Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud Based Mayhem. This is maybe one of the most enjoyable conversations I've had. They've all been amazing. But Kevin Brooker reached out to me months ago. He's not a paraglider. He's a sailplane pilot. And he had been told about the podcast and got really hooked on it and has been enjoying it. And he and I got into a talk about Wave and some of the things I'd said weren't quite correct. And so he spilled me in on that. And then he's just made me completely infatuated with sailplanes, the stuff these guys are doing down in the Andes, you know, flying so far, they're running out of continent. Just recently, the altitude record was broken, which had held for more than 20 years, I think in the late 80s, a guy named Bob Harris went to 48 or 49,000.
And they just broke that they went to 52,000. So in this episode, we talk about Wave a lot. And we talk about what these guys are doing and oxygen and the Perlan project where they're trying to get to 100,000, which is pretty far out there type stuff. It's got a bunch of backing from Airbus and Steve Fawcett was involved in that before he died. Anyway, this is just fascinating. If you fly whether you whatever aircraft you fly, you're going to really dig this. This is super fun. A little bit of housekeeping before we get into it. I want to remind everybody that Miguel Gutierrez and the Alaska Alhambra team has the pre paragliding World Cup and the race director is Jocky Sanderson, which you've all heard on you've heard him on the podcast, legend SIV instructor and pilot and ozone test pilot and stuff.
That's December 2 through the ninth down in Jalisco, Mexico. The website is pwcamexico.com. I highly recommend you sign up for that. This is just going to be an awesome comp. I'll be down there for that and the Menarca and I believe when you sign up right now, you can sign up for both comps for 400 bucks, which is just ridiculous. So check that out. I said that the last podcast, but I just want to bring it home and make sure those of you who have flying plans this winter, please include that comp in your plans. It's going to be amazing. Be really cool to fly a new site. Usually we're going down to Valle, which is also awesome. But this will be exciting, fun and great mentoring programs going on. And I think for those of you who haven't flown a lot of comps, this is a great way to get access to a really solid group of pilots and a great comp.
So check that out. And yeah, let's get into it. Please enjoy this conversation with Kevin Brooker all about wave and getting super tall and flying really, really far and and how you can use that to increase your own flights and hang gliding or paragliding, whatever it is, we get into skew T diagrams and forecasting and how to pee when you're on really, really long flights. Lots of just awesome material here. I think you're going to enjoy it. So let's get into it.
Kevin, I am so stoked to talk to you, man. I've been really appreciating your emails over the months. And I know you got in touch with Matt Wilkes after the podcast with him at the ER doc we talked to and out in the UK and really appreciate what you guys are doing with him with this high altitude stuff that is super cool. But welcome to the mayhem. I can't wait to talk to you. about sailplanes. I think you're the first completely non paraglider we've had on the show. And it just thrills me to know when you listen to the podcast and you're digging it and enjoying the topic. But I think we can learn a lot from you. So so thanks for coming out. And thanks. Thanks for coming on the show. And why don't we start off with before we started recording there, you were giving me a kind of a brief history lesson and sailplanes when we start there.
I've got a million questions for you. But you know, when did it start? And and where is it now? Can you kind of take us through the the quick resume of sailplane flying?
Yeah, sure. I'd love to. I'll do my best. I don't have all the names and dates and things like that down. But you know, before we get started with that, though, it's been really fun working and listening to the mayhem. It's it's awesome. I found it by accident when I was looking for a single skin kites, power kites and stumbled into it and said somebody said was on the mayhem. And I was like, Okay, cool, and looked it up and got totally hooked on everything you're talking about. And as you mentioned, I've never even seen a paraglider. I mean, if you're looking for guests not scraped from the bottom of the barrel, you're going under the barrel for this one. But it's like it's, it's awesome. And I've learned a ton. I love listening to the mindset of everybody. That's what's been the most fascinating because you know, I'm also a pilot and the mindset of you know, how do you do well? How do you get better and things that all the people on the mayhem talk about is absolutely fascinating.
And I pushed it around to some other friends of mine who are trying to improve. And so it's a it's great. I'm honored to be here, man. So I'll see if you can, we can make it worthwhile for guys to listen to. But so the history of sailplanes, I mean, they first off started with gliders and really gliding is just like the sled ride when you guys being a bombing out or whatever the term is, you know, you're just going down, you can't go back up. And so I think they first started soaring like sailplanes was probably like the teens in the 20s. You know, after the powered airplane was there, when they figured out they could start using different kinds of lift, and I have a book that was printed in the 20s. It's a little pamphlet that talks about it really briefly. It was a translation from German. It was pretty neat. But so in the beginning, they were all made out of wooden fabric and, and steel, and they were just like big kites, really. And but they could control them, which was really cool.
And, and the sport really took off after World War One. Because all the treaties, they wouldn't allow the Germans to have powered airplanes. So they really invest a lot of energy and effort into building sailplanes. And that's what really drove the sport forward. And it stayed that way. I'm going to guess till about the mid 60s, when the advent of fiberglass came along, and it allowed them to build more complicated shapes and things that were more aerodynamic and experiment with airfoils. And they really started pushing, you know, longer and longer and longer flights. And then up to the 70s. Again, they started exploring even more and a lot of flights were made a lot of ridge flights were made down in the Appalachian ridges in Pennsylvania. And they, you know, that's where they are, you know, making 1000k flights and, and stuff and really pushing it forward.
And so I think in about the mid 80s, they started working towards pilot comfort until then they were looking for performance at a little bit of expense of the pilot. And then somebody realized, hey, if the pilots putting less energy into flying is more comfortable, they can think more about what's going on. And again, you know, they made some more advances just in ergonomics. And I think the biggest advance lately has been carbon fiber, it allowed them to build thinner wings, so they have less drag and still make, you know, interesting airfoils, and they would stay together and they're a lot lighter. And you put together a sailplane from the 70s. And it's a, you know, you're hoping you don't have a hernia and the latest gliders, even with, you know, 18 meter wings, you can put them to get two guys can put them together easily without a whole lot of grunting and groaning. So it's, that's a quick history of the development of the sailplane, we could go on for
podcasts talking about the minutiae of it. But it's, it's really been fascinating. And, you know, it's been fun, you know, there's a lot of the older sailplanes around, they're really fun to fly. I mean, our club, the Post Mills Soaring Club here in Vermont has an old Schweitzer 233, which is the ubiquitous trainer. It's, uh, you know, it doesn't do anything great, but it doesn't do anything bad. And just about every sailplane pilot in the U S has time in one of them. It's, you know, it's like the Piper cub of the sailplane world. So, um, it's really, it's pretty neat that it's going along now.
It's fascinating. Talk to me about limits. You know, you, you said 18 meter wing. So, you know, is it just going to keep getting lighter, um, and, and better glide or there, are you, are you, you know, we, we, we laugh about it in paragliding because we thought we'd reach, reach the apex back in the mid nineties and they just keep getting better and better. You know, what, what does the horizon look like? What, what can you, what can you guys fly in?
In terms of weather or in terms of how, how, how tough are these
things? I mean, how much wind can you fly in? How much turbulence, um, you know, I imagine is you just get more and more spanny kind of like the, the really high end hang gliders, you know, they get quite a bit more difficult to fly. Yeah.
I mean, the larger wingspan, there's a, there's a lot going on. I mean, in a turn, the inner wing is going a lot slower than the outer wing tip. So, you know, it does, they don't handle as big, you know, as, as nimbly as a small 15 meter glider. Um, but you know, the standard, the standard in wingspans now is, you know, 18 and 20 meters is that's pretty common. Um, there's, you know, people have made them out close to 30 meters. Uh, there was a guy named Dick Butler. He built a one of a kind it's, uh, Concordia is what he, he named it. You know, essentially it's a home bill and it's the most advanced sailplane in the world. And, um, it excels in weak weather. He did the things he'd like carbon fiber. I was talking about before he did some things with that sailplane that are just unbelievable. Um, and, uh,
fascinating what he did, but it's, you know, that glider, I think it specs out at 70 to one is what he estimates the performance. I don't think he's actually done the testing on it. And, you know, I may be wrong on that, but yeah, I mean, 70 to one. So it's, you know, 3000 meter, excuse me, 3000 foot toe, which is a standard, you know, toe for gliders. I mean, you can go 50 miles on that, which is pretty cool. You know, if there was no terrain to hit, uh, and as, you know, as far as weather, you know, it's interesting when I listened to you guys, uh, talk about overdevelopment, I think what you're talking about are thermals that are too strong to fly in, uh, you know, or it starts causing problems with the wing and in a sailplane, I've never run into a thermal that was too strong. I mean, you know, 10, 12 knots, you know, it's great. You're, you're grinning.
You're just, you know, going, um, and as far as G loads go, when you're waving wave flying, when you get in the rotor, you can run into, you know, five, six G's, you know, positive and negative. And I wouldn't make a diet of it because it's pretty frightening, but, you know, they stay together and you're really glad when you're not in that anymore. Uh, I've never had a G meter in there, but I have hit turbulence where, you know, things in the airplane were broken. So it's, um, they're, they're pretty durable, but, but I mean, yeah.
So, so when we talk about overdevelopment, we're just basically talking about thunderstorms, you know, when the sky just gets way too big. And if you, you know, that where, you know, cloud suck becomes a real possibility. Um, you, you actually said in one of your emails, you were talking about, um, that, that, you know, how you guys used to get really tall was to play around with big, uh, you know, Q NIMS and, and then wave came along. It didn't come along. It's been there all along, but you guys discovered how to fly. Um, do I, do I have that right? And then let's, uh, I, I got to talk to you about wave, but first, do I have that right? Is that correct?
Yeah. So in the soaring world, there's different achievements you can get that are internationally recognized. And one of them is they're known as the silver badge, the gold badge, and then you can have a gold badge with diamonds. And so, um, it, to get a diamond diamond climb, it's a 5,000 meter climb above your low point. And before they really figured out how to use wave, they would go up through the QNIM, you know, on just get in them and, and fly up. And sometimes they'd, you know, blow the gliders up and the guys would parachute down, you know, but they, they got their diamond and, uh, you know, it wasn't safe and, uh, you know, it's, it's illegal as hell, uh, you know, so people don't do that anymore. Cause you know, flying, you're going up to where there's a lot of other aircraft and things like that. And, uh, you know, you guys know just from flying paragliders, the big sky little plane theory does not hold up all the time.
