Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud Base Mayhem. I am recording this opener yet again in the Bogota Airport. Had a great week of racing in the British Open. Those guys, Aaron Nomads and Luke Joe and his team, put on an awesome comp. Proper World Cup speed. Lots and lots of really good pilots. It was super fun. This talk is with Mark Watts, legend. I met him back in 2012 when he came to Sun Valley for the World Cup. He won it. We've told other stories about that race. Guy Anderson disappeared. I think he got second or third in this comp. He disappeared for a couple days, put the scare on all of us. But he came out of that one okay.
If you haven't listened to that show, go back and check it out. Awesome stories. But we've had a lot of requests for Mark Watts. He's been racing for more than 25 years. Legend. He tells some great stories. We had a really fun talk. As with the previous show, it was a live show. It was down there in Columbia, in my backyard. There was lots and lots of sound. Miles has worked his magic, as he always does. But especially later in the talk, as the sun started going down, we had some very interesting birds coming out. But Miles has done his best with that. It's still definitely worth listening to. I don't think it would be too bad. But before we get into the talk with Mark, we talk about competitions and risk. And all kinds of stuff. You're just going to dig it.
Lots of good stories. But before we get into that one, two things of housekeeping. One is I wanted to put a shout out to Kony and XC Racer. I've seen a lot more of these, especially with the Compilots. It's the tiniest little unit. You've probably seen the ad in Cross Country Magazine. They aren't a sponsor of the show. I just wanted to put out a shout for them, for Kony, because they're just amazing little varios. Solar powered. You pretty much never need to charge them. The little, the new mini, which I don't even have yet. It's barely bigger than a quarter and weighs about the same. It's just almost nothing. So I'm pretty excited to use that in the XL. So if you're looking for lightweight gear and just a terrific, terrific audio vario that connects Bluetooth to your phone or other instruments.
But it's what most of the Compilots I'm seeing are using now. Terrific little unit. It uses accelerometers, so it's instant up and down and you can do all kinds of customization, which I've done to make it kind of match your typical Flytech or Flymaster. So get the dampening and the averaging and find it really good for finding cores and climbing. So the second bit of housekeeping, this isn't actually the most exciting story, but I threw my reserve the first day in Columbia. So I've been down in Valle for a couple of weeks and Valle is typically pretty rowdy. Wasn't overly rowdy this time, but we did have some very blue high pressure days. The first few days in Valle, they were kind of bitey.
And I've always thought a Rol de Nio is really soft and mellow. And people always talk about the cloud flying. I hadn't been down here in a few years. It's been a few years. But the first day I got there and actually the first few days I was there, it was super blue. I guess it's been really dry. El Nino has been very kind to Rol de Nio and it was actually really rowdy. So the first day I got in the air, I think I was quite kind of, passive about the whole thing. And I was just taking pictures and cruising around and getting some hours. And it was about 20K out from launch up above the kind of ridge. Those of you that have flown there, you kind of know there's like, in the mountains there, there's a shelf up on top. That's not too steep and lots of grass and stuff. And I was just leaving a climb and I wasn't super high.
It was a pretty low day at that point, but I was just leaving a climb and had a big blowout. And you know, didn't really think too much of it, but got a really bad cravat on the left side, like pretty huge and very sticky. And I should have stalled it right away, but I thought I could fish it out and I could barely fly the wing with a lot of lean and quite a bit of break, but really to go straight. I almost said it was, I was using so much break that it almost stalled the right side. So I kind of did the best I could fly it straight and you know, did the whole fish with the mouth thing. And there's the slide, the lines were so slack. And if I reached over with my other hand, it would start to die and wind up. So I was trying to kind of like do it, like grab a whole bunch of line, put it in my mouth, grab a whole bunch more line.
And I was almost successful doing that, but I couldn't quite get it. So then I tried an ESP, which I'd never done, but I'd heard about it from Matt Beechinor. He did it in the Sierras. It's, it's in his talk, I think the second or third episode. And so that's where you spin the non-flying side. So grabbed all that stuff and just yanked because of course the break wasn't doing anything. And, but I didn't do it really aggressively. I probably needed to do a little bit harder, but at that point I was a little bit worried about my height over the ground. And then I took a quick second to reassess and thought, man, maybe I can, if I can fly straight, maybe I can fly down off the edge of this thing and get through the trees. I briefly thought about trying to land it up on top because there was some grass, but there was a bunch of power lines. And I didn't really think that I had enough control over the wing.
Uh, to put it in, I definitely had no right turn whatsoever, and it was really quite unstable. And I was almost in parachutal. My, my Vario's sink alarm was going off the whole time. I was sinking pretty fast. I didn't look at how fast, but you know, that thousand feet I had when it first started, uh, disappeared really quickly. So anyway, started flying straight towards the valley and I was kind of thinking I could maybe get over the trees, but that was, there was no chance. Um, and very luckily there was a little tiny. You feel a little farmer's field. It was incredibly steep, just a little grass field in this kind of sea of jungle. So yeah, there was just a little bit of wind. Uh, it wasn't really wind. It was just antibiotic flow coming up from the valley. And so I just got windward of that and, uh, decided to throw my regalo, which is on the right side.
I have to fly with two reserves, my race kit and, uh, thinking that I could get that out real quick and hopefully steered in this little field and, you know, call it a day. Uh, but as soon as I threw it open super fast, as soon as I threw it open, it opened super fast. I flew the, the, the flying part of my wing down, playing really fast. And it seemed like I was going down pretty quick. I only flew, I only threw with about 400 feet of bird. That's all I had once I got to kind of windward of the field. And, uh, so I, by the time I got, I disabled my wing and reminder to wear gloves. If you, I didn't have any gloves on and disabling a wing without any gloves leaves some nice loose, some skin for sure. But, uh, disabled the wing. And as soon as I got that in, I was pretty much down. I didn't have any time to even get to the toggles.
I took a quick look for them and couldn't even see them. I was kind of twisted up at that point. So, uh, landed very softly and just off the edge of the field, actually almost hit a horse going in, which was pretty funny. Uh, and then just stepped out of my gear, went and looked for the bag. I couldn't find the bag, but when I went and did that, I realized that it was really, really steep terrain and walking out of there would have been pretty tough. And then I kind of reassessed and looked at the field and thought, Holy cow. I can just fly out of here. Um, you know, it was, it was a little bit shallow and there was a lot of trees, but it was, you know, going to be Bodie for sure. And, um, nothing like a typical X-Alps launch. So no big deal. So I just packed up the reserve and the bag and, uh, reset my gear and launched and flew home. It was only about 20 K back to roles and, you know, so I landed back at my house and, uh, the next day, uh, I guess according to X contest, I'm not too sure.
I believe this, but they said that I broke the FAI triangle record there. So, uh, that was pretty neat. It held for 24 hours. Another guy beat it the next day by like 0.8 K or something, which is pretty cool. Uh, but yeah, anyway, the flag was fantastic. And then we got into the British open and that was terrific, but a lot of people have asked me to tell the story about the reserve toss and that was it. Uh, it was certainly very, very tame. Um, I kind of think you're never going to have a reserve toss after all these years, but I mean, I've done a few, uh, in acro, but I've never done it in that kind of situation. So, um, you know, certainly there was some adrenaline pumping, but, uh, testament to reserves and a good idea to have two that was, that was awfully nice as that allowed me to, to fly home, which was, which was pretty nice and better than a very, very hot walk through the jungle.
So, uh, that's it for housekeeping. Let's get into this show with Mark Watts. Uh, God, he races fast. He's so fun to fly with. And, uh, he tells some pretty good stories. I think you're going to dig this. So enjoy this talk with Mark Watts.
Mark, thanks so much for coming on the mayhem, uh, mid comp. I know that's always kind of tricky to fit in the time and stuff, but, uh, you are a legend in the sport. And so, uh, I appreciate you, uh, coming on the show and, and you had a lot of requests for you. Um, I thought where we'd start is kind of what we were talking about the other day with your dad, uh, understand your dad's kind of a pioneer. He got started. We just did this hang gliding show pretty recently. And, uh, he sounds like he got started from the same national geographic article that came out in the early seventies. Um, maybe start with him and, uh, and how he maybe eventually
led you to flight. So, uh, yeah, my dad went to, um, went to the dentist and, uh, picked up this national geographic magazine and there was an article in there about, uh, people flying the regalo. It was, um, apparently an offshoot of NASA research for bringing in the pods from outer space and, um, yeah, men were, were flying these regalos. So he wrote off to the. States for instructions on how to build one and the instructions came back. So, uh, yeah, it was a thousand gauge black sort of building polythene, aluminum scaffold tubes, 90 degrees, nose angle with whatever you needed to wrap the material around the, around the leading edge. And he ironed it together, shiny magazine and ironed the two bits of plastic together. And that's how he stuck it.
