Hi there everybody. Happy holidays from the Cloudbase Mayhem. Hope you had a great holiday and cool to bring you this show just right after Christmas and hopefully we're all thinking about flying gliders instead of presents. Just a reminder, we've got a few more days left of our Garmin discount for an inReach device, an SE or Explorer, that it lasts until the 30th. So we've still got three more days if we get this one out on time, which we're planning on doing. Just a reminder, we've got a few more days left of our Garmin discount for an inReach device, an SE or Explorer, that it lasts until the 30th.
So we've still got three more days if we get this one out on time, which we're planning on doing.
So we've still got three more days left of our Garmin discount for an inReach device, an SE or Explorer, that it lasts until the 30th. So we've still got three more days if we get this one out on time, which we're planning on doing. So we've still got three more days left of our Garmin discount for an inReach device, an SE or Explorer, that it lasts until the 30th. So we've still got three more days if we get this one out on time, which we're planning on doing.
So we've still got three more days left of our Garmin discount for an inReach device,
an SE or Explorer, that it lasts until the 30th. So we've still got three more days left of our Garmin discount for an inReach device, an SE or Explorer, that it lasts until the 30th. So we've still got three more days left of our Garmin discount for an inReach device, an SE or Explorer, that it lasts until the 30th. So we've still got three more days left of our Garmin discount for an inReach device, an SE or Explorer, that it lasts until the 30th. So we've still got three more days left of our Garmin discount for an inReach device, an SE or Explorer, that it lasts until the 30th. So we've still got three more days left of our Garmin discount for an inReach device, an SE or Explorer, that it lasts until the 30th. So we've still got three more days left of our Garmin discount for an in just very few people live up there and fly cross country from there. And so, uh, Phil and some of his buddies, Chris Bamford, and some of those guys have been putting up some really cool lines there for years. Um, and so I wanted to talk to him about that, which we did, but I also wanted to talk to him about flying tandems. We've had a lot of pilots on the show, of course, fly tandems, but I've never really tapped into that angle of things.
And so I thought that'd be really interesting. And then, uh, not really reluctantly, but Phil had a pretty bad accident, uh, about a year ago. And I didn't know this, but pal Tackett, who was on the show ways back, talked about a really bad accident that he had. He was living with Phil at the time when that went down. So I didn't know that. And this is not a downer. We don't get into the downside of an accident and recovery and all that kind of stuff. But what we do to get into is just kind of a warning about complacency. Cause it happened on a day that, uh, everything was totally perfect. It was not an early day. It was just one of these things that happened because you're really almost even too good of friends with the other pilot that was in the air and they were trying to avoid a midair. So some really good lessons there and some really cool mental lessons from coming back from something like that.
Uh, Phil's totally chasing it hard. Didn't have much trouble at all coming back from that. And, uh, but he gives some really good thoughts on how that whole process goes. And so I think you're going to enjoy it. I think you're going to enjoy that aspect as well, but Phil's been flying since the very beginning of paragliding. And, uh, it went from being an engineer to making a life out of paragliding, which is, uh, his journey is really cool. So I think you're going to enjoy it. So, uh, without further delay, please enjoy this great conversation live from Mexico, uh, with Phil Glatz.
Phil, it's pretty cool to be doing this live here in Mexico at the, uh, pre-World Cup. We've been having some awesome days of flying fast around a really cool, new site here in Zapotec. And, uh, you and I didn't know each other personally before this trip, but I've been following your flights in Zermatt forever because Bruce, you know, my, uh, ex-Alps supporter is always going like, look at what this dude's doing. Look at what he's doing. And it's been, uh, so this is a real honor for me to kind of get some, some background and some history. I thought I kind of, maybe a cool place to start out would be for those that don't know much about the Alps or that don't know about Zermatt. Uh, cause you know, to be a local flying in Zermatt is, is not the same as like Annecy, you know, there's not that many of you guys up there.
And, uh, and so I thought you, can you paint us, uh, uh, an audio visual picture of, of where, where you guys are operating, what you're doing. And I know it's just not you sending good flights, but it's your whole life and your whole business there. So give those people that haven't been to the Matterhorn. Um, can you describe that area? Cause it's pretty unique.
I, um, kind of by accident, I ended up in, in a little Valley that has the most iconic peak in the Alps, the Matterhorn. And, uh, Zermatt's this incredible place. It's a tourist town, but it's, it's, it's the highest part of the Alps. There's actually 29 peaks in the Zermatt Valley that are over 4,000 meters and 40 something peaks in the surrounding valleys that are over 4,000 meters. So the Mont Blanc is a massive. And it's got, uh, it's got a few peaks surrounding it, but the, the Matterhorn Valley is, is the highest area for flying. It's, it's kind of up there is extreme. It's, it's a narrow Valley. It's the end of a Valley.
It's got strong wind systems. Of course we get strong Valley winds in the springtime. Uh, we're very susceptible to South, South wind. We kind of have a local fern effect. As soon as the, the wind turns south. Uh, in the winter time, if it, uh, or any time, if the wind is slightly from the east, we get a, we get a nasty wind affecting in one of our takeoffs and the rest of the Valley can be calm, but, but, um, we've got a howling wind on, on the, our main takeoff. Yeah, it's, it's, it's big mountain flying and, uh, with a postage stamp for, for a landing stuck on the side of the, of a, of a Valley next to the railway station.
Yeah,
your landing is just silly. When I was training there for the 2015, uh, race, uh, for the X-Alps, I, I ended up hooking up with, uh, Michael Vitchie. We happened to just be flying there on the same day. Cause it was a pretty decent day. And we both landed together at that little postage stamp you're talking about. And I was like, wow, this is where you guys do tantrums and stuff. It's tiny. It's,
it's fine. If there's a, if there's wind, if the wind is consistent, um, and. We get strong Valley winds, which is, which is fine. You can land on a postage stamp. The only thing we have to deal with then is turbulence because just in front of the landing, the, the Valley narrows. So we get turbulence, um, from that and the, and it's up on the side of the hill slightly, uh, above a four meter wall. So we get rotor, uh, rotating off the, off the train tracks up onto the landing. So you can get dumped, uh, despite your best efforts to have a safe landing. So why
are you there? Sounds terrifying.
