The Paragliding Podcast, Episode 6

In this episode Tarquin and Ed discuss issue 266, which is dedicated to all things Alpine. Ed gives a preview of the magazine, which features a wealth of tips, advice and inspiration for flying in the Alps, whether you're looking to fly your first 100km or like contributor Luca Godenzi, just happy to be in and amongst the Bernina mountains of Switzerland on foot or under wing. The pair discuss Tom Payne's feature on alternative flying adventures, one of which includes flying under a full moon, an experience Tarquin enjoyed with Tom last year, sharing the wild experience.
Special guest this edition is Calef Letorney, who recently gave a Masterclass for progressing pilots. The podcast includes a segment from that talk in which he shares his tips for active piloting on speedbar and while thermalling. He also opens the podcast with his advice to prioritise flying in your life. 
In the final part, Tarquin shares all the news and gossip from the inaugural Red Bull X-Alps Challenger as well as the insights he and fellow Cross Country magazine contributers Erwin Voogt and Bastienne Wentzel learnt at the Kössen Super Paragliding Testival. Between them they flew 37 wings including the new Ozone Vibe GT and the Advance Tau DLS EN-C. 
The episode concludes with Ed discussing the latest near 400km flights in the Alps. 

Thanks for listening! Join us every 6-8 weeks as we dive into the stories inside the latest issue of Cross Country magazine. Cross Country is the world’s international free flying magazine and is available online and in print.

Subscribers enjoy articles on new flying techniques, inspiring stories from across the world and deep dives into micro-meteorology, the latest equipment advances – and much more. 

As well as receiving eight premium quality issues, subscribers can access six Masterclass coaching sessions and discounts on merchandise, books, and flying accessories. 

Cross Country is a flying trip found nowhere else. Find us online at www.xcmag.com and on social media @xcmag.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Perhaps one of the most important topics we're going to discuss today is to not give away your flying days. For me, if there's no work, it's a flying day, right? You know, you can rock climb when it's windy and you can do chores when it's rainy, but this requires tactfully dodging invitations, right? Our friends and family are going to unknowingly conspire to take up all our available flying days.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Hello and welcome to episode six of the Paragliding Podcast, brought to you by Cross Country Magazine. I'm Top Glen Cooper.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

And I'm Ed Ewing.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Now, this is a very exciting

Episode intro

SPEAKER_02 0:38

episode because we are talking all things Alps. We've just published the Alpine issue, which is packed with advice, intel, and ideas of our favourite mountain range. I've also just got back from the Alps, where I was in Meyerhoffen for the Red Bull X Alps Challenger, and then Kirsten for the Super Paragliding Testival, where I got to fly 13 wings. But before I went away, I hosted a masterclass with Caliph Latorney, who we just heard from. And one of his best bits of advice was about prioritizing your flying. Don't give away your flying days, he said, and vacation hard. Ed, meanwhile, you've been hard at work putting the issue together. It's a thing of beauty. Tell us what's inside.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yes, thank you very much. Um just to start, to say that I have been not following Kalef's advice. Uh I think his advice to vacation hard and not give away your uh flying days is very good. But as we all know, it gets harder and harder. Uh as you it just gets harder. And you absolutely, I always remember saying that years ago, you've got to carve out time. You really do. You just have to say, I'm gonna go flying this time, this time, this time, and give yourself permission to go. Otherwise, it's too easy just to get swept up in other things. Uh, but yes, uh, the July 2026 issue XD Mag 266 is out. It has this amazing picture uh of flying in the Alps by Romano Salis on the front page on the front cover. And the idea of this issue was let's look at the Alps. You know, we we know that the Alps is the center of the universe for flying, for paragliding. Uh that there are more pilots there than anywhere else in the world. Uh the XARPS happens there, all the top pilots come from, well, most of the top pilots come from there. Heikenfly was born there. You know, Switzerland has a paraglider on its 50 franc uh banknote.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

I saw that. That's amazing. Who do you know who the pilot is? I mean, is it just a generic?

