Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. I just got back from Banff, where we world premiered North Unknown, the new film of Dave and I's traverse of the Alaskan Range. Red Bull production was received very well. It was pretty cool to see that in a huge audience and see how everybody laughed and cheered and got into it and got scared. My mom did quite a bit of crying who was sitting next to me, so yeah, that was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it will not be on the world tour because there was a bunch of legal hurdles to take care of with Red Bull and the tour starts in like four days. So, unfortunately for those of you who are hoping to see it on the tour, that's not going to happen, but we are going to get it out at a bunch of other festivals like Telluride and Five Point and stuff like that, we hope.
So, I will keep it posted. Follow on Instagram or Facebook if you want to stay tuned into that kind of thing. Before we get into this podcast with Max Marion. Max Marion, little acro hound out in California who recently broke the world record and then was immediately broken after that, so he didn't hold it for very long, but still doing a whole bunch of infinities is pretty darn cool out of a helicopter. But before we get into that, I just wanted to put out there that we got a pretty special show coming up with Bill Belcourt. He's going to host the show. I'm just collecting questions from you, our audience, whatever you want to ask Bill. Fire it through to me on email. Thecloudbasemaham.com or on Facebook, through my page or however you want to reach out is fine.
I will collect them all. I'll take a trip down to Salt Lake City. I'll set up with all our gear and he will run the show. So, whatever you want to ask the Yoda of paragliding, please do. It should be a really fun show. We haven't done this before, but I think it's going to go pretty well. So, yeah, ask your questions. This podcast, yeah, sat down with Max Marion. He was... Suggested to me by quite a few people. Max and I don't know each other, but Max is a young guy, tandem pilot out at Torrey Pines. Big time acro hound. Broke the infinity record a few years back, which has then since been broken. But still, he's been competing a bit on the world tour. And it was pretty interesting being able to sit down with someone who just trains acro.
In fact, one of the lines in here that I thought was pretty funny. He does fly across. He does fly across the country sometimes, but he finds it incredibly frustrating to leave a thermal with like 6,000 feet underneath him and just fly straight. He just can't handle it. He would much rather just burn all that altitude. So, that's totally the opposite of how I think. And I think you're going to get a lot out of this. Yeah, very articulate guy about our sport. And we had a good time. So, without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Max Marion. When we die, some sick and some late. Please stop this.
Max, awesome to have you on the show. I haven't had too many acro pilots, so this is going to be pretty interesting. But first, tell me where you are and what you're up to these days.
Well, thanks for having me on the show. Right now, I'm living in San Diego, California. I'm working at the Torrey Pines Glider Board as a tandem pilot. And I have a daughter who is one year old and four months.
Wow, you're getting started early. I was just reading about your infinite record, which we're going to get into here in a bit. You were 24 at the time. So, that makes you 28. Is that about right?
That's right. Yeah, I'm 28 now.
Wow. So, what's life like as a dad and a tandem pilot?
It's been great. You know, she's, well, of course, kids are great. And she's been a lot of fun to have around. Definitely changed my view of the world a little bit.
I bet. Is that? Yeah, you know, you hear a lot from people that have kids that it kind of slows them down when it comes to risk. You know, we're going to talk about risk. I don't think of acro as being a particularly risky sport, if done correctly. And you can correct me if I'm wrong. But is it kind of slowed you down in any kind of way? Or are you still going hard?
Oh, no, absolutely it has. I have definitely been trying to keep the risk. A little bit lower than I used to. But I think that's also happening just with age, too. You know, I used to push a little bit harder when I was younger. And now I feel like, yeah, I've probably slowed down a bit. But that doesn't mean anything. I'm still out there doing acro. You know, I've invented some new tricks. And I'm still pushing pretty hard.
Great. And are you, you know, I know the last couple years you've spent some time competing in Europe and stuff. Is that still? Kind of on your horizon? Is that still a goal? It is,
yeah. I've been going over to Europe just, you know, when I can. It's kind of hard. But I've been trying to get over there and compete. Just I haven't been doing it as much as I would like. Because it is pretty expensive to go and, you know, spend a good chunk of time in Europe.
Yeah, of course. When you go to Europe, I read in your blog that you were doing some training. You were doing some training in Oludenis. Do you have kind of a favorite training spot? Is it right there at Torrey? Or where do you most like to train acro?
Well, you know, it's funny because Torrey is really not the place to train for acro. You know, it's 300 feet tall. In really good conditions with the acro glider, you maybe get runs that are about 150 to 200 feet before you have to come back to the ridge and, you know, soar back up. So it's really not an ideal place. Plus, if you ever had any mishap there where you had to throw a reserve or if just something went wrong, you know, the ground's pretty close. So I've got a couple other, you know, sites in Southern California that I go to. Blossom Valley is, you know, is a nice one for me if it's good conditions. You know, you can get up a couple grand.
I got a horse canyon. Here and there. And then Suboba for Southern California is probably the best acro training site.
And is there any kind of, you know, is there any kind of support you can receive as a U.S. pilot? You know, I know they just had Mickey Siegel on the show last night. I haven't put that up yet. But, you know, in France and Switzerland and Germany, there's quite a bit of money available to pilots that are, you know, at kind of your level. Top level for travel and that kind of thing. Is this also, is there something, can you get support that way or do you get it through sponsors or is this all just self-funded?
