Hi there, everybody. Welcome to episode 20 of the Cloud Base Mayhem. I am leaving in just a few hours for Alaska. You're going to get this a few days after that, of course, because I got to get it all uploaded and edited. But I just got off the phone, Skype interview with the legendary Bruce Goldsmith. I can't believe the folks I'm getting access to. It has been such a treat. And this one was right at the top. We could have done a three or four part series. I think we left this one kind of hanging at the end. I'm sorry about that. There was just so many good things to go over. And I was getting quite late for Bruce. He's out in La Rania doing some training with his son, Tier, who's learning how to fly. We talk a lot about that. We talk about his world championship win in 2007.
Bruce is one of the only people, along with John Pendry and Robbie Whittall, who have won the world championships both in hang gliding and paragliding. We talk a lot about mentoring. This guy has just, I mean, he started competing in the mid-80s. He's been at it a long time. Civil engineer by trade, but he's been with Ozone and Advance and a lot of other companies. He's, of course, now the head of BGD Designs, Bruce Goldsmith Designs. We talk about testing and how wing comes to fruition and about safety and about accidents and about strategies for winning and flying with the gaggle. I can't be more excited to bring this one to you. I'm sorry for the background noise. He had his sons in the background playing a little bit of piano at one point, and there was some scratching and that kind of thing, but it's still worth it.
Stick with it. I think you're going to really enjoy it. Without further ado, Bruce Goldsmith.
Bruce Goldsmith, it is awesome to have you on The Mayhem. We've been trying to line this up for a bit. I really appreciate it. I understand you and your son and your family have just taken a little trip down to La Rania. Is that right?
Yeah. That's right. It's a bank holiday tomorrow in France. My children have got the time off school, so I'm taking the time to train my son to do his first flights over 100 kilometers, hopefully.
Fantastic. I've been reading your reports in cross country about your son, and I think that's a great place to start, because if we start with your history, we'll never get to the second question. I actually had Jocky Sanderson on the show last week. It was the same with him. You guys have been at this a long time, and I will get into some of that. It's funny you mention that,
because last summer I was flying with Jocky, and we ended up with one particular day with Jocky, myself, my son, and his son all thermaling together, which was really nice.
I bet that was special. How old is your son? How old is Tier? He's 17. Okay.
And when did he start flying? Well, I mean, he's been around flying all his life. But he really started seriously three years ago.
Okay. And that was...
He was 14.
Was he begging at the... Was he chomping at the bit to get into it? Was that kind of when you allowed him to do it, or is that when he just took an interest to it?
Yeah, that was more when he took an interest to it, because for him, he's... Well, there's quite a funny story. His school, where he learned to read and write, was in the landing field. He was in Greliat, and I used to fly down and land in the landing field and pick him up from school. And one day he said to me, hey, Dad, why don't you do something cool, like come on a motorbike? Because for him, paragliding is just normal, completely normal. You know, riding a motorbike is unusual. For him, paragliding is in the blood so much that it's nothing unusual. You know, that's the big difference for most people.
And, I mean, given your background, and, you know, we'll get maybe into the darker side of it here in a little bit. I always like to bring up accidents and why they happen and that kind of thing. And you've written compulsively about, you know, techniques and tactics in your books. Well, your book, 50 Ways to Be a Better Pilot, and then now your digital versions coming out are just fantastic. And for those of you listening, if you don't have those, you're an idiot. You need to get them. But how have you approached teaching, Tyr, with all your history in the sport? Yeah, well, I'm
not a professional instructor. I've never taught pilots in a school situation. I've been in the British team and been training the British team, so I've always taught elite pilots. But I never taught pilots from day one. So I do ask Tyr to do some traditional courses in some paragliding. I've done some paragliding schools as well.
But, I don't know, I feel that with him it's very much hands-on and learning from experience. And I, because I'm so close to him, I get the feeling that I know what he's capable of doing and what he's not capable of doing. So I make sure that the challenge of the situation suits his ability.
And you guys must have a pretty special relationship. I know that. When I was Tyr's age, if my father had anything to tell me, it was usually the bird and going the other direction. How has that, has that changed your guys' relationship? Or is that something where he's just got so much respect for you that he does what you say?
