The Technical Minimum

There is no minimum licence or flying-hour requirement for coming to SIV. The useful question is much simpler: can you already take off, fly a normal descent and land independently without the whole process using every bit of your attention?

Before adding wing-control exercises, you should be able to complete an ordinary top-to-bottom flight with enough spare capacity to think. Take-off should not still feel like a huge event. Landing should not consume all your mental energy. You should be comfortable judging your glide angle and managing the normal flight without everything still feeling completely new.

That does not mean you need to be an advanced pilot. It means the basic flying process has started to become repeatable enough that the course can focus on learning, rather than simply coping with the day.

Emotional Readiness

There is also emotional readiness to think about. Everyone has some apprehension before coming to do a wing-control course, however many hours they have. That is natural. The apprehension normally starts to change once you begin going through the process, hear the briefings, understand the language and feel what is happening in a controlled environment.

But if taking off and landing is still a big deal, adding the extra stress of a wing-control course on top of the stress of everything already being new is not necessarily kind or useful. It can overload the very part of your brain you need for learning.

Be kind to yourself. Give yourself a little more time, repetition and ordinary flying practice. Come when top-to-bottom flights, take-offs and landings feel relatively stress-free. You will usually get much more from the course when the basics are not taking up all of your mental space.

When More Repetition Will Help

The only time I would normally advise someone to wait is when they are still extremely nervous or apprehensive about flying in general. That does not mean they are incapable of doing SIV. It usually means they do not yet have enough ordinary flying repetition to trust themselves, trust their equipment and let the basic process feel familiar.

Those repetitions matter. The more normal flights you complete, the more ordinary actions begin to become natural. That reduces your mental load and gives you more capacity to listen, understand and make use of the coaching when you do arrive.

So the answer is not about ticking off a number of hours. It is about whether the foundations are settled enough that the course can help you progress. Related reading: prepare for paragliding SIV training, or why mental bandwidth matters.