Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud Base Mayhem. Got a great show for you today with Benny Kalin, Swiss instructor, big time into kite foiling, kite surfing, base jumping, paragliding, speed flying, started off speed flying, so we talk quite a bit about speed flying and speed riding. We talk about his crazy incident last year that all ended really well in the Volus with his dad, super wild, and you can check that out in the show notes, pictures of that incident. Talk about coming back from fear injuries like we did with Nik Hawks from that incident, which went really well. He didn't have any physical injuries, but he's having really kind of a hard time getting back on the horse, so we talk about what he's doing for that. We talk about some of his most memorable flights, like top landing.
Mont Blanc, which I remember from a few years ago when all those people did it on that same day, just amazing, what must have been an amazing experience, so great dude, super fun, lives in Interlochen, one of the meccas for our sport, and a lot of terrific advice here that I think you're going to love. Just a reminder that we're working with some friends of ours at Truck Gloves. They're not a sponsor, but this is just something we're doing for our listeners. These are a couple guys that broke off from Black Diamond. A little while ago, and they're making these really cool gloves that a friend of mine, Evan Bouchier, was selling at the Rat Race a few weeks ago down in Oregon, and they're super cool. And if you go to truckgloves.com and then put in the promo code CLOUDBASEMAYHEM, two separate words, you'll get 10 % off on those, so check those out.
And yeah, let's get into it. Without further delay, please enjoy this conversation with Benny Galen.
Bernie, welcome to the Cloud Base Mayhem. So excited to talk to you. I've just spent an inordinate amount of time actually on your Facebook page. I'm not much of a Facebooker, but really cool videos, and I didn't realize you were such a speed pilot. You obviously do a lot of speed flying and a ton of instructing and foiling and kite surfing, and you and I, you look like my younger brother, my much younger brother actually. Yeah. Yeah. I thought maybe a great place for us to start would be if you could just tell a story of your most magnificent flying memory. It can be – it doesn't even have to be yours personally, but just the coolest thing that comes up when you think of flying because it looks like flying is definitely your passion.
Yeah. Hi, Gavin. Thanks for calling. Can you call me Benny? That's how all my friends call me.
Benny. Okay. You got it. We'll do. I think I was calling you Bernie. Sorry about that. Yeah, exactly. That's
my proper name, but no one calls me Bernie. Okay.
That's a good start. We'll start there. Yeah. So
first question, the best thing I've experienced.
Back in the days, I was really into speed flying, but it definitely turned more towards the paragliding now. And the two best experiences I've had is one is top landing on Moblo. Wow. Back a few years with the big party. I was one of them there.
Wow. Very cool. That was famous all around the world. There was more than like 50 of you up there, wasn't there?
Absolutely. And we just stayed up there until everybody else left. And we kept on soaring. For some reason, there was no wind that day in the altitude, no meteo wind, but there was a constant updraft on the top, on the summit. And you could soar it up there like doing the pila. It was absolutely amazing. Absolutely constant. And we did some wing overs and ground spirals on the glacier. And yeah, it just had our fun there. But we kind of starved and got really thirsty and cold and a headache. So we just had to get down at some point. Oh,
what a magnificent day. That was, yeah, we were, the rest of the paragliding world was very envious of that day.
Yeah, I'm sure they were. Yeah, that was one of the best things. And the other best thing I've just done this winter was... It was just a soaring flight up from Jungfraujoch and then soaring up on the three big famous mountains here in Interlaken, the Eiger Mönch and Jungfrau.
Did you do that from the
Interlaken side?
No, no, no. I took the train up to Jungfraujoch, three and a half thousand meters. So takeoff was on three and a half thousand and then I soared up to 4,200. And that was on a cold winter. It was a cold winter day in the evening light. You know, the sun was about to go down. And then during sunset, I was still soaring up on 4,000 meters. It was full moon that day. And it was just, yeah, very clear sky. And I just kept on soaring because it was so amazing. I wasn't ready for it. I didn't plan really for it. So I wasn't dressed very much. I was cold, shivering every now and then.
I had to keep on going. It was just so amazing. So I just kept on soaring up on 4,000 meters, tried to soar as far as I could. And meantime, it got dark and I just kept on soaring. And then I was still soaring in the night. It was completely dark, but it was full moon and I was still soaring at 4,000 meters plus. That was also just one of the best experiences I've ever had on a paraglider. Was
that just a really long glide? Was
that just a glass
off? Or was that more, you just had the right kind of laminar, almost like a laminar coastal breeze coming up through the mountains? Were you just soaring on like a ridge soaring? Or was it more just the latent heat from the valley of the day?
No heat at all. No thermals at all. It was winter. In winter, the sun is very low here. It was just ridge soaring, you know, basically ridge soaring in the big mountains, you know? Jeez, that
must have been incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I was a very new pilot, a very good friend of mine, Bruce, who was my supporter in the last couple of X-Hops, we, is it the Shilthorn? The James Bond? Yes,
exactly. Yeah.
We took that up to the top and launched in the morning and flew back to Interlochen. And it wasn't, you know, it's like 40K, it's nothing. But it was, ah, you know, just early in the morning. And, you know, that launch is kind of, I mean, by now, I don't think it would be scary anymore. Yeah. But back then it was really committing, you know, because you're running down the scree field and then it gets really steep. And wow, it was just amazing. It's an incredible part of the world. And then do you, are you there, did you grow up in Interlochen? Are you there to instruct or to do tandems or all of the above? All of it. I grew up
here. My dad, he's a pilot. He's paragliding since 20 years. And that's how I got into it. I probably wouldn't have started so young otherwise. Yeah. And I'm working at the Chill Out School for about 13 years, instructing for about 9, 10 years now. Doing a bit of tandems as well, just to have a bit of a change. Yeah. Yeah. I've traveled a few places in the world, but mostly for surfing and kite surfing. But I always love coming back here. It's a magical place, that Interlochen and the area. Yeah.
