From the minute I put the glider bag on my back I’m tasting every one of its sensations. The coarseness of the shoulder straps, the weight pushing down on my back, the extra burn in my thighs on the steps up to launch. Under a heightened tone of quelled excitement everything slows enough to be savoured. I unfold the upside down wing onto the ground, reaching in to grab a wing-tip, feeling the crispy fabric in my fingers and the promise of flight my mind associates with its texture. Stepping backwards, the white underside reveals itself to me and the sky as it unconcertinas out, bold and proud, unashamed of the space it needs. I spread out the other side and wings full scale spikes my anticipation.
My hand slips around the end of the lines, where they are connected to the stitched woven risers that will clip into my harness. Their reassuring strength is rough against my bare fingers. One at a time I clear the lines, untangling them with gentle pulls, or quick jerks, a tinge of pleasure coming from my familiarity with the deft task of judging how to deal with each knot in turn.
To prepare the wing for launch I have to stretch it out fully above the ground, like a kite, and check the lines while it flies. I reach through the collection of coloured lines, grabbing the appropriate ones in each hand, sitting familiarly in between my fingers.
During the launch my right hand will pull the glider up into the air, and I’ll fight to hold my ground against its pull. This is the hand that joins the glider and wind’s conspiracy against me. They will tug me when the wind is strong and I will have to yank them when it’s weak. My left hand is the rein with which I tame the dragon spirit of the wing’s unruly behaviour. It steers, and slows the glider’s eagerness, and when I am caught out or off balance it will save me by killing the wing back to the ground.
The air on the back of my neck guides me to wait for the right cycle of the breeze, just a gust is all I need for now, a few seconds worth. As it comes I start the puppeteering and the openings at the front of the wing catch the breeze, rising, unevenly pulling open adjacent cells, accelerating skywards like leaping salmon vying with each other. The wing stretches out its folds as air snakes sideways in-between the double skin inflating it to form its aerofoil shape. As soon as it’s lifted just clear of the earth and fully unfolded I’m resisting its strong pull, already putting pressure into the reins to hold it and leaning back from it. I scan the fabric, brightness filling my retina, but I’m looking for the lines, each one even and spaced, ordered and un-knotted. The wing’s ready and wants to fly. I’m awed by the thought of this, and have to fight the excitement as much as the wind. I pull in with my rein fully to bring it back down to earth, conceding a step towards it’s pull as it nestles into a neat arc on the ground with the cells all evenly open ready to catch the wind when launching.
I push my hips forwards bringing the caribiner of my harness closer to the lines and clip in with a satisfying click. “You are now the pilot in command of this aircraft”, the distant echo of a voice from my first flight still sends shivers of pride through me as I do this. I loop my hands through the brake handles that I will use after the launch when I’m in flight, and those words feel even more genuine now after a year of flying. I attach the speed bar connections checking they are free, double check my buckles and look at the wing, still in its arc wrapped around me, the leading edge raised into the breeze, the open cells quivering with readiness.
I’m fighting the urge to go now. I’m seconds away from being in the air. The launch will take less than 5 seconds if timed and executed right, but I have to tame the eagerness and pick the right moment or it won’t lift cleanly and I’ll have to abort or risk a dangerous launch.
I nestle myself in the centre of the open wing, breathe, smelling the humidity in the air, and wait for the wind’s cycle to start. The breeze comes and goes and as I feel it rising again I seize the moment and pull to lift the wing, slowly at first, but quickly responding to my touch. With the reins I hold back the speed, stepping into the pull, reducing the pressure, balancing position, velocity, force. My eyes scour for clues of how the wing might chose to misbehave, but any visible signs are pre-empted by my harness’s grip on my shoulder straps telling me to sidestep under the shifting centre.
The glow of knowing its going according to expectation flashes behind my concentration.
The wing is open, off the ground, perfectly curved and rising. I add some pressure to the reins, fighting its urge over shoot. Only in the air can the wing adopt its natural state, smooth, un-creased, a curved shape that is only true to itself in the freedom of the sky. As its pull on my body becomes more vertical than horizontal I release both hands, and pull gently on the handles looped around my wrists, my thumb and fingers open so they can’t slip out. This is the moment when flying takes over from standing; even though I’m still on the ground my weight is now shifting from the ground to the air. I’m entering the sky.
The wing is overhead now. My eyes are looking up, but my concentration is listening the sensations of my body, arms and legs. I spin to face the cliff edge ducking the lines as I turn, stepping towards the ground’s end at the same time, playing with the force of the lines, my speed towards the edge, and the distance before the abyss. I’m sending my weight forwards, towards the drop, committed, pushing towards it, accelerating, sure that speed is now more important to me than the ground under my boots. In two steps my heaving paces have become a smooth fast run oblivious to the discomfort of the leg straps pulling me up into the harness. Against my legs’ push the final release from the ground take the last ounces of my weight from my the soles of my feet and I swing back weightlessly into the harness as the earth’s edge glides past below me and I’m in the air, flying.
Showing posts with label paragliding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paragliding. Show all posts
Friday, 15 October 2010
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Vulture Restaurant
It’s only 20km away but it’s taken us 2 hours to get here, the early start, the amoeba in my stomach, and skipping breakfast has made the motorbike journey tough, but it’s the overnight rains that really slowed progress on Ramji Gautam’s motorbike. The only road that leads to the site of the Vulture Feeding Sanctuary is completely washed out.
For much the tough uphill parts of the journey I’ve had to walk up following the Yamaha scrambling over shale, pebbles and small streams that continue to erode what’s left of the track. In the dry season the road is fine Ramji assures me, small consolation to my sweat ridden body. His effervescent enthusiasm pervades every inconvenience in a way which is characteristically Nepali, and it’s hard not to be drawn into giggling at how close to collapse I am.
It’s at that moment we spot a couple of Egyptian Vultures above us. When perched, their hunched neck gives them a sinister demeanour in keeping with their reputation of untrustworthy carrion eaters. But after an ungraceful launch, once in flight, these birds are the most majestic in the sky. Their wings, stretching up to two metres across, lock into the perfect aerodynamic form, able to take advantage rising air currents with the smallest adjustment of the splayed feathers at the tips and a twist of their fanned tail. Their sizeable weight effortlessly circles up through the mountain terrain, able to cover distance faster and quicker than any other animal as they search quietly for food. Not killing for meat makes vultures one of nature’s few ethical carnivores, and their role in picking clean carcasses prevents the spread of disease in other species, including humans. None the less the unfair Machiavellian reputation persists.
It’s a good job this route is usually easier, because the “Vulture Restaurant”, as Ramji calls it, conjuring images napkined diners tucking silver forks into a vulture soufflé, plans to become self funding by bringing in tourists to watch the birds feeding. Numbers of the enormous and regal White Rumped Vulture have been decreasing over recent years, and the drop is largely attributed to the use of Diclofenac, a miracle anti-inflammatory used by local farmers to cure sick cattle.
On the occasions when the Oxen fails to recover, and dies with Diclofenac in its system, the meat is a toxic cocktail to the vultures that feed on the carcasses left out to be picked clean. The feeding sanctuary has been set up next to a small village near Pokhara, with donations from conservation groups and individuals to provide a safe source of food, to allow the population to recover. Local farmers have been encouraged to use alternatives to Diclofenac, and old cattle is bought for100 rupees (US$1.30) and brought to die in the specially selected area where vultures can feel unthreatened as they tuck in.
Oxen used to pull ploughs, and cows that provide milk, become an expensive burden once they are too old to work, so the farmers are pleased to sell them to the project in a country where the Hindu religion prevents slaughtering the sacred animals.
The Pokhara valley, where the sanctuary is based, is one of the last habitats where the birds can be found in any number according to Brad Sander, a record setting paraglider pilot, who last year flew the width of Nepal and says he didn’t see a single White Rumped vulture until he arrived in Pokhara, half way through his journey.
This anecdotal evidence is largely backed up by the research performed in Bird Conservation Nepal, which shows that White Rumped numbers have declined by 90% in Nepal over the last 11 years. The Royal Society for Protection of Birds has tracked vultures migrating 1000km in a week, happily moving along the Himalaya between Nepal, India and Pakistan, and the drop in numbers is even higher in the studies performed in India.
One reason that the Pokhara valley might be a relatively safe haven for the White Rump, and therefore an ideal site for the sanctuary, is that the local farmers prefer traditional organic cures for their cattle, largely unaware of Diclofenac unless it’s prescribed by a vet. The drug has now been banned for use in cattle thanks to lobbying work by conservation bodies in all the countries where the White Rumpe flies, however its cheapness and efficacy means its use persists illegally in places.
