Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud Base Mayhem. Okay, first some housekeeping. I asked for people to put up reviews or share stuff in return for being on the list to win one of these really cool paraglider need-to-ride-to-car signs that Josh Heater, a friend of mine down in Utah, puts out. Super lightweight, great little things you can just throw in a tiny little bag that they come with and keep them in your kit. And so I've got those winners. I'll be reaching out to those, but one of them I wanted to read by Andy Reid. This is just kind of cool. He put up a review on iTunes and Stitcher that says, Stop. Look no further. It doesn't matter if you're an experienced pilot with hundreds of hours under your belt or a complete rookie.
These podcasts provide something for everyone. Gavin McClurg gets into all sorts of conversations with some of the world's most experienced pilots to gain access to their wealth of knowledge and wisdom and get out to the free-flying world. In a world overloaded with information of varying degrees of authenticity, you can choose to trawl through a mass of videos, podcasts, books, and documents, or you can come to the Cloud Base Mayhem and get a mass of well-informed information distilled straight to you. From SIV to ground handling, from racing to ridge soaring, from meteorology to aerodynamics, from paragliding to hang gliding to sailplanes, it's all there. Save yourself a load of time. Download the whole back catalog of podcasts. And there's now, what, 60? Four? Sixty-five? Get comfortable and settle in for some fascinating, funny, eye-opening, and awe-inspiring stories from free-flight enthusiasts who cannot help themselves, just tell us why they do what they do that we all love so much.
So, thank you, Gavin, and all those who contribute to make this such a fantastic resource. Keep up the great work. So, thanks, Andy. I really appreciate that. Put a smile on my face. And, yes, thanks to all of our guests who make all this possible, and thanks to all of you who make all this possible. This show is... It was kind of cool. We take a little diversion here. We've been doing that quite a bit lately. I was down in Valle de Bravo for the Menarca this January. There were a lot of reserve tosses. We've talked about them on some of the recent shows. All of them went really well, I think. I didn't hear of any that didn't go well. And one of them was by our editor, Miles Connolly. A couple weeks later, he sent me a long email about, you know, kind of what, in the aftermath of that, what he'd learned.
And what he should have done. What he should have done differently. And, you know, some stuff with the in-reach, and radios, and retrieve, and just safety, and psychology of throwing the reserve. SIV.
All the aspects that go into throwing a reserve. It's not just one simple thing. You know, it's usually a cascade of things. Often a cascading event in your wing. But, yeah, he just... He learned a lot from it, and I learned a lot from it, actually reading his email. So, we thought it'd be really fun to do a show. Just dedicated to his reserve toss. So, you know, it's something that comes around for most pilots, somewhere in their career. For acro pilots, it's very common. They do it all the time, and it's not a big deal. So, we want to make throwing the laundry not a big deal. And it shouldn't be. They do work, but many people are pretty nervous about it. And you really do have to have the right headspace. Not only just the technique of getting it out at the right time, and not throwing it into your wing and stuff. But, you know, just kind of having the right net.
And the right mental attitude about a reserve, rather than pounding in. So, this is a cool talk. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. It's one of those really important ones. And, you know, you're not going to learn how to fly a lot better from this. But part of flying a lot better is being safe. And this certainly goes to that. So, without further delay, please enjoy this talk with our editor, Miles Connolly.
Miles, dude, so cool to have you on the show. The dude behind the scenes that edits all these puppies. And makes them sound so cool. So good. We were just down together a few weeks ago in Mexico at the Menarca. And you had a little episode right before I got there. Actually, right when I got there. It was right before the comp started. You were super stoked. Yeah, it
was like your first or second day. Yeah.
You were super psyched to fly the comp. You'd just been down there for a week. And you were rallying and stoked. And had a little episode. And we've been getting all this feedback, as you know. Because you get to hear all these from tons of the listeners that they wish I would speak to more people with lower hours. That are kind of going through that whole intermediate thing. And that's kind of squarely where you are. Yeah, for sure. And so, I'm just so psyched you reached out and said, Hey, man, I've had a few weeks to think about this. And I think we need to talk about reserves more. And the whole psychology. And basically like break it all down. Like what happened. So, why don't we start off with just you as a pilot.
Before Menarca. How many hours? How many years? What you've been doing? What wing were you on? And then let's get into kind of what happened that day.
Yeah, cool. So, first off, I'm just so happy to be doing this for a bunch of reasons. But it's a real pleasure just to be and a bit surreal to be on this side of the mic and talking to you about it. So, I'm a P3 pilot. I have 120 hours. I started flying in 2015 and took my P2 training through Eagle in Santa Barbara. Did the whole paragliding boot camp in about two weeks' time. And it was epic. And it was everything that I dreamed it would be. And I literally like when I called Rob and said, I want to take paragliding lessons and I want to order all the gear. He's like, well, maybe you want to try the lessons first and then see about the gear. I was like, no, man, I'm fully into this. Like I've been looking at it for 20 years. This is my thing. I'm doing it. And he's like, okay, brother. Yeah. So, it was great.
So, yeah, 120 hours in two and a half years and pretty wide ranging. I mean, I'm very lucky. I'm a documentary filmmaker and I get to travel the world. And paragliding is just this sort of magical escape that I can use when I need it on location. So, in those years, I've flown in France. I've flown in Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, England. I've also flown here in the Owens Valley and up there with you in Sun Valley last summer. And I've done some pretty good cross country runs. Nothing like what you guys do. But for me, 30, 40, 50 miles is a good run and feeling like I'm building my hours and my experience. So, while I'm not an expert, I'm not a rookie either. And yeah, I've had some moments in the air and felt like I had it under control.
I haven't done an SIV course yet and we'll come back around to that. But it's something that was high on my list of priorities. And it's much higher on my list of priorities now. So, yeah.
So, that day, you know, I think a lot of people listening have flown VIA. It certainly has a reputation. But, you know, let's break it down a little bit before we get even close to, you know, what happened. You know, just for the folks who haven't flown VIA, you know, explain to them. Because this was your first trip to VIA.
Yeah, it was. I've been hearing about it since I started flying. And it was one of those places that I was kind of holding off on. Because it has a little bit of a rep for being spicy, you know. But, yeah, this little talk that we're going to do is really to kind of dig down into the reserve toss experience. Because so many people that we have on the show, they're like, oh, yeah, and then I toss my reserve. Or, oh, I pulled it out accidentally. I came down under reserve. And they make it sound so casual. And yet, when you're there and you're like reaching for the handle, it does not feel casual at all. And so, in the weeks since I was down there and tossed through the air. And I threw the reserve, I've had a lot of chances to just think about it. And I feel really good. I'm glad I threw the reserve. But I'm also kind of, yeah, I feel a little sheepish.
