Well, last Sunday was my first day to fly PingTung "Sia Jya". I have been there many times to fly ultralights, but its was my first for paragliding. The air was unusually clear for Taiwan. I could see all the way to Kaohsiung. The 85-floor and 50-floor buildings were easily visible.
Sai Jya is a cliff launch and I would not recommend it for very beginners. Although, others would say differently. The landing zone is HUGE. I cant understand how some actually ended up in the trees on the outskirts. I fould the people friendly. And there was an insurance fee of 150NT. Worth it in my humble opinion.
My friend, orginally, was just going to kite, however the lift was so strong he went straight up on the first pull. Since he was a little too inexperienced, he decided to sit the rest of the day out. The flight apparently made his legs wobbly due to the fact he had the speedbar all the way out. Which in turn gave him a neckache, which gave him a headache with a touch of air sickness.
I made 3 flights. The first two were more or less training runs, where I did big ears and practiced spiral dives. I also hitched a ride on a small cloud. Man, the lift was strong. I was worried that I would get too much of a cloud suck. I was big ears and speed bar and still going up. Luckily, I found sink. I did learn on my second flight that with a 180 degree twisted riser that my glider can still do all the benign decent manuevers. My third flight - at around 5pm- was FANTASTIC. The glassoff had lift everywhere and the ride was so smooth that I compared it to sailing on glassy seas.
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