Can we use paragliding for surveying o-maps? Of course we can!

And what do we need for that? Not much: mountain area with certain altitude change, open areas and paraglider itself (the first time it is recommended to use an instructor) and good start platform. Fortunately, all of these conditions were met during survey of o-map in alpine village Zermatt – worldwide mountain resort. I didn't have a desire to walk with my plane-table between private houses and explain to its owners over and over that I’m here to prepare a map for International Switzerland 6-day competitions which will be held in the end of 2006 when many thousands of sportsmen will run right here. That's why on one of the sunny days I made flight above “my” territory and took some digital photos of all the houses that were in my planned course beforehand. Start height was 2280 meters and finish height 1630 meters above the sea level. The duration of the flight was only 10 minutes. Later, in the evening using OCAD I adjusted digital photos to the map and drew all the buildings and areas around them. This was a result of that flight. You can look here and see the difference between the aerial view and the fragment of the map.

The co-pilot of this flight was an Australian instructor Vrony (1200 flights, his longest flight took 4.5 hours and he never used an emergency parachute), who professionally managed the paraglider and successfully made a safe landing. Most likely this was the first case in history when so simple flying device was used for surveying an orienteering map.