Well, a very dear friend of mine. A dear friend of mine is Whaley Kestenholtz. I know he lives there as well, but he was on our boat in Indonesia a few years back when he was filming Play Gravity 2. And he spent some time with us there. We did a bunch of towing and towed him right off the bow of the boat. And that was pretty special. But you guys must run in the same circles.
Yeah, sure. We're friends. We know each other.
Yeah, Whaley's a good dude. Tell me about foiling and kite surfing and that tie-in. Obviously, from your Facebook page, you do a lot of surfing as well. How does that lend and tie-in to your flying?
Well, I've started kite surfing at the same time I did paragliding.
And I was windsurfing already as a kid, because my dad, he's a passionate windsurfer. And somehow, I just tried foiling one day, and it got me hooked like many other guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great thing here to have two legs. And we have nearly every day a bit of wind, but never really enough for normal kite surfing gear. But with the foiling, you can really kite every day here if you have time. And you can arrange to go at that time of the day, which is very special to kite at home for me.
And do you like one more than the other, or do you like them all the same? The kite surfing or the sports? No, flying, kite surfing. Because I still do run a kite surfing business, but some of my best days forever, for sure, in my life have been kiting waves. But it never really grabbed me like paragliding did.
Yeah. I like having a change. I think anything except surfing perfect unspoiled waves or powder would become boring for me. These two things, I can't imagine ever to pick. Right. To be boring.
But apart from that, I like doing different things.
You mentioned your dad, Chris Banford, a friend of yours who recommended that I get you on the show and sent me an article, I think, in one of the Swiss magazines. You had quite an episode with your dad last year. I couldn't believe the picture. What happened there? We talked about that a little bit. Before we started recording. But I'd love you to talk about that quite scary incident.
Yeah, yeah, totally. That was the first time I had to use my reserve.
I convinced my dad to go for a cross country flight with me to Wallis. He never wanted to go to Wallis because he heard a lot of bad stories about it. Thermals are stronger there, valley winds are stronger. But you can fly bigger distances more easily, you know. And the mountains are bigger. It's just a very special place for flying. So I convinced him to come there with me for the first time. And I was just feeling way too confident that day. I was flying a Sigma 10 after doing very long flights, some of the longest flights I've done in my life with the Sigma 10. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I switched to Omega and I've already done a lot of flights on the Omega in the past. So for some reason that day, I just felt like on the Sigma, hey, that's a beginner wing for me, you know. There's nothing that can happen to me with that Sigma. So I just took it too easy. And I just didn't active fly enough. And falling out of a thermal got a big 90 % collapse.
And I put my weight to the wrong side. So you went
against it?
Yeah, exactly. I didn't go with it. I landed to the open side. That got me twisted right away.
It was also the moment I was just trying to get back into the thermal. My harness had a bit of a swing. I had a lot of brake on. And so it twisted me. And because I didn't react very quickly, I didn't release the brake. If you have a 90 % collapse, you're going to have a lot of brake on. If you have a 90 % collapse, the 10 % left flying is going to stall instantly if you're not going to let up the brake there from a deep thermal position. So I found myself twisted in a full stall and I just couldn't control that. So I had to give up after a while, hoping that the glide is going to fix itself. And I needed my reserve, which isn't a big deal. But the place I worry was.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was lucky.
I didn't hurt myself. Um, I got a bruise on my hand and my wrist, but that's all I had. Um, yeah, but definitely a scary experience. And then my dad, he was, he was flying right next to me and he had to watch it all. Oh, terrifying. I'm not sure if he's ever going to come with me to volleys. Yeah. Right.
Yeah. You didn't really convince him that that was the place to go. Did you, did you take off from Fiche or Grindelwald or where?
No, we went to Zermatt.
Oh, oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's something special. Yeah. Zermatt is really special. Um, that picture, we'll put that picture up for those of you listening. We'll put that picture up in the, in the show notes. Cause it is, it's unbelievable. You look like an ant on the side of a glacier mountain. It's just, it's quite spooky. Yeah.
It was, it's definitely one of those places you don't want to throw
your reserve. No. And, and I, and I don't blame you for calling the emergency and not walking out of there that you, uh, there's no way to walk out of there. That was some pretty stupid. Rain. Um, That would
have been stupid.
So, so you can, can you just chalk that up to complacency?
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I just felt overconfident. I felt invincible. Right.
Huh. And was there any kind of, uh, mental, was there any kind of, when you coming back from that, that were you more different, were you different in any way? Were you scared flying after that? Or was it, is it just kind of, Jesus, that was stupid and you got over it?
No, not at all. Um, it was kind of the end of the cross country season. Um, I always fly a little bit there and now tandems and with students, you know, but it was kind of the end of the tandem season. So I didn't fly cross country for at least a half a year until I went to, uh, beer billing this March and, um, April, sorry. Yeah. I thought I came over it pretty well, but this year I realized I didn't. Um, and since. I used that reserve for me, having a collapse means, uh, crashing, falling out of the sky, which obviously isn't the case. Um, I've trained a lot handling those collapses, um, whatever.
I think I'm pretty good dealing with any kind of extreme situation on my wing. Um, but the problem is that I feel like a collapse is means a reserve now. So. I'm not so relaxed anymore. Cross country flying, uh, as I've been, anytime it gets a little rough, um, I don't hold on the speed bar anymore. I let go. I, I kind of pussy out there and, um, I just realized I have a lot more fear than, than I had before. Yeah.
