Hi there everybody, welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. It is getting super real for the Red Bull X-Alps. We are just slightly over two weeks away. I can't believe after all the months and months and months of preparation that it's all happening. And I'm actually recording this several weeks before this actually drops, so I haven't actually left for Europe. By the time you get this, I'll have been there for a little while doing some training with my team, and hopefully it has warmed up a lot. They've got a lot of snow in Europe, last I checked. It's been cold and wet and snowy, and there's a lot of snow, not very high, and a lot, a lot of snow up high. So, uh, it looks like the race could be, uh, yeah, got to think about our foot management big time. Hopefully, the weather will just be epic and we'll fly over those passes, but of course, that never happens, so I expect some real slogging and very wet conditions.
Hopefully, it's not isothermic post-hauling hell, but locked up. But yeah, it's... It's going to be very interesting. I have been promising for quite some time more hanging shows. I was out in California, as you all know. I've been listening to this lately, out in March, and ran into Wolfie, Wolfgang Seiss, again there. I saw him doing some ground stuff down in Valle, some ground effect flying about 100 miles an hour that was insane. It was so awesome. It really made me want to fly hang gliders. Wolfie's dad flies hang gliders. He's been flying since he was 14. He's been flying really seriously now for 19 years. He runs the gamut on speed flying down hills and comps and expedition stuff and tons of films.
This is just super fun talk. You're going to dig this whether you hang glide or not. I hope this sparks some interest in the younger crew with hang gliding. They are an incredible aircraft, and Wolfgang is one of the best. So this is, he is incredibly passionate about it. He does pretty much all he does year round is fly. So I think you're going to really enjoy this talk. As I've been talking about in the last bunch of shows, we have made the transition over to our own subscription service on the website. However, if you are still supporting us through Patreon, just stay there. If you like it, if you like the platform, it works totally well. A lot of you that are on Patreon though, have been having trouble with, we brought that database across. You should be all set up. With a username and password, actually, with password, you just have to get on and put your username and then say "forgot password" if you don't know it, and it'll create an account for you.
And then you have access to all the bonus content. Of course, all the bonus content also gets posted on Patreon, so you've already got it, but on the website, it's a little easier to find because it's all in one place rather than kind of a blog format as it is in Patreon. So, if you're having any trouble with that, reach out to me. I will be available to do that kind of stuff for about another week again when this drops, but of course, during the race, I'm a one-man show and that's not going to happen. The other thing that's going to be tricky for the summer is all of our swag—all our Cloud Beast Mayhem trucker hats and t-shirts and stuff. That's going to be tricky because I'm, again, one-man show and I'll be in Europe through August, be over there all June, July, most of August, and so I won't be able to ship any of that stuff while I'm there. So get your orders in now and I'll get them over to you.
All right, that sounds like my, uh, my missus and little one coming in, so I'll just, uh, switch over here to the podcast. Please enjoy this cool talk with a very cool dude, Wolfie Size. wolfie
Man, awesome to have you on the show. I appreciate it. We've been trying to coordinate this since I saw you, uh, well, gosh, since I saw you in Valle in January, and then we saw each, each other again in Santa Barbara, which was cool. Actually, got to fly a bit together there, and then you've been rallying all over the place, but great to have you on the mayhem, uh, psych, to talk to you. I appreciate. I understand you're, you're in your van out there, and, uh, in Insbrook, and getting ready for the tandem season, and there's a lot of snow, which makes me super nervous about the race.
hey gavin uh thank you so much for having me on the show it's pretty awesome talking to you yeah Yeah, it's been pretty wild couple of months, lots of traveling, lots of flying. And yeah, now I'm actually in Interlaken, Switzerland and starting working tomorrow.
Great. Yeah. So I want to talk to you about tandems. I want to talk to you about your history and your dad. We don't do enough hangy shows, man. So I'm really excited to talk to you about this passion that we share in the sky from different avenues. avenues, and of course paraglider and you're hanging, so that's going to be a lot of fun. But I thought a really good place for us to start—not that I like to dwell on the scary stuff, but um, Evan told me that, you know, when he reached out a few months ago and he was like, "Hey, you're going to be in the same place as is Wolfie, you got to say hi and try to get him on the show." Uh, he gave me some of your videos, he gave me the arch thing that you and Zach did and Moab, which, which was sick. That was so cool. And then he also showed me the video from Elsinore and, uh, God, dude, that tumble looked terrifying.
It was so amazing to have all that on video and that you came out. Okay. But, um, I thought we'd start there just to get everybody listening here, totally gripped and into this, into the show. That was scary, man. What, what happened?
Yeah, that was definitely a wild one. It was definitely a wild one. Took me a long time to to get over it, and I probably didn't see the video myself in like two years. It's like, you know, everywhere you go, people tell you, "Oh, this video is so crazy," and they want to show it to you. I was like, "I just don't want to see that anymore." I can, yeah, and just relive that as soon as I see it.
That's a, you know, talk about the place too, because I've flown El Senor a bit. It's really a better hanging site than a paragliding site. It's windy, it's on um, and I know, you know, you guys have been the hangies have been flying that site for more than 40 years, but I mean, God, that just looked terrifying.
Man, it's... I, I, I love Elsinore. When I'm in California, I love to fly there. I think it's... it's super fun to fly. And you know, we heard about—they call it the tax zone—where I tumbled, and I'm not the first one who came down on his parachute there. Um, it's... I... it's really hard to... to say what happened that day because everybody else he talked to said it was a very nice flying day. And the day before we flew, and we got... you actually get the conversions there, uh, with the sea breeze come in, and then you can fly all the way to the beach. And we knew the sea breeze was coming in, but he was still quite a while away because when I... I was lying down there after everything, it was probably not an hour before the sea breeze really come in. So, you know, it was just strong thermal and not so good...
good conditions. But you know, a little... a little bit of maybe over the back, maybe not. It's really hard to say what really happened there and
Is that is a tumble on a hang glider? Is that is that as bad as it gets? I mean, is that is that just the one thing when when it happens to you guys, you just don't really have an option, yeah?
there's people flown out of tumbles there's stories of people flowing out of tumbles um for me was not really a tumble So Tumble is more like straight over and I kind of rolled over sideways, which was also kind of odd and weird. I must have just got into like, you know, really strong thermal shear on one side and just the downdraft on the other one. And it just flipped me over in like a split second, you know. By the time I realized what's happened, I was lying in the sail already.
But man, you reacted really fast. Was there just, was it just kind of, this is, this is my only move instant in your mind?
Yeah, pretty much. Um, it's really bad because I already have two parachute deployments before that from acrobatic flying from hang gliders when I had gliders blow up on me. Uh, when
you say blow up, like they broke.
Yeah. They actually broke like in a loop on the bottom and just completely blew up. And you know, there's the only chance it's a reserve. And in this moment, I—I mean, I knew how high I was, and I tried to fix it. Like you can see in the video, I tried to fix it, but it just, like, you know, I was not having it. And then I fell into the sail, and you know, I knew my altitude, so the only option was throwing the reserve and getting it out as quick as possible. And it actually, like, I threw it out and I never really felt the opening, because the way I was spinning there was not really a hard opening, so I actually did not know I was hanging on the parachute until I hit the ground. I
mean, I mean from the video's perspective, it looked like you rolled through, bam, you're in it, just looks so fast, I mean
you know how this is in this like really radical situations you bring everything time slows down you know sure and for For me, that whole thing – like we didn't find the video until like three days later when we went back and searched for the camera. And for me, the whole thing was like – took way longer. I said I was laying in the sail forever because that's – I fell. So the glider flipped over. I fell into the glider and the glider basically broke on me. And then I slipped out of the back and I remember seeing like just the sail material around me. and that just took forever until I saw Sky again, but in real life it just happened like in an instant. You know, do you guys fly with two reserves? So, um, half-half, some people do, some people don't.