You know, I haven't looked into too much on the sponsorship side, honestly. My father is the owner of Torrey Pines Glider Ports. So he's been my biggest sponsor. And then also the glider manufacturers that I've, you know, used over the years. They've been sponsoring me with wings and a little bit of money. They're a competition in travel. Okay. Oh, cool. Does your wife fly? She used to. Okay. She started. She got her P2. She had a little bit of an accident and kind of, you know, slowed herself down. I did get her to fly here and there solo. But she's mostly taken a break from it since she became pregnant.
When you... When you've gone over, have you done... Tell me about the competition scene. And then I want to get into kind of how you started flying because it sounds like you started flying at the age of 12 because your dad owns the glider port there, which is awesome. But have you had success on the kind of the world scene? Because I know that is incredibly competitive and they're doing, you know, everything's twisted these days and it's, you know, it's pretty tight.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. So my first competition that I participated in was... It was actually in the U.S. back in 2011. And that was, I think, the last competition, acro competition that we had in the United States. And that was at Bear Lake up in Utah-Idaho border. And in that competition, I got second place just behind Nova because at the time he had just gotten the U-turn thriller. So he was able to do some infinite tumbling and put on a good show. Anyways, my first European competition didn't come about until just 2014. And there, my first competition was the Sonshow Acro Show.
And that was really great because it was a limited selection. There was only 16 pilots and definitely competing against some of the world's best. And that's where I actually did my first twisted tumble. You did it in the comp? That was the
first place you did
it? In the comp was, yeah, the first place. Whoa, dude,
that's nicely done. But, you know,
it's great when you have the Rodriguez brothers, you know, Theo De Blic and Horatio Lorenz, sitting in the van on the ride to launch telling you everything about it. You know, in the comp scene, in the acro scene, we don't really have secrets from each other. We're pretty open about everything that we do and share information. So, yeah, they were all in the van with me on the ride to launch. They told me all about it. And what can go wrong and do this, do that. And, yeah, so I just did my first one. And, of course, Theo De Blic is the first one who, you know, who ever did it. Sure,
sure. Yeah, that guy is super talented. Well, did you, you know, was that, was going to those comps and flying with those, you know, that kind of talent, was it discouraging or encouraging? I mean, in terms of, man, you know, for me to, you know, podium at a, you know, an acro competition.
You
know, I've never been there personally, but I've heard it's the world's best acro training site, simply because you get lots of opportunities. You know, you get a lot of altitude and free refills. So these guys spend, you know, months out of the year just there training, training, training. So it's definitely hard to compete with them. But it's really great to compete against them in that sense because going into the, you know, the acro comp scene for my first time, I didn't expect to do all that good.
But I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot by going and competing.
Yeah, that's what it's all about, isn't it? So that's what I wanted to ask you about. I'm, you know, I'm a cross country pilot. And, but after the X-Alps, the last time I decided I really needed to get a lot more acro training. I always had, you know, when I first learned to fly, I did a little, you know, tiny bit of acro. And, and it's just, you know, in the States, it's, it's harder to train because we don't have a lift over a lake anywhere. Like they have all over the place in Europe. And, and even places like Organia are pretty hard to find over here. And so I did a little bit of training at Garda. I did a little bit at Organia and, you know, it's just such a different scene. But for me, you know, it's, it's really exciting, but that just top to bottom and it's done so fast.
For me, at least it got old pretty quickly. Like, how do you keep your, how do you keep excited about it? How do you keep the passion in it when the, when the flight's over so quickly? And like Organia is a little bit different, of course, like you said, because there's free refills. You can just do it and do it, do it. And like, it's an awesome place to practice. Just helis and that kind of thing. Like any kind of thing that's really technical because you can just do it over and over and over again until you're too excited, too exhausted. But, you know, a place like, especially a place like Torrey, how do you keep your, your motivation?
Well, it, it takes a lot, but it's, you know, just all about self-improvement. You know, I'm, I'm not perfect. I can't do everything perfect, especially not every time. So it's just about improving yourself. And Acro gives you that. You know, that fine motor coordination skill that, you know, is, is very addicting in a way. And yeah, the flights are, you know, obviously short. You can burn 3000 feet in about two minutes if you're doing, you know, some, some really aggressive maneuvers. So it does take a very long time to, you know, to train because it is limited. I've done a lot of training, you know, by towing, like doing SIV.
And, and done a lot of towing over the water. And, you know, even there you can only get, you know, three, four runs in a day. So it does, it takes a lot of commitment and it takes a lot of skill. But in my opinion, it's the funnest way that a paraglider can really be flown. And the better you get with, with your maneuvering, the lower you can take it and the more of it you can do. So there's that trade-off too. It takes a while to get to the point where you're comfortable and safe. Doing something like, I would say something simple like wing overs. You know, there's a lot of pilots that are, you know, that's the first maneuver you get into doing wing overs. It, it takes a while before you get good at them. But once you get good at them, you can take them low. You can, you know, do them right up against the mountainside or the cliff face or right down to the ground level.
But until you get to the point where you can nail it 100 % of the time, then, you know, you're putting yourself in too much danger doing stuff like that.
Sure. Yeah, of course. Um, if you ever, how do you kind of get over the mental hurdles of, you know, uh, getting into some trick that you're really having trouble with, uh, or that's proving, I don't know, that's proving difficult. Um, you know, how do you incorporate that into your training schedule when you've got, say like a Tori, when you've got so little altitude, is that, do you just not learn new tricks there? Do you go somewhere where you've really got a lot more height?
