Hi there everybody, welcome to episode 98 of the Cloud Based Mayhem. We are almost to 100 and what that means is I am hard at work. This is great actually after the X-Alps to be able to relax and just write and work on this book that's kind of a tools of titans about the mayhem. We're going to put all the best of the best together in a book that Cross Country is publishing, working closely with Ed and Hugh on that. It's very exciting. We hope to have that kind of in draft format and ready to go by this fall and published early in the year. So stay tuned for that. Certainly this conversation that you're about to hear is going to have a lot in it. This is an awesome conversation. Before we get to the talk with Alex Roby, a couple things of housekeeping. We had a pretty tragic accident that ended as bad as it could really at the Horseshoe Bend Flight Park a couple weeks ago.
I don't know all the details. I'm not going to get into that here, but a few of the people that were on scene at that accident have asked me to just remind you, the community, that medical training, specifically wilderness first response training, is really key to what we do. It's a nine day course. It's expensive. And there's only a few. It's a year. So it's something you really have to invest in. But I can speak from experience. It is absolutely awesome. And I mean, it's great to have CPR and first aid, but really what we do is remote and access often to first response care is hours and hours away, possibly days if you're flying cross country in places like Beer and all over the world for that matter.
So this is something that we need to really. Take on as a community. We've talked about it quite a bit on the show. There's actually a whole show on it with the Matt Wilkes podcast, a good friend of mine who's an ER doc up in Scotland and now an instructor in Brevier. He's got some great thoughts on what happens and how you should respond to various kinds of trauma. Often trauma, obviously, with with free flight is final. So we need to know how to stabilize. We need to know how to medicate. We need to know how to comfort our victims. We need to know how to get them out. And I have often talked about the importance of having a Garmin InReach device or at least a spot, but a way to communicate with the outside world when you don't have cell service. So that's step one.
Step two is certainly wilderness first response training. So this is a great reminder that out of tragedy comes good things. And so the good thing here is that it is a reminder to go out and get this training and help our community. And so that's step one. Step two is to be safe. And that's often what this podcast is all about. Okay. Alex Roby. If you are like me in an X contest junkie, you probably check it out, especially on days where you can't fly. And on the big days, the hammer talk days in Europe, you're going to see one name over and over and over again, often right at the very top. And that's Alex Roby. That's my guest today. I've been wanting to talk to him for years and actually got the opportunity to fly with him about a week ago.
And I told it's on a big day. It was terrific to see him and his buddies in action. More of them will be on future shows as well, including Primo Sousa from Slovenia, who is another guy you often see at the very top there. And we talk about a lot of amazing, just great stuff in this in this show. Alex is very good about sharing his thoughts. He writes a blog about every flight he takes. He takes pictures and videos. And kind of stills it all down into great learning opportunities. He gives talks quite frequently. He's also a guy that's very restricted with his time. He has family and job commitments that keep him out of the sky.
So his approach to risk is basically to only fly the really, really, really good days. So this is crazy. But he's I think his worst flight of his five best. This year is like a 260 something F.A.I. He's got a couple of 290 something F.A.I.s. F.A.I.s in a given year. He'll fly 10, 15 flights a year. He won X contest in 2015. He won it again in 2017. He insists he's very much a recreational pilot. Still, he doesn't do very good wing overs and stuff. But this is a guy that clearly knows how to crush. And he really knows how to stay in the sky for 10 or more hours on these on these big days. And he picks. So we talk about what aspects have to come together for that kind of success.
He puts his weather knowledge right at the top of that and being able to pick out these good days. And so we talk about all the resources he used. These are all in the show notes. Definitely want you guys to check that out. Doesn't matter if you're just flying in Austria where he is or anywhere in the world. It'll all be totally relevant. He has a great approach to risk. So we talk about risk management. We talk about the number one mistake that he made. He's got a lot of ABCs that leads to accidents. This this was a new one. I hadn't heard this one before. I think it's terrific. Talk a lot about how to fly fast. Obviously, you got to fly fast to go to cover a huge amount of distance. And we talk about the importance of analyzing your flight post flight. He does a lot of analysts analysis after his flights by looking at the track logs and creating every files with the various different pilots that are in the air.
Talks about the importance of bringing together a really good group. So. Other great people to fly within the sky. So being very public about, hey, I think this is going to be the place to go. Please come join me. Anyway, we talk about a lot. It's all super valuable. Get out your pen and paper. Prepare to see much of this in the book. So without further delay, please enjoy this great talk by an incredible pilot and just great all around dude. I really enjoyed this one. Alex Robey.
Because I can see.
Alex, it is terrific to have you on the show. We just had a great little talk in the in the pre talk there before we started recording. I'll bring some of that back in. Fantastic to fly with you at a place that Bruce Marks will miss him. You know, my my supporter in the first couple of races and he was my flying pal for years and years and years. Anthels was always on our list. It never really worked out every time we came into your zone. It was it would always always be a little bit of a mess. So these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these
these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these And all the outputs and inputs I get from there. So really happy to be here.
Awesome. Hey, before we get into how you just crushed X contest and your job and some of the things we were just talking about there before we started, I'd love for you to just tell the audience, when you dream at night of flying, what's the one flight for you that still to this day really stands out? And that'll help us understand your history a little bit more as well. So
usually when I sleep right now, it is just typically one of the latest flights I had. But this is why I do all my blogging to keep the memories alive of the past flights and especially the beginnings. And maybe what is really standing out is the most impressive flight in the beginning was my first thermaling flight on my home site. I live in Austria, in Styria, and we have a little hill. It's just 400 meters above my hometown. And it's barely giving you thermals. But the first time when I was able to climb from there, especially really gaining height up to 2,000 meters and then meeting an eagle, that was totally overwhelming. So I was passionate about before.
But this is what really then crashed me. It made me sell my motorcycle and everything. And I got totally into flying. And
what year was that?
That was actually 2001. Okay. Yeah. So I started a little bit earlier. But these days, they were really inglorious. You know, we were having – I was having a friend who had already a paraglider. It was a very, very old one. It was an ALDK Maxi. I think it built around 88 or 90 or something like this. It was a parachute. It was actually a parachute, but that did not keep us from trying to fly. We took off from rather steep. Steep grassy hills and trying to fly down. But those were more sled rides. And we were technically completely not there. Just trying to take off and sitting too early into this what was kind of called a harness.
Actually, it was just a seat plate and all these bad things happening. You know, you're sitting down too early and you're sitting then on the grass again and having a sled ride down. And a fresh cow dunk. Grassy hill. You get all the cow dunk between your legs and while you sled riding down. So all these bad things you do in the beginning when you don't know anything. But those were actually funny parts. And luckily, I never got hurt my whole paragliding life, I have to admit. And also these early days. Yeah, they were pretty rough. But I easily – or luckily, I.
I did not hurt myself in these things. We also tried winch. That was also pretty bad. We just took a rope. What we have seen in the videos, you know, there was the times prior to YouTube and so on. But we got our hands on some videos where we saw people pulling other gliders up with people doing kind of a winch thing. And we did that also in the flat fields. And yeah, of course, we did not know anything about it. And my friend. My friend was driving the car and she just drove against the wind. It was, of course, then the ground effect we did not know either about kicked in. And then as soon as I got lifted a couple of meters, the wind was really strong. And I felt such a high pressure.
