SAFA Skysailor Magazine

12 SKY SAILOR May | June 2021 When SkyHigh Paragliding Club member Babushka Férenczi moved from France to Australia in 2011, she was surprised at how few women participated in sports aviation, but a recent initiative is working to turn that around. Babushka recently created a Women’s Tandem Paragliding Weekend in Portsea, Victoria, with the help of eight expe- rienced pilots from Bright and Melbourne, giving interested females the chance to experience a free tandem flight. With only approximately 9% of all SAFA members being female, Babushka believes that these introductory events are important to provide more exposure to sports aviation by creating real positive experiences. She was blown away by the popularity of the event with more than 300 people registering to take part within three days before registrations were closed, and 160 being offered the opportunity for a free flight and to learn more about paragliding. “This was an idea I came up with to encourage women to discover the sport and realise it’s as equally fun and possible for us (females) as it is for the male pilots. About 140 free tandem flights ended up being offered across the two days, thanks to a wonderful team of eight gun tandem pilots, an outstanding ground crew, and a bunch of awesome volunteers,” she recounted. “One participant has already finished her training course and attended her first fly-in event at Corryong as a solo pilot.” Seeing the popularity of the event and the positive impact it had on the sport, the Victorian Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association offered to fund the entire event to the value of approximately $8,000. Babushka has been flying for 15 years and trained to become a paragliding pilot in France, where it is a lot more common for females to participate in the sport. She said when she first moved to Australia, the women she spoke to were reluctant to take part in the sport due to the perception that it is a male-dominated sport, but “it doesn’t have to be,” she insists. “In my experience, male pilots are welcoming of female pilots and I think this was demonstrated by all tandem pilots and ground crew at the event being male. They did it purely to facilitate the event and promote the sport to females and it was so fantastic to see how supportive the team was. Outdoor sports are really booming and I’ve definitely seen the interest for paragliding grow, which is exciting to see.” The event was also an opportunity for the future potential pilots to meet like-minded friends and encourage each other on their journey into paragliding. “I encouraged them to carpool together to Portsea and by the time they spent the whole day together, they were talking about doing a course together, which was great to see. Anyone who appreciated our efforts and would like to see more of these initiatives in the future can help by becoming a member of the SkyHigh Paragliding Club as the larger numbers we have in the club, the more chance there is to organise future events,” Babushka said. To see footage from the Women’s Tandem Day visit www.skyhighparagliding.org.au. Incredible support for women’s tandem weekend provides first-time paragliders with unique opportunity Inset: Pilot Dave, ground crew Chris take up another happy passenger Photos: Kathryn Aline has since become a fully certified solo pilot – Photo: Sudin Sign-on queue – Photo: Sudin