The first module of the SIV course. We go through how a course over water is run and what keeps you safe, and then, in order: the wing as a pendulum, active piloting, weight shift, big ears and the B-line stall, asymmetric and frontal collapses, cravats, wingovers, the spiral dive and G-force, the parachutal stall and the water landing. In plain language, with figures taken from federation documents and manufacturers’ manuals — so that on the course you already understand what you are doing and why.
⏱ 100 min📖 20 sections✓ 75 questions
What SIV is and what it does not give you
SIV is a French abbreviation: Simulation d'Incident en Vol, “simulation of an in-flight incident”. In German the same thing is called Sicherheitstraining — safety training. The idea is the same: deliberately, in a safe place and on the instructor’s command, you put the wing into the states that in ordinary flying arrive without warning, and you learn to recover from them.
The British federation (BHPA) puts the aim of the course like this: to learn how your wing behaves at the edge of its operating range — what you feel just before the wing loses stability, and what to do once it has lost it. And, separately, to learn to recognise when a situation is already hopeless and the only right answer is the reserve parachute.
Now, what SIV is not.
It is not aerobatics. BHPA says it in plain words: SIV is not meant to teach you to fly beyond the wing’s normal flight range, and paragliders are not designed for aerobatics.
It is not a way to get to know a new wing. You come to the course on the wing you fly. An SIV course is not the place to meet the character of an unfamiliar glider for the first time.
It is not a one-off vaccination. The same BHPA warns honestly that it is debatable whether SIV is fundamental to a pilot’s development: building good active piloting matters more, because that is what prevents most collapses in the first place. And it adds that a badly run course will teach you nothing and may set your development back.
We repeat that not for effect. The course works when you arrive prepared and go on flying carefully afterwards. It does not work when it is taken as a certificate that says “now I can handle anything”.
A fine point for pros. An SIV instructor with many years behind him sums up the four foundations of the course like this: trust the harness; be able to work your hands independently of each other; use the whole brake travel — most pilots use about thirty per cent of it; and keep track of where you are and what is happening. Everything else follows from those four.
Why over water, and what actually keeps you safe
Water does not make the manoeuvre safe. It makes the mistake safe: if the recovery does not work, you end up in water rather than on rocks. BHPA is blunt about it: a water landing is never a hundred per cent safe, even in controlled conditions.
That is why a whole system is built around the water, and it is worth understanding it beforehand.
What
Why
Rescue boat
It has to reach a downed pilot quickly. The BHPA requirement is at least two people on board: usually the instructor and a boat driver.
Life jacket
It offsets the buoyancy of your equipment and keeps you on the surface. There is no single standard across the industry: FFVL recommends at least 100 newtons, FAI a self-inflating jacket of 275 newtons, and schools issue 275–300 N.
Back protector switched off
A BHPA requirement: inflatable and foam protectors that could act as a float are switched off or removed before flying over water.
Radio
The receiver is fitted so that you can hear the instructor through the wind noise. The BHPA rule: if the radio fails, the manoeuvres stop.
Enough height and distance from the shore
There has to be enough height to fly the manoeuvre well away from the shore and come back with a margin for a normal landing.
The back protector deserves a separate word, because it is not obvious. Foam or inflatable back protection floats. In the water it comes up first and turns the person face down: the legs go up and the head goes under. FAI calls this an unfavourable floating position and warns that in water deeper than an outstretched arm it can be fatal. That is exactly why the jacket has to be a strong one: it has to overcome the buoyancy of the harness.
Case study. A pilot arrives at the course with a harness whose airbag inflates from the airflow, and reckons that “this is extra buoyancy, only better”. At the briefing the instructor tells him to deflate the airbag. The pilot argues. Why the instructor is right: buoyancy behind your back works like a float tied to your back — it turns you face into the water instead of holding you up. Buoyancy has to be at the front, on the chest; then it keeps your head above the water.
How a day on the course is organised
The order is the same every day, and it is not accidental.