Yeah. Why am I there? Uh, that's a long story, but, um. Well,
cool. Well, we'll, we'll get into it. I, I, uh, I wanted to just express on the list here that if you haven't been to that area, like it's, it's a place I've flown through a lot now. And even in, in this race, the 2017 race, because we didn't have to go, typically we go north of it. Cause we're on the way to Mont Blanc, you know, and this year we, the cylinder is always 5k. Cause you can't really make it like a top landing. The Matterhorn doesn't really suit that. And, uh, and so this year we, we came on the south side and, uh, it's amazing how dense everything is there. You know, we're like Domodossola is right over the, I mean, the SAS Valley is right there. There's a map Valley, but just on the other side, it's a whole nother world. One, you're, you, you literally are in another country.
You're in Italy. And, uh, and there's four big valleys on that side and it all just compresses in there. Doesn't it? I mean, to me, it's still a place that just demands massive amount of respect.
Yeah. And, uh, I'm still learning about it. Still learning about these, these passes, high mountain passes and the, and the valleys and the different wind systems and how they affect how they're affected by the mountains. It's yeah. We get constantly surprised. As you know, uh, you get wet. The weather forecasting is getting better and better, but, uh, local effects are so local. We fly, we fly in weather and wind systems that are, that, that require knowledge of what's going to happen from here to 500 meters away. And there's, there's no, there's no forecast that's going to give you that. So we're constantly surprised despite our best efforts to, to understand what the wind and the weather is going to do every day.
Is it, is it a numbers game? Is it, is it the kind of thing where, you know, after all these years you've, you know, you've, you've got it pretty figured out, but things are always a little bit surprising. I mean, I would imagine, you know, to me, it's like, you couldn't put yourself in a, a trickier place in the Alps, really. I don't know of one there, maybe there are, but you've put yourself in a place that is, is super demanding. Do you, do you dig that? Or is it still kind of like a little bit?
No, it's, it's, uh, I've made it my home. It's like, uh, when I first started flying solo before I got my tandem license, uh, we'll start flying in that Valley. Um, I kind of made an effort. But I didn't, I wasn't thinking about that at the time, but I just go and fly and I go and fly up, uh, up through these peaks and around this Valley. And I, I made it my own, you know, it's my Revere, like an Eagle defending its territory. I, uh, I, and I tell my students or people I'm, let's say in inverted commas, mentoring, I'm like, you got to go and own it, go and fly. You got to fly in those cool eyes. You got to fly over those peaks and, and you're not going to feel comfortable.
Yeah. Unless you've been there so many times, you're like, this is, this is what I do. This is where I belong. And I spent, uh, a lot of time, a lot of time doing that, just enjoying the altitude before I ever got into comps or acro or, or, or high performance gliders or anything like that. So I just went and bimbled around these, these incredible peaks.
So we, we talked a little bit before. Before we started this going, you and I have some shared history in Wollongong, Australia. Um, how'd you go from in your, your accents, uh, giving you away here, but, uh, how'd you, how'd you go from, were you a pilot in Oz? Give us the, uh, give us the resume version of your, of your flying history. How did, how'd you end up in Zermatt?
I actually started flying. I, I retired from my engineering career and went traveling and, um, my friend and I always had this dream. To, to do a season, be ski bums in Chamonix. At the time, the Greg Stump Moyes were coming out and, and there was Scott Schmidt and Glenn Plake hucking cliffs and doing cool hours. And we thought, we thought we were pretty, pretty hot skiers, which we, we are in no way at that level. That you'd
learned in
Kosciuszko?
We had our little club called the Out of Bounds Club and, and I didn't spend any time. I spent very little time skiing. It's
a long
piece in Australia. I'll tell you that. We, we made a point of going skiing breakable crust through, through gnarly eucalyptus snow gums, right? We could ski some pretty difficult stuff, but then anyway, yeah, we got to Chamonix. We had a fantastic year. And, uh, my friend saw this, this advert for a, a paragliding, uh, learn to paraglide course, basic beginner's course in a place called Plain, Plainjou. Just out of the Chamonix Valley. Okay. And it was like discounted for some reason. And I'd been thinking about this for, for, uh, since paragliding began, fortunately or unfortunately, I, I didn't get into it when I was in Australia.
I was too busy with, with engineering and, and surfing and windsurfing and playing music. I was, I was either practicing or gigging like five times a week or something. My, my life was full and I kind of knew, and I suspected. I suspected that if I ever touched paragliding. How did you know
about paragliding at that point? Was it from Oz or from your time in Chamonix?
No, it was from, from Australia. I didn't, um, I'd seen an, I've seen them up at Stanmore Park, obviously. And I'd seen that the hang gliders guys from years back launching from Mount Kira just above my house. Yeah. Sadly, that takeoffs, uh, no longer used. What a, what a tragedy. Amazing place to fly for. Hangies. But there was a Swiss guy who was running a restaurant called the Eagle's Nest in Thredbo. And he actually. Thredbo. Yeah. Now Thredbo was the site of the, the, was it the first world championships of paragliding? Really? They probably had spot landing competitions or something. Yeah. A hundred years ago. And he had. And
you're, you're, and it's also kind of the headwaters of the biggest river in Oz, right? Isn't that, what's the river there?
The Murray. The Murray, yeah. I'm not. I'm
not sure.
Maybe that pass, I think you're right just above, maybe it's a dead horse gap just above Thredbo, which is that side maybe goes down to. Ooh, you're, uh, testing my geography there. Maybe Thredbo's got some good vertical and anything to get good skiing in, in, in Australia, you need to spend a season. Otherwise it's potluck. Yeah. But anyway, Heinz Gluhr, this Swiss guy had this paraglider, uh, hanging up. In the ceiling of his restaurant in, uh, in the Eagle's Nest in, in Thredbo. And, and, uh, we always got talking because we somehow let slip that my brother and I, and my sister as well. We, um, we have Swiss, uh, Swiss nationality because through, through dad.