Um, comp pilots normally do, um, especially since my second parachute deployment, I always fly with two reserves. It's just, you know, a little extra, extra safety, and it also, it helps for weight sometimes with hang gliders. If you, you know, need a little extra weight, you don't need to carry lead, you just carry an extra parachute were
You at that time? So, this is four years ago, is that right? That's pretty
Much plus minus a week or two, four years ago. Yes, wow.
It's just right now, yeah? So, the—the at that time, were you, you know, quote-unquote professional pilot, you know, where you're flying comps? I mean, was that—is that kind of how you're making your living then, um?
Yeah, a mixture between tandems for a couple of seasons, and then, you know, I'm probably trying to be professional for like maybe six years now, which it's not that easy in hang gliding, so getting side jobs and just, you know, working cash in hand when the weather is bad, and helping out buddies in construction, and but basically trying to chase professional hang gliding, and the whole trip, the whole thing in, in Elsino, was basically the start of a big, uh, road trip. Me and my buddy Jonas Lobitz did the Rhythm of Flight road trip, and that was like the first, um, first stop, first filming stop. We filmed part of the episode the day before, and my glider was brand new. That was my third flight on a brand new twelve thousand dollar glider, and I destroyed it, like, to a couple of screws I think were left, and a bass tube crushing.
So before we started recording, I want to, I want to get back into the specifics of the accident too. But before we started recording, you know, you said that, that, that I think it was like 12 episodes on that, that you guys did, but it took you a solid three years to kind of recover from the, the mental side of that accident. Was that how, how hard was that to go out? you know start you've just started this project you mangle your glider um was it was it kind of hard filming all that the next how long did it take you to film this project no
The thing is, I, I flew the next day. I, we actually had wheelswing demo days in Andy Jackson that following weekend, I think. Maxi did was on a Wednesday, and then we start the demo days on Friday or something thing. And so I, um, I flew straight away, flew all weekend, and kind of thought, I'm over it, like, oh, that happened, I shake it off. And then we actually went to Florida, did some comms, and I did really well in the comms, and I was literally like, oh, I'm so good, you know? I didn't bother me, and people were super like, no, you know, you just had a pretty big accident. And I'm like, no, I'm all good. And then we got to the mountains. As soon as we got to Colorado, I, every time I flew into turbulent air, I just got very scared.
And the, I think the first time in big mountain was in either in Gold, I think, in Golden, Colorado, and I, I climbed out, I got one bump which everybody would normally laugh about when you get something like that, like a little bit of turbulent. I flew out in the middle of the valley, spiral down, landed, and was just over it. And that just continued the entire trip, like Everywhere we went, like, you know, we flew some big sites like in Canada, and I just couldn't enjoy it. I, I was super amped on the doing the whole project, and we still had a good time, and I love flying. I mean, that's what I love, and that's what I do, and I kept trying and kept trying, and it... It just took a very long time to being not scared for the tumbles.
I think it took three years until I was completely over it.
Looking back, was there anything that helped or was it just time? Did you talk to any sports psychologists or friends or other people that had had similar accidents? Was there a piece of that puzzle that you were able to figure out? or was it more just, just time?
Um, I never talked to a psychologist. I always thought about it because it was really bad. And, you know, I was like leading calm tasks and flying into a little turbulence and go and land and didn't even realize until I was on the ground, what I just did. I'm like, what just happened? Like, you know, had full on blackouts in the air. But I think I talked to a lot of people and most people just said it needs time. It needs time. And for me, What helped the most was I went flying. I never stopped flying, even if I knew it was a rowdy day. I went flying, and sometimes I flew for 10 minutes, and other times I got an hour out of it, and then got too scared and just, you know, kept going at it. But I think what helped the most was calm flying and flying with other people and going, like, "It is turbulent and I'm getting, you know, bounced around here pretty well, but there's 30 people next to me who also get bounced around and nobody tumbles," so so I'm fine, you know, was
it, do you think part of the, the nervousness or the fear that kind of sank in after that, you know, the, after the Andy Jackson and after the first comps in Florida where it really kind of set in, do you think part of it was because, you know, looking back on it, you didn't really know what happened. I mean, it seemed, it seemed like it was just such a, you know, what, was there something you did? Was it, was it a lack of knowing what you did wrong? wrong
Yeah, I can't, I... I really can't tell what I did wrong in the whole thing. I mean, it's, if you look at it, there's not, you know, it's always hard. Most of our accidents, there's a good amount of pilot error, right? It's like pilot error, like you hit a tree, pilot error, you flew into some freaking storm, it's pilot error because you should have not been there. But this was like, it was a good day, and it was really hard because it was not turbulent. Everybody I talked to said it was a nice day, and and I think that's what made it so. I mean, Florida is nice conditions, and it was never turbulent, so I think that's why Florida was just so nice to fly. And then when I got into the mountains, it's just, it's, you know how it is, mountains get rough and they bounce you around sometimes, and and I think it just needed time.
I think I, I got so quick back into flying and just... We were so focused. I mean, that project, you know how it is. They take a long time to get organized. And I was just so focused on that project that it just took a long time to sink in what really happened.
You know, one of the things you and I and a lot of – we've all seen a ton of accidents in this sport. It's just the reality. And a lot of times, you know, with like this 2020 hindsight, it's, you know, you go, "You go, God, that wasn't surprising that that so-and-so got hurt because they were flying scared." You know, so you know when you're not, when you're not confident and kind of on your game, we always look at it and go, "Man, it's just, you know..." But, but that's a hard thing, isn't it? I mean, if you're not, how do you get confident back on your game if you don't fight through it? You know that there's, there have been times in my career where I've really noticed I'm flying scared, and I'm always like, "God, does that mean I should not fly for a while?" Or, I mean, the solution for, for, for so many people I've talked to is always different.
Some people go to like a lower class glider, you know? Some people just avoid the meat of the day. Um, but you know, to me, it's kind of like, man, you got to kind of get back on the horse and get through it. But then, you know, if you are scared, you're probably overreacting, you're a little too handsy. I don't know what the parallel would be in hang gliding, but you know, you're just doing too much, yeah.
Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, if you—I don't know, it's really hard to say. I think, yeah, you can. I think you get in your own head a lot, you know? It's like, you know, you scare yourself. And then for me, was like, I was like really scared. I really want to go flying, but at the same time, every time I went flying, I already thought about the incident, even even before I went flying. So it's like, you know, it's really hard to like shut it off and just do something else, you know? And, but for me flying with buddies, flying with friends, flying with a lot of people, that's what just, you know, did it for me and got me back into it. Just, you know, seeing other people flying with other people. And just, I think that put my mind a lot away from the whole thing.
hmm
Let's, let's give the the audience some some background here. Uh, rewind to the to the beginning. I understand your dad, uh, was a pilot, and that's how you got into it? Yeah.
My dad, my dad still is a hang glider pilot, so my dad still flies. He started flying in, uh, '78, and in the meat of it, like right just after the beginning—it's not quite the beginner gliders, like the beginning of hang gliding, but right after. And he's been flying for since then, still flies every, every weekend. I think he's gonna retire in a month, so he's gonna go flying even more. And yeah, I just grew up around hang gliding. Um, that's what we did on weekends. We, my dad went flying, and we helped him watch set up the gliders and then watched him. And, um, yeah, did my first tandem when I was 10 years, years old with my dad on my 10th birthday, because that was my mom's, my mom said we need to be 10 years before we can go on a tandem.