Yeah, well, you know, it's a little bit of both ways, you know, because he obviously knows that I've got an incredible experience and history in flying. But he likes to... He likes to be the upstart as well and try and beat his dad whenever he can. So it's an ongoing competition. And
it sounds like he's getting pretty good. That might actually be close on your horizon. Yeah, well, I mean,
I stopped flying competitions about four or five years ago after 25 years of competition because I figured 25 years is enough. It's quite a long time to be in the British team and top-level competitor.
And tell me about competitions then. Because I'd like to roll back the clock a little bit long before my time to when you were flying with Pendry and Whittle. As far as I know, the three of you are kind of the only ones that have taken the podium both in hang gliding and paragliding in those kind of mid-90s. Just killing it. What was different about your guys' approach? Can you recall some of the things that led to that? Was it just being in that group or was it more complicated than that?
I mean, I think a lot of it came from being British at the time because the British scene was very, very competitive with a lot of top-level pilots coming in and almost like top-level sportsmen. Whereas I get the feeling today that there's people... coming into the flying scene are not really regarded as top-level sportsmen in many countries. And that was quite different at that time in Britain. Now in the British scene, I feel that the whole status of the sport has gone down. I mean, I'll probably get my head bitten off for saying that, but it's definitely the case.
People don't consider being a professional competition pilot as a... as a good career path nowadays, you know, rather than, you know, a bit like someone doing a professional footballer or a professional engineer or a professional doctor, you know, being a professional competition pilot is not really considered as a mainstream thing to do. Whereas back then, it was more so.
And what do you attribute that to? What's changed in the sport, both for the good and the bad?
I attribute that to general politics in the country, really, in Britain. You know, coming from Thatcher's influence in politics where national sport was looked down on compared to business and industry and making money. Because sport's more difficult to make money in rather than business. So, you know, we're talking in deeper philosophy here. And politics rather than flying.
Okay, we'll get it. We'll get it back on track then.
You won the World Championships in 2007. Was that when you decided to kind of hang up competition flying?
And I guess, tell me about that experience, because that's a pretty crowning achievement.
Yeah, I was obviously very happy about that. But it comes on a background of...
competition style, because my own style is very tactical flying and not particularly into full-on racing. And the paragliding competition scene has got more and more into what I call fishbowl racing. So that's small tasks, racing around in a couple of hours, and often it's the final glide into the goal, which is the critical part. Yeah. Whereas my flying style was more into very big tasks, you know, six - or eight-hour tasks, flying very far all day. And to me, the best task was one with only 10 or 20 % of the pilots into goal.
And that World Championships in 2007 was one with very difficult tasks. And the reason I won was very simply that I was the only pilot to get into goal every day. Yeah. And so that's the kind of flying style that really suits me. So I felt that that fashion of flying has been going out over the last decade or so. Yeah,
you're a belligerent pilot. I think you and I would get along just fine. That's how I like to fly.
Bruce, I'd love to ask you a question that just occurred to me, made me think of a question that maybe has a very easy answer, but I don't know it. Yeah. But day two of the X-Alps, I was walking down off the hill with Michael Vichy, who I didn't know very well. And he told me about his engineering background. I know you have a civil engineering background, and it seems to me like there are a lot of engineers in this sport. What is it that attracts you to paragliding or maybe initially attracted to paragliding? And tie that in with engineering. What is it about an engineering mind that works so well with flying? I don't
know. I mean, I started as a civil engineer. And one of the reasons I wanted to do civil engineering was because it's mostly outdoors. You know, you're working on buildings and structures. And that's what attracted me to civil engineering in the first place. And I guess it's the same thing that attracts me to flying because it's an outdoor sport and really closely related to the elements. And so that was the common thread going between the two. I'm working on design of paragliders. So being an engineer is naturally a good thing to be if you're going to be designing paragliders. Designing anything as an engineering background is ideal.
But what about more the flying aspect of things? I mean, it seems to me like maybe an engineer. And I can't speak from experience because I couldn't engineer anything. I can't even build a box. So but I'm curious to know. Why you think that kind of that mathematical mind works really well when you're in the sky?
Well, one thing that comes to mind is people who are dyslexic. People who are dyslexic are often engineers. And they often have a good spatial awareness. And three-dimensional space is well sorted within their mind. And that's why they're good at engineering. And I think that's also why they're good at flying. Because you're flying in 3D. And when you're thermaling, you've got this whole mass of gliders all whirling around in three dimensions around your head. And those are the same kind of minds work well with both those problems.
