Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud-Based Mayhem. For a long time, many people have been asking me to do a show on speed flying. And it's taken me a while to track some folks down that wanted to do that. Although I do a lot of speed flying, we've had, many of you know this, in Sun Valley, we've had quite a bit of issues with the speed flying community, which I'm definitely one of those folks. But it's been really tricky here, and it's just like that in the states everywhere, because there's very few places that have lift access flying, paragliding, speed flying, whatever you want to call it. And this is one of them, one of the few in the states. Many places like Jackson and Alta that did have banned it because of accidents, and it's been something that we have had trouble really trying to protect.
We had a death here last year on the mountain, on the ski area. A kid was breaking the rule that we have to try to protect the skiers. We're obviously worried about the pilots as well, but when you have lift access, you've got to really protect the ski area and the clients of the ski area, which are those that are on the mountain. So anyway, we've finally, just recently, I hope, really resolved that. And so this show is not really about that issue, but it's about speed flying in general. People wanted to do it. They wanted to know tactics and strategies and how you should learn. It's a super exciting, very new sport. It's also pretty cowboy, which is totally cool. I'm into that and into stuff without rules. But the fact of the matter is there's just been way too many accidents, way too many fatal accidents.
It's hard for insurance. I think this is an issue that most countries and most federations and clubs and stuff are really trying to deal with. So we wanted to just shed some light on some of that. So this is a great show. This isn't so much about how to become a great speed pilot, whether that's speed riding or mini wings or whatever you like to pursue. But it is a bit of a warning for people that are wanting to take it up. I believe, and so does my guest, Patrick Hennessey, that you should really get a base foundation in flying, in flying paragliders, before you get into speed flying. So you understand weather and ground handling and you understand the physics and dynamics. You understand the dynamics of flying a wing because when you get into speed flying, of course, you're flying low and really fast and you don't have any protection and you don't have any reserve.
So there's just a lot more inherent risks and that's showing up in the statistics. But I really believe it can be done very safely with the right preparation and the right training, just like paragliding can and hang gliding, what we always talk about on the show. So if you're into speed flying, if you're into flying mini wings, I think you're going to dig it. If you're not, you could probably skip this one. But I got together with Patrick Hennessey, who's a pilot up in the Northwest here in the States, who has some awesome videos. He throws down pretty hard, flies a lot of, does a lot of first ascents, a lot of hike and fly type stuff, and is, I think, a real ambassador for speed flying. So it came highly recommended. We had a great talk. So please enjoy this talk with Patrick Hennessey.
Patrick, really awesome to have you on the show. Welcome to the Mayhem. This is the first show we've done specifically. We're going to talk about speed flying and speed wings and speed riding. So this is going to be really cool. I've been following your stuff online for a bit. I was really happy that you were introduced to me and said, hey, you've got to talk to Patrick because I've been looking for someone that would be appropriate to talk to about this whole kind of mini wing side of things. Before we get into that, I would just dig to hear, and I think the audience would too, those that I know a lot are familiar with you and you're flying. But probably a lot aren't, especially our... Our European and Australian, New Zealand listeners and that kind of thing. So I understand also from before we started recording that you kind of got into this in a different way.
So why don't you elaborate on that? How did you get into flying and what was the catalyst and where did you come from?
Yeah, well, first off, thank you so much, Gavin, for having me on your show here and giving me the opportunity to get out there. I started out a very different background than most people. I grew up in a bike shop. So I came from years of downhill mountain bike racing and doing snow sports and other types of sports that were high speed, high intensity reaction sports. And from there, I learned a lot about progression and how to keep yourself safe because all of those sports beat you up. I actually started out as a skydiver and worked at Skydive Snohomish up here in Washington State and became a packer first off. I mean, before I even really got into skydiving, I started packing a lot. So I could really get an idea of how the canopies worked, what exactly goes into flight in one of these things and how to do it safely and keep yourself from having malfunctions with your canopy and whatnot.
So, yeah, I got into skydiving a lot, realized that it's something that wasn't sustainable for winter sports up here. So pretty quickly got into speed flying just because it's rad. You can go fly with your skis on and you don't need an airplane. You can go ski tour out into the backcountry and just enjoy. Enjoy your time out in the mountains and kind of have a peaceful way to be out in your canopy and just fly around in the mountains. So in terms of that, started out with a basic paragliding progression, took a P1 course through one of our local groups here. And they actually specifically shaped it towards speed fly progressions, which is awesome. But, yeah, I learned a lot about the thermals, learned a lot about the wind conditions. We live in a pretty active place up here in Washington where things change.
They change quick in the mountains. So you really want to be able to be on top of that and understand what's going on with the elements around you. Just like any other sport, you got to read the elements that you're surrounded by. But, yeah, aerial paragliding out of Washington and out of Kashmir, Washington. Aerial paragliding is a great course. Doug and Denise run the place and they're really good instructors. So great insight.
So that was at the ranch?
Yeah, at the ranch.
Okay. I didn't know they were teaching speed flying. They
strayed away from it a little. Just because of liability. But a few lucky guys got a good bit of instruction from them there.
So P1, so you took a standardized paragliding course from Doug and Denise. Is that right? Before you got into speed flying?