And, uh, so yeah, that's how they would do it. They'd, they'd wait and find these towering queue and they just go thermal right up the middle of them, you know, and like you'd read stories about, you know, how storms is beating the snot out of them and breaking things. And then they eventually pop out the side and, uh, you know, and then, and come down. And then when they discovered wave, you know, it was significantly safer, uh, to do that, you know, cause one, you don't, you don't want to own the clouds and you can fly wave without clouds. So, you know, you have really good visual flight rules, BFR, where you can see and avoid and, uh, and things like that. But the big thing with wave is you start running into airspace problems where above 18,000 feet is positive control airspace, where you're on a flight plan. You have a transponder code, which is a thing in most airplanes, which receives the radar signal and rebroadcasts it back with a bunch of information about that aircraft.
So the, the air traffic controllers, you know, can direct them around the sky and help them avoid each other. Um, so, you know, but the FAA is, you know, found ways up with that. So, uh, where we do, our wave flying primarily is Mount Washington, New Hampshire, and the Mount Washington soaring association has a standing agreement with the FAA to open up a, essentially it's a big cylinder up into the class a airspace, that positive control airspace. So when the wave is set up, good, you call the air traffic controllers, you request them to open the cylinder or the wave window, they'll open it. You they'll request the height. They just want you to respect it and stay within it. And it works out, works out great. So you can go up there and you can do it in clear air and, uh, you know, you can do it in clear air and, uh, you know, you can do it in clear air. And, uh, it's, it's pretty fascinating to be sitting in a unpowered airplane at the same altitude is, you know, airliners coming in from Europe.
So that's pretty cool.
So let's, um, you know, we talked a little bit about wave with Hansa, you know, he was flying in wave in the 2015 X-Alps. And so I have to assume I was as well, cause we were in pretty similar place that day. We were really tall. Um, I didn't even recognize it, but, uh, you let, let's just, let's get a definition of wave and you know, what, what needs to exist for it to, to set up, uh, what does it look like? What are the visual cues? What are the forecasting cues before we started recording? You were talking about the highest you've been was, you know, 27 plus, and that was a day that had some airspace issues. Cause you guys missed that in the forecast. So let, let, let you talk, pretend that all your listeners have no idea what you're talking about when you say, wait, wave and break it down for us.
Okay. Um, what I'd recommend first is listen to the podcast with Hansa because his, his description was really, really awesome. Uh, and it made a lot of sense. Essentially, you know, if you haven't listened to it, um, the easiest way to describe wave is it's some, it's an obstruction in the air. Generally it's a mountain and it sets up the same way as when you have water going over a rock in a river though, you'll see a bump and you'll get the standing wave behind it. And people in kayaks will go, they'll sit in there and they'll surf that. And we do the same thing in the sailplane. Uh, as far as signs of it, if you're going to forecast it, um, what you need is a layer of unstable air that goes essentially from the surface to the height of the generator. So we'll just call Mount Washington. It's, it's not familiar with it at 6,000 feet tall.
Also, you've got a, maybe a 4,000 foot layer of unstable air. And then on top of that, you've got a layer of stable air. And then on top of that, what you really want is another layer of unstable air. So you'll have a stable air sandwich. And what that will do for you as the wind comes across the generating, it'll deflect downward. And that layer of stable air goes into the unstable air and it doesn't like it at all. It doesn't want to be there. So it rebounds up and that's the beginning of the wave. And what's nicer, if you have that, uh, layer of unstable air above it, it's like a hand on a basketball, it pushes it back down again, and it just goes up and down and up and down. So you get wavelengths that are behind it. You get several crests and, you know, eventually it Peters out, but you may get seven, eight, nine, you know, wave crests.
Each one, is a little bit smaller than the other one. And they'll be there. It's nice. Cause they're pretty uniformly set up. So once you find one of the crests, you can jump up to the next one, up to the next one, uh, or just fly right out the front of it. Um, but the cool thing about the wave is it's really, really stable laminar flow air. It's really smooth. It's like sitting in your couch. You just, you almost do nothing. Uh, and you can climb like a homesick angel. Uh, that day we were talking about, I got off toe and I was climbing at 2,700 feet a minute. Uh, which was essentially airliner speed. So it was going straight up. I mean, it was just watching the ground get flat. It was, it
was really cool.
Uh, and, um, so normally, so for the wave to set up, you generally need about 25 knots coming over the, over the generator. And then you also need in the forecast, you need the wind speed to stay more or less the same direction. So there's no directional changes and also to be slightly increasing with altitude. So as you go up, so in order to climb in the wave, you need to have a ground speed of zero. So if the wind is 30 knots, you know, you wouldn't be flying that slow. You'd actually start to surf back and forth because the stall speed on most of the gliders is around 40 knots. Um, so you need to be going a little bit quicker than that, but as you get going, as you get moving up, you'll start to speed up and, you know, you may be flying at an indicated airspeed of 50 knots, but as you go up, there's a true airspeed.
And I believe that increases about 10 % per thousand feet. So, um, you know, the airspeed indicator will say you're going 50 knots and that's, you know, the indicator to stay in that. And then eventually what happens is, you know, I'm not sure if it's the same in the paragliders, but as you speed up, you're trading sink rate for speed. And at some point you, the speed is so great that you overcome the ability for the lift to pick you up and you just get stuck there. You're just not going to go any, you're not going to go any higher. If you slow down, you get blown out the back. And if you speed up, you just, you know, you essentially, you don't take advantage of that lift and it's, um, so probably, you know, I generally, you're probably cruising around 70 knots, I guess, indicated when you're sitting up there, you know, and again, it depends on what the, what it's doing, but that's, that's pretty typical.
What's the trim speed of a, of a glider? You know, what's your, what's your just, uh, yeah. What's your trim speed of a, of a glider? That's like a high end glider.
I assume the trim speed is like the best L over D. The best glide ratio. Um, so most of them, it's probably like around 50 knots, you know, just taking an average, you know, so, and at that, you know, depending, most of the modern gliders, you're probably gliding in the 40 to 45 to one, you know, range and with a sync rate of at that speed, maybe depending upon the weight, three to 400 feet a minute. Okay. You know, that's so when you're pretty rough,
are you on these days, are you using, the generator as, as you're, as you're, you know, you're, you're getting off tow and moving to that generator or is it, is it in the tail of it?
Yeah. So it's always in the, in
other words, are you, are you, are you going into the windward side of it and you, and, and starting to bounce up from there, pointing into it, or are you getting behind it and, and, and running with it?
Okay. So the wave is always going to set up on the, on the lured side of the, the generating feature. So, and there's a couple of ways you can get into it, depending upon what the terrain is. You can tow directly into the wave and you just go up and pull you right in and drop you off. That's the easiest way to do it. It's not the, sometimes maybe not the most interesting or most challenging way, but it's the, it's the best way to get introduced to it. The biggest rub with doing that is you generally end up flying through the rotor. So under, so in that laminar flow underneath that, under the crest, you get, you'll see them call roll clouds or cigar clouds. It's really marking turbulent air. And it's the air that gets trapped between the ground and the, and the, and the way the air generating the wave. And it's just like a big roller on a conveyor belt.
It just sits there and tumbles and tumbles and tumbles. And it's super turbulent. And I think in one of the email you guys were exchanging, I was saying, yeah, it'd be really great. If you get in a paraglider, you'd probably get killed getting there, just going through the rotor. And it's a, it's super violent and it's, it's not fun. A lot of times, you know, the goal was to keep the tow plane in sight, much less stay behind it. And you can get huge displacements in that where it just like, you're really, you're really, you're really, you're really, you're really, trying to keep the tow plane. So you don't hit it. Um, and, but when you pop out of it, like I said, it's like hitting a speed bump in a car. All of a sudden you go bump and it's really smooth and you just watch the ground and start falling away. Uh, so that's, that's the easiest way to get in. Um, sometimes what's happened at Mount Washington, the club's been flying there with a, I mean, group of guys from the greater Boston soaring club come up and what they've done is figured out the different wave systems that set up.
So it's not like, so, you know, Mount Washington is the big generator. And I'm sure like in the Sierra, they'll get all different ones and down in the Andes where they're doing a ton of wave flying and, you know, they're cranking out this, you know, I think 3000 kilometers is the world record. They've flown in wave down there. You know, the different peaks will set up little different ways. Like if you put rocks in a different part of the river, you'll get different waves that are near each other. Uh, so people have done to make it a little more interesting as they'll tow into a smaller wave. Um, and they'll fly that high enough that they can then transition into the, you know, hopefully go over the top of the rotor and transition to the larger waves. That's set up behind Mount Washington. And they call it an East coast diamond where you can make a climb to make, you know, pick up a 5,000 meter climb about 16 and a half thousand feet and stay under the class a airspace. And, you know, new England is one of the few places you can do that mostly because the ground is so low.
I mean, like I was saying, Mount Washington at 6,000 feet is an unnamed foothill in most of the world, but, uh, you know, it's the biggest thing we've got around here and it kicks off, you know, a massive wave. And the guys around here have really figured out how to utilize, you know, Ridge lift. And go in to an arranged slightly downwind of Mount Washington, the wildcat range. So Ridge soar across that and then dive into the wave. The one thing you want to be careful of going from the front of the generator though, and Ridge soaring on that is the air doesn't hit it and deflect up like Ridge lift. It comes, you want that layer of stable air to be just about the same height as the generator. So what it'll do is it will come over and it actually bends and goes down on the backside of it. So if you're going to dive into it, you're really diving into the, you know, the Lee side of it, where there's a lot of down draft, a lot of turbulence and you can get just slapped, uh, and just get blown right out the bottom.
And there's nowhere to go at Mount Washington. If it doesn't work, you better get back to Gorham airport or you're going to be in a world of hurt or the trees. And, uh, you know, so it's, people are pretty conservative about it. Um, yeah. So jumping over the top, I've never done it. I I'm not skilled enough to do it or brave enough, or maybe dominant. And that's, that's like some dissing the guys who I've done that because people have it. It's not in my comfort zone, you know? So, um, I tend to try to slide in into the edge of it, uh, and avoid, avoid rotor. Cause it's just, it's, it's rough.
So that's my next question is, um, you know, the, the, the one kind of close experience, I mean, I've flown with tons of sailplanes and it's always awesome, but the, when we were doing the Rockies traverse with Will Gadd, uh, there was a sailplane club, I believe near Golden, maybe we were in Vermeer and, you know, they were talking about these monster trails. Triangles they were doing, uh, you know, basically over the terrain that we just flown through and there was nowhere to land a sailplane. I mean, there was very few places we can land a paraglider and we can come in like a helicopter. Um, so how do you guys judge that type of stuff? Like these, these guys that are doing these monster flights in the Andes. So I need you to tell me about how the wave works there too. Are they like doing out and returns?