I ask Hari Datta Pokharel, chairman of the village committee set up to administer the sanctuary, what he thinks about foreigners giving money to protect vultures, which in Nepal have the same evil reputation as elsewhere. He tells me that having seen the birds feeding during the pilot stages of the sanctuary he has grown to admire and respect the birds. It’s true that a flock of birds using their wings to wrestling over the meat of a carcass, digging their necks into the heart of it, their heads bathed in drying blood as their sharpened beaks claw away lumps of red flesh, accompanied by the smell of rotting meat and guts filling the air, is a sight to inspire respect. But I would be more convinced if Hari had told me that as long as the project brings in the tourist dollars it promises, he’s happy to feed them old cows.
Ramji believes that other reasons may also be contributing the declining numbers. For several years he’s been studying vultures, performing counts, decoding their behaviour and surveying farmers’ attitudes towards them. His unique expertise is recognised by the university where he lectures as well as the conservation groups that ask him to advise on their projects. The increasing rural population according to Ramji has meant there is less space to dispose of carcasses safely without risking the spread of disease through rats and mice that also feed on the decaying flesh. Health education programmes are advising farmers to bury dead cattle rather than leave them to be cleaned by the birds. Less food means fewer birds, and the larger White Rumped, which need the most food, is perhaps the first to feel this effect. The smaller Red Headed Vulture have also declined in number but not as dramatically as the White Rumped.
Beyond the village is the sanctuary site. I’m faced with a walk down and then back up a 100m cliff. At the bottom I’m shown the cattle shed and the observation hide the villagers have built with the donated money. There are also the bony remains of 3 carcasses, and the dead body of a cow which died just 2 days earlier. The villagers have given over these five hectares of hard to farm land for the sanctuary, bordered on one side by a fast flowing river bend, and on the other by the cliff. On the far side are some old cows grazing, while villagers collect grass and wood around them. I’m panting for breath with every step, looking for a rock to sit on every time we stop. I apologise to Ramji that my stomach bug is slowing me down and he asks if I’ve taken any drugs for it. Not yet. I laugh nervously, realising me that I’ve just passed the sanctuary’s criteria for vulture lunch.
In six weeks the project will officially open its doors, with national and international guests, including key scientists invited to see the facilities, Robi Pokharel, the hands on co-ordinator tells me. His enthusiasm for the project seems more heartfelt than the chairman’s, and he makes no secret of the fact that he wants this to work to bring money into his village.
There are still a few jobs to do over the next week, he tells me in flawless English. The plastering around the observation hide needs to be finished off, along with storm drainage. They need to plumb in a water supply for the visitors, and they have to clear a path to transport the carcasses from the grazing area where they die, to the feeding area. Moving a dead cow over the rocky grassland by hand is no small task and if the carcasses aren’t in the feeding area, not only will the birds feel less comfortable coming to feed, but the tourists in the observation hide won’t be able to see them. Robi tells me he needs a camera so they can photograph the vultures show absent supporters how well the scheme is working.
To the casual observer, there is another problem. The old cattle are feeding on great pasture land, irrigated by the mineral rich glacial river, and far from keeling over after a hard life, they seem to be thriving in retirement. None the less in the four months during construction and pilot stage four cows have already died and been fed to the birds and the heard of fresh meat waiting it’s turn has grown to seven.
Ramji estimates that the meat from one cow would be enough to feed the vulture population for a month, but the birds can’t go a month between feeds and there is no obvious way to butcher or store the meat. The carcasses can remain unnoticed for a few days before the vultures come to feed, and then the feeding is all over in a day. The tight schedule of tourists wanting to see vultures feeding will be tough to co-ordinate with the natural death of a cow and the eagle eye of a hungry vulture. But the project supporters include Scott Mason a falconer, who runs Parahawking, a successful tourist business using trained vultures in Pokhara. His expertise and contacts in the local tourism industry will be crucial in developing the marketing and logistics of the tourist visits.
During our visit Ramji picks over the bones of a carcass pointing out a couple of broken ones. Vultures scrape the bones clean, everything goes, the sinew, the tendons, the fat. All that’s left is the stomach contents, the pristine white bones and the skin which can be sold to leatherworkers, while the bones can be used to make cutlery handles. But vultures don’t break bones when they eat. Dogs and Jackals do that, and unlike vultures, they spread diseases to humans. There’s a risk that if the project is not carefully managed, it could end up feeding the wrong predator.
The sight of a couple of dog-gnawed bones isn’t enough to worry Ramji, and these are precisely the sort of teething troubles which the pilot stage is designed to flush out. The model of using tourism to sustain a conservation project is keeping everyone, the villagers, the donors, and the conservationists motivated, and that gives the project a great chance of rewarding their efforts, and setting an example which could be replicated elsewhere.
When Sita, the wife of the Hindu god Rama was kidnapped, a vulture tried to stop the villains who cut off its wings. When Rama couldn’t find Sita the vulture told him what had happened. As a thank you Rama blessed vultures with the ability to regenerate and 1000 years of life. Ramji tells me that villagers often ask him if vultures, Giddha in Nepali, can really live that long. If this project can be made sustainable it could help regenerate the dwindling vulture population and give the species a chance to live as long as their mythical lifespan.
For much the tough uphill parts of the journey I’ve had to walk up following the Yamaha scrambling over shale, pebbles and small streams that continue to erode what’s left of the track. In the dry season the road is fine Ramji assures me, small consolation to my sweat ridden body. His effervescent enthusiasm pervades every inconvenience in a way which is characteristically Nepali, and it’s hard not to be drawn into giggling at how close to collapse I am.
It’s at that moment we spot a couple of Egyptian Vultures above us. When perched, their hunched neck gives them a sinister demeanour in keeping with their reputation of untrustworthy carrion eaters. But after an ungraceful launch, once in flight, these birds are the most majestic in the sky. Their wings, stretching up to two metres across, lock into the perfect aerodynamic form, able to take advantage rising air currents with the smallest adjustment of the splayed feathers at the tips and a twist of their fanned tail. Their sizeable weight effortlessly circles up through the mountain terrain, able to cover distance faster and quicker than any other animal as they search quietly for food. Not killing for meat makes vultures one of nature’s few ethical carnivores, and their role in picking clean carcasses prevents the spread of disease in other species, including humans. None the less the unfair Machiavellian reputation persists.
It’s a good job this route is usually easier, because the “Vulture Restaurant”, as Ramji calls it, conjuring images napkined diners tucking silver forks into a vulture soufflé, plans to become self funding by bringing in tourists to watch the birds feeding. Numbers of the enormous and regal White Rumped Vulture have been decreasing over recent years, and the drop is largely attributed to the use of Diclofenac, a miracle anti-inflammatory used by local farmers to cure sick cattle.
On the occasions when the Oxen fails to recover, and dies with Diclofenac in its system, the meat is a toxic cocktail to the vultures that feed on the carcasses left out to be picked clean. The feeding sanctuary has been set up next to a small village near Pokhara, with donations from conservation groups and individuals to provide a safe source of food, to allow the population to recover. Local farmers have been encouraged to use alternatives to Diclofenac, and old cattle is bought for100 rupees (US$1.30) and brought to die in the specially selected area where vultures can feel unthreatened as they tuck in.
Oxen used to pull ploughs, and cows that provide milk, become an expensive burden once they are too old to work, so the farmers are pleased to sell them to the project in a country where the Hindu religion prevents slaughtering the sacred animals.
The Pokhara valley, where the sanctuary is based, is one of the last habitats where the birds can be found in any number according to Brad Sander, a record setting paraglider pilot, who last year flew the width of Nepal and says he didn’t see a single White Rumped vulture until he arrived in Pokhara, half way through his journey.
This anecdotal evidence is largely backed up by the research performed in Bird Conservation Nepal, which shows that White Rumped numbers have declined by 90% in Nepal over the last 11 years. The Royal Society for Protection of Birds has tracked vultures migrating 1000km in a week, happily moving along the Himalaya between Nepal, India and Pakistan, and the drop in numbers is even higher in the studies performed in India.
One reason that the Pokhara valley might be a relatively safe haven for the White Rump, and therefore an ideal site for the sanctuary, is that the local farmers prefer traditional organic cures for their cattle, largely unaware of Diclofenac unless it’s prescribed by a vet. The drug has now been banned for use in cattle thanks to lobbying work by conservation bodies in all the countries where the White Rumpe flies, however its cheapness and efficacy means its use persists illegally in places.
I ask Hari Datta Pokharel, chairman of the village committee set up to administer the sanctuary, what he thinks about foreigners giving money to protect vultures, which in Nepal have the same evil reputation as elsewhere. He tells me that having seen the birds feeding during the pilot stages of the sanctuary he has grown to admire and respect the birds. It’s true that a flock of birds using their wings to wrestling over the meat of a carcass, digging their necks into the heart of it, their heads bathed in drying blood as their sharpened beaks claw away lumps of red flesh, accompanied by the smell of rotting meat and guts filling the air, is a sight to inspire respect. But I would be more convinced if Hari had told me that as long as the project brings in the tourist dollars it promises, he’s happy to feed them old cows.