No, no, I might be confusing the names, but I keep a pretty close eye on, on X contest. And I was watching, there were some really nice flights in beer this spring. Did you have some big flights there?
Yeah. Um. I did one 234. Yeah.
I saw that. Um, that's a nice flight.
Yeah, it's good. But you know, honestly, I was just nine hours scared.
Wow. Interesting.
Um, I can still do it obviously. And I do it. I push myself to do it, but it's not half the fun it used to be.
Hmm. Well, I appreciate the honesty. Is there anything you're, you're doing to change that or to help it?
Um. I think I'm just going to try to, to keep on flying, to push me a little bit, to, to keep on cross country flying and by spending enough hours in the sky, hopefully, you know, getting more joy again and having less fear. Yeah. That's, that's basically my plan. Um, I think, um, you know, there's, there's, there's a reason the crash happened. I did something wrong and I think I need to improve something. So I also work on my, you know, career. Collapse is even more, just get even more confidence there. Um, yeah, try to work on my skills and, uh, and, uh, flight time to, to compensate that.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think that's a good plan. We've had, we've had some really good advice in the last couple of years from some of the guests about dealing with fear. Cause it's something we all deal with in this sport for sure. Uh, one of the ones I loved from Adele Honte, she was talking about having like a uh, a mantra, you know, in the air, just something, you know, that's unique to you. Uh, you know, I got this or, or yes, yes, yes. Bring it. Or, you know, something, just something. And, and then another one I loved was, uh, Nick name. And we talked about, he always imagines what it would look like from the ground with the Vario off, you know? So if you had, if you didn't have the Vario on, you know, cause that the, the noise that a Vario makes is, is, can be quite disconcerting, you know? But if you don't, if you don't have that on, it's not that radical.
And then, you know, and it, of course, if you look at a paraglider from the ground and nothing looks that radical, you know, really. And, uh, and so he, he uses those two. And then, uh, another one I like that I've been using lately a lot is, uh, like when I noticed that my shoulders come up, you know, like when I start sitting up, you know, things are getting a little tense and I, and I get, and I get more tense. And then I realized, wow, if I'm tense, if something happens, I'm not going to. It's not like doing SIV. I'm not relaxed. You know, I need to relax in case something happens, I can react better. And, uh, Nick Cox talks about, this is a seal method, a Navy seal saying, but the, the four and four, you know, so you inhale for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, four times. It's super easy, you know, but it's, it's surprising how fast you're breathing when you don't realize it, you know, you're kind of like, you know, instead of just, just nice and slow, like slow it down.
And, and, uh, but. Yeah. I mean, it's almost like, uh, one of the things we talked about in a recent show too, or like fear injuries. And it sounds like that's something you had. It's actually a, it's, it's a, you, you do, even though you didn't get physically hurt, you can still get hurt, you know, when you have those kinds of.
Yeah. Huh. Interesting. You never had an experience like that?
Um, I, I haven't had a kind of a thing where for sure I go through periods, uh, where I, you know, in the 2015 X-Alps before the race for about a year. About a month before, um, I went through a period where I was training down in the maritime Alps. So kind of South of Chamonix between there and Monaco. And there, there are areas down there that are just notoriously bad, uh, really, really strong Valley winds and tons of power lines and not a lot of places to land. And it's just, it's a spooky place. It's, it's a spooky place in the race. Like even the French pilots don't typically fly much down there except on the really good days, you know? And, um, I. I just, so I was kind of scared training in that area anyway, but I, I was just, you know, there, there are times when I'm flying, when I'm paragliding, where I just feel like I've got it.
And there's other times where I'm constantly thinking about my reserve. I'm constantly like checking it just to make sure. And I, I just feel like, yeah, I'm, I'm nervous and I'm scared. And, uh, and it just, it kind of comes in waves and it, you know, it's never so far knock on wood. It hasn't been debilitating, but I haven't had. Um, you know, like I haven't thrown my reserve for XC. I've thrown it practicing acro, but, uh, you know, I've never had an incident like you did and, uh, you know, yeah, I think it would shake me up.
It totally did for myself. Yeah. And I'm surprised how much it did.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And
I can understand everybody that, you know, gets into paragliding and has that experience at an early stage, he's going to give it up straight away or he's gonna, he's, he's going to go away from cross cross. I can't be paragliding or thermaling and just doing hike and fly or, or whatever. I can totally understand this now, you know, how, how you don't like flying thermals anymore when you had a bad experience in them.
How do you, how do you compensate for that with teaching? You know, what, what do you, do you, have you changed your teaching methods because of that incident?
Um, not the methods much, but. I think what happened to me. It's kind of a classic thing. What would happen to people that switch to a, to demanding wing for their level. And, um, I'm just trying to make sure more that, you know, our ex students, uh, they're going to stick to their wing for a while and not going to go to a, to a demanding high B or C wing too quickly. And I really try to tell them, Hey, this is paragliding. And if you have a bad experience, you're going to give it up. And it's not like skiing when you have an accident, you're just gonna, you know, get up and you keep on skiing. It's, it's different.
I think most people are not aware of that fact.
Yeah. Yeah. They think they, they've obviously, they know they're flying. They know it can happen, but it hasn't really sunk in until it's seeing until it happens.
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
We have this thing that, oh, it's, it's not going to happen to me.
Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. I don't think, I don't even think it's, this is what most people think. Sure. There's some that think this, but I think, um, it's just a sport. It's easy to become overconfident, you know, you're sitting there, it's easy. It's not exhausting, you know, and it's a lot of time, not too scary, you know? Um, for example, climbing for me is a lot more scarier. Um, yeah,
me too.