The rope, of course, was torn. My glider was turned. And then I went downwind coming in at, I don't know, 60 or 70 kilometers. Oh, the beginnings. Yeah. The beginnings.
I often compare it to like going through college. You know, it's just amazing that we make it. Unfortunately, some don't. But luckily, some of us do. But OK, well, I'm going to earmark your approach to risk because I think it's quite, you know, it's not totally unique, but it's really something we need to talk about. I'm going to save that for a little bit later. But first, tell me about your blog. You pointed. You pointed me to it recently. You give a lot of talks and your blog has, you know, it's it's it's massive. I went through it earlier today and it's in German, so I wasn't able to enjoy it like I should. But tell me about the blog. What is it? What are you trying to accomplish there?
Yeah. First of all, the blog started out as just keeping my memories. You know, I was from the beginning. I was I was taking pictures and I love just to keep my memories fresh because I soon found out. Yeah. Yeah. They those memories, they they vanish easily and I want to keep the things alive. So I always try to do pretty close to the time when the nice and big outstanding flights happen to do some blog entries to keep those memories fresh because then you can put your emotions in. And there are also always a lot of pictures to remind me of the feelings I had in the past. And from that idea that started out in the year 1999. Since then, I'm blogging about paragliding things.
And this came bigger with the years and more structure, of course, with the possibilities and my ability to do blogs. They became kind of cross country. I don't want to call it Bibles, but some kind of references. If you want to learn to fly a special place and you are able to understand German somehow, you can go to that blog. And by reading a couple. Of those adventures are just flipping through those pictures and seeing my descriptions of what I see and what my decisions were and why did I take them? You really can then learn a lot. It has always at its end lessons learned. Compendium of all flights. And actually also the flights we did together.
And I think it was already the 15th or 17th time we have been to. Can't there is still I don't know, five or six new lessons learned. And when you look at it, it adds up over time. So I've made a freely available lessons learned compendium of all my flights. They are organized by site, by weather, by the conditions we had and all these things. So was it an unstable day or a stable day and all these things. So you easily can figure out by just looking at it for half an hour. And you go to a new site for you. And you are already kind of prepared. So this is the main purpose.
Because I'm totally convinced that everybody should have free access to know everything. It's just like you do. And this is why I admire your cloud based mayhem show so much. It helped me so much throughout my whole becoming a better pilot. That this is my little contribution really to tell the people what I know. Because I still do. A lot of. Mistakes. Unfortunately not life risking mistakes. They are more or less always just technical. Luckily just technical. But still they are not necessary to be done. So this is why I try to give that knowledge away to everything and spread the word. And I get a lot of positive feedbacks from the pilots. So hey, this is what I aim for.
Yeah. And
I love when it helps. We'll include all of that of course in the show notes. Because that's just an amazing. Kind of Bible of flying. And I really appreciate that you're doing that. We need as much of that kind of thing as possible. And before we started talking. Before we started recording. I was saying how much I appreciated you coming up to me before the flight at Anthos. And just giving me some really key local beta. Hey, be careful about this. Get high before you go there. These are things that I often don't get much these days. People say, oh, that's Gavin. He's an X-OPS pilot. He doesn't even know anything. But that was super helpful. It was great. I still kind of tried to do my own thing as I do and got slammed for it at the end.
But that was fun and it was good knowledge to have. You said something that kind of blew me away also before we started recording. That you kind of consider yourself still a very recreational pilot. You don't even know how to do proper wing overs, which I don't believe for a second. Hey,
man. Believe me. Believe me. It's a shame.
It is a shame.
Well, how do you win X-Contest? You won it in 2015. You won it in 2017.
I'm an X-Contest junkie. When I sit at home in Sun Valley, we get very few. When it's good in Sun Valley, it's among one of the best places to fly in the world. But unfortunately, it happens very rarely. So there's a lot of nights where I have to get on X-Contest. And go, oh my God, those guys cracked another 290 in antholds. I mean, this April was just like pure torture for me watching you guys send three days in a row of just huge flights. You know, when I look at those on X-Contest and I look at these huge flights, you're almost always at the top. You're in the right place and you have, you know, you have the top speed, the average speed. And, you know, you're flying an Enzo 3. You're flying a very fast wing. That's certainly part of it. But it's also...
So, you know, you're flying with a lot of really good pilots in a really good place. And so I'm not trying to... I know that this is hard to answer as a humble person, which you are. But how does that work? You know, how do you fly fast? How do you pick these exceptional days?
Yeah, it's pretty unspectacular because it just improves from year to year. You have to imagine me starting out on a very easy glider. I was just... I was flying five years just down from my home hill and I was happy with that. And I just figured out... I don't want to go into big detail about how my whole progression went, but just focus on the cross country perspective. I just figured out with my job and my limited spare time, it has to be the right place and the right conditions. Otherwise, you will maybe fly like a hero and you will not make big... distance. And somehow I was always fascinated by that.
How far can you push a day? So the key to flying far then was then just to figure out and really kind of make sure almost what is the best option available in my area. As I live in the Eastern Alps, I just want to limit myself to just four hours driving from my hometown. So that's kind of limits to the South. So I think these are these are these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these Because I don't have a single weather source to make my flying decisions.
It is a couple of them. And all of them have their advantages. And some things where they are a little bit too conservative or a little bit too aggressive in judgment or just wrong. Because they don't consider special weather happenings that are going on. So I really focused on finding the right day. This is key. Also for risk management. I'm not a pilot who just focused on passive safety and the rest will happen by itself. I was always focused on being kind of a self-responsible person. I also then started, for example, that's maybe funny. I started out on a DHV3 glider.
That's like an E &D CCC glider. That was my very first glider. What? Yeah, I'm not kidding. It was a DHV3. It was a ProDesign Contest 42. It has very short lines. So it was very agile. And this is how I learned my paragliding. Of course, because it was cheap. But still, it made me from the beginning on taking responsibility. And I kind of feel a little bit uncomfortable by pushing that. Especially. Especially in the German-spoken area. By pushing that whole passive safety thing so much. Because it takes away the feeling that people are responsible for themselves.
To just, hey, I want a wing that takes care of me. I have a totally different approach. I'd rather have a wing that allows me a lot of things to control. And I don't want to give the control away to the wing. And hope that it reacts nicely.
Okay. I don't want to cut in here. But let me ask you something that Bill Belcourt told me. I was really second-guessing my decision for my wing choice in the last X-Ups in 2017. And I really wanted to fly a hotter wing than I was planning on with my sponsor. And he said, Gavin, 95 % of the time you need performance. 5 % of the time you need safety. And I've been reticent to say that on the podcast. Because I don't. I don't want to. You know, it's important to put out the right message to all of our listeners. And, you know, I think that, you know, some amount of passive safety, depending on your skill level, of course, is really important. But that really gelled with me.
And I have said many, many, many times. I personally, if you have the hours and you have the skill level and you've done the SIV and, you know, and you're tuned up. Me personally, I'm a lot safer on a pretty hot tool. Liner than I would be on a B because of where I fly and where I go and where I take a glider. And, you know, I want the performance. I want the bar.