Ramji believes that other reasons may also be contributing the declining numbers. For several years he’s been studying vultures, performing counts, decoding their behaviour and surveying farmers’ attitudes towards them. His unique expertise is recognised by the university where he lectures as well as the conservation groups that ask him to advise on their projects. The increasing rural population according to Ramji has meant there is less space to dispose of carcasses safely without risking the spread of disease through rats and mice that also feed on the decaying flesh. Health education programmes are advising farmers to bury dead cattle rather than leave them to be cleaned by the birds. Less food means fewer birds, and the larger White Rumped, which need the most food, is perhaps the first to feel this effect. The smaller Red Headed Vulture have also declined in number but not as dramatically as the White Rumped.
Beyond the village is the sanctuary site. I’m faced with a walk down and then back up a 100m cliff. At the bottom I’m shown the cattle shed and the observation hide the villagers have built with the donated money. There are also the bony remains of 3 carcasses, and the dead body of a cow which died just 2 days earlier. The villagers have given over these five hectares of hard to farm land for the sanctuary, bordered on one side by a fast flowing river bend, and on the other by the cliff. On the far side are some old cows grazing, while villagers collect grass and wood around them. I’m panting for breath with every step, looking for a rock to sit on every time we stop. I apologise to Ramji that my stomach bug is slowing me down and he asks if I’ve taken any drugs for it. Not yet. I laugh nervously, realising me that I’ve just passed the sanctuary’s criteria for vulture lunch.
In six weeks the project will officially open its doors, with national and international guests, including key scientists invited to see the facilities, Robi Pokharel, the hands on co-ordinator tells me. His enthusiasm for the project seems more heartfelt than the chairman’s, and he makes no secret of the fact that he wants this to work to bring money into his village.
There are still a few jobs to do over the next week, he tells me in flawless English. The plastering around the observation hide needs to be finished off, along with storm drainage. They need to plumb in a water supply for the visitors, and they have to clear a path to transport the carcasses from the grazing area where they die, to the feeding area. Moving a dead cow over the rocky grassland by hand is no small task and if the carcasses aren’t in the feeding area, not only will the birds feel less comfortable coming to feed, but the tourists in the observation hide won’t be able to see them. Robi tells me he needs a camera so they can photograph the vultures show absent supporters how well the scheme is working.
To the casual observer, there is another problem. The old cattle are feeding on great pasture land, irrigated by the mineral rich glacial river, and far from keeling over after a hard life, they seem to be thriving in retirement. None the less in the four months during construction and pilot stage four cows have already died and been fed to the birds and the heard of fresh meat waiting it’s turn has grown to seven.
Ramji estimates that the meat from one cow would be enough to feed the vulture population for a month, but the birds can’t go a month between feeds and there is no obvious way to butcher or store the meat. The carcasses can remain unnoticed for a few days before the vultures come to feed, and then the feeding is all over in a day. The tight schedule of tourists wanting to see vultures feeding will be tough to co-ordinate with the natural death of a cow and the eagle eye of a hungry vulture. But the project supporters include Scott Mason a falconer, who runs Parahawking, a successful tourist business using trained vultures in Pokhara. His expertise and contacts in the local tourism industry will be crucial in developing the marketing and logistics of the tourist visits.
During our visit Ramji picks over the bones of a carcass pointing out a couple of broken ones. Vultures scrape the bones clean, everything goes, the sinew, the tendons, the fat. All that’s left is the stomach contents, the pristine white bones and the skin which can be sold to leatherworkers, while the bones can be used to make cutlery handles. But vultures don’t break bones when they eat. Dogs and Jackals do that, and unlike vultures, they spread diseases to humans. There’s a risk that if the project is not carefully managed, it could end up feeding the wrong predator.
The sight of a couple of dog-gnawed bones isn’t enough to worry Ramji, and these are precisely the sort of teething troubles which the pilot stage is designed to flush out. The model of using tourism to sustain a conservation project is keeping everyone, the villagers, the donors, and the conservationists motivated, and that gives the project a great chance of rewarding their efforts, and setting an example which could be replicated elsewhere.
When Sita, the wife of the Hindu god Rama was kidnapped, a vulture tried to stop the villains who cut off its wings. When Rama couldn’t find Sita the vulture told him what had happened. As a thank you Rama blessed vultures with the ability to regenerate and 1000 years of life. Ramji tells me that villagers often ask him if vultures, Giddha in Nepali, can really live that long. If this project can be made sustainable it could help regenerate the dwindling vulture population and give the species a chance to live as long as their mythical lifespan.
Monday, 14 June 2010
Digital Displacement
Driving through mountains is a huge frustration for me. I use so much fuel going up, and wear out the brakes when going down.
I’ve been thinking that the perfect vehicle for paragliding should have a system of regenerative braking, which turns the energy from braking back into useable energy to push you along and up the hills.
The only way to do this, that I was familiar with, was to use an electric drive train, where the motor on the wheels can be used as a generator which slows the vehicle down and charges the battery.
Many trains have a diesel electric drive train, in which a diesel generator creates the electricity which drives a motor connected to the wheels. This seems like an unnecessarily complicated approach; when you have a diesel engine spinning away, it would seem to be more logical to connect it to the wheels rather than a generator connected to a motor connected to wheels.
In fact diesel-electric is more efficient, because there are less transmission losses (there’s no gearbox) and it allows the diesel engine to run at the speed where it is most efficient. Diesel engines are very inefficient outside a narrow rev range.
So the obvious answer is diesel-electric hybrid truck, or in my case veg-electric hybrid, with regenerative braking. I could take the gearbox out, and attach a generator in its place, then attach a motor to the differential at the back where the drive shaft would be. The Toyota Prius is able to capture and reuse about 50% of the braking energy.
Unfortunately the components required to control and power manage an electric vehicle are hugely expensive, and fitting them is much more complicated than just bolting on some off the shelf parts. But in theory it could improve the efficiency significantly, and I’d love to give it a try, because if there is one thing this bus is missing, it’s efficiency.
Last month Iain got in touch through Facebook and told me about "Digital Displacement" technology which I’d describe as a “diesel-hydraulic” hybrid system. Instead of a generator, a hydraulic pump is attached to the engine. This then creates hydraulic pressure, which can be stored in a pressure tank full of nitrogen or directed to a hydraulic motor attached to the wheels. The clever part of the system, which has been designed by Artemis Intelligent Power in Scotland, is the fast reacting valves that control how the hydraulic pressure is directed. The valves make the motor much more efficient than anything that’s gone before. The system is computer controlled, so that it acts as a variable speed gearbox. The engine always runs at optimum revs for the power required to move the truck along, and the speed is computer controlled by distributing the pressure to the sophisticated drive motor.
But best of all, the flow of pressure can be revered. The motor can be turned into a brake converting the energy from slowing the truck down into hydraulic pressure, which is stored and subsequently used to drive the car again. It’s much more efficient than an electric regenerative system, capturing and reusing 85% of the braking energy, because moving and storing energy at the high rate a braking vehicle generates it, is easier to do with hydraulic pressure than it is with the high currents generated and the batteries of an electrical system.
It’s a system that’s ideal for vehicles in stop-start driving scenarios, and the best energy savings will be on large vehicles, for instance bin-lorries and busses. Currently the technology has been sold to Bosch-Rexroth who will no doubt trial and develop reliable components first for this heavy vehicle market and then hopefully roll it out for smaller vehicles like cars if the energy and cost savings can be shown to be worthwhile.
There are other advantages over diesel-electric too. The components are lighter, and there isn’t the associated environmental impact of battery manufacture and ultra-capacitors burning out.
Using this gearbox on a large saloon car, Artemis have shown certified fuel savings of around 40%. This is one of those rare technologies that make a massive leap forward. In principle it’s a technology that can be retro fitted to any vehicle, especially trucks. I’ve been in touch with Artemis to ask if they have any components I could trial. The answer was an understandably lukewarm no, but I'm going to persist. This is prototype stuff and I suspect they don't have a license for road going vehicles anymore. I’m trying to get hold of people at Bosch to ask them too but I doubt they will want to let me test out the technology at this early stage, when they have everything to lose if prototype components are seen to go wrong.
The energy storage capacity needed to capture the energy of braking when driving down through mountains is much bigger than that for stop-go traffic so I’m still unclear how big the pressure tank would need to be to make the best use from the slow ongoing breaking energy of my 6 tonne truck descending from the Himalayas.
At the very least I hope the next Biotruck, Biotruck III, will be a Veg-Hydraulic hybrid designed for a tour of the world’s mountains.
