Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud-Based Mayhem. I'm kind of so excited about this one, I've had to try to record this opener about 15 times. Hugh Miller, the editor for a long, long time of Cross Country Magazine, now does a lot of their testing. Amazing British pilot. This show is going to knock your socks off. Before we get into that, though, as always, a few little things of housekeeping. I've been working with my editor, Miles Connolly, on this, on these last few shows. I hope you've seen the radical upgrade in quality. And I just wanted to really just thank all of you for donating to the show. When I took this on a couple years ago, we're now at episode 33, you know, I just kind of took it on as a lark.
And it's actually become a real undertaking. It takes an amazing amount of time to do this, which I love, and Miles loves. We're learning so much. I hope you're learning so much. But it does take a lot of time, and I really just appreciate your donations. Those of you who have given some money to the show, thank you. As always, all we ask for is a buck a show. And excitingly, we've got a new thing up right now on Patreon. You can find that link on thecloudbasedmayhem.com. So rather than going through PayPal... And doing a donation every once in a while, kind of whenever it hits you, you can now support us on Patreon, where it's basically every episode. You cap it. You decide how much. Like always, all we ask for is a buck a show. But if you want to give more, you can do so.
And for that, there are all kinds of rewards. So check that out. Go to cloudbasedmayhem.com. Check out that Patreon link. And as a little bonus, I've got about three minutes of clips from North of Known that vary very frequently. A few people have seen. Only those folks that were up in Banff, actually. Some fantastic footage there with me talking about what Patreon is all about. So if you've been dying to see a little bit of North of Known, you can go there to check it out. And one thing that Miles just reminded me of that I wanted to remind you of is that what, to me, I think is so cool about this podcast, about kind of dispersing all this knowledge, is the access to really the best people in the world. You can't do this.
There's no such thing as a surfing podcast where they're talking to Kelly Slater, or at least not that I know of. But in our sport, it's so small and such an incredible community that, you know, the best of the best. You know, when I go down through the list, some of the people we've had on the show, you know, Will Gadd and Aaron Durogati and Josh Cohn and Nick Greece and Nate Scales and just, you know, my mentors. Just so much, so many good talks there. That has been compiled from literally lifetimes and lifetimes of flying. So, and if you can't, if you, anyway, enjoy that. But also, if you can't, you know, contribute to the show, totally understand it's free for a reason. And that's because I want to spread this knowledge.
And so do all these guests. We want to get it out there. We want to get people psyched about learning and getting better and being safer and making smart decisions. That's what this is all about. So I think there are still... There are still thousands and thousands and thousands of people that don't know about the show. So the next time you're on launch, if you've gotten something out of one of these, tell your friends, post it on Facebook, share it, share the love. And that's another way that we get it out there. You can also just give us a rating on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play or TuneIn, however you get the podcast. Those ratings, you'd be surprised they go a long way into supporting us. So don't feel bad if you can't give us money, totally understood, but just share it. Hugh Miller. This... This podcast, when I was doing it, I have to say that I was so kind of focused on asking the right questions, I wasn't listening as well.
And when I went back through and listened to it again for the second, third, fourth time working with Miles, this is seriously incredible. He has so many good things to say. His kind of background and expertise is about psychology. So we talk about just like psychology of flying. And then, you know, Flatland. Tactics and league and X contest and the importance of preparation. And, you know, one of the most valuable things is learning when not to fly. And there is just I've got lists of three pages of lists here of some of the things that Hugh talks about, you know, when to move up on wings and the difference between two liners and three liners. And there's just you're going to I promise you're going to be blown away with this one.
Sit back, relax, enjoy, listen and then listen again. And share it with your friends. I think you're going to enjoy it. So without further ado, please enjoy this incredible conversation with one of the legends in our sport, one of the guys who has really driven forward progress in the sport and has been such an icon for us all in a mentor. Please enjoy this talk with Hugh Miller.
Hugh Miller, it's awesome to have you on the show. Thank you so much for giving me some of your time. I'm looking at your little. Skype picture here. You're sending it out over these beautiful UK green flatlands. That is not the kind of territory we have around my house, especially not right now. But yeah, man, thanks for thanks for coming on the show. And thanks for sharing some some stories and knowledge with us.
Pleasure. And I often joke with my friend, Jim, we listen to your podcast and you talk about sending it and carving epic lines. And so I'm going to try and. Yeah. We often joke about that in our flying in the UK. You know, we said we sent it, you know, half a meter climb out of it out of a hill. And now we went on this epic backcountry adventure on a new line. We're at least three miles from the nearest pub, you know, all the way through it. So, yeah, our style of flying in the UK is a little bit different from yours, Gavin. I'm sure to underwhelm over the course of the next hour. But yeah, bear with me. No,
I don't. I don't think so at all. And in fact, just this morning, I got a little Facebook message from from somebody on there. I'm. I apologize for forgetting the name, but inviting me over for the North-South Cup, which is something I would love to partake in. You guys always talk so fondly of that. And I just think it'd be terrific. I'm not much of a I have to admit, I'm not much of a Flatlands pilot. I've done some, you know, in Shalan and down in Australia a couple of years ago when I was training for the X-Alps, which is strange to be training in the Flatlands for the X-Alps. But I've wanted some hours. You know, we don't fly around here much in the winter. So, yeah, I'd be quite keen on that. Maybe bring the movie, the Alaska movie over with me and and show it to some of you folks. Yeah, that'd be a lot of fun.
You have a similar thing that you all get together and try and fly the wherever is good in the western states over two or three week period. Is that right?
Exactly. Yeah. The inner mountain wide open is what Nate Scales it. Nate organized it. In fact, you know, he used to run kind of a league event here way back in the day, way much before. And a lot longer before or much before I became a pilot. But yeah, he's he got that together. I think this was our second one this year. And it's been really terrific. It's right after the X-Alps or it was last year anyway. And and we just kind of have a two and a half week, three week period where you kind of pick your days and and organize your own retrieve. And but it's a really good way to get you know, that's the problem we have around here is we just don't get that many people. And it's a long drive and it's a long way from other launches. And and so it kind of collects the whole northwest crew.
And it's a it's a good time.
Well, you'll probably have done just enough training for the North-South Cup that, you know, if you if you cut the hills down by about 10 percent, throw in a few more gray skies, replace beer with tea, swap the grizzly bears for sheep and you'll be OK. I think I think you'll manage.
I'll do it all except the team. We'll look after you. All right. Excellent. Thanks. Thanks. Well, I like beer.
Hey, Hugh, for those who are very familiar with the magazine, I think, you know, they they know a lot about your history. But those who maybe aren't or those who haven't been around very long like me. Can you share with us a little bit of your history and your clear passion for the sport? I was just doing some some research on you before we got on here. And you were back in the British Championships and the World Air Games back in 98, which I don't even know what that is. So let's let's. Take us back a little while and catch me up to speed.
I started flying when I was 15 and it was the cheapest way of flying, really. So, yeah, I got into it just because it was 20, 30 pounds a day to train back then in 1992. And I started flying with my dad at an airfield in Essex, which is the flatlands northeast of London. And we were getting towed up on basically parachutes behind Land Rovers with really thick ropes. And then released from the land, drove 800 feet and then get taught how to do a full stall and spin without a reserve and land. I think this is a bit exciting. So that's how I started. I started competing in 94, 95 ish, I think. And those were sort of I mean, the mid 90s were a really fantastic time to be into competitions because, you know, a lot of pilots are quite well sponsored.