Um, yeah, no top rigging, no battens. Uh, I think he said the. Instructions were pushed to go up and pull to come down. So, uh, I think he said, there you got it. You're ready to go. Yeah. He's, uh, he's his first flight. I think it was from, I'm not sure if his first one was from Plumpton, but he used to fly from, uh, a Ridge called Plumpton, um, or the ditching Ridge. And, uh, he sort of got near the bottom and thought I want to be at the top and push the bar out and came down from higher than he thought. And he said the soles of his feet were black for about a week.
Yeah. Yeah. So that was, uh, he learned not to push out too much. And, uh, yeah, I think he said his first soaring flight was, uh, in a four, seven gale. And the upshot of it was seven. Yeah. Well, he kept going out and he couldn't stay up. So he just kept them going out in stronger wind. And, uh, eventually one guy that was taking it, took the nose wires or ropes at the time. So nylon shock cord. Um, they've sort of moved towards the front of the hill and, uh, dad's lifted off the ground. This guy's lifted off the ground. And so thought bugger you and let go. And, uh, that's what it went up backwards and landed. And that was it soaring top landing.
Got a dial. Yeah.
Yeah. But, um, he also experienced the, the laughing dive. So, you know, quite soon after hang gliders were made, they worked out, they needed batons and top rigging to stop the sale going the wrong way up. And they would, uh, dive into the ground and, uh, you know, not do the pilots any good, but, uh, dad broke his ankle in a, in a laughing dive, uh, on the, what he called the black polythene bat. And, uh, yeah, after that, I think the next hang glider was homemade. I think that probably had top rigging, but that was sailcloth and a bit more advanced. Yeah. And he went from there. He used to bribe the local farmers with punnets of mushrooms. He used to work on a mushroom farm. He used to bribe them with punnets of mushrooms to allow them to fly his hills.
Fly the hills. Yeah. And so this is kind of early seventies. Yes. It'd be, I'll be three years old. So probably a 72, 70, 73, 74. And was it his
kind of passion for flight? Did that carry on then? I guess he, he kept flying. He's still flying. Yeah.
He's still flying. Yep. Yeah. They're still flying now. Yeah. So he's just turned 70 now, I think. Wow. Yeah. And any other close calls? Oh, there's always close calls out there. Yeah. Been flying for that long. There's got to be some close calls. Yeah. He had a quite a nasty accident with a thing called a Quicksilver, which was a sort of a wing with a tailplane. That was at Furl. Yeah. That sort of got into a dive and hit the hill at Furl. I believe later on they, they lift the tailplane up by about eight inches to stop it going into a dive and make it, make it pull the nose up. But no, he broke his thigh and I think some shelter.
He's got
a shoulder blade and mashed up a load of internals. He's in hospital for a long time. Ooh. Well, I don't know if it was four months or more, but it was quite a long time. And what, about when was that? Oh, I don't know. Um, I don't know. I was doing about eight, I suppose, maybe 10. Okay. A few years after he learned. Yeah. And
then you, you had kind of a scary incident in one of his trikes or something.
Yeah. Was it the Quicksilver or was it something else? No, no. It was, this was a thing made by a company called. Uh, Aerial Arts, I believe. Um, it's a three 30 twin Fuji Robin engine with a, with a trike, a hang glider. Um, uh, it was a Magic, Magic 4177, Magic 4 hang glider on a trike. And, uh, I suppose I'd have been about 13 years of age and we were down, down in the field at the back of the farm where we lived. And, uh, dad said, do you want to have a go with a trike? It's like, yeah, sounds good. So he said, go down the field. Before you do a turn at the bottom, get the power on early. Cause the field's a bit small, come back round and, uh, come up the field. He said, when you get to roughly where I am, push the bar out, pull it back in again, get to about 10 feet, let off the gas and just do a little, little hop in the field.
Uh, fair enough. Sounds, sounds reasonable. So first attempt didn't really have enough, enough, uh, speed to get unstuck. So he said, try the gas a bit earlier in the bend. So second attempt again, no, uh, no success. Third attempt. Yep. Gone down the field, come trundling up the field and, uh, push the bar out. Pop must've gone up to about sort of 20 feet. And, uh, I then remember sort of looking at the end of the field and there's a row of trees at the end of the field. And I thought, hmm, uh, if I let off the gas now, I'm not going to stop before the trees. Apparently with hindsight, I would have done. But so, uh, I've gone trundling along the, you know, I've gone along the field at sort of 20 feet and my dad's sort of watching thinking, what's he doing? What's he doing? And, uh, so. So, uh, I've gone, gone along the edge of the field, got to where the trees are, popped the bar out, boom, up and over the trees.
I thought, yep, not a problem. Dad does a big 360, comes, comes right there, you know, big circuit, comes back in the bottom end of the field, comes in and lands. No. Yep. That's, that's what I'll do. So, uh, yeah, not a problem. I've put a left turn in and, um, I'm on full throttle all the time though. And it's probably, I don't know, climbing at seven, 800 feet a minute. Maybe not quite that quick, but, uh, anyway, by the time I come back around into,
uh, into,
into the bottom end of the field, I can see my dad jumping up and down in the field and he's about the size of an ant.
Yeah. So you were tall. You were way too high. I was a bit hot. Yeah.
And, um, he'd put this strange thing on that, uh, you could get the trike to point in a different position to the hang glider. Um, which makes things a bit odd because the hang glider's weight shift. You think you're going where your feet are, but you're not actually going where the base bar is pointed. If you, if you see what I mean. So he did that to deal with like
unfavorable launching conditions or something. Yeah. Like crosswinds or something.
Yeah. Fields are a bit small with a crosswind. So you'd start off with the hang glider pointing into wind. And as it went up the runway, it would then weathercock into wind because it's delta shaped and take off. But when you were flying, it made things a bit strange. You had to sort of know about it. Um, so a problem I had with it was when I'd come right back round to where I wanted to be going, I'd look at my feet. And when my feet were going roughly where I wanted to be going, I'd put in a, uh, put in a turn to try and straighten up. And I'm obviously still in the turn. The base bar is still pointing left, so to speak, whereas my feet are pointing right. And the hang glider goes, you know, where the base bar is pointing. So it kept on going around and around in circles. It wouldn't stop turning. Yeah. So, um. Is dad getting further and further away or did you figure it out where you're getting lower and lower?
No, I mean, there was, uh, it's a long time ago now, so it's difficult to remember the finer details, but, uh, I do remember being sort of halfway along the field and nose down with the, with the hang glider or the trike pointing nose down thinking, not going to get in here. Um, yeah, it's just too small. It's not going to, not going to work. So I thought I need to have a bit of speed on before I go pushing the bar out or I could stall. You know, I knew about reflex washout, weight shift, airspeed, various bits and bobs. So, uh, I give it some gas and the, uh, the farm buildings came up rather quick. But anyway, I missed those and pushed the bar out and all. I went and, uh, I remember there was a sort of conifer forest, the conifer wood round the back of, of the, of the field. I do remember that feeling a twang as the wispy bits hit the bottom of the trike once or twice.
And, uh, so yeah, that was, that was a while I was up there for a while. And, um, yeah, I think that evening somebody phoned my dad up and complained at him because he'd been buzzing their house for 20 minutes.
Yeah, it was me. So he, uh, apologized humbly and said it wouldn't happen again.
But, uh, so after about, I don't know how long it was, it might've been 20 minutes. It might've been longer. I don't know. But, uh, I was starting to think it could run out of fuel. Um, and also it started to feel like I was up there for quite a long time. May not have been, but it felt like it. Yeah. And I was thinking I'm going to need to sort of get down reasonably soon. And, uh, so I thought, right, there's another field over there. So I thought I'd try and get it in there. So I'm coming down and all of a sudden it's sort of gone whoosh. And I'm quite sure what happened, but I've ended up landing 180 degrees the other way that I'd intended in a, in, in a field next to the one that I'd intended to get in. But, uh, on the way in, it sort of, the trike had come in. We got one out of three things, right? At least it landed. Yeah. I'd sort of, uh, come into the, um, come into the field, slightly crosswind with a trike and it sort of broke one of the plastic wheels and that was about it really.
So, uh, yeah. There I am, you know, 13, 14 year old kids stood in a field with a microlight and the farmer lives, the farmer's house was just over the road. So he's come across and, uh, sort of, you know, there I am stood in the field and dad's come running, running over. My brother's come running up behind my dad from a sort of mile or two away. And, uh, that sort of smoothed it over with the farmer.