Definitely. I totally second that. And wherever I go, I tell the people when they say, hey, I feel not comfortable. And they are just following this E and A, E and B, E and C kind of progression type. But I see I fly a lot of them and I fly fast. And I come along. Those E and B pilots and they get so much more collapses. And it's not just, I think, because of bad pilots. It's just because the principle of three liners is just different. And they are just more prone to collapse. But it's hard to get that attitude going. So before the whole abilities come that what you have mentioned before, I think first of it is the attitude.
What type of pilot are you? What approach do you have? What kind of approach do you have to piloting and to really take responsibility and initiative to fly a wing? This is the beginning of everything. And I think from there you can derive then your progression. Of course, you have to progress from technical things and to know all that stuff. But basically, I don't I'm not happy with that. That two liners still are considered as some kind of all of these hot chips. My opinion. They give you so much more control that I would be frightened to fly on in a really turbulent conditions and especially windy conditions with a with a three liner that is maybe lower class.
If I just because of those, like you said before, five percent passive safety.
Would you agree? Would you agree? I just want to make sure we're clear in our in our messaging here because I totally agree. Would you agree with that? You know, you said you have this much greater fear. I think these these these
these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these
these these
these these these these these these
these these these these these
these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these
these these
these these these these these
these these
these these these these
these these said, without the knowledge, without the history, without the ability to fly that wing. And when I, my, my good metaphor is, is kayaking. You know, you shouldn't really kayak a class five river until you're nailing every Eddie, just without thinking about it at class four. So, you know, in other words, you know, if you're flying an Enzo and you're hammering that thing, you're ready for an Enzo. But if you're flying an Enzo and you're tepid and you're scared, and you're not sure how to use the bees and you're not sure how to use the bar. Yeah. You need to be on a Zeno. Would you agree? Okay.
Definitely. I just want to admit everything. It's just not the feeling you have on, on a two liner. It is the control abilities. I miss on the other three liner constructions. You can't just not control, especially if you want to fly fast, a wing like you can on a two line. It's just based on the, on the principle of design. And I actually, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was paving my way when I won 2015 X contest. It was on a mentor six, but I felt much more uncomfortable, especially on high speeds than on the Zeno on my first flight on the Zeno. I knew, Hey, this is, this is just, it just felt so safe. It felt so nice. And it felt just like I'm much more in control in a bigger speed range.
And like you said, especially when you have a lot of headwinds to battle against the two liners, they just penetrate so well. You can, you can stay on bar and just control everything with a piece.
You, you won the X contest in 2015 on a mentor.
Nope. On a man. Sorry. I'm a mantra. Sorry. I was wrong. I'm a mantra six. Okay. Well
still, that's still phenomenal. Holy cow. Okay.
Yeah, it was, it was also funny because those were the days where the Alpine flights, they were not super, super seated by the, by the Brazilian flights you have to do these days. Sure. And especially with those, uh, mantra six, a triangle around 250, 260 kilometers was still worth something. So,
and you could do
those things nicely on, on those old, uh, in the wings, they were nice thermaling, but it's just not comparable at all, uh, to the modern two liners.
Hmm. So when did you, when did you make the jump?
Well, actually, um, I had a peak three before.
Okay. And
it was really the bulletproofest wing I ever had. That was my first two line experience. And I was really happy, but really on full bar, especially on comps that I do occasionally, uh, really was not happy. And also regarding thermaling, it was just, um, for me, it was not easy to keep it really, especially in weak conditions. Hmm. Uh, in a, in a good, uh, thermaling average. So then I went to this, this mantra six, who was a really, um, a good climber, but, uh, I kind of missed them. The, the, the speed bar bulletproof feeling that I, that I had on this, this peak three, and that totally then came back, uh, on the Zeno. And that was flying the Zeno, uh, now for two years. And actually this year when I tried a flow XC Racer, uh, that was, um, a little bit more to, to handle.
A little bit hotter to handle and a little bit more workload than the Zeno, but it was also climbing very well. And then I thought to myself, Hey, when I anyway have to deal with that more workload, why don't fly an Enzo where everybody and Enzo three, especially everybody I talked to said, Hey, it's such a well-behaved glider. It's just nice. You can, you can fly it even in the nasty conditions and it won't, uh, be bad to you. And then, then I tried it and I got a very old. Lady with two, two, uh, 250 plus hours on it, but still, uh, I'm so happy with it because it's just always, it has always everywhere. A little bit. The edge with it, it's thermaling nicer.
And especially the day when we met, uh, in, in Antal, the next day we have been to, to my home and I flew the first time in a Zillow town and there were predicted strong westerly, northwesterly winds. And. They. Were actually really there, especially further up in the north. And we got a, we got beaten the whole time, uh, in nasty conditions. So really with strong wind, uh, Lee wins, uh, with 25, 30 kilometers plus on a lease side. So it was really, really tough to do. Hey, in the glider, I don't lie to you. It was open all the time. Of course you have a lot of work to do, but I just dug myself out together with Primoz. So I fly a lot this year. And. Hey, we worked ourselves out and the glider were so well behaved.
Um, it was really amazing. How in, in piloting, um, level, uh, how narrow the gap is. I expected much more. Hot ship Ness, uh, when piloting in those nasty conditions, but actually even there, when you, when you, of course, uh, work, uh, what has to be done with the glider? Uh, they, they totally, uh, they, they are not waiting just to be, be met. You know, and throw you off.
No, they, they, they, they, they just generate lift from all kinds of rare. You're just constantly coming out, uh, at speed and you feel confident and yeah, they're, they're just the CCC gliders these days are, are amazing. They're just beautiful wings. Well, Hey, I got you on a sidetrack there. Uh, bring, bring me back to how you're identifying these days. And again, folks, we're, we'll have all these resources that Alex is, is talking, is going to talk about. Um, what he uses to kind of identify these banger hammer talk days, uh, in the, in the show notes, but take us back to where you were, you were talking about where you, how do you identify these days and show up at anthels on the, on the good one?
Yep. Um, I have a pretty, pretty simple approach, uh, that has developed over the years. What I do to identify great days. Uh, first of all, I don't give a, I don't know if I'm supposed to do that. I don't give a shit.
I think these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these
these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these
these these these these these these these these these these these Yeah, hey, and it gives you, you know, it's the GFS model. It's maybe not very precise, but it gives you a very fast look at the day's quality, I think, one week ahead. And they have a nice, easy coloring scheme. Maybe it takes still some hours to get into that, how they judge the paragliding quality of those days. Hey, you have a good initial idea. Hey, could there be a nice day ahead or not? And then, of course, with the ever-expanding abilities of Windy, you get a lot of those various other Meteor models you can compare with. And then I really start to look at what kind of air mass is coming and especially what kind of cloud cover can we expect there.
That's really where they stand out. I also love the Meteograms of Meteor Blue. They are also very nice. They are very nice because you see how the cloud base will be, how thick the clouds can come. Is there precipitation to be expected? And these are the things I roughly have on the radar for the five days or three days. And then when it really starts to look good, then there comes the, especially for my area, the Austrian Meteorology Institute has a really nice clouding, overcasting forecast. And the raincoat forecast. That's pretty accurate. And what's also an important aspect is when we have especially southerly conditions, you want to make sure you have the dust forecast in mind.