I got onto the Nova team. So, yeah, when I was like 20, I remember. Like I was at Sheffield University and I would I got paid to fly to Australia and do a World Cup. And if you did well, you got prize money as well. I mean, it's just amazing to think back on it. You know, you didn't just get free wings. You got really well looked after. So, yeah, I competed for three or four years and then basically saw lots of friends fall out the sky and thought, I'm not sure about this. And I got ended up getting a job with cross country. And so I could sort of afford to. Fund my flying through working for the magazine. And so I backed away from the competitions a bit. And that was 99. And then since then, really, I've been into XC flying here in the UK and a little bit abroad.
But, yeah, still really passionate about XC flying and trying to, you know, go a long way and enjoy each day. Yeah. So I guess that's where I am. And I still review wings for the magazine occasionally. Really enjoy that. Reviewed the King and the Ion 4 most recently. So I try and stay current on. I try and try and concentrate on the D's. And the high end. And the C's. It's quite a hard job to keep across all the different sectors of wings. And, yeah, get involved with writing for the magazine when I can, too.
It was your was your background when you took over the magazine back in the 90s. Did you have a background in editing and that kind of thing or was just something you fell into?
I basically got swooped on by Sherry Teveno, who is the editor. I was doing journalism at college and I'd literally just put the pen down on my last essay at college. And Sherry Teveno rang me up and, oi, get out to France. And she she sort of sucked me in and I was working for her. Then she quickly made me the editor and I was 21 at the time. And then this, yeah, her personal life was kind of slightly in crisis. Her marriage was breaking down and she thought, OK, that's it. I'm putting the plug on the magazine. And I was like, wait, I'm just taking me on. I'm editing this magazine. And it's, you know, it's in this tiny, you know, it's in this world where, you know, I'm I really like everyone. In this world. And it's quite a big deal to me to be editing this magazine. And you want to pull the plug.
That's not going to look good for me. I sort of rang a friend, Steve Senior, and he had much more business sense than me. And he helped. He got involved and helped me keep it going independently. But that was yeah. And I said, yeah, I'll run it for two or three years. And that was 20 years ago. And I'm still involved.
Tell me about competitions you you you wrote in your email. You won the league last year, the UK league. Are you also still doing PWC? Are you are you doing it still international comps or is it more? OK, no, no,
not at all. No, we do the North South Cup because that's kind of it's just it's a way of getting friends together who you don't often see through the year and having a non competition. So it really doesn't matter what place you come because you're flying for your team. And actually, we try and make the scoring slightly ridiculous if we possibly can. So, you know, go over the goal field last year and you got extra points for getting. Lost and missing it. And, you know, I mean, yeah, it's I think I think a lot of pilots do competitions for a few years and then stop. I mean, there are a few who continue and, you know, really committed to it. But I think your exposure to risk is pretty high if you're flying at top level competition. And there's a sort of fairly natural attrition rate from that, not necessarily just from injury, but just just the the the risk to reward, you know, ratio.
And and rationalizing that it
for for pilots who are, you know, looking to really improve and maybe, you know, a shorter rather than a career type of time span. You know, one of the things I hear from other pilots all the time is, oh, do competitions, do competitions. But are there are there other ways or are there are there things that you would tell, say, a 500 hour pilot? Hey, here's what you need to do for the next year or two to get to really improve your skills. You know, to go from a two hour flight to an eight hour flight.
No, I think there's a lot of truth in that. I think, you know, flying competitions definitely can rapidly improve your flying. But, yeah, you know, it's not it's not for everyone. There's a really talented local pilot, Vincent Tallow, who's just disappeared back to France, actually. But, you know, we thought, yeah, he's going to be a fantastic. He is a fantastic pilot. It's good. Good XC pilot thinks for himself when went to competition wasn't for him. You know, they're just not for everyone. I think getting in. You know, getting in with every club's got keen local XC pilots and getting in with them and and going flying with them is is is definitely just just being, you know, soaking up information and being like a sponge absorbing as much as you can. You know, that's that's how you learn the competition. There's no reason you can't do that outside of competitions. Yeah. So I just be a sponge if you can.
What wing do you fly and and and why? I
flew the triple seven king. Last year, I flew it to review it and was really impressed. And they kindly lent it to me for three or four months after the after the after the review period and ended. I mean, in England, you know, flatlands, you can fly a slightly higher aspect ratio wing with more comfort than you can in the mountains, obviously. Yeah, I enjoy I enjoy the sort of the extra sniffiness that higher aspect ratio wings can give you flying in lighter lifts. And, you know, in the winter. The last three, four years, the leading edges have become so much more solid. It's just transformed the way you can fly in in windy conditions, going crosswind and, you know, pushing upwind.
Is that is that triple seven? I'm not familiar with that wing. Is that two liner?
It's no, it's a three liner. Yeah. OK, yeah, it's a three liner. I've got a Zeno as well, which I'm going to fly in Colombia in a couple of weeks, which I'm really looking forward to. I've sort of gone between two and three liners. I had an R-12 and flew that and then I borrowed a friend, a friend's R-11. Quite a lot a year ago. But I guess just for me being trying to be in the air for sort of five, six, seven hours and wanting to feel relaxed throughout the whole flight. Three liners just, you know, give that bit more comfort factor. So, yeah.
Talk about one of the one of the questions I get a lot of is, you know, when when should I step up? When should I step up to the next wing? And I think there's misconceptions about two liners, you know, for for me myself. I feel quite a bit more connected to the wing on a two liner because my hands are always on the bees or on the badger bars. And, you know, is that I just I haven't flown a three liner actually in a long time, so I can't say. But, you know, talk about when a pilot should move up and because you're bouncing back and forth, maybe say between the Zeno and the triple seven between a two liner and three liner. Talk about the pluses and minuses.
I think. Yeah. You're right. It's like that connection to the wing you get you get with a two liner. And if you've got the aptitude to to read the wing and react to it and, you know, be in be in tune with it, then then, you know, two liners is a good option. But you've also obviously got the two liners only really work at higher aspects. So you don't get low aspect two liners and with the height you can't you can't cheat high aspect, you know, in high aspect goes wrong, then they're harder to harder to handle. So that's another consideration. It's not just the wing. It's about the two versus three liners. I think, you know, you know, lots of people go on about this pilots move up up to wings too quickly. I think if you're looking to move up a class of wing, you've got to think, well, what's holding me back? Is it really the wing or is it something I'm doing?
Am I landing after three or four hours? You know, should I can I stay in the air for six or seven hours? Because if you want to fly a long way, you need to be able to stay in the air for six or seven hours. If you're not doing that, then there's really no reason to move up beyond the high high end. B. All right. Or a low C. I wouldn't have thought because, you know, perversely, if you move up, then you are inhibiting your ability to stay in the air because you're going to be that much more burnt out by by the you know, you're you've only got so much bandwidth in your brain to deal with what's around you and your wing and everything else. And if if too much of that is being used up in flying your wing, you're not going to have the bandwidth to spot the bird that's climbing to your left or see, you know, see the cloud developing off to your right or so. I think, you know. It's a case of letting the wing do some of the work for you as you progress and get to know the sky and get get used to different conditions.
It's a huge, huge apprenticeship for learning to fly. And I don't think you can rush it.