Paragliding. If you do it step by step the right way, it's not too scary, you know, you can obviously make it scary if you want it scary, but if you don't want it, it doesn't have to be very scary. Uh, sometimes it gets unexpectedly, but you can also, uh, by, you know, by gaining more knowledge, you can cut those, avoid those, um, unexpected moments of scariness. Uh, you can avoid them. And then I think it's just easy to get, um, uh, overconfident and, and yeah, doing something you wouldn't actually want to do. Otherwise, you know, take a risk where afterwards you got to say, Hey, that was stupid. I did this, you know, but it felt good at the moment you did it.
Hmm. Does your teaching, do you, do you do more speed flying teaching or more paragliding teaching?
Much more paragliding.
Okay. Oh, much more. Okay. Okay. Um, cause I, I definitely want to talk speed flying and speed riding and stuff cause there's some terrific videos on your site. That's obviously something you're, you're into and your family is into. Um, but before we go there, uh, I saw a couple of videos, you know, the last guest Armand Harish, uh, talked about with, with Skywalk talked about these new wings. I don't even know what you call them, but it sounds like you've got some experience on those and maybe just a week ago, some not so good experience.
Yes.
Um, I think, um, uh, you talk about the reflex profiles and, um, I think that's the future of speed flying. Um, I've started flying, uh, with, with, with those kites, um, at doing the PILA and I realized it's, it's amazing how they perform flying one of those race kites, for example, a 17 meter. Um, I've did some measurements on it, a 17 meter kite, a race kite gives you a glide ratio of 90.
Plus, and at the same time, you can speed it up to 90 kilometers an hour and probably down to glide ratio three.
So it's just a three D paraglider. Um, it, it adds what is missing on a paraglider. You can't go down on a paraglider, right? Uh, you have to spiral or you have to take in the ears, but otherwise there's, there's not many ways to go down. You can't just dive like a bird can. Or like a plane or a hang glider can. And those profiles, they allow us to just dive, not straight down, but it feels like you're going straight down. It's just another dimension.
Are those kinds of speeds that you can attain? Is that just, is that going to make speed flying even more dangerous or is it quite a stable profile?
Um, I think it's quite a stable profile. Uh, if it's. If it's done, uh, correctly, but you know, I'm not a designer and I don't have so much experience with that. Um, but I think this is definitely the future of speed flying because with speed flying, you want to profile that when you speed up the wing, it doesn't go necessarily faster. Only you want it special to go down, to stay along the mountain. And this is exactly what reflex does. This is why it's not working. You know, for paragliders, for, uh, cross country paragliders, some paraglider manufacturers that use a tiny bit of reflex or they use the bit to make the gliders more stable.
But I think if you put too much on it, it's going to cost a lot of, um, uh, it's going to cost performance. And obviously this is not what you want on a paraglider. If you want to push the speed bar, you want to go fast and not down. But if you want to speed up a speed flying wing, you want to go down, uh, it's nice if it goes a little faster. But you actually want to go down and being able to change the angle of the flight. And I think this is what that reflex is allowing us.
If someone came to you off the street and said, listen, I've seen your videos and I've, I just, I'm fascinated with all these, all these people flying and interlocking. I really want to learn where would you start them? Would you, uh, but given that they were there, their interest was speed flying. Um, they, they wanted to learn how to speed fly. And fly many wings. Where would you start them? And what would that progression look like ideally?
I
would usually try to talk them out of speed flying first.
Um, I'm just honest with them and I'm telling them, Hey, speed flying statistically seen it's, it's very dangerous that it's as dangerous as space jumping, I think, um, at least here, you know, we've had a lot of, uh, accidents here in Switzerland and also in the Alps. Um, and I've also done a lot of face jumping myself and I really see it that way. It's, you can do it safely for sure, but it's just a bigger risk to get overconfident, um, because, uh, it makes you feel even better than paragliding. Paragliding sometimes is scary, but speed flying, it's not, if you learn the right way, it's never scary.
Um, and that's what makes it dangerous. So. So normally I would, you know, just tell those people that it's as dangerous as space jumping, and then they would think about a while, maybe they still want to do it and I'm happy to teach them, but I would definitely tell them if they want to learn to speed fly, they need to learn to paraglide. Uh, one thing I like to say is learning how to speed fly, not not knowing how to paraglide and not having the paragliding knowledge is like learning how to base jump without skydiving. It works. People do it, but is it something smart? Is it something you want to do?
I don't think so. That's a great analogy. I hadn't ever thought of it that way.
Yeah. Um, I'm sure you can learn it if you take it easy and step by step, but there's always going to be a few things. You're, you're going to miss out, you know, you don't fully understand thermals. If you know the paraglider, um, the winds and everything, the weather, um, it's just something you, or active flying as well. It's just something you're not going to learn on a speedway. You know, these are skills you need to get on your paraglider first.
There was a video you had on, on your, in your feed of a guy that was speed flying with his trimmers all the way out in kind of thermic conditions and had the most insanely scary blowout. I, that was amazing. That was caught on film, but he, he had like a complete collapse and then an 80 % and then he pulled it out right above the trees. It was. It was a small, small miracle, but, um, what, what kind of stuff like that does a lot of the community, maybe not, or maybe they're not aware of it. Are there, what are the most common reasons for accidents? Well, what are, what are speed pilots doing that's wrong? Um,
yeah, so far it's not collapses yet. Um, I would say the first few generations of speed wings, they were so stable. They had big profiles. You know, uh, big cells, uh, they're very forgiving. You could fly with them in any shift and collapse wasn't an issue. And only the last two, three years, uh, where wings, uh, came up on the market with a lot more speed and more glide that have thinner profiles and are more likely to collapse. This is an issue, but so far it's still not the biggest issue in speed flying. I think the biggest. Mistakes people do the biggest, the accidents is still pilot errors.