I’ve been thinking that the perfect vehicle for paragliding should have a system of regenerative braking, which turns the energy from braking back into useable energy to push you along and up the hills.
The only way to do this, that I was familiar with, was to use an electric drive train, where the motor on the wheels can be used as a generator which slows the vehicle down and charges the battery.
Many trains have a diesel electric drive train, in which a diesel generator creates the electricity which drives a motor connected to the wheels. This seems like an unnecessarily complicated approach; when you have a diesel engine spinning away, it would seem to be more logical to connect it to the wheels rather than a generator connected to a motor connected to wheels.
In fact diesel-electric is more efficient, because there are less transmission losses (there’s no gearbox) and it allows the diesel engine to run at the speed where it is most efficient. Diesel engines are very inefficient outside a narrow rev range.
So the obvious answer is diesel-electric hybrid truck, or in my case veg-electric hybrid, with regenerative braking. I could take the gearbox out, and attach a generator in its place, then attach a motor to the differential at the back where the drive shaft would be. The Toyota Prius is able to capture and reuse about 50% of the braking energy.
Unfortunately the components required to control and power manage an electric vehicle are hugely expensive, and fitting them is much more complicated than just bolting on some off the shelf parts. But in theory it could improve the efficiency significantly, and I’d love to give it a try, because if there is one thing this bus is missing, it’s efficiency.
Last month Iain got in touch through Facebook and told me about "Digital Displacement" technology which I’d describe as a “diesel-hydraulic” hybrid system. Instead of a generator, a hydraulic pump is attached to the engine. This then creates hydraulic pressure, which can be stored in a pressure tank full of nitrogen or directed to a hydraulic motor attached to the wheels. The clever part of the system, which has been designed by Artemis Intelligent Power in Scotland, is the fast reacting valves that control how the hydraulic pressure is directed. The valves make the motor much more efficient than anything that’s gone before. The system is computer controlled, so that it acts as a variable speed gearbox. The engine always runs at optimum revs for the power required to move the truck along, and the speed is computer controlled by distributing the pressure to the sophisticated drive motor.
But best of all, the flow of pressure can be revered. The motor can be turned into a brake converting the energy from slowing the truck down into hydraulic pressure, which is stored and subsequently used to drive the car again. It’s much more efficient than an electric regenerative system, capturing and reusing 85% of the braking energy, because moving and storing energy at the high rate a braking vehicle generates it, is easier to do with hydraulic pressure than it is with the high currents generated and the batteries of an electrical system.
It’s a system that’s ideal for vehicles in stop-start driving scenarios, and the best energy savings will be on large vehicles, for instance bin-lorries and busses. Currently the technology has been sold to Bosch-Rexroth who will no doubt trial and develop reliable components first for this heavy vehicle market and then hopefully roll it out for smaller vehicles like cars if the energy and cost savings can be shown to be worthwhile.
There are other advantages over diesel-electric too. The components are lighter, and there isn’t the associated environmental impact of battery manufacture and ultra-capacitors burning out.
Using this gearbox on a large saloon car, Artemis have shown certified fuel savings of around 40%. This is one of those rare technologies that make a massive leap forward. In principle it’s a technology that can be retro fitted to any vehicle, especially trucks. I’ve been in touch with Artemis to ask if they have any components I could trial. The answer was an understandably lukewarm no, but I'm going to persist. This is prototype stuff and I suspect they don't have a license for road going vehicles anymore. I’m trying to get hold of people at Bosch to ask them too but I doubt they will want to let me test out the technology at this early stage, when they have everything to lose if prototype components are seen to go wrong.
The energy storage capacity needed to capture the energy of braking when driving down through mountains is much bigger than that for stop-go traffic so I’m still unclear how big the pressure tank would need to be to make the best use from the slow ongoing breaking energy of my 6 tonne truck descending from the Himalayas.
At the very least I hope the next Biotruck, Biotruck III, will be a Veg-Hydraulic hybrid designed for a tour of the world’s mountains.
Saturday, 29 May 2010
The Reality of Dreams and Packaging Accomplishment
I was browsing the net looking at a long distance rowers’ website recently. They are currently embarked on the final stage of a 3 part journey across the pacific. Over the 3 stages the stated public aim of the journey seems to have shifted, from raising awareness of environmental issues to encouraging others to achieve their personal potential.
I’m always hugely cynical of projects which excuse themselves by “raising awareness of climate change”. Especially ones that require massive CO2 emissions to carry out this awareness raising. It’s a pretty rare corner of the world where people aren’t “aware”. However the media love this simplistic purpose and if you want the sponsors you have to play to the media’s tune.
My journeys have changed their stated purpose too over time. The chocolate powered lorry expedition was “the first ever carbon neutral expedition”. I’ve since come to hate the term carbon neutral with a passion. Short of sitting in a cold dark room holding your breath it’s pretty hard to do anything that’s carbon neutral. Every activity has some energy and CO2 or other Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission associated with it in some way. Don't get me started on the smoke and mirrors, and ethical subterfuge which goes by the name of offsetting. The planets systems can cope with some GHG’s so the aim is not to be carbon neutral, it’s to emit only as much as the planet can cope with. As it turns out that isn’t much but it is more than zero or neutrality.
Carping on about carbon neutrality is really unhelpful, because it’s an unachievable and unnecessary goal, like a five year old wanting to count to infinity. Count to a million, that’s enough.
A journalist friend of mine shared his theory on why the British respect these endurance athletes that perform these essentially unnecessary challenges in the name of saving the planet/inspiring others/any other equally pious reason. According to him, it’s down to the private school system which developed during the empire to create administrators that could go to the far reaches of Britannia, and endure the hardship. Getting a ruddy good hiding, wearing shorts through winter, single sex segregation, makes one into a jolly good chap. And these values have remained important to the British, and are at the heart of why rowers, polar explorers, mountaineers, jungle craft experts, the WWF Ambassador that just swam through lake Everest this week (to raise awareness for Climate change – Really, is it changing?) e.t.c. are so revered.
Playing up to this persona also lands you the cushy corporate speaking gigs, of which I’ve done a few myself, and let me tell you it’s the easiest money I’ve ever made. You talk for 20-40 minutes about what you’ve done and package it in a way that makes it relevant to your audience. I enjoy researching the crowd, and finding a way to make it relevant, but apart from that, the hardest part of the job is finding the venues with the appalling directions they invariably give you. (“Well you are an explorer, I’m sure you can find it”, Yes but I’m not a mind reader.) I really enjoy it, and I’m pretty good at it. I’ve had standing ovations, and I’ve had sober, intelligent adults ask me for my autograph!
High profile explorers charge “Ellen McArthur Money” as I once heard it described. £10-15,000 for an inspirational talk, but even those on “Andy Pag money” can get £1000 for 30minutes work. So there is an interest in managing your media profile to fit in with Britannia cliché of the explorer because it gets you on to the books with the agents. Maybe the Andy Pag money will go up now that I’ve been in prison. People love to hear about that. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out how to package that experience into a few pithy anecdotes just yet. It’s still way too raw. There’s a process of sanitation, and post rationalisation that needs to happen between the adventure and the inspiring tale.
With this in mind I tuned into the rower’s YouTube promo video for their corporate speaking, ready to cynically pick them apart, but instead I was really inspired, and got a better understanding of why I want to be here on this journey, based on their retrospective musings and what they’d learnt.
A few things they said really hit home; firstly forgiving themselves for mistakes early in the challenge, because the person that made those mistakes didn’t know any better, and that person didn’t exist anymore, having grown into the new better person as a result of those mistakes. Also when things went wrong they came to think of it as a success, because they’d set out to leave their comfort zone and things going wrong meant they’d achieved that.
I can really relate to that. Part of my survivalist Britannia mentality is to see exactly how deep of a shitpile I can climb out of and still smell of roses, because being able to do that gives me the confidence to deal with any life choice I make, and therefore the freedom to choose any life I want.
Meanwhile I’m hanging out with the tandem pilots at Frontiers Paragliding, and the more I speak with them the more I realise these guys are literally among the best pilots in the world. They include the altitude record holder, an ace aerial photographer and the team that attempted the trans-Himalayan Odyssey. It’s the most exciting and adventurous end of the sport. These guys are the Top Gun of paragliding. They live the sort of free life, travelling to fly and work, that would inspire so many that don’t have the courage to break from the familiar.
But the most inspiring part of their life for me, is seeing that their day to day reality is just as full of shit as anyone else’s. They get all pissy about the working conditions, and the people they have to work with. They are continuously skint, spending as fast as they earn, they bitch that they haven’t had a break in months and are sick of eating this foreign food. But deep down they know they are living a charmed life. Importantly it’s a charmed life which no one has handed them on a plate, it’s a life they’ve chosen to take for themselves, putting up with all the discomforts along the way. Those discomforts may by now have been transformed into pithy anecdotes, but at the time they were thankless moments of hardship.
