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PARAGLIDING PILOT TRẦN HOÀNG KIM
Trần Hoàng Kim (a.k.a. “Uncle Kim”) is a (in)famous paragliding athlete and coach in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia. He has trained nearly 200 paragliding students, won multiple international competitions, and currently holds various national records.
AIR KAMASUTRA
The Air Kamasutra handbook is a project Kim has been working on for years, documenting and compiling knowledge gained from training and competing abroad. He sought out the best pilots at every event, picking up their unique flying techniques. This handbook features 196 “positions,” covering everything from basic to advanced maneuvers, written in a simple, relatable, and easy-to-understand style—so that anyone can apply them right away.
With the mission of bringing the knowledge of global paragliding back to Vietnam, Air Kamasutra is distributed for free to passionate readers who truly need it. Kim personally covers all costs for writing, design, and printing, with partial support from generous reader donations.
Với sứ mệnh đem dù lượn 5 châu về Việt Nam, cuốn Air Kamasutra được phân phối miễn phí cho các bạn đọc có tâm huyết và nhu cầu. Toàn bộ chi phí biên soạn, thiết kế, in ấn được Kim chi trả và được hỗ trợ một phần từ tài trợ của các bạn đọc hảo tâm.
ME AND THE SKY
My name is Trần Hoàng Kim, though fellow paragliders often call me “Uncle Kim,” thanks to my incredible ability to reach the peak (with a glider). I first discovered paragliding around 2010 when I was a student in Utah—the paragliding mecca of North America.
Life’s twists and turns, along with the pursuit of money and career ambitions, pulled me from one business venture to another.
By 2016, when my startup Doo Entertainment—my biggest and most cherished project—was gradually collapsing, I found myself both sad and with too much free time. That’s when I decided to take up paragliding with Vietwings Hanoi.
At first, I thought just getting off the ground was already a thrill. But even I was surprised by the incredible potential that a paraglider offers. It’s not just about flying from a mountaintop to a landing zone—paragliding allows you to hover for hours, ascend into the clouds, and cover hundreds of kilometers… all purely using wind energy and atmospheric thermals, without burning a single drop of fuel. Truly magical!
As a paragliding pilot and athlete, you don’t just need the strength and agility of a sportsman; you also need the analytical mind of a scientist and the intuitive, artistic sensitivity of a poet.
It’s a sport because you must be fit enough to withstand rapid altitude changes, soaring thousands of meters in mere minutes, and skilled enough to adjust wing movements, keeping it taut and aerodynamic.
It’s a science because you need to understand meteorology and aerodynamics—calculating glide ratios across different wind layers, optimizing speed, attack angles, and flight paths in real time.
And in the end, no matter how skilled you are, air is invisible, and you must make decisions based on… faith. That’s when intuition—like an artist’s instinct—becomes crucial.
Ironically, despite my fear of heights, the deeper I got into paragliding, the more I felt like I was born for it. I progressed rapidly, reaching elite levels in the sport.
Within just two years, I topped the XContest Vietnam rankings (and have continued winning for six consecutive years since).
Within 2.5 years, at my first-ever international competition (the Southeast Asia Open Championship), I won—using only a C-class glider. I later went on to win two more times and made it onto the podium in seven other international events.
Then came the numbers: 100 km, 150 km, 200 km, 250 km…
Hãy trở lại blog này để cùng tôi sống lại các trải nghiệm ấy … sau khi tôi thực hiện chúng.
Post-COVID, I’ve represented Vietnam four times at the Paragliding World Cup and World Championships.
Now, in 2024, my eighth year in the sport, I’ll continue pushing for greater distances. But my mindset has shifted—I now seek something beyond numbers: a love for the sky and the beauty of nature. I will undertake projects not to break records but to bring myself closer to the earth and sky.
Come back to this blog and relive these experiences with me… after I live them.
FOUNDING MAY PARAGLIDING
Since my early days of paragliding and teaching, I’ve dreamed of creating a dedicated paragliding hub—a place with training hills, flying sites, and accommodations all in one location, close to the city center.
After testing countless options, I finally found the perfect spot: west of Đồi Bù Mountain, in Lương Sơn district. The area features a bald hill for launching in multiple directions and a small keo tree hill within easy gliding distance.
