Announcing the AirSchool Pilot Coaching Series 2026/27

I'm launching something new this season: the AirSchool Pilot Coaching Series 2026/27 — four workshops for licensed pilots who've moved past the beginner stage and want to develop a specific area of their flying properly, with coaching, rather than just accumulating more airtime and hoping it adds up to skill.

This isn't a beginner product, and it isn't a repeat of Phase 1–3 training. It's for pilots who already fly independently and want to go further in a particular direction.

The four workshops

1. Thermal Flying — Thursday 15 October / Saturday 17 October 2026
2. Cross-Country Flying — Thursday 12 November / Saturday 14 November 2026
3. Competition Flying — Thursday 3 December / Saturday 5 December 2026
4. Adventure Flying: Hike & Fly / Vol-Biv — Thursday 28 January / Saturday 30 January 2027

Each workshop is a standalone product — you don't need to do all four, and you don't need to have done the earlier ones to book a later one. That said, there's a deliberate progression if you want to work through the whole series: thermalling underpins cross-country, cross-country underpins competition flying, and all three feed into what adventure flying asks of you when you add a mountain, a pack and more self-reliance into the mix.

The Competition Flying workshop is timed just before the Porterville Paragliding Open, so pilots entering that competition can use it as direct preparation. Adventure Flying sits at the end of January, after the busiest tandem period.

Why I built it this way

Each workshop runs as Thursday theory + Saturday practical, with Sunday held as a same-weekend weather backup — not an open-ended reschedule, just the next day of the same weekend, already booked in. If neither day is flyable, the session still goes ahead as a non-flying practical rather than a further postponement.

The Thursday session covers what you need to know before you fly it: preparation, the underlying concepts, decision-making, the mental side, and safety. Saturday is where that gets applied in the air, with coaching on the day. Afterwards, we go through what actually happened against what was planned — because a big part of getting better at this is learning to separate a good decision from a good outcome. You can fly well and land early. You can fly carelessly and get away with it. Post-flight analysis is where the real learning happens, not just the flight itself.

I'm keeping groups small — 4 to 8 pilots per workshop — because coaching only works if there's time to actually watch what each pilot is doing and give useful feedback. This isn't a classroom lecture with a flying day bolted on.

One thing I want to be upfront about: I'm not promising a specific flying site, a guaranteed flight duration, a particular XC distance, or that the weather will cooperate. The site is chosen based on the forecast and the workshop's objective on the day — could be Porterville, Hermanus, Franschhoek or elsewhere in the Western Cape. Transport isn't included; car-pooling is normal for this crowd.

What each workshop actually develops

Thermal Flying is for pilots whose flying is mostly ridge soaring or coastal, and who want to get comfortable using active air deliberately rather than avoiding it — prediction, identification, technique and strategy, not just "circle when the vario beeps."

Cross-Country Flying takes thermalling and site-flying skills and turns them into the process of a deliberate XC day: preparation, route planning from the actual forecast, the discipline of flying the day rather than a lecture in the sky, and what changes when you get low. Because Western Cape flying is so often blue-sky thermic rather than cloud-marked, that's the strategy we'll actually coach.

Competition Flying isn't just for pilots chasing results. It's a structured environment — defined tasks, stronger pilots to fly alongside, objective feedback — that can accelerate development regardless of where you finish. I've spent a fair bit of time on task committees, including at Barberton Nationals and the Porterville Paragliding Open, so part of this workshop demystifies what actually happens behind a task: how it's set, why the geometry looks the way it does, and what a task committee is weighing when they draw the lines. The practical day includes a mock competition task so you experience the process — briefing, loading, start, flying it, debrief — before or while you're finding your feet in real competitions.

Adventure Flying: Hike & Fly / Vol-Biv looks at using a paraglider as a tool for mountain travel — what changes when you're flying tired, loaded, and off an unprepared launch, and how remoteness changes the risk equation. This workshop doesn't promise an actual vol-biv expedition; the practical is about packing and flying as though you were undertaking one, with whatever conditions the day gives us. A short flight after a long hike up is not a failed day.

Pricing and booking

Standard rate is R1,750 per workshop. If you're already in the AirSchool Licensed Pilot Programme, your rate is R1,500 per workshop.

Booking works through a R750 deposit online, with the balance settled with me before the workshop. The deposit is transferable to another workshop or date at any time, and refundable (less a R200 admin fee) up to 7 days out. If a workshop doesn't reach its 4-pilot minimum, it's a full refund.

Full details, dates and booking for all four workshops are on the Pilot Coaching Series page.

If you've been flying the same sites the same way for a while and you're wondering what the next step actually looks like, this is built for exactly that. Small groups, so book early if a particular workshop suits where you're at.

Ria