Powered Paratrike

A powered paratrike is a paraglider with an engine and three wheels. That sounds improvised and is the opposite: because the power comes along, you need no slope, no running start and no thermals — no warm air rising of its own accord. A flat field is enough, and there are plenty of those at the Azat reservoir and around Lake Sevan.

You sit strapped into a seat; a pilot does the flying. The engine starts, the trike rolls across dry grass, bumps, gains speed, and then the bumping simply stops. That transition is the moment most people book this for.

Up there it is louder than under a paraglider — a propeller behind you is not a quiet device. In exchange, you have a say in where to go instead of waiting for what the wind offers. Flights stay low, one to two hundred metres above the ground, and from that height you see things that vanish from an airliner: irrigation ditches, herds, ruins with no name, the shadow of your own canopy on the field.

Flying happens early in the morning or in the last two hours before sunset. In between the air does not sit still, it boils: rising air over heated ground makes the flight rough and the landing needlessly complicated. A midday slot therefore never gets booked in the first place.

The two hours in the programme are not flight time. They include rigging, pre-flight checks, waiting for calm air and packing up. If you are short of time, plan for that — the launch follows the wind, not the clock.

Photography is fine, but only with a secured camera. A wrist strap or a lanyard is a condition, because anything that leaves the seat can go into the propeller behind you. For the same reason, hats stay under the helmet and scarves stay in the bag.

Anyone who has flown a paraglider notices the difference immediately: more control, less silence.