Um, and this is, this is taking off, you know, people take off on bumpy takeoffs. Um, they fuck up launches. Um, they fuck up landings. Um, they misjudge landings. You know, they, they bomb in swooping. Um, they, they hit something on the way down. Um. Uh, like, you know, touching the tree with a wing tip or the stabilo line.
Um, I think it's things like this. I wouldn't say there's a, there's a classic, uh, speed flying, uh, accident yet.
Hmm. And, and all of those just being pilot error. I mean, I guess we see that in, in, in paragliding too, you know, kind of an overconfidence, you know, like you said, complacency.
Exactly. Yeah. That that's what it is. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. There's for sure some beginner mistakes, you know, um, where people just don't have the skills yet and they're in a too demanding area resort, you know, landing places too small, too many obstacles, too many rocks around in their ride or whatever. And these kinds of things are classic mistakes, you know, beginner, uh, fixes, uh, object fixation.
Um, but I think.
Uh, it's hard to say, uh, this is for sure a part of it as well, but a big part of the, uh, or what is really dangerous to me is the complacency that just getting overconfident, I think all others you can avoid by doing it step-by-step, but even if you do it step-by-step, there's a risk you're going to get overconfident.
Hmm. Uh, is there a system, because I know you're working in the Swiss system, which is really the, you know, the, the best, or if not one of the best. Yeah. In the world, in terms of the, the system they take you through for paragliding in terms of the strictness and all the steps and, and hurdles you have to go over. I mean, it's a, it's, it's what the rest of the world really tries to match. Um, is there also a system like that for many wings now in Switzerland or is it, is it more just depends on the instructor and like, is there a certification process? Mm-hmm.
So in Switzerland, it was funny when speed flying came up, uh, it wasn't, it was kind of unregulated. So skydiving. Skydivers started doing it, paragliders started doing it, but it wasn't regulated. And then, um, you know, the, the Swiss, um, aviation Federation came and said, Hey, who's going to take care of this skydivers or paragliders, you know, who wants to deal with that? And then the skydivers, they said, no, we don't, we don't want to deal with this. So it ended up being with the paragliders, which is a great thing, I think, uh, just because it's a lot more close. The paragliding than it is to skydiving, obviously. And, um, so we have the regulation now in Switzerland that anything, uh,
smaller than 14 square meters, you need to have a speed flying license to get your speed flying license. You need to pass your paragliding license and you take another course, which three to five days, uh, with an instructor, and then he's going to sign you off, uh, and you get that speed flying. That's
great. I love it. No, I hope we follow in those footsteps. One of the things that I have struggled with in my own, you know, kind of speed flying in, in, in with progression is, is, uh, cause I, I'm much more passionate about paragliding, but I do a lot of speed flying in the winter. And, um, but it's, it's the lack of time under the canopy. Yeah. I mean, your, your runs are so fast, you know, you, I mean, you really have to get after it to get, you know. Much real time and, you know, like, uh, doing barrel rolls right off the ground is obviously a super advanced maneuver, but the, the, you know, these, the wings are, are so easy to fly. Um, and like you said, so stable, they encouraged me right off the bat to do things that I probably wasn't ready for, you know, like, how do you, how do you stop people from doing that?
You know, like, it's just, it's like. You said, I think it's great that you're encouraging people to paraglide first, because that's where you get time and that's where you, you understand weather and you get all these, you know, the, the foundational skills to be able to speed fly. But it, it, um, I, they are just incredibly easy wings to fly. I guess is where I'm going with that. And that, that, that makes, that's what makes me nervous.
Yeah, totally. Uh, I totally agree. It, you know, it doesn't collapse. Um, so it's not scary. So that's, that's how you become, uh, uh, overconfident and complacent.
Um, I don't know how to stop people from doing barrels on their first day speed flying. Um, when you look at the YouTube videos, this is all they do, you know, barrels. Um, when I started speed flying, barrels didn't exist. I haven't ever seen somebody doing barrels. I figured out myself that this is actually possible. And I was the first guy to do them. Um, so I didn't have that problem that I wanted to do this the first day, you know, um, but I can, I can understand people that they look at this and it looks cool. And it's kind of the only trick you can do flying. So they all want to do it. Um, what I tell people is that if they speed fly and they don't do cliff launch and barrel, it's twice as safe.
Yeah, that's good.
That's great advice. Um, I think, you know, obviously. Cliff launches, it's easy to kill, uh, pilots and barrels. Um, it's also easy to get killed or at least badly hurt. And there's a few videos online from people doing barrels the wrong way and fucking up big time.
Um, I mean, it's, it's easy to do a barrel, you know, there's not much, uh, the interest about it if you do it high and if you do it slow.
Um, but I think what a lot of people don't understand about the barrel is. You can do it slow. They're afraid of falling into the wing. They're afraid of stopping halfway, uh, in it and then just falling down into the wing. And the moment I tell people, Hey, you can do anything you want. You can't make the wing collapse by doing a battle roll or even fall down in it. It's going to take away a lot of pressure for the people and they're going to be much more relaxed about the barrels and they start doing it slowly, you know, somewhere high over the ground. And then once they've done it. Uh, you know, a dozen times, they figure out themselves how they can do it a little quicker and a little nicer and how to make it look a little better. Um, but I think it's important to understand you can't fall into the wing.
Yeah. Good point.
Are you teaching people to do, you know, to, to do their first barrels and that kind of thing high, uh, in with, are they flying with reserves too?
Yeah, exactly. Uh, I tell them they should go out high and take a reserve when they start practicing. Yeah,
I've been thinking about that a lot myself cause I, I, I never have, and lately I've been thinking, um, I should, I should take a reserve. Why not?
