The Paragliding Podcast By Cross Country Magazine
Cross Country Magazine editors Ed Ewing and Tarquin Cooper talk through the stories making headlines in the world of paragliding. Join them as they chat about pilots, places to fly and the gear trends and innovations driving the sport.
The Paragliding Podcast By Cross Country Magazine
The Paragliding Podcast, Episode 7
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In this episode Ed and Tarquin catch up on the latest paragliding news. The episode begins with Chrigel Maurer explaining how he dodged storms during his fifth win of X-Pyr which prompts the pair to share anecdotes of flying with Chrigel and how some pilots are made different.
The pair then move onto discussing the latest issue of the magazine. This includes Emi Carvalho's adventures with a short-pack hang glider, Jack Sheard's report on the different approaches to teaching parakiting in the Netherlands and Andy Brown's feature on the mental strategy you need when you're competing in the mid-pack. Tarquin then discusses his 80km flight in the UK, breaking the 50km barrier for the first time. Ed probes Tarquin to discover if there's anything other pilots who are struggling to go XC can learn from his experience. (Short answer: it's all about being ready for the day when it's ON.)
The episode then hears from the interview Tarquin did with Chrigel Maurer shortly after his X-Pyr performance. Chrigel reflects on his win, the moves that got him onto the podium and the difficult decision to fly with an Ozone wing.
Other incredible performances the pair discuss are Antoine Girard's 400km triangle in Pakistan and Aaron Durogati's new 19,424m hike-and-fly record. Tarquin also discusses the Juraj Koren's accident and the challenge of getting the right insurance, which is becoming harder and harder – and more expensive. Looking ahead, Ed discusses his interview with Stéphane Grégoire, chief flight director for the Coupe Icare, who has the challenging task of making sure the event runs smoothly and safely this September.
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Chrigel and storm dodging
SPEAKER_00Yeah this was tricky in the end because uh I had three apps with uh rain radar and with forecast and with live wind on the ground. So I was checking all the time what's about with the storm. I was in around three and a half, three eight. Uh I was in a comfortable height uh to wait safe, and then when it was over, the storm was to the east. Uh it was shadow, so it was already shadow for at least three hours. So the the air was calm and I was able to fly in the calm air towards uh.
SPEAKER_02Hello and welcome to episode seven of the Paragliding Podcast, brought to you by Cross Country Magazine. I'm Tarquin Cooper.
SPEAKER_01And I am Ed Ewing.
SPEAKER_02And you were just listening to Kriegel Mara describe how he weighted out a storm in the air in the recent X-Pier, which he won. I was in the middle of the Atlantic uh following um following X-Pier. I was Tom De Dolodeau asked if I could help him crew his boat's uh wings back from the Azores to France. And even Tom was like, he said, I can't believe it. I've just watched a video clip of Kriegel in the air and he's got the rain radar up, and he's literally he's got two screens just like looking where the storms are and just to kind of dodge them. Madness, isn't it, Ed?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we say that. That is amazing, and it's like nothing that uh you know your average pilot can do. But if you're a sailplane pilot, you are doing that. Do you know what I mean? Uh, you are looking at your your different screens and going, oh, there's a cell over there, there's a cell over there. And I remember years ago we went out as the magazine uh to join Kriegel uh for a day's training, um, because he was doing this sort of 24 uh you know weekend training with pilots, and we we wanted to see how he was doing it one-to-one tuition. And I remember standing on launch at Interlaken with him as he albeit on the ground, and he was looking at the radar, as it were, that you know, the um the apps, and he was tracking a storm coming down at the head of the valley, and he was saying, Oh, we could fly here, fly now. And I was going, Kriegel, it's okay. You don't need us to don't need to get us into the air, you know. We're not beginners, it's not about you know getting squeezing every minute of flight time in. And he was like, Oh, we could fly down. And I was like, Let's just take the minibus, and then yeah, 10 minutes later, it was just this torrential storm on top of launch. So, you know, he he is used to that, obviously, does it all the time, and it's an amazing insight to see how those guys fly, uh yeah, because yeah, sitting at sitting out at 3,800 meters or whatever he was, waiting for it all to develop. I guess at that altitude in the Pyrenees, you've got a very cinematic view ahead of you and all around, and he is experienced enough.
SPEAKER_02Supremely confident and relaxed because it if only it reminds me many years ago, I did a um um a microlight flight with uh Richard Meredith Hardy. And listeners, if you don't know, Richard uh is the first person to fly a microlyte over Mount Everest, and I believe there no one has yet definitively flown a paramotor over Mount Everest. Uh just saying there's a there's a challenge out there that could uh still be done. Anyway, we we it was the Bellerio um centenary, 2009, um, first guy who flew across the channel. So there was this huge cavalcade of of microlites all flying across the channel, but we were dodging storms, so you could see these, as you say, a cinematic kind of view of of these storm cells brewing. And you know, we kind of swerved and dodged, and uh it was all fine, it was a bit bumpy in places. And when we landed, but what the extraordinary thing was was the reaction of all the other pilots who sort of jumping out their microlites kissing the ground and you know, doing signs of the cross. And Richard was just like, Well, that was fun, let's go to the bar.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're a different breed, these guys. I just finished reading that book you gave me about the guy who flies the gypsy moth around the world in 1922, was it? Oh, that's funny.
SPEAKER_02That's the book I gave uh Tom De Dolido, yeah, uh Chichester. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Chichester, yeah, Francis. Right. Well, I mean, the the flying descriptions in that are amazing. Amazing, considering that they're you know, it was all new, and they were just barnstorming their way from London to he was solo barnstorming his way from London to Sydney over 45 days or whatever, and yeah, and then back again, and just the descriptions of flying into thunderclouds and thinking nothing of it, and then just you know, reporting that he was covered in hail and the rest of it.