And, and carried on lessons? Well, you know, he said to me, um, he said, what were you thinking? I said, well, I was concerned about hitting the trees at the end of the field. He said, well, you know, you wouldn't have done anyways. Uh, we had a bit of a chat about it and then he said, uh, he said, yeah, he said, uh, I don't think we should tell your mother about this to you.
So, uh, no, he didn't tell my mom. Well, we'll have to make sure she doesn't listen
to the podcast.
He also mentioned to me that he was, uh, sort of thinking about the newspaper headlines, you know, irresponsible father kills son in microlight incident. They always say
in backcountry skiing, you know, before you drop in, always think about what the accident report's going to read, you know, dumb ass takes a stupid line.
So yeah, that was a, an interesting moment. It was, but that wasn't really your intro to flying. It sounds like you, you, you, cause you said you, you understood wash and balance and leaning and you had, you've been flying other stuff.
No, no. We used to play with paper airplanes. Oh, okay. Make, uh, we used to make these, um, yeah, we used to make them out. Uh, uh, polystyrene, you know, meat trays, file them down, sand them down and cover them with paper and put reflex and wash out on them and various bits and bobs. So I sort of understood a bit about it. Did you get into the RC thing too? I'll see the, the, the, the remote control planes. No, no, we didn't do any of that, but, um, no, these, these were nice things. They'd go quite a long distance. They weren't your normal sort of paper airplane. Yeah. They'd go quite a long way. Yeah. So yeah. We, we used to play with those, so I knew a bit about that stuff. Uh, but it kind of put me off flying really. That incident.
I'd had a tandem flight with my dad off of Plumpton on a, I don't know if it's highway, it's a thing called a super scorp, super scorpion. I don't know who made it, but, uh, we did a top to bottom off of Plumpton on that one, one day. And, uh, I'd also went on a, Ian Graylin made a hang glider called a, a Sigma. And, uh, I had a tandem flight on that in Ireland or a place called Mount Linster. Um, so I'd been up a couple of times on the hang glider with my father. I think, I can't remember if that was before or after the, the microlight thing. Can't remember. But, um, I didn't really fancy hang gliding after that. It sort of put me off a bit. So, uh, I didn't really start flying until about
20 or 21. I think I was staying, staying with a friend who's, who's taught paragliding for. For the, um, the green dragons. And, uh, yeah, he taught me flying. What's the green dragons? They're a paragliding school. Okay. Um, they were based in Essex. I think they're, I don't know, somewhere around Caterham now, somewhere near there, Woldingham. Um, but yeah, they taught on the, on the South Downs and, uh, I was staying with him. We did, uh, did a morning's ground handling with a, like a, an ET, I think it was called. Cells the size of footballs, about nine cell. Yeah, right. Did some, did a morning's ground handling with that. Um, did a top to bottom off the hill at Beachy Head in about 15 mile an hour wind. I was on a large-ish glider, weighed about 12, 11 stone.
It took 15 minutes to do a top to bottom. That was pretty good. And then, uh, got on some Harley. It was called some sort of Harley intermediate paraglider. And then started doing some soaring at Bo Peep. And that was that. Off I went. Huh. So
those years between like 13 and 23, was your dad still riding the flying and just, wasn't really interesting to you? Uh,
well, I, I, um, actually I put it, I had a bit of a disagreement with my stepmother and, uh, we had to sort of not live with my father anymore after that. Uh, so I went, went to live with my mother. So it was a quite a long period of time where just saw my dad on the odd occasion. And I think, I think he'd got into micro lighting. We had, he got into micro lighting. Um, so he wasn't really flying the hills much. He was just sort of doing his, his micro lighting. What he wanted to.
Oh, so the, the, the birth of your paragliding really wasn't involved with him. It was more of the, cause you were with this friend.
Yes. Yes. Um, I mean, it's sort of, yeah, I was with this friend, learned to saw, uh, my father just had a, uh, an accident with a micro light. And, uh, I think, I think I'd just split up with my girlfriend and he just split up with the, the, the ex wife or my stepmother. I hadn't got on with, we were living in a, we were trailers. We were living in a trailer. We were trash.
Um, and I kept asking him about, yeah, soaring and thermaling and all this sort of stuff. And, uh, he was giving me the answers as best he could. It kind of got him back into it. Yeah. So, uh, he used to go flying his magic and I would, uh, we fly him a paraglider. Cool. And has he gotten into paragliding? Yeah. Yeah. He, um, I can't, I don't know if it was him or me suggested about it, but yeah, he got, got into paragliding. I taught him. A bit of stuff. I mean, typical hang glider pilot coming across the paragliders. They just don't like it much. You know, they haven't got anything really that physical to hold onto. And, and with the hang glider, they, you know, they want to turn, they want to shove. Yeah. Whereas, uh, with the paraglider, it's a bit, you know, delayed response, but, uh, we got, got sort of over that and taught him, taught him some paragliding.
Um, uh, we went to Scotland on one occasion. We were there for a wedding, I think. And, uh, we went up this huge mountain. Ben, Ben leddy or something. Mm-hmm. We sort of walked up there and my father wasn't very good at, uh, at launching. So, um, I'll tell you what dad, what we do is we lay the paraglider out on the ground. So we laid the glider out on the ground, laid him on the ground. So he's like, you know, it's just like he's laid flat on his back with a glider behind him. And, uh, I said, when you're ready, let me know. Give me the, give me the nod. I think I held the brake lines, let go of the brake lines, grabbed the front risers and pulled them quite, quite a nice bit of wind. Yeah. And I pulled the front risers and up comes the glider. It lifts him up and off he goes.
That's a unique way to get somebody in the air. Yeah. I
mean, it was, it was, it was a nice, nice bit of, you know, slow, you know, if it had been sloped, you know, reverse launching off of a slope in, in 12, 14 mile hour wind, it would have been off the slope twists, messy and all the rest of it. So, uh, I thought, well, that's the way we'll deal with it. And I'll feel off. He went,
wow. That's great.
Yeah. His first, uh, paraglider was, uh, voodoo. Airwave voodoo one, which was a really sweet piece of kit. I mean, it's a shame. I had, uh, porosity problems, but for its time, it was a very nice handling, well-behaved paraglider that competed with the best of the other or seemed to compete with the best of the other comp gliders around. Um, so I said to him, you know, if you get a, you know, a taboo or something intermediate, you're just going to outgrow it because of your experience with hang gliding. So we need to get you something that was reasonable performance. So we got him a, an airway voodoo and, and off he went, he was supposed to take it easy and start, you know, flying things a bit, uh, a bit slowly, but, um, It doesn't sound like that's his style. No. Someone said to me, oh, I had to grab your dad's feet and pull him down the other day at Caburn.
It's like, dad, you're not supposed to be doing that.
Yeah. Sounds like quite a character. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's definitely quite a character. Yeah.
Yeah.
And then, uh, so you get into it in kind of the early twenties. Um, how did you. Uh, take me through your first kind of like first few years and getting into comps and just like the, the resume version, you know, how did it all kind of progress?
Uh, well, I learned sort of through the, through the green dragons. I then did, uh, some teaching for them. Um, I think Harley free spirit was the first thing I really flew. Um, which was a, I think it was a copy of a fellow athlete, pretty sort of basic. They had, uh, I think they had to cascade a double. The one, the leading edge lines would go up and cascade to, to four. So you, you, you only had your A's and your, and your B's I think, but they wouldn't, uh, they wouldn't do things like big ears if I remember rightly. Um, but yeah, flew around on a free spirit for a while. And then, uh, I bought Andy's, uh, green Ninja from him. That was my first paraglider firebird Ninja with the wire risers and the weight shift and all the rest of it, which sort of gone by the by now, but, uh, yeah, just out flying all the time, never had a variable or an altitude, uh, an outer meter to start with.
Got a sort of little, I think it was a skydivers altitude dial thing. That was the first instrument I had. I think in the first three years, the best height game was about 1100 feet. I can't remember if that was above sea level or above the hill. I can't quite remember, but, uh, used to just fly around being a bloody hooligan, tearing up the place, probably irritating people. But, um, yeah.
And were you just kind of. Kind of hooked from the beginning from those first couple of lessons you were really into it. Yeah, yeah,
yeah.
Um, so yeah, I had the, the Ninja was the first glider. It was all right. You know, it's probably as dangerous as many of the others, but, uh, yeah, I don't know what glider I got from there. Well, that's right. I remember, uh, Richard Carter doing some sort of an interview and, um, saying something about size is important. I think he was actually referring to other things, but, uh, anyway. So, um, I then went and got an Adele ZX racer, which is, I think it was 32 square meters. And I weighed about 11 stone at the time. So it went up nicely. Good climbing wing. Yes, it did. It went up really well. And, um, as soon as I got that things changed, it was just like XC all the time. Um, not, not particularly far, but yeah.