Tell me about competitions. You said you flew in comps for, was it, 25 years. What did you love about them? And then maybe vice versa, what did you not like about them? Yeah,
my first time in the British team was in 1986, was actually the America's Cup. We flew in, flew into Calgary and flew in Invermere for the America's Cup in 86. So not so far from your way. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I've been obsessed by paragliding competitions and also the close link between design and competition, which was always extremely important to me. Yeah. Because most of the development of the competition of the gliders came out of flying in competitions. And so competitions and development has always been one of the same, really.
And I think that's what's given me the fascination to carry on flying in competitions for so many years. Because it's the development aspect of it which is really, you know, makes it so much more interesting.
What level glider do you fly now, just for recreation or with your son?
Yeah, I'm
flying a Cure.
So that's a high-end C glider, three liner.
And yeah, I think that's a really lovely level of glider to fly. It's got a good safety level and excellent performance as well. What are you flying at the moment?
What's your glider? Well, so to Alaska. Yeah. I'll take the, it's actually, it's a Peak 4 lightweight version, but it's going to be very similar to the climber. They're actually not making that in a certified glider. You know, I'm a Niviuk pilot. So I used the Peak 3 on the Rockies Traverse with Will Gadd. He was flying the Carrera, very nice, beautiful wing. And then in the X-Alps, I flew the Ice Peak 7. It wasn't even a light version. I was planning on flying the Peak 3, the light version, but I wanted a little bit more performance. Because it looked like the weather was going to be pretty good. It was awfully windy. So it was quite nice to have that bar performance, but a little bit sketchier, of course. And then in comps, I fly the Ice Peak 8, although I think the Ice Peak 9 is out.
So I'll probably be flying that. I'm not sure I'll even get to fly any comps this year. It's a pretty busy season. But yeah, I think the Peak 4 is pretty close to the Ice Peak 6. And so it's a glider that's very close to my heart. I love that glider. Right, yeah, I know it well. Is your company, your designs, will you be, are you working on the competition end of things? Or are you mostly more in the ABC group? Yeah,
up to now, we've always been ABC group and three-liners. I've made a couple of two-liners, but only prototypes, no production gliders. And I'll be shortly making another two-liner. But it's, you know, it's interesting. It's interesting to see that I'm really looking closely whether we're going to be seeing any hybrid structures between two and three-liners coming up. Because I still think there's a lot of possibility in design to make some interesting variations, not just a simple two-liner or a three-liner.
Take me through that process, maybe obviously not so much detail. But if, you know, when you create a new wing, we've had a lot of questions. In the last few weeks when I announced that I was going to be talking to you, people are really excited about knowing what your process is. How do you, how do you go about creating a glider?
Well, normally, I mean, normally you're not creating a glider from nothing. You're starting from a previous glider. So, you know, you've probably got a glider and, which is already existing, already on the market. And either know what the weak points are yourself. Or you've heard from customers and dealers what the weak points are in the design. Or perhaps what other brands have made which is better than that glider. So, that gives you a pointer of what you need to work on. And so you take that into consideration. And then you have some, perhaps some new ideas. As there's always a list of, I don't know, 10 or 15 new ideas.
Which are up your sleeve. Which you'd love to work on developing. But you just haven't got the time and the resources to develop the new concepts. So, you find a new concept which you think is appealing. And you make it. Make one. And see whether it works. And then see how the product, you know, the prototype that you've made compares with improving other weak points in your existing design. Or comparing with whatever the best market is. And best glider on the market is at the time. And so it's just a combination of those things. But the test flying process is so important. Because then you really get to feel in the air what's working and what's not working.
And then that gives you the clues of what to tweak or develop on in those ideas. Or what to just drop. So, it's very much a feeling of what you feel when you're flying. When you're flying the prototypes.
It's really so closely linked to flying. And then, I don't know, sleeping on it the next night. And getting the thoughts about what's happening in the air. And how it links in with all the things that you've put in the design.
Your testing process, are you the test pilot? Or have you got quite a group? Or how big is your crew there now at BGD Designs?