Of course, that keo hill was full of trees… and the launch site was only accessible on foot. But I thought to myself:
“Trees? We can buy and clear them. Roads? We can purchase land and build them. But a mountain? You can’t just move a mountain closer to Hanoi!”
So, I poured all my savings from years of business into buying land and transforming this site into what it is today.
But I didn’t stop there—I wanted to optimize training so that it would be truly efficient, saving students time, money, and effort.
If in the U.S. they can train students in just two days, why does it take two to three months in Vietnam? Aside from top-notch facilities, the key difference is that their training sites have consistent valley winds every single day.
Since I couldn’t replicate those ideal winds, I had to innovate. I flew to meet the owner of Davinci Paragliders, pitched my idea, and commissioned a custom single-surface training wing—designed specifically to make the sport more accessible for beginners.
Recovering my investment is still a long way off, but after six training batches, the student feedback has been phenomenal. Even I can see that the program is working incredibly well.
Dropout rate: almost 0% (previously 50%)
Course completion within 3 days: over 95%
Students buying their own gliders after training: over 40% (previously 10%)
Accidents: knock on wood still 0%
Now, the challenge is to spread the passion further and introduce this joy to even more people…
PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Google says listing lots of numbers will bring good luck… so let’s do it
Public contribution to the sport – Các công tác “xã hội”
- Head coach at the Northern Aviation Club, under the Vietnam Air Defense-Air Force
- Command, overseeing thousands of safe launches and training hundreds of P1 pilots
- Brought emergency SIV training to Vietnam for the first time
- Helped pioneer new flying sites: Núi Cốc, Mạo Khê, Đại Tuệ, Sìn Hồ
- Founded and developed flying sites: Lương Sơn Bạc, BAD
- Co-founded Vietnam’s Paragliding World Cup Federation, aiming to create a structured and high-quality domestic competition system
Official brand ambassador for BGD - Paragliders and Davinci Gliders
Education & Licenses
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Trained in six SIV courses across the U.S., Nepal, and Vietnam
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Holds IPPI P3 (USHPA – U.S.), IPPI P4 (JHF – Japan), and P5 (Vietnam Air Force Command) certifications
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Flown in USA, Australia, France, Romania, Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, South Korea, China, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia
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Represented Vietnam in:
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World Cup 2022 Gochang (Korea)
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World Cup 2023 Castelo (Brazil)
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World Championship 2023 Annecy (France) And still flying…
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1000+ hours of flight time
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Thrown one reserve chute; pulled one stunt that nearly ended me
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World Cup 2023 Brasov (Romania).
Awards and Achievements – National and International Accomplishments
🏆 Champion of International Competitions:
ASEAN Friendship Open 2019 (FAI Cat.2)
CIS Open 2019 – Former Soviet Union Nations Championship (FAI Cat.2)
Indonesia Open 2023 (FAI Cat.2)
🏆 Vietnam National Champion: 2019, 2022, 2023
Ranked #1 in Southeast Asia on the official FAI ranking since November 2019
Ranked #1 in XContest Vietnam for six consecutive flying seasons (2019–present)
30 flights over 100 km / 100 points
7 flights over 200 km / 200 points
Kim and the Vietnamese paragliding team participated in the ASEAN Friendship Open 2019 in Thailand.
Records – Current Records Held
- Longest flight by a Vietnamese pilot: 260 km, achieved in 2022 in Utah, USA
Longest cross-country flight in Vietnam: 135 km, achieved in 2022 at Đồi Bù, Hanoi
Vietnam FAI triangle record: 150 points, achieved in 2023 at BAD, Phú Yên
Đồi Bù triangle record: 84 points, achieved in 2019 at Đồi Bù, Hanoi
Site records held at Đồi Bù, Tam Đường, Đạ Tẻh, Khánh Vĩnh, Charlie, Đại Tuệ, Mạo Khê, BAD, Linh Trường, etc.
Special record: Fastest broken record—once in 23 hours (Australia), once in 25 hours, and once in 27 hours (Tam Đường, Vietnam).
Personal Goals
Focus less on numbers and rankings
Turn paragliding into a lifelong profession, ensuring a stable career for fellow pilots
Fly 400 km, anywhere in the world
Fly 200 km / 200 points in Vietnam