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Is it just a just a generic thing? Yeah, it's like I think they they put it up there 10 years ago. They put it out. They they yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Are you allowed to print a banknote though on on because it used to be a thing like in the UK, you're not allowed to take a photo or do anything with uh with currency.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Funnily enough, the the the actual digital image doesn't didn't reproduce it in design. The what we use to actually lay out the physical print magazine didn't allow us to use that. So it must be tagged somehow, uh deep within the metadata. So yeah, we have to use a bit of jiggery pokery to copy it and print it in the magazine. But yeah, it's not full size. I mean, you know, we're not sitting there printing 50 franc notes.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

You can't cut it out and pay for your uh your racelet with it.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

No, um, so yeah, so the the idea was we just look at the Alps and we would take a big overview, uh especially for people that haven't been to the Alps, you know, for US pilots, for people visiting from overseas, from the northern countries, from the Netherlands, wherever, you know. If you don't live in the Alps, then what you hear about the Alps are things like valley winds and north and south divide and the Western Alps and the Eastern Alps, and all of this is the fern, exactly. The fern, the beast, all this stuff, and you're like, what is that? Uh so we we sat down and we did, we started off with unpacking all of that basically and laying it out in a way that is easily understandable. And though I say it myself, gives you a really good introduction to the Alps, and we have an amazing map in there as well of all the fantastic sites that Marcus did.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Um, and then Ed is being can I just interrupt you say Ed is being very modest because you did a fantastic introduction to the Alps, which is brilliant for someone like myself, a pilot, you know, looking, I've been to the Alps a few times, but just explaining the range and how all the you know, the Alps, it made it kind of sounds like it's one range, but it's made up of myriads of different mountain ranges and just explaining how they all kind of connect and fit together. So I think it's a really, really interesting piece and informative.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Informative, exactly. So if you've not been to the Alps and you and you want to get your head around it, um, yeah, it's there. Uh, and then we also have some other really inspirational articles there. We've got Tim Rochas and friends, uh, they did an amazing hike and fly on Mont Blanc last autumn. Some beautiful photography, some really good tips and advice on how to do that, because of course that's the biggest hike and fly. Uh, it's 4,808 meters,

Ed rounds up what's in the magazine

SPEAKER_01 5:24

I think. Uh, and so it's over 3,000 meters to fly from the top back down to the valley floor. And although it is a big mountaineering day and there is altitude involved, and it is all glacier travel, it is accessible for people who have mountaineering experience, uh, or you can go with a guide, etc. Uh, and then Tom Payne did another amazing article all about the alternative Alps.

Tom Payne alternative guide to the Alps

SPEAKER_01 5:48

So rather than just focus on, you know, big triangles or where you can fly 100k or where you can fly 200k, because that stuff is all out there. Uh, Tom put together a brilliant article on 21 ideas of how to have fun in the Alps. Everything from taking yourself off to do SIV over the lake to learning a bit of acro to flying full moon, which apparently is legal in Switzerland from time to time.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

I gotta

Tarquin's full moon flight

SPEAKER_02 6:15

fly. I did so I did the full moon flight with Tom uh last year, and it was brilliant. It was just amazing. It's it's totally unlike any other flying experience that you can have, and it was really exciting because it was dark and we were launching at night, and it just felt all wrong. And yeah, we had a couple of head torches, but uh you know, I had zero instruments, nothing. You could just see the flickering lights of Zurich beneath your feet. That was after launching. I I should say before launching, it was a little bit, it was quite a lot stronger than we uh anticipated, but it was fine. But Tom just said, watch out for the cables. Yeah, of course, you can't see any cables, you know. It would have been better if you just said there are no cables, you know. We were fine, you had plenty of height over them, but um, I was sort of frantically looking, you know, trying to spot these cables in the dark, and we wrecce the the landing field um beforehand. And I remember his advice afterwards, you know, watch the watch the trees in the middle of the field. And I remember you know looking down and I was like, oh, there's the tree right beneath me. Um, but no, it's it's it's it's uh that's a lot, a lot of fun, but he had lots of other ideas as well in there.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

And yes,

Luca Godenzi's "poet" approach to flying

SPEAKER_01 7:26

and then we also have an amazing inspirational uh written from the heart feature by Luca Goddenzi, uh, with photography by Romano Salis, and that is about flying and top landing 4,000 meter peaks in the Bernina range.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

It's very um sort of poetic, isn't it? It it's this sort of meditation on being an alpinist, whether you're on foot or under a wing.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