Are they, are these just one way jobs? And, and are they, how are they determining that stuff, the bailouts and when the wave drops? And I mean, cause you guys can't just land anywhere. You need, you need airports.
Yeah. Or fields, you know, that are like airports. Um, I think in my glider, I could probably get into a field like over a 50 foot obstacle. That's like the classic aviation thing. Right. So like over the tree line, I would need probably if I had 900 feet, I could do it, but everything better work. Right. You know? Um, so, and then at that, you know, you're taking, you're pulling the wing, off and putting it back in the trailer and bringing it home. Uh, you know, so airports are nice, but you need, you know, good terrain, uh, to land in. And, you know, a lot of it is those flights that those guys do down in the Andes, they're very well versed, you know, in what's going on Google earth and things like that have made it really easy, but you also have to realize that they're flying along at 20,000 feet in a glider that can go, you know, four or 50 to one, they can go a long way, um, to, you know, to where they're going.
And it's even when you're taking, you know, big cross country flights around here. I mean, if you're at 6,000 feet, you can't see the places you can land, you know, they're just at a visual range. So it's, um, it, what
do you guys fly with in terms of maps and stuff? What do you, what do you have? If you, you know, I'm imagining like when I fly with the super cop pilots and stuff, they've got the book, is that what you've got in your lap?
Yeah. So I like a paper map cause it's easy, but the software now is been that they've developed is been fascinating. Uh, cause the guys I started flying gliders with were very instrumental in developing GPS flight recorders. They were one of the first people who actually did it, um, with Cambridge arrow systems. And these are the guys I learned to fly with. And so when I started flying gliders, these guys were talking about setting world records and chasing world championships and worrying about rules and things like that. And it was, it was pretty neat. And one of the really interesting parts of that is it's, you'd see the development of these flight recorders that first just came up with, you know, a screen with numbers on it and an arrow, which would, you know, go left or go right. And then now they've evolved into moving maps and, um, all sorts of things. So what you do is you take the performance curve of the glider, the polar, you put that into the glide computer, and then the glide computer knows your airspeed and what the performance is and, you know, what your altitude is and can essentially tell you where you can go.
So if you have those way points or the airports, you know, punch into the computer, you can call them up and say, what can I reach? You know, and they usually come up like that. And there's, there's multiple different kinds now, but, you know, you can just say, where can, where can I go? And, you know, you keep an airport, you always keep an airport in your pocket. I mean, I'm sure paragliding is the same way as like, you make sure you don't have just one option because it better work. And if it doesn't, you're in the trees. So the glide computers make it a lot, you know, a lot simpler. So as you're going along, you can say, yeah, here's an airport, but as you're flying around too, you start to know where the farmer's fields are. Like I've probably landed most of the farmer's fields around the airport here, you know, just stretching glides and things like that and seeing if it works out. And, uh, if it doesn't, you know, there's a field there. And if, after a while, you probably know the farmer on a first name basis and, uh, you know, go pick yourself up.
So, you know, on the long flights, it's, um, really, like I said, once you get up, if you get up five or 6,000 feet, especially if you're that high above the terrain, I mean, you can go a long way and you just can't see where you're going to land. So you're relying on databases and maps and, uh, and like everything on, you know, this too, like, you know, a great flight, you know, they happen once in a while, but usually you have a lot of ones that didn't work out beforehand as you learn the terrain, you know, and that's, that was making some of the, you know, like the Rockies, Traverse and, uh, what you guys did up in Alaska. Fascinating. It was like, let's just go and see what we run into, you know, uh, you know, and even, even with some scouting ahead of time, you're still going in a little bit blind, you know, and that's like super adventurous. And I think just really cool. Uh, so it's, um, yeah, it's, it's pretty wild. You know, it's, it's two different worlds.
I'm a little flummoxed now, actually, like talking, I'm thinking about them, like, wow, like that was, that was huge stones, man, to go out like that. And I'm not sure I could do that in a glider, but it's, uh, you know, you get, you get good at, you know, understanding what it'll do. And, you know, when you got to start looking for a place to land, you know, I mean, there's a lot of what you do during training is just judging what the ground looks like, you know, so your optometer says it's, you're at 6,000 feet. Well, if the ground's at 5,000 feet, you got a thousand feet to figure it out, you know, and that's like cutting the margin way too close unless, you know, you can glide straight into an airport or something like that. And even then there's a lot of variables that you don't want to just throw in. Uh, but it's, uh, electronics and GPS have made navigating long flights a lot simpler and a lot safer. And like, even with spot trackers now, you know, in cell phones, you can, you land, you call someone and say, yeah, I'm, I landed out.
I'm in farmer Brown's field and I'm okay. The glider's okay. And, you know, give me a call, you know, and even before the day, I remember landing out in days of pay phones, you know, like you always keep a bag of quarters in your, you know, in your flight kit with it. Cause you'd wander around till you found a pay phone and, you know, call somebody. It was, uh, you know, it definitely made it interesting.
That's it. So forecasting, you said on your, the, the day that you got the highest you've been, which was almost 28 sounded like, you know, you, you guys missed that, that day you said, and you know, you didn't see that forecasted, but, but do you always have oxygen? And I mean, how do you, when you get, when you missed it that day, did you just shoot for the moon and it all worked or, you know, and, and, and how do you forecast that kind of thing? Cause you, you talk about, um, you know, using balloon soundings at, and I think at a level that, that many of us don't.
Yeah. So looking for wave forecast, what I really like for that, there's a lot of electronic models for thermals and things like that, but there aren't very many for wave. And what has become, what I go to is using a skew T diagram. Uh, those soundings, they can tell you a lot. Cause they'll, what you're really looking for is that stable air sandwich. And when you look at a skew T, it'll look like a member that the S's and the old kiss logo, they were like, really like lightning bolts. You'll get like that, but it looks like a Z. Um, and so if you see that like classic kiss looking lightning bolt Z, it's probably going to be a good wave day. If the winds are, you know, they get the direction good in a slight increase with altitude. If you can pick up, you know, a couple of knots per thousand feet, it's going to be a, just a booming day because you're not going to run into that coffin corner.
We were talking about before where your sink rate and speed cancel each other out and you just can't climb anymore. Um, you know, so like really good wave days, you'll go up like a rocket at the bottom. It'll slow down, but you'll climb like continuously at like, you know, knots, like just perpetually, you know, and those, those days go are, are great. Um, you know, so when you look at that skew T, you see that Z and the first break where it starts to come, it's going to start down at the bottom. It's the, the first line is going to move off to the right as you go up with altitude. And if that break where it turns back and goes to the left is about the same height as whatever your generator is, it's a pretty good indication. You're going to have a good wave day. And then the longer that that line moves back to the left is the higher is the thicker that layer of stable air is going to be. And then the break going back to the right, isn't as important.
It helps to have a nice thick unstable layer. Cause again, it's like a hand bounce from the basketball. It's going to push that layer back down again, and it's going to hit the floor and come back up and you're going to push it down, um, and see that. And then usually off on the, I'm trying to remember what these things look like now, the right-hand side, there's a, usually the, the wind with altitude also. Uh, and the nice thing too, is you can print them out. You don't need to print them out. You don't need to print them out. You don't need to need, you don't need to be able to slide around on it to with a mouse or anything to see what's going on. You can just print it out and it's going to stick. The other cool thing too, is most of the soundings, you can pick up different stations and you can build a little bit of an idea of how long the wave's going to last for. And the other thing that's really important with those is you can see where the dew point is. So you can see if you're going to have moisture or not, because if it sounds kind of funny, but if you're at 30,000 feet, even if you jumped out, it would take you three minutes to hit the ground.
So that's a long time to, to get down. And, you know, if you're going up at a 400 feet a minute or something like that, you know, even 500 feet a minute down sounds really fast, but from 30,000 feet, that's an hour to come down. So if the moisture comes in and closes things over, you can get trapped up on the top, um, where you can't see the ground. You don't know how thick the cloud base is. It's illegal to fly through the clouds. And it's, it's kind of dumb if you don't know where the, where you're going to pop out, um, you know, and GPS and things like that, how to make that a lot safer. Cause you know, where you can go, you might have to, you know, some of the bailouts from flying at Mount Washington are 40 miles away. Um, and there's a good chance they're going to be in the clear, but looking at that skew T with where the moisture is gives you an idea of one, if you're going to have clouds and, you know, two, when they're going to show up and what altitudes they're going to be at.
And so after that, you look at the, that sounding, and then the best thing you do is, is just walk out and take a look. Just like, what is the sky telling you? And Hansa was talking about that really well about, you know, you'll see cloud bands forming and generally with wave clouds, if the wave is forming the clouds, they look like they're standing still, but they're not, they're forming at the leading edge as the air comes up into a, an air temperature where the moisture can condense out and form a cloud. And then as it moves to the back, that air move, those moisture droplets move through. And then as the air comes back down again, it changes the temperature once again, and that the moisture goes back into solution and goes away. And so you'll get these clouds that when you look at it, when you're close to them, you can see they're really roiling. It's, it's really cool.
Uh, and then they're just moving, but from the ground, they look like they're, they're standing still. And the most interesting thing about it, what really tips it off is the clouds will line up perpendicular to the wind. So when you get cloud streets with cumulus clouds, you get these bands of clouds in the sky, but they're lined up parallel to the wind. And with the wave, it'll be perpendicular to it because it's trapping that moisture underneath it or drop, dripping it out, uh, across the wind and you just look out and see it. So you'll see clouds and also they don't move. They look like they're not moving. So you'll see this cloud just sitting in one spot. And a lot of times you'll see cue they'll pop and they'll, they'll get trapped underneath it. And, but they'll also form, you get these like, look like cloud streets that are running perpendicular to the wind. So, you know, when you see that, you're like, wow, pretty good indication.
It's a wave day, whether it's flyable or not. It's another story. I mean, sometimes, you know, it doesn't take much to lift the water molecule up to very high, but you need a couple of hundred feet a minute to get the. Lighter in the air. And, you know, you'll see that, but at that point it's like, take the toe and find out, you know, sometimes it works, works great. So
you can have wave that isn't strong enough.
Oh yeah, for sure. Um, okay. You know, and that might be something. And my guess is that's probably what you guys ran into in the X-Alps, because if you hit, you know, if you hit 10 knots, you'd know it, you know, it would, uh, and, um, and you'll get that. And that's what it sounded like. And it sounds like it was pretty localized. And, um, I was, I was trying to figure out what was going on, um, in that, and, you know, it, uh, it could, and it can be very localized, you know, um, when you're in there, but when you do find, so now you're airborne, it looks like it's a good wave day and you have the clouds, you'll get those lenticular clouds. The lens shape clouds are really smooth looking and sometimes they're all stacked up. And, uh, I think that was the original UFO because they're very UFO looking and you'll get a little one on top and they just sit there, you know, and they're huge and they move and they come in and out and they're pretty dynamic.