Because sometimes those Meteor models, they don't get the dust. We get a lot of dust from Sahara when we have southerly winds. And they can make this sky completely overcast and dead. And some of those weather models, they just don't consider that. How
do you get that?
There is a Greek site. It's called Skyron. Maybe we really put it down in the show notes. That considers that. Because, you know, the thermal index would be really nice and the winds are nice. And you wonder, hey, where is that overcastiness coming from? And it's just dampening so much of the solar energy that we've had already some years ago, a couple of days, where we stood on those. And we just did not know what happens, what's going on. And the condensation, you know, what you have with a very fine dust, that totally then makes the sky overcast and takes away the thermal energy. So this is also something.
I always check, you know, it's very fast. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it? But with the northerly winds we have had this year throughout the season, there were never any issues. But still something. Just to make sure. Because this also can influence that I make a decision to go flying or not. And then on one of the days ahead, one day ahead, I just look at the austral contour. There is the thermal quality very well judged by these. And you get the cloud base. You get a good idea how high the cloud base can be. And if there is overdevelopment. And you can see about all the three levels of clouds.
Very nicely. Yep. And again, of course, until the end, it's called windy. And I want to point out that meteo parapont is something that I really use if it's a humid day for local prediction of thunderstorms. So, you know, when you have a highly humid day, you know, it's kind of a lucky game where maybe thunderstorms will happen or not. Of course, there is a tendency where they are more often. But I really started to trust in meteo parapont about those rather precise locations or areas where the thunderstorms will then really be. And
you're still totally willing to fly on those days. It's more just, you know, that you'll try to pick a triangle that can work around something like that. Or is that just a day I'm not going?
Exactly. And this is, for example, where I did not append a second day. To our first Antoorts flight. Because I saw the overdevelopment happening. Although a couple of friends were still going for that day to Antoorts. And I told them, hey, guys, today was the good day. Tomorrow is going to be an overdevelopment. And this is why I said, okay, it's just pointless to fly around a couple of hours. And then just being disappointed that then the overdevelopment happened. So we went up to the northern side.
What model, you know, in the States we use XCSkies a lot, which is kind of like meteo blue or meteo parapente. Cool. In the past, it has been very inaccurate in Europe because in Europe he only had GFS. But now he has the ECWF, ECMWF and the Icon model. Which models are you? Really putting more weight in these
days. I've totally forgot to mention XCSkies. It was there from the beginning and I still use it. And especially when you look at the blog entries, these are the screenshots I take. And it's really a basis for decision because I like the low winds. They always forecast. They're always more optimistic. Because sometimes when you look at the other wind forecasts, you maybe would not go flying. Because, you know, they always say nasty. Something. And the winds, a wind erodes the thermals. So I still, with the old GFS model, I still love the XCSkies. First of it all, it costs almost nothing for what you get. You get the winds in a very nice, I think 300 meter level layer.
And they are averaged. And this is what I'm anyway mostly interested in. What is the average wind? Because I know whenever there is a spine that is blown over from the back, there will be... Some lee conditions there and everything. But still, getting an idea of the overall wind and how it develops. XC sky is totally one of the main, especially when it comes to wind decisions, one of the main resources I use.
Interesting. Alex, how much of your success do you credit to learning the weather? 60%, I'd say. Wow,
really? Definitely. Definitely. Because it's just... Just imagine you are on the wrong hill on the perfect day. You don't get those hours. And the first ingredient is to be on the right mountain on the right takeoff. Because from there, you can make sure that you have a lot of hours you can learn from. Just imagine you take off and you're forced to land after one hour or two hours. You lack those eight hours of experience. That you still... You can't fly from another nice mountain. So this is totally, totally key to flying big is just the weather. And of course for the safety.
I cannot point it out more. I would not dare to fly those hot wings with my abilities of flying if conditions are just wild. Like you guys do. I could never imagine to fly myself or take part in the XC. Sorry, in the X-Hulbs. I did in 2003 in the very first edition as a supporter of an Austrian team member. But still, my abilities, although even almost 18 years later, they are far from being there to feel able to cope with all these conditions because I would just shit my pants. I just can't do it. Right.
And even not willing because it's just too wild for me, way too wild. I think
this is an important point because a lot of the feedback I get from listeners is like, hey, I really dig that you're talking to these people like Chrigel, but I can't be Chrigel. I can't emulate Chrigel. I'll never be Chrigel. I can't get 300 hours a year. I actually really like when you talk to the weekend warriors, the people that are getting after it as much as they can considering life, job, kids, all the things that most people have to consider. I'm not putting you in the weekend warrior category. We chased it hard in the middle of the week recently, but you are pretty constrained. Talk about your job. Talk about how you've approached flying when you can't.
You can't. You've got to be really choosy.
Absolutely. In my old job, I was forced in a kind of an all-inclusive contract. This means whatever you do, you cannot get any second of leisure time added. This is the main reason why I also got really picky about when to take off vacation. As you have mentioned before, of course, I have a family I have to take care of. I want to balance that out. All very... Very nicely. So I've just limited resources in days. This means typically 10 days per year flying because three weeks is family vacation. So I want to spend that wisely. And those constraints, they kind of force you to also be picky about those days because when I already take a day off, I want to really make sure that I max out these days and the flying experience is there.
Are you doing anything in particular? When you... When you only have, you know, those days, you're getting, you know, a lot of hours because you're having 8, 9, 10, 11 hour flights. But with these long gaps, what are you doing, you know, the night before, three days before, the day of, you know, just to make sure... I mean, I often just, I don't feel very tuned up when I fly like that. You know, if I haven't flown in a couple of weeks, then, you know, the first hour I'm kind of nervous. And I'm thinking more about my, where my reserve handle is. And, you know, classically, because it's me, you know, I'll have forgotten something.
And I won't have my P-tube or, you know, whatever, something kind of critical. And you even reminded me that day on WhatsApp, which I really appreciated. Like, hey man, prepare for a 10 hour flight. We want to be in the air a long time. And, you know, that really helps. But what can you relate to those who, you know, are in your situation? Because I find it... I find it hard to tune up when there's big breaks.
Maybe, Gavin, you go flying on the wrong days. Because normally, when I'm seeing a good day coming, that's the point where the total passion and overwhelmedness gets in. You know, and especially when we hike up those mountains, this is when the passion kicks in. And when you have a nice day to fly. And typically, when you start so early for a cross country flight, like you have to if you want to go far, the conditions anyway start out so smoothly, you know. And you have then the time to make yourself comfortable. And typically, if you know your gear kind of well and you have a couple of hours already ahead on it, usually the first mild hours or one and a half hours, they are really to get yourself comfortable.
Because typically, when you start early, conditions are weak. You have to milk something. You have to be really sensitive how much bar you pull. And there is enough time to get myself comfortable, even if there is a gap of one month. That is totally usual, you know, in my flying. Because like we have had this year, there was always one month gap between the big flights. And as I said before, if I cannot do big flights, I don't have the time to just make smaller ones. So this is totally enough to get myself comfortable and to really, yeah, get myself into tune to fly big.