This is what I like about it, because you see he's he's got a following on Instagram, and you can see him and his uh clips, it's all video, his clips of top landing, and of course it's all that Insta360 fisheye, you're never sure how steep those steep hills are. But anyway, he's all he's top landing, and it's all like wow, wow, wow, but actually he is a poet, as you say, you know, and so this has given him space to explain more about what he does and why he does it and what he's looking for. Uh and yeah, I did speak to him briefly on a call, and it was yeah, again, he was up in the mountains, he was in this not quite a little Swiss hut, but you know, a sort of mountain cabin type environment. He came out and we did a little video call, and I was like, gosh, that is he's uh he's a mountain eagle, you know, he's a solo eagle up there in Switzerland flying around these mountains. Very often on his own, he has some good advice about how to manage the risk associated with that as well. Uh so yeah, no, it's it's super packed, it's super packed. And then outside of the Alps uh information and content, we have a big article there written by Bastian Wetzel all about uh what we call the Goldilocks class, which is the mid-B wings.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Can you explain that?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

I I I'm yes, so they're they're they're they're wings that are not too cold to be boring and not too hot to be they're just right, you know. If you remember the little story of Goldilocks and the three bears and the porridge. So this was the Goldilocks class, we called it Mid B. Uh let's shorthand aspect ratio 5.4. Ozone have just brought out brought out the vibe, GT. Uh Jin have just brought out the well.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Look, this is probably a good time, the bandit too, to dive into some of these because a lot of these wings I've just flown at the Cusin Testival.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

I was just gonna say, before you went to

Red Bull X-Alps Challenger

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Cussen, you were on the Red Bull Exalps Challenger, weren't you? Can you just give us a little insider sneak peek behind the curtain there? Yes. I mean, any gossip? Well, I guess for those who haven't heard, what is it?

SPEAKER_02 9:58

So Red Bull X Alps Challenger, it was a three-day sort of mini Red Bull X Alps sort of qualifier event. And over three, there were three days. Uh, one was a mountain run, day two was like a sort of dollar meeting man style hike and fly race where you run up 400 meters, fly straight down, do that three times, and in your regular kit, not uh you're not allowed a speed or mini wing. And then day three was a conventional hike and fly with an 80 kilometer task. And um, you know, it had the format had it had some critics, you know. There were some people who said, oh, there was no flying on the first day, and it was quite harsh because it was a knockout style event. So uh something like 76 athletes were there on the on the start line, and only 35 or no, 40 or so could go through on the on the final day. So it was quite brutal, but you know, um, races often are. Um, but um the main focus of the event was to provide a kind of platform for you know the next generation to see the kind of the emerging talent, and so that was a lot more from a communications point of view, a lot more of the emphasis was placed on the the kind of the rookies because it was the rookie winners who would receive the wildcard entry to Red Bull X Alps. And so on the male side, that was a Swiss pilot called Eron Mattis and a female pilot called uh Romy Sweda, who is who has just won another hikerfly race I saw, and she's been around for a few years now and was really um top of her game.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

So they actually win these two rookies, they actually win a pass to uh take part in the Red Bull Excel next year.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Win in inverted commerce, because when I said, you know, congratulations, Romy, you win a wild card. She was like, Oh, I don't know, I don't know if I can do it. It's so big, it's so hard. I don't have any sponsors, or uh I don't know if I can get it together. But she's she's amazing. I mean, she she she can kind of keep up with the guys. Um, she's a really extraordinary athlete in her own right. She's um a doctor by profession. Um she supported Kriegel uh during last year's Red Bull X Alps and mentioning Kriegel, we we really can't not mention Kriegel. So the other part of the story of Challenger is that uh Kriegel was there and a few of the other veterans um of the main race, and Kriegel won the overall. Yeah, he turned up. Yeah, he he won the overall, and um you know it's it's great to see. He's you know, age 43, he's still top of his game, and he went in there, presumably to win and to show everyone that he's still the boss when it comes to hike and fly.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah, do you did you spot what he was flying?

SPEAKER_02 12:46

I would have to double check that, Ed. That's a very good question because as we all know, uh Kriegel is an advanced pilot, he uh is helping them with their R D. But I from what I hear, it would be interesting to see what he flies with during X Pier, which is uh later this month. So two weeks away, yeah. Yeah, two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Ten days away, it starts on 21st June. Um that's an interesting one. Let's keep an eye on that.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

But Kriegel, yeah, he's on the so on the you know, he was actually wearing his yellow jersey. Uh I don't know. Are you allowed to wear the yellow jersey? I don't know. Is that is that allowed? Um but you know, cool. In his own mind, he's the champion. He went out there, he won it, he smashed it. And interestingly, he he overtook a lot of places on the second day just through his ability to pack his stuff in less than two minutes. And it's incredible, you know, how he does it. Like, even I've watched the video clip numerous times. I'm still like, how does that just neatly fold and all the air just just goes out with one one sweep of the arm? Um, yeah, I've seen him do it.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

It's baffling, it's like, how do you do that?