Their inspirational life stories are available for the price of a beer, and a plane ticket to Pokhara.
I’m always hugely cynical of projects which excuse themselves by “raising awareness of climate change”. Especially ones that require massive CO2 emissions to carry out this awareness raising. It’s a pretty rare corner of the world where people aren’t “aware”. However the media love this simplistic purpose and if you want the sponsors you have to play to the media’s tune.
My journeys have changed their stated purpose too over time. The chocolate powered lorry expedition was “the first ever carbon neutral expedition”. I’ve since come to hate the term carbon neutral with a passion. Short of sitting in a cold dark room holding your breath it’s pretty hard to do anything that’s carbon neutral. Every activity has some energy and CO2 or other Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission associated with it in some way. Don't get me started on the smoke and mirrors, and ethical subterfuge which goes by the name of offsetting. The planets systems can cope with some GHG’s so the aim is not to be carbon neutral, it’s to emit only as much as the planet can cope with. As it turns out that isn’t much but it is more than zero or neutrality.
Carping on about carbon neutrality is really unhelpful, because it’s an unachievable and unnecessary goal, like a five year old wanting to count to infinity. Count to a million, that’s enough.
A journalist friend of mine shared his theory on why the British respect these endurance athletes that perform these essentially unnecessary challenges in the name of saving the planet/inspiring others/any other equally pious reason. According to him, it’s down to the private school system which developed during the empire to create administrators that could go to the far reaches of Britannia, and endure the hardship. Getting a ruddy good hiding, wearing shorts through winter, single sex segregation, makes one into a jolly good chap. And these values have remained important to the British, and are at the heart of why rowers, polar explorers, mountaineers, jungle craft experts, the WWF Ambassador that just swam through lake Everest this week (to raise awareness for Climate change – Really, is it changing?) e.t.c. are so revered.
Playing up to this persona also lands you the cushy corporate speaking gigs, of which I’ve done a few myself, and let me tell you it’s the easiest money I’ve ever made. You talk for 20-40 minutes about what you’ve done and package it in a way that makes it relevant to your audience. I enjoy researching the crowd, and finding a way to make it relevant, but apart from that, the hardest part of the job is finding the venues with the appalling directions they invariably give you. (“Well you are an explorer, I’m sure you can find it”, Yes but I’m not a mind reader.) I really enjoy it, and I’m pretty good at it. I’ve had standing ovations, and I’ve had sober, intelligent adults ask me for my autograph!
High profile explorers charge “Ellen McArthur Money” as I once heard it described. £10-15,000 for an inspirational talk, but even those on “Andy Pag money” can get £1000 for 30minutes work. So there is an interest in managing your media profile to fit in with Britannia cliché of the explorer because it gets you on to the books with the agents. Maybe the Andy Pag money will go up now that I’ve been in prison. People love to hear about that. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out how to package that experience into a few pithy anecdotes just yet. It’s still way too raw. There’s a process of sanitation, and post rationalisation that needs to happen between the adventure and the inspiring tale.
With this in mind I tuned into the rower’s YouTube promo video for their corporate speaking, ready to cynically pick them apart, but instead I was really inspired, and got a better understanding of why I want to be here on this journey, based on their retrospective musings and what they’d learnt.
A few things they said really hit home; firstly forgiving themselves for mistakes early in the challenge, because the person that made those mistakes didn’t know any better, and that person didn’t exist anymore, having grown into the new better person as a result of those mistakes. Also when things went wrong they came to think of it as a success, because they’d set out to leave their comfort zone and things going wrong meant they’d achieved that.
I can really relate to that. Part of my survivalist Britannia mentality is to see exactly how deep of a shitpile I can climb out of and still smell of roses, because being able to do that gives me the confidence to deal with any life choice I make, and therefore the freedom to choose any life I want.
Meanwhile I’m hanging out with the tandem pilots at Frontiers Paragliding, and the more I speak with them the more I realise these guys are literally among the best pilots in the world. They include the altitude record holder, an ace aerial photographer and the team that attempted the trans-Himalayan Odyssey. It’s the most exciting and adventurous end of the sport. These guys are the Top Gun of paragliding. They live the sort of free life, travelling to fly and work, that would inspire so many that don’t have the courage to break from the familiar.
But the most inspiring part of their life for me, is seeing that their day to day reality is just as full of shit as anyone else’s. They get all pissy about the working conditions, and the people they have to work with. They are continuously skint, spending as fast as they earn, they bitch that they haven’t had a break in months and are sick of eating this foreign food. But deep down they know they are living a charmed life. Importantly it’s a charmed life which no one has handed them on a plate, it’s a life they’ve chosen to take for themselves, putting up with all the discomforts along the way. Those discomforts may by now have been transformed into pithy anecdotes, but at the time they were thankless moments of hardship.
Their inspirational life stories are available for the price of a beer, and a plane ticket to Pokhara.
Monday, 17 May 2010
The Great Unknown
I did my first solo flight today. Obviously I’ve flown solo before, but this was solo in the sense that there were no other pilots around. I assessed the valley all by myself, and decided it was flyable. A young lad showed me the way up to a tiny launch site, barely big enough to lay out he wing, and below I picked out a number of options for landing fields.
I took off full of nerves, repeating mantra like; better to be on the ground wanting to be in the sky, than in the sky wanting to be on the ground.
Gentle thermal lifted me straight of takeoff but they also dropped me and it was hard for me on my own, with my skill level and with no other wings in the air to show me the currents to really get lift, so I headed out into the valley and there found plenty of turbulent thermals, which pitched and turned me. I was expecting it, but it was stronger than I’d thought so I found an area without lift and headed down and landed in nil wind in the largest unploughed field, edged by low power lines.
All in all a good, brief flight, though there’s a catch-22 that I would have enjoyed this first solo flight more if I’d been with another pilot to share it with.
I used to hitch a lot and in Panchgani I discovered that cross country paragliding requires you to hitchhike in order to get back to where you started. I’m so happy to have rediscovered this old friend. Just like being in turbulent air, where you only have partial control and have to manipulate what the conditions give you, so hitch hiking requires the same relinquishing of control over route, schedule and comfort. I don’t know why I love that so much.
I took off full of nerves, repeating mantra like; better to be on the ground wanting to be in the sky, than in the sky wanting to be on the ground.
Gentle thermal lifted me straight of takeoff but they also dropped me and it was hard for me on my own, with my skill level and with no other wings in the air to show me the currents to really get lift, so I headed out into the valley and there found plenty of turbulent thermals, which pitched and turned me. I was expecting it, but it was stronger than I’d thought so I found an area without lift and headed down and landed in nil wind in the largest unploughed field, edged by low power lines.
All in all a good, brief flight, though there’s a catch-22 that I would have enjoyed this first solo flight more if I’d been with another pilot to share it with.
I used to hitch a lot and in Panchgani I discovered that cross country paragliding requires you to hitchhike in order to get back to where you started. I’m so happy to have rediscovered this old friend. Just like being in turbulent air, where you only have partial control and have to manipulate what the conditions give you, so hitch hiking requires the same relinquishing of control over route, schedule and comfort. I don’t know why I love that so much.
Monday, 5 April 2010
Panchgani Above My Weight
I’m waiting for the Indian Treasury to decide if they can give me back my bail money in cash. They won’t accept my bank card as proof of my UK account details, and they won’t pay the money to someone I nominate, in case that person rips me off. How thoughtful, far better that they keep my bail money safe for me, forever.
So in the meantime I am slowly heading to Delhi hoping to get there in time for this to be sorted, but I certainly don’t want to get there sooner and have to wait it out in the capital. I am using the time to call and email sponsors and fund-raisers in the hope of meeting my €5000 target I need to continue the journey. I’ve already got cash and pledges of €1000 so quietly confident there is a good chance.
I’m also taking full advantage of not having to be anywhere to go paragliding, and at the moment I’m in Panchgani, which is another amazing world class site. It’s great for cross country flying. You set off from one place and hop from one thermal to the next covering huge distances. I’m not that good, and the season has finished so the weather isn’t ideal anymore, but with a lot of patient waiting (nic-named “para-waiting” by pilots) keeping an eagle eye on conditions I and a couple of friends here, Arabind and Chetan, have managed to get some good flights in and improve my skills.
I’m parked at the top of the take off site, so in the morning I can check the windsock streamer from bed. Strawberries and mulberries are in season, and haven’t tired of fruit salad and yogurt for breakfast. There is a 14 year old boy who sells freshly squeezed lemon juice who brings his cart next to the truck around 9am, and we chat in sign language about the wind. He can’t fly but knows well enough when the conditions are good from having watched countless pilots in the past.