Yeah. And Doug and Denise have a really good zone there. It's a very beginner hill. Feels like what I'm used to with ski instructing. Putting yourself on a very green slope. Learning how to do the basics off of something where you're really comfortable. And that's what I would recommend for anyone as a progression, start out small, do lots of launches and lots of landings in a very familiar landscape where you're comfortable. Get those launches and landings dialed before you go anywhere else with it because those are the two hardest parts about flying is getting a solid launch and a solid landing.
Yeah. You don't get hurt in the air, do you? You get hurt. Usually not. Yeah. So, you know, for the purposes of all of you listening, you know, I do a lot of flying. I do a lot of speed flying and a lot of speed riding. But for the purposes of this interview, you know, I'm going to take Patrick through kind of like I didn't know anything about it. I think it'll just make things cleaner. But Patrick, one of the things that not bothered me, but it concerns me a lot about this new sport is that it's one, super awesome. And you know, it's just wicked fun and very, yeah, I mean, very few people could, you know, do it and not like it, right? You're flying really fast, close to the ground. It's really exciting. There's a ton of adrenaline. But, you know, kind of like skydiving, it's in a sense, but there's a big difference.
It's really hard to get much real canopy time, you know, unless you're ridge soaring, which has its own risks on a speed wing for sure, especially if, you know, if it's thermic, which is pretty dicey, but, you know, you've got to get thousands of flights on a speed wing to get even close to the hours you could get on a paraglider in the first two years, right? And so, and it seems to me like with skydiving or paragliding or hang gliding, you know, they've learned over the years that there's a, you know, there's a progression here's, you know, this is what you learn on day one, and this is what you should learn on day two. And they take you through, you know, a course and the courses are, you know, admittedly very, very different. If you're in Germany or Switzerland or Australia, we all have our own Ushpas and we all have our own rating systems and our own instructions.
And schools, you know, Denise and, and Denise's school is going to be a lot different than somebody down in Texas. Right. But the, but the problem is with speed flying is like, whatever, I shouldn't, I'm just starting it off negative, the problem, but it's not, but the thing with speed line, it's so new is, is I see it. Yeah. A lot of people are regulated
in comparison to the other sports. Yeah. And look at skydiving and with skydiving, you have to have all sorts of progressions before you can downsize wings before you can go to a different drop. Zone and be able to land in their smaller landing zones. All of these things are very regulated, whereas speed flying, most people, yeah, they can grab a wing and kind of set their own rate of progression and progress as fast as they want to, which in some cases is a little too fast for most people. Yeah.
Yeah. And, and, and, you know, in that kind of lack of one thing is super cool about it is that it is cowboy and when, you know, all sports go through that, you know, that zone, but I, I am seeing, you know. Just a ton of what I would call super unnecessary accidents. And I'm just wondering, you know, those of you who are kind of pioneering it and leading the charge and, and, uh, you know, getting your friends into it and stuff, well, you know, what would be new guy comes to you off the street. I want to get into speed flying. What do you tell them to do?
Yeah. So, I mean, I have that same scenario happening with me a lot right now. A lot of friends are coming up to me and being like, I love watching what you're doing. It looks great. I want to do it. My first response usually is no, you don't. No, you don't. You, you gotta get an understanding of what you're getting into before you really get into it. Cause, um, yeah, everyone just sees flying, they see floating around, they see having a good time and they don't understand a lot of the real big logistics that go into the background of them and being able to stay alive and stay safe out there. And I mean, the big thing I could tell you is for one start small, just like any sport, start out on a big, easy wing. That's going to float around and you're going to get a really good idea of how to use your harness for control. Use your hips, use your input. Everything's very different.
If you come from a big wing and paragliding, or if you come from skydiving, speed wings handle much quicker in terms of your weight balance control through the hips. You don't really have much of that in skydiving since you're attached to the shoulders and with paragliding, they're just such bigger wings that the tape, the time it takes to react is a lot longer than in a speed wing. So you see a lot of people jumping into speed wing and the first thing they do first launch is they start penduling. The whole way down, back and forth, swinging back and forth, just because they're using too much hip input and not sitting themselves center. Kind
of over-correcting all the way down the mountain.
Over-correcting the whole way down until they get a flare off. And hopefully that flare is somewhat level because that could be a bad scenario if you come in just swinging the whole way down.
So am I hearing correctly that should pilots get their P2, P3 before they ever even try a mini wing? You
know, that's a tough one. I really think that depends on somebody's background. A lot of people come into this sport not really having much experience with high speed or reactionary sports to begin with. And yeah, it's a very intense reactionary sport. You got to be able to be on top of it and make decisions within a millisecond sometimes. But for someone that comes into it with no experience, yes, highly recommended. Go get a lot of experience in a paraglider. Yeah. Starting as a skydiver makes a difference. But it's still a bit different if you're going to come over from a skydiving background and at least get some basic information, basic course off of a paragliding course. Just because it's very different. You go out into the mountains, you have to read the thermals.
You have to read any type of burble that's going to come off of a single ridge. Within skydiving, you're out in open spaces. You're not thinking about any of that. It's just, yeah, you read what wind direction you get and that's what your windsock tells you for your landing. And you come in for landing. It's pretty straightforward. Mountains are not as forgiving. So highly recommended that you get a good bit of knowledge of thermic wind activity. And yeah, P1, P2, P3 would be great to have before getting into this.