I think that's really sound advice, something that I've probably talked about ad nauseum. And I apologize to our listeners if you've already heard this story, but I've made the argument many times when I had my big flight here. Was that three years ago from Baldy? It was a huge day. A lot. A lot of wind dealing with some really, you know, a massive day where I was fighting to stay under 18000 quite a few times and getting chased by big weather. The day before it actually been my personal best and gotten home at almost four o 'clock in the morning and only had a couple hours sleep. And it was just, you know, going home to go to bed. And my buddy Matt Beecher was, you know, called me. Oh, it's even better today. You got to come back up to launch. I raced back up. And as you can imagine, I was exhausted and I was on the peak three.
Whereas typically back then I would have been flying the ice peak six. You know, a lot of this because I was flying downwind that day and there was a lot of wind. But, you know, I've made the argument many times that I wouldn't have had that flight had I been on my ice peak. I think because I would have been dealing just as I mean, the ice peak is just a lovely, lovely glider. It doesn't blow up. But, you know, just having that extra bit of because I was tired and because I was probably, you know, fraction of a second behind. Things because of the exhaustion, which I typically tend for some reason, I tend to fly better when I'm really tired. But I think that really helped that day. You know, just being on a glider that I didn't have to manage as much allowed me to go longer, I believe, than I would have had I been on a two liner.
So I think a lot of times it's the wing that fits the day as well, isn't it?
Sure, sure. No, definitely. I had a lovely flight. Just from our local site to the end of Kent. It's as far as you can fly really along the south coast of England. It's about 120k. So I did that on the Ion 4 in April. And, you know, that's a beginner wing. It's a school wing. And, you know, you can still, you know, I was 10 minutes behind Mark Watts on his Enzo II. He was, you know, flying it nice and slowly for me. But it just showed me actually that, you know, all wings these days are pretty good. And so why not fly something where, you know, you give yourself a bit of thinking space.
Yeah, I'm quite interested in psychological aspects of flying just because my day job is in mental health and working with kids and families. And so, you know, I'm quite interested in the crossover about how we make our decisions. And, you know, the way we develop hunches for what's going to work in flying and how that can then help us. There was like this thing called the Iowa gambling task. It was at Iowa University. Yeah. And they're interested in the way our bodies can give us hunches and how we can make decisions unconsciously. And so I think if you're flying a safe wing, it can help you with that aspect too. You can start to fly a little bit more intuitively if you're not wracked with fear.
Do you see what I mean? True. You're wracked with fear. When you're wracked with fear, if your amygdala is really firing, then your brain is going to be very hard to think. And let alone use your sort of unconscious decision making.
I like that. When I talked to Kelly Farina in a previous episode, we talked a lot about his book. And he was a huge proponent for that, that you, you know, your brain can only handle so much. And if you're thinking about collapses and catching stuff and fear, then it's kind of like tunnel vision, isn't it? It just, your brain just narrows down. It narrows down and you start losing all the peripheral stuff that really helps us fly a big distance.
Yeah, absolutely. Did I mention the Iowa gambling task? Basically, they got people to draw from four cards on a computer. And each time you'd lose or you'd win some money, depending on which card you drew. And it took people up to sort of 30 or 40 goes to start consciously choosing the right cards that got them the right, you know, got them the most money. But they were also hooked up. And their sweat glands were being monitored. And every time they went towards a bad card, then their stress response would be triggered. And that was happening after just 10 goes. So their body was registering which cards were the right cards to go for long before their conscious brains could work that out. So that sort of tells you something about how important the hunches are.
I do a lot of flying with Mark Watson. When we get low, I just sit back and just watch where he goes. Wow. Because he's got this amazing capacity to fly to the right area and get up. And he won't know why he's doing it. But he's been flying for 25 years in the Flatlands in England. And something about the picture and the way the village and the town is sitting and the river and the hill, it's not a conscious decision. It just feels right when he goes to it. And it works.
That is… So… I love it.
It's a bit weird, isn't it? It's a bit weird. Yeah.
I was just going to say that I'd love to transition to Flatlands. Because it's one of the questions we get a lot of that I can't answer very well. I'm not a Flatlands guy.
Distill some knowledge there.
I think the most important thing with the Flatlands is obviously you can't… You know, it's much harder to visualize what the air is doing because you haven't got the obvious, you know, slopes and cliffs. And you see where the sun is. You see what the valley winds are doing. It's harder to build a picture. Although for Flatland pilots like me going to the mountains. I feel pretty lost because I do it so irregularly now. So, I think the really important thing in Flatlands is to start building your picture of what the day is like the moment you wake up. So, you're seeing, you know, what's happening with the clouds and the sky when the first queues start to appear. When you're driving to the hill. When you see your first birds climbing. Looking at how fast they're going up. Looking at what's happening to the drift.
Getting on the hill nice and early. And taking off as soon as you can. So, you can start getting a feel for the air. Then as the day heats up, generally, you know, the air will… The thermals will puncture through the inversion layers as the day heats up. So, if you're in the air, you can get a feel for where they are. And later in the day, they may reestablish. So, you'll know what sort of heights that you might get stuck at.
Clouds as well. If you're looking at clouds, then I think it is important to look at the clouds. And see where the signs of activity are. As just to see a cloud and think that looks good. Because especially early in the day, clouds can appear and disappear before you can get to them. If you imagine you're gliding towards a cloud. You're traveling at the speed of someone on a racing bike. You know, you're doing 30, 35 k's an hour. 40 k's an hour. You're going to have to pedal very quickly to get to them before they die. Later in the day, sort of, you know, 1, 2, 3 o 'clock onwards, they're more established. And they're a surer. They're a surer bet. So, it's just about, you know, building a picture of the day. And also, I think, treating the sky a bit like a checkerboard. A lot of pilots early on, me as well, I used to think, okay, head for that factory.
That's going to work. But actually, if you think about the sky and the land divided into like a chessboard or a checkerboard. Some squares, the white squares, you know, there's a much better chance of lift than the black squares. Which are shaded out or just not in cycle. Pretty much guaranteed there won't be lift there. So, it's a case of always arriving in the right kind of area and then zeroing in on where the thermal might be. Does that make sense? So, if you're getting into the right kind of square, then it's not working. Maybe going left or right a bit as opposed to plowing on downwind. That can tend to work, you know, rather than just gliding straight downwind. Get into the right area and then sniff about. Yeah. Talk
to me about flying lines in the flatlands. Like, you know, one of the things that I've often come up against is you're on this terrific line that's leading you right into a blue hole. And I'm often tempted to just, well, it's this line. You know, it's just that part hasn't, you know, I'm in cycle. That should work. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. Is this just a hunch thing? Or do you just avoid those? Do you have any kind of rules for entering? Entering and exiting clouds?
Quite often, you'll get a good line, won't you? You'll be charging along for 20, 30 Ks. And then you'll get to the end and you'll be like, oh, now what? Because it's just this massive blue hole, you know, beyond you. And you've sort of been geared for speed and you've been blasting along. And then you have to stop and think. And you can't just leap into the blue. Quite often, it is worth going off at 30 degrees, 40 degrees one way or the other. I mean, here in England, we're always avoiding airspace. So that can usually help you rather than hinder you. It's quite rare to fly straight downwind.
Mid-afternoon onwards, it's definitely worth following the lines of clouds. Earlier in the day, probably as well. But as I say, because they kind of build and dissipate much quicker, they're less reliable. So, yeah, I definitely try and follow the lines of activity as much as you can. Don't pile on anything. Just get into the blue hole.
Do you guys often get blue days in the UK? Or is there enough moisture around always that you're getting clouds?