Um, And then from then on, I just, you know, sticked around hang gliding and always, you know, had a lot of friends and from other pilots, kids, we were hanging out there. And when I was 14, I got given a beginner glider, um, from a family friend who didn't need it anymore. It's like an old glider, so I, you know, go out on the weekends and I set up the glider and I'm run up and down the landing area and just practice my takeoffs. And in Austria, it's actually the legal age is 16 to learn how to hang glide or fly, right?
yeah and
But when I was 14, 15, I started training more on a training hill, uh, with a family friend who used to be in a national team. He, he teached me a lot. And then I went to school and finished everything there in the end of 15, which actually got to be on the weekend when there's Mother's Day. It's going to be 19 years that I fly.
Wow, cool. So you got your license when you were 16?
Well, I started flying when I was 15. I got my license when I was 15 because when you have it under supervision of instructors, You can fly with 15 if your parents are okay with it, which I never really flew with instructors. As soon as I got my license, I just went flying with my dad and friends.
Yeah, but got my license when I was 15 and then just kept flying and kept chasing it. And your mom is a pilot? My mom's not a pilot. She's been around for a very long time. My dad and my mom used to organize the Alpen Open, which used to be a really big, well-known hang gliding competition in Innsbruck until a couple of years ago. Um, she did a few tandems, never flew herself, um, but she always just supported my dad. And now me and my brother is also flying since two years now. Oh,
Really, is he? Is he getting really into it too? Yeah.
He's, he start, he my brother, he's 30 now, and when he started, he's like, "Oh, I want us to start and get like an easy glider and fly a little bit." And I just got, when I got back from the trip, he's like, he's super fired up. He full-on got the buck, he flies every second he has time, and he's just completely into it, completely turned from not interested to completely obsessed with flying. What
is it like in in your household is your mom just has she just gotten totally comfortable with with this because your dad's been at it so long or she, you know, is she consummately a little bit worried? Uh, you know, I, I know with my mom, she, when I, when I got into ski racing and I was six, you know, she just, she's gotten really good and she's somehow just kind of ignores it all. She always just kind of goes, Oh, that's nice, sweetie. You know, when I tell her about some big project that I've done or something, you know, when she sits in the movie theater and watches it, she, she, she almost takes my knee off, you know, but she, she just kind of, uh, she's avoided it on purpose and just got oh that's so nice you know but she's just kind of ignores it but it's kind of hard to ignore when it's you know when it's your husband no
I think she got, she got, uh, she, you know, she's worried. She's a mom, and my mom knows everything about hang gliding because she's been around. She's seen accidents, seeing things happen over the years, and she, you know, she has a very good clue about everything. Like, she can tell people, like, when they fuck up of flying, they come in and they made a mistake. She knows, like, she's been around for a long time. And then, you know, I'm doing crazy things, raising down mountains, and I think by now they kind of got confident and they just trust me. Try to do it as smart as I can and make it as safe as possible, and but there's still a mom. She's worried, definitely worried about it, and I think something she just tries to ignore and not see it is
This accident you had, Nelson, or is that the only one you've fat, or have you had others? Um...
So Alicino was my third parachute deployment, okay? Um, the other
two were acro, right? The
other two were acro. Um, when I was 18, I got really into acro. I got a topless glider and started looping, and I was actually training for the Vilnaf acro comp, and yeah, blew up glider there. And then, I like, six months later, I blew the same glider up again, and you know, that's... It's obviously always also in their kind of mind that I'm not doing that again.
Did you get hurt from those or is that – are you doing that over water? It's not a big deal.
No, I've never – the second one, I got a little hurt. I actually broke my back but just a little bit. I was just out for a couple of months, just a little compression break. Other than that, I dislocated my shoulder really bad in Columbia at a comp a few years ago. um just making a stupid mistake uh in goal being tired after a week of flying
And yeah, my biggest incident with my shoulder, for sure, dislocated my shoulder and ripped all my tendons. Um, you
Just you, just come in on one wing or something. Bounce, no.
I, I came into goal and I was mad because I was doing really good in a calm. It was really good doing good that task and try to push away to win the day and ended up coming in 15th because I got really low and so I came in and did a, you know, a little show off low bass fly by and then I flew my drug shoot and just fell into the um, the gradient and just hit the ground really hard straight in and just you were do oh
Go ahead, sorry, just
pop my shoulder out, you
were doing these like terrain runs in in Valle that were awesome, man. You come in and like, just get that ground effect forever. And it was, I mean, watching you do that down in Valle, I was like, okay, I get hang gliders now. Cause I've always kind of been like, oh man, the setup and the time, and you got to kind of land in a place where somebody can get you. Cause it's not so easy to hike with all that stuff. But then I saw that and I was like, oh, you're flying like a quarter of a mile, five feet off the deck at a 100 miles an hour, it looked like. And it was like, "That looks fun." I mean, yeah, that's, you know,
That's the difference between hang gliding and paragliding. We just have that way bigger speed range, right? I can fly from 30, 35 k's an hour to, I think the fastest I ever flew was 165 k's an hour. Yeah, man. And then when we do these low passes and stuff, I'm guessing about 130 onto the ground. And then, and the energy retention on these gliders these days is just absolutely ridiculous. It still keeps blowing my mind every time I do it.
So we had a talk. We did this kind of history of hang gliding show a few months back with Bruce Weaver out at Kitty Hawk and a bunch of others. And one of the thoughts to make hang gliding a lot more accessible was that these gliders that you're flying are not gliders you learn on. These are really tough, you know? They take a lot of hours, and you got to have a lot of experience, and they're super fast, you know? They... so their, their thoughts was like, it's, it's, it's like this beginner thing, and then there's no—there's they're really missing the middle ground, you know, of a glider that's fun, that's easy to set up, that's still super accessible, but it's not a twelve thousand dollar glider, you know? That's just carbon and all that stuff that goes into the wings that you're flying.
Would you agree with that? How, like, what, how do we get more people like you, you know, young and passionate, and into it? Because it seems like that's the problem, right? Is that—am I oversimplifying that? But it seems like that's the problem with hang gliding is that this, that, you know, it's the age is getting older and older, you know? We're not attracting enough young people to the sport, yeah?
It's true. It's, I, I don't know, you know, it is a conversation about how to, to grow the sport I have basically on a weekly basis with somebody because that's what I try to do. Um, the thing is, I don't think so. I think there's enough steps of gliders to like work your way up. It's like the wheelswing sport three is like an awesome intermediate glider where you can fly XC but still be safe, have a light glider. Um, the thing is, like with the simplifying, obviously, leave you a struggle, you need to set up a glider. It seems, it seems like a lot, and it always depends where you go because if you look at all the old forest hang glider pilot, they take two an hour to set up a glider, or half an hour to set up the glider, and then it take two hours to break it down.
And somebody lands and watches that, goes like, "Oh, I'm not, I don't want to do that." But the truth is, it doesn't take that much time. I can, I can really, you know, I can set up a glider and get ready to, to fly in 10 minutes if I want to. Oh,
That's the same as paragliding; that's not much different.