One of the things that struck me the first time, so I had thousands of hours paragliding before I ever got on a mini wing. It just wasn't on my radar because I was sailing around the world and we were in the Himalayas and that wasn't, it just wasn't happening. So when I got back to Ketchum, some of my friends here were flying really mini wings. The whole speed wing thing hadn't really even arrived yet. Yeah, it's a pretty new sport. Yeah. And the first time I jumped on a Bobcat, I mean, it was my very first flight. I was doing barrel rolls all the way to the ground. I was like, I cannot believe how easy these things are to fly. Now I am not recommending that to anybody, but it was because I knew how to fly a paraglider. Bobcats are
interesting wings. They handle it. They handle a little funny.
Yeah. Yeah. And it was, it was, you know, I, but what struck me was, you know, I was just hooping and hollering all the way to the ground and what struck me was like, that was way too easy. Like that wing was way too easy for me to do stuff that, you know, that I should have had more hours to have to figure out. And so what I, what I kind of, you know, thought in my head and you know, you should confirm this. But it was, was just that. I think that's one of the things that makes speed wings dangerous is that they are really dumb wings. In other words, they're, and I don't mean that as a negative, what I mean is they're, you know, they're. They're
fairly simple to figure out. Yeah,
exactly. They're pretty simple machines. And and yet you're flying really fast and you're flying pretty low. And so how do you, you know, you were talking about like, you know, it really depends on the person and they're, you know, what they've, where they've come from in terms of their, you know, how. How far do they look ahead? And, you know, are they a race car driver, you know, and I totally get that, but how do you, how do you hand over that kind of equipment to somebody and, and teach them to go slow? How do you, how do you teach them to be conservative?
That's a tough one. Cause you just look at the modern society we live in and everyone wants to go fast. Everyone's like, oh, I can do that and jump into it as quick as they can. But the biggest thing that I would tell them is, you know, there are a ton of consequences. And I'm pretty sure every one of us that do this at the level we do it at have been in accidents. I've, I've been in the trees once or twice and had a mislaunch once or twice that could have been a lot worse than it was, but realize that you should learn from other people's mistakes and really take that progression serious so that you don't have to learn from your own mistakes. I have a ton of friends recently getting hurt from things that really shouldn't have happened.
Either clipping a tree or getting sucked behind the burble on a soaring ridge on the coast. And yeah, I mean, they're going through months of rehab or hospitalization that it's not fun. Nobody wants to go through that. So we all want to do these sports for a long time. Just try to remember that, you know, it is a high consequence sport once you get into it and you start realizing that it is that easy to go fly the terrain through the trees that you want to fly. Remember that you clip a wing on a tree and you're going to be asking for it. So
Yeah, that, I mean, that that's perfect. I'm just wondering, is there, is there a big push in the, in the sport to, you know, to develop an acumen, to develop a course to what, you know, what's, what's happening from the legal side of things, you know, like tell me about PASA and, and that types, you know, what, what's, what's happening to try to reduce. Yeah. The accidents. And I, and I don't know if you can speak for other countries because I can't very well, but Yeah.
So it's interesting that you asked that cause I just joined a team based out of New Zealand called ultimate edge. And when I went to New Zealand last time, their regulations are much more strict, mostly because of the amount of tourist traffic they have with helicopters and whatnot, and just overall regulations with paragliders flying up around the island. They have a lot of air traffic. They have a lot of traffic in that small of a space, but their regulations are much more precise than what we have up here just because they want to keep people safe. And it's funny when you think about cowboy, I always thought New Zealand was a cowboy Island and everything was just wild and everyone does whatever they want to do down there. But as soon as I got down there, I really liked seeing how much regulation they have. Tell
me, give me some specifics. Tell me what, what are they like? What?
Well, for instance, you go to Queenstown and they have their, their gondola that you're able to go. Yeah. Take the chair up and do laps on it all day, but you have to check in with the regulation down below with the group. There's a club that actually maintains and manages the landing area there as well as the launch. You have to check in with them. You have to make sure that you're actually certified. You have your P2 license and within New Zealand, you have to have a whole separate paragliding license that you have to apply for. Same with skydiving, a whole separate license that you have to apply for when you go there. And
is that, is that quote unquote a, a paragliding license or is that actually a speed wing license?
That one's a paragliding license and the big part of that is, um, just the fact that they have a ton of tourists coming out there to go fly and I think they have to figure out a different way to really regulate liability for tourism.
So what's happening here in the States? You
know, they are starting to push mini wing licenses, but it's, it's a small thing that's, um, it's not as heard of mostly because a lot of resorts, a lot of places that are public to us flying aren't legal for us to fly there. I don't think there's a single ski resort in the States that allows speed riding.
And we, we have it here. We, uh, it's not something I should probably make public cause we don't want to get it shut down, but it's, you know, we, we have, uh, um, we're allowed to, to ski launch off Baldy, you know, so it's lift access. Uh, okay. But you can't speed ride. So let, let's, let's define a few things. So, um, you know, mini wing, speed wing, speed riding, you know, give, give everybody a definition. There's
a lot
of different varieties of
flying in the sport, exactly.