Yeah, no, we do. We get days when it blues out or it starts blue for quite a while until the lap straight is good enough for it to pop. I quite enjoy blue days. The world air goes in Turkey was mainly blue 20 years ago, whenever it was. But flying, you know, inverted days when it's a bit choppy. It's what Kelly calls blue days. It's when it's all sticky days, isn't it? You know, the thermals are sort of gloopy and you really have to kind of hang on to them and try and feel where they are. I quite enjoy that kind of flying. Yeah. Yeah, it's good fun. You
mentioned you're heading to Colombia, which has a lot of flatlands. Have you been down to Colombia a lot? Do you often take a winter... No, never. Never? You're kidding.
Never, no, no. Because of my job, I work term time, so it's quite hard to get away in the winters. But yeah, no, first time this time. Have you been?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, my first time was the Superfinal there a couple of years ago. And I actually rested really well there that year. And yeah, no, it's terrific. You're going to love it. It's just, you know, you get an insane amount of hours. You know, you fly every day. It's really pretty terrific. And it's got this nice combination of mountain and flatlands. And looking at your picture in the UK, it'll be very familiar to you. You know, these huge sugar cane fields. I'm sure you've heard about the fires, you know. And Chrigel flying into the fire at the Superfinal and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, no, it's a great place. You'll love it. You'll get a lot of hours and come back with a smile and a sunburn. Excellent. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, no, that'd be good. Hugh, tell me about... Let's switch gears here a little bit because you've been involved in the sport.
You've probably been around a lot of the statistics and stuff with the magazine. What do you see happening with flying in terms of numbers, you know, and then since this, you know... And since this kind of sharknose technology and since things changed so radically in 2009, Russ had a really good observation about, you know, safety and why paragliding has remained dangerous, even as wings have gotten so much safer and better. You know, he was talking about that, you know, back in the 90s, you just wouldn't fly in the winds that we do now because the wings are so much faster. So that's automatically making it, you know, that makes the lee more dangerous. Mm-hmm. And the places we go more dangerous. And it's just paragliding, it's dangerous.
But can you... I realized I've asked you quite a number of questions there, but I'd love to get your take on kind of what you see in the industry. I
think you're right. I mean, technology is playing a much bigger part now than ever before because the wings are so much better. I think it's quite difficult to make a really good wing now because, you know, like Russ said, progress has necessarily slowed down. You know, they're trying to build a new wing. It is like reinventing the wheel now. It's getting quite hard, I think. And yet the progress keeps going. So, you know, hats off to the really good manufacturers. And that's great for us. You know, we're very lucky, I think, to be flying now. You know, I took out my old comp wing, the Nova Nexon last year, and it was just incredible looking at the progress between that.
And an ENA wing like this, the Swing Discus. So, yeah, it used to be a sort of cottage industry, really. You know, 40 or 50 manufacturers, you know, in Alpine villages knocking out pretty okay wings. And now it's sort of got more concentrated with probably fewer really good brands. In terms of the growth of the sport, I think it's fairly, I mean, it seems to be fairly static in the UK. I think France might have shrunk a little bit. Germany's fairly static. It's like 120,000 pilots worldwide still. Yeah, it seems to be becoming a slightly older sport. You know, we're still flying, but there aren't a huge number of younger pilots coming through.
So it'd be nice for that to change. Having said that, you know, in the UK, there's quite a few sons of pilots who've started flying, like Theo Warden and Laurie Nocta. So they're, you know, they're getting into it. They're making the sport a little less decrepit, I suppose, lowering the average age to about 42.
Darn it, I'm just over the average. What can we do about that? It's like, it's great that you guys, you know, guys are coming in from other sports, you know, climbing and kite surfing and sports like that. But yeah, we do need to look at making the sport accessible to, you know, guys in their teenagers and guys in university. Because it's an amazing thing to do, isn't it? You know.
Tell me about your love of it. I mean, is that, is it, have you had any lulls in your passion for the sport over the years or is it something that's been, that's kind of gripped you from the beginning and grip it and rip it the whole way through?
Last year was a lull. Well, I realised that half, probably not half the pilots voted Brexit or Trump, but that put me off the sport a bit. I
realised that not everyone was a sort of peace loving forward thinker, but there you go. Yeah, right. No, I mean, I think, I think I'm lucky because when I worked exclusively for the magazine, that might have dulled my passion a little just because, you know, you're working in the industry. But now my day job's absolutely nothing to do with flying. Flying is a real release, escape for me. And yeah, I really, I appreciate it as much now as ever, I think. Yeah, I don't know. No, it's been a constant really. Flying with my little boy, George, he's now, he's now 11, but flying cross country with him is pretty, pretty amazing. Flying with, just flying with friends, flying with Mark Watts, I fly a lot with in the UK and flying at the North-South Cup. And it's fun having Russ come over to the North-South Cup because you just, we sort of always talk about the UK and how good it can be.
And yeah, they just laugh. As he calls paragliding in the UK, indoor paragliding because it's so tame. And then he's on a bus, you know, we've hired, we've charted a coach, 52 seat coach at seven in the morning. And we're piling all these pilots on. It's like a World Cup task. And we're driving up to Scotland and abandoning everyone, train spotting style in this car park in the middle of nowhere. You know, that scene in train spotting where they get out and they look at the scenery and they're like, what are we doing now? And he's like, and he's blowing a hoolie. And we say, yeah, let's take off, off you go. It's like, this has got disaster written all over it. And then seven hours later, we're all scattered all over, you know, the English Dales and getting taxis from everywhere back to, back to base. And yeah, I mean, you know. Those sorts of adventures are just.
I love it. I love it. I love it. Well, you know, it would be remiss of me. We kind of glossed over something there a while back and I need to return to it. Your, your expertise where you work now at the NIH, NIH, what is it?
Sorry? Where you work now at the NIH. Is that it? Oh, the NHS. NHS. Okay. National
Health Service. You don't have one of those in America. No,
no, no. We. We don't have
one here for long either. Yeah. We
leave people in the gutter here. We don't. Yeah. We don't like to take. Yeah. No. Only.
We drag them halfway out and then we kick them back in.
Yeah. Only the rich survive. Right. Jesus. Good God. We can't go down that road. But I do want to go down the road of psychology with you. We kind of glossed over it before and that was, that was wrong with me. I want to get back to that. You know, with your, with your kind of background and working with kids and psychology and mental health. Yeah. I mean, you know, one of the things that comes up, of course, again and again is, you know, accidents and fear and getting over it and moving on or just leaving it behind. Talk a little bit about that. And you, you even said in the, in the email to me that you've, you've worked with some people in terms of like, you know, how do you, how do you maintain happiness with flying and, and should you even try?
And you know, how do you. How do you talk people kind of off the edge or, you know, I think we've all had friends that have gotten hurt who are flying scared. And of course with 2020 hindsight, we go, God, I wish I would have X, you know, I would have, I wish I would have said something or I wish, you know, I wish they wouldn't have been flying or, you know, again, I'm asking you too many questions at once, but.
Well, okay. So the, the, I'm not a sports psychologist, but I've, I've chatted to three or four British pilots in, you know, in competition to try and help them become more aware of the the way sometimes they can have thinking traps that kind of get in the way of them doing well. A very, you know, very common in competition is, is when you're doing well, you know, you want to push on and kind of show, yeah, this is, you know, I'm doing it here. And, and then, and then you end up alone and out front and bombing out. And it does your end result. No good at all. So I've worked with a few pilots around identifying when that gremlin comes up, what it looks like, what it feels like, what the thought is, it's sort of basic CBT, what the thought is, what the feeling is, what happens in your body and then what you want to do.
