Paragliding in Réunion has a birth date: November 1984. That month, John Jourdain launched from the hills above Saint-Leu and made the first paragliding flight in the island’s history. Air Lagon was born of that flight, and has flown the same slopes ever since.
A sport that was barely six years old
Paragliding itself was only six years old. It was born in Haute-Savoie, in the French Alps, at Mieussy, where Jean-Claude Bétemps, André Bohn and Gérard Bosson were the first to take off from a slope under a parachute canopy instead of jumping from a plane. The sport was still experimental when it crossed the Indian Ocean.
November 1984: the island’s first flight
John Jourdain made the first flight from the hills above Saint-Leu, over the lagoon. Straight afterwards he ran the island’s first paragliding course, alongside Jean-Claude Bétemps and Gérard Bosson. Paragliding in Réunion therefore began with two of its inventors.
He went on to open many of Réunion’s flying sites and to train hundreds of pilots. He no longer flies passengers for Air Lagon today, but four decades of free flight in Réunion bear his mark.
Saint-Leu, the historic site
The Les Colimaçons take-off, 800 m above the town, is the historic site of paragliding in Réunion. It is no accident. The south-easterly trade winds run up the west coast and meet the relief of Saint-Leu: they produce steady lift and around 300 flyable days a year.
The flight links the mountain and the sea. You cross the sugar cane fields and the Mascarin botanical gardens, then the lagoon and its coral reef, and land at the water’s edge near Kélonia. Les Colimaçons is still Air Lagon’s main take-off. Two higher ones have joined it: a private site at 1,600 m above the primary forest, and Le Maïdo at 2,200 m, facing the Cirque de Mafate.
State-approved since 1988
Air Lagon has been approved by the French youth and sports authority (Jeunesse et Sports) since 1988, without a break. The approval covers the instructors, the equipment and the flying sites. The Qualité Tourisme label and the French tourism medal, bronze grade, awarded in 2008 on behalf of the minister for tourism, complete the picture.
Air Lagon also trained pilots. That school has closed: the team now flies tandem only, and the approval remains.
Today
More than 50,000 flights later, the team still flies the slopes of Saint-Leu. All its instructors hold the Brevet d’État, the only qualification that allows paid tandem flying in France. The tandem flight follows the 1984 flight: take-off at Les Colimaçons, the lagoon, landing by the water. The five flights range from a first flight to the Maïdo take-off.