Yeah, I watch that sometimes. I've, you know, this year in Via, it was pretty fun to watch. Sometimes we came up and, you know, I was like, I want to go early today. And I'm getting ready, and there's somebody getting his paraglider gear ready next to me. I'm like, that was about the same time, you know? It's a little more work, and there's a couple of battens to shove in, but it's not that much more work to set up the glider. But I think it has like, maybe a little bit of a wrong image or wrong picture, sure, sometimes, because we got that massive thing you have to carry around in your car. And I mean, for me, the the flying makes up for that little extra work I have to do, you
Know what concerns me about what's happening with hang gliding is, you know, like we've got some legends in in this part of the world that, you know, Frank Brown, who died a couple years ago, these guys that, you know, were were back like with your dad, you know, they started in the early 70s, mid 70s, Wills Wing comes around, it gets crazy, um, and a lot of these folks are, you know, they're old and they're dying, and I feel like we're losing a lot of knowledge. Do you do you worry about that in in the sport? Or is there still there's, you know, Manfred and Christian Check and all these people that I need to get on the show, but I I kind of feel like we're losing knowledge, uh, you know, almost like that that sailplane knowledge that's just so vast and something that we at our end of the sport, flying slow paragliders, or you know, we could really tap into and learn a lot about, yeah.
Yeah, there's definitely in pair. It seems like in paragliding, there's a little more, you know? People give out the knowledge a little more. They, you know, there's books and there's all kinds of things about paragliding and hang gliding has that too, but there's definitely something missing to give that out. Sometimes, and I don't know, I, I, you know, for me, I, I don't know, it's hard to say. I'm lost now.
No, yeah. I mean, I just, yeah. You know, you've been at it 19 years, you know, you've, you've kind of seen it and from a lot of different directions, but you're still young and there's not, I feel like, I feel like a lot of these guys, you know, we were just down in Nevada a few days ago. We had a big day across Nevada with Willie and Cody, the other two ex-Alps teams. And we, you know, we drove in this a ways and then there was a river that kind of blown out the road as dirt road.
And man, I bet we're the first people to ever fly here. And then we're like, no way, man, back in the day, you know, hang gliding was so popular. I bet this place has been flown, you know, it was a road all the way to the top. It was a perfect hangy launch. And we thought, man, I bet, I bet the hangies have, you know, used to fly this all the time. And we just, you know, there's no IGC files. There's no way, you know, we don't have a way to even find out rather than asking. But I feel like, I don't know, I feel like we're on the precipice kind of like losing this kind of book of of great knowledge yeah
I'm pretty sure about that. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of sites who've been flown all around the world where nobody even knows they've been flown, and um, you know, now it seems like they get new discovered, but they're the hangy pilots back in the days, they freaking ran, ran off everything, man. They just flew, yeah, all these places, and I mean, there's so many places now. If we look inside in California, you can't even fly anymore because it's full of houses, right? Yeah.
Yeah, that's a... yeah, that's a bummer, man. And I think with the drone thing coming on, we might be in real trouble, losing a lot more I
think so too. I just heard about they want to do something in Austria, and if they definitely want to, they're talking about making like a place where they can fly and test their drones, and it's like, it's right in like the best flying area at home. It's like, and you know, they got a pretty good hand. I don't think they're gonna achieve that, but I hope not, because otherwise we lose some really good flying over the next couple of years.
Yeah, Amazon just announced they've gotten state okay for drone delivery of packages I think in Virginia or somewhere back east. And I was just thinking, man, the Amazon lobby is going to be a lot bigger than our lobby. If they want that to pass through Congress, they're going to get it and we're not. There's just no way we can compete with the billions and billions and billions of dollars that these big companies have and I worry about that. Maybe I shouldn't. It's just inevitable.
I'm pretty sure I worry about that too. I think about that too every time I see an article about some drone things because like I said, they're way bigger. We have no chance and we all got free flying in our heart but free flying is going to get less and less and less unfortunately as this technology involves. wolves.
When, when I just ran into you out in, in California, you threw down some hours numbers that blew my mind. So you've been flying pretty seriously. It sounds like for 19 years. Yeah. I don't know how you flew, like how many days straight and via, I think you were like 60 or 30 or I can't remember what you said, but you, you, you racked up a lot of hours down there. You've been pretty much on the road since then. That was back in January. Um, how do you maintain maintain your passion for for airtime and for hours and uh you know how do you not get burned out um
Yeah, VIA was crazy. I spent three months in VIA, and in the three months, I didn't fly seven days, and five days of them I went to Cali to Wills Wing for a few days to do some work, and I actually took two days off flying. Other than that, I flew every day, and I think I, I got 150 to 200 hours in the three months I was there.
Wow, that's incredible. Which at
this point I was working, I was guiding there. I was helping Rudy with some hang gliding tours and guiding. That's definitely something your motivation gets a little less. We fly really every day, every day. But for me, I have so much passion for flying. I love it, man. Sometimes I'm like, I don't want to fly today. And then I go anywhere and as soon as I'm in the air, I'm like, I'm so happy I went flying. It's just, just my happy place. As soon as I'm in the air, that's when I'm happy. And, um, if I don't fly too many tandems, tandems is for me when I definitely kind of start losing passion a little bit because it just becomes work.
Yeah. I was going to say, uh, you know, I, I've never been a tandem pilot. I've always avoided that just because I hear that from a lot of tandem pilots. Like, oh man, the number one way to lose your passion for flying is to do tandems. And you're in a part of the world where you can do a lot. lot you know you guys can lap like crazy there how have you how have you kind of approached maintaining that balance or is it just like the necessary evil to pad the pockets and keep traveling again
It's for me. I, I decided a few years ago when I, you know, got into the whole tandem thing, I do six months and then I do six months of my own flying and just a little bit of tandems, and that definitely helped. Um, being here in Interlaken now, I, I fly a lot of tandems, but I still go free flying. I, you know, take my days off and go flying, or go flying in between, because that really recharges my batteries. Um, it gets a little tough if you fly tandems for five months straight and and fly all the time; you just don't want to go up that mountain anymore. It, but as soon as I go, like I said, as soon as I go flying again, everything is good and I'm all happy again. What
part of the sport do you really get excited about because it sounds like you've You've had the background and kind of everything. You went through this acro phase, obviously cross country, comps. When you look ahead at the next year, what gets you most fired up and why?
For me right now, definitely speed flying. I love racing down mountains, finding new lines, and just fly as fast as I can down some mountain faces.
So I don't understand what this is. Is I what is? I didn't know that that was even a thing in hang gliding. Is this a different kind of wing? No,
No, it's my same angle. It's my same comp wing. I normally always speed speed flying, being around for a long time. They used to do competition; they used to be the Red Bull speed running kid spiel, which was a really big thing. Um, I think they had something in Aspen for a while, which was a big thing. Um, it's just basically same thing the wingsuiters do, just a little flatter Better terrain and little longer runs because we could just play around a little more.
You're just pointing it and staying right on the deck.
Yeah, just point, stay right on the deck, find like little ski slopes where you can go really close to the ground. And then like, you know, good spines you can race along and just fly these freaking epic mountain sides early morning in super calm conditions. Like that's for me. That's where I'm most focused. I can like go up a mountain and there's literally nothing else there than racing down that mountain. And I can just, you know, be full on in the zone.
So we're going to have all this in the show notes. We'll have the tumble and we'll have your 12 episode series of your trip across the U S and then we'll have some of this speed flying, anything else. So those of you listening, go check out the show notes and, and we'll have, we'll have all of Wolfie's videos on this. Wolfie, Tell me about the... tell me about this trip. I don't want to skip over this U.S. thing that you did, because that sounded pretty, pretty awesome.
um rhythm of flight, I mean, I always want to do a big road trip about across the U.S. There's so many awesome flying sites, and then with the final touch in Moab, there was like something I was dreaming about for a really long time to fly under under an arch of through an arch, and I actually, after I got injured in um Columbia with my shoulder, I went to the pre-world in via and just hang out there, and I was driving for for my buddies and just hang out there, and me and Jonas, who is a longtime friend of mine from New Zealand, Jonas Lobitz, um, we used to work in Stanwell Park, Australia, for two seasons together as tandem pilots. We always said, "Ah, let's do a road trip," and you know, it just all just grew into to let's do something bigger, let's you know make some cool videos and show all these cool flying starts around the world and go from from calm flying to mountain flying where we actually did a bivy flight in Colorado.