And then trying to try to break the cycle because it can be quite compulsive. I mean, one, one pilot said that he was renowned for always, always flying British. He did brilliantly well. And he was the British champion that had never been British champion. And he got fed up with it after 15 years. And he said, look, I just want to work out what's going on here. And we identified that, you know, he didn't want to fly like a dick, but he also wanted to be British champion. And actually sometimes you need to fly like a dick and hold yourself back and let other people do the mistake in order to be British champion. So it was a case of kind of just, just working out that, that that was one of his drivers that he, that was as important to him as, as, as British. He was being British champion, but actually it was getting in the way of him becoming, becoming, you know, get posting a really, really successful results in terms of safety.
I'm yeah, I'm a, I dunno, I, I, before we chatted, I actually Googled fear and psychology to see what people were talking about. And there's, it's quite a sad, quite a sad thing actually. Cause I, a guy posted on paragliding forum about eight years ago that he seen a bad accident and was quite scared. And was asking for advice on how to get over it. And during that sort of forum chat, part of, part of it was that, you know, he said he feels very isolated from his wing and he feels like he's got nothing to do when he's flying at trim. And then I sort of kept, kept, kept reading people's advice as I've scrolled down. And then it turns out this guy dies three weeks later, having suffered a big collapse. Oh my God. And you know, that sent the shivers up my spine cause I thought, you know, and I don't think a few pilots have said, you know, go on an escalator.
Go on an SIB course, learn about your wing. Actually, the fear he was feeling at trim in rough air was, was, was the correct response. You know, he needed to be more on his flying and flying actively and controlling the pitch of his wing. And, you know, perhaps if he'd been doing that, then that would have helped him on that day. So fear isn't a bad, what I'm saying is fear isn't a bad thing. It's, it's, it's, it's a good thing. And we need to, you know, quite often we need to listen to it more rather than less.
Yeah. And that's the thing that keeps us alive, isn't it?
Yeah. I mean, however often fear about irrational things or it can be debilitating and knowing how we react to fear, whether we, you know, is it fight, flight or freeze? Those are the way with ways with all mammals are programmed. If we're freezing, then we need to, we need to be looking at that and, and working out what we're going to do. Cause you know, if we, if we know that our, our habit is, is to react in the wrong, wrong way. Then, you know, we, we probably need to address that.
Hmm. I was just working on my, my column for you guys yesterday. And, and I was working off one of the things that, that Russ was talking about with Chrigel. So let's switch gears here. Although it's very related. You've, you've covered the ex-Alps, I believe since the beginning or 2005. And, you know, so you've, and by, by covering it, you know, I saw you and Ed do it last year. You
know, 2015,
you're just racing around the Alps and, and kind of watching it all go down. You guys have got it tough. Oh no. You guys have it tough. I tell you. My fingers.
My fingers.
They're in tatters.
No, but I mean, but honestly, you know, when I saw Ed at the end of that race, he was ragged out. I think he, I think he looked as bad as I did. I mean, he, and, but he also had this, he had this look on his face. We, we got back together. You know, after the party in Monaco, which I didn't actually make, cause I'd screwed up on our reservation of the RV and had to get it back to, to Germany, but he had this look on his face of real concern. And I guess it was, it was just like this, you know, thank God you're alive. But at the same time, I don't know. It was just, it was like a, you know, Ed just classic, big bear hug that made me feel really good. And I was of course on this incredible high. And it had forgotten how dangerous it all was, but you you've covered the X-Alps and I've had quite a few X-Alps pilots on, on the show.
But I'd love to get your perspective on, you know, what separates the top five, the top 10 from the rest of the field. I thought Russ's comment about, you know, that, that your, your, you know, your basic or high end intermediate pilot knows just as much in terms of paragliding. And what makes it work and, and flying big lines as Chrigel does, he just executes everything better. So I'd love to get your perspective on, because you've covered it so long and you've seen that really change from, you know, what was an adventure race where guys were carrying their pots and pans and you'd wait for 5k for your buddy to catch up and, you know, take your time. I mean, talking to Will Gadd about it, it was in the first one who just begged me not to do it.
It was a very different race back then.
Yeah. The top five. The top five aren't carrying their pots and pans.
There we go. We can move on.
That's where you're going wrong.
Damn it. I knew that. I knew there was something.
Well, they're Swiss, aren't they? They're Swiss or they're Austrian.
Yeah. No, they're Swiss. They're Swiss. Period.
I don't think you can beat yourself up too much. I mean, they're, you know, you, they, they know, they know the terrain. Even before his first X-ups, Chrigel had gone and done the X-ups. I mean, he's just, he's super prepared, isn't he? And he just, I don't know. I sort of agree with Russ. Cause it's sort of, it doesn't let us off the hook, does it? You know, we, we, we all know as much as Chrigel as well as him. However, you know, when he's taking off in a sort of 30K an hour southerly wind and he's flying 50Ks south into the interstate. I mean, he's flying 50Ks south into Italy, into that wind. And then he describes the way he does it as being like a kind of salmon darting upstream,
kind of, you know, hiding behind the rocks and then, you know, you just think, okay, he's actually, he's doing a different sport from the rest of us. So, yeah, I mean, you know, there's, there's, there's a lot to, there's a lot to the races out there. There's, it's so multifaceted. It's, it's, it's, there's so much going on, not just in the, in the flying and the, in the tactics, where you land, all the rest of it. And, you know, his sort of cat-like ability to hop from one, one peak to another and then just, just extend the day by 20, 30Ks over whoever's second is, is pretty phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah. But just, I, I, I know, you know, I, I know, I know from Ed's perspective as well, it's, it's there's a big buzz around the event and there's a big buzz in the organization as well.
You know. There's 60 people chasing after you all and, and watching it all and, and reporting on it. And there's just stories upon stories that are happening and there is a sort of level of concern as to what that pressure and, and that buzz does to you guys who are, who are competing because it, you know, it does become your, your, your whole world, doesn't it?
For... Totally.
Eight, eight, nine days. And, yeah, I mean, you had, you had a pretty glazed look on your face when I saw you. Hiking after the first day. Going, I'm the happiest man in the world. I'm the happiest. I was like, oh, all right. Okay, Gavin. Carry on. Carry on. But yeah, it's, you know, it's a pretty intense experience. And, you know, with Captain Sensible's hat on, this is aviation. It's not sport. Should you, should you be chucking the two together and, you know, really making it an adventure race? You know, this is flying, you know, checks, checklists and all the rest of it and all that. And, you know, I don't want to go too far down that road. It's, you know, the other side of me thinks it's, it's great to have a race that's so free where it's all down, you know, the personal responsibility is on the pilot's shoulders.
And perhaps one reason why people haven't, you know, been seriously hurt so far is because of that level of responsibility. And it's not like a comp where you've got a hundred pilots flying into a stupid area and you have to assess every decision you make yourself. And, you know. And, yeah. And, and take it or
not. Will you be following it again this year? Will you be reporting on it? No. No. That's it.
Shoot. Oh, no. Who's, who's going to look at my glazed face?
Well, I, basically, every time I was asked a sort of expert comment is the, is the whatever of cross country, I just ring Tom Payne and go, Tom, what do you reckon? Because he, he took the answers and I didn't. So, the truth is, I don't know. There are others that do a much better job than me. So, I think, I think Tom's going to be involved. I think Ed will be involved. Now, it's hard, just hard for me to get away with, with the day job. And I haven't been asked.