How do you – one of the questions I get all the time in emails from listeners is they go, hey, you know, I can make it three hours or I can make it five hours. But I just, you know, I kind of bonk or I lose it or I lose focus. You know, how do I get over the hump? And my answer has always been, you know, we forget as pilots that this is, you know, you need to physically train. And, you know, because I train for the X-Ops and that kind of thing, I don't – you know, I'll suffer from a lack of focus at some point in the flight and have to rein it back in. That's usually just water or food. But I often say, listen, it's physical training. But are you doing anything in particular or special to prepare yourself?
Beyond the mental side, and it's really mostly mental, isn't it? But for these long flights, because, you know, when I look at your top five flights this year, they're monsters. They're huge. Just bang them out. I'm going to embarrass you. What are your top five flights right now?
The top five flights right now is I think three, 290, whatever. Just not 300 this year. And I think it is – the weakest one is a 200. Okay, folks.
He's talking FAIs there, of course. So, yeah. Okay. So, your weakest one is 260 FAI. Oh, boy. There's got a lot of listeners in the U.S. that are beating their fists against the wall right now. Yeah. We just don't have the terrain to do that.
Yeah. We can elaborate on that, how this worked. As I told you at the beginning, it just developed over the years. And I can give you a nice recipe how to get there, how it just must happen like that. Yes, please. Yes, please. There
is no
alternative. There is
no alternative. Before you do, yeah, answer the first question and then we'll go to your recipe.
The first question, of course, everything comes again from a set goal. You know, I'm a totally mental person. I'm an engineer and I'm totally goal-oriented. This means what do I want to happen? I want to make it sure that if you have two good days after each other, I want to be able to hike up the frente. Okay. So, I want to make sure that I don't get myself into risk because I'm tired or something like this. So, this is the final end scenario that I want to have happening. So, from that, I derive what do I have to do to achieve that.
So, I go into the gym two or three times a week usually. Listening to your podcasts actually. Get all the mental side in parallel. The full overdose of knowledge, you know, and doing all some physical training. Although I do not make a hard workout, I just make a kind of a core body strengthening. That's what you actually really need when you go there. I don't do endurance training so big. Lucky me, I'm not a smoker. So, I have a good base physiology. And I don't have to carry extra weight because I'm rather a slim person anyway. But still, I want to make sure that especially the areas you need and the core muscles,
that they are strong. That you don't get sore shoulders because you're pushing the bar a lot. You're carrying heavy equipment always resting on your shoulders. You want to make sure that you don't have shoulder problems. You also want to make sure you have enough power in your arms to get those B handles. And you want to make sure that you have enough power in your arms to get those B handles. That you're currently actually from a 10 or 11 hours flight, whatever. Maybe when I'm not thermaling, I'm not on the Bs. But actually, I'm always on glide. I'm on the Bs and doing something typically. Maybe not always necessary, but it just makes me feel comfortable when I go full power. So, I just want to make sure that those things, those muscle groups you need during flying, they don't get sore on, let's say, 20 hours flying.
And 40. And 40 hours hiking event. So, this is from the physical side, what I do. Then what really helps me, I also get to hear it often from my wife that I'm not normal.
None of us are normal, Alec.
Maybe my wife thinks it's really okay. I'm typically not normal because I'm kind of a nerd. when it comes to analysis and finding things out, you also mentioned you are kind of an ex-contest addict. I also, especially my preparation starts after the flights I've done, not so much before the flight's happening. It's always kind of looking what has happened there. When I was flying on a distance where some other pilots have been, maybe they have some better areas where they were finding nicer lines or climbing better or even new thermal trigger points.
So this is something I really dig into because I love it so much. The whole analysis thing, maybe for other people, they just want to go fly and this might sound dry stuff. But especially with the Avery system, you have really nice 3D animations. You have with the Naviter CU software, you have the options to get yourself some waypoints there and where the thermal trigger points are. And all these things I love to do in advance to develop a good feeling. Also, what I do is I write myself for each takeoff spot. I write myself down kind of a guide. This means I take screenshots. And that's also one of the reasons I do so many photos during flying and a lot of videos to really see where the clouds have been, where the triggers were, what were the conditions, what were the conditions like.
And I always write those things down. And then coming back to what you said before, this is then the preparation I do, especially on a triangle. Even if I was flying there already 10 times, hey, I flip over those pages that have aggregated it over the years with all the knowledge and just to make sure, hey, I don't waste time by flying around because I really want to be efficient. I love efficiency and I enjoy it actually. And I think, hey, wow, I just surfed the sky there, almost no thermaling. It really makes me happy. And this also helps then not to get exhausted. Coming back to those having the two days ability to fly there, you need just also mental recreational things.
And this is then again where my passion about the whole moment kicks in so much because, hey, when you are there at 3,800 or 4,000 plus meters and you're thermaling and just thinking, hey, where to go there, you look at the landscape and it's just so overwhelming each time. This is what relieves my stress then also completely. And when you are established in a thermal, hey, for me, that's just relaxing. There is not any stressy thing anymore because everything is set. And even if the next decision where to go is set, hey, I just circle there for a couple of minutes and that totally gets myself down. And again, with the stress level again that I'm really prepared to for the next maybe challenging passage I come across.
When you're analyzing these tracks and you sent me those great Avery files of the, you kind of put it together in two shots, which I have done quite extensively with the last couple of X-Oups, you always get the track logs afterwards and it's just fascinating. It's great to watch because you go, oh, well, that's a place where I spent way too much time. You know, compared to creagle or somebody else um but how do you do are you are you also looking at skyways or are you building all this knowledge from your own flights and people you've flown with because i i also know that skyways can be a little bit too much
skyways is totally irrelevant for me because it covers just all tracks it's not selective i just want to always pick out the good lines don't get distracted by by anybody else's flights you know recreational flights so skyways for me is not a tool not a tool i look at it at all it is just always picking out really the the nice days because i anyway expect that i go there flying on a similarly nice day maybe a different season or maybe a different time in year but still similar and then i just pick out those those really good days like a i celebrated my premier flight from zillertal i never was there i take the triangles the big one from valdartom and i really try to figure them out and how the the conditions were those days and then uh then just see how he fimmeled where he took his glides and all these things so i totally orient myself on the good flights so not even the average ones okay
so when you went to zillertal the day after we flew anthals did you have kind of uh waypoints in from thomas's flights you know already in your flight computer you know like okay well let's he went whatever you know 290 i'm gonna i'm gonna kind of emulate basically that or do you leave it pretty open so you can kind of fly the sky no
when i go there the first time i'm pretty technical okay put on even self trigger points actually it gives me just a feeling of safety in flight i unfortunately i'm going somewhere but i never i never look at them but it gives me just a good feeling that in case i would need it i have it but there's a side effect of the whole preparation thing you really you really intensify the flight experience before by looking those every animations and having the cu software at hand i'm really able to to get myself a good imagination of of how it would be which lines work which lines maybe not or just have not been flown before so rather stick on the on the elaborated routes so if i don't get washed down by any lee i really try to stick those lines the where the which where the good um days have been flown on tell
me about two things uh your gear what are you flying and why and then on those big flights do you have any kind of uh check-in moments for water for food for presence of mind uh you know any any kind of telltales that you know like revis my support in the xops he has this great one where you know if he gets to launch and three things you know he before he launches he's you know forgotten or missed three things and these are not major things these could be like you know your string on your phone or whatever you know like little things that's just a like a call to attention for him oh i might be a little tired i might not have had enough coffee you know they like this is a heads up you know maybe this isn't my day do you have any kind of so too many questions but folks so gear gear and why um and then do you have any kind of you know what what's in your what's in your flight deck okay uh