That's right. Yeah. I would never do something new at Tori. Um, so the tricks that I do there are tricks that I have, you know, 95 % or let's just say 90%. Um, maybe I, I don't have, you know, things like helis. For the most part, I can do a heli pretty much every time. But there are the occasions where I, I mess it up. You know, sometimes I even get a little bit dizzy doing it or I screw up the exit. Um, but I understand it well enough that even in those mistakes, I can still, uh, do it safely low to the ground. Um, so it took me a long time and, and, you know, in particular helis, I think are the, the hardest thing to, uh, to really get the hang of.
So go out, go to a site where you have altitude or, or towing over the lake, you know, the safer, the better, of course. Practice it, practice it, practice it. Get it, you know, uh, get it, uh, subliminally, uh, concreted in your mind to where your body already knows what to do. Right. So, and by the time you do it at a low altitude, you should already have the motor memory for basically any mistake that can happen. Um, so that you know how to get out of it right away.
Do you have a, uh, is there, is there a scariest maneuver or is that, uh, you know, is there, is there a maneuver that you're still kind of like, oh, I'm going to do it. I'm like, oh man, I don't know.
Um, yeah, you know, the, um, the McTwist. Okay. The McTwists are, um, are a very high energy off-axis spinning maneuver. And it's a maneuver where even though I have it, you know, pretty, pretty much down, I will not do it at a low altitude because it can, you know, it's just, there's so much energy in the trick that's released in such a short time. Um. You know, it's, it's a riser twist machine.
Right. Sure. Yeah, sure. Hard to recover from it. You ever had any, have you ever had any accidents, uh, training acro?
You know, fortunately I've never been injured. Okay. Um, I've had some accidents, you know, I've hit the ground hard. I've hit the water hard, but you know, I've come down under reserve probably about 20 times or so. Um, but fortunately I've never done anything more than scratches. And bruises and, and twisted ankles or something like that.
Let's talk about that then. What, what kind of, you know, from the 20 or so reserve tosses, which I think is just normal when training acro, uh, that shouldn't really wow anybody. I don't think, but, um, is that, what have you learned from those? Because I, I had my first couple, my first reserve tosses training acro, uh, last year over the desert with, with Cody. And it was really eyeopening to me as a cross country pilot. Um, one, you know, kind of how long it actually takes. And then two, it was, what was so useful about it for me was understanding, okay, I'm in this situation, this is going to take this long to recover. Yeah. I don't have that long. This is a reserve toss versus, you know, cause when, when we're flying cross country, we often, you know, when we start going bigger and bigger, uh, or say flying in like something like the X house, you've got to put your wing in some pretty dicey spots.
And you're often really, you know, scrappy. You're scratching out from really low and it made me just a lot more appreciative about how dangerous it can be to be super low because, you know, if you're in certain scenarios, okay, I, I need a thousand feet to recover from this certain scenarios. You need a lot more certain, a lot less. Um, you know, what would you, well, I guess what would be your advice to, uh, people getting into that kind of flying where a reserve toss might be necessary? Does that make sense? Is
there, whenever I fly Acro, I always, you know, put myself in the state of mind of, okay, I'm going to, I am probably going to throw my reserve and what's it going to look like where I land or where am I going to end up? I never go into Acro with the mentality of, you know, I'm, nothing's going to go wrong. So I always have to have that backup plan in mind. Now, um, with Acro, you can do that, you know, cause you decide when to do Acro, otherwise you're just flying. Uh, with cross country, a lot of times you can put yourself in pretty sketchy situations where honestly you don't have enough altitude to recover. You know, you're scratching low to the ground. Once you're below the 50 foot mark, if something happens, you know, you take a big whack, especially on some of those, um,
conf gliders. It's, you, you're not going to have any time to do anything other than maybe stall it and hope for a, you know, a nice crash. Um, so it's, it's... It's really important to understand the reserve system. Um, I come across too many pilots that, you know, or in my opinion, too many pilots that don't even know how to put the reserve into their harness correctly. Um, let alone pilots that have never, you know, thrown it, never experienced a reserve toss. So it's one of those things that's really important to do early in your piloting career to, to understand, you know, how the system works and kind of what it's going to, what's going to happen. How much time does it take? Um, and, you know, be ready to use it.
Hmm. Like, uh, so you're talking SIV. Get your SIV under you.
Yeah, SIV. You definitely don't want to, uh, you know, experience a reserve deployment and, and ride into the dirt, um, for your first time. It's always best to do it into, in a water controlled environment. You know, yeah, do an SIV or if, uh, you know, if you have the ability, if you, you know, go to Lake Garda or something. Um, just hire the boat driver to come and pick you up out of the water and go out and just try it out.
Just go do it. Yeah. That's great advice. Um, talk to me about, talk to me about reserves. Cause, uh, I've heard quite a bit of conflicting stuff, you know, a few years back, I got a Beamer, uh, I think it was the two or the three, three, I guess. And, you know, it was over in Europe with it and, uh, was talked out of it and now I've been talked back into it. Um, and I think most of the. Uh, you know, a lot of cross country pilots, at least are using the, the Beamer because it's, you know, it's steerable and if you've got some time, it's great to have, um, w what are you using and, and, you know, what do you, what's, what should people be using these days?
Um, personally, I've got the Beamer two as my primary and I've got just a, you know, a regular round reserve is my secondary. It's a, uh, independence Evo 22, you know, lightweight, um, 22 panel. Reserve. Um, I've used the Beamer about 10 times and out of those 10 times or of them, I was able to actually, you know, use it and fly it because I had lots of altitude. Okay. Um, for accurate training over the ground, I'd say, yeah, you know, it's, it's decently useful. The only problem with it is you can imagine it's got two risers, two breaks, so it has the same problem as your paraglider has.