Yeah, in development we are three working. Myself and Anthony are the main test pilots. I have Matt, this is another engineer working with me as well. All together though, the BGD, we now have 15 people working for the company. So we've grown up quite large in only three years since we started.
We have two offices. One in France, in Gordon, where I work. So we're five people in that office. And then we have another office in Austria where there are three people working. And the remaining people are working from home. Just spread out all around Europe. And Asia as well. And
they're being manufactured in Asia?
Yeah, we're making our gliders in Sri Lanka. So, in fact, I'm off there. I'm off to Sri Lanka on Sunday to visit the production. I normally go there about four times a year.
Fantastic. When you look back from the mid-'80s when you were flying all the way through until now, have you had times where your passion for the sport has waned? Because it seems like you're incredibly passionate about it. But if so, why?
Yeah, that's a difficult question. I would say that, well, I mean, I've been extremely passionate about competition flying the whole time. Since I stopped flying competition, my emphasis has changed because I was always on to absolutely top competition gliders, always pushing the absolute limit of performance competition and safety in the gliders. And over the last six years since I stopped flying top-level competition, I've been more focusing on intermediate gliders. That's combined with the new company as well, of course, because it's very difficult to make any money at all out of competition gliders nowadays because the whole competition scene has changed so much with certification and stopping development in competition, which has been a major shock for me, I would say.
It's always been, as I said, it's always been an intrinsic part of competition to develop gliders in the competitions. So the switch to certified gliders has been, yeah, a massive change for me and, you know, for the whole competition scene. So, yeah, you were asking about my enthusiasm for flying. No, I'd say I've stayed extremely enthusiastic the whole time, actually. Yeah,
I still dream of flying all the time and talk about it 24 hours a day, much to my wife's frustration.
Pear dribble. We kill our significant others with that, don't we? Yeah.
Yeah.
Have there been any accidents along the way? Yeah, I had, I've
actually had in,
probably the first accident I had was in 93 at the World Hang Gliding Championships in Owens Valley. When I tumbled, I tumbled the hang glider, you know, and fell down on the top of White Mountain and landed in the snow and walked out from there the next overnight and the next day. So that was a big accident, but I wasn't injured because I landed in snow and it was soft. Goodness gracious. That's a heck of a story, dude.
Well, the story is actually even worse than that because it was during the World Championships and I was obviously part of the British team and I was, I crashed up at, you know, right up near the peak of White Mountain.
They had no helicopter rescue at that time. I'm not sure why. And they, I saw the rescue team fly by on a Cessna, but they couldn't really help too much. So, so I packed up my rescue chute and slept in it overnight. And the next morning I walked down, arrived at the road at the bottom at 11 in the morning. They picked me up, drove me directly to take off where the British team had rigged another hang glider for me and took off an hour later for the next task.
Oh my God, I love it.
The Owens are, well, that, that leads to an obvious question. What's your favorite place to fly? You know, we just had US Nationals out at the Owens this fall. And I did a pretty neat bivy trip through the Sierras a few years back with Nick Greece and a bunch of friends of yours. That's a special, but very stark, very on place. Is that rank up there with one of your favorites or what are your favorites? Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, Owens is just extraordinary, you know, because people always talk about flying in big, strong sites like they're completely different from anywhere else. And the only place I really know that absolutely lives up to its reputation is Owens Valley because it's just completely extreme. You know, cloud base is higher, temperature differences are bigger and the winds are stronger. And everything is just double everywhere else. So it's, it's really an amazing place for me. But I think my favorite competition site is St. André-les-Alpes in France. Because the reason I like it there so much is that you can just do a task in every single direction and then come back from any direction.
Whereas in most flying sites, you're limited to a route. You know, you either follow the ridge up or down. And, you know, it's a lot easier. It's, it's, it's normally limited to a particular direction on nearly every competition site. But St. André-les-Alpes in France is really open to flying in every single direction and doing tasks in every direction, which really makes it unique.
So your, your first accident was tumbling your hang glider and landing on top of White Mountain. Can I, are there, are there others? Because that is, that is a great story.
Well, the funny thing is that after that, at that time I was actually competing. Professional hang gliding and paragliding at the same time. And after that accident, I stopped the hang gliding competitions and just switched to paragliding because I felt it was safer. Which at the time was not something that was, that could be said. Well, even now people, people don't really like to say things like that. But at that time, hang gliding was quite a lot more dangerous because there was a lot of tumbling going on. Hang gliders, you know, just tumbling and destroying themselves in the air. I think in the British team, that trip, we were six in the team.