Like, why did I get into that situation? What did I do to put myself in a place where I needed to throw the reserve? Could I have done something better or more or less to have averted the reserve toss? And the answer is definitely yes. So, yeah, just the thoughts that have come to me in those weeks I thought might help other people who are kind of at my level. Or a little bit less. And, yeah, so let's talk about Valle. So, Valle is world class. I mean, it is just the coolest place to fly for so many reasons. Mexico is amazing. Food is amazing. People are amazing. Every single day, you're just up there in real air, real thermals, flying. It's the first time I've ever thermaled up in a gaggle with over 100 pilots. And I'd seen all the videos. And I was just like, man, I hope I'm ready for this.
And when I got into it, I was like so ready for it. And I was just loving it. And to be there with friends and people that had been instructors with me in Santa Barbara, it was just epic. Yeah, it was a really good, good thing. And that day was my sixth day flying. So I'd already set personal best. I'd done a five-hour flight, which was my longest flight to date. I'd done the longest out-and-back flight that I'd ever done before. And, yeah, I was feeling, again, kind of that intermediate syndrome. Like, hey, man, I think I have this place pretty dialed. Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good about it. So you were
feeling confident. Yeah. Like you weren't feeling sheepish on launch that day or like, oh, maybe this isn't a day for me. No. You were like, oh, this is it. I'm getting after it.
No. And, in fact, it was interesting because, you know, El Pinyon, which for those that don't know it, is this big sort of giant rocky wall that just juts up out of the plane. It's a pretty gnarly place to fly. And especially in a crowd, you'll see people kind of coming into that phase. And they'll just suddenly start rocketing up at four, five, six meters a second. And it's real. You know, it's punchy and it's full on. And I remember going in there and going, I'm ready for this. I've got it. And being like 50 feet away from the wall and just getting lifted and just being like, yeah, man, I'm loving this. Not knowing at all like really how bad it could go, how fast it could go bad. And so I handled all that. And that was great. But it was also that should have been an indication to me like, hey, man, where are you on your scale?
Which we'll come back to in a little while. But yeah, so that particular day, I don't know why, but you and I buddied up with Flynn. And we took a taxi up to launch. And we were talking about the Theo De Blic episode because we had just finished that. And I think it had gone up on the podcast. And one of the things that I took away from that, because I will never be an agro guy. Like that stuff just seems batshit crazy to me. But you learn something from every one of these podcasts. And Theo was saying, oh, yeah. Like any time he balls up the glider, he has this protocol. He like knows the steps that he goes through before he tosses his reserve. And step number one is where am I in terms of altitude? And then, you know, he goes through this process. And it's just automated. He doesn't even think about it. He just like goes through the process and it works.
And so we were talking about that. And it was just fresh in my mind, you know, on the drive up. And then when we got up there, it's crowded, you know, Valle on launch on a good day. There's 150 plus people all sort of jockeying for position. And this is before the comp. So it was just wide open with everybody kind of like I remember watching two and three wings go off at the same time. Like brushing wing tips off of launch and stuff like that, which, you know, to me just seemed a little bit, you know, aggressive. But at the same time, that's how you get everybody off in that window when it's launchable. So I got all my gear together. And like I said, I had been flying there for a few days already. So I was pretty comfortable with the setup. And I launched. And as I was going off towards the house thermal, I remember climbing up.
And suddenly I saw somebody sort of spiral it into the trees. And I remember thinking when they were still up above, like, just toss your reserve, just toss your reserve. And they didn't do that. And so right away, I'm kind of like, wow, what just happened there? Like why didn't they throw their reserve? And they had plenty of time. They could have done that. And they didn't. And I found out later that that woman basically like balled it up. And she just hopped into the trees and walked away without a single tear in her glider. And I was very jealous of that. But at the same time, I'm guessing that that was just very, very lucky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So seeing that crash, again, it just made me hypersensitized.
Before we move on, you know, I was just going to say, you know, the Theo thing, the Theo De Blic, the other one that I always think of is Revis, you know, in his talk on the podcast. Yeah. He was really talking more about like just always having in mind. Your height and how much time are you going to give it? You know, okay, I'm at 500. I'm at 1,000. I'm at 10,000. You know, all these different levels where you're just constantly conscious of, okay, if I totally lost the glider right now, how long would I have before I had to throw the reserve? Because you get kind of tied up in trying to deal and you lose the, you know, you lose your perspective, which is everything. That's what's so important. And what I really liked about Theo's wasn't just so much the process.
But just the psychological aspect of throwing. Just having it in your mind. This could be the flight where I throw. Yeah. Exactly. Because they could all be that flight, you know. And just having your head around it. Yeah. Anyway. So you went in with that. You kind of went in with that psychology. That's great. But I think, too,
I mean, all due respect to Revis, who's a superstar, like you can become obsessed with that kind of thinking. And it actually takes away from the quality of your flying. Yeah. Like if you start to work through those permutations. And Revis has that kind of brain where he's always processing that stuff. I think that that would be distracting to me. So for me, it really, it starts on launch. It's like today might be the day. What are you going to do? Like just going through what you need to remember and where you need to be in your head so that you're not hesitating. I mean, I think it was Pal in one of the podcasts. He said, when you're practicing new moves in acro, like every flight is a reserve toss. That's the mindset you have. And I remember thinking that later. Like, yeah, man, that is the mindset you should have every flight is just this might be the time.
Am I ready for that? Like just mentally go through the motions because it's easy. You know, I fly Crestline a lot. And I love that place. But it's pretty full on up there. And you've got the hangies, you know, gearing up. And it's windy up there. And so you kind of get in your head. And you're like, yeah, yeah, I got this. And you do the sort of five-step pre-flight check and all that stuff. And you're going through the motions. But are you really stopping and thinking about that stuff? Are you just kind of like tapping your helmet, tapping your buckles? I'm good to go. So what I do now is actually gear up before I step out on the launch. And I just go through the mental process. But, yeah, it's all, you know, these are all lessons that I've learned now. But at the time, it was like, yeah, man, I'm good to go. This is all going to be great. So, yeah, so seeing that crash right off the launch, again, it just made me kind of hyper aware.
Like, oh, yeah, this is real. You know, like you better be ready if it comes today. And so that day was like the pre-flight. It was a perfect day. I mean, we were just flying. And I got farther out. I got way out past, like, DeViz. And another pilot and I were kind of tag teaming it. So one of us would get high and push ahead. And then the other guy would follow. And then he would get high and then push ahead. And so we were just kind of working our way back. And he was out there by Three Kings out in front. And for those that don't know VIA, it's basically like there's a convergence line that runs sort of west to east. And you just try and stay on that line. But sometimes it gets a little sinky. And so you're searching. You're searching for rising air. So he was out by the Three Kings area. And I was just kind of killing time over Magway. And I'd spent, I'm not joking, probably two and a half hours flying that spot three days earlier just scratching.