It can get riser twisted and be unusable. Now it's, it's still pretty slow descending, but the only problem with, uh, with that situation is since it's directional, since it's moving forward, it'll always want to turn and track downwind. And, uh, usually you're doing acro on a mountain side. Um, so if it takes you straight downwind, it's kind of taking it into the mountain, which can be problematic, you know, in, in certain ways. But, um, I, I dunno, I, I, for experienced pilots, for guys that, you know, have used the reserve, uh, you know, a few times I'd say, yeah, I go with the Beamer because, you know, if you already know to expect, you can deal with the situations.
Um, but for inexperienced people, I, I would say it's not a first reserve. You should get around, you should go and practice with it, get, you know, a few reserve deployments under your belt and then decide if you, if you want it. But if you have no experience. Something to compare it to, um, I, you know, I've seen a few people at SIVs that had Beamers and it did them more harm than good.
Okay. Do you, do you also fly cross country?
Um, I'm, uh, you know, I'm not a cross country pilot. I have flown some cross countries, you know, my, my longest flight was about a hundred miles. Um, that's not too shabby. And yeah, no, pretty good, you know, and, and it's, it's funny because in cross country. You know, you always get these great climb outs cause you're on a really nice, you know, high performance, uh, canopy, get these awesome climb outs and all this altitude over to the ground. And then what are you gonna do with all that altitude? Oh, I'm going to fly straight.
Drives you crazy. Doesn't it straight to that mountain over there, that, you know, next, uh, thermal trigger. And to me, it's always, uh, you know, anytime I'm doing that, anytime I'm gliding straight to try to go somewhere, I always think, what the hell am I doing? Okay. Okay. Okay. That's so
funny. It's such a different mindset. Isn't it? Um, Hey, let's go, let's go back to your, your infinite, uh, world record in 2012. You, you hopped out of a helicopter, D bagged out of a helicopter about 16,000 feet. And, uh, and at the time blew away the infinite record at three 74, which is just preposterous to me. Uh, awesome. Well done. Uh, how did you, how did you train for that? And, and, uh, cause it sounded like it was like, suddenly you just got this. This opportunity to go up in a helicopter. It was, I believe your first D bag. Is that correct?
It wasn't my first D bag. It was my first D bag from a helicopter. Okay. Um, before that I had done, you know, D bags from paramotors. Um, but I'd never been up in, I'd never even been in a helicopter before that, that jump. So that was pretty awesome. Yeah. Uh, basically the, the training I did was just all by doing tumbling. Uh, so, you know, I would go. Do runs from whatever 3,000 feet and just tumble, tumble, tumble, see that I had the tolerance. Um, I was getting to about, you know, 70 or so from three or 4,000 feet getting 70 tumbles, you know, felt pretty good. I can feel a little bit of soreness, but you know, I, I felt like, yeah, I can, I can sustain that. I can keep it going for awhile.
So when I, uh, when I did the helicopter drop at 16,000, I mean, that was beautiful. Just being up at 16,000 feet. Yeah. You know, the altitude that, uh, you know, you'd probably only experience, um, in, in an airplane, you know, 16,000 feet, not just above sea level, but actually, you know, being over the ocean at 16,000 feet was, was incredible. Um, you know, at, at Torrey, at my home site, uh, and then just, you know, did the, did the D bag. It worked perfectly. You know, I, I'd spent a lot of time really meticulously packing that, uh, that D bag to make sure. Sure that it was going to work and just, you know, went for it and, and nailed it. And while I was doing it, I, it's not like I was counting.
I just, you know, went and went and went and just kept going until I thought, okay, well, I need to glide back to shore now. You know, I ended up counting after, and we counted 374 and, and it was like, I couldn't believe it. I thought I was maybe gonna just about tie. It, you know, maybe just barely break it, but to smash it like that, it was, uh, it's a really
incredible feeling. Yeah. Cause what was it at the time? It was two 86. So almost by a hundred. Yeah. Wow. Um, and then, and what is it now?
Um, so the same year, uh, at right at the end of 2012 ratio, Lawrence, uh, did 564.
So as much as I smashed the. Record, he obliterated obliterated obliterated and nobody's tried his sense. Cause, uh, you know, it's kind of
ridiculous now, isn't it?
That was a little ridiculous. And we talked about doing it again, you know, me and me and him, um, one idea, cause you know, 20,000 feet is about as high as he could push a helicopter. Sure. Um, so, so one idea to, to be able to get more altitude and do it again was to do a parachute drop out of a plane. Um, and then D bag from the parachute.
Okay. Wow. That would be pretty exciting. All right. Excellent. Uh, well, you'll have to keep us posted on that. That'd be pretty fun to see. Um, at some point, I mean, is it, I guess that's just doing it for a record. I mean, that, that can't be that fun to do 600 tumbles or is it, I mean, isn't that just excruciating hard on your body
challenge? It's like running a marathon. It's, you know. Just trying to push yourself to, uh, to see how, how far you can go, how long you can keep on doing it, you know? So it's more a personal challenge than it is a fun thing
to do. Right. Um, we had, uh, Andre Pashaska, he's, uh, Aaron Durogati supporter in the X-Alps and a pretty accomplished, uh, acro pilot. He broke the world record, a Sphera, uh, record, uh, this, this winter down in Mexico. I think also. I don't know if that was a helicopter or a balloon. Uh, I think it was a helicopter. He
did a hot air balloon. Hot air balloon. Okay. He
did a
hot air balloon down there. Yeah. I watched the video. I, I was, uh, pretty impressed with that because that takes a little more, um, skill, I think, than just holding, holding it for the tumble.
