SIV Course - Lake Berryessa

The main reason Andrew and I headed to California this fall was to take a paragliding SIV/maneuvers course with Let Fly Paragliding instructed by Dilan Benedetti. He came highly recommended by our friend, Lorenzo Romano.

It was a great course but, trying to get a video done, I never wrote a blog post about it! Also, Andrew did a great job of describing the course in his "Incidents in Flight" post.

Here's the video -- unfortunately, we didn't take the good camera out until the third day so some of it was taken with iPhone which is not the greatest when zoomed in. Oh well, you get the idea anyway!

Because I'd taken a previous SIV course, Dilan asked me to write a review for him. Here's what I wrote:

Last year I took my first SIV course. I thought it was pretty good but I had nothing to compare it to. A good friend recommended my husband and I take the next one from Dilan at Let Fly Paragliding. My first clue that this course was going to be a bit different than the first one was that there was a scheduled briefing the evening before. The next clue was that the briefing was going to be 2 hours long. We learned A LOT in those 2 hours! General information about the course, terminology that we needed to familiarize ourselves with, and an overview of what we could expect during the next 3 days. 

On the morning of Day 1, Neal (tow operator) provided a thorough briefing on how to launch on tow, how to be towed and how to release. Before each flight, Dilan ensured that everyone knew exactly what was going to be asked of them and what the outcome should be. The tasks and skills progressed in a very logical and individual way as the course went on and some students progressed faster than others. Dilan pushed me beyond, but not too far beyond, my comfort zone each time and I came away feeling more confident in my skills and in my glider. 

Debriefings at the end of the days reinforced what we had done during the day and WHY we needed to know these skills. The detailed briefings and debriefings, the progression of one skill moving into the next skill are not things that happened on the first course I took and I really appreciated the attention to detail that Dilan provided. 

Since taking the course, we’ve had an opportunity to meet and talk with several other pilots who have taken SIV courses and, without a doubt, Dilan’s courses get the most consistent great comments, especially from pilots who have taken courses from both Dilan and others. 

Both my husband and I would highly recommend taking an SIV course from Dilan and to “let fly!”  :-)