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah, anyway, we've I think the I think the description in that book that really gets me is is the navigation, trying to do a sighting of the sun with a sextant while you're flying, and it's basically a sort of a maths exam, you know, while you're trying to control this plane and and calculate your drift by looking down at the waves at the sea and flying these sort of circles to sort of compute that. And then it all gets a bit stressful, so he lights a cigar. I mean, it's just it's just like yeah, yeah, different era.
SPEAKER_01Different era.
SPEAKER_02So, anyway, we are talking uh in this podcast about the latest issue, and there are some great stories that we've got in this. We've got this feature on Nanda Devi with Japan, we've got the psychology, the mid-pack. Um, we've got a story about a paraglider pilot who decided to give short pack hang gliding a go. Um I also write about how to survive a testival. Ed, can you give a little uh uh a preview of some of these
Latest stories in the magazine
SPEAKER_02stories?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes, so um issue 267, August, September, and on the cover, an amazing shot, beautiful shot, classic shot uh by Jerome Mompon, who is one of the longest standing photographers in the sport, uh, of his friends flying in front of Mount Fuji in Japan. And I guess it being the August issue, um, it developed into a bit of a holiday issue. Do you remember when you were a kid and you'd get these sort of bumper issues in the summer holidays um of you know extra where you get 64-page cartoons instead of 32-page cartoons? Anyway, it's a bit like that, this issue. And then we've taken all the all the travel stories, all the holiday stories, and you know, some holidays, some travel these guys um have been on, and we've packed the magazine so it's full of holiday reads reading, basically.
SPEAKER_02So the one that I would be, I haven't read it uh that caught that looked really interesting. Was this this pilot who decided to give uh short pack hand gliding a go? What is that all about?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so short pack
Short pack paragliding
SPEAKER_01hand gliding is a hand glider that packs short. And yeah, that is quite. I mean, it's a very niche sport within a niche sport, I guess. Um, so yeah, it's Emi Carvalho, who is a Swiss Portuguese pilot and paragliding instructor. And he found himself a short pack hand glider from the 1980s, and he's been busy trying to uh spark a resurgence in yeah, hand gliding, short pack hand gliding.
SPEAKER_02So that's basically is that like hang is that like hike and fly, hike and fly hand gliding, is it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, hike and fly hand gliding. I mean, short pack is literally short pack, like you know, a hand glider is really long, and you put it on the top of your Volvo or your your car, and it's really long, right? So these gliders, hand gliders, they pack down small. Um, well, when we say small, it's like a large case. Uh, and you can carry it. And so he's explained that he's discovered this thing, built in the 80s, the fun flex. And uh what he loves about hand gliding is you know the position, flying prone exactly like a bird. And hand glider pilots always say this. They say, you know, we when we dream about flying as kids, you're you're not sitting there like in a seat holding toggles, your arms are out, stretched, flying around the sky like a bird. And that's what you know, that's what hand glider pilots love. Anyway, so he's rediscovered hand gliding through the short pack because hand gliding uh went um the performance route. Uh so hand gliders became very performance-oriented, uh, and that was at the expense of manageability and things like that. So this brings it back the other way. And you know, it's easy to fly, easy to maneuver, uh, and he explains that he can take it up hills, take it up mountains, take it on a boat to desert island, uh, and there he is flying his short pack hand glider. So I sort of describe him as the guy in the in the free flight minibus, you know, everyone else is you know fixated on their paragliders and their two-line ENCs, and he's this one sole voice, you know, at the back of the minibus going, This is brilliant. And that's what I like about the magazine is that we can make room for all of these people because you know, these are the characters and the people that make up the sport.
SPEAKER_02I'd have to say, I'd love to give it a go, hang gliding. I think I think it'd be a lot of fun. And it was my first exposure to the sport was watching people hang glide, not paraglide.
SPEAKER_01Anyways, um, Jack
Parakite scene in the Netherlands
SPEAKER_01Scheard has been on holiday, went for a long weekend to uh the Dutch dunes, and he connected there with the guys um in the parakeite scene. Uh, Jack is a writer and a speed wing pilot and a paraglider pilot, and he's just getting into parakeites, which he describes as yeah, horizontal speed flying, just endless speed flying along the dunes. And his eyes were really opened. Um, he spoke to a lot of people in the Dutch dune soaring community uh to see how they're pushing, how far they're pushing, the new designs coming along, um, and also navigating the challenges that are being thrown up there, especially with regards to teaching, because you know, it's this question of do you teach paragliding first, or you just go, actually, it's a different thing, so you can just teach um parakeiting. And he talks to two schools, two instructors who are doing who are approaching it, they have different approaches, but they're basically teaching it on the same dunes. And one of them says, no, no, no, we just teach ground handling with the parakeet, and the other one says, No, no, no, we teach um ground handling and paragliding basics. And her take on it is you know, that gives you a good grounding because actually paragliders are more difficult to manage when you're ground handling. And she says that if you just learn on the paraclide, you can have a uh just a str an immediate strong sense of confidence. And yeah, anyway, it's just different approaches.