Yeah. He talked about it just being exhausting and, you know, I think it was nine. It was, uh, you know, this is, this is, I'm not at this level at my, uh, at my acro. So, you know, I, I. I, I, I mean, I understand the difficulty of it, but, uh, you know, he's talked about it being really tiring. Is that something you'd also, is that, is that a maneuver you're, you're working on pretty regularly?
Oh, yeah. I, you know, I, I can do the Sphera pretty, you know, pretty solid. It's, um, you know, since Paul Tackett's invented it, I had, you know, been trying at it. You know, basically he, he told me the very first time I went to a Ludenius in Turkey. Um, he was there and he told me about. He told me about it a little bit and he said, look, man, just if you're doing a tumble and you just throw your hands up and hold on and don't do anything, the glider will ease its way, you know, into, uh, into kind of like a spiraling motion. And it goes through a really weird phase where, uh, it, it gets kind of slack and, and kind of weird just on one rotation. And then you, you basically are in a spiral after that and you can check it into a set and that's how you do the Sphera.
So, uh, you know, I, I didn't get it that first time because every time it would go to that weird phase, I would panic and shut it down, you know, just slam the brakes down and stop it. But, um, after I came back, you know, the, the next time I went and trained, I, I did it, you know, and it was, um, it's a really cool experience, the, the Sphera. Nowadays, when people learn to do tumbling, a lot of times they'll learn to actually come. They'll come out of it anti-rhythmic. So they'll do a Sphera their very first time ever tumbling.
Hmm. Okay. Um, what would you say to, uh, you know, pilots that are coming up, uh, you know, they're getting better and they're, they're learning, you know, what, what would be, what's the kind of progression with, with your, your standard progress, the safe progression for acro? Um, you know, what would you, what would you say to them or what would you encourage them to do?
Well, it's. You know, to progress with the acro, there's, there's a lot of guys that have been flying less than I have, you know, that, that haven't been in the sport for as long that are pushing harder and, you know, getting better, faster. But the, the problems with any flying sport always comes with the ground. Um, you know, people end up getting injured because they're pushing it low and, uh, trying new things or things that they're not. Not a hundred percent with real load of the ground. So, you know, just the ground's your enemy, you know, only do this stuff when you've got altitude and always be ready to throw your reserve, know how it works and know where you're going to come down if you do have to throw your reserve.
Um, you said you're, you're, you're kind of making your living through tandems at Torrey, but do I understand correctly? You're also an instructor.
Yeah, I do. Um, mostly tandems and a little bit of teaching. So I'm not making a living, um, instructing. I do go out. I go out and, and instruct SIVs, uh, occasionally, but, you know, also just teaching people the fundamentals, the basics of, of flying. Um, and, you know, mostly what pays the bills is, is doing tandems, of course. Torrey's a great, great place to, uh, to make a living. And we're very fortunate, the few guys that do tandems out there that, you know, we're making a living flying there. Is
it the tandem thing that keeps you? Okay. So I, I, uh, I don't want this to come out the wrong way, but, you know, when I first learned, um, you know, ridge, any kind of flying is the most exciting flying there is. I learned at the point. Um, and, uh, but after a while for me, you know, going back and forth on a ridge, uh, got pretty old pretty quickly. Um, you know, Torrey is magnificently pretty. Uh, I'm not knocking it in any way, but how do you keep excited, you know, kind of flying the same site, uh, over and over again? Is that, is that? Because of the tandem, just kind of seeing how you're affecting people, your passenger, you know, seeing them all lit up.
Absolutely. You know, I mean, it's, uh, if I was going to go out and do a day of flying just for me, unless it's a awesome post frontal, you know, windy day, I'm not going to go to Torrey. I'm going to go, you know, somewhere where that's a little bit taller, where I can get in some macro, but, you know, for the everyday day to day, normal conditions where you're cruising about. It it's great to just, you know, introduce new people to the sport and, you know, I, I find myself every day just, you know, smiling and every, every passenger is different. They all have a different experience and, you know, some people. Have the time of their life. And this is, oh my God, this is for me. I'm going to get into doing this and other people are just kind of like, wow, this is terrifying.