Speed riding to me is, you know, you're, you're on the terrain and, uh, tiny wings for
the most
part. And so we, we can fly any size wing, but we got to stay 150 feet off the ground over the runs, you know? So, yes. So we can't speed ride, but we can, you know, we can speed, we can fly. As long as we can make it to the LZ and, you know, it's lift access. So it's, it's super special. And one of the reasons I was really excited to talk to you is that, you know, that has been a pretty serious battle, uh, for a lot of years and it has been very uncomfortable at times because there's been some pretty serious accidents, including a death last year. Um, and, uh, you know, and it's, it's been this real, you know, it's been like this bipartisan thing, the speed wingers against the paragliders, which has been really frustrating because most of the guys that like,
you know, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're like, are
like me to fly paragliders. We also fly small wings. And so we've just recently made a huge ground there and I'm super excited about it. One of the speed guys is on the board and so that'll be terrific, but.
See, that's good to hear. And we have a little bit of that up here. I know, uh, Christopher Marin who flies, um, for Red Bull guys as well and maintains a lot of the flying up at Crystal Mountain, they've got permission to fly there. Um, and he does a great job with it. He actually checks to make sure people have their mini wing license or P2 license. Before they come out and fly, but similar deal, not really allowed to speed ride more or less a launch and land scenario. Yeah.
Yeah. So, so that's all very much still transient being defined. It sounds like, okay.
But it's good to see the progression heading that way. And I feel like just like any sport base jumping in Yosemite, if it were legal, things would be a little bit less dangerous in terms of when people go out there and do this stuff. Yeah. There, there would be a little more control. There'd be a little bit more knowledge from ski patrol to the, the pilots of where they can go and what they can do and how they can get rescued if they need it. Whereas right now it is still very cowboy, like you were saying, and everyone is kind of just pulling a wild card and doing things at their own risk without very much liability in the background here. What
about from a, you know, from a lawsuit perspective, you know, so Gavin McClurg opens a speed riding school in Sun Valley and starts teaching people. What, what certifications do I have to have, if any, uh, what kind of insurance do I need to have? You know, can I be sued? You know, what, what's, what's happening there? Because a lot of these families that are losing their kids have got to be pretty upset.
So, yeah, I mean, there is a definite, uh, struggle in that department for people to learn how to do this safely. Cause you look at, uh, some of the courses that we have out here and either they're a very paraglide based course or a very skydive based course. I mentioned the ranch earlier. Todd Higley out of Skydive Chelan actually does Speedfly Chelan and they do a quite a bit of, uh, teaching as well as, um, events and whatnot. They have a speed fest that they do every year, but for him, his liability is mostly from his skydiving side and he's able to use that insurance, I believe through Skydive Chelan.
Okay. So that's totally, so are most of these like speed schools, are they, are they umbrellaed under USHPA or are they doing their own thing?
See? I think that's where there's still a very large gray area in the States. Cause we don't, I mean, we have the mini wing license, but the mini wing license is more related to people that are flying 17 meters and soaring on the coast, I believe than full speed wings, like speed riding or speed flying, terrain flying isn't something that we really have ratings for here yet.
Let's get back to, you know, you were talking about people that come to you that, you know, they obviously see your videos and what you're doing and that kind of thing. And, uh, you got, you got a buddy, uh, that you really don't want to have, get hurt. Um, you know, take me through, you know, where would you send them? Where's a good place to learn? Uh, you know, where, where maybe, maybe they don't have the, the, they don't have the background that you did. You know, you're a little bit more concerned about their, their, uh, you know, cowboy side of things.
Yeah. And that aspect, I definitely, I mean, I've been a ski instructor for years, so I really want to see. I want to see people do things as safe as possible. Skydive Chelan, Speedfly Chelan does have actually a really good beginner hill. They have a little airport hill that you can shuttle with a car about 500 feet, clean launch, clean landing. And I do, I recommend people to go. I tell people on a regular basis, if you're looking into this, go check in with Todd or go check in with Doug and Denise and the ranch and, uh, try to learn as much as you can and get the best information you can. So you can do this safely. But yeah, where you, where you go to the ranch or where you go at, uh, airport hill there, if you're able to just go do laps on airport hill, get your launches and landings dialed and have someone like Todd who has some knowledge and experience giving you pointers on your launches and your landings and what you need to do better with your toggle control.
Or if you're letting your wing dive out in front of you on a launch, which a lot of people do at the very beginning stages, they don't know how to catch the wing and keep it above their head. And that's, you know, the best I can really offer is those two programs up here. Um, it's tough cause we don't have that many options. And for me to be able to take that on myself, if someone asks me, Hey, you want to teach me? I tell them directly, I'm not insured for that. I'm not liable for that. And I do not want to be liable for your, your, your injuries here. So I try to do the best I can to steer people in the right direction and, uh, give them as much insight as I can through a professional basis.
Is there, is there a common theme in the accidents you're seeing? I mean, is there, you know, could we put out a warning like, Hey, you know, these are the three things that are getting most people.
Yep. I think the most common theme that I would see three things wise. First one is people jumping down wing sizes is way too fast. I started in a 14 stuck with that 14 for two, three years before I downsized to a 10. And then now I've been flying this nine. Five, which still it's a big jump. Every time you go down, it's a big difference. So don't underestimate the power of a smaller wing. You're going to have a lot more learning curve to deal with when you're going that much faster to the big thing that I see a lot in speed flying is, yeah, people see videos like what Jamie Lee's doing or what, uh, Valentine to Luke are doing grinding ski chair lifts with their skis while they're flying.