Two tumbled and crashed to the ground. And one tumbled and kept on flying. So out of the team of six, three tumbled. So that was pretty serious. After that, they increased the safety margins on pitch stability on hang gliders. In the certification and the gliders got more safe. But initially, that was one of the reasons that I went full time on paragliding was just because you can't tumble on a paraglider. They collapse instead.
Yeah, sure. Unless you tumble with a lot of energy and then they'll just tumble forever.
Yeah.
I did have another accident which was in 2009. I hit a lamppost on landing approach. I was doing a spot landing. And you had to get very low over the edge of the field. And there were some lampposts along the edge of the field. And I hit a lamppost and fell into the road and fractured a vertebrae. So I think that's actually the worst accident I've had in flying. So I was out for a few weeks with a fractured vertebrae. Nothing too serious, luckily.
Anything to offer the listeners? From your kind of vast experience, certainly you've seen lots of accidents. I asked Will Gadd this and his answer was brilliant, I thought. But what's the most common reason that people do get into bad situations?
I think it's people not appreciating their own level and what they're capable of doing. And pushing. I mean, everybody needs to push the limits. You can do it sometimes. But to push beyond your limit is what causes the accident in the end. So if you're in doubt, just take the easy option and do the safe thing. And don't push the limits so far that you might have an accident. Because I think people
get overconfident or cocky. And push the limit probably on conditions or on wind speed or on the level of their glider. And I think people have a good understanding of what their own level is. And if in doubt, just err on the safe side rather than on the risky side. And if you do that, then it just switches the odds into your favor and makes a massive difference. I think the thing that causes accidents... Well, especially with regard to safety on gliders, is when the glider does something which surprises you. When you don't appreciate what your limit is and something happens which takes you by surprise.
And that's probably what causes the most accidents. That people don't appreciate what their limit is or make an error in the assessment of their own judgment or the combination of the pilot and the glider and the conditions.
How much do you fly these days, Bruce? What kind of hours? You probably don't log your flights anymore, but what kind of hours do you think you're flying these days? I think my hours
is down a lot. I mean, I always used to fly 300 hours a year for many, many years. But nowadays I'm flying once or twice a week. But because I don't do long XE flights, the hours is probably down a lot. I mean, I used to fly, sometimes I fly 40 hours in a week. You know, in a big competition. And you only do that five hours a year and you've got 200 hours. So I'm only probably flying a couple of hours a week. So, you know, 100, 150 hours a year, I would say. Nowadays. Compared to 300 hours a year before.
And do you notice the difference in your kind of intuition because of the cutback?
Um. I wouldn't say that the cutback in hours changes my time in the air. But one thing which people don't talk about is the effect of age on your flying ability and your flying skill. I'm now 56 and I definitely feel that I'm not able to do the same things that I could do 10 or 15 years ago. So I definitely feel I have to increase my safety margin. Because of my age. When
you say you can't do the things that you used to be able to do, are you talking about reaction time or more like seeing birds or hearing things? Or are you talking just general aging or something else?
I mean, for instance, if you had to land in an area with rocks, you know, like 15 years ago, I would just pile in there and jump from rock to rock and get away with it, you know. But I don't. But now. If I went into the same rocks, I would hurt myself more, for sure. So I'm talking about being a bit less agile, more fragile, and probably a bit slower in reaction time as well. To be able to cope with things when, you know, to be able to get away with things when things don't go the way you want them to.
Yeah, I think everybody can probably relate to that as we get a little bit older. No? Yeah. I certainly do. Absolutely.
So I just increased my safety margins because
of my age. Sure. Let's transition here a little bit to progression. Your book, 50 Ways to Become a Better Pilot, fantastic. And obviously, we can't go through all of those now. And again, I encourage our listeners to grab that. It's just an amazing amount of knowledge there. But give me three. What are three things that really top that list?
List of how to progress in flying. I think one rule which I really love is if it's not working, doing what you're doing, do something else. And this is a very simple idea. Because quite often people try to do something, it doesn't work. And then they just persistently keep hammering at that thing, whatever it is, even if it doesn't work. And they just get defeated in the end because it still doesn't work. Whereas just the very simple idea is if it doesn't work, do what you're doing, just do something else, is something which works so well all the time, especially in flying.