And if you just sit there and watch them, they're really, really fascinating. Um, but since what those are doing is that they're marking where the air is. And generally with the lenticular clouds, if you go to the upwind edge of it, you'll be in the rising air. Uh, and that's a place to, to park the glider. Uh, and sometimes you'll see like, you'll be up high and you'll see holes in the queue because as that air comes down again, it takes that air and pushes the moisture down into a warmer layer and it doesn't condense anymore. It goes back to a vapor and you'll see bands cut in the, you know, cut in that. And you just, you know, go to the downwind edge of those holes and that's generally where you'll find the, the uprising air. And, um, Kevin,
in that video that you sent me where the guy launched quite late in the day, it was like 4 30 PM. Um, it was, it was a couple of minutes long and, you know, they're really obvious stacked lenticulars kind of off in the distances is, but I mean, by definite definition, when you see lenticular, is that wave, is that always wave?
Yeah. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Cause they look really smooth because that's the lamp, that's the laminar flow air. It doesn't get a chance to tumble very much. I mean, it's absolutely smooth. It's, you know, you're probably getting more motion just now sitting in your chair, wiggling around than you do in the glider. It's, it's awesome. Uh, you know, and that's what it is. It's just that, that smooth thing. Yeah. So you see those stacks, you could go, go after them, you know, and then if you're using them to go cross country, what you'll be doing is flying parallel to the, to the wave. So, you know, these long flights are when they're doing that anywhere, but especially in the Andes, I mean, they're, they're flying just crosswind, uh, and you know, just to stay in it, to, to, to go that far. And they can go really fast. I mean, the first one I was talking before about Rick and those guys developing all the GPS, um, they were helping a guy named Jim Payne, who's involved with the Perlan project, which I'd like to talk to you about too, where they just set a new world altitude record.
Um, and you know, I think I'm going to get the speed wrong and I apologize to Jim for getting this wrong, but, uh, you know, I think he, he flew a hundred, a hundred kilometers at a speed of in like the 140 mile an hour range. Um, yeah, which is over the red line of the glider. I mean, theoretically it couldn't go that fast, but it was, uh, you know, in laminar flow air and, uh, really smooth. And it was, uh, it was, it was pretty cool. I mean, these guys are going super fast, you know, using wave because it just, if the, if you're, you got a thousand feet a minute of lift, you know, you can fly at a speed where you're sinking at a thousand feet a minute, which might be up near the red line of the glider. And you're just going to, maintain altitude. Uh, and with the world records, this, and I'm not sure if it's the same as in the paraglider world, but the difference in like closed triangles and things like that, the difference in, they give you a thousand meters to lose for free, um, to, you know, to trade off.
So, um, you know, so if you can sit there and fly most of the flight and not lose anything at the end, you can just nose that thing over and burn off that thousand meters and pick up, you know, quite a bit of speed. Uh, you know, and, and a lot of that's due again, because the laminar nature of the, of the air, uh, I hate to fly out of the wave into, you know, some of the turbulence on either side going that fast. It'd be probably a pretty fast, you know, you'd be tossing your shoot, I think. Um, but it would, uh, you know, you can, you can really move out on it and that's what they do on the Andes just cruise up and down. And the flights that they make, there are three legs, three turn points. Uh, so, you know, so they'll fly out, go to some spot, turn around, come back up, you know, do it again. They're up to three legs. They can, or three turn point free distance. And three turn point, they call it.
So it, but it's, so it's not one way. It's not just sending it down the Andes.
No, I think they run out of continent really. Um, I think the first time they actually flew that, um, that is awesome. And I, I believe this is right. They, the first time somebody broke 2000 K, they did it in New Zealand, like, uh, Omerima, I'm probably pronouncing it wrong. New Zealand is really well known for wave flying and they would start on one Island and they would fly in wave. They would jump the gap between the islands and then pick up the wave on the other side and go up and fly to the tip of the Island and turn around and, you know, and go back and forth. I think the first 2000 kilometer flight was done down there, you know, and that was unbelievable. Yeah. That
is so awesome. So what are the height differences that they're getting in New Zealand? Yeah. You know, cause it's, it's not super tall, um, versus the Andes, which is super tall.
Yeah. So, um, you know, I don't know, I'm not sure how high they go. And I think that's one of the interesting things with the Perlin project where, you know, they're trying to go into stratospheric wave. Uh, and I know I'm not Washington it's 6,000 feet tall and people have flown to, uh, I think 33,000 feet is like the unofficial record. So it's at almost five times the height of the generator. Uh, yeah. Um, so, you know, I don't know much about the New Zealand Alps. I'm assuming they're pretty similar to our, the Rockies, you know, so 14,000 feet. And, um, you know, my guess is those flights, they probably did them around the 20,000, you know, foot range. And I don't know how far the two islands are apart, but they needed to be at an altitude or anything. Uh,
hardly, hardly anything. You could probably cross it in a pair of gliders for you guys joke, but Oh, cool. Yeah. The channel there at the narrowest points, like, I mean, I want to say it's less than 10 miles.
Okay. Um, and then depending upon where the mountains are that come into the channel, they have, that's the gap from wave generator, wave generator, they need to go. So, you know, you need to be high enough that you can make that across and still get into usable wave on the other side. Um, you know, but it's, it's really pretty cool. Another thing with long flights like that too, is, you know, it's cold as you go up, you lose what three degrees per thousand feet, you know? So if you're up at 30,000 feet, it's theoretically 90 degrees colder than it is on the ground. So even a nice warm day, you're still talking, you know, sub zero Fahrenheit temperatures, uh, which is, which is cold. I mean, when I went up to, when I earned my diamond in food, about 27,000, I mean, one thing I remember was sitting there and feeling the airplane vibrate. I'm thinking like, what the hell am I accumulating ice or something like that? And I realized I was cold at my hand on the stick was shaking and I was making the, moving the ailerons and everything, making the whole airplane vibrate.
I was like, well, it's probably time to come down. Um, just from, just from being cold, you know, in hypothermia and, uh, you know, even at above 14,000 feet, you're supposed to use oxygen, you know? And, uh, if you're climbing at a super high rate, you have to worry about high altitude decompression. So as you get the bend sitting in your lighter, uh, you know, so there's a lot going on with all that. So
are you serious? You got to worry about the bend? Yeah.
So when it is insane, yeah, it's, it's, um, you know, the military has done a lot of stuff with this and yeah, it's called high altitude decompression sickness. Um, which is real similar to what they get in mountaineering problems, but it's the same idea as the bend. So if you're, you know, at, I think the Gorham airport's at like a thousand feet elevation, let's just call it that for the sake of argument, you know, and if you're,
are, is this, are you talking about hypoxia? Am I getting the verbiage wrong? Okay. No, I'm talking about nitrogen
coming out of solution in your blood. Uh, yeah, it's, it's the bend. So, you know, if you're climbing at, you know, 2,700 feet a minute, let's just say 25, cause it makes easy math. I mean, you can easily be from a thousand feet to 20,000 feet in eight minutes. And when you cross through 18,000 feet, roughly half the atmosphere is below you, right? So the pressure is by half. And if you jump up to 36,000 feet, what three quarters of the atmosphere is below you at that point. Um, yeah. So the, the, with these rapid changes in elevation, you can get your, you can get the equivalent of a thousand feet. So if you're the bends, um, so it's, uh, that
hadn't even occurred to me. Of course, hypoxia had, but okay. So, so we got to transition then to the Perlian project. So what are they, what are they, you know, tell me about the math. Cause, cause they, so they just broke 52,000. Um, you know, how one, how does the, how do these planes differ from what you guys are flying? If anything, um, you know, what, what are they, what are they wearing? Do they have heaters? How, how, how does that look?
Uh, so I'm not, it's intimately familiar with Perlian, but the biggest thing that those guys did to figure out how to go really high as they fly pressurized cockpit, which is different than everything else, uh, how they pressurize it. I don't know. Um, but that allows them. So a couple of things happen. So they started running into problems with the old world altitude record. It was set by Bob Harris. And I think it was around 49,000 feet. Um, and when you get much above that, again, the bends is a problem, right? So you, you can't, you can't pop when you're going up that high and, you know, get all sorts of hassles with, um, just like bubbles in your blood, they would wear spacesuits and the hassles with the spacesuit is you can't move. And you also need something in the glider to power the spacesuit because the spacesuits are so well insulated that you'll literally cook yourself from body heat.
I think you, I think we generate about a hundred Watts, uh, and you have to get rid of that heat somehow when you're in an environment that's meant to keep you free from the hazards of space. You have to put a cooling suit on to keep you cool. So now you have to put something bigger in the airplane. And once you pressurize, you can't move. And gliders are tiny, man. It's like you wear the thing. You don't really sit in it. I'm sitting in a, you know, I'm sitting in a regular, like comfortable chair at the moment. And I have much more room from side to side in there. And, uh, you know, so they used to use two place gliders. They could put all the support equipment in the back seat and it became a real hassle. And the guys at Perlan, you know, it was originally Steve Fawcett was involved with it. And, uh, put some money in and, and they decided to go to pressurize the cockpit. And that made, you know, now they went again, like we were talking before with the evolution of sailplanes, they went to the pilot comfort.
They figured that out, uh, you know, so they can spend more time, you know, at altitude, uh, you know, they're probably wearing masks and all that kind of stuff too, but the actual, you know, Ben Ben's problem, the high altitude problem, you know, goes away with the pressurization. So it's, uh, you know, it's, it's really fascinating. And then, uh, Airbus. Let me just,
let me, let me break in real quick. When did Bob Harris do the 49,000?
Um, I think it was like in the eighties. I could look it up, but he had
none of that. He, so that was non-pressurized. That was, he just had oxygen.
Yeah. And he was using a, uh, a demand. Uh, I want to say it was a pressure breathing apparatus is what they fly in the military. It's the classic like a 14 regulator. So, um, in order to increase the pressure in your lungs. So you have, you know, transfer, gases, you're actually breathing under pressure. It's weird. You, you don't inhale, you just relax and let them, the system inflates for you. And then you forcibly exhale. It's really tiring. Um, and I've only done it a couple of times just for, just to try it out. Cause I have this, this great fantasy of going above 40,000 feet at Mount Washington, in which case you want to, you know, use that stuff. So I have some to practice with, but I haven't flown with it very much. Uh, yeah. And that's what they did. They did it out in, in, uh, you know, Bishop, California, the Owens Valley, where you guys talk about flying all the time.
