The Kwahu paragliding festival has attracted attention both locally and internationally with revellers from different parts of the world coming to the area annually to take part in the aviation sport.
The Odweanoma Paragliding festival is part of the many activities that feature prominently in the Kwahu Easter celebration in the Kwahu South Municipality in the Eastern Region.
Paragliding is an aviation sport that is enjoyed by hundreds of people around the world. It is most popular in Europe where there is an estimated 400,000 pilots.
A paragliding flight may be performed by a single pilot or an experienced pilot [instructor] together with a passenger (with no prior flying experience) attached to the same canopy.
In flight, the pilot remains in a sitting position inside a harness hanging below the canopy. Most modern harnesses include a reserve parachute which may be deployed in case of emergency.
The paraglider is launched from a hillside or towed with a winch. It is kept aloft by a ram-air aerofoil canopy. It is steered by using vertical riser lines attached to the chute.
In calm air, the average speed over ground of a standard paraglider is approximately 30/40km/h.
In Ghana, Paragliding was initiated by the Ministry of Tourism in April 2005 during the annual Easter Festival in Kwahu Atibie.
It was organised to coincide with the Easter festivities that year on the Odweanoma Mountain. There was a break in the paragliding festival in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Kwahu paragliding festival is highly patronised.
More importantly, paragliding has also been adopted as part of the tourism calendar of events in Ghana.
According to the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), about 200 people are expected to be flown in the 2023 paragliding festival.
The seven pilots for the 2023 Kwahu paragliding festival are Ed Stein – US; Chuck Smith – US; Blake Pelton – US; Eduardo Reategui – Peru; Jonathan Quaye – Ghana; Okada Naohisa – Japan; and Diego Moreno – Colombia.
