I am going to crash in four seconds. Momentarily, as my paraglider skirts the edge of the hill, I recall my practice emergency landings. But to do a parachute roll I need to land on my feet and I can already tell they won't be the bit that hits the ground first. Second one... I try to move my left hand to change the direction of the canopy away from the hillside but my arm, entangled in one of the brake lines, is paralysed into inac tion. Second two... the canopy skims the ground, as though I am performing some daring manoeuvre with a stunt kite. Second three... as the right edge of the canopy scrapes along the low scrub, my wing starts to crumple and deflate. Second four... impact. For a few, longer seconds there is silence and a mental and physical numbness. Then my right knee and thigh scream into life. God, that hurt.
Several weeks before my paragliding course, family and friends began warning me about how dangerous paragliding is. Now, I will have to face those told-you-so looks. But let's keep things in perspective. Any insurance firm will advise that riding and skiing are dangerous sports too. So why is a cheap skiing holiday in the Alps virtually on the national curriculum? And why does every 12-year-old girl either take riding lessons or long to take them?
My desire to learn to paraglide was roused several years ago. As I was crossing a field, a dark shape moved silently over me and, looking up, I saw a huge bird hovering in front of the sun. Then almost at once it turned, and I saw my mistake: it was a man hanging beneath a thin whisp of colour. Over the far end of the field he had circled, found some lift and risen until he was no bigger than a distant gull. Since that day I had wanted to be a birdman too.
And here, on the Isle of Wight, I was getting my chance. Phil Keen, of High Adventure, the island's paragliding school, had invited me to a two-day introductory course. He met me at his base in Freshwater Bay with a dozen of his trainee pilots. Apart from me and another novice, Tim, they had already earned, if not their wings, at least a feather or two. It takes anything from 10 days to a lifetime to gain a paragliding pilot's licence - depending on your co-ordination, commitment and the vagaries of the British weather. Although not everyone who attends wants to learn to fly - Phil also caters for casual thrillseekers, including stag parties - those who complete the course usually pass in anything from eight to 15 flying days.
The school's flying site on Compton Down, overlooking the bay, offers dramatic views of Tennyson Down, the poet's favourite haunt, and the great chalk pillars of the Needles. There are paragliding schools across Britain but beginners could do no better than learn on the island. Because the wind arriving on the down comes straight off the sea, it is undisturbed by the obstacles - houses, hedges, trees - that usually cause turbulence.
Or rather the wind would be perfect were it not on this particular day also bringing in waves of fog. No matter, Phil says, Tim and I can practise take-offs even in low visibility. As he and the advanced party disappear into the mist, Tim and I are left with two instructors - Phil's girlfriend, Sam, and Mike, a wiry Yorkshireman who when not airborne is a guard at Albany jail. Mike opens out our canopies, revealing a complex array of lines connecting them to the harness. These lines determine the canopy's shape and angle in flight, ensure its internal pockets are filled with air, and are used to control the paraglider's direction. Mastery of them, as I will discover during my accident, when I have grown a little too confident, is essential.
Do-it-yourself flying started in the Sixties when a few brave souls put their faith in the aerodynamics of a triangular bit of climbing frame and sail. The hangglider was not easy to master: it had a fixed wing that needed to be carefully transported and assembled, and then the weighty frame carried up a hill before a flight. Not surprising then that a young upstart was stealing the show in the Eighties. The paraglider needed no frame, could be packed into a rucksack and weighed only a few pounds. And best of all you could be airborne after just a few hours' training. Now many flying schools have abandoned hanggliding altogether.
On fine weekends groups of paragliders can be seen crowding the skies above dozens of ridges across the country, but the sport's profile has remained at ground level. This is surprising because from the few thousand members of the British Hanggliding and Paragliding Association (BHPA) have come a crop of world champions, both male and female. According to Phil, the reason is simple: the weather. While pilots here are forced to develop finely attuned antennae to seek out the fickle thermals that offer the chance of lift to several thousand feet, the French and Italians start out at such heights, selecting an Alpine slope and pointing their canopies in the direction of a bar below.
Once we have completed our checks, Sam tells us to prepare for take-off. It all seems a bit sudden - after all, we have been out of doors for less than an hour. But I soon realise why she is happy to let us loose. Sam calls it bunnyhopping - but, as far as I am concerned, it involves running downhill mimicking a dodo that refuses to acknowledge its evolutionary drawback. The slope is so gentle and we are so far out of the wind that even when I charge downhill at full speed I am lucky to get more than a few feet off the ground. Every time I take off, my legs still frantically pedalling mid-air for my return to earth, I have visions of Terry-Thomas in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines . Is the fog hiding a thick layer of pigsty muck waiting to receive me, slapstick fashion, at the end of my flight?
No one has prepared me for how exhausting learning to paraglide will be. Things are easier when you can remain aloft, but for a trainee each flight involves losing hundreds of feet of height in seconds. After landing you have to gather up the canopy and drag it to the top again. A day's training may require walking up the hill a dozen times. Do the maths and you realise why every muscle aches.
After half a dozen practice flights, Tim and I are taken to join Phil and the others on the big slope. They have waited all morning for a chance to fly but only as we arrive does the sun finally tease the mist apart. The two of us are moved down the slope to do some advanced bunnyhopping, while the others soar impressively overhead from the ridge. After each flight we are allowed to start a little further up the hill. Finally, running from half way up the slope I realise that not only have my madly gyrating feet left the ground but that the ground is leaving me. I am actually flying - gracelessly and without control, but it is flight. Almost immediately the wind changes its mind, withdraws its lift and I am sinking. Back on earth the flight is little more than a brief and heady blur. But looking back I can see I have flown several hundred yards.
Next comes my little accident. It is an important reminder of the seriousness of the sport. 'Don't ever forget that as soon as you get in the harness you are a pilot - you are in charge of an aircraft,' warns Phil. As though appalled by my negligence, the fog builds again and flying has to be abandoned.
The next day the sun has triumphed. From the ridge I can see not only the valley floor 300ft below, but fields stretching to the cliffs and Tennyson Down. Phil gives me the all-clear and I pull hard on the lines forcing the canopy to rise. Briefly the canopy holds me as though I am a puppet and it a giant, unpredictable hand, but as I strain to beat the drag the wing slowly starts to move with me. I gain control and then run with all my might towards the edge of the ridge. As I reach its lip, the canopy tugs on my shoulders and takes my weight. Suddenly there is a surge of air lifting me. I am riding a thermal, taking me higher than the cliffs and the down. Hundreds of feet below, my dark outline is hurrying across the valley floor, chasing a crow startled out of the grass by the monstrous shadow over it. Finally I am the birdman.
· Jonathan Cook undertook a two-day introductory paragliding course - cost £150 - with High Adventure (01983 752322). He travelled to the Isle of Wight on Wightlink's Lymington to Yarmouth car ferry crossing (0870 582 7744). He stayed at the Royal Hotel, Ventnor, on a two-night short break starting from £136, which includes half board and return ferry crossing. For details of other paragliding courses, ring the BHPA on 0116 261 1322.