And I think, okay, yeah, this is something. I can do. And they instantly try and progress too fast. They skip a few steps. They start doing barrel rolls sooner than they should be, or not really having a good solid idea of how to control their, um, their trim if they're coming in and doing train flying and being able to use rears or whatever to keep yourself at a nice glide ratio so that you're not buzzing the ground too hard or messing up in spots where you shouldn't be messing up. But basically, yeah. Yeah. Don't think that you're a hero right away. Take your time and learn how to do these maneuvers high off the ground. Go find a big mountain. That's, you know, 3000 vertical feet with a steep hill and practice all these barrel rolls and all these maneuvers up high before you even come close to coming down low with them.
And then the third one that I would say is people just not taking courses altogether. They just get a wing. They think that, okay, I can get somebody. That has a little bit of experience doing this, teaching me some stuff and I'll figure it out on my own. Don't ever recommend that to anybody. I highly recommend taking some professional courses from somebody. And if you have a P2 license, great. Um, still get somebody that has a ton of speed wing experience to give you some knowledge on the speed wing side, because it's still going to be way different than, you know, coming off of a paraglider to speed wings, much, much more, uh, quick reactionary time than being in a big wing.
Hmm. What's your most common accident?
I would say the most common accident I've seen lately is launches. Yeah. Uh, I feel like a lot of people, either they'll go out and risk weather. That's not quite the best. And I walk down from a lot of hikes. I'll spend two, three hours hiking. Um, a lot of the flights we have up here in Washington, we have some really good 6,000 foot vertical flights that, you know, you can spend five hours hiking. You can get a five minute flight, but, um, sometimes you get to the top and you have to hike all the way back down. And I think a lot of people get to the top of these hikes and they think, uh, I really don't want to hike back down. I'm going to try and risk this slightly funny wind that we have here. Something's coming over the backside or they're launching into the Lee, which I don't ever recommend, but people still do.
Yeah. Yeah. There's that element of just like telling yourself, okay, it's not. The right day. I shouldn't do this right now. And a lot of people kind of misjudge that and just get a little gung ho and go for it.
So are you seeing, are you, when you say, you know, most of the launches are there, they're launching into bad conditions or they're just blowing their launch?
Um, both. A lot of the launches we have in Washington here aren't like per se crystal mountain. They do some flying in the summer, but they don't have a manicured launch with AstroTurf. It's. A lot of rocky terrain that we have out here. Um, if you watch most of my videos, I'm putting up launches on mountain tops that don't really have a real precise lawn chair. It's just a little bit of a grassy knoll. And if you do botch that launch and let your wing get out ahead of you and start diving off your launch and clip yourself on a bush or clip yourself on a rock, that's where I see the worst accidents happening. Um, mostly because a lot of people jump to, and this is what I was talking about earlier with starting out small. They're getting a ton of practice doing these small launch and landings, but they'll jump to a big hill.
That's a little bit more above their ability rate too quick. And then we'll get to a launch up there, slightly panic and be like, okay, I didn't quite get that the way I wanted it to, you know, the winds pushed me down. I got a little sink and then, yeah, you see people clipping, clipping launches on a regular basis. And that's usually where I see some of the worst injuries. Uh, the other two that I mentioned earlier. Was a clipped wing and, you know, you see that happening with people that fly at a really extreme level. And sometimes they just think about where their body is versus where their wing is. You always got to plan for an extra 15 feet of air space above you because that wings wider than your body for sure. But, um, I'll try to hit a slot through a tree gap and yeah, of course one of the wing tips will clip.
And that's always something you see. In a sport, but being able to just tell yourself, you know, that slot's not for me. It's kind of hard.
You know, one of the, one of the things we were seeing for a while, and I, I haven't seen it in a while, but then maybe that's, they're just not posting or I'm not paying as much attention, but, um, you know, guys were flying small wings who were clearly not, you know, very good paragliders. I mean, so they were, but they were flying many, they were flying small wings, like in the middle of the day. And, and, and.
In the
conditions and just taking this horrendous wax and spin it into the ground. Is that, is that kind of traveled through the community that that's not
video you're talking about? Yeah.
And I'd heard that that was happening, you know, a lot and a lot around the world. And, and there were a lot of like the Chris Santa Croce's and stuff were like, these wings are not built for that. You guys that you can not thermal on a mini wing. Don't do it.
Agreed. And I've actually had, my landlord is, uh, one of the more well-known paragliders. Right. And he's, uh, he's been doing a lot of stuff around here and he'll, uh, do some really long endurance flights out of Leavenworth, Washington and get himself up to 12, 13,000 feet over the enchantments, which is pretty impressive to see where he can go with a wing from, from his house out to Glacier Peak all the way back is, it's pretty cool to see what he can do with the big wing.
Yeah. But
he says the same thing. He'll get up there to launch for his paraglider and he's midday. I always hike early, early in the morning. I try to beat any type of sun coming down on it. And get that crack of dawn flight. Cause you want that smooth air for speed flying. But, uh, yeah, he'll go out to the launch and he keeps telling me, he sees buddies that are going up there to launch midday and their speed wings. And I don't know what to tell those people sometimes. I mean, I tell them as much as I can don't fly midday, but some people think that speed wings are just because of the higher wing loading ratio, they're a little bit more stable and you should be able to fly straight through that turbulence. It's not. It's not something I would put to the test. Oh
yeah. That's just, that's a recipe for disaster. I mean, there's all kinds of things wrong with that. One, you don't have a reserve, you don't have any protection, you don't have any, you know, and, and they're not built for collapses, you know, they're, they can be pretty tricky. And there's no SIV
course for speed wings. I mean, I personally have been thinking to myself, I really want to start flying with a belly mount reserve, um, for some of the maneuvers I want to try in a speed wing. But yeah, I mean. That's. Most of the time you're so close to the ground that you don't really have time to throw a reserve.