Yeah. I mean, obviously if you're close to the ground, it doesn't help you, but, um, you don't want to learn a battle roll close to the ground. Right. So, um, yeah, go high, take a reserve.
Where, where should people start, you know, wing size and, uh, you know, how, how to, how to kind of say they've gotten their kind of beginner license with paratroopers. Uh, paragliding and they really want to speed fly, you know, what, what, where do you start?
Um, difficult question. It's all about, um, the wing loads. Um, I realized a lot of people, you know, they compare themselves with others. Um, but if you're a hundred kilo or a 90 kilogram and you compare yourself with a guy that is only 60, um, it's like comparing apples with bananas. So you need to, you need to think about wing loading, obviously. Um, we recommend. People, um, to start on skis because skis are more forgiving. Sure. Um, and they let you do a lot of flights, you know, in a ski resort, if you have a chairlift, you can go up and down. You can do 30 flights a day, uh, still short flights, but it's 30 runs. You know, you get to take off 30 times, you get to land 30 times.
Um, I think this is a good way to progress in skis and plus it's forgiving. If you, if you fuck up launches or landings, you've got the skis, they take away a lot of energy.
Um, and we think wing loading wise, it's, it's good for the last, for the first two years or for the first couple of hundred flights, not to go over eight kilogram per square meter.
Okay, great. I hadn't heard that one before. Okay.
Yeah. Um, if you go above that, you're very high loaded. And what I think as well is important is, um, I would start flying a mini wing first. Okay. When I started speed flying, there was only two wings. Um, one was the chin and you could buy it in 14, 13, 12 and 10. So 14 was the biggest sizes and there wasn't anything between 14 and the 20 meter paraglider or even 23 meter paraglider. Uh, but nowadays you can start with, uh, you know, a 16 meter, 15 meter or 17 meter mini wing. Which is a great thing if you're not very experienced paragliding yet, um, or you're not a great skier and you want to learn foot launching, uh, then this is a great step in between.
And I really recommend people take that step, uh, take your time, fly that mini wing for a while and then switching for a sip from a 16 meter mini wing down to a 13 Mirage or 15 Mirage is not a huge step anymore.
There was a video on your, on your, uh, on, on 15. Facebook that was like a, uh, the video was the perspective from the, somebody on a mini wing, uh, following on skis. And the, the, one of these kites, the, one of the reflex kite was out in front and he was just getting these, like, obviously just hitting the brakes a little bit and just going, you know, hundreds of feet above the ground. Just amazing. It looked like performance. Well, I, I couldn't really tell, um, how that was happening. Is that, is that all it is, is just a matter of letting it dive and pulling it back?
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's just, um, yeah, so much more performance in it than on a speed wing. That's why we're flying these things. Amazing. Um, going back to a speed wing feels like a beginner wing.
Wow. Is it, are there many companies working on this? Cause we haven't seen one of these over here, at least not that I know of.
I don't think so. Um, uh, I only know, know from Skywalk that they're working on it, but I hope there's some other guys working on it too.
It's a, it's a, it's an enticing part of the sport and I can't wait to see how that goes.
Oh, totally. This is going to be, uh, amazing. I think not only for speed flying, you know, but I think for coastal soaring, if you think about coastal soaring, you know, uh, with a paraglider, the, the window you can fly your wing on the coast is kind of limited. You know, when the wing gets a little strong, it gets really hard to launch and you're going to get dragged. Um, you know, when you pull up the wing, you get. Thrown in the air, um, on voluntary, um, it's just hard to deal with a paraglider in strong winds where with those kites, it's so much easier. Uh, especially if those reflex, they don't overshoot, um, or they overshoot, but it don't collapse and you can, you can stand in probably, you
know, 40, 50 % more wind than you could handle the same size paraglider when you have a reflex wing.
Wow. Uh, I get, it's hard for me to even get my head around it and I need to watch, I need to look at more of your videos.
It's
so fascinating. Um, if you'd ever fly one, you'd be totally surprised and amazed for sure. Uh, it's the future, I think. Yeah. And
you talk about it being the future for speed for flying, but would it be for paragliding as well?
I don't think so for cross country paragliding. Cause it, it does kill performance. Um, okay. I think mini wing flying and coastal soaring. That's where I see it.
Okay. Huh? Yeah. Do you think your, your background and kind of passion in, in surfing and kite surfing and foiling, do you think that really helps your flying? And if so, why? I
don't think so. No. Interesting. No, it's, it's a different thing. Yeah. Do you think the kite surfing helped you?
I do. And I think the sailing did as well, just because it's, it's air. You know, it's still. Understanding. Well, so I've had this theory for a while. I've talked to some other people. I used to do a lot of paddling, a lot of whitewater paddling, kayaking and paddling and stuff. And, um, you know, I think we'll, I did this, this traverse, prairie gliding, bivvy trip with Will Gadd, a Red Bull project a few years ago, and he's a big paddler. And we talked about that a lot that, you know, that understanding the, how water moves is, is basically the same how air moves. You know, there's Eddie's and Lee and, uh, like the ocean moves. And, and so there's, there seem to be, you know, like kayakers seem to get paragliding really fast, faster than other people.
And I think some of that is because of the movement, you know, it's in your hips and it's in your, it's in your belly and it's all about core. But I think it's also the risk profile, you know, like kayaking is kind of similar in that you can't hit the stop button midway down the rapid, you know, just like in paragliding. You can't just be like, okay, I'm done. I want to pull over now and stop, you know? So I think that's, so part of it. Yeah. I'm sure just that mental, you know, people are drawn to that kind of risk profile, but, um, I I've often thought that, and I, I don't, I don't have any proof to back this up. This is just a thought, uh, but the, the, the, all the years I spent sailing and kite surfing and that's, it's a different kind of air that's laminar. It's in the ocean. It's very different than what we deal with in the mountains on a paraglider. So I might be just totally wrong about this, but I think it did help me understand just how air moves in the mountain, you know?