you're starting out with a gear yeah i right now feel comfortable with my x-rated seven harness and uh wing wise i upgraded this year from a xeno that i've flown two years before to an antelope and i'm going to be using it for a few years so three and i'm really really happy and really surprised what those onis got out there for us pilots to to enjoy it's just for me really comfortable and especially after the zillertar flight it was really a lot of beating we have taken there um i'm really confident that i can pilot it although i have no experience big time with with sivs or or any other things regarding uh preparation from the before the takeoff
before wait a minute what what instruments too what do you what do you have on your flight deck i
recently bought a brand new XC Racer okay with a flarm and i really love it because it has almost no um no lag in in feedback but i flew once with just that little thing and i was totally not able to to to get them um um established if i'm right now in a good thermal or not so i i do need a second vario too so i fly with an audi four okay this is also for my navigation purposes and i figured it out having the the XC Racer in a silent mode or in a quiet mode beside my ear and having the audi in front those two vario tones they give me the perfect abilities to really read the skies much better and thermal more efficiently so
you've left uh this is interesting because i i only fly the XC Racer unless i'm in a comp and then i'll add my my flight deck 60 30 or something you know just because i i've always loved that one but what i had to do with the XC Racer was dampen it so it was more like an averager rather than immediate but you've left yours immediately because i had the same thing the first time i went out and it was immediate i i just couldn't find a quarter save my life it was like well it's there oh no shit and so but once i dampened it and it really kind of emulates i just it took me a while i actually got it from from a world cup pilot he gave me his configuration settings then now i just i just use it and i love it but um so you're using it really out of the box so it's just so it's just of course i
adjusted the tone yeah
the tone
i totally customized myself uh i have uh there is no gap between uh rising air and sinking air so i always get the feedback there and um thing is just uh i left it uh with almost zero dampening effect to really uh in disorganized thermals i at least i think i have a much better understanding and when you when you actually see my videos that i always do uh and i put out on my vimeo channel uh you can then hear uh the difference and the very it is it is just a huge difference when you are already in in sinking air told by the XC Racer uh your air on the audi still of course tells you hey you're doing still quite fine but actually it's just not bad so i find it you have to get used to it and it took me one or two flights to really to really combine those mentally those two types of information but it really helps me to climb better i'm sure interesting
cool okay so sorry i cut you off again so keep going with your what's in your flight deck uh
and uh then of course uh also based on your recommendations i got a delorme in reach uh the old one uh just in case and recently uh as i'm also an avid competition flyer uh in my area and our competition league the austrian competition league has said you have to have a flymaster tracker i love that device because it's really easy to handle you just switch it on you put it in the the back side of your gear and you land you turn it off and the heaven even the track logs they get uploaded immediately to all your x contests xc.dhv and all those online contests you want to have and especially uh your friends at home they really can enjoy your flying in 3d hey man i love their 3d environment the coverage is just just really cool so i really uh say hey it's just a perfect piece of kit and in totally it gets completed by a uh a broiniger a competino plus very because i just love its readability i still look at it for compass and for speed because the readability at least with my my sunglasses of the audi and the cockpit the angle that the x-rated 7 gives you it's just not not really perfect i hardly can can read it so i'm still with the old standard competino plus screen
i really love that for its it's clear readability and that's pretty much uh my flight deck i don't do anything with tablets yet because of the same readability issue
okay and how much are you drinking how much are you eating what do you what do you have on board for that kind of thing
um it's usually just some kind of muesli bars that i eat throughout the whole day and i have a yeah backpack with with electrolyte drinking i figured out if you're just drinking water you just you just pee it out without giving you the necessary minerals so um i have an electrolyte uh enriched water uh and i typically drink two liters and i'm totally not one of those people being able to fly a big distance without um without peeing a lot yeah it's just totally not possible for me it's especially in the beginning uh in the first couple of years i'm not able to fly a lot of distance i'm not able to fly a lot of hours and still it helps me just to drink a lot more because i don't have to think about that it just works works fine with xcp
great i love it uh where was the second part of that i had for okay yeah so in preparation yeah preparation um
i'm for sure all of my old friends i'm the the type of guy takes the longest time i have a lot of itsy and bitsy here and there to get myself out of the mountain and i'm not the type of guy who reaches the mountains and 10-15 minutes later he's airborne i'm totally not so my preparation actually before takeoff starts with a decision when i hike up the mountain because i know it takes time for me you know there is a tape here and there is a radio connector there then they have to connect the xcp then i have to make sure that the lines they are not somewhat knotted and all these things and the key for me is just to have time and i'm not the type of guy who reaches the mountains and 10-15 minutes later he's airborne and even if maybe primosh or some other guys they have already taken off and it is already stressful because i see it's working they are climbing out there okay i say hey whatever i do i take rather five times uh five minutes more before takeoff just to make sure that everything is perfect and everything is in its place then i figure out in there hey i forgot to close my my air fairing okay or i forgot to to attach my xcp really correctly
these type of things are to to close the buckles so no matter which stressful situation there is and thermal activity has already kicked in i always take my time there because i know usually i i can catch up somehow and when they when they are gone okay yeah it is like this but actually i start really early and and i know i take long and knowledge again is key so i try to just just to make sure that i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where i'm not in a situation where these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these to really then um yeah be ready and i would really be pissed at myself if i forgot anything really it's just for those you know i just fly typically less than 10 times a year okay and i could really not i would really be mad at myself if i then fuck up something on those days hold
on a second you're going out maybe 10 days a year are you serious uh 10 days
a year for xc flying if you take away the competition flying i mean i also go just competition flying when it's really good days yeah this is where i just joined two tasks this year but actually um yep that's it and even on the on those those the first wins on x contests uh this was a year in total with the tandem flights i did with my family and uh the whole xc flights it's i don't know if you can see it but i don't know if you can see it but i don't know if you can just had 16 flights the whole year but those flights are long flights so i have the hours
16 flights 160 hours that is fantastic okay tell me more you know preparation you called it recipe too tell me more about your recipe um
i have uh especially um for for preparation at home um what i have is kind of a checklist um again i would really don't want that feeling that i i forgot something so part of the recipe before flight is just to to have kind of a checklist uh not to forget anything not to forget my bananas or to forget uh yeah something an xcp or or something like this so this is what's what's kind of the the recipe from a from a technical side and otherwise it's just uh what's recently more more focus is really to gather good people around you so one part of the recipe is hey to tell the guys that i fly together with which have a similar level hey guys what do you think about the next days we should go do you have time and all these things so part of the recipe is also to together people to fly with it's because it's more fun and it's just so much more efficient so this is throughout the last years what has developed because in my my former paraglider course i've been flying with a lot of people and i've been flying with a lot of people and i've been flying with a lot of people and i've been flying with a lot of people and i've been clubbed where they're also hey cool guys and funny guys but they were just totally not into flying big distances and even if they were they they were not on the similar wing not having the similar possibilities and options so i was always flying at the end if i was flying alone and throughout the the last years this just really has has has improved because of my whole flying has improved because we are i was gathering we with similar pilots with similar skills