Yeah. But like you said, you know, that my, one of the very first SIVs I ever took years and years and years ago at Jocky Sanderson, I asked him, it was the reserve day. And he was like, you know, I asked him, well, what's too low? And he, that doesn't exist. You know, he has seen reserves work from 10 feet. You know, if you, you never know, you might, it might be just enough. And that fabric, that fabric might grab a little branch of a tree, you know, you know, at least you got it. And
I'm honestly for it. So I'm going to start looking into that for this next summer. And I actually have a trip planned in March down to New Zealand. So everything, hopefully if it works out, I might have the opportunity to go fly with a Jamie Lee speed flyer. Who's one of my, my idols. I look up to that guy and really love watching his flying. So yeah.
Yeah, totally. He's doing some really cool stuff. Um, well, okay. So let's not all be down about this. You know what? Tell me about some of the cool stuff. You know, we've got a couple of things that we're going to talk about in a minute, but So let's start with the first one. How about techniques? Um, you know, so people have run the gauntlet of the beginner and they've made it through and, uh, you know, they, they're starting to build some respect for the sport and they're on that 14 and they're starting to think about, you know, so tell me, you know, when do you jump down? You know, when do you, when do you jump to a more advanced wing? You know, how do you, you know, how do you safely learn how to gap stuff and, and do barrel rolls and, you know, what's the, what's the methodology?
So like I was saying before, ideally always just start as high as possible, do as much of these maneuvers way up off the ground as you can. That way you have plenty of time to react and regain control. If you kind of lose it on a barrel roll. I remember my first few rolls, one over one or two of them spun roll and a half. And I was kind of like, okay, I got to correct this now just because the pendulum effect on the bigger wings, they kind of keep wanting to go. You get into these smaller wings and things. Do get a little bit snappier and more precise, but the control also becomes a little bit more instinctual when you get to the smaller wings and you do a roll and you don't actually need to preload your role and get a couple of warmup turns to get enough energy to get that roll around.
It kind of, like I was saying, becoming part of one of the elements, you, you kind of become part of one of the wings. And when you know that you're handling the wing. As one with it, then start progressing. But if you still feel like the wings controlling you for the most part, don't move down until you kind of get the hang of it. And you want it to really feel like it's attached to you. You want it to feel like you're, you're one with it before you move down to something smaller.
Are there, are there things people could do? Uh, you know, what, what I, what I've heard from a lot of speed pilots here is that they're like, yeah, we get it, man. I, it makes sense to go, you know, to learn how to paraglide first and to get your license and stuff, but you know, you got to buy the wing and it's expensive and you got to go to Utah. Um, are there other, are there other things people could do to, to, you know, to get the hours, to get the time, to get the ground handling, to get, you know, to build a foundation, you know, without subjecting themselves to, to the risks?
A little bit. I mean, I, it's the same thing. If you try to tell somebody to go learn how to skydive first, it's really expensive to go through the skydive progression. But I would honestly say I did a ton of kite flying as a kid. Trick kites, whatever you had, trilbies, whatever they were, foil kites for kite boarding. They're very relative to what we're doing with speed wings. Um, and then once you get a speed wing kite, that thing as much as possible, I see a ton of people that have really horrible ground handling skills. They get out there, it's windy and they can't, they can't do anything with the wing. It just keeps collapsing or flopping over to one side. Get really comfortable with your kite. Handling skills and your ground handling skills, any chance that you get when it's windy out, just go kite that thing.
That's probably one of the biggest things I could tell to any beginner that will help them even with handling the wing in the air. If you're able to control it that much better on the ground, it'll be easier when it's in the air.
Yeah. We've done, we've done whole shows on, on ground handling. That's cool. That, that, that crossover is, is perfect. Yeah. That's the, that, that ground handling teaches you everything that could happen when it's up in the air. So it's just so. So critical.
When you see a ton of people transferring into speed flying that all they want to do is forward launch and find days where they can go train flying and never really have much of a chance to experience soaring or reverse launch or high wind launches. And reverse launches is a totally different thing. Once you get out and you're on a coastal front and you have to stay in front of that wave and not let yourself get sucked behind the burble. That's honestly a great spot for people to learn things. Cape Kiwanda. You go out there on a day where it's. Pretty mellow. You can learn a lot about a speed wing in a short session.
Hmm. When you, when you get to, you know, your, your Jamie Lee level, uh, you know, for, for me, so I, I really prefer speed riding, you know, I don't do a lot of foot launch stuff in the summer cause I'm flying my paraglider and I like flying 10 hours instead of five minutes. So, you know, it's, it's, but, but I super dig it on skis. It's just, it's, it's very addictive, uh, and, and super fun. That's where,
where most people get into it for.