Okay. And, uh, so we'd go and visit Heinz and kind of got chatting to him a few times and he'd call us the, ah, the Swiss mafia is here. So he kind of knew, knew us. Vaguely. And when my brother and I were interested in, in learning to fly and we, I, we, I swapped numbers with, with Heinz and we were going to do a course with him at some stage, but logistically, it just, it just never worked out. And looking back, I'm in a sense, I'm quite happy that I started to learn when I did because things developed so far from that point that I'm kind of happy. I wasn't one of those magnificent men in their flying machines. You know, experimenting with, with, with stuff that was nutty, nutty and deadly.
The stories you hear, the war stories of, of like Miguel talking about building, building deltas out of bits of PVC tube and plastic. I mean, come on. Oh, that's absurd. It's crazy what
those guys went through to give us what we have. Isn't it? It
was incredible. So paragliding developed along and I kept on with my engineering career for quite a few years. And I did this course in plan June Chamonix and, uh, that was cool. I had seven flights under my belt. Thought I was amazing.
I'll never forget. We had, we had two days of practice and then I think one or two days of bad weather and, and, um, and, uh, Philippe, the, the trainer didn't speak much English. And we thought we, we came back after a break and said, we go to a training. He's like, no, no, no. Decollage. I said, take off. Like what? And the three of us who were doing this course were like, jaws dropped. Okay. Try to remember everything you learned a few days ago, because as you know, when you, when you learn a skill, man, you need to repeat that. And I'm trying to think. Give me a
year here is 99. 99.
Yeah. Okay. Spring of 99. Yep. And, uh, I'll never forget you. It's one of those, those images that see it into your, into your brain. I'm a forgetful person. I have a memory like a goldfish, but there are certain things. Things that you never, ever forget. And that's standing, standing on the takeoff, you've clipped in, you've checked everything 15 times. The start helper is on the, on the start. Um, you've got the little wind flag showing the wind. Everything's perfect. And you know, it's perfect. And the guy in front of you says, okay, Phil, you can, you can go now. And, um, you know that too, because you've checked the wind 15 times, but you know that when you take that first step. That's it.
It's got a flow. It all happens. And it all happens in this, in this instant. And then you're in the air and you just, you just let out this scream and like, wow, I'm actually flying. This is, this is for real now. And, uh, and the shock of it, you know, wore off a short time later. And, and I was like, totally relaxed saying this is where I belong. This is, oh, this is so what I want to do. And, uh, yeah. That was in 1999.
99. We got to veer off into this. Why do engineers like this sport so much? Cause they're, they're ubiquitous. There's so many engineers that fly.
Yeah, it's funny. I don't know whether, um, I think engineering probably in the geekiness goes together with, with understanding flying and the aerodynamics and, and, and stuff, but probably more so with, with fixed wing. Yeah. Yeah. powered flight the whole business of checks and and um and the methodicalness yeah yeah that that fits together probably with an engineer's brain for me uh i was kind of i was interested in flying from from as since i was a kid i was building bolsa gliders and back in the day you couldn't buy little radio control gliders for the price you can now it's incredible i used to just build models that gliders that just you throw them off the hill and hope they flew in a straight line and bolsa just you they crash and you break a wing and you go home and repair it and
yeah i was building gliders and and uh i built my own two stringer kite and stuff like that so i was had this this passion for flying before i was even an engineer do engineers make good pilots i hope so i think
so i find that you know especially at these comps and stuff you you you know you get to know people a little bit more and stuff and i find that paragliders go up and they go down i think it also really fits people's personality i mean i think we're all in a sense maybe a little i won't say manic but it's like it just fits who we are somehow and and it it just seems like there's a lot of engineers so i've often wondered if it's because i'm not an engineer the math is not my strength and i and i've often wondered if it's like uh if it's one of these things that i'm not an engineer i'm not an engineer i'm not an engineer you know if you're an engineer you're really analytic and you're really inside your brain and maybe this is a way where you can get out of it or maybe it's a break maybe or maybe it's more it's just more i don't think that intensity that people that you like about it
i think you bring that into the sport i don't think you go to us to escape it um engineers are generally uh from my experience uh a lot of them that well they're highly intelligent i'm not necessarily putting myself in that in that box but but um very self-reliant very self-assured and i had to you know i've dealt with that um through my previous from my previous life as an engineer so um and paragliding is one of those sports i think like scuba diving you have to be uh you have to have a level of self-confidence uh that matches your situation uh too confident and obviously that that can kill you but if it gets serious and you're up in the air and uh you've got to you got to bring yourself down no one else can help you and uh the clown on the end of the radio
i'm putting myself in that position now as an instructor he's only the the guy on the end of the radio you can he's got a limited ability to help you when you even as a student so so right from the start of your paragliding career let's say um you've got to bring yourself down and you've got to you have to be comfortable with kind of being alone and i think engineers are they probably have more so than others they're not they they get by in their careers certainly uh they don't have to be the most social people in the world they have a task to do they have problems to solve and they're good at problem solving that's what definitely what good engineers do and
that's what paragliding is isn't it i mean you get the shit you got to solve the problem you can't hit the stop button that's it i wonder if that's it and
scuba diving as an example it's the same yeah things get desperate you've got to stay cool and calm and and sort things out for yourself buddy can kind of help you with the scuba diving we don't have a buddy system who can give us a wing so we're maybe one step further along the self-reliance line than those guys but yeah so i think engineers they don't fly for escape they of course you know you've got to love you love flying you gotta love being defying gravity maybe because we we spent a lot of time studying physics and stuff you're doing what you shouldn't be doing exactly yeah yeah we shouldn't be happy if it works it's
incredible yeah yeah it is an engineering feat isn't it it's it's a marvel i wonder where it's gonna go we're jumping ahead here because there's a few things you've already said that i want to come back to and we're not nearly done with your history but what do you think you know is now that you're instructing tell me about the perfect student and maybe the opposite end of that like how do you how do you know when someone's going to be they come to you for the first time they've never flown how do you know if they're gonna can you already kind of tell like this person's got probability here whether good or bad are there are there some signs you know you you and chris were talking about you know that you're tan you hate the stereotype but your best tandem passengers are from korea they're just stoked and happy and psyched you know is there do you see that in in students as well