Uh, you know, they get unbelievable wave out there. Uh, and they did a huge project with it in the, right after world war II, the Sierra wave project. And they did a lot of really cool research on that stuff. And, uh, it's, um, and that's, that's where they developed a lot of the wave flying techniques and figured it out. And I mean, the wave out there was so strong. A guy was actually using a P38, a twin engine pursuit fighter plane from world war II. He was wave soaring it. That's how strong the lift is out there. Uh, so yeah. It's, it's all documented in a book called exploring the monster, which is really fascinating book to read. It's a, it's really well done. It explains a lot of this stuff. And these guys were like, you know, learned a ton. And, um, but yeah, so like all that stuff, you know, again, when they get back to, they use all sold military stuff and that's so what people are using.
And then, you know, Perlin figured out how to go around that and they're down flying in the, they're trying to use the, they're trying to get up from the stratosphere. The goal is a hundred thousand feet, uh, which is just, it would be the highest of any winged airplane. Flown, you know, like at a sustainable altitude. That
is just unbelievable. So they, how long have they been working on this?
I think about four or five years. It may even be longer. Um, you know, it's, it was an instant project.
You mentioned in the email that the, you know, the logistics, the money, the, the, you know, the what's gone into this. Can you, can you give us a little bit of insight there?
Um, you know, I, I'd love to, but it may not be absolutely accurate. Um, but I know that, you know, they've been working on it. The, the airplane they built is really, really unique. It's a, it's a one of a kind. I mean, and they did things to make it simple. It's got, you know, fixed landing gear and it's, it's a very elliptical it's, you know, it's made to, and I mean, technically they need to fly in this super thick atmosphere of, you know, whatever the elevation is 5,000 feet to take off. And then the super thin atmosphere of a hundred thousand feet. I mean, that's, it's nuts, but they, you know what they're working on. It's, and I don't understand it. I wish I did, you know what they're doing, but it's, it's been a huge project. They got a big influx of money from Airbus, the same guys who make airliners, uh, you know, and they were saying that, yeah, if you can build something more efficient, then we can help us build more efficient airliners, you know, and, uh, and they've got some of the
guys who just made a living at, you know, comes flying in wave, you know, not like an actual living, but that's like their careers were built on wave flying. And it's, it's, it's really, really a fascinating project. And, you know, I wish them the best. I mean, at one point we had talked about trying to set a world altitude record and we're talking about running spacesuits from the Soviets and stuff like that. Cause that's the only place you could get them. And these guys were like, now we're just going to get away, get away from the spacesuit thing and, and figure out how to do it. And I hope they do. Cause I just think it's really, really cool. I have super huge envy of that. It's a, I'd love to be sitting in that thing doing it, but it's a, you know, it is what it is.
Yeah. My, my, my next question is, cause I, I don't think I've been on this much pins and needles on any of the talks we've ever had. I feel like I'm in the wrong sport. Like how you're, you mentioned your son who's, who's 14 is starting to learn to fly gliders. Um, what, what is the, now that's one extreme end, obviously that's Steve Fawcett kind of stuff, but you know what, for the people listening that are as excited as I am right now about flying sailplanes, um, give us the quick rundown on, you know, how do you go about it? How much does it cost? Uh, obviously, you know, as I understand it, it's mostly clubs. You don't have to buy your own glider. Is that, am I right there?
Yeah, it is. Um, you're, you're absolutely correct. So you can purchase your own and they're, they're commercial operations and they do a great job, but most of the soaring is done through clubs. And, you know, I'm fortunate that the club I belong to is two miles down the road, which, which is awesome. There's times I'll sit on the porch and wait till I hear the tow plane and then be like, okay, it's something going on and then head down. Um, especially if I have chores to doing stuff at home so I can, I can figure out when they're going, but it's, uh, yeah. So, you know, my son, Nathan wanted to learn how to fly and he's been around, you know, sailplanes his whole life. And, uh, when my daughter Olivia was born, she's 16, you know, I was racing that. And it was one time I, she came up on the podium with me to give a, you know, the day winners talk. I'd won the day before. And I, you know, my daughter was there. So I was like, what the heck?
I brought her up on the podium with me, you know, and gave a talk. So the kids have been around them their, their whole life. And, uh, you know, and I never really pushed him to fly. If you want to come fly, great, let's go. And if you don't, you know, that's cool too. And, um, trying really hard not to be like a little league dad with the, with the airplane. And, uh, but my son decided he wanted to start flying. So, uh, the it's legal to solo. A glider at age 14. Um, you know, so he's been taking lessons and that's been really awesome. And, you know, as far as, you know, costs again, the, the, with the clubs, you know, most of the clubs are really reasonable to jump into the, to fly a lot of them. And on my club, they have, you know, all the, uh, instruction is free. The use of the aircraft is included as part of your tuition. And then you pay for a tow and, you know, most arrow toes, you know,
it's about, it's about 50 bucks to take a 3000 foot tow. So like on a good day, you know, you can turn that into, you know, all day, uh, you know, and then some days you're just taking a sled ride, you know, and, um, most people, there's a rough rule of thumb. They say, you know, number of, you can usually solo within the number of flights of your age, you know, kids learn so much faster because they have no bad habits from driving cars and all sorts of other stuff. You know, I'm sure it's, you know, two in the paraglider world too. Um, but it's, uh, you know, you know, probably takes if, you know, if you wanted to put probably 1500 bucks into it, you could probably get to the point where, you know, you were flying on your own and just, you know, and then, um, depending upon the club you're with, you know, it's like our club that was founded on the idea that, you know, they're going to develop sailplane pilots and make cross country pilots.
And, um, and they encourage you to go cross country with club equipment, you know, and not every club does that, but, and you were really, really fortunate. And, uh, you know, and at some point after a while, they went out and they bought themselves a, you know, higher performance glider that the club can use. So, you know, you want to go out and do stuff. And, you know, that was one, you know, I taken the, taking that ship to, you know, many wave flights and also, you know, down to Pennsylvania to go flying down there on the Appalachian ridges, which is just ridge flying for hundreds of kilometers. And, um, you know, I was wondering if you could take a paraglider down there, you know, it's just, it would be pretty awesome. Um, and, uh, you know, and then use it to race with also. And so it's, it's been really, really great. And then, you know, what usually generally happens is people decide they like, uh, the high performance and things like that, you know, they handle better.
The performance is cool, but the nicest thing about the highest performance is like it's glide, but that glide gives you the ability to sample a lot of air, um, which is, you know, so if you have a thermal, every couple of kilometers, you know, the more kilometers you can touch them, the higher the opportunity you're going to have to actually find something that works for you, you know, and that's, that's the cool part about it. And, you know, they're, they're definitely more comfortable. They're quieter, they handle better. And it's, it sounds similar to what you guys are talking about with the paraglider wings, you know, and, uh, it's, it's really, it's a really good activity to go and learn to fly. And the cool thing is, is, you know, you learn to fly. I flew power before I flew sailplanes and I've hardly flown a power plane since I started flying gliders 20 years ago, you know? So it's, uh, it's, it's really cool.
And I definitely recommend finding a club and, you know, go for a ride and hang out and, um, you know,
I'm coming out, I'm coming out to visit you, man. I just, can't believe it. It sounds so awesome. Um, okay. Back, back to the, uh, I wish you luck with your, with your son, Nathan. That's just sounds like a blast to do together. Um, back to this theoretical, crazy math stuff and the Perlan project, they they're, they're shooting for a hundred grand. Um, you say the math works, but it's way out there kind of stuff. Do you, do you, are they going to pull it off?
I hope so. Um, you know, the guys who are involved in the project are really good at it and, you know, it's good. It's, you know, I think it's gonna be one of these things where, you know, the overnight success takes 20 years, you know, it's, um, you know, like if it was that simple, they would have done it by now, you know, and even as so, you know, they beat the world record by 3000 feet, you know, and it's a record that stood for, well, faucet reset it to, I think like 50,000, a couple of years ago, you know, but like they're going in increments, you know, and, uh, I think they're going to, they're going to, they're going to spend a lot of time learning how this works and, you know, cause they're going to an areas that no one's ever been there before. You know what I mean? Next time, then they go to 54,000 feet to the first pier people have been there, you know? And so they're figuring out as they go, which is, I think one of the most fascinating parts of the whole thing, you know, like they're teaching themselves how to, how to do it.
And, um, yeah, I do think that they're going to get there. Uh, I don't, I don't see what I can't, you know, and they're going to hit one of those days. Like, you know, like you don't get every day where you're climbing at 2,700 feet a minute over Mount Washington, you know, and every once in a while you stumble into it and it just works great. And it's, you know, those are the days you talk about, cause it's super cool. And, um, you know, these guys are going to stumble into one of those days and they're going to learn, you know, they're going to learn something and yeah, I, I'd love to see him do it. And I, I think they're, they're going to, and they're, they're as it is, they're going to altitude that are just mind blowing, you know, it's just, you know, airliners don't fly that high. So next time you're flying off someplace, you know, think that they're, you're at two thirds of where they've been, you know, and look at the view and everything like that. And, uh, you know, so yeah, they're going, they're going to do it. And also there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of meteorology of what they're, of what they're looking to explore.
They're really confident exists, you know, like, and the math says it works, uh, you know, all the models and everything show it should, it should be there. And, um, you know, again, they just may run to the point where they just can't fly fast enough to, they're going to run with the old YouTube problem. You know, they go, they go two knots forward and they're above red line. They go two knots slower and there's falling out of the sky, you know? And, um, you know, so, but so
let's talk about that. Is it, so, you know, paragliding, we talk about accidents and the risk all the time, cause it's super risky, you know, you're playing with the ground. Um, and you're flying a kite. You mentioned, you know, there's obviously, um, risk in what you guys are doing in a, in a big way, but is there, you know, is it, is it, uh, how many accidents are there? Uh, you know, are these guys that are pushing it at that level or are they in, in this Perlan project? Has anybody bailed? Is anybody, you know, are planes disintegrating? What is the risk of what they're doing and what, and what you guys are doing?
Um, well, the, the risk is, I'm not saying it's insignificant. Um, if it was super high, I wouldn't be doing it. Uh, you know, I kind of like walking around and, um, I think it would be really selfish and unfair to orphan the kids just because I wanted to, you know, go try something. So, you know, putting the risk in perspective, but you know, it's, um, generally like general sailplane flying is, you know, it's relatively safe. I mean, you know, people like paragliders, people ding them up once in a while, but, um, mostly people get, get hurt competing. Um, you know, I, I know more people who've died in competition than I know people who died driving cars, you know? And, um, it's, it, that's a fact of, you know, I stopped racing just because of that. You know, I thought it's like, yeah, you know, I had a couple of close calls and races and I was like, wow, that was exciting.