Yeah. And it, it, it's great. But the, you know, one thing for me is like still, when I go out and work for my turds, you know, if I'm, if I'm touring and, uh, and I've put all that effort into going up, you know, if the snow is decent, I still actually prefer to ski. I still prefer to make the turns down. Like how do you, how do you guys kind of keep the stoke up? I mean, because it's, to me, it's, it's this, it's, it's a game of, you know, when you first start, it's, it's epic, you're flying. And then, you know, to make it more exciting, it's, it's the wingsuit progression. Right. You got to, you know, wingsuiters don't jump out of planes and fly down to the ground. They, they, they proximity fly. That's what's exciting about it. But that's also the dangerous side of it. You know, is that, is that what's getting a lot of people? This is something that
I've had on my mind for months. I've had this conversation with every sport that I get into. And I mean, you can call us adrenaline junkies, call us what you want. I like to say, uh, extreme sports connoisseur because we're, we're pretty nerdy about this stuff. We research a lot. We try to make sure we know as much as we can. And yeah, I mean, I started out with mountain bike racing and there came a point where I was like, yeah, not really that interested in this anymore. And yeah, you can lose that intensity. You can lose that stoke. But for me, a lot of the flying I've done is been solo stuff. Washington doesn't have a big crew. And for me to go put up a lot of first descents post, most people don't have the experience or the, the willingness to go hike some of these hikes.
So yeah, it's intimidating being out there by yourself. I try to let as many people know as I can where I'm going, what I'm doing. But right now my stoke is flying with more people. Like if I have more people to come out and teach, just like I've been with snowboard instructing for years, when I see a beginner out there learning something new, even if there's just a little bit that I can tell them, Hey, you know, try this differently next time. That makes me happy to see someone excited about something in that, that element. That I used to be in like the beginner stage, you know, just share that with somebody is just as much stoke is going out and doing it for yourself at an extreme level.
Is there, is there a living yet to be made in speed flying? Are there, are there sponsorships or their contracts? Is there money? Is there winnings? Or is it all still pretty, you know, like you got to get a Red Bull contract or something?
Yeah. And you know, there's a few guys that have been able to figure out how to really make it work, but not really. It's, it's something I've been looking into. In our local community, I want to start an event up at our local resort here, Stevens Pass. They've been really friendly with us for speed flying and they allow us to take the chairlift up, but then fly just out of bounds. So we'll hike out a ridge, fly out of bounds and that's great. But ski patrol there has actually been pretty willing to work with us. And I'm hoping that maybe even this spring we can convince them to do one day where they shut down one chairlift and then let us just do last. And we could put up some gaps on it with speed wings and we could put up some gates on one of the runs. Movements like that is stuff that really needs to happen for there to be any type of money for it, I believe.
Get spectators involved somehow.
Exactly. And there's a ton of spectators. I mean, there's a huge following in the sport for how small of a sport it is and how young it is. You look at guys like Jamie Lee, he's getting millions of views on his videos just because people are like, oh, this is like flying a wingsuit, but cooler almost. And I've heard this from wingsuit pilots. They're like, yeah, well, when we get tired of wingsuit base jumping, we'll grab a speed wing.
Cool. That'd be a little safer anyway, for sure.
Yeah, I agree. I don't know about the whole base jumping thing to myself, but a lot of people will say speed flying is the base jumping of paragliding, whereas you got skydiving, you got base jumping.
Yeah, totally. What do you kind of envision for the, you know, where's it going to be in five years?
You know? That's a tough one. It's hard to see the next level of progression in these sports. And I've said that for every sport from biking to snowboarding. I grew up with all these things and I looked at them back in the day and I was like, oh, people are doing, you know, a single flip and a 360 and now they have to do like quadruple flip and 1440s to be cool at all. But, you know, the progression with speed flying, there really is only so much you can do. You can get really honed in with speed. Swooping. And that's one thing that I would almost recommend learning a bit from skydivers. Swooping in a speed wing is very different than swooping in a paraglider. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what I actually did when I was in New Zealand.
I worked at a end zone and they had a really good guy there, Miles McCauley, who he does the swoop challenge events over in Europe there in Munchen. And, yeah. Learning from someone that's got thousands and thousands of swoops makes things much easier than trying to go out there, especially with swooping. That's where most people get really messed up, coming into the ground too hot.
Yeah. Yeah. That timing is so critical.
It's precise. And with skydiving, they have beepers in their ear that go off at a certain altitude that they need to start their turns at. Speed flying, it's hard to get one of those altimeters to work the way you want it to. So, it's a lot of reactionary. It's a lot of instinctual timing.
Yeah, sure. As a community, you know, like I know the guys here, they go over to Chamonix in the winter and they have a blast because there's so many speed pilots there and stuff. Like if you're, you know, for the folks listening that are, you know, starting to get some hours and starting to look for like cool trips, cool places, cool times of the year, you know, do you have any recommendations there? Like, you know, communities that are doing it right, that are doing it safe, that are supportive. So,
Chamonix is amazing. I just got to visit there last. Last May and the amount of terrain that they have to fly there. But same thing, regulations, much more strict than you would expect. You think you go to the Alps and everybody's just hooting and hollering and doing crazy stuff, which, yeah, there's some different levels of perspective over there, but very strict on where you can land, where you're supposed to be flying, regulation of times with airplane traffic and whatnot. But, yeah, huge difference in the actual amount of people that fly. And the stoke that there is for it. I feel like there's just a different level of passion in Europe than we have sometimes here in the States. People really get passionate about things over there.
Yeah, they get into it, don't they? So, Europe's good. You've mentioned Jamie. So, you said New Zealand, the New Zealand Alps. New Zealand's really good.