I could give you a couple of examples. Like if you glide in and go to one side of the ridge and it doesn't work, just try the other side, even if it goes against what you were expecting. Because maybe there's something going on that you're not understanding.
And another example could be perhaps you're trying to land in a landing field and you've got a headwind and you can't get there. And instead of just hammering on, trying to get to the same place, just switch your mentality and do something else. Just go with the wind, go somewhere else. And don't just keep hammering on with the same idea. So it's the idea of being flexible in your mind and not always thinking that your perception of something is absolutely right. Just being able to think that you're wrong and that something completely the opposite can be completely wrong. And that can be a better solution. So it's just to keep your mind open enough to be able to change to doing something different.
I think that's really a great lesson.
Okay, number two.
You're not getting off that easy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's number two. Let's talk about perhaps flying in competitions. Flying with other pilots. I think that observation is probably the most important pilot skill. Because observation is, you know, enables you to make the right decisions, to go to the right places. And so by observation, I mean especially, you know, looking at what other pilots are doing in the air.
Because the absolutely sure way of knowing what's going on and what works and what doesn't work is to look at what the other pilots are doing. So first observation is observation of other pilots. Second observation is natural features, you know, birds or wind or sun. And maybe the effect of the wind on the trees, things like that. That's a secondary observation. I sometimes talk about how important it is to know exactly what all the other pilots are doing on the hill when you're flying. Very often pilots fly and they don't look around them at what all the other pilots are doing.
And they're just missing the biggest clue to what they should be doing. When I fly, I would say that, I know quite often I get just a sore neck, just a chafed neck from looking around the whole time at all the other pilots around you. Especially if you're in a competition where there's, you know, maybe a hundred other pilots around you. But even when you're just sawing on the hill, you've got to be looking at everybody. You see them all doing the same thing. And then maybe one pilot does something strange. Flies in an area where nowhere else is going. So if he does that, you absolutely need to know what happens to that guy. Does he do well? Does he do better than you? Does he do worse than you? Does he go up?
Does he go down? How does it go on? And when you're flying on a ridge for a couple of hours, there's probably going to be 20 different people that try different things. And you need to be aware of all those 20 things. Those 20 people did, which ones worked, which ones didn't work. And then you know, if it didn't work, I better not do that. Or if it did work, well, why not give it a go? And so that's why observation is just incredibly important in flying. So that's my number two.
I have to think about number three now.
How about I can ask you, I can come back to this if this doesn't align up, but maybe as a number three, but what's the hardest thing to learn to do well in paragliding? And kind of the most critical.
I
would sort of turn that on its head. The first thing you need to do in flying is to be able to fly completely automatically.
Because first of all, you have to get the basic flying completely off to a tee. You know, you have to be able to fly, take off, land, land anywhere, cope with collapses, spins, stalls, using your speed system, all the basic flying things you need to be able to completely master before you can start getting onto the interesting stuff. You know, and the interesting stuff is, you know, the decisions about where you're going to fly, decisions about how you can fly in competitions and beat people, take different routes. And to me, that's the most interesting part. So it sort of turns your question the other way around, that the first thing you need to do is just completely master that. You know, you have to be able to master the sport of,
you know, the physical part of flying so that you can get onto the more mental part, which is optimizing your flying or, I mean, I guess the same goes in every sport, you know, be it motor racing or playing football, whatever. People have to completely be able to master driving their car very fast and not have to worry about that and think more about the strategy of the game, rather than just the physical part. You know, the physical activity which goes on about flying. When I used to fly hang gliders and paragliders, I would very often, if I thought back about a flight, I wouldn't remember whether I was flying a hang glider or a paraglider because the actual flying part is just automatic, just happens.
So when I fly, I'm looking at mountains, clouds, winds, looking for thermals, making decisions. And what tool I'm using to fly is really irrelevant. An interest, you know, an interesting observation, which I think is really important in flying.