How did that, how
Did that? Hold on, I gotta—I gotta understand how the bivy... how did you guys tackle bivy flying with hang gliders? We...
Actually, we we made it pretty easy in ourselves. We we we had just some falcons, so we had like some beginner gliders, and we just took off in Aspen, and we kind of like try to find a spot where we can top land on a mountain, um, up on Google Earth up front, and then we just, you know, put like sleeping bags and some pots and everything we need in our harnesses on, and on the crossbar of the glider, and I don't know what we flew, it was not that far. I think we flew like 30ks maybe down the range, and we found actually a super sick flat top mountain where we landed on, and then we just spent the night there air
and then flew
back the next day, if
you ever looked at lines to to do like a big baby trip with a hangy like a like a mongolia, you know, somewhere where there's there's no trees and really grass-covered mountains, but you know, nicer than the than the Alps, a little more friendly. Is that is that something that's kind of on your guys' radar, yeah?
It's definitely on my radar. I, I got a massive lift list of ideas of things I want to do in angliding, and you know, going and exploring blow that whole bivy thing a little more is definitely something I want to do. Um, but things always need to line up, and you know, I've always about a million and two projects in my head, and just see how things go, uh, how money-wise goes, what I can do. But it's definitely something I want to do. We've been talking about since years. We should send, um, we actually should send an application to the xelps thing and say, uh, we want to compete in hang glider and see what they say.
oh man they They would say yes for sure. Can you imagine? They'd love that. Oh, my God. I mean,
SIPI, SAC majors always said, we just, you know, we walk up to the Geisberg and we fly the first day and then we just call it good and we've been in the ex-Alps, you know? But I think it will be, you know, I mean, obviously depends on the day. If you have like freaking two weeks of epic flying and you really train hard, you maybe Maybe you can walk your hang gliders up a few days, but definitely know what you guys are doing.
Yeah, I think that four or five times up Everest with a hang glider would be a little too much crushing. But if you could really send it, there just have to be different rules, like your team could help or something, you know, something. I don't know.
Yeah, we were always talking about it and never, you know, never really went through with it when we do it one year. Maybe somebody else is crazy enough after hearing that and say, yeah, that's a good idea and does it. I hope. It would be pretty awesome to see.
That would be awesome to see. How do you compare – give the listeners – because a lot of people listening are – have spent a lot of time in the Alps. And a lot of people listening spend a lot of time in the States, but not both. Compare the U.S. to where – in that big trip you did. Compare the air. What are the big differences that stand out?
Hmm. It's really hard for me. Like, you know, we, we did some good mountain flying and in Colorado and, um, in Canada, which was super awesome. And I think that's pretty similar to flying here in the Alps. Um, but then there's obviously all their, you know, massive terrains of like big flats, which we don't have here. We just have mountains and valleys and more valleys where you don't really want to land. But I think the big thing here in the Alps is like you always find a town, right? There's always – in every town, in every valley, there's a little town. And then there's so many places in the US where you're just completely no man's land and there's nothing there.
This flight we did the other day, we basically crossed a big chunk of Nevada from west to east. And actually Cody made it into Utah at the end. He broke the state record that day. But it's just, you know, it's the most mountainous state in the U S which people don't realize I mean more than Alaska and, uh, and you know, you just, so you're just range hopping, just mountain to mountain, the mountain to man, you're crossing these huge flats and there's no one for 200 miles. There was nothing, you know, you'd see a little dirt road, but I didn't see any people saw some cows, you know, you just, I didn't see any trucks. Yeah. We didn't really get
to go like on our trip. We didn't, we never, we didn't really have a driver. It was just us two in a pickup truck, and we kind of always met up with locals, and it was kind of the whole trip was more like flying with locals and going up and flying with with people we met along the way, or like reached out with them in front. There was more about like the community of flying and, you know, flight parks, which we don't really have here like the way they are in the states, um, especially the aeroto parks. We don't have that here in Austria, Switzerland, um, so but we didn't really go, went really big, big XC, but I had like a few flights where I just looked, there was a mountain range, is like, yeah, there's nothing there for a long time. I said, I say in Europe, you like, you know, you go over a mountain range and there's maybe a big glacier, but after there is something, and you always know you're gonna find the town somewhere, you know.
always paul Paul Guschlbauer came through here on his uh when he He was doing his bush plane thing from Alaska down to Argentina, and he came through town on a really good week. He nailed it. I think he broke his personal best that day. It was a huge, proper Sun Valley day, and he gave a presentation on the ex-Alps. And he was – some of this footage he showed was like busting through these coals, and you're like, oh my god, there's nowhere to land. And he would say like, you're in the Alps. There's always a place to land. Watch. And then sure enough, it would clear up, and there would be a little village. So I learned that the first couple of times I started flying in the Alps, I'd be like, oh my God, what's going to be on the other side of this? Oh, there's a village.
Yeah. There's always a village. The mountain mans, they always build a village somewhere in the mountains and just.
Yeah, totally. Totally. And I mean, I think, I think the wildness here, I got a new perspective of that flying out in Santa Barbara, you know, so along the coast where you were, you know, where there's, there's like massive civilization, you're not that far from Los Angeles, but you punch over the back one ridgeline and you might be out there for a couple of days. I like that. That is a deepness that even here in Sun Valley, we don't have, I mean, it's, it's way more remote than California, but you know, you can kind of land most, you know, it's not like deep like that, where it's just miles of chaparral and no trails and no roads, you know, there's, there's dirt roads. You're going to find a hunter. You're going to find somebody with a truck, you know, you might spend the night, but you're going to get a ride. And man, that I couldn't believe how how close you were to LA and then how deep you were.
I mean, one move you're, you go over the back there, man, you're in tiger country big time.
Yeah. I flew, what's that site called further down in Ventura in the mountains? Ojai. Yes, exactly. I flew Ojai a few years ago and we flew towards the Owens and man, there's some, there's some big tiger country there. That's for sure.
Yeah. That first jump is intense. Just right there. You just like, Oh God. And then you'd make the next jump and you're out over the Mojave and it's all mellow, but man, that first one's like, "Oh my god, I think that... I think the European pilots would be like, 'Oh, this is a little bit of pucker factor here,' yeah."
Definitely, there were some. I mean, we were—we had a super high cloud-based day, and we got over there pretty quick, but I still looked at it and it was like, "Yeah, you don't want to land there." That's for sure. Um,
Hey, I'm going to give you some rapid-fire questions to kind of, uh, and And we, we got a lot to talk about. We can keep going, but I just want to, uh, you don't have to answer these fast. They're just a bunch of different questions that I find kind of fun. I was listening to a podcast recently and these, these came up not for flying. It was a totally different thing, but I've, I've changed them for flying. So if you had one piece of advice for someone to succeed as a pilot, what would it be?
Fly, fly, fly. Just hours. And hours, hours and hours. And you know, go flying, go flying with, you know, find a club, fly, and find other people so you can go fly with, talk to pilots, and fly, fly, fly, fly smart, fly in good conditions. Don't, don't push it. You got the entire life, you don't need to fly. You know, it's good to pack up on takeoff and not fly a day and just fly, fly, fly. I think for me, it's fly, fly, fly, yeah.
There's no, there's no real shortcuts, is there? Um, if you could do one thing differently, you're not far out of your 20s, but if you could do one thing differently in your 20s, what would it be?
Not much, man. I, I did what I wanted to do my entire life. I started flying, and I probably would have not been as much as a dumbass and and started acro the way I did and nearly killed myself with that, okay?