BriefingWe go through the aims of the day and each manoeuvre separately: what you will do with your hands, what you will see, what you will feel and how you will recover. The instructor makes sure you have understood — not nodded, but understood.
FlightYou fly out over the water, the instructor checks the radio, puts you in the right place and talks you through the manoeuvre and the recovery. Only one pilot works in the air at a time.
Video debriefAfter the flights you watch the recording together with the instructor. This is a required part of the BHPA method, not a pleasant extra: the video shows what you did not notice — for example, that you were holding the brake ten centimetres deeper than you thought.
Stepping it upThe next exercise is given only once the previous one has worked. By what actually happened, not by the timetable.
The usual pace is one to three flights a day. There are never more, and not out of meanness: every flight over water takes concentration, and after the third one attention drops faster than the benefit grows.
Our format: SIV 1 — three days, SIV 2 — three days, with a transition or reserve day possible between the modules. The final schedule always depends on the weather: decisions are made on the actual conditions, not on the programme at any cost.
What a pilot must have before arriving
The equipment check is not a formality at the door — it is the condition for being allowed onto the water.
What
Requirement
Wing
Certified (EN 926) and within its certified weight range. That is a BHPA requirement: outside the range a wing does not behave the way its certificate says.
Harness
In good order, with back protection. Important: the carabiner separation has to match the certification tests. A harness that is too wide or pulled in too tight noticeably changes how the wing behaves.
Reserve parachute
Matched to your all-up weight, correctly connected, repacked recently. Schools differ on repack intervals: some ask for no more than 6 months, others a year.
Helmet, footwear, gloves
A helmet to EN 966. The gloves are not for the cold: in stalled configurations the force on the brake grows several times over.
Radio with a headset
With enough charge for the whole flight. Without radio contact the manoeuvres are not flown.
Two things about the reserve are worth knowing in advance. First: the EN 12491 standard requires the canopy to open in no more than five seconds and to give a descent rate of no more than 5.5 m/s at maximum load. Second: “at maximum load” is a limit, not a recommendation. Practice, and DHV’s advice, is to stay about 10–20 % below the canopy’s maximum load: then the descent is slower and the touchdown softer.
A fine point for pros. Before the course, do a “dry” reserve deployment on the ground — hanging in the harness, not in your head. A study in which 55 pilots pulled the reserve under load found that 85 % first reached towards the hip regardless of where the handle actually was, and only 32 % found the handle on the first attempt. The hand looks where it is used to looking, not where it needs to.
Five course rules that matter more than any manoeuvre
These rules come from the official BHPA guidance and apply here without exception.
One manoeuvre at a time. Manoeuvres must never cascade one into another: wait for a full return to normal flight before starting the next one. The wing has to be flying level, with no swing or turn left in it — only then does the next task begin.
Tasks are voluntary. If the instructor gives a command and you are not comfortable, you do not fly it. It is written into the method: never do anything you are not entirely happy with.
Do not overdo it. Pilots are warned separately about the danger of over-reacting. On SIV, too strong an input does harm far more often than too weak one.
No radio, no manoeuvres. If the radio fails, you simply fly in and land. What to do if you lose contact is covered before the flight, not in the air.
The instructor may withhold a manoeuvre. And that is normal: not every task suits every pilot on that day.
A fine point for pros. The most disorienting manoeuvres are usually not flown back to back in one flight. The reason is simple: after a hard spin-up the vestibular system goes on lying to you for several minutes, and you would fly the next manoeuvre without knowing which way is up. If you are offered “one more, while you still have the height”, that is the moment to say no.
What follows is for our students
The full module text, the practice sessions and the exams are open to those who train with us. Access to the theory is included in the course fee: it runs for the whole course and for three months after it ends.
If you are training with us now, or have trained with us before, sign in with your access code. If you are a pilot from another school, access can be bought separately.
Language: the sections above are in English. Behind the code the full module text and the question bank are currently in Russian — the English versions are being prepared.