Okay. So before I cut into you there and offer that question, do you have a number? Would that be a good number three or do you have a better number three? No, I
think that's a good number three. To be able to master the physical capability, the physical activity of flying before you can elevate yourself to the strategic level. Okay. I
like thinking about that in terms of kind of like getting into a zone or kind of a mental state where you're just, where you're kind of on autopilot. When you went into your win in 2007, can you take me through some of the kind of the mental or maybe physical preparations you did before then? Was that more,
obviously you're really shooting to win all the time, but what, kind of the, what were the pieces of the puzzle that came together there for you?
Well, yeah, I already spoke about the kind of conditions that were present in Australia with very difficult technical tasks. Tasks where only a small number of the field would get into goal every day. And that was exactly the type of tasks which suit me. As I said, one thing that was very interesting that happened was that during that competition, the guy who was winning the competition was changing the first task, the second task that the guy who was in the previous lead would bomb out. And then when we got to the last day of the competition and I was in the lead, I remember a lot of people saying, well, what are you going to do now in your, you know, are you going to mark the guy who's in second position and make sure you arrive very close to him so that he can't beat you?
Or what are you going to do? And my philosophy at that stage was going back a bit to what I was talking about earlier. It's the opposite to what I said before. Before I said, if it doesn't work doing what you're doing, then do something else. I did the opposite. I said, if it does work doing what you're doing, continue to do it. So I was winning the World Championships. And what did I do on the last day? I didn't change anything. I just carried on flying in exactly the same way I've been flying before. So I didn't fly conservative. I didn't mark the guy in second position. I didn't change my flying style at all. And so that flip side of the coin really worked for me during that World Championships.
And yeah, I carried on flying on my own and taking my own risks. And it worked. But it was very difficult, the last task. I didn't win that World Championships because I ended up like 100 feet from the ground on my own, far out in the middle of nowhere. But I got up and made it in.
Bruce, one of the questions that I've gotten a few times are from people who are getting into competitions and finding them frustrating because they can stay with the gaggle for a bit of the comp, and then inevitably they fall off. And so I think the framing of this question was, how do you go from becoming an also-ran to somebody charging out in front? And I think that that also applies to not just comp flying, but like you're talking about taking tier beyond his first 100K flights. How do you step that up? Is that kind of an aha moment? Or is that just as simple as hours?
I
think flying a lot of competitions is important. I think you need to do at least two years, for example, and probably one year almost full-time competition before you even stand a chance at being at the top level. So that's a lot of flying hours and a lot of commitment. So that's huge. But I think that staying with the gaggle in top-level competitions is quite easy, but what's difficult is to win. What's difficult is to do something a bit different that puts you out in front and enables you to beat the others. And one thing that I used to quite
often think during competition was that what you need to do is follow the main gaggle through the whole task and just imagine that you only need to make one decision in the whole competition, which is different from the others, which makes you win. So you have to try to assess all the decisions that are going on by the lead gaggle the whole time and find the one decision which isn't right and then you make the right one and then you win. But it's a very hard thing to do because you're spending 90 % of your time just following along with the lead gaggle and just one decision has to be different from all the others. And just to try to have that in mind each flying day, just to try to spot one decision that you can improve on the lead gaggle and try to make that the decision that makes a difference.
So I think people often, they're often thinking too much. At every stage of the day, every stage of the flight, they're trying to make their own unique decisions all the time. But I think you really need to make your own unique decision once or twice during the whole day. And then you make that unique decision really count and then you've got a good chance of doing really well in the competition.
Fantastic. Bruce, I want to be mindful of your time. I promised you we wouldn't go over an hour too much here. So I thought you gave me that incredible answer in the Owens where you tumbled and spent the night and walked out and flew the next day on a borrowed glider. Yes. I imagine that probably wasn't your worst flight because those kind of adventures are always fantastic, especially when we survive to tell the tale. But what is your best flight? When you look back at your career, do you have one that stands out in particular? Yeah.
Well, it's funny the best flight is not the flight which was the longest, of course. I think it's probably in La RĂ©union Island.
I flew this competition in RĂ©union and the prize at the end, was myself and Richard Galland and Uri Weissmeyer. We were the top three. We got helicoptered out and dropped in this remote takeoff in RĂ©union Island. And we had this helicopter follow us through the middle of the island because most of RĂ©union is unlandable and has no road access and very difficult place to fly. And we just got this helicopter following us, taking video and stills the whole way through. And we were just given the liberty to fly wherever we want and get a pickup from wherever we want. And I remember we took off at six in the morning because it's a very unusual place like that that you can launch so early.