SPEAKER_02The issue is that people are gonna be drawn to the sport of parakiting. Uh people who may never want to go and fly a paraglider, they just want to go riding at the beach. I mean, they're not gonna describe themselves as pilots, they're you know, they're riders and yeah, yeah, they're riders, exactly you know, kiting one weekend.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and wing foiling the next. Um, so yes, a lot of people are coming into it from um the drop zone from skydiving, no, from skydiving and um what do you call it, swooping, um, which is an amazing discipline of skydiving where they come in very fast and swoop along the the water. Anyway, anyone who's into air and speed is getting into parakeeting. So that's an interesting uh yeah, really interesting actually. Um, and then
Psychology of the midpack
SPEAKER_01we've got another feature which I really like and it arrived sort of fully delivered, fully developed, um, by a UK pilot called Andy Brown, who I think was flying very good distance on the day you were out last weekend. I think he flew over 200 and something K. Um, and he's he to he describes himself as a as a mid-pack uh pilot. He flies the SRS, he flies ENC, sports class gliders, and uh yeah, talking of Kriegel, of course, we all sort of refer to him, but he says in competition, it's very much in his head that he is not Kriegel, he is not a super pilot, he's not a superstar, he is a working medical doctor with a family, with children, flies at the weekends, gets limited time off to go and fly these comps. And so he goes into how he manages his headspace because he's very aware that when he is that well, when all of us go uh get into a competition, you know, you you the chimp can take over in your brain, basically, and everything you know can can sort of disappear. But this chimp comes out and goes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, push, you know, push harder. I'm Gregal. You know, I'm yeah, that sort of thing. Anyway, so he he has some very uh interesting tips on how he manages that, which include uh um anchors and grounding and and yeah, sports sports psychology techniques that have you got one that that that you could share with us? Well, he uses his child's uh bunny rabbit. So his daughter is a bit older now, but his daughter has always flown with him since she was um very young. And when he used to go away, she would say, make sure you come back, bunny loves you, sort of thing. And one day she gave him the bunny rabbit, just a toy bunny, and he took it and he was like, Oh, this is this is an anchor, this is really for me, you know. And it's she's saying, make sure you come back safe. And so he flies with it, flies with it, the bunny rabbit in his cockpit. And a lot of people do this, you know. If you look around a lot of people's um cockpits, they'll have a sticker there, like it might be a smiley face, might even be a message that, you know, like say it's chill out or you know, love you or whatever. And it's a real what's that? I couldn't have that.
SPEAKER_02I think honestly, I think the bunny that breaks my heart. I would never fly if I had a like a little kid toy. I you know, I think it's better. You gotta shut that stuff off. And because you can't make uh decisions based on emotional, of course you want to come back. No, but for me, I would rather be a kind of cold say the goodbyes, off you go. Maybe this sounds really cold-hearted. I don't want to be have a fluffy bunny on my cockpit. I think that would I think I would make terrible, I would just make terrible decisions in the air if I had if that was my you might make you might make good ones as well.
SPEAKER_01For him, it works anyway. He talks about and he talks about his his the rabbit he's got and the chimp that he's got inside his head, and you know it's this thing of like having a day uh an angel on one side and a devil on the other, and the devil is encouraging you to chase um you know to chase the the leaders on their CCC wings or whatever, and the angel is saying, No, just fly sensibly like you might in cross country. Uh so anyway, lots of food for thought in that one.
SPEAKER_02And you were saying he did this big flight last Friday, he was he was part of that. Yeah, you were out, you were,
Tarquin's 80km flight
SPEAKER_02yeah, yeah. So we've we've had to tell us about that. Yeah, so we've had some um great weather in the UK, and it was I'm I'm learning now that the thing is it is choosing your days. It's something Kelly Farina says all the time. And don't just don't just just try and have a go and struggle when it's you know 50-50. So I got the call basically. So mates in the club, it's on, it's Morvan's five-star day. You know, we're leaving at six in the morning, right? Um you in. I said yes. So uh, long story short, we got up onto the hill, I launched, and uh yeah, I had I had my best flight ever, Ed. I flew just under just under 80k for I flew for three hours, and we had a it was we had just quite a strong tailwind, but um, although I had other pilots always in sight, I was pretty much on my own. And um, yeah, it was great. I was flying the the Jim Bandit 2, which is a mid-EMB, and I was still I'm I've got a pod harness on order and it hasn't arrived yet. And so I was still in my upright um harness. So it just goes to show you can fly long distance in an upright.
SPEAKER_01Tell me more about your flight, right? I want to dig a bit deeper into this because you flew what was the distance you flew on Friday?
SPEAKER_02I'm just checking, I got X contest open 79.64 kilometers, which was not only a a kind of personal best for me, but it just blew my previous XE out of the water. So a bit of background, Ed, I've been flying five, six years. I sort of COVID time, um, the years fly by, and you know, I haven't cracked the XE game. I've I've kind of been on lots of XE trips and I've I've never done more than, and it's kind of slightly embarrassing to admit, never more than 25 kilometers. Um on a I've managed about in terms of duration, I can I've stayed up in the air. My longest previous flight was two-hour flight. Um, and this was a three-hour flight and um you know three times as as long as my previous best. And the yeah, it was amazing, really amazing. And also the other amazing thing was it wasn't that hard. It wasn't like I was doing something really extraordinary or I was really on top of my A game, A game. There were a few things going on. One, it's a case of choose your day. There's a learning there where you've got to go where it's flyable and not struggle when conditions are a little bit kind of iffy. And then, you know, the the the other thing is is just when we we got up there, I was a little bit uh longer. Took me a while to to launch. The the first pilots um who launched actually boated around for about an hour before they before they cut and run. Um, and and I was sort of faffing around, so that kind of helped me. And then I just uh you know launched and I just followed my mantra, which is just work those thermals, just stay up, take any lift that that is going. And although there were a lot of pilots about, there were something like over 50 on on launch. I was never in like a massive gaggle. I don't like gaggle flying, um, but there were always pilots about, and I just sort of followed my own kind of feeling and just worked those thermals, work those thermals, and just trying to trying to core um efficiently. The other thing I should say is there was quite a strong wind. There was, you know, we were downwind, so that definitely helped my my distance, you know, when you're when you're just in a coring in a thermal, and just just by that act, you're covering a you know a couple of kilometers on the on the course line.