It was lifty. It gets rowdy there. But there's rising air. And that's a good trigger. That's a good place to climb out or so I thought. And on that day, I had gotten back there into the Magway Mesa again. And, yeah, it was just a little punchy. And I was just kind of killing time. And I got up a little bit. And I was on bar. And I was pushing out towards where Brian was trying to kind of catch up to him. And, yeah, I just was flying along. Everything seemed pretty good. And then it wasn't. You know, I took a pretty big collapse. I was probably, you know, I've gone back and put it up on do-a-rama. And it's quite eye-opening to see your flight with thermal circles and everything. And then suddenly a vertical drop straight down in the do-a-rama track. But, yeah, so I was probably 800 feet above ground.
But the trees there are 100 plus feet tall. So for me, yeah, it all happened pretty fast. So the wing kind of like collapsed. And then I tried to control it. And then it went behind me. And then it shot forward. And when I swung under it, I put a twist in the risers. And then when it came back around, I was trying to untwist. And it just none of it was feeling very good. And the whole time I'm tired. It was just dropping. And so Theo in the back of my head is like, where's your altitude? And I looked. And I was like, not good, dude, not good at all. And I reached for the handle. I grabbed it. I pulled it out. And I checked it out. And I was waiting for that solid tug that I'd heard about. And it didn't come. And I just reached behind my head. And I found the bridle. And I gave like a full whack on it.
And then I balled up and was in the tree. So I never even saw the reserve open. I never felt it open. But I know that it opened. Because when I was in the tree later, it was totally open and laid out over the top of the tree.
So yeah, that was pretty, pretty hairball. But I remember, and you'll find this funny or not. But I remember the moment I was like, yup, I'm throwing my reserve. Being stoked. Being like, yeah, buddy, I'm throwing a reserve. This is real. And I know what to do. It was hilarious. OK, great. And so yeah, there was this moment where I settled in the tree. The pine needles are raining down. Everything is just kind of like, whoa, what just happened? And then it's like, OK, I'm OK. You do the body assessment. You make sure everything's all right. And yeah, it was pretty full on. So for me, you would think that throwing the reserve would be kind of the riskiest, scariest part of the day.
But actually, when I started to assess my situation, I was a good 20. Plus maybe 25 meters above the ground in a tree. And I was hanging out at the edge of the tree. So I wasn't close to the tree trunk. And I remember reaching and grabbing a branch and pulling on it, trying to pull myself closer to the trunk and having the branch snap off in my hand. And it wasn't a twig. It was like pretty solid branch and thinking, OK, that's not good.
And so again, like I'm trained to just chill. In bad situations, like people who work with me in pretty hairball situations know that when it gets really gnarly, I get really quiet. Like I start to just breathe. And it's like that's one of my calling cards. And so I was just like, all right, just chill, man. What's going on here? So the first thing I said is I need to communicate. I need to let people know that I've landed in the tree and I'm OK. So I grabbed my radio and I said, you know, came down Magway Mesa. I've landed in the tree. I'm OK. Working my way down the tree now. And then I had the in-reach. OK. The Garmin InReach. And I punched in a note and said, hey, guys, here's the deal. I've landed in tree. I'm OK. Great.
Figured that I've now communicated my situation and it's all good. And then I have a whistle and I blow on the whistle and I hear these farmers coming up the hill. So that's a good sign. And I'm just trying to kind of get it all together. So the farmers arrive and, you know, they're shouting at me from way down below. And they're like, you need to come down. You need to come down. And fortunately, I speak enough Spanish to kind of communicate with them. And I said, well, I want to come down. Trust me. But I need to just take a moment to kind of gather myself together. And they're like, no, you need to hurry. You need to come down now. Do you have a rope? And I said, I don't have a rope. And they said, well, we have a rope. And you can just see the whole thing is ratcheting up. They're kind of freaking out.
And I'm just in the back of my head. I'm like, get me the hell out of this place. I want to just get my feet on the ground. But man,
dental floss. Like, I was so happy to have dental floss. And it's one of those stupid things. You know, you hear about these little things like, yeah, you should always carry dental floss. And I'm a big guy. And I'm sort of heavy on the wing. So I'm always looking for a few ounces here and there. And I've done stupid things like left my little micro leather man behind and stuff like that. But dental floss is one of those things in Valle. You should have two packs of dental floss. Anyway. I send the dental floss down. And the dudes send up the bitter end of the rope. And I get it up to me. And I can't detach my pod. So I have to get out of the pod. And I put my foot on another branch which snaps off. And so that's not good. And then the guys shout up to me like, this tree is dead.
You need to get out of the tree. So all this is just adding up to be like, oh, the reserve toss maybe wasn't the worst part of today. But so they send up the rope. And I'm looking at it. And again, it's a pretty significant length of rope. And I can see they've knotted it in the middle. It's actually two ropes. And so as I'm trying to tie in, I suddenly think, well, I should probably check that knot, right? Because my life is depending on it. And so I pull it up. And it is the sketchiest square knot ever. I don't even think it qualified as a square knot. It definitely could have just slipped with me coming down. And so I tied a proper knot. And then I put myself. I did a little swami belt. And I wrapped the thing around the tree. And then at this point now, I'm making jokes with these guys. Like, hey, should we negotiate the price now or when I get on the ground?
And they're laughing. And they're like, I said, it's going to take two or three of you guys to hold me. And they're like, what? How much do you weigh? And I'm like, yeah, I'm probably the weight of two of you guys. And they're like, no way. And at the same time, they're saying like, just wrap the rope under your arms. Like, you don't need to take time to do a swami. And I was like, no, man. You wrap the rope under your arms, you can suffocate. Like, your diaphragm, you can't breathe. You know, I learned this before. So again, I think one of the key lessons was just taking your time and being chilled. Like, you are the pilot in control. You need to take charge. And you need to make sure that everybody understands what's going on. Finally, I get the rope sorted out. And the guys are on belay. And I'm coming down the tree. And you know, the whole time, they're like making jokes.
Like, I think he weighs 100 kilos. And the other guy's like, I'll bet you 50 pesos this guy weighs 110 kilos. And they're like slowing me down so they can take bets on the way down. And I'm just like, this is great. You know, awesome. But I get on the ground. And I'm super stoked, first of all. And I'm shaking hands. And I'm saying thanks to everybody. And I'm looking at my in-reach. And I see it's still cycling the message. And at that point, I'm thinking, oh, man, maybe that message didn't go out. So that's kind of a drag. But again, it's not that I was in a state of shock. But probably I was to some degree. But at the same time, it's like I was very focused on the situation at hand and wasn't really worried about what was, you know, outside my arm's reach.