I've been there in a, I've been there in a shot.
Well, I don't, I don't know. I would, I would guess that you haven't been asked because it seems that the, you know, since the tragedy with Hannes, it, it doesn't seem like they're as on the ball as they typically are. I don't know how involved he was, but it seems like things are, you know, it seems like they're, you know, we didn't find out who was, who was actually in it until two months later than we did in 2015. So, it's, it's going to be interesting to see how that all shapes up.
Quite a different field this year as well. I was quite surprised that I was just looking at Stefan Huber's not in it. And there's quite a few new faces, but yeah, quite, quite different though.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a, I think it's a pretty thick lineup. You know, there's some, there's some, there's some pretty good names in there. I think it's going to be. Faster yet again. I just got off the phone a couple weeks ago with Hans, you know, who did it, was it five times or at least four, but he's not doing it this year. And he was just talking about just how fast it's, it's getting, you know, the, the, the teams are just so much more professional and it's all just, it moves quick. Yeah. Yeah.
He used to always fly with a picture of his son on his flight deck, didn't he? Just to, just to keep him a little bit grounded. And, you know. He, he realized that, that there could be that tendency to take risks that were probably not so. So I remember Richard Chambers, no, not Richard Chambers, Richard, John, John Chambers gave some really good advice. Just, just basically fly the race that, that you would respect and don't take, yeah, don't take undue risk. Keep, give clouds a wide berth and all the rest of it. And yeah.
Yeah. Good luck. I think so. Well, thank you. I was surprised how much fun it was. We, we just, we laughed our way all the way across the Alps. It was so much fun and I think you have to, at least for us, that was really important for us that like, Hey, this, this would not be fun if you made a, you know, a decision that ended in injury or death, which is very possible in that race. That, that's not the point. And you know, anyway, you just have to approach it with laughter and good times and, and be willing to back off in the right places, which, yeah, like you said, can be hard to do when you're racing, but you have to. I
love. I love the way Chrigel always kind of, he's slightly underwhelmed with his description. So he gets to be like on the start line and they're like, wow, Chrigel, you know, you've, this is a, it's been two years. You've been waiting for this moment. You're about to go. He's like, yeah, I've been training for three months and yeah, I'm quite excited. He always gets in. He goes, yeah, it's just nice to be by the sea. Like he's just, you know, arrived at a bus on holiday. If we could get him like getting, getting to the top of the guys, like lighting up, have a cigarette and just sit him down and go, yeah, it's a nice view. You know, I think, I think that would, that would do the event. I
think that, I think that's part of his psychology. It's so easy for him. It's so mellow. It just grinds the rest of us into the ground. Just like, geez, are you kidding me? He's not, doesn't even get excited.
This year. He's not even bringing a camper van. Yeah. He's just going to just take it. He took a, it's like an electric car with a range of hundreds. He
just does it. Because he's, yeah, he's like, he's like the musician, Jack White, you know, apparently every time he comes on stage, he wants everybody in a different position and all of his instruments move slightly. So it just makes him, so nothing's just planned out. You know, he wants it all to be truly a live show because he's that good. You know, I think, I think Kregel's at that level. He's just that good that where he could just do it however he wants. Speaking of developing his pilots. We can't wait. I'll be Chrigel, but that was one of the topics we wanted to talk about. Just development, no matter where you are. What are the things you've seen over the years that works versus a hindrance versus,
you know, going the wrong way?
For me personally, learning when not to fly up. And I think that's a tricky one, isn't it? Because if you really love flying and you're on, you're on the hill and you're not feeling, I mean, like at the moment I'm just recovering from the flu and I wouldn't trust myself with a kite, let alone a paraglider. You know, some days you're just not meant to fly and just learning what the right thing is for you is, is, is part of growing up as a pilot. When I was in Quichard four years ago, I was so wasted after the first day because you end up, you know, on a, a retrieve, a totally unsuitable kind of like a little retrieve, two wheel drive, retrieve car driving, bouncing around over dirt tracks five in the morning until you get home at seven and then you get two hours sleep and then you sort of stumble up to launch.
And I thought, what am I doing? You know, I was trying to walk down to, down to take off because you sort of set up on the top and then walk down the hill a bit. And I could, I just couldn't even keep my wing mushroomed up. And I thought, this is just ridiculous. And actually just going back to the hotel and giving myself a day off, I felt really grown up. So I think just, you know, learning, learning when, when to fly and when not to fly is a big one, obviously. Yeah. I don't know. Just, um, keeping asking questions, keeping being curious and just being patient with yourself. I think like the good, I don't know if this is the same in the States, but in Britain, the pilots that tend to do really well are the ones where, Jockey, Jocky Sanderson said this, he said, you can't tell if they've had a good day or a bad day at the end of the day.
You know, they're just quite, um, probably a bit reserved, bit just quiet and don't get too excited about things. And so I think that sort of laissez-faire mindset can help you deal with the good days and the bad days. If you're kicking your helmet across the fields when you land, then you know, you're not, it's probably not great, is it? And, uh, the one thing that jumped out at me from interviewing Chrigel was the way he talks about managing his, his mindset when he's flying. So, you know, we're all aware that our brains are doing weird and wonderful things as we're flying. They're asking us questions about, well, are these carabiners going to snap at any minute or, you know, am I, am I, am I flying like a complete donkey? Am I flying like a god?
You know, just those things going on in our brain can really unsettle our flying. And he just, in his quite sort of a Swiss way, he has his three modes. He has his thermaling mode where he just focuses on thermaling as efficient as he can. And when he's doing that and he feels like he's locked into the core, he goes into planning, looking around him, seeing what the clouds are doing. Um, and then he goes into gliding and he's gliding as efficient as possible. And he asks himself when he gets distracted, which mode am I in? And he brings himself back, back on track onto one of those modes. So, you know, why not apply that if you're a, if you're a lower airtime pilot, you know, if you're on, if you're on takeoff, I'm like, what am I doing? Okay. I'm assessing conditions. Just focus on that and really assess the conditions, go through your checklist, treat it methodically. Taking off, just focus on taking off.
Don't listen to someone trying to distract you. Um, focus on your pre-flight checks. Getting in the air safely. Ridge soaring or, you know, uh, hunting for the thermal. Just try and break it down into, into those sort of methodical, uh, ways of thinking. And that's exactly, you know, what pilots do when they, they, they train to, to fly, fly planes. So why don't we do it ourselves, you know? I
think that's really good advice. My, my mind just jumped, uh, kind of to meditation on there. I've been trying to do a lot more meditation the last few years. And, and, uh, I often use this app called Headspace. Oh, yeah. And, and he, he's often going, he's, he's a Brit. Uh, but he's, he's often going, you know, if you've wandered off, just recognize it and come on back, you know? And, uh, I, I, I really like that in terms of just, I, I think we can often underestimate, uh, you know, gliding, uh, for sure. You know, that, that, oh, I'm on this, I'm on this nifty little, lifty line. And, uh, ah, I have something to eat or. I'll look around and suddenly you're not really focused in.
And I, I like that idea of just coming back to it and, and making sure you're, you're in one of those three modes like, like Chrigel does. I, I like that a lot.