You know, like Kregel's magic, uh, I've said this so many times, I'm sorry, folks and listeners, but, you know, his magic is really understanding the big picture. This is my theory is that he understands the big picture of how air moves in the mountains and he's just using it better than everybody else. And, and I think, I think that just comes from an understanding of air and, and, and wind and movements and, you know, just how it moves around objects and where you can utilize that. Um, so, yeah, I mean, I think I'd like to think that kite surfing in the sailing helped, but I don't know. It's interesting that you think it didn't.
Um, sure does help a little bit to understand it, but, um, paddling for sure helps a lot, I think, because you really need to understand the water. If you don't understand the water, uh, it's going to kill you. And paragliding is very similar. If you want to go far on a wing, you need to understand the air, how it's working. Um.
But, um, you're going to learn it anyhow, you know, guiding on the ocean is somewhat different than it's laminar wind than paragliding in the mountains. And I think you only learn this by doing it by experiencing it, but at the same time, reading it up or reading it up first and then experience it or the other way, but kind of, you really have to work on it. You have to interest it, uh, be interesting in it. Um. To fully understand what's going on.
When you think about flying, when you're in bed at night and you're dreaming, um, what, what gets you really excited right now about the sport? Like what, do you have any projects in mind or, um, is it, you know, is it big cross country flights or is it like travel to beer, uh, that kind of stuff? What, what has you excited about the next kind of five years?
Hmm. Good question.
Um, yeah. I get my, um, my confidence back, um, cross country paragliding, and I hope I enjoy it again more, uh, that I do right now, but I don't have any big dreams right now, to be honest.
if you look back at your this is i ask this of everybody and i love it but if you look back at your flying career uh all the way back to the beginning if you you know imagine you're imagine you're back at your 50 hour self um tell us when that was where you were and if you could you know go back and talk to that benny at that time what advice would you give him and
i was a 50 hours pilot i didn't care much about thermaling and paragliding all i wanted to do is be flying
uh the speed flying got me hooked a lot more than the paragliding did first um i remember i even had a time where uh it was a little scary to paragliding um because i haven't flown much myself for a while and you know you always hear about accidents and it's like hey this might happen to me as well but then i got hooked with that speed flying and all i did is just be flying every every single minute i could uh whether in winter with skis or in summer foot launching and then um i felt confident that i never thought back about uh that fear i had in paragliding in
what what year would this be and were you an interlock and then too yeah
exactly yeah
and when what when would that when were you when were you a 50 hour pilot how long ago uh it was probably 2007
wow quite a while okay and then so advice for your 50 hour self what would you would you have changed anything about your trajectory and what you've done
um yes um yes stay more current paragliding when you speak uh okay don't put your paraglider into the basement when you start speed flying interesting keep doing both that's
really cool so you really see that they're super integral skills in other words say you you really need to do both to perform at one for
sure yeah but you're a much safer speed flying pilot uh if you're a good paraglider pilot i think yeah
cool i like it uh any other family members in the sport other than your dad is he still pretty active pilot um yeah
he is yeah he's just trying to get his um he's retired now from work and he's now um just trying to get his uh tandem license oh that's so cool yeah so he's still keen and i think he's flying more than ever as he's got time now uh as uh as being retired that
is so cool i mean you guys are in the spot maybe in the world for tandems i don't i don't think i've ever seen a more busy tan than interlock and it's such a gorgeous place to to do it yeah
totally it's busy but i think there's busier places like only than he's i think they do even more really gosh
i couldn't i think so yeah yeah maybe you're right yeah
yeah yeah wow um i can't imagine yeah it's for sure a great place here in the lock and um i think it's also a great flight for the tourists you know um up at launch the view is amazing you see the three huge mountains you can see lakes you can see glaciers um and then you go and fly over the city and you land in the middle of the city in between two lakes which is very special too
yeah it's a it's truly a unique unique place in the world i'm really hoping the X-Alps goes through there again although when it does then we give Chrigel even more of an advantage so maybe that's maybe that's a bad idea i've been i've been gripped watching the X-Pyr the last few days and he just smoked everybody yet again he's just in a totally different league it's it's so impressive yeah
so but do you think it's a big advantage when you fly in a place um and you know it well for cross country flying you
know that that's a really good question the um the kind of going thought on that seems to be like it competitions you know so like pwcs and that kind of thing it seems to not be an advantage you know the local pilots and the pilots will often will often get beat because they do what they know and and the people that come in with a fresh mind uh you know have new ideas that often work better and i think you know that's interestingly on that exact same note Chrigel is one of the only pilots uh other than the ones that just don't have the time or don't have the money to to spend before the race but he doesn't scout at all um i was amazed to hear that in 2015 he and i were sitting right next to each other at a um uh yeah a press conference at the one of the red bull hangers like a couple days before the race and they said you know what have you been doing the last few weeks and you said i've just been training at home and uh you know and i had been going everywhere i possibly could on the course to try to learn it and part of that's because you know for those of us that aren't europeans which is you know we don't know nearly as much about the alps as the europeans do so i think that's important but he says he he does that you know really specifically
because he doesn't want to go into an area with preconceived notions you know like he kept hearing you know a great example he said this on the podcast we had with him but he he kept hearing from everybody that had scouted that getting down to the guard a turn point in the air would basically be impossible unless you came in there at a perfect time of day because the the valley winds are so strong from the south and we were flying south and and then he did it you know because he he just because he he went in there with all
the time and he just didn't have the