The police have clamped down on the un-insured tandem wallahs who offer a 20 minute flight for 2000Rs to the wealthy Pune weekenders, after an accident last week, so we have the launch site to ourselves and instead of having to wrestle for a takeoff slot we’re surrounded by tandem wallahs with nothing better to do but help us lay out our wings and lend their experience to assess the wind.
The rival tandem pilots have to collectively pay some cash to the police, but as the wind is too strong and the tourist season is still a few days away from starting they are holding out before paying up and starting work. On a good day they can earn €400-500, but it’s a short season and most pilots are in endless hock to their backers who paid for their wings and harnesses.
Andre, an expat from Montreal who’s run a campsite here for solo-pilots for 11 years, usually turns up to offer meteorological advice in his drawly French Canadian accent littered with Indian idioms, “Yeah-er, Wat-to-do?”. He’s even run us 3 km down the road in his pick up to another launch site when the wind was backing. There’s a thermal over his campsite which means his windsock regularly points upwards.
The conditions have been unusually strong here, making take off risky and flying even riskier. Landing back on the launch site is a near impossibility in strong winds so the only option is to “land down” in the valley which stretches out 1000ft bellow around the manmade lake and dam.
The black areas of burnt grass provide good sources of thermal air, warmed by the hot ground and sent upwards like the goo in a lava lamp. I’m learning to “core” thermals, finding the centre and circling upwards in it.
For landings, I’ve mostly used the fields zig-zagging around trees and shortening my approach with plenty of brake as the as the terracing cheats me by dropping the ground away from me the further I travel. I’ve landed by the lake a couple of times, and today I took my togs for a swim. After stripping naked in front of non-plussed washer women I then balked at the mirky waters. The ladies shrugged grunts eventually persuaded me in. I didn’t want them to think I was another of these exhibitionist from Mumbai come to flash at the village girls. Usually I catch a local bus which winds up the mountain switchbacks to the cooler air of Panchgani or hitch a ride in a truck that’s going that way.
When I get back I’m greeted by the concerned lemonade boy who asks me where I landed and how the flight was. Nods, grins, hands and pointing, our conversation is completely silent apart from the word “Wind” which can mean strong or weak, depending on the wind.
In the evenings I cycle into town for dinner with Chetan and Arabind, my co-pilots, after washing off the red dust in the bus shower. My water pump has burnt out and I have to take the motor apart to check it, so in the meantime I’m using a bucket filled at the nearby spring. Before bed I sit on one of the benches near the hotel and use their free wifi with the black valley below lit only by a smattering of village lights and the red lines of grass fires spreading up the opposite side.
So as you can imagine , until the bail money is ready, I’m not in any great rush to leave for Delhi to be shunted from one heartless government office to the next.
India is one of the few countries that emits less than 2 tonnes of CO2Te per person, thanks in large part to people like this. At first I’m struck with the thought that if everyone lived like this the global carbon footprint would disappear overnight. Ironically, the famines and mass-migrations which will result from climate change, will result in more people living under tarpaulin tents.
The battle to find sustainable solutions of energy creation and consumption is in many ways more a battle to maintain our standard of living rather than to save the environment. We have to turn unsustainable consumption into a responsible and globally fair use of resources, or expect a reduction in the standards of living we take for granted. Probably we’ll have to do both, and probably we won’t do either enough.
So we, as a planet, could ration energy now and see a drop in our standards of living, or we can take small possibly ineffectual steps which will result in more people living under tarpaulin tents. Those people will probably be from poor countries, because poor countries are typically dependent on agriculture and poor countries are in the tropics where weather patterns are most likely to be affected. In Croydon we will struggle to find Zimbabwean Bok-Choi in Tescos
No one knows with much certainty how much climate change will really impact on agriculture and sea levels, so it’s hard to know how strictly to ration energy now, but not doing it allows richer countries to take advantage of their wealth to exploit global resources, to the detriment of people living in poorer countries (again – see oil, , fishing rights, minerals, diamonds, agricultural land, holiday resorts...).
Wherever I fly I’ve found out about the local agriculture, to know which fields I can land in, and even more importantly I find out about the local weather. Really understand it in detail, how it should be, how it is this minute, and how it changes during the day. Everywhere I’ve been, from Annecy to Panchgani, pilots tell me the weather is unusual for time of year. Maybe it’s me! Or maybe it’s the human nature of pilots to be diffident of the winds, but I believe it’s a sign that weather patterns that are changing, and it makes me feel that the changes will become quite radical.
As long as these gypsies can scavenge pressed sugar cane for their donkeys and don’t have to move in to a city, they’ll be ok. It would be hard for their standards of living to drop further. But in the valley below the fields are all empty at the moment. It’s great for me as it provides endless choices of landing areas. They are waiting for the first signs of the monsoon season to start planting. I wonder if they can afford the irony to call it agri-waiting?
So in the meantime I am slowly heading to Delhi hoping to get there in time for this to be sorted, but I certainly don’t want to get there sooner and have to wait it out in the capital. I am using the time to call and email sponsors and fund-raisers in the hope of meeting my €5000 target I need to continue the journey. I’ve already got cash and pledges of €1000 so quietly confident there is a good chance.
I’m also taking full advantage of not having to be anywhere to go paragliding, and at the moment I’m in Panchgani, which is another amazing world class site. It’s great for cross country flying. You set off from one place and hop from one thermal to the next covering huge distances. I’m not that good, and the season has finished so the weather isn’t ideal anymore, but with a lot of patient waiting (nic-named “para-waiting” by pilots) keeping an eagle eye on conditions I and a couple of friends here, Arabind and Chetan, have managed to get some good flights in and improve my skills.
I’m parked at the top of the take off site, so in the morning I can check the windsock streamer from bed. Strawberries and mulberries are in season, and haven’t tired of fruit salad and yogurt for breakfast. There is a 14 year old boy who sells freshly squeezed lemon juice who brings his cart next to the truck around 9am, and we chat in sign language about the wind. He can’t fly but knows well enough when the conditions are good from having watched countless pilots in the past.
The police have clamped down on the un-insured tandem wallahs who offer a 20 minute flight for 2000Rs to the wealthy Pune weekenders, after an accident last week, so we have the launch site to ourselves and instead of having to wrestle for a takeoff slot we’re surrounded by tandem wallahs with nothing better to do but help us lay out our wings and lend their experience to assess the wind.
The rival tandem pilots have to collectively pay some cash to the police, but as the wind is too strong and the tourist season is still a few days away from starting they are holding out before paying up and starting work. On a good day they can earn €400-500, but it’s a short season and most pilots are in endless hock to their backers who paid for their wings and harnesses.
Andre, an expat from Montreal who’s run a campsite here for solo-pilots for 11 years, usually turns up to offer meteorological advice in his drawly French Canadian accent littered with Indian idioms, “Yeah-er, Wat-to-do?”. He’s even run us 3 km down the road in his pick up to another launch site when the wind was backing. There’s a thermal over his campsite which means his windsock regularly points upwards.
The conditions have been unusually strong here, making take off risky and flying even riskier. Landing back on the launch site is a near impossibility in strong winds so the only option is to “land down” in the valley which stretches out 1000ft bellow around the manmade lake and dam.
The black areas of burnt grass provide good sources of thermal air, warmed by the hot ground and sent upwards like the goo in a lava lamp. I’m learning to “core” thermals, finding the centre and circling upwards in it.
For landings, I’ve mostly used the fields zig-zagging around trees and shortening my approach with plenty of brake as the as the terracing cheats me by dropping the ground away from me the further I travel. I’ve landed by the lake a couple of times, and today I took my togs for a swim. After stripping naked in front of non-plussed washer women I then balked at the mirky waters. The ladies shrugged grunts eventually persuaded me in. I didn’t want them to think I was another of these exhibitionist from Mumbai come to flash at the village girls. Usually I catch a local bus which winds up the mountain switchbacks to the cooler air of Panchgani or hitch a ride in a truck that’s going that way.
When I get back I’m greeted by the concerned lemonade boy who asks me where I landed and how the flight was. Nods, grins, hands and pointing, our conversation is completely silent apart from the word “Wind” which can mean strong or weak, depending on the wind.
In the evenings I cycle into town for dinner with Chetan and Arabind, my co-pilots, after washing off the red dust in the bus shower. My water pump has burnt out and I have to take the motor apart to check it, so in the meantime I’m using a bucket filled at the nearby spring. Before bed I sit on one of the benches near the hotel and use their free wifi with the black valley below lit only by a smattering of village lights and the red lines of grass fires spreading up the opposite side.
So as you can imagine , until the bail money is ready, I’m not in any great rush to leave for Delhi to be shunted from one heartless government office to the next.