But anyway, yeah. So I say to the guys, like, okay, you know, I've got to get my gear down. And they go, yeah, yeah, we've got a plan for that. And I said, great, what's the plan? And this, like, 14-year-old comes walking out of the forest with a chainsaw. I was like, what? And they're like, yeah, yeah, that tree is dead, man. Like, no one's going up that tree to get your gear. You're lucky you made it down alive. And I was like, what? Wait a minute. You're going to cut the tree down with my wing and my reserve and my harness and everything, you know, 80 feet off the ground? And they're like, yeah, that's the only way you're going to get it back. So I backed out of the way. And they revved this thing up and charged it. And they were really good. I mean, they're like farmers in a forested area. So they know how to cut down trees. And they dropped it right in this clearing. And when I collected the wing, it had a little tear, like maybe a half-meter tear down one end.
And it was really the reserve that just got perforated because the fabric is so light. And it took about 20 hits. But the pod was fine. Everything else was fine. And so collected it up and went down into town, bought them a bunch of beer, paid them a pretty fair price, I think, what I would pay to get my stuff out of a tree in the States. And, yeah, it was the perfect day. I mean, it was literally like sitting here telling you about it. It could not have gone better. Could it have gone worse? Hell, yeah. But for me, I feel like – I mean, yet
another – then you had to sit there agonizingly for the next five days waiting for your wing to get fixed and had to pretty much watch the Menarca go by. But we had at least a couple reserve tosses every day of the comp. And then I know there were many more before and I'm sure after Valle does that. Especially when you're racing with a whole bunch of people. But I don't think there was a single injury. No. With all the reserves I heard about, there was John Hunt, our good friend down in Wyoming, through his the last day and – And landed on like a boulder pile. There might have been some ankles and stuff. Yeah, exactly. He landed in a nasty spot and he was totally fine. So let's – so just – we'll stop there for a second and go reserves are great.
Use them. Get them out. But what – since – Since your feet hit the ground, you've had all this time to kind of digest. Before we move on to some of the other takeaways, you wrote in your email that there was quite a bit there like, okay, I was psyched I threw my reserve. But should I have gotten in that? Could I have avoided that situation altogether? And then you mentioned something about the in-reach. But now with 2020 hindsight, what would you have done differently about just everything? Yeah. So – Thus far. Thus far. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. So I think the first thing is I was in a place that was not a happy place. And I was just sort of scratching around because I thought that's what great pilots do. Like great pilots just power through the bad stuff and they scratch and they make it work. And I've come to realize now telling this story to other people and some great pilots that I've talked to that great pilots actually don't do that. They get some altitude. They get clear. They don't hang out in shitty places because shitty places are where bad things happen. But when you're a fairly new pilot and you're trying to emulate, you know, the great ones and you watch way too many YouTube videos and things like that, you think that that's normal. So where I fly, which is mostly Marshall, Crestline, Santa Barbara stuff, conditions are such that they're pretty tame most of the year or you know what the situation is.
And we get, you know, within 100 feet of the ground in the terrain on a regular basis. But in areas that we're very familiar with, that we're very used to. In conditions that we're very comfortable with. To go to a new place and fly like that and be, you know, in a situation where I wasn't comfortable but I was just kind of living there waiting. Yeah, now I would have gotten out of there. Even if it meant landing out somewhere, like that would have been way preferable. So I think that that's a good lesson to learn is that scratching and being close to the terrain is never a good idea if you have an option. And especially a bad idea if you're in a place that you don't know, you don't have wired. And you probably never have any place wired. I mean, do you have Sun Valley completely wired? No. Some days maybe. No way. Yeah, exactly.
Like there are days where it can still bite you, right?
Yeah. And I think scratching is a term that's pretty nebulous, you know. You know, we hear it all the time. And I think it's wise to point out like you have that, you know, that there's a million different versions of that. And, you know, in the flats that could be, you know, a low save can literally be 10 feet off the ground. Yeah. But, you know, if it's in the middle of the day when things are ripping off really strong, you know, a lot of pilots have gotten in really serious trouble scratching off the ground when it's a dust devil or something. Yeah. I mean, if that thing's wound tight, there's almost no skill that can handle something like that. You know, like scratching in McGee, like where you were, you know, the problem there is it's pretty shallow terrain. Yeah. So you don't really have, if you don't, if it doesn't work, you don't have a great place to run.
And so scratching there is at the top of the ridge, you know. Yeah, exactly. Scratching there is not down on top of the trees down in the flats. That's, you know, you don't have a bailout then. Yeah. So, you know, scratching requires, you know, there are extremes to this. Some
options. Like
when, yeah, you know, when Will and I crossed the Rockies, you know, we were constantly flying over terrain where there was no place to land. But you're going to places that have a really, really high odds of being able to get out. You know, because you've got those skills and you know that that's a trigger and that should work. And, you know, so that can be scratching too, but you've still got 2,000 feet of air below you. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
That's just experience. The other thing that I mentioned was the in-reach. So a couple of things about radio and satellite communications that have come very clear to me now. The first one is with the in-reach. It's an amazing device. I mean, we had a situation where we were flying pine last summer. And we had a couple of pilots go down in the Cespi wilderness. And, you know, they weren't far from the road, maybe four or five miles, but it was full on bushwhacking. It took seven, it took ten hours for each of those guys to come out. And because we had the in-reach, it was basically just a wait and watch situation. And when they came out, I had beer and fried chicken and it was all smiles. You know, it was all good. But if we didn't have that stuff and those guys had landed in the wilderness, like, I don't know, how long do you wait before you call search and rescue?
And any time you're calling search and rescue, that's not a good place to be for anybody. Search and rescue guys, you, the people on the ground, it's just bad. So I'm a big fan of the in-reach device. I think it's probably one of the reasons that we're able to fly the lines in the way that we do. But here's what I learned is that the in-reach isn't very good when the satellite coverage is obscured by trees. So when you're 100 feet down in the forest and you're not getting good solid satellite coverage, that message that you thought you'd sent to everybody saying, I'm okay, didn't actually go out. And, yeah, I feel bad because— So you
got one out— An hour later. You got one out that was, I've landed in a tree, but no one got out—no one got the one that I'm okay. No, they didn't even get the one that I landed
in the tree. They got nothing because it was cycling as I was coming down. And so— Gotcha. So you should have hung out there longer. Exactly. I should have hung out and waited for a response. Gotcha. Gotcha. So communication has to be two-way communication. We hear about it. But, yeah, if you're sending a message and nobody's sending a message back, it's a message in a bottle. And that's not a good place to be. So if I was doing it again—and let's hope I'm not—but if I do, you know, I will certainly wait there a few extra minutes and make sure that somebody pings me back and says, got it, let us know when you're safe on the ground or something like that. The other thing, which I learned later, is that my two-meter radio was suffering a lot from proximity to my GPS and Vario device,
that when I'm 20 feet away from somebody on launch going, you know, radio check, and they're going, yeah, good check, that's one thing. When you're a mile away from them and your Vario and your flight instruments and all that stuff are interfering, they're not hearing you and you're not hearing them very clearly. Like, that's a problem. And at the time, again, like, it comes back to mindset. We'll touch on that in a second. But at the time, I was thinking, oh, this is all good. You know, I've got the ability to communicate if I need to. But I didn't really put it to the test until that day in the tree. And it turned out that that test I failed. You know, like, I radioed out, I'm okay. But nobody heard that. So my wing is yellow. My reserve is yellow. All they saw was a bunch of yellow in a tree. They didn't know that I'd thrown the reserve and that I was okay.