SPEAKER_01So I'll just interrupt there. That is exactly how we were all taught years and years ago how to fly XE in the UK specifically, because just for listeners who don't know about the Mulvans and and whatnot, uh, the Mulvans are hills in the west of England. Uh they take a westerly or an easterly or all sorts of directions. But basically you take off, and then once you leave that hill, you're in the flatlands, aren't you? All the way to the east. So it's flatland flying, it's not mountains. So you're stitching together clouds, uh, flatland England, when it's on, it's like Brazil. You know, you just said there four meter seconds thermals, um, being blown down wind with a tailwind. It's fantastic. I think the record in the UK is about 300, uh just over 305k. Um, ground sources and other signs in the air.
SPEAKER_02Uh it's funny, Ed, all those things, all those little tips that I've sort of read about in our in our books from you know, the beginner's guide to 101 ways. Um, you know, I was trying to sort of think, and remember, you know, in the flatlands, look up, not down. Um, you know, trying to look at the clouds. I was thinking, what, you know, what are the likely thermal triggers and all these things trying to stitch it together. And the other thing that was completely new for me was the whole airspace issue. This is the middle of England, some of the busiest airspace you'll find anywhere. You're just south of you know the big city of Birmingham. And, you know, there was one area where you had a ceiling of 5,500 feet, so you couldn't go into that airspace. And then within that, there was an aerodrome where it was surfaced to 2,159. Not 2160, but and I'm like, I didn't even know at this point how my instruments would warn me. You know, I had no faith that that that worked. So I had X tree XE track on my phone, and I also have a Navata device. I'm pleased to say that the Navita device, or both of them kicked in, and actually it was quite straightforward when I got within a kilometer. I think it was no, maybe it was 500 meters, all sorts of warnings were going off. So I was really aware of how far away the um the aerodrome was. And at first I thought, well, I'll cruise over it. I got loads of height, and then you know, you realize how quickly you can lose height, and then the wind is pushing you into it. Um, and then at one point I got my best thermal, I was, I was, I was getting sort of over four meters a second, and you know, cruising up at sort of five, one, five, two, five thousand three hundred feet, and realized I'm gonna hit this ceiling. And I I literally had to pull big ears and bar, which is not what you want to do when you're uh five and a half thousand feet, but that's what I had to do to avoid hitting this airspace.
SPEAKER_01Um, and what's could you see base above you? I saw quite a lot of blue sky in the clips that you posted, actually. Were there a lot of clouds amount?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there were clouds about to see base, and I was, yeah, more or less at base. I think some other pilots that day did get up to um 6,000 feet. Uh, we should say that it was an amazing day for loads of pilots. I think over 20 made 200 kilometers, and several pilots made it all the way from the Morvern Hills to uh the coast, uh to the east coast, which is about 260 kilometers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was a mega day. Um, so I'm really interested in this this this jump that you um have made from you know the 2030k mark to gosh, now you've now you're up at 80. Because that getting past that 50k mark is actually a big benchmark. And it's really hard for a lot of pilots, especially if you don't live in a place which is flyable all the time. Or in the Alps or wherever. So you can go far on the right day, but it it yeah, you have to have the right weather. Now on launch, you said that a lot of people took off earlier and they were in the air for an hour. And I had actually read that on some people's posts that especially people who'd gone uh to the coast, they said, Oh, we were actually flying for an hour before we got away. But your your experience was different. So um, why did you wait an hour? Why did you not join that throng?
SPEAKER_02I would love to tell you, Ed, that I waited an hour because I could see it wasn't working and I knew that patience um would win, would would be um the winner. But no, um the uh the actual truth is less prosaic. I was faffing around with my instruments um because I haven't I'm not used to flying XC, so it's everything's quite new. And then I cocked up my first launch. Um so I, you know, the wing just flipped over. I was in a little bit of a gusty area, so I moved to another area of of the hill where it was just cleaner air. And I'll say that when it came to launching, it was it was almost alpine. I did a I did a reverse launch. I was waiting for the for the gust to come through and I was all prepared. And literally it came through, bang my wing up, and and literally I was it I was in the air before I had time to turn around. And so it was one of those ones where you I was literally off my feet, swung around, arms in the air, keep the arms in the air, fly the wing, fly the wing, and I was I was up and away.
SPEAKER_01And then you were straight into a climb. Um, so I mean, again, another point there is that's quite interesting, is that all the all the top guns, the fly the guys that the um the pilots that were aiming to fly very far launched early and were happy to sit in the air and wait, you know, for an hour for that cycle to come through. Whereas, you know, um chance happened that you were later to launch. So launching later actually is sometimes better, you know, especially for pilots who are not going to um fly 200k or uh don't have the experience to um stay up uh easily in that lighter part of the day. So yeah, there's maybe a little lesson as well for people who are looking to fly 50 to 80 Ks. I'm not saying like sit out the whole day. I'm just saying let the day start to work, you know, give yourself a little bit of chance. Um and I know I've done it where you think, oh, it's starting to work, it's working. You take off and then you end up at the bottom, and then you have to spend an hour uh resetting anyway. So, yeah, so late late start actually here has benefited you, um, which is good. Okay, so tell us, take us through that sort of taking off, climbing out, and leaving the hill. Um, at some point you had to make the decision to leave the hill.
SPEAKER_02I think the kind of decision was made for me in a way because as I was climbing up, I was getting further and further away from the hill. And if I'd wanted to have gone back to the hill, I would have really had to, you know, gone into wind uh to make it. And it just sort of naturally evolved. I could see other um pilots marking the way. They were a little bit higher, but I just thought, you know what, fuck it, let's go, let's do it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you just hung in, you hung in, hung in.