Let's extend, let's extend that question a bit. This is one I ask all the time: if you could rewind the clock, it sounds like for you maybe when you were 15, but if you could rewind the clock to your 50-hour self, so probably that first year you were learning, what advice do you wish you would have received from you today? Like, Wolfie, hey, uh, now that I'm in my 30s and I've flown for 19 years, do this differently, um...
Definitely like, you got all the time in the world, you got the entire life to fly. I, you know, definitely pushed it a couple. I was, I was pretty lucky when I went flying with my dad a lot and without a family friends, but there was definitely times I went flying I probably should have not gone flying because I was just super gung-ho and going flying and I need to fly today. Now, who knows what the weather does next weekend, and I need to go fly today, but the thing is, you got so many more hours and so many more flying days ahead of you. It doesn't matter if you break down your glider on takeoff has
There, any been any real friction between your dad and you with flying? Has there ever been times where he's been, you know, just kind of like, has to look away?
Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, when I do my my speed flying and stuff and going close to the ground, I I normally set myself a half a meter limit going to the ground, and then I most of the time break that because I'm ground horny, as we decided a few years ago, we call it. Um, you know, he always says like, "Oh, just fly a meter off the ground or two meters off the ground, it just looks as cool." It's like, "Yeah, but you know, because he sees the video, but he doesn't see what I... because I do that because I love that." And you know, I can have 10 cameras on my glider racing down a mountain, all I think what's in front of me in the line, and I've just got a massive smile on my face.
And you know, it's just the ground rush. The ground rush is real. It's closer to ground is, you know, more fun. It is for me.
not to, I kept my, I keep my limit, and I'm, I'm pretty smart. I definitely, a couple of years ago, I was like, not doing that; and as you get older, you just give yourself a little bit of a limit. But it seems, it's even if you watch the video, people go like, "You're completely stupid," but, but if you're actually in the moment and doing it and being right there, it's a different thing, right? And you just don't do that. And if the conditions are – if it's bumpy or the conditions are not good, I pack up and I just fly down normally. I pull away from the hill and I stop doing it. But then I don't post the video and two days later I do it, racing down the mountain in perfect conditions. and it looks all rad and good but there people don't see how much work and effort you put into doing something like that have
You ever gone into, got into base jumping and wingsuiting?
Um, no, I don't. I have, uh, I skydive a little bit, and I have 10 jumps of britches on a base jumping gear, but that's it. Never been in a wingsuit or something like that. Kind of interested in it, especially living here very close where it all happens, just, you know, a couple of k's from the valley. But for me, if I would get interested, I'm more interested in the, in the idea of jumping off a cliff and just tracking away and actually wingsuiting, because I feel like if I want to go fly, I'm going to do that in angleter, yeah.
sure uh okay back to these questions 10 years from now what do you think you'll regret doing too much or too little of love?
It's hard to say. I fly a lot. I don't know. It's really hard to say. I don't think so anything. I'm pretty happy right now. And I think in 10 years, I'm pretty happy what I did the last 15, 20 years.
What is the most important non-flying thing you can do to become a better pilot, I?
Think watching videos on, on, on the internet and and seeing what other people makes mistakes is a good thing to learn. Yeah, it's kind of still flying, but not really.
Yeah, you're still putting it in your head, yeah.
You're still putting in your head, and you know, seeing some—I think seeing some of these accidents is, uh, it's good. It's a good learning curve for, for pilots. And you know, if you have that in your head, you see that before your chances, when it, it happens to you, you can react a little faster. Definitely way higher. I
Just did a review, uh, for Maxime's, uh, the first of his—it's two books, uh, performance flying. I just did a review of the first one for cross country, and I really enjoyed that. I've, you know, Burkhard Martin's books on thermal flying, and you know, there's, there's lots of good books out there. Dennis Pagan's done a ton of stuff; you know, his Secrets of Champions is still one of my yearly reads, and that's all, all hang gliding, you know, and I'm not a hang glider, but I still think there's just so much valuable information there. But I find that, you know, especially in winter on a rainy day or something, I find tapping into those is, you know, is, is always a good thing just to, just to, I find that, you know, like I've had a lot of injuries in my life, not from paragliding, thankfully, but, you know, from other sports. And, you know, when you, when you get hurt, it's always like, oh man, darn it.
And then, but then you, you know, That separation from whatever it is you were chasing often makes you better when you come back to it. You know, you haven't had the hours, you haven't had the time, but you've had the perspective, and you get—you can come back to it and often be, at least for me, and be better than you were, yeah.
Yeah, for me, I don't know, it's hard because I've not really had any time off from flying in the last five years, I think. Um, basically all I do, if I don't fly tandems, if it's a rainy day like today, I'm not flying. But, but otherwise, I'm always somehow in the sky. It's all about how to get more time in the sky than on the ground, right?
Yeah, totally. There's nothing that replaces hours. I get that email all the time. Hey, man, I only have this much time. How can I become an awesome comp pilot? I was like, yeah, there's no shortcuts, man. You've got to get the hours. That's it.
Reading these books and getting that basic knowledge is really good, but for me, it's, it's all about the hours and experiencing it in the sky that, well, it helps me a lot, and I just felt that now again, um, after not flying so many comms and just doing tandems for a while, just Mexico, just flying for three months, it's like, you know, I take off and I'm going my harness and I'm, I'm there, I'm like in the zone straight away, and it's like I don't need a few minutes to like get settled in or something, you know, it's like I'm always right there because Cause I had just been flying so much and I think that's what helps me at least the most. I need, I need fly. I need hours to fly good, especially in calls.
I've been surprised with, so this has been a really big year for me for flying cause of course the X helps coming up, but it only takes a little while for being away from it. And then I'm right back in that. I mean, I get back in the zone faster because of all the hours, but you know, if I'm away from it for a couple of weeks, I'm the next time I'm in the air, I'm like uncomfortable you know a little bit scared and you know it takes a couple days it's just there's nothing that replaces hours yeah
It definitely helps. It's like, you know, I learned that when I was a younger pilot and, you know, we were all, I, you know, for the longest time I had, until I was 20 or something, I had a normal job and just, you know, worked weekdays and went flying on the weekends and and then took winters off and just go on little trips to Italy or something. And then, then you go on like a week trip and like two day, day four, day five, all of a sudden you go, like, man, I'm like full-on in the zone, you know? It's like so easy. And I just talked to my brother who just did that last year; he said the same thing. He's like, you know, it takes me always a while to get back into it, but then I go on a trip and and it's just everything is just in tune, you know? You just know what's happening, you know what you need to do. It's like for me, nothing replaces ours.
This isn't part of my rapid-fire questions here, but it just made me think. You've done a lot of traveling, it sounds like. What's your favorite place to fly, and what's on your checklist? What's on your, God, I can't wait to fly that?
Favorite place to fly, it's definitely still at home in the mountains. I love the mountains. There's just nothing more stunning than just flying 3,000 meters over some mountain peaks. And that's where I learned to fly. That's where I, you know, got most of my flying in the beginning. And I mean, there's so many stunning places, it's so hard to say. I get that question all the time, "What's your favorite place to fly?" It's like, there's a million cool places. I just, you know, I just had an awesome time in Brazil. Mexico Valle is freaking cool to fly. It's like everything is different. Like, there's so many good flyings, but if I have to pick one place, I'd definitely say They, the Austrian mountains home.
That's nice. And so it's always good to like home. And what about, what about what's on your, what's on your tick list?
My tick list, there's, there's a lot of things on my tick list, like a lot of things. I really, I want to fly to Patagonia. I think that will be a very stunning place to fly.