And yeah, flying in incredible scenery through extremely inhospitable places and then just to get out of it all in the end with a nice helicopter ride out of there was probably the most memorable flight I've ever had.
I can relate to that in some sense. I sailed to RĂ©union in 2010 and had kind of a similarly special, special day. It was a very new pilot at the time. So I took off from that standard launch where you guys fly your comps from and I landed down in front of the famous left.
I should remember it. It's a very famous wave and it's like the left in French.
So I landed and then went out. And had one of the best surfs of my life. That is a magical island. Very land of the lost type place, isn't it? That must have been incredible. Did you fly in the center
of the island? Because when I first went there to do competitions, I think it was 1993, we used to do competitions in the middle of the island. Now all competitions have been stopped in the middle of the island because there's no way. It's a very radical place to take off. It's a vertical cliff 2,000 meters high. And there's no landing fields and no roads and very strong conditions. That sounds perfect. And all competitions have stopped in that area. But I remember we used to be picked up at 4 in the morning by the bus, taken up the mountain to launch at half past 7, up in the cirques, really high up in the mountains. Wow. No, this
was definitely not that launch. This was kind of Tahiti-esque, over on the leeward side of the island. And you just drove up. I think it was Agoche was that break. I was trying to remember. And you just drive up and there's houses and people living there.
It's called the
Colomassil. Yeah, exactly. But I never got back into the cirques.
Where they do all the tandem flights.
Exactly. I never got back into the cirques except by a foot. And it is spectacular back there. It seems like you could base jump off everything. It is so steep. Yeah.
No, it's a fantastic place to fly as well. But you have to launch super high. It's early in the morning and the cloud base drops down very, very fast. It starts 2,500 meters and drops down to 1,000 meters by lunchtime. Wow.
It goes the opposite. That must be very interesting. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. Bruce, before we sign off, that's a great place to end. Thank you again so much for your time. I'm really honored to sit and talk with you even though we're on opposite sides of the planet. What can we expect? Just before we sign off, what can we expect from your company here? In the next couple of years? And what are you kind of excited about?
Yeah. Well, I'm working on a competition glider again because I haven't done a competition glider with BGD yet. So that would be a two-liner competition glider. That's quite exciting. And one thing we haven't talked at all about is SIV safety and glider stability and certification and all those things. I think we're going to have to do another hour session. Yeah. We'll do
a follow-up on that for sure. I definitely hit the SIV on the head with Jockey last week. That was really great getting his perspective. I did an acro course actually with him, not really SIV, a few years back and that was pretty exciting. But yeah, absolutely. With you, I think we could do three rounds. We could go on and on and on. Absolutely. I just know that it's getting late and you're part of the world and you've got some flying to do with tier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.
Exactly. Yeah. Time for
bed. Well, Bruce, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. It's been fantastic speaking with you and I hope I get to actually fly with you and meet you one of these days. Okay. It's a pleasure to speak to you too, Gavin. Thanks. I appreciate it. Cheers.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that. I certainly did. What a treat to be able to talk to Bruce. I've never actually met him. I hope to get to fly with him someday. That was pretty special. Hope you learned a lot. Like I said, at the top of the list, there's a lot of stuff. I'm going to be out of the show. I am leaving for Alaska here in just a few hours. Dave Turner and I are going to try to send it across the Alaskan Range from west to east on the north side of the range. Don't believe anybody's ever been out there. There's a lot of glaciers and a lot of bears and a lot of rivers and a lot of really pretty burly terrain. I wouldn't be lying to say I'm pretty nervous about this one, but I think we're going to have a great adventure. Thank you all for following along. We're going to both have our map share pages up on Facebook. Facebook and blogs and all that kind of thing, so you should be able to track our progress.
Thanks to Stuart Midwinter for providing weather, and thank you to all of you for your generous donations. They just keep coming in. I really appreciate it. It makes this all just super fun and viable, and I will continue to do so, although I apologize. I won't be doing any of these for the next bit of time. We don't know how long it's going to take us, probably four, six, eight weeks, something like that, but as soon as I get back, we'll get somebody else on the horn and get more shows out to you. Thanks for listening. Cheers.