SPEAKER_02I just hung in there and and and kept going. And and then there came a point where the sort of climb peters out and uh you bounce out the thermal, and I'm like, right, this is let's go put my feet on bar and let's follow the others, let's try and catch up. And although I was on my own, I had markers, so I could see the kind of I could see what was working, I could see where the others were getting lift. At times it was too far away. By the time I got there, it you know, it wasn't working. But initially, the first couple of climbs, which I think were really important, um, you know, definitely it helped, but I could see it was working for the pilots ahead. And so um that was that that really helped me. There was, I would say around the 50k mark, it could have all ended. Um, but I was lucky, well, lucky I got a I I had a low save. And at that point, I was I was really focused and I was just saying, no, don't give up. There's lift here, find it, just keep working it, working it. Look where the um, you know, where the likely triggers are. There was a great bit of advice I heard the other day, which is where would you walk, you know, if you were walking around barefoot on this terrain, where's the where's it where's it going to be hottest? So, you know, we all know the honey one, but the barefoot uh idea, I I like that. So, in other words, brownfields warmer than wet grass. And I and then I I got an absolute belter of a thermal. Um, having been working, going in and out, falling out, in and out, you know, scratching around zeros, 0.5s, and then eventually I've I found something and clung on for dear life and got me back up to cloud base, and then I was away again, and that and pretty much that took care of the next 20 kilometers.
SPEAKER_01Have you looked back at your track log and seen how many proper thermals, as it were, you you took?
SPEAKER_02I'm just looking at um my XE track. 13 um climbs, of which one, two, three were like really big ones.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So there's a lot of like yeah, there's a lot of little climbs around sort of 1500. Oh, that's uh 1200 meters, so um around just 3,000 feet, I guess.
SPEAKER_01So basically you're top it, you're as you're gliding down on your glide, you're topping up, you're topping up, you're topping up, you're finding a good climb every 20k basically.
SPEAKER_02Yes, something like that to say that's pretty fair.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So building that picture in your head, uh, you can see how people can go from oh well, 80, just one more climb, and that's 100. And hey, another two climbs, that's 150, you know, topping up, topping up, topping up.
SPEAKER_02In a way, think not of it as distance for me. My previous best was two hours. So this was a three-hour flight. So I think that's also quite a uh a good mindset to get into. There are a lot of things that I need to work on. I went home thinking, you know, my you know, my cockpit set up and my instruments is is all over the place, and I nearly really need to get that dialed. Also, you know, an upright harness isn't best for going cross-country, let's be honest. And I'm looking for, I've ordered a pod harness and I'm looking forward to getting that and really getting that optimized. And the also one thing that you need to optimize as well, uh put a minor, minor downer on the day is is the internal plumbing. Um, I had a little bit of a malfunction with it with the P tube. Uh, but you know, it was it was worth it was worth a little bit of sacrifice for for such a great flight.
SPEAKER_01Okay, we're just gonna draw a veil over that because I think many of us have been there. And you know, you just deal with it in your own way, that type of thing, I think. But uh what was your learning point about that? Um did you have a learning point?
SPEAKER_02I was a bit rushed. So I had the I had the the P condom and I I I was just a bit rushed setting it all up, I think, and it just wasn't on properly. Um I'll say that you had a moment's relief and you think, oh yes, and then realize that you know a second later, oh no, it's not working. But you know, it was a very, very hot day and it was all fine. Uh uh, and you know, but that again, I could have, I think I could have done a hundred kilometers easily if I didn't have pee stress, you know, it it takes so much brain space because by the end, I'm I'm I need to drink, I'm I'm stopping myself drinking, I'm I'm not drinking enough, and I'm so like I really need a pee, I really need a pee. And if if I didn't have that, because where I where I came down, I was convinced I was gonna get a massive thermal off that. And I was actually in lift on the upwind side, but it was quite a weak thermal 0.51. And I thought, well, leave that, go downwind, and you're for sure you'll get something really big. And I I didn't, but I think I would have worked, I would have been a bit more persistent. I was kind of impatient, and by that stage, I was just so grateful when I landed to just basically relieve myself.
SPEAKER_01Um, and just on the landing, so for a lot of people, um, just starting on their cross-country career, um the landing it can be an issue because it's a new place. Um, you have to set up for it. All how was that? Was it all okay?
SPEAKER_02Um, to give you an idea of the wind strength, it was a no-break landing. Uh, literally. I was almost, it was a point I was almost going backwards. Um not quite, it was fine. It was like obviously it's ideal. You know, you just come in like a ferry, but yeah, it it it is a little, it's always alarming landing somewhere new. You're kind of thinking, I don't know where I am. Um, it was everything looks flat, and and this is flatland England, more or less. Everything is kind of flat. So uh I've made the miss this mistake in the Alps where I've landed on what I thought was something that looked flat from above, but it was actually a slope and wasn't able to land. It just the ground kept giving away. So even there was a little bit of I was thinking about rotor the round the hedge lines, trying to avoid that, trying to be pick a field that had lots of space upwind. What I didn't didn't realize there was it was quite a big dip in the field um in the middle that had a little bit of rotor. So, and the as I say, the the the wind strength was such that I came in, I did I didn't need any break at all as I as I landed. Um, and then had to be quite um, you know, when I buried when I then did collapse the wing to you know run like hell to to to to get to it. Otherwise I'd be sort of dragged across the field. And I just to say I landed in some really posh English country estate. I Googled it afterwards that went for, I don't know, sold for 20 million to some gamer, you know, uh 15 years ago, you know, this huge pile. And I thought I better I better go before I get arrested.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. All right, well, well done on your flight, and uh yeah, congratulations. It's fantastic to see uh so many good uh flights happening in the UK this heat wave summer.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Ed. Hopefully the first of many to come. So all this talk
Chrigel interview
SPEAKER_02of heatwave flying seems like a good opportunity to bring in the interview that I did with Kriegel after winning X-Per when they began in almost 40 degrees of heat. Here it is. Congratulations. How does it feel to have won XPer? You must be pretty pleased with that result.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's true. It's uh it's really uh amazing to do five X-Pier and five wins. Um, this year for sure I was a bit more under pressure because the field was bigger, 50 athletes at the start line. Uh there was young, very fast athletes. Uh, we already know. And yeah, for me it was um a good adventure again because the Pyrenees always are um much more uh challenging than the Alps, for me at least. And to do this with my team, I know from the X-Alps already, it was a good challenge, and finally we had special weather, but to master it well, it's uh yeah, I'm I'm really happy about.