SPEAKER_02 13:53

It's like uh that was Rebel X Alps. I'll also say they were lucky with the weather, you know. I mean, it's quite a risky event in that sense to to put on a sort of three-day event, and you've only got four days to do it. So if it was a washout or not flyable, it would be tricky. But they were very lucky, it was flyable, and uh a lot of happy, smiley faces, and a few disappointed faces. The other thing I also wanted to say, actually, was the um with this focus on on the rookies on these new upcoming pilots. So is to mention, you know, the French, who um they didn't get the prize, so there was uh Luca Bona and Francois Montori there, also Pierre Remy, Remier, and uh those guys that Luca uh uh Luca won um Born to Fly, and he actually said at the beginning of the third day that he had his sights on winning, not just the podium. And I think he was a bit disappointed. He yeah, he basically bombed out a little bit and spent ages scratching to try and get back in. But I think these guys have already, so you you you had to win to get the wildcard entry to Rebel X Alps, but you could still you didn't have to win to get an entry to Rebel X Alps if you get so well you're you're still impressed, it's a good platform, everyone is watching you.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

It's like, oh yeah, he did well. The results actually.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Exactly. So my guess is I think there will be a change in the guard of the French athletes in the next Rebel XALPS, and we'll see more of these young pilots uh coming through coming through, and maybe some of the more familiar faces. I don't know if we'll see them in the next Rebel X Alps. For example, I mean I don't have inside information on anything, it's just my own theory, but I'm not sure, you know, maybe like Tim Malongie or Maxime Pino. I think I'm not sure Tim Melangey will get here.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

I don't I don't know how to explain it, but I saw a really funny thing on Instagram. Yeah, the guy is pretending to be Tim Molange.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Yeah, we all look it up, everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all we we all laugh about it. We love Tim. We love we love laughing at Gavin's expense as well. And we should bring it back to the magazine. Gavin's also written a quite a funny stereotypical article about the Alps from an American perspective, which is it's kind of on a level of they all drive small cars. Um, and it's all you know, in Italy they're really small. Yeah. Um, but that's that's quite amusing.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

His his piece in uh in the magazine as well about talking

PWC Superfinal

SPEAKER_01 16:25

of the French, I should just mention um that the super final also happened since we were talking, and that was also dominated, or not also, but that was dominated by the French. The traditional XE racing, the PWC, the French are still there, absolutely at the top. Uh, but there was a new name to take uh charge. There was a new name top of the podium, Andy Talia. Uh and Jack Scheard uh in the magazine, he has got a really good, he was there uh following the last few days of the race, and he got a great interview with Andy and a good interview with Constance Metital, who won the women's superfinal title for the third time. Uh so it was all going on in there, it was all going on in Pegalaha in Spain at the super final as well. And yeah, thanks to Jack and also Henry George, who was our photographer there in Spain.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