I really would like to fly in Iceland. That's cool. cool there's a
There's a pretty good, there's a pretty good club there. There's a lot of pilots in Iceland; I had no idea. Yeah,
I researched a little bit. There's, there's a hang gliding club and paragliding club, and there's some good flying there, and it's just, just one of these lists. I just need to line up one day that I can go and do that, but yeah, that's definitely, that's, I mean, I just recently had, probably, one of my biggest dreams in flying, um, came true, like one of these flights, like I always wanted to do as long as I remember seeing photos in magazines, and it just happened, actually, like a month and a half ago in Brazil. Oh, do tell! I, uh, the crystal flight, the famous crystal flight in Rio, it's like, you know, it's like one of these things is like, it needs to line up, especially when we go, we fly into Rio, and then we go somewhere for a comp, and then you have two more days in Rio's, and it never really works out, and you just need the right day, and, um, Johnny Duran, Rory Duncan, and I just like, month and a half ago, we got there, and all the locals were like, no, no, today is not a Chris today.
Today is not a Chris today, and then one guy was like You guys should wait, and we were like, you guys can sink out now and fly to the beach in 10 minutes, or you just sit a couple of hours up here and wait. So, we just waited, and then they just turned on, and it took us a while to get there because it's normally, it's like a two climb flight, maybe one climb flight, and it took us a while. We were soaring over the favelas for like 45 minutes, and the same altitude before the wind turned back on, and yeah, there's just two more climbs, and we just glided to the cristo, and it was super spectacular. It's like cloud base was right on the base of the cristo, so it, he came in and out of the cloud constantly, constantly. Cool, and we're gliding over, and Johnny's done that flight five, six times, so he kind of like showed us the way, and Rory and I kind of followed him, and that's the first time I remember in hang gliding that I was like, when I knew I had it, and I was on glide, and I first saw Christo, and I was like, I'm getting right, right at his height.
Now I'm flying right past him, I started like shaking, and like, you know, getting tears in a little bit, because it's like that was such a big dream flight I wanted to do, ah.
Cool, that's pretty neat that you know that a flight that doesn't really require, you know, huge distance or, you know, huge commitment or something, but it's so special. Just, I mean, really, with the right conditions, I probably a pretty simple flight for you guys, but yeah, that's cool. Yeah,
it was a it was a little tricky that day but normally it's a pretty um simple flight for the locals but But it's one of these flies that just, you know, everything needs to just line up and you can go to a place for 10 years and never get it. And then one day you're just in the right place at the right time and you get these really special, special flights.
Brazil's got so much good flying. I was watching the Superfinal from afar this year and, man, that Baixu Guandu area is just crazy looking. It's like land of the lost. It's beautiful. I've only flown the Sertau.
Yeah, we were, like, what, not far away? We were in Valadares at the same time as the Superfinal. We didn't really have the best weather. I think they flew a little more than we did, but yeah, it's pretty awesome. I love Brazil. There's some really good flying for Brazilia where we go. There's a comp every year is absolutely insane cool flying, and I've not been to the nor 'east yet, but I think that's it's one of my list plans for this fall. Let's see how things work out, hopefully. Yeah, there was a
whole crew flying to Sema. When I was in there, the, uh, I think the Austrian or German girl broke the female record the year I was there. But man, that's a patience game. Holy cow, I mean, they sit there for a month and get like three flights. Yeah, it's brutal. It's a different, it's a, it's type two fun for sure. It's
a different kind of flying, right? You just wait for that one day and you just... oh man, it's tough that day, yeah.
I, I mean, you go out there at 5:30 and 80% of the time you just go back to the hotel and sit there all day. It's a tough go, but it's a good spot for a long runway. You can go a long ways. Okay, back to these questions. What negative experience in your life, one that you would not want to repeat, has had the most profoundly positive effect on who you are?
Probably my accidents, all three of my accidents definitely changed a lot, especially the one in Elsinore. it just changed a lot of my perspective on many things talk
about that uh
It's just, you know, it's just Alzheimer's was definitely the closest I came of, you know, dying in a in a hang glider, and I definitely have a different... I still like, now I'm over to tumble and I, I feel like I'm over and I can fly in in uh in strong lift again and strong thermals and don't be scared anymore more, but I still got it in my mind. It's like, you know, you look down, you go like, "Oh, if I throw a parachute here, it doesn't end that well," you know? It's like, maybe I shouldn't fly in there and I just, you know, look a little fly a little smarter, definitely fly a little fly a bunch smarter.
gave me the perspective that you thought you had, but you, you needed it.
man we're flying and we're We're flying and we can't see the air, right? We're flying in this big thing we can't see. And I always say if we would have goggles and we could see the wind and the thermals, we would maybe fly 5 % of the time we really fly.
Yeah, it'd be terrifying. I don't want those goggles to be invented.
No, me either. I like to live in the black when it comes to that.
Yeah, I mean just any number of places. I mean in the race that's about to come up. If I, if I had those goggles on, I'd just be on the ground the whole time, and we're flying in the lee of the Alps the whole way, you know? We're flying against the wind pretty much the whole way. I don't want to see that, yeah. I just want to tuck in and know that I'm going to get a lee side climb and get out. No,
But you know, you fly over the years, you just learn, and you fly smarter and get a little less gung-ho and push into stupid valleys where you, you maybe not get up. I just, but then there's comp flying where you still do that because you're in a comp mode and you don't even think about it. I just, I just had a pretty, not a sketchy landing, but a little tiny landing spot in, in Florida to comp because I, you know, I was about to land out 10k short of goal and I see some birds and all I'm looking is at these birds. I'm not even looking at the ground. I kind of saw there was a landing below me, but then I'm flying over the next tree line because I, all I look is at these birds because I'm like, I'm going to get up there. And then as soon as I get to the birds, I go like, I'm way too low to get up here.
Where do I land now? And, you know, that's calm flying where you just like do stupid things, you know? And, but I definitely did like improve a lot over the years and just trying not to push it so much anymore. But then you go to calm and you still do it.
Yeah. And those kinds of situations are so, man, they're tough. I mean, cause if you don't do that, you're not going to win, you know? And, uh, and then if you do do it and screw up or get hurt, then you're like, ah, what am I doing? What an idiot. Yeah. You know, it's just a fine line. We're walking, we walk it all the time. Well, we fly it, fly it all the time. Yeah.
The thing is, if we, since we fly a lot and you know, it's the same in paragliding and hang gliding, it's like, I'm pretty confident to land in pretty small fields. So it's okay for me to push in there. There was the, we have the world championships this year in Italy. Really, and last year, the pre-world, there was a lot of people complaining about how the sketchy place, there's not that many landings, and there's some places, some turn points, it's not so good. But then you talk to people like Manfred, Manfred goes like, "I fly into that valley, I know there's a landing in there, it's very small, but I can land there. That's why I fly in there. If I wouldn't be confident to fly in there, I wouldn't fly in there." But then there's people who just see, all they see is the freaking turn point and the error on their GPS, and they fly in there.
and then in there like, oh, what do I do now? It's like planning ahead and just like knowing your skills and how much you can pull off, right? Yeah,
We're gonna get Manfred on the show here shortly. I'm bringing all my gear to Europe, but is Manfred your Chrigel? I'd
say so yeah
Yeah, I mean, because he in Secrets of Champions, and I know that was, you know, that was what late 90s, early 2000, I mean, he was like unbeatable, yeah.
He's, he and he's still, he's, he's a bird man, you know? He's just a different level of flying, and it's all he does, all he does, and it's still all he does. He just flies. I think he flies a bunch of swifts and stuff too, but he's still, he's the bird man for sure.