SPEAKER_02What were those temperatures like? I mean, it just looked so hot at the start. How was that to to run in that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I cut all my ears before I went, so we thought the forecast was um until uh nine uh 39 degrees at the start line in Hondaribia, and finally when we started on Sunday, it was 38 on the road. Uh later on on the road in the car, it was 40 and and uh 40 and a half degrees, but I was lucky I was flying and up there it was a bit more fresh.
SPEAKER_02What do you do for seriously? I mean, are you just drinking you know loads of electrolyte drinks, um ice packs on the head? What how do you stay cool?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was it was not clear. I never trained so well in the heat. I was not really prepared for it. I have no experience, and when we saw the forecast and we were there, we was a bit scared about this, but I really drank uh every five to ten minutes and uh really a lot. I uh the first day it was at least seven and a half liter during the day, but I flew really a lot, so it means in these three hours in the morning I drank already more than five liters, and then in the evening as much as possible. So it's um yeah, it's really the way I can cool down. I had some ice on the head, on the back, and some water, fresh water to cool down, but yeah, for sure the performance was less than normal. What was your winning move? Good to say, it's um at the first day I was trying to control the group, but it was really difficult because we had south wind, strong wind in these hills was not easy to manage. But then once I saw some pilots climbing really high, and I tried to climb high in really weak conditions, means with the strong wind, we got backwards to the start over Larun, and at once I was quite high, and there was uh the option to fly high against the wind, and then starting to go east a bit crosswind, and so I came slowly, slowly forward, and until the evening I was able to fly towards Orni. Orni is the first would say mountain over 2000, and I never flew that far at the at the first day, and also Marcos Anders went in this area, so we too was uh clearly ahead, and this gave us the option to start in a good area, I mean in already in the mountains on day two, and this advantage helps to stay in front, but in the end, it was also uh day two. They there was a thunderstorm close to Castejón de Sos, it's close to the highest mountain Aneto, where we had a turn point, and there was some storms, and I was lucky to wait in the sun in the flat until the storm was over, and then fly into the shadow to land close to the turn point, and it gives me some some advantage. And and finally, I was controlling the lead, and uh I was lucky to do this until the end.
SPEAKER_02Um, I'm sure I saw a social clip of you with uh like a with a weather radar up in the sky and you're you're navigating between the storms.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this was tricky in the end because uh we had different rudars. I had three apps with a rain rudder and with forecast and with live wind on the ground. So I was checking all the time what's about with the storm, and then I was a bit um waiting in in front in safe conditions. The the cloud base was really high, so the storm cloud base was uh I guess 4500. We were allowed to climb to 4270, and I was in around 3.5, 3.8. Uh I was in a comfortable height to save, uh, to wait safe. And then when it was over, the storm was to the east. Uh it was shadow, so it was already shadow for at least three hours. So the the air was calm, and I was able to fly in the calm air towards uh Aneta.
SPEAKER_02Tell us a little bit about the uh the gear you were flying. So you you switched to Ozone. So what were you what were you flying?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, finally we we started to develop uh XOPS gear for 27 with Advance. And the goal was to have already something for this year, but it was not able to finish the either the the glider or the harness, and and therefore I was uh sure I need a glider where I can compete with the others. And the Zeolite is still quite good, and it's an easy glider, so it was uh easy decision to to fly this gear because um yeah, competition with a disadvantage it's really hard. I know this from last year, and to be at least in the same level as the others, it's uh yeah, I think it's fair and makes sense, and for me, finally, it makes sense to compete.
SPEAKER_02Was that a difficult conversation with advanced? You you still an advanced athlete?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. We we do um developing and testing for this for for this brand, and yeah, it's it's it's always difficult when when um the the work is not paying off, and and uh we know we already are on a really high level, and uh to to have a a gear which is comparable to the others, it's it's hard to build, but in in the end, it's um I I know I if I want to do competition, uh I will do it well, and and therefore I need a good a good gear. And this was the discussion last year after the X Alps, and finally we found uh good solutions, and now we go for this.
SPEAKER_02And uh, did you like the uh the line of questioning there? How it is that as a an advanced pilot, Kriegel is able to fly an ozone. What did you make of that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I you know he's a professional pilot at the end of the day, and he's a professional competition pilot, and it was a big like wow moment uh when we all saw him on Instagram sort of coming in to land and he was not on his advance. But yeah, no, 100%. Um he has a good answer for all of that, and it's not the first time he has flown a different brand, you know. When he's flown uh Dollar Meeton Man, he's flown the Nova Bantam, when he flies uh XE competition, he's flown uh CCC Enzo 3, Ozone Enzo 3. So yeah, this idea of like we're gonna uh choose the right gear for the job. Uh and meanwhile, we're also working on it in advance. But yeah, I I uh I get
Antoine Girard's 400km triangle
SPEAKER_01that. I don't think we talked about it. Well, it hadn't happened last time we were talking, but um Antoine Girard's 400k triangle in Pakistan, that has just blown uh everybody out of the water in Europe because I think the uh well the triangle record was about 358 or something, 360. And he came back and he announced, I think it was just after midsummer, anyway, the longest time of time of the year flying in Karakoram in Pakistan, heights of up to about 6,900 metres. And yeah, he is the first paraglider pilot to fly a 400k FAI triangle.
