Our Students are our Family and we happily added Helen to the clan last year. Her enthusiasm for flight and positive, hard working attitude showed in her progress, we can’t wait to welcome Helen back for further development.

Why choose RISE?
I’ve done SIVs with other schools before, and why i found this one to be good is that they really take time to individually and personally coach you and have a retrospective movie-discussion every day, rather than with the whole group. As a woman, it was also important to me to find an instructor that didn’t have any misogynistic cell in their body, something precious in a male dominated sport like this – which I found with RISE. I really felt that the instructors see people as equals and are humble to their students even if they themselves are much better pilots.
This years goals?
First goal is the same every year – Land safely. Secondly for 2025 – Do a proper misty and fly a longer XC from Germany to Austria
Where will / did you paraglide this year?
Luckily i live 45min from the closest mountain in Bavaria, so I often go flying near my home, in northern Austria and in east Switzerland during weekends. For spring the plan is to return to both Garda, Italy and Oludeniz, Turkey to practise more Acro flying, while during summer I will try some sites in Slovenia for some good XC flights.
What harness and glider do you fly?
I sit in an Easiness 3, hike’n’fly turnable harness and fly with 2 different gliders depending on what type of flight i feel like having and where i fly, my most used glider is the Airdesign Soar in XXS (High EN-B) and the second one i bought last (because it had such a good price) is the Skywalk Arriba 4. I also like the fact that i can turn one in for a check-up and still go flying the same day.


When not paragliding what do you do?
On a very hot day, i like to take my inflatable kayak on the river from the mountains into the city of Munich, the tour takes around 6-8 hours. Hiking and weight lifting weekly when it’s not flyable. When it’s shitty weather you’ll find me playing boardgames or any cute game i found on Steam.
One piece of paragliding advice for the year ahead?
Don’t let your ego control the flight. Whether it’s by doing cool acro trick for likes online, or trying to do a spectacular landing to impress someone standing on the ground. Ego flights/landings often end up as fails (personal experience). Fly for the feeling in the moment (cheesy i know).
You can follow Helen’s adventures on Instagram