We were flying on the north-south cut. Me and Mark were flying with Mark Watts. We were flying with Kirstie, uh, Cameron and, um, Russ. And me and Mark kind of pushed out a bit. Uh, we were all feeling smug. You know, here we are. We're racing against Kirstie and Russ. And we're out flying. We're doing it. And then, uh, bit, a bit like Andy on Headspace. Russ comes over the radio and goes, oi, check in your rear view mirror. You've got a shit line. Move to your left. And we're like, look back. And Russ is like 2000 feet above us. And off to the left. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. So, so yeah. Yeah.
Like, felt a little bit scolded.
Not necessarily for competitions, but for. Uh, just flying in general. You mentioned before we started recording organizing yourself. Uh, what do you mean by that?
I don't know.
Okay. So, uh. Come
up with something quick. Hurry. Okay.
So in like 2011, um, yeah, 2012. I think about four years. I've been sort of just enjoying my flying. Poopling about blah, blah, blah. And I went up to Scotland, um, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to fly Glencoe with Jerome Malpla who's up with, he's taking pictures and I was gonna be able to write a story about it. And, um, there was Mike Kavanagh and Barnie woodhead and Mike's in charge ofzzer, he's part of this really good group of keen as mustard, Northern pilots who they do all the planning and they, you know, they get, they really check the forecast and they plan out their roots and they enter all their flights in the UK league. And I remember that evening that, you know, I was absolutely amazed that they, there are entering the flights and checking for the next day and I thought wow you know they're taking this really seriously but I thought well how about if I tried a bit of that because I'd never really entered a flight in the league before and and I thought okay so I sort of had a bit of I thought okay well why don't I try and fly as well as I possibly can in the UK that'll be my sort of goal and I thought I have you know I'm only really flying for three or four hours why don't I keep landing up to three or four hours and I listened to a podcast with Richard Carter who had broken the UK records done 250k's and he said look you need to be in the air for six hours you know so you've got to learn what you need to do to do that is you need an XCP system plug XC shop
you need food you need drink you know you need to think these things through and he was dead right and I think having spent a bit more time preparing getting a bit dweeby looking at the forecasts the night before you know it's lovely you can sort of start fantasizing about the flight you're going to fly and you're going to fly and you're going to fly and you're going to you're going to take in the set the goal and it's added a whole level of enjoyment and it's also made flying a bit more sort of mission focused and we yeah we've had some amazing days out over the last three or four years getting up at five in the morning and driving you know driving driving a couple hundred miles and trying to fly back home and yeah so preparation is is really important if you just sit in the back of the car and you let your friends do all the work and you just check your Facebook on the on the drive to the hill and you get out and you go here I am get your wing out you've you've kind of you're you're already a long way behind the other pilots because you haven't built up a picture of what the day is going to be like and uh so you've got no kind of expectations to check out what what you're finding against uh based on based on the on the forecast you've you've had and yeah I think it's really important to to be fully and fully involved and I
think that's why uh why competitions can be so valuable because they throw all that into it don't they that they you know they they give you a task and a goal for the day and and I have to give a lot of credit to my support one of my supporters in the X-House Bruce Marks my flying went got so much better when he started really geeking out on X-Contest so you know every spring we would go over to the Alps and depending on where we were which was always due to him because he pays a lot of attention to the weather and geeks out on that so we'd end up in some place that was you know good or you know you know you know you know you know you know you were perfect for flying for that day and he'd have you know all the biggest triangles mapped out that other people had done so it's this incredible resource hats off to those guys uh for putting that together but it's you know it I I very often recommended to other pilots to not just launch and fly around have a you know have a have a task have a have some ideas for what you could do if the if the weather is perfect adverse you know and then of course you know of course things change as they always do is when you're in the sky but having option a b c d e and you know make making every flight a training flight you know make it a view it as an opportunity to get better even a sledder and
in psychologically as well if you're if you um if you're setting your goal 20k 50k whatever it is and you've got your gps telling your distance to that point then psychologically I think that's better than just going over the back and seeing how far you can go you know it gives you gives you something to aim for which is which is always good
hue a question I asked a lot of my guests that people tend to like uh if you could rewind the clock and to your 50 hour self so in that first or second year do you wish you would have gotten advice or did you get advice that you wish you would have heeded I've
been very lucky touch but I've never had any accidents I I've had a really privileged life in flying you know I wanted to compete I got through that safely and uh I mean you know really enjoying my flying still now 23 24 years on is it really that long bloody hell no I just take it steady really I guess um I was very very keen to you know to do well early on and um but you know back when you're 15 16 17 you don't really have much fear do you so yeah I think I was I was probably quite lucky about any scrapes now I can't really what would you what would you say yeah
slow take it slower I was I was uh incredibly aggressive uh when I got into it I guess that's just my personality and you know I think looking back I was I was lucky that I surrounded myself with really good mentors and pilots guys like Nate scales and Nick Greece and and they seem to be constantly going hey man uh ratcheted back ratcheted back and I think luckily I got through that kind of whatever we want to call it intermediate syndrome but I I probably could have gotten through a little more elegantly or or just more a pre I guess appreciated because I knock on wood I've never had an injury either uh well small little thing on that Rocky's Traverse where I busted my lip but you know nothing nothing traumatic at all and uh I think that could have gone But I've certainly had some close calls that were way too close.
And so I guess that would be it, just to take your time. It's a sport that can be enjoyed for your whole life. There's no rush. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. I think, you know, you're right, having good mentors around you as well. It's quite an individualistic sport, but having good people around you. Jocky Sanderson was very kind and very supportive of me when I was flying in competitions. And just having people who kind of look out for you and are encouraging but tell you not to fly a wing that you don't feel 100 % comfortable on. And, yeah, just I think that helps temper your kind of desire to take on more than you probably should. And I always come back to this idea that, you know, you're kind of building a model of what's happening all the time. And the best way to do that is to not be stressed and to be able to just take information in and just process it.
Yeah, it's a long game. It's a long game.
That is the long game. On that very fine note, what I'd love to end us on, if you don't mind, is you may have heard this in some of the shows, but I do this Proust questionnaire, James Lipton's. And if you're not familiar, if you're not familiar with it, all the best. You don't have to answer these one-word things, but we'll take you through it. Answer however you like. What is your favorite word and least favorite word?
Favorite word. Epic, probably. Oh, gosh.
Least favorite word. Oh, I don't know. I'm feeling so full of flu. I'm just looking at the smelly socks. Maybe smelly socks. That's two words. I don't know. My head is like, honestly, it's like it's been filled with marshmallows. I've got no idea what I'm talking about. You
know what? It must be going around. There's plenty of people here battling the flu as well. But yeah, you took epic right out of my mouth. I say epic way too much. I'm really trying to cut that down, but that is a great word. I said it before anyone else.
You own that one, do you? Okay.
What turns you on and what turns you off? And that obviously can be sexual. But it doesn't have to be my
partner. Excellent. Excellent.
That's a good. That's good.
Just being just peace of mind, just feeling relaxed and having peace of mind is is fantastic, isn't it? And just, you know, those those moments can just be a few seconds or they can last several hours. But yeah, I think we could all do more peace of mind. What was the other one? What turns me off? Yeah.
Oh, people who are a bit loud and yeah, it's very English, isn't it? People are a bit loud. Oh, God.
Hey, you're talking to an American. I got nothing on you guys.
Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's rudeness, probably. It's rudeness and abrasiveness. No, it's nothing. Nothing wrong with lots of charisma. But yeah, not too keen on rudeness. What
sound or noise do you love and not love?