Is it
mid airs? What, what, what's, what's getting people in comms? Um, you know,
interesting. Yeah. Just, you know, and, um, it's, uh, and you know, a lot of times too, it probably happens to paraglider world people, they think it's a competition. They got to push harder. They got to do this and they take chances and risks that they wouldn't normally take, you know? And, uh, you know, and you talk to, you know, and it was really interesting listening to Chrigel talk about risk and, and risk management, you know, and it's like, you know, you have to take some risk cause it's going to pay off, but you don't take stupid risk, you know, or if it's like nowhere to go. And, um, yeah, you know, people have mid airs or contact with terrain. They're trying to, you know, stay in the air. So they try scratching something out a little bit, you know, too much. They try a little too hard. They get too slow. I mean, you know, about wing collapses all the time. And, you know, the, the gliders, you know, it's, I think it's interesting listening to the guys talk about SIV and like, yeah, I tried to stall today.
And it's like, yeah, we do that all the time, you know, and not knowing what the reaction of the paraglider wing is compared to the glider. I mean, you stalls or something you practice all the time. I mean, you have to, you know, you have to do it and to become proficient at it, but doing it near the ground and you're going slow and you can spin the thing. And I guess that's like a wing collapse, you know, like it just stops flying and it, and it takes a while to recover, you know, and, uh, it's, um, and there's a, it's, there's a lot going on. If you're low and you haven't, and you have, let's say you push too hard and you end up in a spot where there's no place to, to land, you know, you gotta make that stick. You're going to just be in the trees, you know, and then people do dumb, dumb things where they get, they stop paying attention or, you know, they just get mentally overloaded and have problems. But, uh, you know, it's, it's this, you know, and then there's also contests where there's, you know, there's,
there's nothing, you know, there's no instance. There's been world championships where there's been, it's not like, you know, guys are dying all over the place. Like the old formula one days, you know, I was like every wreck. So it's not like that at all. Um, but it's, uh, you know, the flying around, it's, it's actually, you know, it's as safe as the guys who are doing it, you know, and if you work within your limits and you, you know, you have to push your limits to get better, but you don't just take them and throw, you know, just take reasonableness and just throw it out the window and just take stupid risks. We have no place to go. You know, it's, uh, you know, it was, you know, and I grew up flying with really good pilots, guys who had set world records and competed for world championships. And they, like you talk about the intermediate syndrome a lot. And, um, I had a powered license for, I've been flying since I was 11 and got a powered license and, and did a lot of that.
So I think, you know, I had, by the time I was old enough to get a license, I probably a couple hundred hours of experience. And when I moved into gliders, I worked with these guys who were like super experienced. And at first I thought they were absolutely nuts and then just talking to them. But then when I flew with tomorrow, I realized that, wow, these are some of the most conservative pilots I've ever met. They know right where the edge is. They walk right up to the edge. They hang their toes over the edge, but they know that they're still balanced, you know, and they, uh, you know, and they understand what their airplane can do. They understand what they can do and they stay well within that limit. They don't even get on that edge and teeter totter. They're like rock solid on, you know, going in there. And they only go out to that when, you know, when it's the payoff is going to be there, but they're really conservative. They always have, you know, like, you know, I've heard multiple guys tell me, yeah, if you don't have two options, you don't have, don't do it.
You know, like you should always have a landing option and another option. And, you know, I've been in land outs where you see a field looks great and you turn, you know, the landing pattern you, where you, I don't know if they fly this in paragliders, but you don't take a circuit around the field more or less. So you can kind of see what it's looking at and line things up. And you turn you to your turn final to come into landing and realize the whole field lights up because it's full of rocks. You know, it's like, oh shit, what are you going to do? And there's another field there you can turn off. But if you didn't have the other field, you know, you're going to damage the glider. Damage yourself, you know? And, uh, so it's, you know, always, always keeping options. And like, you know, if you're going to take the risk where it better work, you better be really sure. You know, if you're questioning, if it's, if it's a risk or not, it probably is, you know, kind of thing. And, uh, you know, it's just, it's, it's risk management, you know, and
the flying in the wing is fine, you know, flying the wing and whether you're hanging under it or sitting in it and it's, you know, with three acts of control and stuff like that, it's all putting it in perspective and deciding if it's, you know, if it's worth it, but the, the wave flying thing, you know, talking about risk there, I mean, the, you know, other than the turbulence and things like that and getting caught in, you know, in cloud cover, um, you know, a lot of the accidents come down to just bad judgment on the pilot. They probably never should have made that flight to begin with, you know, um, you know, what is, what's that saying? It's better to be on the ground wishing you're in the air than in the air wishing you're on the ground. And, um, you know, so, but once you, if you make the decision to go much above 20,000 feet, you're starting to, you know, you're going to be into the area where if you have an oxygen failure, you're screwed. I mean, the, I forget the exact time, but like a 25,000 feet, they say your time of useful consciousness, you know, to where you're going to essentially stop functioning is about a minute.
And when hypoxia creeps in, you don't know what's happening, you know? So essentially you're screwed before that minute comes up, you know, and if you get above 30,000 feet, you'll get down into like the 32nd things. So you have 30 seconds to figure out what to do. So if your oxygen fails, like, I always fly with the backup system and it's good just for getting down. It does nothing. I mean, if I'm hitting that bottle, I've got, you know, about 10 minutes to get to a breathable, you know, survive below 25
or something. Yeah.
And even 25, you're still, you're still rolling the dice, you know, like, and cause you're still wicked. Yeah. You know, so you're, you're probably operating on like, you know, three quarters capacity as it is even with the supplemental oxygen and then it's there. So yeah, I've got a holy shit bottle. And if it's, you know, I needed them out and you know, the fastest way down is to jump. But even so, if you're at 30,000 feet, you know, it's roughly 10,000 feet. A minute in free fall, right? It'll probably, you know, a little faster because you're higher, the air is thinner, but you know, you're not going to hold your breath for two and a half minutes. You know, you're cold, you're scared shitless and you're jumping out of a broken airplane or a good airplane because your oxygen system failed. I mean, you know, and then even once you're under the canopy, then you're in this, you know, you're going to get sucked back up again. And, you know, again, in that book, exploring the monster, they talk about the guy bailed out and he spent a bunch of time getting sucked up in the wave and then dropped out and going through the turbulence and all sorts of stuff, you know, and
it's like, Yeah. Then you're a hail ball. Yeah. Just playing
yo-yo. Exactly. You know, and it's, um, yeah. So, you know, it's just, you know, you know, having redundancy and things like that. And the best quote I heard about high altitude wave flying and like high altitude meaning stuff that's achievable by most cell plane pilots is you're going cave diving. You know, if something goes wrong, you're after it's just, you know, and it's, uh, you know, so take those things into consideration, you know, when you go and you know, put, I always put hard limits on it, you know, when the, when the O's get down to a certain spot, I'm out, you know, and if I'm close to an objective, then, you know, too bad it'll be there again. You know, it's the waves, however long the mountains have been there, the waves been there. And, uh, you know, I can go back and again, you know, and it's, uh, you know, it's better to be disappointed on it than dead, I guess.
And, um, you know, so that's the, I think, again, it comes down to, you know, what you're, you know, how prepared you are, you know, like even, you know, great cross country flights or they very, very happy. You just decide I'm a skill. Fly day, bang, you knock out some huge flight, you know, there's always a lot of preparation that goes into it. And, you know, it's like, you know, it's all putting those things in. So, uh, you know, and the other thing too, with, with the wave flying is cold. I mean, and dehydration, you know, you're running into hassles with that. And you're sitting down on the ground and it's, you know, 40 degrees, but you know, if you go to 30 grand, it's going to be 90 degrees colder. So you're talking, it's going to be well, 90 F's, right? So you can be like, you know, 30 below. So you can put on, like, I wear a down mountaineering suit, you know, down jacket, down booties, down. Pants and all sorts of stuff, you know, and then you're strapping yourself in and trying to drink enough water and, and everything like that.
And then, you know, what's, um, physiologically for me, when I get above 18,000 feet, like my hypothalamus goes nuts and it's like, you're, you're overhydrated, you know, so I have to pee like crazy, you know, which is this another, like management thing, you know, when you're sitting in the, sitting there, but then you, again, you're just dumping liquid. So you're becoming dehydrated, uh, which just, you know, affects your ability. And you couple that with some hypoxia, you know, and suddenly you can be in a world of hurt, you know, pretty fast. If you don't set yourself some hard limits that if something doesn't seem right, you know, if there's doubt there, if you're doubting something, it probably means that there's something not right, you know, and it's this time to pull the plug. There's
doubt. There is no doubt.
Yeah, exactly. You know, and, uh, you know, and stuff
like that. When you, that's just fascinating, man. I've had to, I got to stop smiling. I'm going to break my face. Um, the, in, in paragliding, there's, you know, what's really exciting about where we are and I've said this a million times, sorry listeners, but you know, there, there's so much unexplored, you know, there's so many lines that haven't been flown. And, you know, we had this huge jump in glider technology in 2009 that kind of just doubled everything. You know, we went from a hundred mile flight being a big deal to 200 miles. Do you guys look at things in that way? You know, so that, you know, this, this Andes and the Perlan project is, is, is definitely on the map that's happening, but are you kind of the same? Same way. I mean, are you, are you, are you guys looking at stuff in the Himalayas and Russia and you know, do you, do you guys travel to, I mean, obviously traveling with a sailplane is a lot tougher, but, um, you know, how does, how does, how, tell me a little bit about that.
Yeah. So they're always looking for places to go. I mean, for a long time, the places that world records was in the, uh, Appalachian mountains in Pennsylvania, that whole, that whole Ridge down there, you know, and that's where, that's where people were setting records, you know, from the sixties to the seventies and eighties. And then, you know, when's the, again, when the technology changed enough that gliders are easy to move around or easier, you know, lighter, they could put more of them in containers. And also people started coming into money. Um, you know, I mean, it's expensive to go to the Andes and most people, you know, motor gliders became more reliable. And a lot of the stuff they're flying down in, um, down in the Andes or motor gliders, because if something goes wrong, they pull the motor out and it, uh, it terminates the gliding flight, but they can still get somewhere there. You know, they're not a pure glider. So as long as the thing starts, they can go over some pretty gnarly terrain, you know, to, to get out of a situation, uh, or retrieve themselves, you know, cause it's not, you know, I think we're spoiled here in the U S that, you know, you just, there's airports everywhere and we have access to aviation.