So what happened on the ground? A bunch of people went into search and rescue mode and were gearing up to come up and find me and all that stuff. And my friends were nervous and sweating it. And all those things are just things you don't want to have happen. So, yeah, I was able to communicate an hour later when I was safely on the ground and in the clear. But that's an hour of pain and suffering that I'd rather not put people through. So, yeah, a lesson learned is to always communicate and get a communication back in response. And then you'll know. And as far as the two-meter radios go, find some way to block probably with your body, which is not the healthiest thing because now you've just got radio waves bearing through you. But find a way to just make sure that the radio is working better. I did do a flight the other day at Marshall with Christo and some of those guys.
And I put the radio in the back of the harness and I brought the mic around. And then so my body was blocking it from the UTI-4. And it was great. It was fine. So I think it's a simple fix now. But, you know, at the time, I wish I'd known that back then.
Hmm. Well, so far we've got, you know, radio and communication. So radio, in-reach, you know, keeping things super slow. Comedy sounds like that was very, very important. You know, proper tree kit, which for you was dental floss. Probably some other stuff we could talk about that would have been good to have. Lack of SIV you mentioned earlier. I think we're going to get to that later on. Yeah, we'll come back to that. Poor choice of where you're scratching. You know, so we've got, I mean, it's fascinating, isn't it? When you break down an accident, it's never one thing. There's always a bunch of little things that lead up. And these are actually all, you know, you just threw your reserve. And these are all things that you learn afterwards.
But it's, you know, they all contribute.
I got to work on an Everest film, an IMAX film with Ed Visters. And he talked about the cascade of errors. He said people die on Everest because they lose a mitten. It's like, no, how does that work? And he runs through. Like you lose a mitten and then your hand freezes and then you can't do this and you can't untie the rope. And he just went through this chain of events, the cascade of errors. And you're like, holy shit. Like that's the real deal. And it's the same thing here. It goes back to that mindset. You know, it's very easy when you've flown a location a couple hundred times and you're super comfortable. You know, complacency kills. And so you want to start every flight not freaking out, not paranoid, but just being smart. Like what's my mindset today? These are the things that might happen. Am I ready for these things? What are the steps that I'm going to take if something goes wrong?
Cool, I'm good to go. And then you fly and you have a great flight. But if you're taking it a little too casually, if you're sort of blowing through some of your checks and things like that because you've done it so many times, like those stupid little things add up to, hey, man, I just pulled my reserve and I'm about to land in a tree in some country that I don't live. Yeah, it can get scary.
Okay, cool. Well, keep going. I know you're going to talk about SIV. Yeah, let's
talk about SIV. Because I think my biggest mistake was not having flown in SIV. And it wasn't that I'm overly confident. Like I fly because for a couple of reasons. I fly places that are probably a little bit more aggressive in many cases because I'm flying with other pilots that I really respect and admire who I know are kind of keeping an eye on me. Like I've flown in the O.A. On days where Mitch Riley will say, what do you think, Miles? And I'll say, I'm not sure about today. I go, that's a good call. You know, like he's watching out for me and stuff like that. But at the same time, I also want to emulate and be around better pilots because it makes me a better pilot. And so, you know, I'm used to that. But SIV is something that I've been hearing about for a long time.
I've tried to do it. I had an SIV scheduled last fall. And then we had all these brush fires in California and got pushed off. And so I'm actually going to go do it in about 10 days time. And I'm super excited. Because I think that everything that I experienced in that moment when the wing collapsed could have been resolved based on SIV experience. But because I hadn't done that, I over controlled the wing. I didn't let the wing do what it was supposed to do. And it was amazing. I mean, you'll know this because you've been through this before. But it was amazing how it went from all good to all bad so fast. And the energy is just building and the thing is just cascading. It's like, oh, I just have a little collapse. Well, now I have a collapse and a twist. Now I have a collapse and a twist. And it's just like all happening in front of you. And you're very reactive.
Like, you know, there's no sort of getting out in front of the action.
Yeah, without seeing it. I mean, there's a couple encouraging things here. One is you seem to remember very well what happened, which means that your brain, you know, often when people have a big cascade, they literally cannot explain it. They'll remember like the initial blowout. And then it's all just a blur because their brain is way behind what's happening. It's just there's way too much adrenaline. There's not nearly enough training. And they haven't, you know, they just haven't dealt with that before. And they're just massively overloaded. So you remember, I think it sounds like quite clearly. Pretty well, yeah. What I can say without, you know, without having seen it at all, you know, 99.9 % I can say, you know, that you did way too much.
Almost guaranteed. Yeah,
for sure. For
sure. You
know, like,
you know, when you start flying comp wings and you're at the other end of the thing, then it's, things change a lot. You know, you have to be super reactive and catch stuff. Or proactive, yeah. Otherwise it just. Or be ahead of the curve. Proactive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, not reactive. Proactive. But in your case, it was probably, you know, massive blowout and then just overcorrecting it. Totally. Totally. Through your reserve. Totally. Most likely. It may not have been, but.
And, you know, it's, I've heard stories where guys are like, and there I was. And my wing was out below my feet. You know, and I was above it and I was just like, oh, when does that really happen? Well, that really happens, man. It happens fast. You know, so it was definitely, it was a good, a good experience. And I'm glad to, to, you know, be laughing about it for, for sure now. But I remember at one point, I just think, hands up, hands up, man. And so it's all balled up and I'm thinking, I've got this. And I put my hands up and nothing happens. And then the thing just shoots out in front of me and it's already spinning. It's already twisting as it goes past me. And it's just like, what? Yeah. So it was definitely all happening. But I've heard stories of people riding it into the ground, like trying to correct it, trying to correct it, trying to correct it. And then they just end up on the ground.
It happens all the
time. And I keep thinking like, how do you do that? How do you not just check out and go, it's time to throw the reserve. And now I know because you're so caught up in it and you think, I've got this, man. I'm just, I'm a second away from having this thing flying. And all of a sudden you're done. You're like out of room. So for me, again, just that knowing that there's a point. There's a point where no matter what's happening, it's game over. You need to check that reserve or it's going to only get worse. And like I said, that moment came and I was just like, yeah, man, I'm throwing my reserve. Like I was super excited, super stoked. Like I've just made the decision. It's all happening now. And then, yeah, I probably should have made that decision five seconds earlier, 10 seconds earlier. But yeah, it was the right call.