I like quite like silence. Actually, you know, when you're in the mountains and it's just everything goes quiet. I haven't had that for a while. Just it's not so much about the sound. It's your ability to hear them. So sometimes, you know, first thing in the morning, if I just go around the park and I can stop my mind from. And you just hear the birds singing. That's lovely. You know, sounds that I don't love.
Arguments. Yeah. Rash voices. Yeah. Okay. It's all only state of mind. Sometimes you can handle everything and sometimes you just can't.
Yeah, sure. Of course. What is your favorite curse word?
Fuck.
Ah, always.
Always reliable. And what profession? Other than your job? Your own. Would you like to? Oh, we
said that. You said that the word bastard said properly. Like in the north of England, they say bastard. They say now to say bastard in the south. We don't. We will say bastard. It's just that it's wrong. It's just it's got to be bastard. So I spent a few years and like to think I could pretend to say bastard.
I know. I know. Posh. English. Middle-aged twat. But, you know, we can all pretend, can't we?
Did John Cleese say it correctly? I'm thinking of the Fawlty Towers.
You know, he said bastard actually. He said fuck quite a lot. Yeah. I don't think he did.
Let's see. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Hmm. Interesting. Um, I'd like to be a helicopter pilot. I think that'd be quite fun. Yeah.
Okay. I don't know why.
Something different popped into my head. I'm kind of. Yeah. I enjoy the job. I do, but I can't say it's particularly easy. I'm kind of, I've only been doing it a few months in the new role I'm in and it's definitely challenging at times. So yeah, just to abandon that and go and go and fly a helicopter for a bit would be quite fun.
One of the things that I found really incredible up in Alaska when I was doing that, the traverse with Dave, the Cineflex heli pilot, you know, they came in, I think eight of the days to film when we, you know, can we have something that we thought was going to be big happening, like flying past Denali. Uh, these guys would come out from Homer and the heli pilot was just, they had never filmed. Uh, they do a lot of Cineflex filming up in Alaska, but they'd never filmed paragliding. And when they started seeing, you know, us using thermals and gliding from one ridge stop to another, that kind of thing, he was just totally blown away. And, uh, he got really curious. And so when we'd be hiking up to a launch, he'd often jump out of the heli and come with us and, and was just asking all kinds of questions. And we got to see it.
What, what it really means to be a paraglider and then fly something mechanical when Paul Guschlbauer, you know, he was, he was up there supporting us. He bought a Super Cub, uh, this winter from my buddy Ken, who was the kind of our support pilot up on that trip. Uh, and I always regarded Ken as the best Super Cub pilot in Alaska. I mean, he is the guy that the whole state calls when somebody goes down, which happened a lot to go get the wreckage and fly at home, you know, wrap it up and be like, when a bear eats a plane, he's the guy that wraps it up with duct tape and flies at home or whatever. I mean, he's super competent. He's been flying Super Cubs and small aircraft forever.
And Paul went up, you know, this spring and, you know, very quickly racked up over a couple of hundred hours, uh, flying the film crew around and, uh, you know, it was a great opportunity for him, but he came in very green. He'd flown a little bit in Austria, which is just not even relevant to fly in Alaska. And then, you know, he gets this plane and by the end of the season, I don't know how serious Ken was, but Ken was saying that he was better than anybody he'd ever seen, uh, flying a Super Cub because, you know, he and another guy would be flying out two separate airplanes and, and, and, you know, Paul would be at 14 grand and the other guy would just be motoring along like they always do right down the middle of the valley at four grand. Wondering how Paul got up there.
And right.
Right. You
know, it was, it's just really amazing that these guys, when they're flying with engines, they're not thinking so much about, you know, updrafts and currents and, uh, convergence and all these things that are so, uh, natural to us. And so he, he really got good really fast. It was pretty, pretty incredible. The
first, first two or three Red Bull X outs, I jumped in with a helicopter. I just said, yeah. I really need to report on this from the air. Get me in that helicopter. Really important to me. Really. You want colour? Get me in a helicopter.
And they'd be, you know, some of the days Alex Hopper and Kruger Maurer were pushing really hard into like a 40, 50 K an hour wind and the helicopter would be struggling to climb over the peaks. And I was thinking, my God, you know, does give you a perspective on, on the kind of conditions they're flying in.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. When,
when, uh, when we're big, no, no, they're not. And when, when, no, exactly. When we'll get, and I were doing that, the rocket service, the very first day, you know, we'd, we'd taken off and the heli was inbound that they weren't there yet. The filming help helicopters coming in from Vancouver and they arrived just as we got to Mount Robson, which is the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies. And it was just on, there was no wind. It was cranking, you know, strong thermals. Just the most epic, beautiful day. Actually, actually the whole trip, it got worse from there on out. Um, but that, that day he had just loaded up on fuel and it was hysterical out climbing and out flying an A-star helicopter and a paraglider. He just, he couldn't understand how we were getting up so fast.
So we dial up and then come out of the thermal and do acro and come back down to him so he could film us. And then we dial back up and he, he was just slowly circling the mountain, you know, trying to get up to where we were. You know, 12,000 feet. It wasn't even that high, but it was hysterical. I just thought, well, we're out flying a helicopter. This is awesome.
That's slightly showing off though, isn't it?
Well, don't, don't we have to do that sometimes? Yes, exactly.
Look at us. Look at what we can, we can do. Okay. Final one here. Um, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
I
don't think I've ever. I mean, I don't know. I mean, no, I, I have listened to lots of your podcasts, but I've never got to this question. Really?
Well, okay. I'm going to, I'm going to, before you even answer, I'm just going to say Will Gads was the best. So you've got to beat him. Right. Go. Okay.
Um, I'm not into God at the moment. My, my brothers are born again. Christian. I'm gay. I'm getting married. He's not coming to my marriage. I'm anti God. I'm anti Christians. I'm sorry.
That's it. Interview over. Okay.
Bye. That's a great answer. I love it. I
love it.
Oh man. You and I have got together one of these days and we can talk atheism and Trump and Brexit and have a grand old time, but this is probably not the right forum.
Excellent. Hugh. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Uh, uh, good luck with your, when do you, when do you get married?
Uh, May, May the 27th. So that's probably, probably be the best, uh, best date. It's the day of the year, but there you go.
Oh, excellent. Well, I'll, I'll mark that on my calendar. Congratulations. That is, uh, that's awesome. And I hope to come over and, and join you guys for the north south cup. And if not that, then I hope red bull will have you back to cover the race. And so you can, you can see my goofy grin at the stop at the top of the iceberg.
Uh, thank you so much. And, uh, we'll, uh, we'll catch you at cloud base. One of these days. Happy new year, buddy.
Pleasure. Yeah. You too, Gabby. Nice to chat to you.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Uh, wow. What a, what a great talk. Um, I'm just consistently blown away with the advice and the, uh, tactics and some of the stuff, the strategies that we're getting from all these amazing people and mentors and mentors to me and hopefully mentors to you. Uh, as always, all we ask for is a buck a show. As I said, at the top of the show, there's some new ways to support us. You'll find those links on the cloudbasedmayhem.com. Uh, one of the things too, that I get a lot of is requests for people to get on the show. I promise that I've got all those lined up. We've got a whole bunch of shows already in the bag, uh, behind us and in forward and forward of us. When I go to Europe for the X ops, I'm going to be gone for like six weeks, but, uh, we're going to keep putting these out every other Wednesday. Uh, we've got some great people coming down the line.
So, uh, stick with us. I hope you enjoyed that. And, uh, we'll see you on the next episode. Cheers.
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