yeah i don't teach many students you could probably ask the guys my colleagues from from interlark and they'd be able to tell you more i i fly thousands of tandem passengers so i'm allowed to to be judgmental there um but yeah uh i guess students a good student has a an air of like that like like i said about the engineers they have at least an air of self-confidence but usually they have a sporting ability you see how they behave they they normally have some motor skills like you just you see that right from from the start like pulling a wing out of a bag who's going to be a problem student and right isn't interesting yeah yeah interesting you know my best student is uh is
my partner a nook hi nook but she's she's a classic she's um calm incredibly sporty and and but she's one of those people who whatever she puts her hand to sports she's just she's just she's just balanced and and gets into it yeah you can you can see it coming when you get certain students who you just need to steer them into a maybe another sport yeah so maybe this is not for
you take
up swimming yeah
okay i'm gonna put you on the spot here a little bit uh back to the alps and specifically where you live so when i was you know when i was learning and we started going to the alps for the first time it's mostly bruce and fellow australian good friend of yours and someone who's been following your stuff for a long time we always gravitated toward the fiches of the alps you know big mountain sites where things happen faster and it's bigger and it's bolder maybe it's you know but also way more risky you know there's a lot of people that go to the alps
with the laranjas and you know places that are one you can see farther and and you can see stuff coming and you've maybe got more time and things don't happen so extreme in other words you know like the more the maritime alps or just lower you you like you said you're in the biggest of the big and things happen there violently and fast what is it about your personality and what is it about your um and like i said i'm putting you on the spot i'm not you know but there really is a huge difference there why do you think it suits your personality to be where you are yeah
zermatt um i didn't i didn't choose zermatt zermatt chose me i guess it does it's it's it suits me now having progressed to the level i've progressed but i've never but i was never like incredibly confident not i'm not a super confident person per se but but over the years i've become now i can say i'm a super confident paragliding pilot uh it's interesting yeah i i i arrived in zermatt because a friend of mine who coincidentally started learning paragliding at the same time in another country i was already living in in zermatt for a few years and he was raving about it and uh i'd never done i never spent a summer in
the alps or um flying and i wasn't getting enough flying at the time so i moved to zermatt
is this from ours
no i was i was going back to but i was doing seasons at the time skiing in saint moritz and teaching in saint moritz and and in perisher actually in australia so i was getting very little flying time in and and it was bugging me so i went to i moved to zermatt because it's because a friend of mine said you got to come here and so i spent that first summer with a with a little bar job and and flying every day and
when you say flying every day
tandems or just no no this is way before i had i had like okay i don't know maybe well less than 100 flights when i arrived in zermatt and and yeah i was a real rookie i remember just i remember going up to to rottweil and our main kind of takeoff uh the first time with by myself not having tandems there or my mate ronnie just being there first time on this on this 3 000 meter peak thinking oh you know but i've been there enough times that the the uh i knew the conditions were okay and i i guess i'd probably checked in with the tandems before that and i just nibbled away at it i i didn't know i didn't know any better i suppose i mean
yeah it's not it's not it's it's not as though i i looked around the apps and said i'm going to choose zermatt um to to progress my flying or to start a business or anything like that it's a it's a series of coincidences that brought me to zermatt and it's rugged high mountain terrain and it it's not it's not beginner terrain and i don't teach many students for that reason nobody comes to zermatt or i won't i won't take a student um on a week's course in zermatt to learn to fly i'll send them i'll send them to interlaken for sure because the conditions are and the potential to fly is so much higher uh you know we teach we fly in the mornings with students where the conditions are calm enough to allow us to do maybe one or two flights and then it's that's it for them what is it about flying in zermatt that that suits me i i guess through a long slow
process i've i've become so familiar with the the terrain that i feel like i belong in those mountains i've i've yeah i'm at home up in those high peaks and and i don't i don't forget or i i try to remember when i'm up there um that i'm flying it's such a privilege to be there i'm flying stuff on an afternoon where i might might not have a tandem that that people dream about in their to to achieve in their paragliding careers and i'll go and blow off an afternoon to go for a buzz around a thousand meter peaks it's it's crazy well
how did you how did you start putting it together in terms of xc then because i mean it's man it's a bold place to start sending it from were you or did you really you know did you uh grind the brass tacks there did you yeah so you had this you had kind of 100 flights you moved to zermatt and then it all i'd um actually
i think the first first proper or relatively big cross country flight i did was in turkey guy know there sammy sammy champion sammy took uh he kind of took me under his wing a little bit pardon the pun but uh he was he was running a little course for some some of his potential cross country pilots uh comp pilots in a place called zulu which is a little out of the way uh mountain uh north of the main place that everyone goes to which is a lunaire and i'd be i was there on a holiday to to a lunaire and uh he took me to this place and um i ended up it was the first time i had a proper task to fly and and i'd never really flown cross country before but i'd flown quite a bit of thermal by that stage just around the zermatt valley and i ended up flying 50ks and it was like one of my first cross country flights and i flew over this high range and landed in the middle of nowhere and i was like oh my god i'm going to be and got some crazy way too easy retrieve back to back to uh lunares and that that was it i was absolutely hooked on on cross country flying but um in zermatt yeah i just chipped away at it i started flying uh around the end of the valley not going past the past
the landing really uh and then i don't know little by little i just uh i was trying to get to the end of the valley and i get out of the valley i guess it took longer than than most people's progression because i was on my own there was no one else no one else was flying cross country in zermatt i was either flying tandems or not flying much and uh yeah i just after i tried to fly out of the valley and then i was think i was flying a back in the day a dhv one two glider and uh i'd get to the end of the valley a few times and i tried to cross this but i always i thought this is impossible i kept bombing out in this it was like three four five times i just i'd make it as far as this which is quite easy at the right time of day yeah uh if you leave it a little bit i mean i wasn't trying to launch for the first thermals i was just trying to trying to fly out of that valley and cross the valley and just going down that east facing side yeah it was a long time before i actually connected with uh it was a long time before i actually connected with uh with the lift on the other side and that was it that was like the massive barrier being broken yeah exactly and uh of course my flying got better i i got onto high performance gliders gliders improved
and it it's become it's become easier it's
definitely you've done some monster triangles out of there what's still left to be done what do you got what are you and chris looking at you know what if you could just you've had the perfect day tomorrow and it's july 10th you got long day you'd start early in the morning at like 8 30 off the what's it called the rut
off the climb matterhorn yeah
oh okay yeah then go down the east facing side and cross over and go where or would you just lob over the other side and go down into italy i