This is probably

Calef Letorney Masterclass extract

SPEAKER_02 17:16

a good moment to bring in the masterclass from Caleb Latorney, who gave who gave that a couple of weeks ago for pilots who wanted to not quite at super final level yet and want to progress. He gave an amazing uh talk. It was it ran on, but it was brilliant. And it was he split it up between your ground game and your game in the air. And and the first part of it was all about prioritizing your flying days and you know, basically saying no to the family barbecue. You've got to say, no, I'm flying. And his other big advice was you've got to vacation hard, you really maximize your your time off to get the most out of this sport. So the full masterclass videos are available only to subscribers on the website. But here is Caliph talking about active piloting when on speedbar and while thermaling.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Picking the right speed to fly, I think, is very much part of active piloting. And uh what that looks like in practice is if you're gliding out to the landing zone, don't just mindlessly feel the brakes and glide out to the landing zone. Make a habit of getting on your speed bar. If you're heading into the wind, practicing using your speed bar, practice using your entire range of the speed bar so that things aren't uncomfortable when you really truly need the full bar. When you need the full bar, those are generally pretty exciting situations. They can be turbulent. Uh, they're typically turbulent. You know, if you're pinned into the wind in the mountains or what have you, you want to be tuned up and regularly using your full speed range. Of course, this pitch control and active piloting we've discussed is happening on the rear risers when you're using the speed bar. Okay, so our speed bar procedure should be to let our hands off of the brakes, undo any wraps, establish communication by sort of feeling your rear risers. Maybe you have big handles to hold on, which is great. Maybe you have a saddle between your A's and your B's. And if not, you can just grab your rear riser and just give it a little bit of like a twist. I'm doing with my hand, so you can feel the pressure. And it's the same way if the pressure goes away, you pull down on your rear riser, whatever you have in your hands. So establishing pressure on the rear risers, then easing into the bar. All right. And so this is also while circling, not just gliding. All right. So in general, we want to mirror the air. Okay. If it's whispering, well, your active piloting corrections might be small. You're whispering back. If it punches you in the nose, you're punching back, you know, quick, sharp, full arm extension, right? But that doesn't get turned off the moment we start going in a circle, right? I recently uh had an excellent friend who is a pilot who I was talking to, and I said, you know, it looks like you're kind of all over the place when you're circling. He's like, No, I'm trying to be really smooth. And it's like, no, no, no. You're trying to do as fast a hand movement as necessary. You're frantic so the glider looks smooth, right? If you're just trying to be smooth and the glider is pitching and bobbing and moving through the air on its own account, you're just along for the ride. You're you're not an active participant, you're a passenger on the thing, right? So in a circle, we're very much still doing all this active piloting stuff. And it takes a little bit more to get our head around how it works in a circle. Fortunately, there's a very predictable pattern, right? When you hit the core or sometimes go into the wind, your glider's gonna tend to go back, right? When you turn down wind or fall out of the core, your glider is gonna tend to dive on you. And we're not in a circle shooting for directly above us, maybe a little bit in front of us, because when we turn, the glider pitches forward and rolls. Okay. So weight shift all the way in. And I like to think of our inside hand setting the ideal turn diameter, and our outside hand is really doing the active piloting. The magic is in the outside hand. If I'm holding a selfie stick, it's so beautiful here. It's always on the inside hand because my inside hand's not doing a whole lot. While my outside hand is frantically moving, fall out of the core, it dives, smack it with the brakes so it doesn't spire on me, and then hands up to keep it turning, right? Hit the core, the glider goes way back, hand all the way up. So your outside hand is really doing a lot of work. Your inside hand, a little bit of work, but not so much. That's active palleting in a circle.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Yeah, what do you make of that, Ed? Yeah, no, it's super interesting. Super uh and I mean Caliph is such a great pilot, and he brings a whole uh not completely different new perspective, but he brings his own perspective to it all. Um, what I would also like to just to say if you're sitting there thinking, where can I see these masterclasses, the masterclasses, the cross country masterclasses are all collected on the

SPEAKER_02 22:00

xcmag.com website they're in the masterclasses tab for they're they're gated so they're available to subscribers and members uh but there's a wealth of information there and i and the whole caliph masterclass is on there as is king as is kriegels as is is everybody else's for the past two or three years so after red bull

Kössen Super Paragliding Testival

SPEAKER_02 22:21

xalps challenger i lay down my red bull xalps hat put on my cross country hat and headed off to kusen for the super paragliding testival and it was great can can you describe what kussen is kusen sounds a bit like kissing is it no it's different pronunciation Ed different pronunciation is Kussen not Kussen so Kersen is what a village in Austria or Germany yeah so we're in the Northern Alps we are um basically just south of the German border south of Lake uh Chiemsey the Chiemsey um um and so in terms of you've got this um it's almost the the the opposite of Bassano in the way that Bassano faces the kind of flats um kursen is a little bit on the north side so you get this kind of northerly breeze coming in off the flatlands of Germany and it's the first sort of mountain range on those northern limestone alps and you've got this this mountain there it's about 1400 meters up 1500 meters and you've got a basically a a drop of uh a thousand meters so you've got a you've got a between a sort of 10 and 15 minute um flight top to bottom and absolutely no walking involved you literally just have to fall into a gondola fall out and you are on launch and uh no it's absolutely a brilliant venue and apparently you know it's it's it's in in winter you know it's full of acro pilots and and doing you know the guy the the so the organizer this year is um Leo a guy called Leo Daggen and he was saying that yeah in winter you have the acro guys are doing like 10 12 13 runs a day every day so uh really beautiful area as well and yeah over four days they had something like 600 pilots register for the event that's big I think it's the biggest testival in the German speaking part of the Alps isn't it I think each year um so what did you see