I'm flying all the time going XC and yeah, it was just beautiful, you know, low wing loading, tiny circles. Going up on, on anything. It was good. Uh, then I have one of Richard Carter's full race, full race Katanas, big old purple thing, 32 square meters of it. Had nine A lines on each side. He had A's, B's, C's and D's and just one side. So it's 18 A lines. The B lines. Weighed 18 kilos or something. Yeah. I mean, it was, uh, yeah. I used to, I used to whistle the lines to go shh when you were flying. Flying about on it. Yeah. I have one of those used to fly around a lot with a chap called Gandy, David Nunes. Yeah. It was very, he still is flying very good at thermaling.
Whenever we were in XC, I'd never let him get quite far enough away that I couldn't get there if I needed to keep them in your sights. Yeah, definitely. But, uh, yeah, in the early days it was, well, it was actually Mike Millard as well. Millie, uh, Millie was around at the very beginning of me going XC and then, uh, and this is all in the UK. Are you traveling too? Uh, probably traveling a bit, but mostly in the UK. Um, yeah. Yeah. Mostly in the UK, but so yeah, after Mike Millard is, uh, Gandy and I always flying about, he was always, you know, we're always testing each other, seeing who could win the local club league. That was good fun. And
this is all kind of self-taught time, correct? I mean, when I, when I talked to guys that started at that time, like Nate, Nate tells a story where he goes into a ski shop. And somebody says, this guy's like, Hey, does anybody want to go paragliding? I can take you paragliding. Yeah. I'll take, and he takes them down to the hill and, and, uh, shows them like three things and hucks them off and he flies down and lands and he goes, well, there you go. You know, everything I know, you know, it
wasn't quite that bad, but, um, it was, it was pretty early on. Yeah. I mean, you know, we've got, I think we've probably got some, uh, information out of milk, Mike Millwood, but, uh, he's a man of very few words. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did the first, uh, first hundred Ks on a UP. Oh, what was that one? A UP Katana. No, not the Katana. The next one after that. Can't remember what it's called now. Kendo. Kendo C. Okay. So yeah. Had a Kendo C. I was sponsored by Sky Systems for a while with ITV Attics. So yeah, that was good. That got me, uh, got me started, which was great because I never had any money. Yeah. It was all going flying and just a bit of work to subsist really. And who
was your
crew back then?
Who were the guys you were flying with?
Um, well, yeah, just this sort of Gandy or David Nunes, myself. That was about it really. Um, there's all sorts of people come and go, but, uh, So
is this
kind of before
Pendry and Bruce?
Um, they were totally different league, you know? Okay. I mean, yeah, I met Robbie a couple of times at some British championships, Bruce and, uh, John Pendry. Yeah. I mean, Pendry, I remember, well, I mean, I never really had much to talk to him about, but, uh, I do remember we were on Merthyr Tydfil and sort of British champs and, uh, we climbed up a bit and I knew it was Pendry and he's glided off to a quarry just north of Merthyr. I think it's not there anymore, but a big black quarry and we're gliding and I'm thinking, I hope he knows what he's doing. Cause we're getting really, really low. And, uh, it's like, we're getting really low and he glides into this quarry and he had some, some airwave rave race thing that was mega aspect ratio. It's just a, you know, it's just a blade.
Yeah. And we go into this quarry and he sort of, he starts to pitch up and he pulls the brake and the thing goes in half. You know, it doesn't, it looks now, it looks like a hang glider, not a paraglider. It's just bent 90 degrees in the middle and wobbled around and went ping. I'll have some of that. Thank you. And in I went.
Perfect. Yeah. But, um, no, they were, I didn't, you know, I wasn't really in. They're in that day in that league. They sort of came and went, I mean, Bruce has been around for a while, but they came and went before I, uh, before I sort of got into it. And, uh, Russell came along, he started teaching for the local cook school, uh, fly Sussex who sponsored me. Sorry about that. Plug Dev. You can't cut that one out. That's all right. That's all right. We'll leave it. Yeah. They're sponsoring me at the moment, but, um, yeah, various people have sponsored me, which has all been brilliant. Down the road gradient did with, uh, Brad Nicholas. Um, yeah, it's all, it's been good all the time. Hmm. Chin a couple of times, UK air sports. So it's all been good stuff. Um, and so when
did, when did you kind of get hot and heavy in the comp scene?
Uh, you used to have to qualify to get in the, in the British championships. You couldn't just, I want to be in the British open. You used to, you used to have to qualify through the U through the, um, the UK XC league. So, uh, one year and qualified in the, in the XC league and then got into the, into the British championships. That would have been.
94. Okay. I think 93 or 94, 95 was flying the Kendo C 96, 97 was the Nova expert. Dean Crosby and Nova sponsored me for a few years. That was great. Not the expert Zenon Zenon. What a piece of kit that was when it came out. I mean, dangerous, I suppose. I mean, paragliding is dangerous, but it was like, we need one of those leap leaping performance was, was ridiculous. If you had a Zenon, you were God. Yeah. Nobody else could get anywhere near you. Yeah. So yeah. 94, I suppose. First British championships.
So 25 years of comp flying.
Yeah. I haven't been doing so much the last few years, but yeah, lots of it. Yeah. And is there, is there a reason you're not doing as much the last few years? Uh, you can't keep doing it for 25 years and be hungry. Can you? This
is just
lack of passion for it. Yeah. The passion's worn off a bit. Yeah. Um, yeah. I've got other things I want to do as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's been all consuming. I mean, uh, you know, there was Mark and Peter and Annie as well. I mean, they've had, they've all, how should I put it? Suffered at, at the, uh, my, um, selfishness and, uh, and, uh, what's the, what am I looking for? But you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My, uh, all consuming. Yes. Yeah. Addiction. Yes. Affliction. Affliction. Yes. Addiction, affliction. Yeah. Probably about the same. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, no, the two boys are not interested in flying at all. Not at all. No. I mean, in some ways I don't mind. Yeah. It's quite nice because I haven't got to worry about them. Right. But no, they don't, they don't really like the word paragliding much.
Right. It took, took me away too much. Yeah. It's my, my fault. Hands up for that one. Sorry boys. Yeah. Right. Right. Sure. Of course. Well,
we all, we all suffer a bit with that for sure. Um, yeah. In all those years, um, um, scary incident or two, I imagine. Yeah. Any good
stories? Yeah. I mean, we'll probably go through quite a few of them, but, um, yeah. Uh, well there's one in Chelan. Hmm. Yeah. I was going to ask you about that. Perfect. Go for it. You're legend in the US for that one. Okay. Well, um, Chelan is, uh, you take off Chelan Butte. You fly across the Columbia river, which is a massive, great gorge. I don't know how deep it is, but it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, it must be a couple of thousand feet deep, I suppose. It's impressive. And then, uh, you can, you can, sometimes you can fly the, or sometimes you have to fly the gorge before you can get over into the flatlands. Ideally, you want to go straight into the flats. But I remember on this one occasion, I, uh, was sawing the sort of the gorge face and, uh, I got a little, little weak climb.
It was, I don't know, a meter, a second or something. And, uh, so I started circling to the left. Left is best. You've always, you know, forget this right business left goes up. Better 100%. Yes, absolutely. I'm a lefty. Anyway. So I started circling to the left and, uh, you know, one circle, two circles, not particularly rough or anything. And then all of a sudden wall up 75 % of the inside of the wing collapse. It's like, whoa. And then, uh, the next thing I know it's gone into, I think the French call it auto rotation. So it's basically like a sat kind of, yeah. So it's basically a sat, satting around the collapsed two thirds. Yep. And, uh, so it's, it's going to the left and I've got
wanging hard.
Yeah. So I've got my hand on the right brake and I've actually pulled the right brake and it's slowing the sat down or the, the auto rotation sat feeling. I mean, I'm going backwards. It's going forwards. It's like I've done some sats and that's exactly what it felt like. Yeah. Not high, but anyway, so it's gone around a couple of times. I've slowed it down. I thought, right. Reserve. So I put my hat right hand up to get rid of the brake handle and, uh, it's got really quick. And I thought, I don't like that much. So I pulled my hand back again.
And, uh, by which time it's like, oh, right. Reserve's too late for reserve now. And, um, what they've once said to me, when impact is imminent, flare like beep, beep, beep. Yeah. I thought it's about now then. So I just flared really hard. With just the one side. Just both. I just, just, just whatever you just hand. Both hands down beneath my bum. Yep. And, uh, uh, sort of the next thing I realized is, uh, I sort of land sort of on my back and get dragged over backwards. You know? When a sort of glider falls behind you, sort of pulls you over and you do a backwards somersault with a bit of a crick in the neck, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. And I sort of got a crick in the neck. I thought, okay, nothing particularly hurts. Yeah, that's good. So up I get.