------------
Next to the launch site is a gypsy camp of tarpaulin tents. Their donkeys compete with the mosquitoes in the truck to keep me awake at night. I’ve been watching how they live, and really impressed how little they consume. Their energy is from firewood, and they draw water straight from a spring at the edge of the launch site.India is one of the few countries that emits less than 2 tonnes of CO2Te per person, thanks in large part to people like this. At first I’m struck with the thought that if everyone lived like this the global carbon footprint would disappear overnight. Ironically, the famines and mass-migrations which will result from climate change, will result in more people living under tarpaulin tents.
The battle to find sustainable solutions of energy creation and consumption is in many ways more a battle to maintain our standard of living rather than to save the environment. We have to turn unsustainable consumption into a responsible and globally fair use of resources, or expect a reduction in the standards of living we take for granted. Probably we’ll have to do both, and probably we won’t do either enough.
So we, as a planet, could ration energy now and see a drop in our standards of living, or we can take small possibly ineffectual steps which will result in more people living under tarpaulin tents. Those people will probably be from poor countries, because poor countries are typically dependent on agriculture and poor countries are in the tropics where weather patterns are most likely to be affected. In Croydon we will struggle to find Zimbabwean Bok-Choi in Tescos
No one knows with much certainty how much climate change will really impact on agriculture and sea levels, so it’s hard to know how strictly to ration energy now, but not doing it allows richer countries to take advantage of their wealth to exploit global resources, to the detriment of people living in poorer countries (again – see oil, , fishing rights, minerals, diamonds, agricultural land, holiday resorts...).
Wherever I fly I’ve found out about the local agriculture, to know which fields I can land in, and even more importantly I find out about the local weather. Really understand it in detail, how it should be, how it is this minute, and how it changes during the day. Everywhere I’ve been, from Annecy to Panchgani, pilots tell me the weather is unusual for time of year. Maybe it’s me! Or maybe it’s the human nature of pilots to be diffident of the winds, but I believe it’s a sign that weather patterns that are changing, and it makes me feel that the changes will become quite radical.
As long as these gypsies can scavenge pressed sugar cane for their donkeys and don’t have to move in to a city, they’ll be ok. It would be hard for their standards of living to drop further. But in the valley below the fields are all empty at the moment. It’s great for me as it provides endless choices of landing areas. They are waiting for the first signs of the monsoon season to start planting. I wonder if they can afford the irony to call it agri-waiting?
Friday, 5 March 2010
Mid Air Life Crisis Collision
Being a psychiatrist is the perfect complimentary profession to flying tandem paragliders according to Tom who is both a pilot and a shrink.
“People tell me all sorts of shit up there” he’s not bemoaning the revelations, but doesn’t seem overly enthusiastic about them either.
I miss the opportunity to ask him “And how do you feel about that?” which has become a running joke between us, after I impressed him with my impersonation of a therapist, nodding and grunting understandingly.
“You’d get a psychology degree for those ‘hmmm’s’ Andy”, his deadpan Australian accent and straight face hiding any trace of irony.
Incidentally, Tom confirms my suspicion that the correct response to being asked “And how do you feel about that?” by a psychiatrist is to say “Hmm, well, I don’t know. How would you feel about it?”
In one of our conversations, cum therapy sessions, Tom explains that very few of us are present for very long. Most of the time we aren’t attending to life around us, but going through it in a lower state of consciousness. Presence, or focusing on the moment, is probably what Eastern Gurus refer to as an enlightened state, and as with enlightenment, being present for a sustained period can be a euphoric joyous experience.
Adrenalin sports provide a different route to the same presence, demanding a sustained focus on the moment because of the fear and imminent risks.
It’s no surprise then that the paragliding beginner class is heavily littered with gentlemen staring their midlife crisis squarely in the face. Having done well in life, job, house, car..., they have woken up to the need to live a more real, present existence. They could have ended up in an Ashram, instead they are following the teachings of their paraglider Gurus.
In Tom’s case he rented out his successful practice and home in Australia, and now lives in a dorm room, flies every day and dishes out acupuncture treatments to the bruised students.
I go for a flight with him so I can take some aerial pictures of other pilots, and sure enough it’s the perfect environment for a therapy session and provokes me to share a really weird dream I had the night before, involving a demonic girl with no eyes and a cactus growing out of her. We both erupt with laughter as I point out a narly prickle-free cactus on the hill below us which best resembles the one protruding from the girl. “Like that one but blue. What does it mean doctor?”
“Holy shit! If you figure it out you’ll get a whole PhD out of that dream Andy.” He pulls a spiral dive spinning us towards the ground, and as the adrenalin and the G-force builds, draining the blood from my head, he calls out “...and how did it make you feel?”
“Fucking scared!” I yell back, grinning euphorically, eyes wide open and totally focused on the bright world whirring beneath me.
“People tell me all sorts of shit up there” he’s not bemoaning the revelations, but doesn’t seem overly enthusiastic about them either.
I miss the opportunity to ask him “And how do you feel about that?” which has become a running joke between us, after I impressed him with my impersonation of a therapist, nodding and grunting understandingly.
“You’d get a psychology degree for those ‘hmmm’s’ Andy”, his deadpan Australian accent and straight face hiding any trace of irony.
Incidentally, Tom confirms my suspicion that the correct response to being asked “And how do you feel about that?” by a psychiatrist is to say “Hmm, well, I don’t know. How would you feel about it?”
In one of our conversations, cum therapy sessions, Tom explains that very few of us are present for very long. Most of the time we aren’t attending to life around us, but going through it in a lower state of consciousness. Presence, or focusing on the moment, is probably what Eastern Gurus refer to as an enlightened state, and as with enlightenment, being present for a sustained period can be a euphoric joyous experience.
Adrenalin sports provide a different route to the same presence, demanding a sustained focus on the moment because of the fear and imminent risks.
It’s no surprise then that the paragliding beginner class is heavily littered with gentlemen staring their midlife crisis squarely in the face. Having done well in life, job, house, car..., they have woken up to the need to live a more real, present existence. They could have ended up in an Ashram, instead they are following the teachings of their paraglider Gurus.
In Tom’s case he rented out his successful practice and home in Australia, and now lives in a dorm room, flies every day and dishes out acupuncture treatments to the bruised students.
I go for a flight with him so I can take some aerial pictures of other pilots, and sure enough it’s the perfect environment for a therapy session and provokes me to share a really weird dream I had the night before, involving a demonic girl with no eyes and a cactus growing out of her. We both erupt with laughter as I point out a narly prickle-free cactus on the hill below us which best resembles the one protruding from the girl. “Like that one but blue. What does it mean doctor?”
“Holy shit! If you figure it out you’ll get a whole PhD out of that dream Andy.” He pulls a spiral dive spinning us towards the ground, and as the adrenalin and the G-force builds, draining the blood from my head, he calls out “...and how did it make you feel?”
“Fucking scared!” I yell back, grinning euphorically, eyes wide open and totally focused on the bright world whirring beneath me.
100 Hours of Doubt
I have to build up 100 hours of air time before I can do a tandem paraglider rating, allowing me to take passengers. I’m currently only at 17 hours, but it’s goal I want to focus on while I am here in India so one day I can take my sister for a flight, and share the experience with others.
I’m excited about all the things I’ll learn over the next 83 hours flying. I already know some of the things I have to learn and how I will learn them. For instance my spot landings need improvement. That will come partly with practice and familiarity with the equipment and locations, and partly with new techniques that I am currently only vaguely aware of.
But I’m even more excited that I will learn things that I don’t yet even know I need to know about.
I’m sure there will be some scary moments and mistakes I make along the way, but hopefully the consequences will be no more severe than a few sobering flashbacks and lessons learnt, making me safer for the passengers who will one day trust me to fly them.
There are 2 ways of making mistakes. If you are unsure, you take your best guess in the knowledge that it might be wrong. But the more dangerous type of mistake is when you are sure, and it turns out you are wrong in your conviction.
Far from making me more confident, this journey from the UK and the encounters with people of different beliefs and practices has made me even more unsure about how the world works. There is so much variety and countless right and wrong truths. If there is one thing that I have become certain of, it’s that people who are convinced they are right are the most dangerous. Be it political, religious, environmental, or philosophical; any fervent belief belies a very narrow view the world and an intolerance of diversity. We are too varied a planet to be intolerant of diversity, and too varied for one set of ideals to work universally.
Perhaps leaders would do a better job if they were more uncertain and indecisive, ready to procrastinate more. As I’ve always said, if you put something off for long enough, you won’t have to do it at all. Probably not the most effective approach, but it’s useful to temper every decision with the humility that it might be wrong no matter how sure you are.