could tell you god but i have to kill you
excellent can we do it together absolutely
that's the plan uh we we got all sorts of plans and we bought chris and i uh swapping um swapping emails with uh with the latest triangle that we've we've come up with um xc planner thanks tom well yeah yeah
thanks tom
exactly yeah so um we're pretty lucky we can we can launch from 3880 meters uh but it's glacier and snow covered and on a big day for for triangles um you don't want any wind so that's that's tricky yeah but uh chris is talking about staying staying overnight in uh either climb matterhorn and hiking the bright horn in the morning so we got an extra few hundred meters um and heading east okay or uh somehow scamming a helicopter right up to the margarita hut saying we do some filming or something spend the night there and and be even higher and and and closer to the to the mac and jaguar valley or closer to the margarita hut and then we're going to go to the domodossola uh yeah so we've got we've got a few plans um well what's another
one what's the okay so
the big flight i did we'll talk about that later is is the climb matterhorn to to mont blanc to neeson and back
over and you went right over the spine like somewhere around the young frow or did you come back into uh what's the really on your side the uh you know across from this but down down valley like this sion what's that lucre loiker bad did you come back into loiker bad when you did that from from neeson uh
no i came over um candlestick i think i came over the lochberg somewhere more stunning oh that was one of the most beautiful places on earth yeah that was 230 231 okay triangle if ai um so the uh plan would be to just do that again because it was so cool uh but it's like look at look at the turn points and try to expand that maybe um we're looking at i don't know whether it's going to work but to fly like due south uh i don't know whether it's going to be too stable in the in the mornings in the in the kind of the i suppose the four alps down there on the other side of the valley from ayosta uh maybe in the springtime this will work but then
to fly south of grand paradiso and then and then head west into france and then come up the chamonix valley uh you can probably help me out with this in terms of the the national parks and the and the problems with that i've been studying that a bit and that looks that looks complicated if not impossible um the thing about
you just don't land yeah
there is that that's exactly um
you can fiddle with the the triangles um i've come to realize with the with the percentage of closure if you're going to fly a record then you need to be within a certain uh distance of your start point but if you just if you want to fly an FAI now we're kind of opening up that that little wedge that moves around when you move your turn point around to see how far i have to get or how far away i can fly and what angles i can get that my landing um the realistic the realistic landing is still an FAI and then any anything up after that is a bonus so if you head south from klein and then west and then you come through chamonix you've done some monster triangle by the time you hit martini yeah and it's in it's a triangle and then if you fly it's not just a bonus yeah if you head back up to this from there and then home i don't know what you're talking yeah to 300 like 300 k triangles
yeah proper big triangle and the biggest of the alps that would be that would be pretty amazing and
the other option is yeah like from what chris is we're using that extra altitude is to fly east across mac and jaguar domodossola chento valley if you're in there then then it's all it's going to be it's going to be amazing pick uh what's you fly all the way to locarno and then and then diagonally up back into oh i'm not sure how far you have to go i have to look at my old go
tag the eiger and come home yeah it's something
like that yeah
yeah that'd be ripping
that's really good yeah there's the potential like is is there wings are getting better we're getting better we're getting bolder yeah yeah yeah watch this space don't
you think that's uh i i i've said this too many times but i don't you dig that about this sport that that you know that even you're in the mecca of paragliding in the world still so many possibilities you know i mean it just feels like we're barely tapping it you know there's just so i mean where i where i'm from at home it's just a joke how much there is to do you know it's overwhelming even you know but
for for us so switzerland's a playground paragliding in terms of retrieves and it's just it's just so easy getting up a mountain and and and getting home again uh for you guys where you fly that's just it's a little whole finn's tiger country yeah a little more of a crazy
little more of a oxygen
and all of this stuff yeah the alps is is incredible and the potential just just grows where
would you um you know for people that are thinking about you know coming over the alps for the first time this summer well what's the perfect itinerary give me an you know if you if it assuming the weather's epic over the whole thing you've got a nice high pressure system and there's you know there's no rain and not much wind um you know like give me your 10 favorite sites
so many sites i'm a this is the thing about um running a tandem business um you know this is one of the reasons i do big flights from from zermatt is because uh well it's where i live i can get out the front door early in the morning and i can go up a mountain i don't have to travel the day before or something so uh that's limited my my uh experience in terms of you know all the all the fantastic amazing fly sites there are in the alps um you know but someone who's never flown the alps before you you've got to think places like ansi and interlaken just give you that incredible view with the with the mellow four alps so you've got nice takeoff conditions the only thing you've got to deal with is traffic uh in in both of those places but the potential to do some some little
circuits with incredible white capped four four thousand plus uh white cap peaks in the background is is is amazing um so you you probably want to work into it with with one of those sites you've probably got better ideas of the first sites to go to um fierce you've got to go to just because it's it's mecca you know i had to go to chamonix because nine thousand vertical feet dude steep yeah yeah yeah just had to be part of that yeah skiing so fierce is um um and you can fierce goms so so heading from from heading east from fierce that's for the less experienced pilots it's probably it's a great it's a great flight you can probably do what is it 50k is up to up to the first up and back uh you've got a big wide valley uh they've they've even made the
airport uh airspace skinny so you don't have to you can land pretty much on the side of the valley you can land anywhere rolling fields it's and uh it's a series of spines that you can hop across or you can stay up in the back range and fly right along the ridge uh that that that flight is is the classic easy and a classic and and fun once you head down into the main ballet then things get serious depending on what the wind is doing it's a oh yeah
there's spots in the road that can
get pretty
wild yeah yeah exactly well for sure um so we've had we've had a lot of tandem pilots on the show but i've never asked any tandem questions uh but let's get back to your history a little bit how did that all get going it was that the was that the end of your engineering career yeah
my engineering career i've been put on standstill in my career and i've been doing a lot of things and i've been I mean, it was kind of, you know, the mining boom was kicking off in Australia, this is 20 years ago, and part of me was thinking, you know, do I want to go to Western Australia when cleaners are earning 100 grand or something that was ridiculous? And a small part of me was thinking, should I just go there and earn some money? And I just couldn't do it. In the meantime, my friend Ronnie Schneider, the other Swiss-Australian, he was a bit ahead of me with his tandem training, and I kind of… He was the friend that brought you to Zermatt. Exactly. And so I came to Zermatt just as he was getting his tandem license.