It's like, all right, okay. Dust myself down yet. Nothing's broken. Yeah. Cool. All right. Okay. And I sort of look about and there are boulders dotted around the size of a cars. And it's like, ooh, that was lucky. Wasn't it? So, uh, I, I then sort of, you know, pull myself together a bit, take my gloves off and just sort of, yep. You know, put a bunch of myself. Yeah. Yeah. Just a bunch of a glider up in the meantime, uh, break the new show soaring about and, uh, he sort of, uh, flown past and go something along the lines of awesome. Bob totally read dude. You're all right, man. Something like that. I can't quite remember, but I give him the wave and he's like, okay. And off he goes. And, uh, I thought, well, I'm sorry. So I just stood there and I looked down as it looks like 2000 feet or 1500 feet to the valley floor, 500 feet walk up to the top.
It was like, Hmm, I don't fancy walking down much. I suppose I better get back on it and, you know, fly down. So, uh, I can't remember quite what happened, but some reason I lost one of my gloves, which was annoying anyway. So I got found a spot and took off and started sawing this slope again. And I thought, well, you know, I might as well, you know, have a bit of a fly around. So I flew around a bit feeling quite still quite shook up. Yeah. I got sort of a weak climb and started climbing up and going up and over the, up onto the plateau. And I don't know, next thing I know I'm at sort of 12,000 feet and thinking, well, there'll be people at goal, weren't there?
So I thought, well, so I might as well fly to goal. So, uh, I flew to the goal. It's the easy way to get home, isn't it?
Yeah, no, that was, that shook me
up a bit. That one. Yeah. Did you, did you find, um, did you deal with it? Like, so, you know, the first day you heard it down here, I threw my reserve and, uh, and you know, and I just relaunched, I was in this perfect place and I've stuffed my reserve. I had another reserve, so I relaunched and flew home and it was really nice. But then that night I was kind of like, whoa, that was interesting. Yeah. It was, it hit me later.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I'm not sure. I mean, um, Shalan is an awesome place, uh, that particular glider. I had, uh, a situation at least two other times where it did the similar thing would collapse and go into a serious auto rotation. Uh, the way, well, just getting it out was thinking, oh, I need to stall this to get it out. And by pulling the brakes, lots and lots of pressure in the brakes and pop out, it would come. Um, but, uh, it didn't do me an awful lot of good, actually. I was quite shaken up by it because it had occurred on a few occasions. Um, yeah, I wanted to buy an R10, but, um, no, I couldn't do. Um, but yeah, that probably didn't do me an awful lot of good.
I do remember having a chat with, uh, oh, he's the, he's the guy that's really well respected black diamond seller. Bill Belcourt. I remember having a chat with Bill and, uh, yeah, he was very good. He's good at that. Calming and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yoda, we call him. Yeah.
But, um, Shalan, what a place. Isn't it amazing? Hmm. Yeah. I've never been, I've been to two places in the States and, uh, well, three places, one, one where it rained a lot. Um, Aspen. Aspen. Yeah. Yeah. It was just pretty hit and miss. Well, it was a total, total washout, but, um, yeah, if you're feeling good about your flying, go to Shalan.
Yeah. Shalan. If you're feeling
really good about your flying, go to Sun Valley. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You,
you won Sun Valley. That's where we met. And that was, uh, that was, that was pretty full on. It was unfortunate. We didn't get more tasks cause that was a, that was a pretty interesting week.
Yeah. But, um, yeah, Shalan is just, uh, flatland flying once you're across the gorge, dusty, dusty, like, like talcum powder dust soil. You know, when you're on takeoff, you look across, it's like, hmm, uh, I can see six dust devils. Today's going to be a good day. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, what we're getting, I think we're getting about 13,000 feet above sea level.
Yeah. We're getting, that's a pretty tall day in Shalan. That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So what's that above the ground? Six or seven?
Yeah. Maybe 8,000 feet. That plateau there is, I want to say it's 45 or so. So yeah, you're, you're, you're getting, you're getting up there. You're getting where you can see a long ways. Yeah. Yeah. It was good. It's a special, special part of the world for sure.
We stayed there. I think we stayed at Adam. We stayed with Adam Hill and Russell. We were in a trailer in, uh, in Walmart, in the park in Walmart. Perfect. Proper rednecking. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember, uh, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the early days, Russell coming along and, uh, and learning paragliding, he wasn't very good to start with.
Yeah. Um, but, uh, I do remember him asking me how to do wing overs, which, uh, yeah. How the worm has turned. Hey. Wow. Yeah. He's come a long way. Yeah. Yeah. No, we like Russ. Yeah. God, what an amazing pilot. Yeah. And
so when, when did it kind of, um, did it start clicking for you right away? What? Comps. Yeah. Just, um,
probably, I probably didn't get as good at them as quickly as a lot of people.
Um, I mean, it was always, always good fun. Sometimes it'd be really bad. Sometimes it'd be okay. I mean, uh, you know, I've been to a lot of competitions, went to the first, uh, world air games. I think Hugh Miller won that comp. Um, I was fifth there, but I've been to also, you know, been to British champs, took me a long time before I won the British championships, by which time, uh, a lot of the competition had sort of retired anyway. I don't think Russell was there. Morgan, Craig Morgan wasn't there. I think Bruce wasn't there. So, um, yeah, I mean, I, I did, I won it. I beat, uh, yeah, but it, um, a lot of the big guys weren't there. So, but anyway,
what do you, what do you think it is about? So there's, you know, in, in a sense you, for me and, and back home is, is somebody like Bill Belcourt or, or Josh Cohn, you know, these guys, these are guys that. You know, have, have like, you've been competing a long time and flying for a long time. And, you know, life is just life and other interests have not so much gotten in the way, but you know, they're not flying nearly as much, but they can rock up at a comp like you have here and really crush it and really do really well. Um, the
obvious answer is just, well, yeah. Yeah. Okay. You guys have been doing it a long time, but are there, are there things that you can pass on to the audience that are, you know, people that are just getting into comps or that have much less. Comp experience that, um, are kind of your go-tos, you know, like when you came to this comp, are there things you're thinking about beforehand? Are there, are there mental places you're trying to get into, or is it just, is it just a matter of, you know, history?
I'm not sure since I've been doing less competitions, I've been getting, it would appear that I've been getting better at them. I don't really understand that it might be because I'm not too fussed about it. Yeah. I mean, obviously it's, it's lovely to do well. If you win a comp, you know, you feel like it and a bit, um, but, uh, not being that beat up about it. I mean, my first, I remember the first British champs I went to, uh, I think I got best newcomer or something like 13th place in the British championships. And I remember the night before the last task, you know, the last day not being able to sleep properly. I mean, what's all that about? But so, so really caring about it. Um, and, um, I mean, I don't. I'd like to, I'd like to win by winning.
I don't like to win by aggregate. You know, I don't like winning by not losing. I like winning by, by, you know, doing it. Yeah. But that isn't the way to win. Um, but you know, if you, if you don't care about it, it doesn't matter. I mean, there was a task here three or four years ago. I mean, I was, I was going home mid competition, so I really not, I don't care about it. Yeah. I went racing into Zarzal into the end of speed section with, I don't know, a couple of hundred foot ground clearance over Zarzal. And I was giggling to myself watching Brad Canuccio and Sebas and whoever just peeling off the side. Cause I don't get, I don't care. Right. It's like, I'm going home tomorrow and he goes plowing into the end of speed section. Okay. I now need to climb to get to go.
Brilliant. You know, I don't care. So what if I go down? Yeah. It's the way that, that, that seems to have really helped me. So just being really relaxed about it. Not caring about the result.
And were you able to take, you know, from that experience? Three or four years ago, is that just kind of the approach now? Like, Hey, I haven't been flying that much. I'm not, you know, I'm probably not as tuned up. Yeah. Whatever. I'll just go have fun.
Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Um, I mean, obviously it's really nice to sort of test yourself as son Andre. I think it was two years ago. Hadn't done a comp for quite a long time. And although son Andre scares me cause it's, you know, it's pretty strong. Um, you know, it seems to suit me. And yeah, I went to the competition just thinking, well, you know, to finish in the top, top 10 would be really nice. You know, we'd be nice. You know, top five will be brilliant to get on the podium would be mustard. And I won the meet. It's like, blimey. I didn't really expect that at all. You know, I hadn't done any comps for two or three years and yeah, I don't know. It's just not caring, I suppose. And there,
um, when you were not in that frame of mind, you know, before we're like, maybe when you were more serious about it and worrying about worlds and being on the British team and that kind of thing where, um, how, how did you approach training? I guess, if you will, like, how did you approach, uh, how did you identify what you were good at, bad at what you needed help with? I,
a lot of people think about stuff. I try not to think about it. Or I'd like to think I don't think about it. Um, you know, I, you hear people on the bus talking about competition tactics and this, that, and the other and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think really, it ain't that complicated. You know, you go paragliding. You go round and round in the strong bits and straight in, in the stinky bits. You know, if you're high, I mean, there's a few quotes that I've heard. You know, I think it may have even been a Pendry quote. If you're, if you walk through the woods long enough with your eyes shut, you'll bump into a tree. Same with the thermal. If you glide for long enough, you will hit a thermal. You just, just can't, you know, eventually you'll hit one. So if you're mega high, you've got options. So yeah, when you're high crack on, move on halfway down, start winding.
Your neck in a bit. When you're low, you just got to take anything. And if you can, um, I call it a, a Jiu Jitsu moment. It was a child's cartoon thing where Jiu Jitsu would be chucked off a high rise building and it'd be screaming to the ground and he'd get out his umbrella, go hold everything and go pop with his umbrella and, uh, and then come down under his umbrella. So I call it a Jiu Jitsu moment. Hold everything. I'm really low. I have to stay up now for five or 10 minutes. I can just stay off the ground for five or 10 minutes. Something will present itself. And that's what I think about, you know, when I'm getting low.
That's good. So you're not, I think often what gets people when they're low is that they'll start to get something and they'll think about all the gaggles coming and I'm getting overflowing or I'm just taking too much time and then they move. Yeah. I used to get, you
know, excuse the language. I need to climb. Yeah. And it's like, hang on a minute. You're too, you're mine. You can't, you can't work. Yeah. You're too, too light. I need to climb and you can't, you need to defrib. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you need to let
your subconscious go back to work and you can't do that if you're thinking too much. That's
right. Your mind's in a spasm. You need to go stop that. Stay off the ground. Something will come up. Yeah.
Survive. Just survive.
But yeah, I mean, I suppose in the, in the earlier days of flying, I was too, too impetuous to, you know, we're going around in a, in a one meter second climb. This is, you know, come on guys. It's better than this. I'm off. And they just let me go. And yeah, more often than not, quite often I go down and it's like, so yeah, I was too impatient, too young, too, too impetuous perhaps. Whereas now it's actually, we're not very high. I kind of need these guys. Wind it in. Yeah. Take your time.
Be patient.
Yeah. Fly with the other people. I mean, I know we're all flying and they're all going around, around and crap, but there isn't any better crap around. There's no better, better option. So. Yeah. Yeah. This up. Yeah. What,
what gear do you use and why in all of it, instruments and everything?
Oh, uh, I've used the Brauniger, uh, competition IQ, which is old. You know, it's a, it's just a Vario and an altimeter. I've used that for years. Really quite like the tone on it. Um, tried other things like, uh, the Vario and the UDI can't really get on with that. Uh, when I first got the UDI, I hated it. It's just almost too configurable. And, you know, people that know me will know that, uh, I'm not too technically minded. It just did me right in. Whereas now it's actually a brilliant bit of kit for competitions. Or I think it is easy to program the tasks in and does, does the job quite well. And the latest thing is this XC track on the phone. Wow. Isn't that good? Amazing. Isn't it? Just, is it the QR scanner?
Yeah. You got the task in there. I hope you programmed it right, bud. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. I don't think I've programmed one yet, but, uh, yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Competition IQ Vario. I like, um, brought, uh, the, the, um, the UDI and now, uh, XC track and the XC Racer, the little Vario that goes on your shoulder. Yeah.
The XC Racer is great. I'm
sort of struggling with it a little bit. I kind of do like it. It's, um, I've got it, I've got it programmed to be nice and enthusiastic. So, so, you know, you get a climb that's, you know, about four meters, five meters, it, it screams in your ear, which is quite nice. But, um, I think I need. Do some more stuff with it. I need to damp it down. You need the configuration
settings. Yeah. I messed around with that a bit. And then I got, I can't remember who it was, but a PBC pilot that was a lot more technical than, than I am. You know, he, he basically has made it to match the fly tech 60, 30, which is still yeah. I still love that instrument, even though it's quite old now, but it's, it, you just have to dampen them. I found it really hard to core before I did that. Well, yeah. It's just too zingy. Up and down. It's like, hang on. I was reading too much. You know? Yeah. The
average has given me two and a half meters and you're telling me I'm going up and down like a yo-yo. Yeah, exactly. Um, two and a half meters is quite respectable. It's like, you know, stop the sink business. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. No, I, I, once I did that, I really enjoy it now. That's all I use now. Sound wise. I've gone even away from the fly tech cause I've gotten used to it and feel like it works pretty well. Yeah. And what about, uh, weighing harness?
Um, recently, I mean, I've been. Been quite a few harnesses. I used to have the, um, the UP stirrup harness. Well, I can't remember what they call it now. The UP fast. Okay. I had a UP fast and a fast two, which is like sitting on a tea tray. I really enjoyed those. Very good for, for sort of maneuverability. I used to like doing a bit of wagger, you know, if you wing overs and roll reversals and stuff, but the kit these days doesn't really allow it. It just doesn't want to change direction quick enough. And yeah, so I don't really do much of it anymore, but used to do quite a bit of that. With those, yeah. With the UP fast harness, that was good. And the gradient, uh, Avex RSE, the RS and the RSE really enjoyed those gliders. Um, and yeah, you should do a bit of, a bit of hooliganism on those.
Um, then the Impress 3 was quite nice. Moved on from the Impress 3 to the Forza, the Ozone Forza. Quite like that lighter weight stuff, but I've just recently gone on to, um, the uh, uh, what is it? The, um, the Italian one. Quartel? No, the Italian one. Oh, that's the Czech. Um, Woody Valley. Oh, okay. The XR7. Yes. Had an XR6 for a while, but I did something in the middle of my back. Didn't really, it was some, some strap that would dig in my back, but, uh, I've got the XR7, which is really comfortable, but the zip thing for the reserves. Yeah.
It's crap.
God, it does my head in. Yeah.
It's unbelievable every day. Yeah. So yeah, they really missed the mark on that one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It would be really helpful if that sock, you know, the, whatever they call it, the fairing out the back, if you could zip it off and zip a new one on like the ozone harness. Yeah. Right. But, um, yeah, the XR7's a bit on the heavy side, isn't it? Yep. And, uh, that also digs me in the back of the ribs. So I don't know if it does other people, but yeah, so I've got the, got the Woody Valley harness. We've got some very interesting
critters coming out tonight knowing. Is that a cicada or something? I don't know. That might be. Let me just check how that sounds. That might be all too much. I
think. Yeah.
Just what you need. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Um, but yeah, I've been, uh, I was only sort of helped me out with some gliders in the last couple of years. Yeah. Uh, first one was the R11 and I know it had a bad rep, but, um, it did me really proud. I flew it hard for 18 months and, uh, I had one 30 % collapse on one side once in, uh, flying in Sussex and I thought, oh, here we go. And it just came out. It's not sweet as you like. Yeah. Never had any trouble with it at all, but I never actually got a full frontal, which is I think where it was badly bad. Got
a little dicey. Yeah.
But, uh, wow. I mean, I love that bit of kit. Yeah. And then, um, the, uh, Enzo one, it was, you used to leap around a bit, but the sweetness of the handling, you know, for, for week climbs, trying to scratch up from low down in, in, you know, on the south downs or somewhere, it's just so sweet for getting up like this. Well, that's what I went to. Mm. Um, some valley with as well. The
Enzo one.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nick never liked that one. It was, it was, yeah, I think it was based on the R10 and it was a bit, a bit spicy, you know, it would sort of wobble around above your head quite a lot. Yeah. And, uh, I think you've got, you've got sometimes some big collapses, which don't think they were quite cravats, but they would pin against the lines. Yeah. It wasn't sort of tucked in. It was just sort of squashed against the rest of the A-lines and it was quite stubborn to get that out. Right. But for just, yeah. For, for, for sweet conditions. It was, you know, an inch up and down with the inside break and yeah, really nice. Um, and then yeah, the, uh, Enzo two, that was good. Did, uh, British record 275 Ks. I was going to not, I wasn't going to get up.
It's getting
near the whole island, isn't it? Well, that's not quite. I wasn't going to get up that day, but Huey, Huey said the Northern boys are coming down, so we had to go out. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, it was a good day. And now the Enzo three. What a lovely thing. That seems to be. Yeah. No trouble at all with it. Yeah. I've had a couple of big collapses, but just comes out straight away. It's really confidence inspiring. Yeah.