En-Bs flown

SPEAKER_02 24:24

what did you do what did you what did you fly what were you hoping to fly and what did you fly? Yeah I basically went out there to hit as many of the EMBs as possible so I did fly the ozone vibe also um Jim Bandit 2 which is my own wing the air design the new vivo 3 and uh the light version the Livy2 uh Nivik Hiko the Skywalk Arak Air and Nova Nexo which is the low the new low EMB from um Nova and what else I fly I flew the UP Kibo X which they say was the first mid 2.5 liner I flew a BGD Epic 2 um the Advanced Teta and it's the Teta Ed not Theta not Theta uh the Teta apparently and also I flew um a Skywalk pace I flew the um Niveux uh the Kobe you flew all these wings or yeah I mean or I flew 13 yeah 13 you flew 13 different gliders I flew more wings in four days than I've flown in four years wow yeah and I I I would say as a just purely from a piloting point of view it was as beneficial to me as doing an SIV because you don't know what you want and you you get a sense of the subtleties because let's be really honest they're all amazing wings they've all got little quirks or little traits some are kind of like the full fat with with more durable lines or color coded lines some don't some are thinner some have longer slightly longer break travel some are a bit more responsive than others so you know um Bastien said to me oh if you're doing you know she was teaching me how to do wingovers and said you know go easy on the the Nivak the Hiko because it it you know and and it was it was really dynamic so I was glad she gave me that advice also the advanced teta was uh I went quite hard into a a spiral dive which was fun it's really good fun uh round I went um and um but yeah I think the ozone vibe uh GT great wing it's not a 2.5 setup it's a traditional setup but it does have that the rear riser control um so that and it's and it felt really and that's quite that felt really well it felt like it was really um nicely set up and comfortable I was also flying it in uh with a new harness for the first time which I know you're not supposed to do but it was also the first ever time in a pod

Supair Delight 5 harness

SPEAKER_02 27:01

harness which I know you're not supposed to do but it was my only chance to fly the uh Supair Delight 5. And if you are an intermediate pilot this should definitely be on your radar. It's a great uh introductory pod um for the the the pilot who's progressing to from an upright into a pod. Super comfortable the only thing I'd say uh as a possible negative is that the protection is is foam so that means it doesn't compact down as as small as for example the air inflated uh pod harnesses but um yeah it's good to see that one I just say that the it the negative is about the compactness it's not about the the fact that it it's a bad protector. Oh no it's just about how it fits in a rucksack. So if you are into hike and fly uh which not everyone is then I mean it's only 3.5 kilos which five years ago would have been a lightweight harness. Yes so so the weight at the weight is is fine. It's just a little bit chunkier um in a bag so you need a big rucksack basically so yeah overall um great experience I had my best flights in a Skywalk Arakair and also the Jim Bandit 2 had some really I was I had hour long flights in both of those wings but let's be honest it was it would have been the time of day you know that was probably the the deciding factor in that one I think any one of those wings um so I guess the question is you've flown 13 EMBs you actually bought a bandit to uh earlier this year having flown it at another testival and fallen in love with it which I think is the best way to buy a wing you just fly it and you're like oh yeah this is right for me rather obsessing about tables and performance and all that sort of stuff but you have flown 13 so when you were flying them especially when you got on something like the Vibe or whatever you must have been a little bit fearful that oh no what happens if I fall in love with this wing?

SPEAKER_01 29:04

So did you fall in love with any of the other wings more than your Bandit 2?

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Well Ed, that's a very very good question. And I was indeed very worried that I was just going to fall in love with the the Vibe GT and just go no I mean they're all lovely wings but the fact that I had my one of my best flights in my own wing the Bandit 2 that kind of sealed it for me. I had a lot of fun in the in the Teta but my original um my original um first impression was that the teta was just touch on the sporty side for me and I wanted to go a little bit more on the comfortable and security passive safety kind of spectrum. And so it's amazing it's amazing how it's a very fine line it's a very fine line and I think just the the the the bandit to is just a touch more um yeah comfortable in that regard.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

And I guess we haven't talked about it but Erwin was also there um Erwin Voigt and he was flying ENC wings uh he flew the Tau I guess which would would have been the the new one from here's the new one from

New EN-Cs

SPEAKER_01 30:09

advance and is just released did he say anything about that?