And while I was still progressing really, really slowly, I was still a beginner, I had this inner confidence about my flying abilities, and I thought, yeah, I could do this. And so I had that first year, it was 2002, I just flew and flew and flew. I had to do my – I had some restricted Australian license, I think. So I had to get my Swiss license.
Which is a little demanding, I understand, isn't it?
The solar license is probably one of the more demanding ones. The good thing about it is it's an exam, under exam conditions, so they're really friendly guys, but you have to perform it in front of strangers, possibly a strange fly site, depending on where you sign up, and you have to perform under exam conditions, and that's a good thing. And the same goes for all the other exams. So I did the solo license, and within – you're allowed to do the tandem, what was called the tandem B at the time. You have to wait 12 months and have a minimum of 150 flights or something. So I had that. Within a few days of 12 months, I was signed up for the tandem B,
and pretty much a month or two after the minimum requirement to do the tandem A solo license, I did that. It's a long, difficult, and expensive process. So it was two years of solid flying with a little – a few odd jobs in between.
So one of the reasons I've always avoided being a commercial tandem pilot, I fly tandems for fun, but is that I always hear from tandem pilots, I think the number one way to destroy your solo flying, like your – Your passion? Yeah, is to do tandems. Is that true? It doesn't seem like it with you.
Well, maybe Chris and I, I don't know, maybe we're the exceptions. To the rule, I haven't – I'm still learning. I haven't lost the passion for learning about this sport and improving, progressing.
Maybe all these other guys are just better than me, and they've just done it all, and ask me in another five years, and maybe I'll give you a different answer. Is where
you guys do tandems, is it kind of the churn and burn, like an interlocking, or no? I mean, are you doing them all day?
We're doing them all day, but we do a lot less, and we get stopped by the weather a lot more often. Those guys fly 300 days or something a year, and we – I don't know how many – I haven't looked, but it's maybe half that. I don't know. Yeah, okay. There are a lot of days, or there are a lot of afternoons where we're stopped because of strong winds and turbulence, so we don't risk a rough landing. And so, yeah, we –
We're yo-yoing a lot less than those guys, but we're – it's full on now. Business has picked up, and it gets busier every year, which is a good thing. Yeah. So, yeah, we – now we've come to the stage now where, like, I'll look at the weather, I'll study the weather, and I'll consciously take a day off tandem flying. I know it's going to cost me a bomb, but I'll take a day off tandem flying and go fly solo, to go fly one of these cranes. Crazy triangles, if the weather's good, because I don't want to miss out.
Yeah, yeah. So you've still got – you've totally got the energy for it, even though you're doing these tandems. It's not like, oh, God, I've got to go flying.
But I do see it.
I see that. Not in everyone, not in every pilot that I know, but, yeah, it's like – it's that saying, isn't it? Don't turn your passion into a – It's your business.
If you – you know, looking back, if you had to do it all over again, would you do the same thing?
What do you mean, my life? The flying side of it. The flying side of it, I wish – if I was surrounded with some like-minded people kind of pushing their abilities a bit more, maybe, you know, I wish I would have progressed a little further.
Just because you
didn't have the mentors and the people flying. Yeah, I didn't have –
yeah, maybe I need someone to say, wow, you're doing great now and then, you know. I just – yeah, you know, paragliding is a solo sport. A lot of time you're on your own. You have this amazing experience, and you come home and, you know. Yeah. Some of the other paragliders might be interested in it. But really. You've done it for yourself. And it's great to share that – share those experiences and the good and the bad with a like-minded group of people. And, yeah, I didn't really have a lot of that through my whole paragliding career, let's say.
Yeah. I guess if you're in somewhere like Fiesch or Interlaken, there's a whole bunch more pilots. You get exposed to that. And the other thing is I didn't really – I didn't learn through a school. I learned – I did my basic training through a school after that. I was doing bits and pieces here and there with a business instructor and a paraglider here and there and everywhere. So – and after that, I was kind of self-taught.
I did my solo exam. I was training for my solo paragliding license. And I was – I was doing this landing approach because this is a landing approach you have to do. No one really taught me anything about what was involved in the solo license. Ronnie told me the maneuvers I had to do in the time. So I went and trained in them.
I was doing a landing approach. Someone said you should have – you know, you should have hands up. You should have maximum speed so you can fly it. Well, they didn't explain why. I just – I just picked that up. You need to fly, you know, maximum speed when you land. So I'd be doing a whole landing approach with zero brakes. Doing these big – doing Ss and stuff and judging, which turned out to be fantastic practice because when I realized, wow. You can use
brakes and you can – I could slow
myself down a little bit. I can half my glide ratio on a school wing. What a revelation.