SPEAKER_02Um is Pakistan gonna be the new venue for for these triangles now? Because 400k in the Alps, maybe it's doable, but seriously tough. One of the reasons that he was able to do it in Pakistan, I think, is is because he had the strong winds. Is that right? Um I don't think he had strong or you're going faster because it's thinner.
SPEAKER_01It's going faster, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because it's thinner.
SPEAKER_01I mean, he had to he had another uh I think well, I mean, one you're flying very efficiently, one you've got a lot of height, um, and the the terrain is very big and mega, so there are a lot of ridges that he you can zoom along, soar along. Uh and it's fast flying, yeah. So we'll have to wait and see exactly what he what his uh what he uh tells us when we talk to him when he comes back. I think he's just about back now. Um and he's very well acclimatized, and he's he was there weeks and weeks, he wasn't on oxygen. Um and he's been out there numerous uh times. And uh to answer your question, is it no, it's not. I mean, flying in Pakistan is uh extreme at all levels, you know, there is no rescue, it's extremely remote, you have to be super committed, you have to be uh um prepared to uh uh look after yourself if you land uh you know miles or days walk from anywhere. Uh so no doing that sort of thing is for uh people like uh Aran Durgati, uh Antoine, um, you know, the that that sort of elite pilot. In saying that, it is accessible to fly in Pakistan. There are accessible places, um, but yes, it is interesting, it is that sort of thing, like, oh right, so that's the big triangle now. It's 400k. So, yes, you'll probably have to go there and do it. I can't see people doing that 400k. I don't know, we'll have to wait and see. Never say never. Never say never, no, never say never.
SPEAKER_02May yet get a 400k. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Yeah, and also the you know, the hand glider, the the long guy, long distance guys on their ridges and things like that, they've done 400k triangles in in the Alps. So, you know, it is there, it's just about speed and the rest of it. Um and you know, there are lots more pilots doing it in Europe, for example. Yeah, we should we should mention the numbers.
SPEAKER_02We we should mention that the one pilot who was going for the record
Juraj Koren's accident
SPEAKER_02was Uri Koran. Um he he did this incredible, he was doing some incredible flights, you know, 200k, 300k, had I think a 350k flight, and then the next day he went out again, and sadly it didn't work out. He's he had a collapse close to the ground um and suffered spinal injuries. And um, we helped to promote a crowdfunder um to help pay for his medical costs. You know him quite well, but yeah, I've been following Uai for many years, and he's he's a great inspiration. I've enjoyed following his adventures, you know, vicariously, and he he comes to the sport from a sort of mountaineering climbing background. He's also does all these incredible um climb and fly projects like the North Faces of the Alps, the um Matterhorn and the Iger. Um, and and he he's just living living the kind of the living the dream, pushing kind of hard adventures and and flying hard. He's done two tours of Rebel X Alps. Um, but sadly, yeah, it all came unstuck uh a couple of weeks ago. And the the follow up to this. Is he's he's needed to call out to to reach out to the community to help cover medical um bills and his recovery costs. And you know, it's easy for us to be um dismissive or perhaps and he's certainly I've spoken to him and he's he feels terrible that his insurance has come short. But the fact is you'd be surprised at how many of us our insurance policies come short. I mean, I mentioned that I was with um Tom De Dolodeau uh across the Atlantic, and you know, even he's a guy, obviously he's got all the right insurances, but even then when he had his um trouble with his leg, his insurance didn't go, didn't give him the kind of the five-star treatment. He needed, you know, private uh to get the really the very, very best treatment. And Red Bull stepped in to help with that to get him the very best surgeon and the very best treatment. Otherwise, he said, you know, and I don't think I'm I'm giving away any secrets here that his his leg most likely would have been amputated. So um I want to look at in a future feature the issue of insurance, but
Insurance: what you need to know
SPEAKER_02so far I can tell you that it's really important that we know the different types of insurances out there. And you've got your third-party liability insurance. This is number one, and most of our clubs, associations, federations um cover that as part of your membership, whether you're in the UK with a BHPA or um the Austrian um Aero Club or FFEL. Um so that is when you land on a road and cause a car accident, that's your third-party liability. The next thing you need is your rescue, your search and rescue insurance, so that that pays for the helicopter. And often that's packaged as part of a travel insurance policy, but not always. You can get it independently by itself, a kind of, for example, through kind of inreach global rescue service or Garmin Zone insurance service. But that will only pay for your helicopter ride to the hospital, and then you need to pay for your hospital bills, and you can either do that through a travel insurance policy or your medical insurance policy that might cover that. And then, because a travel insurance policy is just that, it's traveling, it's while it pays for you for your accident your costs until you get home. The moment you're back in your home country, those payments stop. So if you have a life-changing or a serious injury that requires follow-up care and you know, you've got to stop work, that's when you need to think about income protection and accident uh illness cover. And they are separate. So there's a lot out there. And maybe all of us don't think about this. You just click, tick the box and get our policy. And the also it's it is becoming more and more difficult and more and more expensive. And there are so many exclusions. There are limits on how many days you can be away. There might be a 30-day limit. There are limits on territories on where you go. My policy, I have a global policy. Sorry, I have a European policy, it cost me 500 quid for the year or something, 550 pounds, but it excludes Spain. Like, well, how why? I don't know. Or the government says this is no longer safe to go there, your policy will be automatically null and void. So it's tricky out there. And just to say at this stage, we look forward to following up on that, and maybe we can revisit this in uh a magazine issue.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and also best wishes to Urai. Um, I understand he is going to make a good recovery. Is that fair to say?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it's it's a long road back. There's positive signs he can he could wiggle his toes early on, he can move his legs. Um, and his doctors have said, yeah, it you should be back up and running um in a year's time.