You know, don't, don't turn too hard. yeah
yeah no acro please yeah
yeah oh that turn was a little aggressive oh i didn't like that but um you know the uh the great thing about ridge soaring and uh and where you can really you know see ridge soaring shine is in your ability to fly low to the ground in smooth conditions so you get a lot more um practice with actually seeing the movement that you're going through if that makes sense sure um you know flying at 200 feet 300 feet or or higher you don't actually really get a sense for how you're moving you know you you feel slower with altitude so if you get the chance to go ridge soaring you can practice getting extraordinary extremely close to the ground um you know doing like mild uh pitching mild pitch pendulum close to the ground or doing some sharp turns swing overs and that's where ridge soaring really really shines and it's some of the funnest flying you can do especially if you do it in you know on a on a big sand dune or something place like uh dinda pala or in uh in a kike you know on a big sand dune where you can dig your hand into the sand dune
and you can
really just that's when you really feel like you're flying is when you're flying close to the ground dragging your feet dragging your hand um that's uh that's really my forte that's where i have the most fun is when i'm right there you know scooping up sand or pulling leaves off of bushes as i fly by somebody
once told me that you know if you're in other words make it really playful is what you're saying which i love it and i think it's really fun to do that and i think and i uh somebody told me along the way somewhere that i thought was so valuable is that every flight should be viewed as a training flight you know and that you you can set yourself uh you know even really mundane tasks become really fun in a site that you fly all the time because you're you're challenging yourself you know you can play tag with another pilot you know or you can uh you know follow the leader or like you say you know if you can get so dialed in that you can pull a certain leaf off of something you can do that's really fun to do that's really fun to do that's really um yeah that's that's pretty exciting isn't it oh
yeah yeah absolutely and that's where you know i i have a lot of fun at tori people that come out to tori and tell me it's boring you know after they've only flown there one or two days you know i've been flying the place since i started 16 years ago and i still have a great time when i go out there and and you know i'll swoop the grass you know drag my feet um maybe drag the wingtip if i get a little altitude i can do some uh some death spirals or something or you know just doing wing overs uh kind of along the cliff face there's a lot of stuff that you can do to to stay entertained and it's sad to me to watch pilots come out and they just go back and forth you know straight lines from one end to the other you know just you know three miles this way three miles that way like what are you doing right are you even having fun um so you know we get to practice a lot of launching and landing you know and that's the great thing you know at least uh for for training wise at tori and you'll if you come at especially at the end of the day on a glass off day you'll see a handful of guys you know the regular guys that are always there and that's all they'll be doing they'll they'll hog up the launch site they'll you know launch turn land launch turn land and get lots of practice with um with really coordinated maneuvers close to the ground um
I imagine in your 16 years of uh training there at tori and and all the flying you've been doing you've probably seen a fair share of accidents are there uh are there some common kind of uh red flags you know are there are there uh things that you see more than others uh you know in other words can we put out a warning to our listeners like uh obviously complacency uh but you know are there some other things that you've kind of seen that you've seen that you've seen that you've just go god darn it you know it's so preventable oh
yeah absolutely i mean it's uh the most common thing that i see people messing up is wing overs and it's because it's you know of course it seems like an attainable thing an easy thing to do but wing overs can you know really build up some energy quickly and if they're mismanaged that puts you uh you know higher than your canopy with with no tension on the lines so it can you know i've seen it more often than not result in you know something going funny uh and you know maybe the pilot overreacts or does something and and stalls the wing or or this that and the other thing you know and then you're in the the whole cascading scenario so i i mean my advice to
you know the guys who are trying to get into doing acro is don't take things too lightly practice any new maneuver as though you're
not doing it that way you're not doing it the way you're doing it
you're going to throw your reserve. Never take for granted that you're just going to fly out of a maneuver. No big deal.
That's good advice. I remember early on, and we had Jocky Sanderson on the show a while back, and his video, Performance Free Flying, is so fantastic about that because it really set in my head. That was back when I was first learning, and I was so excited about wing overs and stuff, and they talked about it being not this easy maneuver. It's one of the more advanced maneuvers, and to do it well, it's one of the really more advanced maneuvers. There are a lot of other maneuvers in acro that I think are much easier. To really do it well, like you said, you're basically looping back and forth. You're way over your wing, and so if you screw up that timing, things get ugly. I'm glad you brought that up because early on you said, doing wing overs is really fun, but you're right. I think it's a pretty advanced move.
Yeah, absolutely, and I've blown my fair share of wing overs when I was learning to do it, but it took me a while to figure out the finesse. There's usually two ways that people do the wing overs wrong. They'll either be overly aggressive, which was my problem, and that puts you up above the wing and out of energy, or they'll be underly aggressive, super sedated, and the problem with that is it puts you, again, kind of sideways to the wing, eventually with stuff getting light. So there's this in-between zone. If you're too aggressive, if you're pulling and leaning and slamming it too hard without the energy to do that, you'll put yourself real high over the wing and end up going real light up there, or if you're real sedated and saying, oh, I'm just going to take it mellow, well, once you pass that 90-degree mark,
all bets are off. You can not have enough energy to complete the turn. So it's, you know, it's a big finesse maneuver. It's one of the first ones that we learn as, you know, pilots that are trying to get into the aerobatic side of paragliding, and it's one of the most important maneuvers to really understand. There are other maneuvers that look cooler, that are more advanced, that are way, way easier. And honestly, tumbling is one of them. Tumbling, doing an infinite tumble is actually easier than doing wing overs.
That's, yeah, that's amazing to me.
It's pretty funny. You know, I don't have the luxury of having water where we are. It's so, you know, it's something I really want to do is learn how to tumble, but I'm just, I just don't want to be doing that over the dirt. I'd like to learn that over the water first and get it really super dialed. And then, but the rest of this stuff, you know, helis and all that kind of thing, I'm pretty comfortable now doing over the dirt because you just, you learn to obey, you know, certain height things. And like you said, be not afraid to use your reserve. And then I think it's actually pretty safe, but it's, I'm not recommending this to our listeners. I'm just saying that's where I'm doing it right now. But, well, cool. Max, what is your, what does the future look like for you? If you could, you know, pave your, pave your next five years, do you even do that?
Are you, are you a planner?
No, not at all. You know, it was pretty evident, even with my record attempts, it was, it was, you know, what happened, the way I was able to do that record is, you know, this, this guy came to Tori and he was talking with my dad. He turned out to be the owner of a local helicopter company called Corporate Helicopters. And, you know, my dad knew I had been practicing. I was already practicing doing duration tumbling, you know, before I even thought about doing the record. And, you know, he asked him, hey, would you give my son a ride? Would you give him a ride up to altitude in one of your helicopters? And the guy said, yeah, absolutely.
So, you know, he, he sponsored the helicopter flight and, you know, took me up to altitude.