and and yeah i love it
yeah i mean then you've got mentors and you've got you've got all those targets in the air to learn from i i mean that's why comps are so valuable you just you learn so much more when there's other people around you
absolutely absolutely alex
you you're your wife let's get back to what she said that you're you're kind of an unusual person uh what do you mean by that and what are your what does she mean by that and what are your kind of let's talk more about how you've built up your career and what have you learned from that and what have you learned from this success in these huge flights yeah
i'm a total paragliding nerd i just just love the the possibility we have there you know to fly completely silent through through that with just natural resources so i'm totally addicted to the to the principle of flying with a paraglider so i'm totally a nerd on that what
does that mean being a nerd on it let's let's dig into that i
i suck up everything that is kind of a nerd on it and i'm totally addicted to the principle of flying with a paraglider so i'm totally addicted to the principle of flying with a paraglider resource of paragliding okay so for example if somebody writes a book uh flying wrecks for glory or like uh uh like maxine uh put out this brand new book hey i just read them all and i just when i you know when i'm gonna sit on the toilet and i have nothing to do because it's anyway almost most of the time bad weather uh i just get myself in the headspace of flying and thinking and and and training my my analytical uh yeah possibilities so this is what i mean with with being just a nerd i just just suck up uh everything i'm interested in and everything that's related to to to flying and especially how i how i can myself improve to and to to to fly better because i love just efficiency it's
just part of me and second thing is uh i also love the the panorama so i mean you can see i do a lot of videos especially the my season wrap-ups they are they are highly recognized uh in at least in the german spoken zine uh where i make a wrap-up of the best moments of all my flights of the the last year and uh i just there you can also see the the passion for panorama and i even if i love to fly fast and i love to fly fishing i always take my time hey to take out if it's a great moment i take out the camera and then i then i even speak to the camera to to keep those moments alive uh now it's a difficult decision or how do i feel right now and it just makes it so so vivid and it's uh giving me really a a possibility to to see those uh other to to to get those memories uh fresh uh back again and last thing i i came up with is just uh to to surround myself of course with the right people you don't want those people around you uh do you really think it's a nice day oh do you really think it's a nice day and i don't want to be around you and i don't want to be around you and i don't want to be around you and i don't want to be around you and i don't want to be around want to drive four hours oh man it's everything is such an effort hey for me that's totally no uh no discussion because it's just so rewarding because if you have a nice flight for 10 hours it is such an intense um adventure you you land there you you're you're still stoked for the next two or three days when i was motorcycling i also enjoyed it but the feeling just lasted a couple of hours when you had a nice flight you know you you still i think look dumb for the next two or three days because you're still so so flashed with all the thing and saying insanity that happened point is also yeah maybe the curiosity i have i always want to see what what's what's going on out front if it's possible to go there and if it's possible to maybe take this route so the the curiosity is something that i also contribute a lot of my motivation to uh and also that things are complicated i don't get uh don't get uh discouraged if things are complicated actually i love it you know it's all those kind of natural riddles you have there uh when you when you go and fly and it's just always uh the the riddle kind of against and with nature how far can i go that's really something that i love and optimizing that aspect is really something that i i really love and
the ability to to to to to also identify the great days i think it's what really makes them the x contest uh final uh overall scoring good to always be be on the right spot is something uh that's that's for sure um just key and like we we said before you know with the mental training and having those the the wish that i am able to fly two hours two consecutive days flying uh 10 or 11 hours it's just something some some core desire from me to really fly the the long as possible i really want to be the last one to land and if i'm fast enough be the first one to take off so stretch the bay yep really to to to squeeze out every minute and then as a result you typically get long distances alex
what what is it about engineers that make i've asked this question before and you've listened to the podcast you've heard me ask ask this but i consistently run into engineers who are pilots uh and they they they tend to be really good pilots what is it about your profession that is such a good mix with paragliding i
think engineers are just some some kind of always interested interested in things in an analytical way and they are used to to getting the questions why is that or how far can i go or what can i do all these things are typically for an engineer because you are confronted with these types of challenges uh all the time so you have the problem and it's up to you to solve it and that's actually what you do uh when you when you fly cross country you have the conditions you cannot see anything you can't just guess all the time you sometimes get yourself into nasty places nobody's there to help you out it's totally up to you and engineers are typically rather used to that that they can do it on their own when you are used to work in teams and people or maybe in social stuff you can share the responsibility or you can delegate something to to to anybody but you actually on the flight you cannot do that it's just always you you alone you have to do everything you are responsible for everything
these procedures are these procedures these procedures these procedures these procedures to it and it's second nature for you, it's much easier for you to become a good cross country flyer.
Alex, you said that maybe 60 % of your success you put down to all the time you've spent on learning these weather models and being able to identify the best days. That also reduces a lot of your risk, which reduces a lot of your anxiety in the air. And you're flying these really, you know, we call them hammer talk days. But how much would you put on, you know, just the motivation of X contest, whether that's either to win it or as you've done twice, which is amazing, or to just, you know, pushing the 300 FAI envelope and beyond. And how much would you put to local knowledge that your time is limited to you to kind of this area of Austria and the Tyrol and Sudan?
You know, like really, you know, you said you'd flown the Grint at Anthol, what, 17 or 18 times, you know, like really getting to know a
place. Yep. So it's, I would say it's even 50-50. Of course, to see what's possible or what others have really accomplished is really, really inspiring for me. And so I want to see how they do it. What do they do? So the whole learning aspect, especially, the resource of X contest is just the best thing I think that happened to the sport at all. And then, of course, like I told you before, I make my write-ups, I make my blog entries and all these things. So really learning from that, from your own experiences, you can compare what others have done. And when you merge those two areas of knowledge, that then really helps then that efficiency can kick in.
Because the first time when you maybe are flying with locally unexperienced people too, you are just not efficient. You take maybe a climb because you just don't know that the big bummer is out there to climb there. You are just not as efficient. Of course. So this is also one of the very simple goals I have each year, just to fly better than the year before. And this is actually what made me then also coming out on top of the X contest. And I'm happy to be in these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these these It's a very easy triangle, but you have two to three maybe nasty places.
And if you know these, hey, you would just have a great flight. And this is just really what makes the really big distances. Like we have seen in the Zilladar, we just did not know that then the last leg on the main Alpine ridge would be so easy. We thought, wow, it's maybe pretty nasty. But then in the aftermath, we found out, hey, man, we could have easily done the turn point down on the main Alpine ridge and would have surfed the skies still at home and would have had on the time there a 270 closed FAA triangle. But you just don't know this the first time. And just because other people, you also see the guys who have flown it there, even Walter Tom, who's a very excellent pilot.
He does not fly 300 kilometers. When he's there the first time, you have to work it out for yourself. You can make great preparation there, but still, it's just up to you to read it and do it and repeat it and analyze it. And then you get better and better and push the mark out 5 % more if the data allows, of course, each time. And that makes it actually even more fun because you can go maybe lower because, you know, it still works. And don't have to waste your. Your time there. And all this you get just from flying it again and again.
Alex, you mentioned risk management is a big part of your own approach to paragliding. And I also understand this is a big part of your talks. Tell me about risk management.
