Nicky Moss(below) soars over the countryside. The duration record for a paraglider is more than 11 hours and the furhest distance is 186 miles
|  | | Picture Credit: Steve Godfrey; Mark Leavesely | It was 1pm by the time Moss launched. There were about 30 other gliders already in the air around her, circling like colourful butterflies.
Paragliding competitions are like yachting events in that participants are assigned tasks and have to go round markers, such as a church in a village 30 miles away. The task might be to fly within 1,200 feet of the steeple, then go to a second point. Each manoeuvre is recorded by pilots’ GPS units for scoring. Today’s first task was a 20-mile flight from Killarney in Queensland to a town called Woodenbong in Australia’s Northern Tablelands.
As they launch, paraglider pilots look for thermals—rising air currents produced by the earth’s heat. These are what enable gliders to climb. Pilots watch for soaring birds because they, too, ride thermals. If you spot an eagle, conditions might be right for flying.
The weather at the launch site that afternoon was wonderful. Cauliflower-shaped clouds hung in the bright blue sky and a gentle breeze flowed over Moss. The fiery yellow canopy of her glider glowed gold in the sunlight. The canopy, or wing, was made of 77 cells for safety and stability. With an arching span of 38 feet, it now carried Moss over a range of red rock mountains and plunging waterfalls.
But paragliding is not all scenic beauty. There are accidents and fatalities. A Chinese paraglider training for this year’s World Championship was sucked into a thunder cell and killed by a bolt of lightning. Moss herself had received her share of bruises. A year earlier, her canopy malfunctioned in strong winds and she landed hanging upside down in an Australian gum tree.
Now she found a thermal and rode it, spiralling upward to 6,000 feet. Her canopy puffed with air and her vario-altimeter sounded off. A vario beeps in a rising pitch, what Moss calls a happy sound, when the glider is soaring up. It puts out a “sad” declining pitch when the glider is going down.
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