I think that the SIV is one of these complicated things. And a lot of people have a lot of different opinions about it. To me, and we've talked about this a lot on the show, so we don't need to hammer on it here. But the warning I always have for people is, well, one, they're just super essential. If you're going to fly XC, you've got to do SAVs. But the first one is just the first one. It really needs to be like part of a training regimen because – and I come back to Revis' comment on it. What you get from doing a lot of them and what you get a lot more from actually, like when you start doing a lot of SIVs. You get a lot more accro training is being able to recognize how bad this is in that instant and going, okay. I mean pretty much every configuration can be fixed other than a massive cravat or something.
And even those, if you have enough altitude, can be fixed most of the time. But what you start getting good at is that you've had so many blowouts from doing so much SIV and so much accro that you can go, okay. This is going to take me 1,000 feet. I'm 800 feet off the ground. There's no point in trying to fix this. I'm going to throw right now, especially if you've got a steerable or something. You might be able to get to a nice place. But exactly like you said, I mean if you're in a configuration like a massive auto rotation or something, if you're in something where your wing might start throwing you into a loop, you might go into the wing. It might potentially get a lot worse. Yeah. And so there's no reason to wait. So a lot of it is just being able to identify, okay, I've got four riser twists.
Well, I know four riser twists. You're going to take at least 600, 800 feet to get out. It takes a while to spin out of something like that. So yeah, that's the next lesson for you, SIV. The
farmers up there, when they got me on the ground, they were laughing. They were like, hey, man, next time, if you could just land like 200 meters over there in the field, it's just a lot easier for everybody. I was like, yeah, thanks. Thanks for that. I'll try to remember that. It was pretty hilarious. So that's SIV. The other thing is reserves work. We talked about it at the front. We talked about it at the front of this. But from the first day of training, people throw the reserve, throw the reserve. And you know stories and I know stories of people that have thrown reserves 100 feet off the deck. I mean like crazy that shouldn't work and yet it does something. It just helps. Yeah,
there is no too low. There's never a bad
time to throw a reserve. And I think, again, Valle is real. People are throwing reserves down there every day. And I don't mean to make Valle like a scary place because I actually think it's fun. That's a numbers game. There's just so
many people. People are flying in winter. They're rusty, you
know. And we ran the numbers. I think I did the math. But it was like if you imagine 150 pilots every day for 14 days. It's like, yeah, 2,100 flights. I forget what the number is. But, yeah, probably, I don't know, 25 reserve tosses. Like the percentages are not that crazy. Compare that to some of the things that people are doing on snowboards or mountain bikes and stuff like that where the numbers of injuries go much, much higher than that. So that was a question I had for you. Gavin is like, you know, we talk about risk. And you get these questions like, man, isn't paragliding a risky sport? Like how do you – it's not that you have to defend it. But how do you explain or describe your willingness, the risk versus reward ratio? Because I have something that I've just hit on. But I want to hear how you describe it.
Yeah. You know, I have gone kind of all over the map with that one. And certainly my relationship with risk since having a little kid. I had a little girl seven months ago. You know, I definitely can't see that I'm slowing down. But, you know, when I was in the X-Alps last summer, I was definitely thinking about it. You know, I had her on my flight deck with me. Yeah, nice. And, I mean, like I said, I don't – I have always said that, you know, training can remove most if not all of the risk, you know, the real risk. And, you know, I still take way more risk. I know this. Getting in my car every day to go to the grocery store than flying a paraglider. Yeah. So I firmly believe and I know for a fact that, you know, that we can have fun and participate in this sport without taking too much risk.
Yeah. Now, if you fly enough time and you fly cross country, you are going to get into situations. And that's inevitable. Yeah. And I certainly have put myself in, you know – Yeah. Especially as I was, you know, maybe going through more of that intermediate phase in my flying career where I was putting myself in too many of those. And I know a lot of people around me were pretty worried about me. And
we know other pilots that are doing that now, you know, that we see. Yeah. And it's kind of like – I'll tell you that story in a second. But, yeah. I mean, you
know, for me, the risks are acceptable because I see a lot of my mentors and a lot of pilots that have been at it for a lot longer than I have. And they have no injuries. Yeah. So, for sure, it can be done safely. And you just have to, you know, I think Chris Santacroce's advice that's, you know, you pick the day. You fly the good days. You don't fly the bad days.
And will as well. What was it? The positive power, negative thinking or whatever it was. Exactly. And just slow, steady progression. I mean, those are the lessons that I'm learning.
Yeah. I think all these things – I think all these things add up. For me, it's, you know, I – my life would be marginalized. I would be marginalized in a huge way if I didn't fly. You know, it's that important to me that, you know, I wouldn't be the same dad. I wouldn't be the same partner. I wouldn't be as exciting and as fun to be around if I didn't fly. Yeah. So, you know, I'd be robbing the people that are around me of me.
Yeah. I mean, I see the same thing. I am a better person on so many levels because of paragliding. It's made me healthier. It's made me saner. It's given me all kinds of motivation, like all kinds of reasons why it's good. And yet, especially to the mere mortals that ask that question, like, well, isn't it a risky sport? How do you justify that risk? I used to try and compare it to things. Oh, it's no more dangerous than, you know, snowboarding off piste or here in Southern California, we have – I don't know if you're familiar with ghost bikes, but I ride my bike on Pacific Coast Highway. And like a 25-mile loop, I come across five of these ghost bikes that are memorials to car cyclist fatalities. And, you know, you do an hour-long ride, and you go past five of those things, and it certainly wakes you up. But what I've come to realize is that you're never going to be able to defend it.
So what you need to do is tell people why. Why is it important to you? Why is the risk versus the reward? And on the flight back from London last week, I watched this Bruce McLaren documentary. And at the end, in the film, he says this thing, and I'm just going to read it to you because it's just so perfect. But he says, It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one's ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone. And I think about that, and I'm like, you know what? That's exactly it. Like when people say, you know, like, what's the thing that turns you on? It's experience. It's getting out and trying new things and trying different things. And for me, it's about achievements in life and less about just, yeah, I was 80 years old, but I didn't really do much. So I'm willing to take those risks because the rewards are so high for me.
And not everybody is like me. And if they're not, more power to them, like recognizing where your limitations are, I think is a big positive step. So, but anyway, I was curious to see what you thought about that because it is, it raises this question like, okay, so I go to Mexico. I have this reserve toss. I end up in a tree. I drink beer that night and it's all good. No injuries. I mean, the worst thing that happens is some damage to my wing. And now I get home and my wife says to me, how was your trip? What do I say? It was awesome. I tossed my reserve and I landed in a tree and the farmers had to come and rescue me and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Her eyes are just going to bug out of her head and she's going to be scared. And that's not what I want. I want her to be happy. You know, my paragliding is important to me and I don't want to freak her out about it.