open eyes and figured it out and uh i mean he didn't all the way do it but he he was the only one really that flew that and uh and so i think that's that's part of his magic you know i don't i don't know that i mean i think i'll still go and scout in advance but but um yeah i don't know if it's much more of an advantage i mean i i just i don't know that they can take that race anywhere that's going to disadvantage him yeah he's just better than everybody else by a huge margin
yeah it
is impressive i
think it's also hard to have experience he has yeah exactly i think uh cross country flying has got a lot to do with uh experience yeah
and that's my ben and i were just laughing about that yesterday ben's my my other supporter uh and we were laughing about that you know the the problem is is we are all training really hard but so is he so he just keeps getting better you know it's not like it's not like we're catching up or making ground you know he started when i was nine i started when i was 35 that just that doesn't compute that's not i'm never gonna catch him that's just how it goes
yeah exactly yeah and uh i think he's he's training a lot too and very focused you know like uh like a proper sportsman yeah he's a professional he's a professional yeah very professional training i think yeah that's what he's doing yeah yeah
absolutely for all the aspects the psychology the the soft training the you know everything he's doing it all yeah
i think
so benny that was a real pleasure thank you so much uh just a joy to talk to you and i hope to come speed fly and paraglide with you at some point i i am not the the speed pilot you are but i'm sure i could learn a ton and uh and i think we could have fun turning circles in the sky but i'm sure i could learn a ton and i think we could have fun turning circles in the sky but thanks for sharing your time this took us weeks to put together i'm glad we're so glad we were finally able to pull it off yeah
you're welcome gavin thanks uh for the ring no problem and let me know when you're in interlock and anytime sounds
great talk to you soon thank
you bye bye i hope
you enjoyed that cool talk with a cool guy who's been uh at this this sport in all of its ramifications and iterations for an awfully long time i learned a lot from you and i hope you did too so a couple public service announcements i guess is what you'd call them uh that have come up in the last few weeks uh from the last couple shows uh one was Nik Hawks a lot of people really resonated with that one i'm having his having those couple of close calls and i actually got quite a few emails about his wing choice and they were pretty disappointed that i didn't call it out he's flying the carrera plus which i'm not super familiar with i guess it's a pretty hot bee as hot as the carrera um but you know people were like oh my god how you know he shouldn't be on that kind of wing um so the reason i didn't pull that out is because i think it's really important that we judge people not by the numbers by hours but by ability um you know it's probably not fair to make a comparison to myself but when i was probably around his same number of hours i was over in beer in india and uh flying the gen rebel which was a c so quite a bit hotter than what he's flying and you know i was doing that was kind of where i did my first kind of 100k flight so you know at that point i had done two major sivs and a couple little one dayers so kind of like what nick has done i had been training a lot i've been flying a ton um you know i didn't have the hours necessarily that justified that but i kind of agree with nick's thoughts that you know when you're learning late in the game and you want to get really good you know you're going to have to some risks so uh and it's really on that person
to decide so i agree with him there you know he knows the risk he's taken and you know maybe those two incidents are a little bit of a oh man maybe i'm not on the right wing but that's really for him to decide and uh you know in his community to decide and it's kind of hard for us to make these judgment calls really from a podcast or from the outside so that's my opinion on that um i you know i think one of the things you'll hear on this show over and over and over again is trying to talk people down from moving up on wings and staying on safe but you know the reality is is you know if if you're getting bored or you want more performance or you want more um you know not thrill but you you want to move up then you know this sport is risky and it's going to just you just have to eat those risks sometimes and and move forward and that's how you get better as well so i think what we're trying to say is that do it as safely as you possibly can and uh you know spend the money on training before gear for sure that's a
the other one was the the last episode we did with Nick Greece um a lot of people also really resonated with his story of of kenya and the ptsd and kind of all the mental stuff he went through and got a great email from a guy named anti i'm sure i'm not saying his name right a n t t i i will put his uh contact details in the show notes for this one because he has offered and has done a lot
of psychology and you know he he has uh helped a lot of pilots he comes from medical background and psychology background and he's helped a lot of pilots he's not doing it for the money um but if you know if you if you've been through something like that or you're dealing with fear injuries or any kind of things he has offered to help and uh what they're doing is just doing a donation to like the cloud bait cloud-based foundation or karma flights or something and so that's kind of his way of giving back to the community so super generous really interesting i think obviously really helpful for uh many in this community that have had to deal with that kind of stuff and stuff that's pretty scary and so uh check out the show notes and feel free to reach out to auntie he's pretty uh psyched to receive the the emails and and try to help where he can so there you go as always all we ask for is a buck a show if you enjoyed the show or one of the previous ones uh we're stacking up a lot of hours a great you content there so go back and check them out if you haven't um but if you're enjoying it treat it like a magazine subscription or something and uh don't just send us a dollar wait till you listen to 20 or 30 or 40 and decide if it's worth it and uh you can do a one-time donation through paypal you'll find the links for that on cloudbasedmayhem.com or you can be a regular supporter of the show and you only pay when content comes out and you're rewarded for doing so on patreon.com forward slash cloud-based mayhem so and there's also we've got a new store in the store we've got some great patagonia swag t-shirts with the cloud-based mayhem logo on the back those are all organic fair trade classic patagonia last forever great quality shirts for men and women and we've got the annika herndon makes these killer recaps these trucker hats that are awesome i love them each one is totally unique and you can find those on there as well so many ways to do it and if you can't there's no problem with that too we will keep putting out the content there's other ways to support the show you can blog about it you can share it with your friends you can share it on facebook many many different ways but uh we appreciate you listening we appreciate your support and we'll see you on the next one thank you