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Yes so what Irwin said about the Tau we should say that Irwin is part of the XE Mag team he's an ENC pilot and an instructor from the Netherlands but yes they presented their uh first ENC two liner the Advance Tau there was also the UP Torre uh Irwin said both placed above their three liner counterparts the Sigma and Trango. Also there was the BGD Tigra which is a lightweight but very different version of the Cure 3. The arc is slightly flatter. There was also the Mac para Elixir a sibling of the Verve with a higher aspect ratio. All these two liners have aspect ratios of 6.5 or 6.7 placing them in the upper half of the ENC class. Now the fifth ENC two liner he said was a bit of a surprise the Swing Svera 2RS a surprise because the previous but the new version passed the ENC certification so that's good news for competition pilots looking for a wing with PWC performance but ENC safety. So thank you very much to Erwin Voot for that and also for the amazing strobe of Waffles. I hope I pronounced that right the other the big announcement though the the one new wing was the Nova's uh Nexo which is this low B and that's sort of bridging the gap between schools and cross country um so it's it can actually be used as a school wing not in Germany of course so they they launched it at the testival in Kuss yeah yeah yeah basically um so that was fun to fly and just really nice it's quite nice to fly a you know it's it's it's a full size it's not it's not a light wing had nice colour coded lines really easy launch landing behavior stayed up and thermal nicely you know what's not to love yeah what's not to love brilliant um and just thinking

Long flights in the Eastern Alps

SPEAKER_02 32:09

about the news and things like that I guess um highlight things that we have posted online and discussed on social media an amazing day on the 25th of May in the Eastern Alps where a couple of pilots nearly flew 400k circuits um which is Justin Poutot and did uh Antoine Cabillac yes yes that was Switzerland that was just a few days before I went out I remember that and Justin was actually initially down to do Rebolex Alps Challenger but then he couldn't get the day off work because he'd taken it off with this four 393 kilometre flight.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

But Ed tell me because I wasn't aware that it's disallowed or because they took off from an in a protected area and it was reader out wasn't it this is a but this is a well known launch yeah I'm not uh I just know that they were inside a um a wildlife wildlife protected zone when they launched which immediately puts them into uh airspace illegal airspace I guess so from the start the flight is uh well you you know you can't submit it for any records or anything like that for any national records uh it stays on X contest because they keep everything on X Contest they're not policing the flights uh but for the national competition it won't stand um and yeah it's a shame but they they put their hands up and they said oh sorry we were in the wrong place we shouldn't have launched from there so I guess knowing it was a special day they would have gone actually rather than the normal launch let's go here maybe higher maybe more facing east I don't know but they would have you know picked that and yes big mistake but hey still very very uh close to 400 and someone will it just shows the direction and that someone will be able to do that you know eventually pretty soon we also had I think the SRS is on now this week uh Pepe Molecchi and Vanya Eggsvic won the SRS in Bassano a couple of weeks ago and a nod to the hang glider pilots the European Championships is on now uh in the foothills of the Italian Alps uh and they're having good competition there they're having 140k tasks uh and yeah zooming up and down and then kicking off quite soon is Xpeer yes XP and we should say that in the current issue we've got a full lowdown on this year's race who's taking part the route and uh everything to look out for um but yeah no that I think that's gonna be super interesting uh to watch again because of uh it's more chill than the exarts but I think it's gonna be competitive Kriegel obviously I mean if Kriegel's going out to win the Red Bull Ex Arts Challenger he's not gonna hold back on the XP is he so it'll be interesting to watch the competitive he is just spirit such such a professional athlete he he goes to win he just has the mindset I'm gonna go out there to be absolutely the you know the best yeah and again looking at all the rookies and you know the people who are doing it for adventure uh because people in a way these races have got so professional on one end that it's almost unapproachable to do it just as an adventure but I think the expia is still something that you can go you know what I'm gonna go and have a crack at this I'm gonna train I'm gonna get fit and I'm just gonna do it for the adventure. It doesn't matter if I come 48th I just want to go for 10 days in the Pyrenees. So that is the fun thing about the Expia is it still attracts a good a good mix of people.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Absolutely well look Ed let's uh that seems like a good time to end it so great issue for anyone out there do have a look loads of insight and ideas all about the Alps in the latest issue and a reminder that we have the Caliph masterclass is online. So yeah that's it from me.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

And that's it for me. Have a great have a great week bye bye bye bye