Paragliding at Tenincingo, Mexico

launching from Malinche

From Valle de Bravo we drove to Tenancingo where fellow Canadian pilot Guy Harrington (Sea to Sky Paragliding) has the Casa del Piloto bed and breakfast for paraglider pilots. He was a great host, making us some great meals and drinks and showing us the local markets and restaurants.

We flew mostly at the Malinche launch, which is the closest to the Casa. Given a thermal or two you can fly back to an LZ right close to the Casa.

The first day I launched before Shelley. I got reasonably high but came back to launch (losing most of my height) to join Shelley as she launched. I fully expected to climb back up again since it hadn't been difficult the first time. But our timing was unlucky and we hit big sink. I still wasn’t too worried since sink in one place means lift somewhere nearby. But that only helps if you find it, and we didn’t. We had to head directly for the LZ. But we got sink all the way. If we had fully realized how much we were sinking and taken the straightest path to a landing we would probably have made it. Shelley was slightly behind and above me, making it hard to keep track of her. With both of us landing almost at the same time we had to be careful to avoid each other. I saw her swing wide to the right, following the landing pattern we'd been briefed on. But we didn't have enough height for that, and as soon as I saw her go to the side I thought, "oh crap, she's not going to make it to the LZ". I got a slight bump from a thermal and tried to follow it, hoping for a low save, but it was nothing. Now I was too low. We came in almost side by side. I was hands up trying to eke out a little more distance, but neither of us made the end of the field. Shelley managed to land on her feet in a small clearing. I didn't have quite as good luck One thorny tree left a few claw marks on my left arm. And a branch snagged my right leg and twisted it under me painfully as I reached the ground. Luckily it wasn't badly injured and was just sore for the next few days. I'd have been really pissed if I'd done more damage.

There's a saying in paragliding that there are two kinds of pilots - ones that have landed in a tree, and ones that haven't landed in a tree yet. Since neither of us ended up actually hanging in a tree, I was told this didn't count.

Both our wings ended up draped over small trees, luckily not thorny ones. The trees were too tall to reach the top, and too small to climb, so we waited for help to come with saws and machetes.

Guy flew down to help us. By now it was noon and the LZ was very thermic. We watched him get bounced around on the approach, and then to our horror, take a huge collapse not far above the the ground. Having recently watched someone take a collapse and crash at Tapalpa, we didn't want a repeat, especially when the only reason he was there was to help us. Thankfully this time the wing opened up again and he landed safely. A less skilled pilot might have had a different result.

Daniel also showed up in the truck and between us we quickly got the wings extracted, thankfully with no damage.

I was really bummed out. Hitting so much sink and no lift was unusual, not something we could have predicted. Perhaps a different line might have avoided it, who knows. But my failure to fully grasp the situation and handle it was pure pilot error. At the time, I wanted to tell Shelley not to swing wide, but I didn't want to take my hands off the controls to use the radio. In hindsight, I could have just yelled, we were close enough.

We got our wings packed up and headed back up to launch for the afternoon flight. Shelley was not keen to fly but she decided to get back on the horse. She didn't really want to land back at the same LZ, but she also didn't want to try for cross country to one of the other LZ's. I got up high again but I was keeping an eye on Shelley. Eventually she landed at the LZ, but neither Guy nor I could get hold of her on the radio to confirm she was ok (her radio wasn't working properly). We could see her start to pack up, so presumably she was ok, but I didn't want to leave her on her own to hike out and find a taxi so I lost height and landed. Between being psyched out about landing there again, and not used to sloping LZ's she'd had an awkward landing and pulled something in her leg. Unfortunately, that put an end to her flying for the rest of our time in Tenancingo. Having made it unscathed through landing in the bush, it was frustrating to get hurt landing in the open.

better second landing, launch is at top right

The next day we headed back to the Malinche launch. And ended up waiting all day. It was cloudy and almost no thermals coming up. Eventually, late in the afternoon, Guy launched and sank out. A couple of local pilots launched and managed enough lift to do a single circle and top land. Finally someone launched and managed to stay up, prompting everyone else including me to launch. I got some decent height but decided to top land before everyone else so I could take my time. Top landing (where you land at or near the launch) can be tricky and I had only done it a couple of times before. I was happy that I ended up doing a reasonable job at it.

The next day was forecast to be windy so we headed to a different site (Picacho). It was mentioned multiple times that we had to get there early or it would be too windy. But that didn't seem to have any impact on getting up late, going for breakfast, etc. We arrived at the site at noon, and of course, it was too windy. We ended up at the training hill, where it was also quite windy (gusting over 30 km/hr) but we managed one flight down and then a bunch of kiting. Ground handling practice is always worthwhile, but it's one of the few things we can do at home, so I wasn't too excited about coming all the way to Mexico for it. The plan was to get back to the Malinche launch around 5pm in hopes the wind would die down later in the day. But by the time we finished kiting, and then went for lunch, and then walked through the market (!), it was more like 6pm when we got to launch and other gliders were already in the air, so all of a sudden it was a rush to launch. With my fairly minimal gear I got set up and launched first. I was extra careful with my safety checks given the rush. What I didn't account for was Guy's dog running around on launch. Just as I was getting airborne it ran between my legs jumping and barking. I don't blame the dog, it doesn't understand what's going on and gets excited by the action. But in that case it should be tied up. I managed to launch ok, but a botched launch could at best mean a nasty tumble down a steep bushy slope, and at worst a crash after launch. Launching is critical enough without extra canine obstacles. And to make it worse, apparently it's happened before. (BTW if you're not a dog lover, you might think twice about staying at the Casa del Piloto and flying with Guy)

trying to avoid the dog

I had a reasonable flight and was setting up to top land when I was told to back off and let a tandem land. I understand we give the tandems priority, but it was a little frustrating because it was getting late and the sun was going down (because we'd arrived so late). The tandem pilot had no doubt top landed there many many times. Despite doing ok top landing the day before, I was still quite nervous about it. Especially since if I missed it and got below launch I'd have to fly out to the LZ and land in near dark. I managed to stay up while the tandem landed, but when I came in I misjudged my height, went too far over the back, and came too damn close to another close encounter with the bushes.

In the end it was a very frustrating day for me. On top of being late for everything and almost botching my top landing, I spent about three hours riding in the back of the truck (with the dog) getting bounced around in the dust and exhaust fumes, not very pleasant.

The morning we left Valle we mentioned to another pilot that we were headed to Tenancingo. He said the only problem there was that the LZ wasn't great, and top landing could be tricky. Little did we know how prophetic those comments would be.

There's obviously good flying around Tenancingo, and the Casa del Piloto is nice, and Guy is a great host. But unfortunately our few days there didn't work out very well for us.

Photos thanks to Shelley