SPEAKER_01But it's and I should say he, I mean, he's he's posting all that on Instagram.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, he's sharing all this on on Instagram. So and he's loving the messages, the goodwill messages. So do send him some some juju. And um, yeah, he shouldn't feel bad about you know the the difficulty with the with the admin. But yeah, it is a reminder for all of us to to check our policies. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um,
Coupe Icare Chief Flight director
SPEAKER_01something else in the magazine that I enjoyed. Um, I I spoke to uh Stefan Gregoire, who is the chief flight um technician, I guess, for the Cooper car. He's the chief flight director for the Cooper car. And the Cooper car is on our horizon. It's in September, marks the end of the European season. Uh, but yeah, Stefan is the guy who's in charge of managing that big air show and all the acropilots and wingsuit pilots and hot air balloonists and glider pilots and the rest of it. Um, and so yeah, no, I had a really interesting uh chat with him for about an hour, actually, um, because the Cooper Car is is doing a lot of promotion around sort of um encouraging more pilots to come because I think for the a few years now, pilots have thought, oh no, I'm not gonna go to the Koopa car because there's no flying. But actually, there you can fly there, you just have to follow some of the regulations, some of the rules. Um, and there's the testival ahead of the whole thing as well. So there's just a lot going on in in the Koopa car. So I had a really interesting chat with him uh about how he controls that and in where he came from. And he came from, he used to go to the Cooper Car as a pilot in the 1990s. Uh, then he moved to Canada, then he came back, and then he got involved with building the big costumes and flying the costumes. He even flew one of the biggest costumes uh in the 2010s when he flew this giant 40-meter uh Chinese dragon. Wow. I know, and uh, he was sort of inside the dragon's head and you know had to launch and took off when he was all over the TV and the rest of it. Um, and now he is in charge of yeah, being the flight director. So he has 200 people reporting to him. He has an avalanche of Excel spreadsheets, he spends half his year going up and down to Paris to talk to the people who uh to talk to the Civil Aviation Authority equivalent, um, and to make sure that you know this amazing aerial air show of free flight can happen every year.
SPEAKER_02Tell me, are there guidelines for your fancy dress costume? Are there things you can because you think that he that's what he's in charge of.
SPEAKER_01That's what he's in charge of. So he says he checks every costume. So there's a there's a space at the side of the the big big green mat where they they launch from. They that takes place over the Saturday and Sunday, it attracts thousands of people, it's broadcast on TV, and you have to enter beforehand. Of course, it's not hard to enter if you want to go dress as a ballerina, you just sign up and go. But for some of these big things, if you're taking off as like a flying fish or a flying car or whatever, uh, then yes, that has to be checked. And he is the guy doing the checking, and he says he's never turned people away, but he will check them and he'll he will, because of his experience in flying these giant costumes, he knows when a tandem pilot needs to reinforce that, or he knows when a tail is not going to work, or you know, and then he provides the the um the support and the people to help launch those things. But what he was very definite about was he was like, if you're doing that, it's you know, you're the pilot, it's your responsibility, you're taking off. Um, and if you're standing on the mat, he said, ready to go, you know, despite there being all these people around, you know, no one will give you the nod to go. Like no one will say, Yes, now's the time. You know, you have to be watching and you have to have your pilot head on, your independent thinking head on, you have to be watching the the wind socks and the rest of it, so that when it's your time, you just you know you make the decision to launch. And he you know, I thought that was interesting. You know, he's he's the flight director, but he's it still comes down to the pilot responsibility, and of course, that's that's one of the big things about flying, individual responsibility.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I'm looking forward to that. It'll be my third Cooper car, and it's always loads of fun.
Aaron Durogati's hike-and-fly record
SPEAKER_02So, in other news, Aeron did his incredible was it 18,000?
SPEAKER_01That's 19,000, 19,400 meters, 500 meters, just shy of 20,000 meters. He did it just before uh hike and fly. He did this 24 hour hour hike and fly challenge uh where he had to where the the challenge is to hike and fly as much vertical distance within 24 hours as possible. And over the past 10, 15 years, I think 2008 was the first time someone did it, and that went to about 8,000. So about the height for Everest, it was basically the Everest challenge. Can I hike and fly the height of Everest in a day? Yes, uh, somebody did it, and then people just got carried away. And now Aaron Durugati has done 19,400 meters to claim this as a uh as a new world record, a new world record.
SPEAKER_02So he's also continuing his winning streak, so it'll be interesting when he meets Mr. Kriegel Mara next year again. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure for Lexalps. So look, Ed, that's probably a good opportunity to wrap things up. Coming up, I'm off to SRS Grand Bonon. Um, I'm also gonna be involved in the Dolomiti Superfly supporting um the British pilot Idris Birch. So that's what I'm up to. Um, what's on your radar?
SPEAKER_01Um, I'm looking forward to more towards September, where we're gonna be in the Alps. Uh, I've been doing a bit of thinking, should we say thinking and research uh about plans there, uh hike and fly season, I guess, in the Alps in September.
SPEAKER_02The other thing I just wanted to mention is to tee up the interview uh that I did with Tom on his boat in the middle of the Atlantic, and you can you can hear the sea sloshing against the boat in the background. It's very rhythmic, it's very soothing. Um, so we talk about um Tom's devastating injury and his comeback from that. We also talk about his new work um with Advance, uh with the Elevate brand, the Paramountor brand. And yeah, he also talks about some of the projects that he's working on and his passion for hike and fly. So that is something to look forward to, and we'll hope to have that out sometime in August, I think.
SPEAKER_01Excellent, brilliant. All right, well, listen, have a great time uh in France, and we'll see you when you're back. Cheers Ed. Bye for now. Cheers, bye bye.