Hi all,
I was wondering how many paragliding pilots are there on forum (and in north-east part of Switzerland).

I have 7 years of paragliding experiences (I come from Slovenia so mainly thermal alpine flying and ridge-soaring), although last year was really bad for me in this sense

I will start to work in Sargans (St. Gallen) with January 2012 but will try to find a place to live closer to Zurich, so I am manly interested in north-east region (Zurich, Zug, St. Gallen, ...).

Does anybody have any information how it is with flying permits? I currently don't have IPPI licence but I could arrange to get IPPI 4 (maybe 5) from Slovenian authorities.

Hope to hear from any similar soul

Hm... really? No paragliders in this Alpine heaven?

Hi Jurem

If you are resident here, you need to get a local licence.

These are issued by the Swiss Hang/Para federation, the SHV.

Details here

They are very helpful.

To get the licence more easily (to avoid the practical tests), you need the IPPI 5 card.
(you only need 100 hours flying time and a signed letter from someone who taught you to fly to get the IPPI 5 card - that;s in the U.K. anyway).

If you only have the IPPI 4 card then you need to do practical tests as well
as the mandatory multiple choice exam (you can do this in German, French and I believe English too).

Standards are very high here so you need to perform the practical tests adequately.

You can't fly without the Swiss licence and it's fairly obvious that you don't have it as when you get it, your pilots number must be displayed in big letters on your wing. The Police have been known to wait around landing fields to check.

Paragliding365.com shows most of the flying sites but as in most places, you need an airmap or local knowledge at least if you're not going cross-country because as well as a lot of controlled-airspace, there are nature areas which you are also not allowed to fly over.

Personally, my gear is a bit old and I don't have the licence but I must get it sorted out. It's been on the back-burner due to family etc.
It's on my list of things to get sorted....