And so I'm sort of challenged by, yeah, like how do you deal with something like that? And I've tried to come up with comparable situations. And it's just not. There is no comparable situation. So what do you think? Like what would your advice be?
Again, you know, so when I landed in the trees in the ex-Alps, you know, I stuffed it into this terrible canyon. It was howling wind and just no way to get out. And so, you know, I landed in this tree and I got immediately back on the road. I was able to just yank it out of the tree. It was like the most perfect landing because of skill. I just got kind of lucky and got on the road and started marching down the road. And there were two reactions that just stuck. One was solidified, I don't know, just coolness to me. One was I sent a text to Maddie and I said, I just landed in the tree. And her reply was, that's awesome. And she put a bunch of those funny like, you know, the emoticons where you're laughing hysterically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With tears coming out of your
eyes, right?
Yeah. And then when I pulled into this cul-de-sac and Bruce and Ben were there in the RV. And, you know, there's some adrenaline pumping and I'm kind of hopped up. And it was a monster. I think I did 17,000 feet of vertical that day. It was a huge day. Crazy. And so I'd had all that vertical and I was still charging and I just landed in the trees. I was like the third flight of the day. And, you know, so I'm kind of excited to talk about it a little bit, you know, just 30 seconds. Like, hey, you got to land in the tree. And Bruce just looked at me and it was like, we don't have any time for that right now. Get going. And I went back on the road. Eye
on the
prize. I'm surrounded by the coolest people. Right. This is awesome. Nobody gives a shit. Right. And that is not the answer to your question. No, no. But it actually. I think that. It's helpful. Well, I mean, I think that, you know, if people see that you're training, if you're doing the work and you're being smart, then, you know, people should want you to have those experiences. Because if they, if you're not, then again, you're being, you're marginalizing your experience. Yeah.
You're just
going to marginalize your experience with them. Yeah. And so, you know, thankfully, I've got a partner who's just like, you know, if you don't pursue what you want to pursue, that could be a huge opportunity. And how can I rob you of an opportunity?
So is it cool if I get Maddie to call Jeanette and just tell her?
Yeah, totally, totally. Well, I mean, I think that, you know, the flip side is what happened to you is kind of inevitable. Yeah. You know, we are playing. We're playing in the air. Yeah. And, you know, even if you do everything right and even if you do all the training and even if you have all the skills, the numbers still don't really look very good for us. Yeah. You know, if you fly a long, long time, you know, something's going to happen. And so hopefully, you know, it goes down like you did and that's, you know, you take a coin out of the luck jar. Yeah, exactly. That's all you need to do,
you know? And I feel like that was a super positive experience. Like a lot of people said, oh, man, you must have been so bummed. No way. I'm so stoked that it all went down and went down the way that it did because I learned so much. I was really happy when you said to me, I sent you that email and you're like, man, if you're assessing this accident the way that you are, like you're going to be a great pilot because you're really being sort of like critical about what happened and where you went wrong and how not to do that again. And that was just exactly what I wanted to hear, what I needed to hear because that's the goal ultimately is to be a better pilot. And when you're down there and you're flying with guys like you and Kansas and Mitch and all these guys, you know, those guys, you guys are having your own moments, but you have the experience, you have all those years of flying under your belt so that you get through that and it's just a blip.
Where in my case, it wasn't a blip. It was basically, you know, a big U-turn. And so now I know. So I've learned some lessons, but yeah,
interesting. Tell me about, you know, be honest with it, but tell me about, you know, when you think about flying now and potentially in the future. When you actually happen to throw your reserve, does it give you the jitters or is it like, oh, I've done that before? No, I'm going to be more comfortable with that. Does it make you less or more comfortable?
Well, it's interesting. So when it all went down, as you said, I went to Miguel and Enrique at the Alas Del Hombre shop and said, do you guys have somebody that can fix the wing? Because I really want to get back in the air. And they're like, yeah, yeah, we've got somebody and it'll be ready in a couple of days or whatever. And so I was chomping, man. I was ready to go. And then a couple of days went by and it wasn't ready. And then it was four days. And at the end, it wasn't ready at all. And I literally, like they had said, just come to launch. It'll be on launch ready. And I went up with all my gear and I was pumped up and ready to go. And it wasn't ready. So I didn't get to fly. And then I came home with it and I went to, I took it to Mitch McAleer up in Crestline. And big shout out to Mitch McAleer, who is like an amazing, what would you call him, a seamster? Taylor? Anyway, that guy just, he killed it, man.
He did such a good job.
A repaired
Jedi. Yeah. But, you know, that took about 10 days. And in that 10 days, little voices started talking in the back of my head. And so I was kind of like, I went from being like, all I ever do, think about, breathe, eat, sleep, read, is paragliding to, yeah, I'm going to get back to it. But, you know, and I think part of it was just still coming to grips with what had happened and assessing poor judgment, bad choices that I had made to the point where I finally said, okay, now I've got it sorted. Like I know where I went wrong and I'm not going to make those mistakes again. But up until that point, I was a little nervous. Like what if I go and I do the same stupid things? What if I go out there and I'm not conscious of a mistake that I made and I make that same mistake again? But since I've got the wing back, I've done, I don't know, eight flights from Marshall, a few hours here and there, and been loving it.
The weather hasn't been great down here, so it's kind of catch as catch can. But, yeah, digging it. And have been in some punchy air. I was up in the convergence above Crestline the other day at just over 6,000 feet and was getting jacked around. I was just like, yeah, baby, bring it. You know, was super happy about that. So I feel like any fear, any concern, I've put it behind me. But I'm much more conscious and aware than I was before. And that's a good thing. One of the things that I wanted to shout out about, other people have talked about this before. And it is definitely a philosophy that I've tried to live by, not just fly by, but live by. But it's this eight-tenths philosophy. You and I talked about it a little bit in Sun Valley. But essentially, it's you push your limits. Your limits to eight-tenths.
Because inevitably, there's something out there that you're not ready for that's going to come and get you to ten-tenths and sometimes in a hurry. And ten-tenths is a real place to be, man. That's life or death. And if you're living at ten-tenths and something comes along, you may find that you're not up to it. And what I realize is that even at what I consider to be eight-tenths, I don't really know where ten is. You know, like I'm still new enough to this game that ten could be right around the corner. It could be a million miles away. I'm still figuring it out. And so what I'm trying to do is not be cowardly or fly in fear, but to be real about the situation and to stay within safe limits and safe boundaries. So that when it does go bad, when I do take a collapse or something like that, I have the room and I have the time and I have the ability to get out of it.
