Chiang Mai Sky Adventure

The oldest name in Chiang Mai’s small-aviation scene is a microlight strip at Nong Yaeng, San Sai, where Chiang Mai Sky Adventure has flown two-seat trikes since 1998, Thailand’s first microlight centre, by its own account, founded by a pilot trained and certified in France. This is genuinely different flying from the paramotors that dominate the valley: a fixed wing, an airframe, wheels under you and an intercom to the pilot, cruising over the paddies and the broad blue sheet of Mae Kuang Dam.

The flight

Flights run about 15 minutes in the two calm windows (roughly 07:00-09:30 and 16:30-18:00), with longer packages sold through resellers that add photos or GoPro footage. Reseller rates run around 3,100 THB per person with a two-person minimum, or about 3,700 THB solo, so treat those figures as a guide. Maximum passenger weight is 97 kg, tighter than the paramotor operators’ 110-120 kg limits.

Reviews and safety

This operator is included for completeness and history, with a caveat stated plainly. Most reviews describe a fun, smooth flight with a professional pilot. A minority (notably one reviewer identifying as a licensed ultralight pilot with 14 years’ experience) describe ageing, poorly maintained equipment, and echo each other on the theme. The paramotor operators around the city offer comparable airborne minutes at similar prices with no equivalent pattern in their reviews. Read this operator’s most recent reviews yourself before booking, and weigh the alternatives.

Watch out: “Sky Adventure” here is a fixed-wing microlight, not a paramotor. If you’re after the paraglider-and-propeller tandem flight instead, that’s a different set of operators. Compare them in flying over Chiang Mai. Either way, confirm your booking points to the Nong Yaeng airfield.

For the propeller-backpack alternative, six paramotor operators fly the same countryside: start with the comparison in flying over Chiang Mai, or the closest strips at FlyingBird and Blue Sky in San Kamphaeng. More of the area in our Chiang Mai guide.