like my friend Paulo who went back to Italy after flying in India a while ago and messaged me saying his body was in in Italy and his heart was still in India. Well that is exactly how i felt this weekend. I spent thursday through sunday dwelling on flying at towerhill, the wind conditions, the garden at native place and my friends Steve, Suzanne, Severine and Jeremy who were up there while i was out here.I met Severine and Jeremy a Swiss couple who were traveling with a tandem on a flying holdiay in India at Bir this October and was looking forward to catching up with them but sometimes things dont turn out how you want them to.Anyways the picture above is taken by Severine at Tower Hill - I  can see Steve, Sandeep, Robin    and gang from the Swede group and there is Severine sitting below. Nirvana Adventures

As Dylan and I drove up from Mumbai on Friday afternoon a grey cloud hung over the city and followed us up the expressway all the way to Kamshet. It reflected the mood of the city hanging low and despondent over us. The newspaper we were reading did nothing to cheer us and I put it down and called Dwane who was at the guesthouse and he said today is ‘Hemmakvall’.What I asked ? what did you say? Hemmakvall he replied and I disconnected the phone thinking it was a bad connection and I was unable to hear him clearly.It was the Swedish influence – what with a bunch of 18 Swedish pilots living at Native Place and one non flyable day already. They are back for the third time thanks to the wonderful air at Kamshet and the great food at Native Place, they had entered via Mumbai on the morning after the trouble began and were safely ensconced at Native PlaceHemmakvall I found out meant – stay at home and chill and apparently that is exactly what  Dwane and Hiren were doing when we reached Native Place - Cleaning their gliders on the lawn under a cloudy sky, watching the birds and marveling at the strength of the wind as it whipped through the trees making an orchestra all on its own.When Thursday’s strong winds did not do the usual thing of mellowing down in the evening and being hospitable to us pilots they resorted to Plan B –  hemmakvall and what better place to indulge chilling out than at  Native Place. Becca and Joel had come up from the city with Braydon their little son. They too indulged in hemmakvall as you can see from the picture above.But Saturday evening had a surprise in store for us in the form of Sanjay’s impromptu plan – we pulled out all the XS and Kiting wings and drove across to an amazing spit of land for a full on kiting session. The scene was fluid and colorful a very impressionistic sight… 15 or us or more, Indians, Americans, Swedish, and French all sharing one little piece of land and the skies a few feet above. Kiting in strong winds is an exhilarating feeling and collectively our spirits soared. Hiren soon found his newly cleaned glider strongly attracted to a tree but it was rescued by Ravi who is also famed for his tree climbing skills.On Sunday the winds were strong but not that strong. We were expecting it to calm down by the evening and it did. But thick stratocumulus cloud cover restricted the ceiling and flights were low, out and quick – what with a large, long awaited shower that ended the evening activities.To see more pictures of our  kiting by the lake click herePeace Bliss @ Happy LandingsAstrid Rao Nirvana Adventures