So when you think back on your, when you look back on your, uh, flying years, all these, all these comp years and, uh, years before that, do you have like a, is there a flight that stands out? Is there a, is there a, oh man, I'll never forget that one. There
are so many, uh, wonderful flights that I've had. Um, I, I didn't. I didn't really travel outside of Sussex much for, for quite a long time. And then, uh, Hugh Miller said to me, come on, look, we, you know, the flying here is not that special. We need to start traveling. And, uh, you know, he's been brilliant at instigating us getting in the car and getting up at whatever time in the morning and driving to the right place. And, um, yeah, it's been, been brilliant. Uh, really nice one we did was a flight from place with the, the, the Lawley, which is sort of near Shrewsbury, sort of mid Wales. Uh, down to Dorchester, who's, I think it's about 200 Ks or thereabouts. So you fly sort of across Wales, across the seven and then, uh, across the M4, uh, sort of over Castle Combe race track down past Longleat Safari Park, and then down and land on the beach.
That was, uh, first time we did that, that was classic, uh, flying over the Cairngorms in Scotland for one of the north south cups. I remember sort of, you know, moving on, cracking on, cracking on, and then looking down, sort of halfway to base and looking down and going, Ooh, where's that quarter of a meter of a climb gone? It's like, I don't want to be going down there. I'll stick to anything right now. So that really sort of made me wind my neck in there. That was, uh, quite stunning. Um, we did also another flight from, uh, Glencoe. I think it was, flew from there down to Malag, which is, uh, on one of the peninsulas where you go to the Isle of Skye. I think that was, I think it's about, I'm not sure. I think it's 60 or a hundred Ks or, you know, it's not a particularly mega distance, but it was some lovely scenery.
Down, down the Glencoe Valley, there's something called the Buckle and various bits and bobs. That was quite stunning. Um, yeah, also, I mean, a hundred, first hundred K off the, off the south downs. That was brilliant. So yeah, flying from the, from the River Severn, you know, across the sort of past Swindon, Coombe Gibbet. Yeah. Down past Midhurst and then back to Ringmo where I live. So yeah, there's been some really nice flights in the, in the UK. Um, I really enjoy flying the UK. Uh, there's another site called Sharpener, which is this sort of tiny little hill that takes an easterly wind. I think being an easterly wind, it's kind of quite, quite choppy. It takes a lot of wind and you can fly from there down into Devon and sort of Cornwall. I think Guy and Kirsty have done a big one.
Hugh's done a couple of big ones from there. I've done a couple of, you know, a couple of two hundreds, but those guys have gone a bit further. Um, so yeah, that's quite nice. Yeah. Are you, are you pretty good at weather? No, Hugh just tells me where to eat, where to be and at what time. Ah,
isn't that great. That was, Bruce is, is that for me and then the exhaust and stuff. And he's, yeah, he really digs into that stuff. Well, I was going to ask you kind of how you, you guys identify these good days and, and you know, what's the process there.
Yeah, no, Hugh's, Hugh's just a logistic. Call Hugh. He's brilliant. Yeah. He says two days time or tomorrow we got to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've got the, I've got the estate car and, and, and Annie, she's my partner. She sort of drives for us if, if she's not working, we pay her to drive for us. So we, we jumble in the cars. A few of us get in the car and off we go. Yeah. Um, Hugh says, yeah, we need to go here and we're doing a declared task and give me your instrument. These are the way you're going and blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, fantastic. That reminds me of one, one task I did. So for the UK XC league, um, there's a multiplier for declared goals and I've set one from, ah, I think it was three. Froster. Froster or Selsley to a place would High And Over. It's a little hill down in Sussex and, ah,
it's about 180 Ks or something. So hey, get to my, ah, get to High And Over and I just get to the cylinder and it goes, the oudi, goes, bleep, bleep, task started.
So that was one of my reasons for not liking the oudi to begin with. But now it's, I like it. You've just got to learn how to drive the thing. Right. Right. Right. So it's, it's operateable. to um error rather than instrument really right yeah but uh so yeah but yeah so hugh basically organizes us we've got roger gets in the car at the moment luke's uh luke's been getting in the car and coming with us as well um but yeah so our enthusiasm is is wearing off a bit for this you know it's like getting up at half five six o 'clock yeah driving to a site for for 10 or 11 flying and then getting home really late so big days yeah big days and we've done quite a lot of them so uh the enthusiasm's getting a little less for that but but no yeah hugh works out the weather
what about um when you think about places like bucket list you mentioned earlier before we started recording what are those um
there's a few places that i've been which are are really incredible um for going flying um australia godfrey winess's place uh in manila yeah um the town is sparse uh but the and and it's you know it's it's you're in the bush you know it's not you wouldn't go there for anything but flying really but um yeah if you can go to manila that's great so yeah manila australia is is uh is incredible we had a comp there must have been a worlds i suppose i mean i've been to quite a few comps but yeah it was uh manila's good been there a few times really good uh valadares is pretty good colombia is exceptional i'd say this place you know roldanillo and um piedra cinche yeah
my favorite i would say really really yeah uh if you're feeling um feeling good about your flying and and confident about yourself chelan and uh and sun valley i mean we flew far and rightly sun valley is a sort of course of mountains you sort of get
to the top of the mountain and you get to the top of the mountain you get
a mountain range that's i don't know 50 40 k's across a bit of flatland that's 40 k's across mountain range yeah and there's several of those yeah they go there's seven of them okay they just keep going into montana yeah so um one of them is uh i think it's quite close to sun valley is king mountain yeah the second or third one last range
it's about 70 miles out yeah
we i remember gliding in there and there's these huge rocks and uh it might have been a practice day but we were when we flew out to
bora and back i
got nine i don't know where bora is i mean there was smoke everywhere that was where
we got to the end and uh henzie and dad and we're hucking those big wing overs and it was it was a proper big day we were getting tall that day yeah
i mean uh visibility was because lots of fires up wind visibility was less than 45 degrees but uh i got nine meters a second to 18 000 feet i mean yeah and that was the practice day i think you guys were all like holy
shit this is this is this is interesting yeah
so um yeah sun valley's strong yeah it's good but you want to be feeling confident really i reckon yeah you
want your you want your hours i don't think you want to come in there in the spring and after a long winter and start up there i
remember nick greece saying to me oh he said when i come to europe i fly around in europe for a while he said don't go back home i get air sick yeah i thought don't be don't be and then i sort of get my nine meter a second to 18 000 feet okay nick yeah fair enough
so yeah uh sun valley that's good here's good where else have i been that's been exceptional i really i had a we had a british championships in pedro bernardo which is uh the south side of the great opposite side of piedra hita that was really nice piedra hita's good um i preferred pedro bernardo though but um yeah piedra hita's very good uh yeah i think those are places you must go yeah australia the u.s yeah colombia perhaps gb as well governor de valadares yeah exceptional places is most of your paragliding travel been for comps um traveling for going to going places to fly volbev doesn't interest me i don't really like doing an awful lot of exercise i've had had uh physical jobs and job now semi-physical i don't like exercise is that how
you stay fit you're obviously pretty fit
i'm not really fit i mean i'm i'm yeah not fit at all really but um well it must be in the jeans because you talk about your dad being able to take some pretty hard hits you guys you guys are little
wombats aren't you but
uh yeah so physical work is is you know i've been doing that a lot so to go volbeving it's like no thank you volvisa maybe but uh not volbev so i mean yeah i mean why not go to a place and go to a competition we're gonna it's all it's all laid on for us for you isn't it there's a whole load of sort of reasonably like-minded people there you've got you know lift to take off sorted yeah brilliant competitions i mean can you imagine going to manila going like xc in manila on your own
yeah no i
mean you'd have to employ a driver because if you land out in the bush you might be out overnight yeah it's just hot yeah hot and on your own it's like go somewhere where there's comp on i say yeah yeah
if you um if you'd rewind the kind of 50 hour self what would you do differently with your with your flying like if you could go back to that time and go hey mark listen to this i got some good advice for you stop
paragliding ah we can't put that in there get a life and stop paragliding you sad fuck that goes for everybody out there
yeah stop fucking with everybody else's lives and be reasonable with them
actually that has to stay in my girlfriend will totally understand that one yeah yeah but yeah get rid of the obsession and be a normal person or a sensible person yeah no i mean it's uh it's an interesting one i was very uh well i don't know quite wasn't council house and vicious but i was quite small town or very small town before flying and uh yeah it's got me visiting all sorts of countries i traveled around uh mexico with uh with carlo borsettino for a while he sort of made
me some
very basic spanish and still pretty basic spanish now but uh you know it's great being able to talk spanish to people a little um yeah it's opened the world to me really it's and all the all the different people you meet you know they're they're i don't know if they're normal human beings but uh we're not a weird lot aren't we well it's good isn't it they're you know it's so diverse it's great yeah
you know
i'm a farm laborer's son and there i am rubbing shoulders with guy anderson you know yeah and uh so
it's good any um any advice to the more lower hours pilots about just paragliding in general you know like hey here's you know if you want to get into it um here's here's what i would recommend is it would it be going to comps would it be uh i'm thinking more like the progression side of things you know one of the themes of the show always is you know trying to