But I – and then the other thing was we – you know, after I did this basic course, I was backpacking around Turkey and, of course, landed in Ludinaz. And all I could see was – I was like, oh, my God. was a sky full of paragliders i said goodbye to my friends i said i'm staying here and uh
luckily you know i thought i was brilliant i had seven high flights i knew how to fly and uh i hooked up with sky sports who a fantastic company i just lucked out to get probably the most professional tandem company there to look after me and uh after two weeks finally murat the boss uh he was like go ground handling i'm like come on i want to fly let me fly let me fly he's like one day he said okay you want to fly go fly here's a radio and uh so up i went in a tandem truck but and uh we used to have this me and this uh the south african guy who was working the camping there uh we used to have this old edel ethel the edel we called it and uh we we take turns going up in the morning and uh he'd be like i'm gonna smack that
i'll give her hell today i'll go to do a spiral you won't believe oh i did this spiral like you know so we would like push each other and uh i think that um it had quite it must have quite short line but you know after 10 flights i was doing spiral dives and everything on this thing self-taught just doing them by myself and uh so i was quite comfortable with the g forces and stuff and and uh came to the swiss exam and uh i had to do a double circle to the right ending on axis in in 20 seconds or something so i had it all wired i pulled a full spiral i was in the spiral by the first circle and uh and about 90 degrees before the exit i'd i'd ease it off and i'd come out a really smooth slow turn on axis zero pendulum and it nailed and uh i land the first
first landing in the circle walk away and the guy's like he's like nope like what do you mean he says no you uh you're supposed to do two circles without a break in germany it's like you did a you you stopped the circle i'm like well i that's how i exit like he says nope he says uh because he knew like i had 200 flights he says come on come on show me what you can do so i had to say that was a i lost a so-called okay and you get you get three flight you get you get to do one repeat flight on your solar license so so i had to relearn my double circle without break slowing it down yeah take it easy and yeah one of the downsides of being self-taught learning by doing maybe
maybe you maybe you just answered this but a question i ask pretty much everybody because i think it's enlightening uh if you could go back usually i say 50 hour self but with you i'm going to say 100 because you said you kind of had you maybe had about 100 flights well but that wouldn't be 100 hours okay so what would you change if you could go back to that that phil then uh you know is there advice that you wish you would have taken or or is there something you wish you would have done differently from that point forward um
i know that um i was i was kind of overconfident internally like i didn't probably display that but i was just super quietly confident um i remember thinking i'd done 50 launches and 50 landings that were that were textbook like i never had a problem i'd do these flights i wasn't doing big long thermal flights or anything but but everything went from from the very first flight was was absolutely fine i don't
can't remember that i just remembered that they were all perfect everything and then things went kind of downhill from so i would say you know talking to myself then i give myself a little slap and say dude you know nothing you've got 50 flights is is nothing it starts here um and uh some more you get some advice like um yeah just have people around you that that you can talk to people watch you you can talk to people that you've got a lot of people around you that you've you fly people to um to give you that good advice that that that may save your life
what about being receptive to advice at that stage you know i think that that you know when you're overconfident that can be kind of hard is it do you remember do you think you would have been receptive yeah
good question um i hope so i think i just i hear this from
instructors a lot that you know there are a lot of people that are just earmuffs you know they they'll nod their head but they'll tell you about how great they're doing and they're not really taking it in yeah
yeah no one's actually sat me on my bum and said phil you need to yeah and i'm not saying you necessarily yeah but i'm wondering i'm wondering whether they whether there were whether episodes in my past where people were should have said something and didn't like that clown i'm thinking specifically of me yeah what is he doing yeah uh it is it is definitely um a problem that i see with with students with with good students that they they think they've got it all dialed in but they um they they don't and and they're they're setting themselves up for for fall and it's up to yeah i mean as an instructor i i try to highlight
as much as i as well as best I can to the situation and sit down and explain the situations and what can possibly go wrong where someone kind of is in a hairy situation that they didn't realise, you know, how close they were to having something really serious happen. So, yeah, I wish there was, you know, a bit more of that in my past. Yeah.
Phil, 13 months ago, that's a good transition. 13 months ago you had an incident that I think people can really learn from and, you know, we've talked about accidents a lot on the show so we don't need to go to the dark side of this but I think it is. It provides for good learning because it was one of these things that was, it wasn't like you guys were flying in rowdy conditions. It wasn't like you guys were pushing the envelope. It wasn't like you guys, you know, it was one of these like snake in the grass came out and bit your ass and almost like for no fault but there was, you know, takes through it.
Yeah. How about that, huh? Talk about, I'm not going to say it wasn't that. I love it. Life-changing experience mentally but certainly physically. You go to work one day and two weeks later you leave the hospital and two months later you come home for the first time. Like you go to work one day and you come home two months later like life just bang. It's like life just turns left. Whoa.
Yeah, and it can happen that quickly.
And, you know. I suppose I do have that reputation now in, at least in Zermatt because of the things I've done. I fly the big triangles and I fly a bit of acro and I fly some comps and I probably fly more solo flights apart from Chris than anybody else. So everyone in Zermatt was like, no, couldn't be, not Phil. How could this happen? You know, how could this happen to Phil? And that. That was tough. It was tough to digest as well. And, you know, you kind of, your reputation is a little bit in tatters. It's not, but it is. You feel like it is.
God, I've let everyone down. Here I am kind of championing this sport as being incredibly safe. As long as you build up your experience slowly and you get a breadth of experience and then suddenly this happens and it's, yeah, so how did it happen? Yeah. Um, I'm flying tandem in, uh, in autumn conditions are very light. We're on a south facing slope to get the only thermals that, that are around. Uh, fortunately for us, you know, we thermal, well, I was thermaling Christmas day on in 2000 and, um, 16, which is crazy.
Um, so yeah, Zermatt, Zermatt. Zermatt gets good lift, uh, probably longer than most places, but, um, still conditions and a nice, the gentle, the light, but involves flying, uh, and soaring close to a steep rocky slope. And I'm following my friend and business partner in, in his tandem. Um, we're both flying with the right wing tip to the slope. He turns out, um, to fly, fly back. I follow. Him. So we're both left wing tips, a slope, and then he turns, he turns back in to the slope. I fly a little further and it's not a big area, but the timing is such that, that we both turn out away from the slope together.
So we're both turning back towards the slope, um, to, to get the lift. And it's at that point where there's this little hesitancy. And I asked him about it and, uh, he's, he said the same thing. There's a little bit of this. What's he going to do? Do I, do I turn left or right? Left or right. And, and it's like bumping into someone in the street, an empty street, uh, that can happen. You just, oh, it's embarrassing. Boom. Chest bump somewhere accidentally. And you move on on a crowded streets, never going to happen because everyone kind of separates. And, and yes, there are obviously right of way. Rules in flying as in lots of things.
