Airspace

Since one year there are zones in the Valle del Cauca where paragliders and hang-gliders are allowed to fly. 

Here an explanation of the status of the negotiations for today 19 November. 

Airspace Valle del Cauca in relation to Roldanillo. 

Since the airspace negotiations are progressing very slowly and the data are not updated either in AIS Colombia (RAC) there are many uncertainties. 

In Colombia, all powered aircraft fly with a flight plan, so until paragliding tourism came into being, the airspace was treated as a controlled airspace. 

Up to now motor flight schools have applied to the aviation authority for their airspace to do their flight exercises. For this reason the same was demanded of the paragliders. The first negotiations were conducted with the competition organiser. This was easy because all pilots in a competition fly the same route at almost the same time. Also the flight areas, which do more passenger flights like Ritoque, San Felix, Sopo etc. had to apply for their airspace in this way. This was also rather simple because the tandem pilots require a relatively small airspace. 

Roldanillo became a bit more complicated, because the whole Valle is flown here. So we were given zones 12 over the mountains and a corridor to pass the Valle.  

Since the zones did not work for us, Yannick Rousse was commissioned by the Colombian Paragliding Association to renegotiate the airspace. Zones 13 and 22 were added. Through the new zone 13 (Roldanillo/Zarzal) the old corridor to cross the Valle near Bolivar was removed. 

Recently a video of the mayor of Roldanillo and Yannick Rousse was published.

In the video they say that the whole Valle del Cauca is now airspace G 6500 ft (about 2000m), except the controlled zones like TMA and SKE. 

At first it sounded good, but when you look at the map you can see that a large part of the Valle consists of zone SKE. ZB: for Roldanillo a zone SKE12 and 13 which runs from Roldanillo via La Union to Toro Obando back to Zarzal Roldanillo. This is exactly where we always fly. Another less disruptive zone is the one in the south of Roldanillo SKE 41, 42 (see picture below).

The CTR district Armenia was enlarged with a square towards the west. 

Purple: CTR 

Green: Zones Paraglider and Hanglider  

Red: Motor Zones Aviation Training and Military

According to the mayor and Yannick Rousse it was negotiated with the aviation authority that the whole airspace is G and can be flown by paragliders. For this purpose the zones SKE 12, 13 should not be active in the period from December to April. 

All of these negotiations are not included in the AIS and are not agreed in writing with the aviation authorities, nor are there any signed documents on these negotiations. Zones 13 and 22 have recently been registered in AIS Colombia. 

The area of Roldanillo 12,13 has a height of 7500 feet, the area 22 has only 4500 feet. Airspace G is specified at 6500 feet (1960m) in the TMA Pereira. The airspace G on the TAM Cali map is not separately shown in writing. 

(see photo and link below)

The Ansermanuevo take off is a little more difficult to fly cross because of the position between the CTR of Pereira and in front of Cartago airport. 

Information:

What it looks like in the period from December to April with the SKE 15, 16, 17 before Piedechinche, we do not know.

Since all documents are not up to date and many things have been negotiated in various local clubs, everything is very unclear and nobody has an overview of all the details. It will be a long time before everything is settled and written down.

It is important that every pilot is informed about the new regulations before flying.