Going Commercial

Ryan Scarlett gets to business

it all started for me during a European BASE jumping trip in 2014. i was hiking to an exit on the mighty Jungfrau when i saw a couple of paragliders seemingly floating around above me.

I had no idea of the reality of thermal flying in the mountains but at that stage, to me, it looked peaceful and fun. And without ever even trying paragliding it was on that trip I decided to make it my career, all purely based on the feeling that paragliding would be a fun job. So later that year I moved back to NZ and got in touch with Dave Dennis to begin the journey.

By that stage I had been flying parachutes for 9 years, I worked all over as a geologist looking for things that companies wanted to dig up. I liked my job but it wasn’t fun. The best part about it was the money and time off which allowed me to follow my real passions of skydiving and BASE jumping.

I really loved the first few years after learning to paraglide. I loved the feeling of free flight and loved the new places I was able to explore. In the first few years I did a lot of solo flying and didn’t make many paragliding friends. Probably somewhat due to travelling quite a bit between Oz and NZ but also probably I wasn’t putting in much effort to make flying friends. I didn’t really care though; the focus was on flying as much as possible so I could advance through the rating system. But for the longest time I genuinely felt I didn’t belong. I didn’t know why; it was just a feeling I had. I’ve since learnt that this is a thing: imposter syndrome. Because for as long as I can remember all I wanted to do was BASE jump. And from the time I started skydiving at 21 all my focus was on gaining the knowledge and skills needed to jump. It consumed me, and soon enough most of my spare time was devoted to jumping, all my holidays were BASE jumping holidays, and most of my friends were either skydivers or BASE jumpers. So for the longest time that was my identity. I was a BASE jumper.

I never wanted to start a tandem company, I wanted to start a school. Only problem was there were already 2 schools in my home town of Christchurch, and no tandem operation, and as I didn’t want to step on any toes, starting a tandem operation was the logical conclusion. I had no idea what it involved but heard it was hard to do and told it needed to be big to make it profitable as it’s expensive to start. Looking back, depending a little on perspective, none of this was true.

I got my recreational tandem rating in the summer of 2018/19 and decided I’d try to get something going for next summer. This gave me the best part of one year to get ready; knowledge, skills and paperwork wise. In retrospect this wasn’t a lot of time. There was a lot to learn about flying tandems. The major difference being the responsibility you carry for the safety of the passenger. It can be nerve racking, and it’s one thing flying with friends or your partner but the whole thing is on another level when you see grandma walking down the hill towards you and you know she will not bounce the same as your mate. You can’t faak up.

Although totally inexperience in flying a tandem paraglider at that stage I had been flying parachutes for 13 years and I’ve always felt comfortable with my level of canopy control. I had a quiet self-belief that I could do it. If you BASE jump for 10 years you’re bound to do some crazy shit and in my early days I had a pretty loose crew. Anything that was high enough we used to jump off it. I definitely had luck from time to time to survive but also developed some skill and never had an incident due to poor canopy control. Skydiving and BASE also gave me the knowledge of what you need to have in these types of sports to stay safe. Without going too into my flying philosophy, a basic summary of what I think pilots need to develop is: 1. Knowledge. Acquire a thorough knowledge of equipment, rules/ laws, and environmental factors

(weather, site assessment, airflow, etc). 2. Judgement. Flying safely is all about good judgement which is a result of good decision making.

This relates to many things including having a good attitude, good visual awareness, and a healthy respect for flying. 3. Skill. Comprehensive knowledge and good judgement in my opinion are the most important attributes needed for safe flying.

However, having good skill, especially in paragliding, can be lifesaving.

So through 10 months of 2019 I set about writing an exposition – a detailed explanation of ideas, the document you need to start a tandem company. And with a little help from a friend, I chipped away at it night after night. Probably averaging working on it 5 nights a week. As with any large task it came down to breaking it right down to very small steps. Reading slowly rule by rule, word by word, and consulting with the CAA advisory circulars for explanation of what is required to comply with the rule.

Some nights I was happy if I’d completed just one sentence. The whole process was slow and tedious, but not hard. Through the advisory circulars and a range of other publications the CAA basically tell you what they need to hear, you just need to write it down in a simple and coherent way. I feel like you don’t often hear that many positive things regarding the CAA but in my experience they have been very good to deal with. They say they are there to help and from what I’ve found they really are. They’ve always been willing to answer questions, provide solutions, and I’ve genuinely felt, want you to succeed. This makes sense as financially, having more (safe) operators is in their interest. I’ve found them strict but fair, maybe a little intimidating from the outside but quite personable and genuine in reality.

This was not the case regarding dealing this the Christchurch City Council. It literally took 16 months from the day I first approached them, asking if I could operate from their land, to the day they said yes. 16 months! All I wanted was to walk onto the land, setup, takeoff, land, and walk away, leaving no trace, at the same spots recreational paragliders have been flying for many years. They had no clear process to follow, and apart from the final license agreement, no official paperwork, just email after phone call after email, getting transferred around from one person to another. In comparison from the initial application with the CAA which involved close to 300 pages of paperwork, all of which needed to be reviewed and a fair bit of it needing correction that had to bounce back between us a few times, took 4 months till sign off.

The only other part that was somewhat out of my control that did really make or break the operation was the filling of the senior persons positions. In order to start a tandem operation you need ‘senior’ persons; people with sufficient knowledge and experience in the chosen role.

It seems overkill but for one person to fly a paraglider commercially who need an operations manager, safety manager, occurrence investigator, training manager, and maintenance manager! Fortunately due to the size of the operation I was starting one person could fulfil multiple roles which was just as well as the number of people with the required experience in these areas in the paragliding industry is not particular large. I was so fortunate and will always be grateful to Grey and Anton for helping out here. I couldn’t have got the operation started without them. Thank you guys so much.

We got sign off to start operating in February 2020, one month before the first lockdown! Possibly the worst time in the history of tourism to start a tourist operation. All out of my control so nothing to worry about there. Now 2 years have passed and to date it’s been a success with literally zero incidents.

We’ve just gone through the CAA recertification process so hopefully we can keep that going for the next 5 years! I won’t get rich with this career but that’s not what it was about. I still hold on to that initial mindset I felt in the Alps, that it’s all about fun. It’s likely you only live once so if you can why not do fun shit?

Above; Having fun working the camera angles/shameless self-promotion! Below; One of the awesome things about flying tandems is being able to fly family! My niece Lily near the Gondola Christchurch