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Will Palmer: (paraglider, Great Britain, NOVA team pilot)
a youthful and experienced paraglider pilot well accustomed to pushing the boundaries of the high mountain cross-country paragliding scene. After completing a biology university degree, and having ventured on many trips to the familiar European Alps to train, in 2010 and 2011 he was able to fill his passport with as many visas as pages, pioneering flying locations throughout the Himalayan chain. Highlights of the solo year long adventure included some extreme altitude flights pushing over 6500m and distances regularly over 100km a day. Although not the aim of going to such areas this enabled him to claim a position as one of the top 50 worldwide pilots in the online Leonardo cross-country league in 2011. After a few months spent in the Krgyz and Tajik republics and after flying the Pamirs only tens of kilometers from the Tajik Wakhan corridor, he traveled to the chaos of central Afghanistan with the aim of flying there. Though these flights were in an area far from the high and remote North, the Alpine mountains in Panjshir district, these flights provided a logistical challenge and experience of operation in an unfamiliar and sensitive environment, only made possible with tight relationship building with local officials and hard work. On his return to the UK despite a brief layup thanks to a training flight accident he was able to write articles, publish photos, give talks, and produce three short videos of the adventure drawing much interest from a diverse range of audiences. With this approach to video capture and his wide ranging and relevant experience, the use of the paraglider as a tool for low impact, low cost and otherwise impossible perspective.