Soaring a ridge in lighter wind is a balancing act. The closer you get to the hill, the more lift you are likely to find, but there is always a risk you can hit a pocket of sinking air when you are too close, and end up dropping onto the slope below; a lovely euphemism for crashing. Every inch of the way you are feeling the lift while adjusting your position and direction, assessing the terrain ahead and predicting what the air is doing over it. Even though you might know the contours of the hill well, the nature of wind is too variable to assume any certainty in the air’s behaviour.
At university a fellow student wrote his dissertation on how to make decisions based on uncertain information. It was such a theoretical paper that I think the practical engineering professors failed him, but in essence it said that you had to make decisions that firstly kept your options open, and that secondly allowed you to move to a position of less uncertainty so you could make a better decision.
So bring on the next 83 hours full or confusions and re-evaluated certainties. Whatever lessons I learn, I’ll always be moving to a position of less uncertainty, but I’ve already accepted that whether I’m on the ground thinking about the heavens, or in the sky thinking about the world, I should cherish and nurture my doubt as much as I cherish and nurture my truths.
Gliding
“When you start, Paragliding is 90% physical and 10% mental. But it becomes 10% physical and 90% mental” TJ is giving a pep talk to the students starting their first day training course and as usual I’m eves dropping to see what I can pick up.
My first flight was about a year ago, but the poor conditions in the UK meant my training never moved much beyond the 90% physical stage. Then in Annecy the mountains, thermals and ridge lift transformed my understanding of the sport, and opened my eyes to what paragliding was really about.
Sitting on launch sites feeling for the slightest changes in wind, looking at the hills and clouds and theorising about what might be influencing the airflow has become such a pleasure that it almost feels like the game is half over when I decide conditions are right for launch. In the air, pulling neat flat turns is no longer as important as deciding when to make those turns. The satisfaction of searching for and finding lift along a ridge after you’ve dropped below takeoff to nurse your way back up again with smooth flying and well timed turns, is immense. “I did that”, I tell myself as my perspective on the launch site comes level and then rises over it. Well me, and the wind, and my wing did that.
Arriving in Kamshet I was full of courage, but not confidence. I’d try launching my glider in strong winds, but I’d be nervous, relying half on luck and half on skill, that the inflation would go as planned.
Ten days later I’ve had great conditions to build up my airtime and practice ground handling; inflating and deflating my wing, adjusting my position for the best takeoff line and feeling for the nature of the wind before trusting it with my gravity. It’s the ground that hurts when you hit it, not the sky, so it’s often said you should practice ground handling for as many hours as you spend in the air, but in reality hardly anybody matches it hour for hour.
This week I almost did, and now my ability to launch in stronger winds has improved immensely. I’m no longer wracked with nerves before I pull on the risers to lift the wing above me ready for takeoff. My actions are now more intuitive than reasoned, and therefore faster and more effective.
I’ve even become an honorary member of the Temple Pilots flying team. My time with Avi, TJ, Tom and the others have given me confidence and skills to feel like I am a real pilot now, instead of just a guy ready to throw himself off a hill. I’m very proud of my progress.
Before each session Tom leads the instructors and students in a stretching session. In truth it’s a 10 minute yoga routine, but I’m too curmudgeon to admit I’m doing yoga so I call it a warm up. During that time Tom invites us to “visualise” us accomplishing our flying tasks. It’s the sort of voodoo mumbo jumbo talk I’ve always sneered at, but standing on the edge of a launch area 200m up, in 25km/h winds it really makes sense, and provides a meditative moment that calms and focuses me.
Watching an eagle effortlessly gliding a few feet along side me, I realise I have some way to go before the 10% physical/90% mental stage, but the weeks’ experiences have also convinced me that flying in the thermals and updrafts has a large spiritual component too. Once in the air, understanding how the air is flowing becomes less of an intellectual puzzle and more about feel. The privilege of playing with something as big as a mountain and all its forces is both elating and grounding. Nurturing that spiritual sense is as important as learning how to pull aerial manoeuvres.
Child Labour
Shaylar hill is a sloped paraglider take off site half way up a sharp black granite cliff. To get there you turn off the road at Kamshet, a small market village on the old road between Pune and Mumbai, and bounce along the rock road for 30 minutes. It gets its name from Mr Shaylar, a toothless granddaddy who dispenses shot glasses of sweet milky tea for 5 rupees, and dirty laughs for free to the elated pilots in the landing area.
The site starts “working” in the afternoon as the westerly wind starts hitting the ridge and is diverted vertically upwards. It’s usually too strong until about 15h30, until the first pilots feel confident enough to wrestle their wings over their heads getting lifted vertically off the take off area. From there it’s best to head to the right and do a few beats over the U-shaped dry waterfall which directs the wind upwards even if the direction varies a few degrees. Then with enough height you take the plunge to head all the way left, back over the take off site, now with 50m altitude above it, to the far end where the ridge forms a ‘V’. It’s like an elevator taking you up 50m. A flat weight shift turn and you won’t lose altitude before a beat close to the granite cliff face and you are up another 100m along it, and soon above it with the view over the agricultural plateau stretching out for 20 or 30 miles below you. Once you’re up there you can potter about in the sky for 2 or 3 hours, or practice wingovers or spiral dives down 200m, before working your way back up again.
At most sites the car drops you at the top and picks you up from the bottom, but at Shaylar the dirt track is 2km away from take off, and in the 30degree heat, the walk from where the cars park can’t fail to soak you in sweat. Fortunately a gang of village kids besiege the cars as they arrive. “Carry? Carry?” they ask pointing at their chests with cutely furrowed foreheads. A simple “No Thanks” is all it takes if you don’t want their services, but herein lays the Shaylar dilemma:
Do I engage this child labour for 50 ruppes (£0.60) to carry my 15kg wing and harness 2km across fields and then up the steep 10minute hike to the launch site, along with the clear message that they are wasting their time doing anything else, like say school, and are much better off hanging out here for half the year? Or do I succumb to my middle class guilt associated with paying poor people to do things I don’t like doing, and sweat it out myself depriving them of this meagre income?
I can’t help feeling that the village school is probably a waste of time for most of these kids anyway. T-J the head instructor with Temple Pilots flying club is originally from the village and he certainly doesn’t have anything positive to say about his school days. Luckily he got into flying and now is a formidable pilot and instructor, and has a respectable career teaching, while his counter parts are tending the sugar-cane fields.
I carry my own wing, mainly because I need the exercise, but secondly it makes me feel like I’ve earned the flight. The one time I let one of the kids carry my wing, the wind died just as I took off, and I missed any lift, so there’s a bit of superstition mixed in to my decision too. And then there is the ethical minefield over how much I should pay. The going rate is 40 or 50Rs from the car park to the launch site, but at first they’ll ask you for more, so should I haggle with these 14 year olds barely bigger or heavier than my pack, and maintain the price integrity, or should I just give them what they ask and introduce inflationary pressures to the incentive dynamic, and probably kill off the prospect of any future farming as well as any education. In the end I don’t give the kids any cash despite the fact I do think they are probably wasting their time at school.
Sure they need to learn to read, write and add up, but the best hope for the kids around Shaylar hill, is that paragliding develops more thoroughly; perhaps someone will set up a little bar serving cold cokes at the landing site, perhaps even a little hostel. A permanently tended landing site clear of shrubs and rivulets, with a fee for private pilots and schools wouldn’t be unreasonable. Nor would a smoothed gravel track to the site paid for with a parking fee. And how about a training academy via the local flying schools to help a handful of the kids become tandem pilots and instructors each year. It’s such an amazing site, pilots are getting a bargain flying there at the moment, and no one could complain if the village earned more than the random payments the flying schools make to the farmers every now and again. Happily, I think there’s a good chance that some of this will happen.
Everywhere I’ve flown, I’ve learnt a new way of packing my glider, Woldingham, Annecy, Olu-Deniz, Tehran, Yazd. In each place pilots are adamant that the origami they follow to fold the wing away is the only correct way to do it, and any other method is foolish heresy. In India there is a different technique again. You hand over 20Rs to one of the kids that come running as you land, calling “Packing? Packing?”. Again I’m paralysed by the guilt of exploiting of the economically vulnerable, whereas the Indian paragliders have no qualms about paying the youngsters to pack and carry their gliders back to the carpark. The transaction isn’t exploitation but part of greasing the big Indian wheel, redistributing wealth, filling in the rich-poor divide.
I like to pack my own glider. It gives me a warm glow, and a chance to check it over, but also it’s a good physical routine to go through while I come down from the mental high of flying. Another Zen-for-an-excuse reason not to support the local economy Andy? Yeah, these kids should be in business school, learning how to market T-shirts printed with “I flew Shaylar”. Some have already graduated, selling me and other dehydrated pilots premium priced bottles of water and battered fried vegetables, which perfectly compliment the sugary pick-me-up tea Mr Shaylar serves in his botulism glassware with a smile.
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