eliminate or reduce the accidents that we we still see all the time um
i'd say if you can get out of paragliding get out of it i mean that in all sincerity yeah um but yeah um i mean it's sort of hypocritical for me to say this but try not to progress too quickly i mean my first paraglider that i bought was a firebird ninja and i was flying about being a hooligan i mean i was young i was lucky to get away with it it was the odd bounce so i haven't really hurt myself badly in flying i've been very lucky um but they've been you know some some some people have come up and they've progressed too quickly or some of them haven't even progressed too quickly so i suppose i in this interview i've spoken to you of at least spoken to you about two at least two or three occasions where i should have not been walking away from it really yeah um and then i know of some others as well uh and that's in 20 years 27 years of flying
and i've been flying for
so it is a dangerous sport you are going to have incidents i don't think there's anybody that's been flying 27 years that hasn't had a semi-serious incident you know just make sure they're not really serious because you are a long time broken yeah
yeah yeah
a really long time broken does the risk
play more of a factor for you now than it did 10 years ago 20 years ago are you thinking about it a lot more because you like you mentioned that flying san andre kind of scares you um and i'm finding that more you know just the the more incidents as i see and the more risk obviously the xops course makes you think about it but it's um yeah i mean you think about it more don't you well
i think most i might be wrong but i think a lot of people uh going paragliding and wondering about in the world flying and all the rest of it thinking yes these incidents happen but they probably won't happen to me they do yeah they happen to people i mean let's not get all morbid and heavy and all morose about all of this but but you know there's several people that aren't here anymore that i know that i've known and there are several people that are seriously fucked up that i know through flying um you know if you said to them yeah i mean they've yeah i don't know what to say about it but it's just whatever you do try not to get smashed yeah you know do whatever you have to do to make sure
you don't
get smashed yeah and i think that's a really good point i think that's
a really
good point if
you if you got some of your own kind of mark watts ground rules for that have you gotten any because you know comps can get you into some kind of tricky places and that kind of thing and if you take it too seriously you can really you know you can do some stuff that you probably shouldn't do well
it's not just comps is it i mean no yes yes the you know the numbers are there comps seem to have a higher hit rate than than other things so yep you know let's not deny that but but you know two years ago san andre is behind the coop there seemed to have gone in there and you know i can see the trees thrashing about and thinking right i know it's coming in a minute it was yeah it's a big collapse and a wobble about and i ran away and it was okay but might well not have been and i'll go back and get some more height i come back for another go it's like hang on a minute i've tried it twice that's me done yeah you know i could have perhaps got some more height managed to get over but but it's like no no it's like that's that's done now yeah um but you know i'll be silly enough to go there twice wasn't i it's i don't quite know what to say just just try and be careful try and be semi-sensible and try and be reasonably careful um but you know we're talking about you know racing paragliders around at full speed how's that careful just flying around in the sky looking for patches of turbulence to go up in but be careful um
i have been recently the last sort of year or so i've not been flying quite so much so i'm perhaps not feeling quite as good as i should have been as on it as i have been in the past also when i was younger i was fit and strong you know used to do tree surgery and all the rest of it and you you know you you feel not invincible but you feel strong you feel tough and at 50 the body's starting to hurt now and i don't feel quite as invincible or quite as tough as i used to so i think age and the fact that things hurt a bit more these all sort of add up and start sort of playing on your mind a bit when you're when you're when you're young you're young dumb and you know full of calm aren't you it's like i'm invincible and off i go you don't think about the consequences particularly whereas i think as you get older you start realizing your your mortality so recently i have been struggling with the the risk reward you know you go flying and you do a reasonably nice flight and you come back and land it's like well that was so so if i hadn't done it it wouldn't have been a you know i wouldn't i'm not sitting here thinking all that was really good i'm sitting here thinking well if i hadn't done that i wouldn't be missing it and had i actually had a crash whilst doing that i'd be really quite angry with myself right
so yeah finding
a different path a little bit in a sense yeah i mean i i've thought about that a lot recently is that you know you obviously can't do the x-ops and that kind of stuff forever and uh and i'm getting older as well and i think it's uh um you know psychologists say that you know with with people that are really serious about sport uh you know or maybe a professional athlete like back in my ski racing days and stuff like a lot of the guys that i used to ski race with they're they're trying to do a lot of the things that they're trying to do and they're not
that cliff doesn't work out you know and it's you know you got to find some way to kind of wind this down and find other things that are enjoyable can
i stop you there gavin is this an interview am i interviewing you or are you interviewing me someone put me up to that i've been pre-empted to hit you with that one perfect perfect sorry bud someone said to me this opportunity will come up and i was sitting here squirming in my seat seat that's the perfect time with this or not sorry bud i gotta think i gotta thank craig for that well let me just you know paragliding it is wonderful you'll meet lots of very interesting people some you'll like some you won't but they're generally very out there people it's a brilliant thing it gets you to go to places that you would never go and visit normally it's great but just try not to crash yeah it's easier said than done uh i think a lot of the uh control courses or sivs or however you want to whatever you want to call them have become uh much better now we're really learning or people have learned um how to use the paraglider for example stools still for me are a no-go you know it's like don't do stools should be doing them it should be part of your your training really and the way that they used to be taught was not correct now they seem to be being taught in a fashion that is a usable tool so i think um control courses yeah do loads of them you know if you can be at one with uh controlling your piece of equipment your mind can then be uh
freed up to to do other stuff like looking where you're going and and actually is it giga ram yeah most of my giga ram is used up paragliding you know using the flying the tool and all the rest of it and people say to me did you see that that guy over there fishing in the pond it's like what pond let alone the guy fishing in it you know a lot of the stuff i don't actually see because the whole giga ram is used up doing what i'm doing right um you know hughes hughes got plenty to spare you know he's flying around and he's sending text messages you know or you know so yeah but um if you can if you can learn it's not a big deal but if you can learn it's not a big deal if you can use your piece of kit without having to think about it you can observe and take in the information you've got two eyes they are the best things they're your best asset when it comes to flying looking around noticing little things in the distance what is that it's a bird okay is it circling yes it is brilliant i'll have some of that you know i i seem to notice things on the on the horizon moving around perhaps more than most people and that's that's definitely very helpful and
you and you feel like that's because you're you're comfortable with your kit you're coming with that thing you have more awareness of you're letting your subconscious do more of the work um
when it comes to competition no i i i don't don't see those things as much as perhaps i should because i'm concentrating on thermaling this trying to climb the bloke next to me not crashing into the bloke next to me blah blah i'm sort of right here right now and and uh i'd like to be taking in that information around me a bit more um it may i may be getting better at doing that as i've got a bit older but yeah taking all that information and use it to your advantage you know use your eyes observation this is it's a key thing i think for for doing well in flying mark
thanks man i really appreciate it that was a great hour and something out here and out here in nature oh yeah i don't normally talk much shut me up yeah excellent excellent who's interviewing you here yeah cheers buddy yeah no i appreciate it thanks so much uh that was blast and uh we got one more day in this comp good luck cheers and uh we'll see you at the next one i
hope you enjoyed that we've had many many many requests i hope all of you that wanted to uh hear mark watts on the show enjoyed that uh as always all we ask for is a buck a show um don't just send a buck wait till you listen to 20 or 30 or something and then send accordingly if you can uh if you can't support us financially uh really appreciate it think of it like a little bit of a like a magazine subscription or something you really value something if you're if you get something out of it uh you can do that you can find the links to support us either through paypal as a one-off or regularly monthly or you can do it through patreon.com forward slash cloud-based mayhem but you can find the links for all that on the website cloudbasedmayhem.com if you can't support us financially totally totally cool uh another way you can do it is just give us a rating on itunes or stitcher or however you listen to your podcasts uh you can share it with your friends you can talk about it on the web and we'll see you in the next one bye bye way up to launch which a lot of people seem to be doing uh you can share it on social media all those things go a very very long way and what's what this is all about is just spreading the word and making us safer and hopefully making us fly better and uh flying farther so see you on the next show thank you for your support i really appreciate it we really appreciate it talk to you soon cheers