And, yeah, so Europe's great in terms of accessibility. You have places where you're allowed to take the gondola up, you're allowed to take chairlifts up, and then they have designated launch zones that say, here, this way to the launch zone. Where, in the States, there's a lot of places that, you know, there's signs that ban flying. There's signs that say, no flying here type deal. New Zealand's similar. You have gondolas where you can buy a paragliding ticket and specifically take the gondola up to go paragliding all day.
So, accessibility's huge there. And if you're a beginner, highly recommend doing a trip to one of these places because you can get a lot of laps in. Whereas here, a lot of what you're doing is hike-a-flights. And you don't get as much airtime. You get really strong legs, but you don't get as much flight time.
You know, when we look at it from afar and you kind of see, like, what hang gliding and base and all these other, you know, quote-unquote extreme sports of, you know, the progression of what they've gone through, paragliding, you know, do you have a shout-out to the speed community about, you know, that, you know, from an organizational standpoint, you know, what kind of needs or what should, if anything, happen to you? And it's been there from a, you know, like a groundswell kind of perspective. You know, it sounds like, you know, because Europe just has the accessibility and the lifts and people don't sue each other as much as it's not as litigious as here, you know, they... But it sounds like, I mean, it sounds like you're saying that, you know, regulation can be a really good thing.
I mean, is that something that needs to happen here?
Yeah, I honestly feel like it does. And I mean, you know, for example, you... look at what happened with dean potter and those guys wingsuiting in yosemite that place has been banned for flying ever since the beginning and i know you've thought it i know we've all thought it that place would be a mecca for flying um but yeah just the fact that people are pushing these things at dusk or dawn and you know some of the ski resorts allow us to fly right after the last chair but that's you know four o 'clock it's starting to get dark and you know visibility is not as good the depth perception is not as good and that's i'm sure what happened with dean potter and those guys um they're flying at dusk so if we were able to legalize it have more regulation allow people to go fly during the times of day where it's really safe to be out there and
manageable i feel like that would be the best progression or the best step forward for the sport in terms of being able to fly at a resort like i was saying uh christopher marin doing quite a bit with ski patrol to make sure that they're checking people's mini wing licenses and ratings i feel like if we can get that initiative to really start in our community um which i know is hard a lot of people just want to go cowboy and be wild out there and not have to pay for permits or licenses but yeah that would probably keep us all safer keep us all a little bit more knowledgeable about what's going on with the rest of the community and allow us to have more places to go fly yeah
i like it i mean i i really see a need for kind of standardizing things a little bit and i'm you know i'm not for rules as much as anybody else is you know but it's uh you know i i think that the the writing's on the wall to an extent that if the if the accidents continue it's just gonna be we're gonna have less and less places to fly and exactly that sucks they banned it from jackson last year and uh it's just you know they banned it from alta and it's it's um you know that yeah so that's a great place to end maybe a shout out to the community those of you who are who are listening you know band together that's how things change is you know becoming a group and working to find a solution and because it is a bitchin sport it is a lot of fun
i know most of the guys that are at the upper level and actually putting themselves out there and putting a good name out for the sport they would say the same thing just try to stay safe and put a good name out there for us because yeah it's like base jumping it's a small group it's a small scene and if we keep losing people people are going to start looking at us funny and being like should we allow these guys to jump i know chamonix just banned wingsuit base jumping off of luma deke because one too many people passing away yeah
yeah exactly exactly we
don't want to lose those privileges yep
great patrick awesome place to end uh i really appreciate your time man and i'm i'm stoked to fly with you here one of these days i dig the northwest i get up there a lot so uh we'll we'll put that in our uh to-do list um but thanks so much man i appreciate it we've been trying to put this together for weeks and i'm glad we finally did that was that was super uh informative thank you
perfect thank you gavin one more shout out to uh 510 shoes for helping me out as well as kavu clear above visibility unlivided it's a local washington clothing company they've been great supportive helping me get out there as well as if you're enjoying the uh flying that you've been seeing come follow me on youtube and instagram and facebook patrick.hennessey or patrick hennessey as an athlete and uh hope to see you guys out there cool
yeah and i'll put all those links up in the show notes uh barry's a good friend of mine at the kavu tell him i said hi and cool cool patrick thanks so much man i appreciate it
thanks gavin have a good one i
hope you enjoyed that if you're getting something out of the show if you're getting something out of the mayhem either through uh either you're flying better or just from an entertainment value or both uh help support the show is a listener supported podcast we're not doing it with sponsors uh you can do that in a whole bunch of different ways uh financial of course is the most obvious you can find those links to support us either through paypal or through patreon.com forward slash cloud based mayhem where you can kind of set it and forget it and you only pay when content comes out you can set that at a dollar or two dollars all we've ever asked for is a buck a show but if you if you contribute more you get t-shirts and hats and all kinds of stuff uh or you can support us by just spreading the word tell your friends put it out there on facebook or social media uh talk about it on the way up to launch i think i just was down in mexico at the monarca i was amazed with how many people were talking about you know they they talk about it and argue about it on the way up to launch and you know it seems to be making the community a lot safer and also a lot better and so that's pretty exciting but you can also support it just by following me on instagram or facebook or any of those i can leverage that into my sponsorship contracts every year so that goes a long way uh let us know who we should talk to i've got a big long list we've got a whole bunch of these in the can so stay tuned for more we'll see you on the next show see you cloud base cheers