The risk management is really maybe the core part of the talks I give because we know all the area. Even I have. Still, there are some areas where I get a little bit scared, where I'm really nervous about conditions. Can I handle them? And behind of it all is most of the times it's just kind of an uncertainty. I would call it, you know, maybe it's a new terrain I find in or it is a new wind situation. Everything is not so not so easy to handle anymore. And this is where I want to give everybody the advice. Hey, take yourself some. Some. Systematic. I mean, at least that's that's my key. How I approach it.
So how do I, how do I get rid of that fear? I have a very, very simple approach that I always keep the beauty. And, you know, the beauty of the moments. Hey, what I do there, that really helps me to reduce the level of stress that I have. And second, very important. Thing is just maybe conditions really turn bad. And I overlooked something in the forecast. So it's very important to really fight focus figure out. Is it just a shitty area I'm currently in or is the day turning bad? Because if it's a shitty area, I can say, hey, okay, this is just happening for a limited amount of time.
I will work myself out. It's nasty, but I can do it so that really that you don't say, hey, okay, I throw my nerves and I get to land. So you really have to assess the situation you're currently in. Is it going to be everywhere like this or is it a head? Is it better looking? And what also helps to reduce stress is maybe some to to to connect yourself via radio with with like minded fans. You don't want to have those those kind of you call it in your blogs, always the ground suck crowd. I love that that that name for it. To really say, hey, how how do you feel? What is your thermal and to really surround yourself also on the radio?
Because maybe it is just you that doesn't feel well. And that also can can help you to overcome these these bad kind of feelings. So what I then typically do when I have a lot of stress, I reduce my speed a little bit. Okay, so back off the bar a little bit and you have to really. Try to dissect the fear that you have. Is it really because of risk you're currently facing or is it just a mental thing that you don't just feel capable of to handle right now? Because then again, I can when I find out that it's just fear, I have I have some some breathing technique that works for me pretty well. So it takes reason just deep breath.
And that really gets my headspace really down to the. Facts that really there is. Okay, there is no risk. I am high. Okay, thermals are disorganized. This thermal land. But actually there is no risk because I have a 1500 meter ground clearance and maybe a head. It's it's going to be going to be better again.
I really like Nick Naden's. He is a he is a good one for this. He always thinks to himself, you know, what would this look like from the ground? You know, like if you're if you're just on the ground, you look up and there's a. Glide. Or 1500 meters over. It doesn't look that radical, you know, even if even if you're doing acro, it doesn't look that radical. And then the other one is, you know, just, you know, imagine what it's like with your very off, you know, if you or just turn it off for a little bit and suddenly things don't. They don't sound that wound up when your very was not screeching out. You know, it's kind of like, oh, it's not that bad.
Yeah, actually. Yeah, perfect. That totally second that. And for the for the risk management. Actually, it's always important to to not get your mind get control over your feelings because you have to always. But I give always in the speeches in big detail is the Swiss cheese model, you know, that you really there has to happen really a lot in our sport in order that something goes wrong. You have the wind and weather aspects. You have your material aspects. You have your abilities and you have your. Mental current state of mind. And if even if that all does not really work out, you still have luck, you know.
So it's always a lot of things that really have to happen that you have really a problem. And that usually helps to to to reduce the risk to what it is. Hmm.
Love it. Love it. Alex, do you ever. With your kind of analytical engineering mind and. All the preparation you do and the studying and post analysis and flights. You sound like you're always ready. Have you if you found that when you show up at a site, you know, you just that's a day you don't have it.
Never. Never. Not not a single time. I can remember. Maybe I forced my brain to to hide that out somehow. But actually, never. Because. As I said. It is always the most important thing to go flying on a nice day. Yeah. Then you don't have those frustrating moments. If you go really flying like me, maybe once or twice a month throughout the season, that is actually anyway just four or five months for me.
When you just go flying on nice days, you don't have those frustrating moments because conditions are always nice. And the level of skill I have is then totally sufficient for the day. So what could make that day bad? It could just be minor or short term things. And just knowing that then really totally never gets me into that kind of headspace where I talk myself down or see myself forced to land is always when I when I'm forced to land. It's always because I misjudged some some situation where no thermals were anymore. But I did not give up because of anxiety. I did not give up because of anxiety or being scared or something like this. Never, ever. I
think that's super critical, man. And that's one of the greatest things you've said.
Go
flying on nice days. Yeah. It's a simple recipe.
I think that's so smart. And then there's like you said, there's no reason to be scared. Then there's also no reason to have an accident. Then you're flying in good weather. Correct.
And it's always wind. Always. You know, you even if if it's thermals. They're weak or whatever. Maybe strong. It is most of it. It's always the wind. And as long as you have that in mind, you're always on the safe side. I'm totally convinced of that. I'm a living proof. I have never ever hurt myself in paragliding. I was sitting on trees two times already. I never got hurt.
There are those that have and those that will.
It was one time with a tandem. I was.
Making my 10 the 10th certificate. And it was just amazing. It was one of my last flights I did with another paragliding pilot to get my tandem license. And we were flying there. And it was was a spot in the Western Austrian in for a bag in Schmiedes. But typically in the afternoon hours, the kicks in the northerly wind. And we were flying there. We were thermaling. And out of nothing. I lost the whole tandem wing. I'm just. This. Luckily above a tree line. But then just shortly after we were sitting on that very tree and hugging, hugging the tree branches not to fall down. We looked at each other and said, hey, man, how could that happen?
Luckily, completely uninjured. But, you know, it's always a little bit bad thing, too.
Last question. I'm tempted to end it on that. But we touched on this before we before we opened the show. We were just. Chatting and I wanted to ask you because you've been at this game quite a long time. What's the number one. Thing you see that leads people to getting hurt. You know, we've both seen way too many accidents. We talked about it a little bit. And, you know, if you could remove something, what would it be?
Listen to the type of person you are. If you are maybe a little bit scared person. Or a person who wants to give away responsibility. You have to acknowledge that. And not because you are in a team of people or some environment of you or social environment of you is expecting something of you. If it's not you.
Then don't do it that way. There are so many ways you can enjoy flying. But if it's not not really in your blood and you just do it for somebody else. So maybe some for recognition. There is a really a risk that life threatening risk. That you really put yourself out in danger. If you really feel comfortable and you enjoy it, everything. You will be a good and safe pilot.
Good advice. I haven't heard that one yet. We're we're on what episode 98 here that that gets to go in the book. Alex. Fantastic. Alex. This just really makes me want to fly with you more, man. I just. Can't be around. Yes. Like you did. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Well, I've got a few more weeks. Hopefully we'll get some more banger days here. I will make myself available. Of course. Uh, that was just a hoot, a blast. It was very special to be able to fly that special triangle with you guys. It really made me miss my Evox though. I'll tell you that. I mean, I would have liked my, uh, my fast glider, but yeah, this was, uh, really, really special to talk to you. And I feel. Like at a great education for me and of course everybody else.
So thank you. Thank you for your time. Uh, thanks for sharing all your knowledge. I, we will put up all that, uh, great information you have on your blog and on all the weather sites in the show notes. And I really encourage all of you listening to go check out what Alex has done. Uh, there's a terrific compendium of, uh, incredible resource there. So check it out, but thanks Alex.
It was a real pleasure. Yeah. Thanks Kevin.
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