That's just unprecedented. And, you know, you land somewhere and it's not a big Denali don't, you know, people are always freaked out that, you know, there's no air track. I don't contact air traffic control and tell them where I'm going is just go, you know? And, uh, you know, so with the restrictions that they have in other areas of the world, um, you know, a lot of those things were alleviated with when motor gliders became, you know, and the big thing now, like, in technology is electric, electric propulsion, you know, they're, they, they can put these electrics in and, um, theoretically don't have as much problem with like trying to start a cold soaked engine. You know, you're sitting around, you're, you're trying to start your chainsaw at 30 below, you know, and, uh, you know, it's, it's not, it's not that easy. So the, um, you know, so I think as people find other places to go and again, like what they're running out of down in the Andes, they're running out of continent, you know? So, you know, what do you do?
You can make so
awesome. Yeah.
I mean, you know, you can,
you can
extend your flight, but what are you going to do? You're just going to, you know, they're going to make the jump to North America. You know, I mean, you can't, you can't get high enough to do that. And, you know, I'm sure there's people who want to go explore other areas of the world. I mean, to me, that'd be the, I mean, that's one place I have great envy of guys flying paragliders is the portability. You can go check out like all it's like calling climbing, you know, you grab your, you grab your, your rack and you go check out other places, you know, and, uh, and the sailplane, you don't do that. I mean, they're in a trailer and the, you know, the trailer's 30 feet long. You need something to pull it with, you know, you need somebody to put you in. The air and either an arrow tow or, you know, they winch launch them. Um, you know, and even that's, you know, if that's rare in the U S that's a big method in Europe. And, um, you know, so to a certain extent you're limited, you know, and that's why, you know, the, the advent of motor gliders is really changing things.
Cause you can, you can go exploring, you know, and, uh, you know, some of the things starts, um, doesn't. All
right, dude. So I, I, there's what we got to do. When I was flying by Denali on the Alaska traverse Denali on many, many, many days was just stacked with lenticulars. And luckily we were down, you know, 11, 12,000 feet on the Lee side. And so we weren't getting, well, we had pretty strong tailwind, but we weren't getting any of that, but I was looking up at the, you know, lenticulars to us means really scary day. Whereas it sounds like for you guys, it's like, yeah, game on. So, uh, I've never seen a sailplane up there. So let's, let's, let's make a plan. You got, we could fly back and forth across that thing, you know, three times in one day, it took me 37.
Unbelievable. It's so exciting. I, I'm really thrilled with this. You know, I think it's like one of these, uh, you know, it's, it's like hang gliding for, for us, you know, for me, it's always been, you know, they're obviously just amazing aircraft and must be so much fun to fly. But for me, you know, the setup and, you know, not being able to land in tiny, tiny little places and just the, you know, moving around has always kept me away from them because the paraglider, you can just put on your back, but the stuff that you guys are doing, I mean, to fly these, you know, 1500 K triangles around Europe in a single day, you know, that that's the X-Alps in a day. That's just, that is awesome. Yeah. I I'd be fascinated to know what you guys could do with a place like Alaska range, you know, cause I think it's, uh, uh, the problem there, I guess would be, you know, just the, the lack of landing, you know, there's, there are airstrips that as you know, there's, there's dirt airstrips everywhere for all the bush plane guys.
Um, and they might be a little bit short for you guys. I don't know. You said 900 feet. That's not much. I guess you probably could stick it in, but, um, yeah, 900 feet
clear in trees. If you didn't, if you hadn't like, you were like, it's like I've landed in fields and stuff like over rivers where you can just come buzzing right in and you can hit the ground. Stop. You know, it's cause there's nothing to clear. Um, you know, but yeah. And then it, you know, the other thing, you know, it's gotta be pretty wide too. I mean, you know, most gliders are 15 meters. That's like 52 feet. Right. And then, you know, plus you need a little bit on either side for like the, the holy shit factor and stuff like that, you know? So it's, um, man, that's like, that's like, I said, keep saying like, I'll, I'll trade you, man. You can, we'll jump in a paraglider and you can jump on the glider. We'll trade seats. But it's because like the idea of like, when you're talking like, yeah, I'm just going to top land. I'm thinking like, how cool is that? Like, you're just like, I just want to stop. And it's one of the guys in the glider club who flies paragliders. And he was saying like, he like loves going to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Cause he goes, yeah.
In the winter time you can fly on the beaches. Cause nobody's there. Right. And he goes, and he was, it's like, it's like really fun. You just fly along and then you get cold. You just stop. And I was like, what do you mean you stop? Cause you just land, you know? And then you pack your glider up and you know, where all the stores are and you go get a hot chocolate or something like that and hang out. And then you just, you know, and I was like, that just sounds like a, like an absolute blast to just, you know, you know, doing stuff like that. And it's like, yeah. And the glider, you can't. And, um, you know, it's like, And that's the
same thing with hang gliders, you know, that's, I mean, like, I mean, there were days in the ex-ops where I had, you know, seven or eight flights in a couple hours, but I never walked. I just would fly. Oh, this is not looking really good. Top land, you know, have a quick candy bar. Oh, sky's opening up a little bit, you know, rains past fly again, top land, you know, and in the Alps, it's ridiculous. Cause there's a place for espresso or, you know, there's some little thing or, you know, it's, it's pretty wild, but God, man, I just, I, they, the, uh, I flying up that high and that fast and, and playing with wave, it's just gotta be so, is it really, uh,
is there a lot of, Is there a lot of adrenaline involved? I mean, that, that's one of the things about paragliding is that, you know, half the time it's like, I wouldn't call it peaceful. It's, you know, it's full on, it's hard work. You're, you're really using your brain and you're, you know, you're trying to stay alive. Um, is it, is it stressful in that way? Or is it all just, you know, like, like Cody was talking, I don't know if you heard his podcast, but he was, you know, they were up, they were flying a big line across the desert from Salt Lake one day, and he was getting up close to cloud base, which was like, 19 grand that day. And this sailplane pilot was circling around him and, you know, he's all iced up and can't see through his glasses cause there's ice on them. And, and, uh, he's looking over and he's imagining this guy, like listening to Mozart, you know, if we'd get, if we got it just totally wrong or, or is it pretty peaceful like that?
Um, yeah, it's pretty peaceful. Like, you know, you know, it's like everything else you can stress yourself out and, um, you know, because you can't you know, pop it into a, like how big of a, like a hole do you need chainsawed in the trees to drop a paraglider? And assuming it's not really super windy, like, it's just like, you know, the day bombs out and you're just like, it goes flat and you're just going to drop in. I mean, how big of a space do you need?
Well, so yeah, I mean, so dropping in, which you, you can do, you know, you can put a glider in a deep stall and literally come in, you know, twice the size of a glider from, from pretty high, but it's wicked easy to spin or to lose it or to let it frontal, you know, that, I mean, that's a really advanced move. Um, you know, so, and then you're landing under deep stall, which is, which is coming down basically at the same speed you would under a reserve. So it's fast enough that you could definitely snap an ankle or, you know, or tweak your back pretty bad. You know, you're not going to die, but it, you can definitely get really hurt. Um, but you know, what, you know, we can land, we always call it a postage stamp. You know, we can land on a postage stamp as long as we can, you know, if there's, if the trees aren't too tall, you can, you can get pretty good at landing in a tiny space by, by tiny.
I mean, you know, like the size of a glider, but, um, but you, you know, it's vastly preferred to keep the glider flying and not have to put it into a deep stall. Deep stall is basically just, you know, the, you've, you've sucked the air out of the glider. It's still overhead, the canopy's overhead. So it's keeping you coming down slow ish, but it's not flying, you
know, it's
not flying forward. It's not inflated.
So like, if like a comfortable landing, like nothing that like, like the pucker factor is pretty low. It's like, yeah, I'm just, you know, okay, there it is. Like, you know, Oh
yeah. Like a football field is, is, is just like for a beginner glider is way more than enough. And for us, it's a joke. I mean, if I had like a soccer field or something, you know, then I'm doing like monster tricks as I'm coming in. Okay. Uh, yeah.
So like, that's like, so we always talk about like, how would you rate the fields? Right. So you rate like a G rated field. I like the Moyes. It's like, yeah, piece of cake. Right. It's like an airport, you know, and then PG is like, yeah, you know, a little bit of work, but it was, you know, it's all within the comfort factor, you know? And then you get like the PG 13, it's like, eh, you know, it's all right. And then, you know, you get to like a rated R field. It's like, you got away with it, but you didn't feel good about it. You know, like you felt like you, you know, like everything has to work, you know, and then rated X, you're just going to die, you know? And, uh, or it's essentially rated X field. It's a body recovery. No, it's like here, they're just going to come, they're going to make it easy to find you. And, um, you know, so it's, you're, that's the one thing that's really limiting and, you know, you really need like an 800 foot field. If it's, if it's really good, you can do it, but that's like, you know, and again, you're a lot of things you've never seen these things before, you know, I'm like, you fly over, I'm like, holy shit, there's a fence in it, you know, or there's power lines going across.
And it's like, now you got to like, and you don't have a choice. That's it. You know? And it's like, you got to figure all that out. And it's, um, you know, that's you,
you want you, let me do the math here then. So like three football fields is, really, that's, that's sketchy. That's not quite it. That's not really right. Cause that's three, six, that's, that's 900 feet.
Yeah. 900 feet, you know, like again, and that's like good approach, you know, headwind flat field, you know, it's not uphill, not downhill, it's not side hill or any of that kind of crap, you know, where it's just like, yeah, that's, yeah. You know, that's like, that'd be great.
Alaska would be limiting. It would be scary for you guys. I mean, but it wouldn't be the thing about Alaska, the, the, the cloud, the base is so low typically, you know, so it'd be one of these really special days where, you know, but once you're up tall, once you're up, you know, 20,000, then you, like you said, you got the whole state to play with then.
Yeah. And that's, what's really cool. I mean, you know, and, and that's, that's sometimes like how you, you screw yourself. You're like thinking like you're fat, dumb and happy, right? You're like, Oh, I'm at eight grand. And I got, you know, 7,000 feet of space between me and the ground. I can go 60 miles, you know? So you just, you just, sometimes you just space out and it would come at home. That's awesome. Well, you know, like I've flown home from set, you know, 60 miles away without even turning. You just hit a few thermals and bump them just as you go, you know? And it's like, you just, you set the trim on the glider for, you know, 60 knots or something like that, you know, and then you just sit there and stare out the window, you know, just like, yeah, that's, that's super luxurious. And, you know, I've had wave flights where the coolest wave flight I ever took is I was going for my diamond goal, which is a 300 kilometer pre-declared task. And it doesn't have to, I decided to fly it as an FAI triangle because I want to try to set us a record when I did a state record.