And, um, the, the combination of our relative positions to the hill, to each other, just put us in a situation where that wasn't a hundred percent clear and paragliding, especially ridge soaring is a lot about keeping eye contact. And, and we had the eye contact, see each other plainly, but we had this. Little hesitancy and one and a half seconds of hesitancy when you got to fly two gliders closing at a closing speed of 70 kilometers an hour, suddenly all of your, all of your wiggle room is gone and you can just hear me. I filmed it.
I filmed the, uh, the accident and you can hear me swear and just bury the break and, uh, at the bury the left break to, to fly out.
I was like, I'm going to go and see you. Okay. Yeah. So,
yeah, the, the glider sort of pulled the brake and, and we were on the other side of the hill, as I, as I was looking at it, I suddenly saw a guy who was, I was looking at the glider, and I thought to myself, wait a minute, who was that guy? And I thought to myself, oh, yeah, I'm going to hit him up there. I can see him hit the brake. And he, he went in on the other side of the hill. like two to three seconds i i looked down the ground came up i was like nope um i'm done smashed i'm buried both brakes to kind of it's kind of flare i suppose as best i could do and uh and incredibly landed on a super steep um slope with flat rocks and grass tufts of grass the glider held i don't know what the glider held us but we didn't slide um we were in a kind of a a flat bottomed or a steep couloir uh between cliffs and rock outcrops and it it's uh it's just a fate that fortunately put me there rather than somewhere else
and uh and fortunately flying in zermatt having air zermatt uh next next to our landing and and and friends phoning them from the air it was probably less than 20 minutes before i was in heli heading to insel spital in dern and that's probably that's what saved my life i guess yeah our life changes from one second to the next the the question that lingers is is yeah how to um it's easy to say well stay further away be more conservative that's that's true but
to um how to avoid those that that exact situation being exactly far enough apart and exactly positioned so that it brings that level of doubt as to whether to go left or right and uh i think um yeah did the single take out from that is is is uh on a ridge on ridge soaring it's it's almost it's more critical than flying out with 100 people in a gaggle you know you know what to expect you know what to expect the gaggle unless someone does something stupid you know in a gaggle everyone's turning the right the same way people be hot the heart below you may climb quicker than you watch them yeah someone's gonna a good pilot's gonna turn in because he's core in the thermal that's okay let it happen find your slot but um uh
yeah flying with friends yeah where you're going back and forth on a on a ridge there's always that eye contact that you that's required when you're pulling out from right away into not right away leave room make sure you've got eye contact and and really be conservative yeah and obviously uh my friend and i weren't or circumstances conspired to yeah to produce that situation so
here we are 13 months later um you're doing really well on the comp uh it's rehab yeah i'm sure i'm sure um but i mean they what can you teach us about you know coming back from something like that is it was it we were kind of talking before we started recording it because it wasn't like you guys were you know it wasn't like you were being stupid it wasn't like you made a mistake i mean you made him okay you guys made a mistake but it was like a complacency thing it was like just this weird i can't teach you much
about how to avoid that accident no i mean it's super aware of complacency how do you yeah yeah that's it oxymoron kind of yeah right yeah okay be aware of complacency yeah
exactly i mean i mean i don't think we need to say any more about that it's just great that people it's another reminder that you know on those mellow days is when we really got to be heads up but but um i'm thinking more like the mental side you know just was it was it the first time you flew again was it scary was it nervous where did you find you were in a different headspace than you ever were before in your lifetime of flight or was it like god damn it thank god i'm back i get to do this again uh
i was uh i was definitely nervous on the start i i bought a so i bought a lightweight school wing i needed to buy one uh anyway so i just bought two and uh i thought this is my you know i need something that's super easy to start doesn't not too fast um uh but i want to fly and i didn't have anything in my my my current quiver of gliders that suited that and i thought no and i don't know
your current quivers strangely
enough yeah um and
unfortunately as a result of the accident i have some nerve damage which uh is may or may not fully
recover but it's resulted in some limited movement in my left foot so uh that that means i i just can't run very fast and uh so i was nervous about how i was going to be able to take off and it was six months and one week after i after the accident that that i was on i was on rottweiler and um i had a perfectly groomed snow-covered takeoff which gave me lots of confidence and an easy wing i had about 5k front wind like conditions were conditions were perfect so um and uh yeah
i was i was nervous at the start um not about having an accident i was nervous about um how i was going to feel i didn't know how i was going to feel you know just talk of talking with psychologists psychiatrists in um you know just talk of talking with psychologists psychiatrists in in rehab um they're super um aware of post-traumatic stress and they were saying you know don't be surprised six months or 12 months or that suddenly um it hits you and you know touch wood till now um mentally things have been going just just great just fine so i was nervous about the takeoff but um i
was nervous about the takeoff but um i was nervous about the takeoff but um as soon as i pull the wing up um that just the the tension on the carabiners lifted the the lifting off enabled me to run as almost as fast with minimal limp um off the mountain uh much easier than what i expected so i was i was super happy though to be back in the air and uh i was supposed to fly down and um
was it that flight even i was supposed to fly down and land because um my my girlfriend was a student at the time um and maybe one or two others were up there and i was supposed to fly down and then and then get on the radio talking now and uh it was thermic and i could actually hang out so i was i was thermaling on my little jomo lightweight school wing and uh so i radioed the to the start and said um send students send a nook and uh so she launched and uh and we flew wingtip to wingtip which was which was very romantic and very healing and after all we'd been through together
that was a that was a big deal that was a huge milestone in the whole rehabilitation physically and mentally to to um to be in the air and then and then to fly with with this person who who's just been with me through this journey um yeah thanks a nook i love you
that's a great place to uh i think that's a beautiful place to end because otherwise i'm gonna start crying so um phil thanks man i i really appreciate it there's uh some great lessons there and uh i guess we got one more day of this awesome time comp so i look forward to flying with you and uh getting getting in the air with you in zermatt i i look forward to having you on that place a little around yeah but uh thank
you very much gavin it's been a pleasure and an honor i look forward to flying with you a lot in the future cheers cool if
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