Wicked. Yeah, just spur of the moment. I love that kind of stuff. You, you mentioned right at the top of the show, you said you're, you're working on some new maneuvers. I don't want you to give away any, any secrets if you don't want to, but I've always thought that was fascinating. Just had so much respect for the Rodriguez brothers and TAC, it's for, you know, coming up with, I just, you know, how does that, what does that process look like? What do you, what are you working on? If you can say.
Oh yeah. You know, I've already done them. I, you know, posted the videos and everything, you know, new maneuvers. We already know every real maneuver that a, that a paraglider is capable of. So the new maneuvers all now have to do with twisting the risers. You know, I've already done them. Or, you know, my new additions have been doing a 360 degree riser twist during a tumble. So that was, that was the first one I did. Originally, Rodriguez pioneered this, this maneuver called the devil's twist. And the devil's twist is you, you're doing a heli, right? You twist the risers one way, and then you do a 360 degree twist to where you end up twisted.
And then you do a 360 degree twist to where you end up twisted the other way. Okay. During the, during a, in the maneuver, in the helicopter, yeah, in the maneuver. So you're, you're twisting from one direction to the other. And so I took that, I, I tried, you know, that maneuver a few times and I decided, well, you know, I, I think I could throw this just during a tumble. So in one rotation, you know, basically your body does a 360. Okay. So really interesting feeling. And, uh, and, you know, it, it really, it wasn't a, a super complicated, a super complicated maneuver to, to invent. And, and once I posted the video, a few other guys started doing it. So it became, um, a pretty cool thing to do for the twisted Aspera. Right. So you can imagine to do an Aspera, you go sat, tumble, and then sat the opposite direction.
So you start twisted doing the sat on the one side, and then, uh, you, you build it up. And before you go into sat on the other side, you do this, uh, you know, what I call devil's twist. This tumble, this 360 degree maneuver. So you ended up twisted in the right direction when you're doing the sat the other way.
Ah, madness.
Head around that.
Uh, very cool.
And then, uh, you know, the other. The other maneuvers that, uh, that I invented were flipping during, uh, during a tumble. So, uh, so again, you know, somebody had in, you know, had done this, um, this thing called, the the flip install so basically you do a dynamic full saw meaning you take a little bit of energy and as you bury the brakes you do a backflip in your harness yeah
gotcha i'm with you yeah so
got it you know so what ends up happening is after you flip and and the canopy comes out your brakes are wrapped around so you have to unwrap them or just grab the risers and do a front flip back the other way um so i i took that again to the tumbling um and i did i've i've did it only in one flight and i've been the only one to ever do it where i did a backflip during the tumble and do you think
so wild man do you think um these these tricks like the backflip and the front flip during tumble uh or some of the other stuff you've invented do you think those will be incorporated into shows and uh uh sequences in the future like in competitions so
we've already written the uh you know the rules the the scores and whatever for um for doing flips either doing uh the flip and install or doing the the tumble flip and as of yet you know the and this i i actually introduced during the world air games um in well last year in dubai and uh it was you know we just wrote the rules i attempted to do the the tumble flip during the world air games but just wasn't able to so still out there still has yet to have happened we're yeah nobody's done not either uh well any kind of flip during a competition yet so god that would happen so
fast it'd be you'd almost have to review it on film to for the judges to pick it up isn't it i mean i bet that i bet you it's going to be a lot of fun i mean i bet you it's going to be a lot of fun i bet that happens pretty quickly
yeah and and that happens a lot in competition already um where because the the judges you know you're seeing they're trying to write down what uh what the person is doing and the tricks are happening back to back boom boom boom you know sometimes guys are getting 10 maneuvers in a run um so even already there's times where you know after the scores are posted people come back with their gopro footage like no this is what actually happened um so it wouldn't really be too off to uh you know to say oh hey look by the way uh i i did a flip during
that tumble do you um you know one of the things that i noticed over at europe when you rock up at a place like you know garda or uh you know even anisey um you know there's there's a pretty large community of acro pilots are you do you have a community that you can train with there or are you kind of doing all this stuff solo
here at tori um pretty much solo there's uh one other pilot here that's um you know that's a full acro pilot and uh well well a couple guys that are out doing acro um and yeah we go out and and do a little bit of training together but it's not as big a community like uh like it is in europe that
must be fun to get together with these guys in a place like dubai or you know they just had did you go to the one in anisey that just happened a couple months ago
i wasn't able to uh to go compete this year unfortunately i really wanted to but just um just couldn't i'm looking at going next year so next year hopefully doing the full comp scene um and that's what i'd really like to do the only problem of course is that our our summer season is the same as their summer season sure so you know when i need to be working here uh doing lots of tandems that's when uh you know i should be over competing in in europe cool um
i want to be mindful of your time but just one one last question about the tandems um is do you find tandems help or hurt your acro um
that's a good question i've i've been doing tandems since 2009 uh it's definitely helped in the way that i'm always at the flying site you know versus having a job where i you know i i work let's say seven to three that was what i used to do and then i would get off work and go and fly for an hour if i could um versus now i'm just at the flying site so i can always drop work you know i can just say okay i'm not going to do tandems because the conditions are really good right now go out and do a little practice and then you know go back to work which is which is pretty nice but um you know i am getting a lot of flying practice unfortunately you know flying around on a tandem doesn't really help you in in any ways with uh with learning aerobatics sure