And I took off early in the morning, I'm flying to my first turn point. I get over it and I hook into this thermal and, you know, I'm thermaling along. And all of a sudden it kind of gives me this weird, like kabump, that same, like speed bump feeling I talked about. And I was like, huh, it felt kind of like wave. And it got kind of smooth and yeah, but I'm still climbing. What the hell? And I looked down below me and I could watch the cumulus cloud form underneath me. And I realized that point and I, holy shit, I'm in waves. So I just ran it up and I ran to like, I don't know, 10 or 12,000 feet. And then my, my turn point was, I don't know, like 80 miles to the North. And I just turned the glider and pointed it at it and just set the trim and just sat in the wave and just tooled along. And when I, that thing that screwed me when I got to the other end is that the wave had flown out the end of the wave and all the clouds had formed. And I was like, holy shit, I got to get below the clouds. Cause I figured the distance I had to go to
get to turn point and get back out of the clouds. I wasn't sure I was, if I was going to dip down into the clouds, which I didn't want to do, because at that point, one, it's illegal. But two, it's, you have no sense of what upper down is. So put the glider in a really steep spiral and pull the wings off it. And, um, so same
for us. Yeah.
So I just didn't want to deal with it, you know? So I was like, shit. So I lowered the gear, pulled the spoilers, kicked the sideways and slid in under the clouds, you know? And, but something was like, I had to wake up. I had to start flying again. Cause the last 45 minutes, I mean, I have, I had a sandwich in my pocket. I was just sitting there eating, like staring out the window, you know, like just fat, dumb and happy. And, uh, you know, you know, so, and then, then it was like, wake up and, you know, and it turns out, I made, you know, I made the flight and all that kind of stuff. It was really cool, but it was, um, it was, you know, one of those things where, you know, yeah, it was rough. And then there's other times too, where like, you start getting low, you know, and you're thinking like, uh, this isn't quite working, you know? And then you're starting to look, you know, maybe you didn't plan as well, or the fields that you saw from a distance turned out to be shit, you know, when you get there and you're just like, oh crap. And then you're scratching around trying to make something work. And like, you know, you're, if you find, you know, so normally the gliders sink at about 200 feet a minute.
Right. And so if you're sinking at 50 feet a minute, you're thinking like, God, I'm bleeding slow, but I'm still going to hit the ground at some point and just hoping it into, like, I think you talked about it in your flight in Alaska and the Alaska range, how you just launched off some little low thing. You're over the caribou or something, you know, like you're sitting there doing that, you know, and you're thinking like, yeah,
I got my diamond that day,
like 200
feet to 16 grand.
Yeah, exactly. You know? And it was like, yeah. So it was, you know, just sitting there looking at these things and you're scratching around and it's like, oh shit, you know, and then you get all nervous, you know, and like, and then you finally you climb out, you know, and like, you're sitting there and I'm like, you know, it's almost like when, uh, yeah, some, I guess it's, it's exactly the same, like, you know, somebody gets hurt or something, you know, and like, you're in the moment, you're just doing everything right. And you're helping them out, you know, and then like, you know, you get them to the hospital or they go away or something. And all of a sudden you sit down and you're like, holy shit. And you start like shaking, freaking out, you know, it's kind of like the same thing, you know, like, and I've had flights where I didn't get above 3000 feet above the ground and it's super stressful, you know, because you're literally flying from field to field, the field, the field, you know, and it's worse when you're out like on a big day and then the whole thing dries up and you're scratching your way home, you know, and you get back and it's like, it's super satisfying.
I mean, you remember those, I mean, 50 % of the flights you take, you don't remember anything about them because they were just kind of like normal run of the mill. You remember the ones that were absolutely stunning or there's something about them that was magical or just great or like, you know, days where everything just works, you know, like they're just, they're super great. Or the ones where you were just like freaked out for 80 % of the flight, you know, and it was just like, you know, and you're glad you made it and everything like that. And you never felt like you were at risk, but it was like a lot of work. And when you get done, you're just mentally exhausted. You know, you just want to crawl out of the glider. We call it, uh,
We call it the alien world. You know, when I, when I got the record here, I don't know, five years ago now, I guess it's 2013. It was 2013. You know, when I, when I landed and it was only, it was only a seven and a half hour flight. I mean, there was a record because I was flying so much wind. So I was traveling really fast, which is very stressful on a paraglider, um, you know, over big tall mountains. But when I, when I, when you land, you're like, you know, you're so, you don't feel tired in the air. You feel fine and everything's working. And it's all good. And then you land and you realize you're just spent. I mean, it was, it was hard for me to even stand upright, you know? Yeah. So we did paragliding and I think the hang gliders are the same way that we call it the alien world where you just, you land and you feel like an alien.
You don't feel like you belong to planet earth. You know, you're happy to be on planet earth, but you're like, Whoa, I am, my brain is not working.
Yeah. And it's, it's amazing how tiring that is, you know, just like how, how exhausting it is. When your brain is, is working. Cause you know, the sailplanes, even when you're in a high performance glider, I mean, you're in a semi reclined position. If I could get one to cut down, you know, cut the front of one off and put it in my living room to sit in, to watch football games or something, that would be awesome because they're like super comfortable. Right. And, uh, you know, and, and, you know, they're meant to, you know, in a, in a, what a 60 degree bank, you're pulling two G. So if you're, if you're thermaling a lot, you know, you're pulling a lot of G load for a long time. You're looking around, looking for stuff and, you know, looking at the clouds, looking for other traffic, looking for, you know, so, you know, there's times too, you're climbing so slow, you're drifting out of the, you probably had this happen. You're climbing, but you're drifting out of range to the field, your safety field, you know? And it's like, Oh shit, this better work.
And, uh,
you know,
it's like, and so, you know, it's, you get done. Yeah. And you're just like tired. And I love that, man. Like when you just, you get out of the thing, you just like, you just throw yourself over the rail and just lay there on the ground, you know? And it's just like, you just want to take a nap, you know? And it's just like, uh, but that, like that exhaustion is just, it's like so rewarding, you know? And yeah, it's, it's, it's a blast. I
really appreciate you sharing all this knowledge. Uh, we didn't even tap a whole bunch of questions I have, but I want to be mindful of your time. It's getting very late in the East coast. Is there anything you want to, uh, finish us off with here? Like I said, I got to stop this talk because otherwise my face is going to break.
No, the only thing I can, you know, let you know is, uh, again, how, how much I appreciate what you guys do with the, with cloud-based mayhem. Because it's, it's been fascinating for me. You know, I don't fly paragliders, but listening to the ma 'am has made me a better pilot because listening to all the, you know, the world-class people you have on there, um, really listen to their mindset about flying, how they approach things and things that, that works for me also. And, uh, you know, and it's also, it's been fun, you know, I've contacted a lot of your, your guests, you know, and, um, you know, uh, gosh, you know, I called Matt Wilk. Some of the things he was doing was really cool. And actually we're helping them out collecting data at our wave camp that we're going to hold them out in Washington at the beginning of October. So, uh, you know, Matt talked to the ethics committee at his university and put this whole survey together.
And I was like, yeah, you know, we probably can get you maybe a hundred samples, you know, something like that. And he was like, awesome. So for the last couple of months, I've been working with him, putting together this, trying to, you know, guys can try to make everything safer, you know, and it's, uh, it'd make it better for me to do what I like to do. And, you know, do you help do what you like to do? And, and, you know, we can do all this kind of stuff. So, uh, it's, you know, it's been really cool. You know, I sent a pair of, I used to have a company that built clothing for glider pilots, you know, and I, uh, gosh, it was, uh, I can't wish I can remember her name, um, but she was Joanna DeGrigoli. Yes. God, I know. And I sent her a note and said, Hey, I got these things. I got a whole case. I got a crate of them. You want some? She's like, yeah, sure. You know, that's why I sent her some pants. Hopefully it would help her set, you know, bigger, bigger records and stuff like that. So she can, and, uh, you know, and stuff like that.
So it's been, it's really awesome. So yeah, the only thing I'd like to do is keep doing what you're doing, man. Cause it's really cool. And it's, uh,
Oh, thanks. Thanks Kevin. So before, before we, I appreciate that before we sign off, I want to tell the listeners. So what Kevin was just talking about is he's developed some special pants for the ladies. So our lady listeners, uh, you know, we know that you guys struggle with these darn diapers. It's so much harder for you and it's harder for us. I don't know how many times I've peed in my face. You're trying to use a P tube and that kind of things, but that's for another talk. Uh, many people ask about that, but if you're curious about that ladies, then reach out and I'll put you in touch. With Kevin. Cause I think they came in pretty handy for Joanna. And then everything we've talked about, uh, Kevin has sent me some great videos of wave flying, and I know he's gotten a lot more resources. Maybe we can try Kevin and we'll, we'll talk about this after we stop recording, but maybe we can try to, to, uh, bring him some really good skew T examples.
So we can see the kiss. We can see the kiss lines you're talking about, but, um, dude, thank you so much. I am definitely coming out to visit you. So you, you get, you, you presented that offer and I was like, oh yeah, that'd be interesting. But now I'm coming. That would be, that would be amazing. I get to get my, my new little one up in a, in a sail plane and blow her mind. Um, but thank you very much. I really appreciate it. This has been a massive contribution. I can't wait to put this up. Um, thanks a lot.
Oh, you're very welcome, man.
I hope you enjoyed that really cool talk. I, my face is hurting actually after that one from smiling from ear to ear the whole way through that one. Uh, really cool. Cool talk with, with Kevin. Thanks for your time, Kevin. And thanks for sharing all that incredible knowledge. Uh, it really makes me want to get out and get into sail plane flying. My God, what those guys are doing is awesome. Uh, as always, all we ask for is a buck a show. We've been getting some great response to a patrion.com forward slash cloud-based mayhem. You can kind of set it and forget it there. And at certain levels you get a t-shirt or a cloud-based mayhem hat or other cool stuff. Uh, check that out or you can just do a one-time donation through PayPal. You can find all those links on cloudbasedmayhem.com. And, uh, thanks for those of you who reached out to help with the social media.
We're getting that going. I really appreciate that. And yeah, episode 51 and counting. We've got more great shows ahead. If you're just discovering the podcast, please go back and check out. Um, there's been so many awesome pilots on the show. I'm not going to ramble them off here, but go back and check them out. Uh, get emails every day about how this is making people safer and it's saving lives. And that is just way cool. So spread the word, tell your friends, put it out on social media, um, and say hello. Thanks very much. We'll see you on the next one. Cheers.