Fun Fly in Sarangani

Flying over Sarangani Bay

It was time for a little break from golf.  With the ladies golf federation competition season over,  some leisure time for paragliding at Sarangani was in order.

SAFI paragliding site

Who would have thought that there would be paragliding in this part of the country?  So when the Philippine Paragliding and Hang Gliding Association of the Philippines headed by Buko Raymundo organized the 2nd accuracy landing competition in Sarangani I was only too thrilled to go.  As a beginner pilot trying to progress to the next level, I get fired up by watching the more experienced pilots. I felt that this trip would be a chance for me to acquire new flying skills by simply being with the best pilots in the country.

Paragliding pilots from all over the Philippines

The competition required one to take off from the fly site  and land as close as possible to the target. Much like a shooting target.

The tricky part was that landing inside the target area was not enough. You had to be landing standing up and on both feet or it didn't count.

This is how it looks like from the take off zone. You would have to fly all the way down from some 970 ft. and zero in on your target to win. So it's not as easy as one would think. At least not for me.

This year had the most number of participants which made the competition much more interesting.

The big winner was German National Uwe Klein who landed right on the bulls eye. Other winners include Nixon Chua and Moon Yeen of Davao and Andrew Chinalpan of Sagada.

Uwe Klein

Moon Yeen

Andrew Chinalpan

Nixon Chua

It was an awesome experience to fly, and to do so in such a picturesque flysite with such wonderful pilots. I am so looking forward to the next fun fly event in Sarangani next year.