And that's, you know, I think that and we all know pilots that are way out there. You know. They're at 11-tenths far too often. And luck is not a survival strategy. You know, thinking, oh, I'm just going to get lucky and make this work. That's a bad place to be. So. On
that note, tell me about the kid you met at the awards ceremony that had like 20 flights or something. Yeah. So. That's a good place to take it. Oh, man. I just like that whole like not knowing. That's the problem with this sport is not swimming, you know. What you don't know, you don't know. Yeah. And exactly. That is kind of spooky.
It's like if you meet somebody on the beach who says, oh, I'm learning to surf and it's a double overhead day. And the guy looks like he can swim and handle it. Like, go for it, man. See how you do. But in paragliding, it's super real, super fast. And if you don't have at least the basic skills and familiarity, it's bad. So, anyway, at the awards ceremony at the night at the Menarca, I was sort of milling about in the crowd waiting for my wing to show up. I literally got my wing the night of the awards ceremony. It was on a plane the next morning. But and this kid was there and he's like, hey, man, have you been flying VIA? And I go, yeah, it's awesome here. And he's like, oh, that's great. You know, I'm new pilot P2 with 20 hours. And I just came down here to see what the scene is like. And I'm looking to gain some experience.
And I said, well, you know, VIA is real. There's reserve tosses almost every day. And, you know, you need to be sort of ramping up. You want to launch in the mornings. You want to launch in the afternoons. But you don't want to fly there. The heat of the day. And he goes, oh, I don't even know if I would be able to toss my reserve. I don't even know what to do. And I just looked at him and I said, dude, you need to go and talk to, like, the local guys and get somebody to just basically, like, guide you. You do not want to be flying this place solo. You don't want to be launching without other people. Like, just saying that out loud scared the crap out of me. And then later on I was thinking, like. You just had no idea. Yeah. Like, what do you do? Like, should I have, like, smacked him down? Like, dude, just go drink beer. And don't get in the air. Like, that's not good. That's one of the great things about this sport.
It's up to you. You're the pilot in charge. You make the choices. But the problem is, and especially in a place like Valle, because, you know, like any of these flying sites that are super popular, they're also under constant scrutiny. And what you don't want are accidents and fatalities that draw negative attention to the spot. Because it just makes it harder for Miguel. It makes it harder for the cops and everything else. So, you know, again, it's a question for the community. But, like, at what level do we need to step in and say, hang on a second, man. You're taking a risk that's not just a risk for you to determine, but a risk that's going to affect all of us and maybe, you know, find a way to at least talk them down. Because this guy clearly had no idea what he was getting into. He just
didn't know. I mean, you know.
20 hours. He was
behaving very poorly, but he didn't know he was. It wasn't his fault. No.
He was super pumped. He's like, I'm in Valle. This place looks awesome. Look at all these great pilots. Yeah, yeah. And I was just like, dude, this place is real. And you need to be very, very careful and recognize your limitations. Be vigilant. Yeah, exactly. Well,
that's a good place to bring it. And the latest USPA mag that just came out, there's a big article that we did about the ex-Alps with Ben and Bruce's perspective and my own. But the editor's note in the front by Nick Greece, he talked about he was flying in a foreign place. He and I were down in Brazil this fall. I don't know if it was there or it was his experience in Kenya, which I think was pretty tough from what it sounded like. But he does a really good editorial about what our jobs, pilots that have more experience, if they see somebody on launch that just clearly doesn't have it, is it our role to step in or is it our role to let them feel it out?
Yeah. Yeah. And
I think it's real
clear and I totally agree with him that we need to be friendly about it and be tactful and be kind. But yeah, man, that's somebody's life. You definitely have to step in like you did because they might not know. They just don't know. If you see somebody just totally blowing a launch and it's 11 AM in Valle and you're like, hey, man, do you know what you're getting into here?
Well, and without sounding selfish, but like there's nothing worse than going out for a good flying day. Or a good climbing day. Or a good skiing day. And suddenly getting sucked into a search and rescue situation. Yeah. That's just super stressful. Your day is shot. The stakes are high. I mean, it puts responsibility and stress on everybody. And if a couple of words on launch might avert that or something like that, by all means, I think that's a smart thing to do. And you see that in Europe. I mean, it was amazing. When I flew in Gordone the first time, people are talking all the time about, oh, your wing's doing this. Or, hey, man, you want to check? And you're like. And those guys are super dialed. Like I remember just watching five guys launching Gordone and every single launch was just super relaxed and calm and like waiting. Perfect. Okay. Yeah.
And perfect. And I just remember thinking, oh, I've got to step up my game like this place. These guys, they're doing it right. Yeah. It was super cool. That is cool.
Well, yeah. A shout out to all the listeners then too. We're a community where this is, it's a solo sport, but it only works with everybody together. So I think there's a lot we can do to help. We
can help
people be safe. And this is one of those times just hearing about your reserve toss. Yeah. This will make people think about it a lot more clearly and just think about it. And that's a good thing. Yeah. Miles, thanks for sharing your story, man. I appreciate it.
No, thank you for giving me the opportunity. I'm so proud to be a part of this podcast and I'm so thankful that you came up with it to begin with. And people that I talk to, they get excited when they hear who we're talking to. And I think it does change the way that people fly. And hopefully makes people enjoy the sport more, be safer, and have more time, longevity in the sport. So it's good for everybody.
Awesome, man. Thanks, dude. I appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks for all your work on this thing. I couldn't do it without you.
No, it's fun. I'm enjoying it. All right, man. See you up in the sky, I hope. Right on, dude. Talk to you soon. Thanks, Miles. Later.
I hope you enjoyed the asher. And he did. That was cool to kind of break that all down. And it was neat to kind of get into Miles' head and learn more about that event. It's a pretty big event, and it all went really well. So hopefully, you know, we can learn from that and be safer in our own flying. So as always, all we ask for is a buck a show. If you got something out of this or one of the previous episodes, if you're just discovering the podcast, definitely go back and take a look. There's 60-something episodes now, a lot of great material there, a lot of fantastic characters, great advice, great stories. And it's fun to put them out there. So, yeah, a buck a show. You can support us through the website, cloudbasemayhem.com. You can do a one-time support through PayPal.
You'll see the links for that. Or you can become a patron of the show where you only pay when we put content out. You can choose the level. You're only billed when something comes out. And you can be rewarded for doing so. So check that out. That's patreon.com forward slash cloudbasemayhem. And as you can imagine, it takes a lot of time and energy and money to bring you the podcast. And it's all supported by you. We really appreciate it. We're not doing it with sponsors. It's just our listeners. And so another way to support is just spread the word. Tell your friends. Listen to it on the way out to launch. We're getting into the northern hemisphere flying season right now, which I'm pretty stoked about. I imagine you all are as well. And also, if you've got people you want to hear on the show, reach out. You'll see that at cloudbasemayhem.com. You'll see the email link.
Just send me a note, and I'll try to get them on the show. We've got many, many more already in the can that will be coming out to you in the coming weeks. And until then, fly safe, fly far. Have fun. Cheers.