So what, what do you guys, you know, when you're sitting around with your crew and Zach and Johnny and, you know, the guys you're all traveling with and stuff, you know, because we, we have the, the same conversation about Chrigel, you know, what, what is it? What do you know? What, what are the things that you guys go, "Okay, we got to get better at this and that and this and that." Uh, like Manfred is, or, or is it just like, "Yeah, he's just a bird," because Chrigel's a bird.
Yeah, it's basically the same with Manfred. It, I mean, I, I know Manfred since I'm my entire as long as I remember I know Manfred because he's been around to comms from my parents and stuff, and then when I started flying, or when When I started competing when I was 18, I, you know, hang out a bunch with him and we did a couple, quite a few comps together. And you ask him something and it's like, how did you do that? And he's like, oh, I just, you know, I just pushed out a little more. Like we had a, we had a comp. What was, I think that was in Lanzarote. We did a comp and him and I were in front and we coming back last climb to get the last turn point and go to goal. And we come back to take off. And we're at the same height, and there's like nothing there, and I'm just like circling in zero, and he just climbs out, and you go, "Like, what the fuck happened there?" And then you ask him after, and he goes, "Like, just pushed out a little more.
It was not that hard." And he go, "Like, really?" Like, seemed to me, he's like, "You know, Manfred's always like, he doesn't really tell you so much either, you know? He's like, he gives you some information, but he doesn't really give you what you want to learn, like, or you want to know." I've
Actually, been warned that by a number of you that, oh man, it'd be great to have him on the show, but good luck. Yeah, I'm gonna be
Very curious, like, I hope you get something out of him. Like, every time I try, or most of us try, it's like you get a little bit, but you don't really get what you want. Want, like, I want some of your knowledge, dude, just hand it over, over. And he just my
My guess is that he's not being protective of the knowledge; he just doesn't understand how to say it. I think there's a lot of—I think there's a lot of people like that. I mean, it's probably like trying to become a better surfer from Kelly, you know? I mean, he just does what he does. He's Kelly Slater; he trains hard, he practices harder than anybody, and but handing that off is a different thing, you know? It's like the—he's—he's using his toes and his heels slightly different, and he's—you know, I mean, just the weight of the board and the transitions, and I mean all these things that are probably just a little bit beyond most people's reach. Yeah, it's not really something that can be explained, no.
I'm pretty sure, and I'm pretty sure that's the same with Manfred and, um, yeah, he just, you know, he's been flying for so long and it's so natural. He's, he, he's a bird man, I think. That's, that puts it to the point, but we're gonna see. He has a son who, I think, just, just learned how to fly the last few years and, let's see, we all, we all worried because we all like, well, there's something else we're gonna kick our ass in a few years, yeah.
Man, in the last X-Alps, we were sitting in the rain before the start. I was sitting right next to Chrigel, and he started, started showing me videos of his kids, who I think were six and nine at the time, both of them flying, and I thought, "Oh god, there's no hope for us." Yeah, can you imagine being his kid, learning at that age? Age is just like, yeah. I learned how to paraglide when I was 36. I think I'm a little behind the eight ball.
Yeah, I think so. And I think it's going to be the same with Thomas and Manfred. I hope not. I mean, I hope and I hope not. I hope for him, but I hope not for us that we get an ass ass to us.
Because Manfred still, I mean, still like shows up and just kicks ass, right?
That's awesome. How old is he?
I have no idea.
I don't know. But he's going to come. I think he's coming to the world. to italy very soon cool
Uh, it'd be, it'd be fun to watch them crash everybody.
Everybody's worried already, I'm
Sure, I'm sure. Yeah, no, that's just like when Chrigel shows up, everybody's worried. Uh, Wolfie, thanks so much, man. I, I really appreciate this. Uh, appreciate you giving me the time and and we've been, we've been trying to do this for quite a long time and uh, just thanks for sticking with it. But I hope to see you here soon, or the race is coming right through your backyard, so I hope to see you out there and good luck with your tandem season. We didn't get to talk about tandems too much, but we'll save that for another one. But uh, thanks, man. I appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you so much, Gavin. It was fun talking to you, and yeah, see you here pretty soon. Let's hope this snow melts a little more so you guys get don't need to walk around in snow so much, it
Sounds wet and cold, man. Yeah, I hope so. I mean,
It's what it's... it's beginning of May, and we just had snow on takeoff off two days ago, and I think there's more snow coming in a few days, which it's very scary. I'm sitting in my van with the heater on in May; it's not really, yeah.
we're a month away. It's we, we need, we need to change for it to be drier. I gotta rethink my, uh, I've already started packing. I've got my 12 pairs of shoes out there, but none of them are very good in the wet, so I'm gonna have to rethink that, yeah.
I think you do well. It's good talking to you, and yeah, come by here. And if you have some time before the training, I'm in Interlaken. Let's go go fly, or if you, if you guys fly around, you guys have a turn point here, right? Yeah.
eiger yeah
eiger and
Titlis. So yeah, that's going to be a really cool part of the course. And of course, it's—it's Chrigel's backyard, so I'd love some local knowledge. That'd be terrific. I'll come say hi when we get there. Oh,
We're definitely going to try to fly up in. I flew two years ago; I flew with you guys a little bit, um, from inspru when you guys came over to back. I, I actually flew there and and flew with a couple of guys. I flew into with Paul into the dirt style. Uh, cool. And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, awesome. Yeah, so it's gonna be fun watching you guys fly and maybe get a couple of turns in with you guys.
That'd be, that'd be terrific, man. Love it. Well, cool, man. Wolfie, thanks so much, I appreciate it. And yeah, see you here in a few weeks. Cool.
Man, thank you so much. Cheers, bud, if
you find the Cloudbase Mayhem invaluable. You can support it in a lot of different ways. You can give us a rating on iTunes or Stitcher or however you get your podcasts. That goes a long ways and helps spread the word. You can blog about it on your own website or share it on social media. You can talk about it on the way up to launch with your pilot friends. I know a lot of interesting conversations have happened that way. And of course, you can support us financially. This show does take a lot of time, a lot of editing, a lot of storage and music and all kinds of behind the scenes costs. So if you can support us financially, All we've ever asked for is a a show, and you can do that through a one-time donation through PayPal, or you can set up a subscription service that charges you for each show that comes out. We put a new show out every two weeks, so for example, if you did a buck a show and every two weeks, it'd be about 25 a year, so way cheaper than a magazine subscription, and it makes all of this possible.
I do not want to fund this show with advertising or sponsors; we get asked about that pretty frequently, but I, for a whole whole bunch of different reasons, which I've said many times on the show, I don't want to do that. I don't like having that stuff at the front of the show, and I also want you to know that these are authentic conversations with real people, and these are just our opinions, but our opinions are not being skewed by sponsors or advertising dollars. I think that's a pretty toxic business model, so I hope you dig that. Um, you can support us if you go to cloudbasemayhem.com, you can find the places to support. You can do it through patreon.com forward slash Cloudbase Mayhem if you want a a recurring subscription. You can also do that directly through the website. We've tried to make it really easy and that will give you access to all the bonus material, a little video cast that we do and extra little nuggets that we find in conversations that don't make it into the main show, but we feel like you should hear.
We don't put any of that behind a paywall. If you can't afford to support us, then just let me know and I'll set you up with an account. Of course, that'll be lifetime and hopefully you're in a position someday to be able to support us. But But you'll find all that on the website. All of you who have supported us or even joined our newsletter or bought Cloudbase Mayhem merchandise, T-shirts or hats or anything, you should be all set up. You should have an account. You should be able to access all that bonus material now. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your support. And we'll see you on the next show. Thank you.