yeah we we we hear that a lot in cross country you know a lot of pilots because it's you know it's kind of the natural progression you learn how to fly and then you get you know you get your and maybe your instructor rating or you get your tandem rating and then they always talk about that being the fastest death of of training for cross country is is starting to do a lot of tandems because it's kind of like the last thing you want to do is is you know after a couple tandems in the morning is to get your kit together and send it big you know it's just it's just you know because it's work it's it's tiring um and uh but then at the same time there's you know some of the best pilots in the world are also pretty regular commercial tandem pilots so i find it kind of an interesting thing i'm not i don't do tandem so i don't don't know much about it
yeah it's it's interesting i mean you you get a lot of flying time but it's different you know it becomes a job it's you know you're there to take care of your passenger you're not just out there doing your own thing anymore so of course yeah you're going to take it easier you know you got somebody somebody with you so you're not going to go all crazy but um you do get more flight time more practice more experience that just will only get you so far you definitely need to have solo time to go and practice whatever discipline it is that you practice sure great
um max i want to be i want to be mindful of our time about 50 minutes in and i used to end all of these with uh the proust questionnaire and i haven't been doing that the last few times but i think you i really would love to do this with you this is just a few questions uh answer them however you want and then uh and we'll sign off but thanks man so here here we go uh what is your favorite word
uh piggy piggy
excellent least favorite word uh
um hate i guess
gotcha great one uh what turns you on what turns you off and this doesn't have to be sexual
thanks for that
uh the this both answers are the sky
excellent a
nice you know post frontal lots of cumi kind of cloud day turns you off to see just a blanket of gray or drizzle and rain
excellent perfect uh and same thing with noise what's sound do you what sound do you uh what what sound or noise do you love and what sound or noise do you uh not love oh interesting um well
i have grown to love you know the sound of of my daughter kind of giggling you know making her giggle and stuff ah cute and then and then uh not love not love oh harley you guys are listening out there that drive a harley i hate you by my street you know and the whole house freaking shakes and my daughter wakes up crying so screw you if you drive a harley yeah
and you just said you just said hate is your least favorite word so wow you really don't like harley's okay awesome um what profession other than your own would you like to attempt oh
you know what i'm really jealous of the guys that work remotely any profession where you can just hook up with your laptop or your phone or whatever and you can have your phone on your cockpit while you're flying around go and work i'm i'm pretty jealous of you so doesn't doesn't really matter what you're doing but when i see you at the flying site and and you're just like oh yeah i'm working right now and just taking phone calls and typing away on your phone and then you go fly for a couple hours that's uh i think that's the way to go i love it um
and then what profession would you not like
to do i would hate to go back to construction okay
so you were in construction
yeah that's what i did before um you know before working at the glider port um i did concrete and roofing uh okay harder
ones to get into we're just getting ready to uh remodel my kitchen so i i won't ask you to do my concrete countertops you
know remodels are kind of fun you know when it's just uh when you're doing the whole thing for one room or so yeah um or just for the house you know that's kind of fun but when you're doing big projects you know huge concrete walls or um you know doing the roof maintenance for an entire huge complex it's a little boring
i'm leaving the questionnaire here for a sec but i would just be curious you know at your age got a little daughter do you see yourself um sticking with tannins is this going to be your you know your profession for a while yeah
i mean my my heart is at tory um you know my my dad's the owner uh is the manager and you know i've pretty much got my lot with those guys so whatever whatever we have to do to make the place survive and keep on going uh whether that's doing tantums or running the school or managing the office whatever it is um that's what that's what i'm gonna stick with okay
last last question back to the questionnaire uh if heaven exists what would you like to hear god say when you arrive at the pearly gates ah
hmm that's a good one well let's see let's see what would he say he'd say max you spent a lot of time closer to me than uh the most other folks so you know you you're gonna be one of my vips here's a big mountain lots of uh lots of lift go have fun
excellent fantastic great i love it i love it um cool well max thank you so much for your time i really appreciate it uh those of you who are listening go see max at tory pines find out what his obsession is all about. It's a, it's a fantastic place to fly and get hours and train. And, uh, before we sign off, is there anything else you want to say, Max, or, um, and how can people find out more about you and what you're doing out there?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Uh, you know, you can also visit the website flytory.com and, uh, you know, learn about, uh, trips or special events like SIVs, uh, stuff that we're hosting and, uh, yeah, just come and visit me. I'll, I'll sit down with anybody and explain kind of how, how Tory works and, uh, you know, show you how to have a good time out there if you're used to just flying back and forth on the ridge.
Excellent. Perfect. Max, thanks a lot, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the show and, uh, hope to be, uh, flying around with you at cloud base sometime soon. All right. Same here, Gavin. Thanks for having me on. Cheers.
I hope you enjoyed that. Uh, always cool to sit down with these great pilots from around the world. If you're just discovering the mayhem, uh, invite you to go back and listen to, uh, got any of the past previous episodes. Uh, so many goodies there from Will Gadd and, uh, Jeff Shapiro and Bill Belcourt and a whole bunch of European pilots. I've got quite a few of these in the can. Uh, I've got Mickey Siegel coming up in the weeks ahead. It's just got to do the editing on that. Uh, I've got a great talk with Larry Tudor, uh, real famous hang glider, pilot back in the day, uh, sitting down with Russ Ogden at ozone here in a couple of days. So got some great shows for you coming up as we dive into winter here in the Northern hemisphere.
As always, all we ask for is a buck a show. Uh, if you got something out of this or one of the previous episodes, you will find that donate link. Very easy to find. Now we cleaned all that up on the website. You'll find it on the website, cloudbasedmayhem.com. Send us a buck. Uh, it goes a long ways. I really appreciate it. The editing on these takes hours and hours and hours. And, uh, yeah. I certainly appreciate it. See you on the next show. Thank you. Cheers.