Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Cloud-Based Mayhem. My guest today is Tyler Gillies. He goes by Tyler G. It's a lot easier. He's a member of the HPAC board up in Canada. He's a pilot in Squamish, BC, flies paragliders and speed wings and super into speed flying. And he reached out to me a few months ago. It was actually before the X-Alps and with some concerns about a couple of things he'd heard on the Mayhem from other speed pilots and also just wanted to talk about what's going on in that realm in terms of teaching and creating a syllabus. And, you know, it's all pretty Wild West cowboy, certainly here in North America. They're, I think, a little farther along in Europe, but certainly it's a pretty new sport relatively, certainly relatively to paragliding and hang gliding.
And a lot of people are just doing the self-taught thing, which is certainly what I did. You know, there weren't there aren't really any. Instructors and there aren't too many places you can go to learn. And so we talk about a lot of that and what's happening behind the scenes to try to get that kind of up to snuff and up to par and talk about some of the risks and talk about how people should be learning how to speed fly and where you can go to do that. And some of the things you need to know if you're just seeing it on YouTube, you know, seeing how amazing and awesome and fun it is and you want to get into it. But, you know, it's it's a it's. It's hard to navigate that space right now. And Tyler is trying to solve that and some other guys up there in Canada. And there are some here in the States, too, and they're they're borrowing from what's happening in Europe and France and Switzerland and stuff because there's just a lot more pilots over there.
So that's what this one is all about. Enjoy.
Tyler,
awesome to have you on the Mayhem. I really appreciate your time and reaching out to me before the the ex-Alps. So it's taken us a little while. A little while to get together. Hope you had a good summer. But why don't you tell everybody who you are and why we're having this talk today?
Absolutely. My name is Tyler Gillis, Tyler Gee, and I'm on the board of H-PAC, Ingliding and Paralyzing Association of Canada. I represent British Columbia, which is the province that I live in. I'm also the president of a local club called the West Coast Soaring Club. And we're on the podcast today to talk about speed flying and more specifically, how does it fit into your life? How does it fit into the ecosystem of our current free flight, including hang gliding and paragliding?
Yeah. So, you know, I was kind of excited to talk about this as well. You know, as we talked about a little bit before we got going, we've had this kind of issue here the last few years in Sun Valley, almost like two different camps between, you know, paragliding and speed flying. And it just you know, it's it's been really frustrating because I really want you know, I don't want this to be like the the skiing and the snowboarding of the 80s. You know. We're all chasing the same thing in the same high and trying to do it safely. And, you know, just I really want to, you know, fold everybody together. And I understand that's kind of one of your concerns and pursuits as well.
Yeah, absolutely. I think that a lot of the challenges that we're seeing when it comes to the safety of the sport and people getting hurt have come from the fact that we just haven't fully integrated them into our community.
And how do we so what are you guys working on with H-PAC to to to satisfy that or to work towards that goal?
Absolutely. Over the past four years, I've been working on developing a full rating system, including syllabus and definitions, demonstrated skills, curriculum, recommended operating limitations and endorsements for speed flying, speed riding.
And so this would be. A full training system, very similar to hang gliding and paragliding, where people will learn, focus on the skills that you need as a speed flyer and then specific skill sets that you're required if you're into speed riding. So this would be speed flying on skis or foot launch speed flying.
And do you feel like, you know, in your experience, because you fly both, you're multi wing wool. Yeah. Is it is it appropriate? For someone who's, you know, really psyched, you know, they see the videos online and they see speed flying. Can you just learn to speed fly with no paragliding background or what? What do you advocate for?
That is a fantastic question. And it's something that I've been mulling over for a while. Is it, you know, should people learn to paraglide first and then learn to speed fly?
And what we're seeing out there and a lot of schools that have been sort of operating. In the gray area for a long time is that people are coming to speed fly the people that want to speed fly aren't interested in paragliding or if they already paraglide they want to learn to speed fly that's what they want to focus on or if they're coming from skydiving they'll, you know, they want to learn to speed fly regardless of whatever their background is and that we should be teaching them to do that specifically with the intention and the education behind it. Yeah. To learn how to do that safely. Right now, we're sort of got these half systems where we're saying, okay, well, if you get your P2, then we'll throw it, then you're good enough to throw you onto a speedway.
And then, you know, you're probably, you're probably fine. But there's a lot of things that are very specific to flying a speedway that don't overlap on paragliding that I think it deserves its own system and syllabus to do it safely. Okay. When you're thinking about people. When you're thinking about people that are just going through the motions, that's what we want to avoid. I think if we're saying, hey, you have to learn to paraglide first, I think people are going to sort of go through the motions just to appease the system versus actually being engaged in the content and learning it. That's not to say that your first hops and your first flights can't be on a very large wing or a small A wing or something like that, which is probably where you would start.
You'd start your first flights on a paraglide. But you would be doing it with the intention of learning skills to safely speed fly.
Yeah, totally. I mean, and I've brought this up in previous shows, I think with Patrick and Cade and some of the speed pilots we've had on the show in the past. But one of my, you know, just in my own experience, I've always called speed wings dumb wings because they're so easy to fly in a sense, like not dropping into canyons like, you know, you see Jamie doing down in New Zealand and stuff. I mean, not the real expert stuff, but to launch off a hill and fly around and have a good time on a speed wing can be done pretty quickly. You know, they're, they're, they're pretty, they're harder to collapse and they're easy to steer and, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're forgiving in a sense. You know, they're not very forgiving if you're flying right on the ground and really going fast, but they're forgiving wings to fly.
And so I've always struggled with how to, you know, if they, if a pilot doesn't come. From a paragliding background to, to develop enough respect early on when you're not that good with a speed wing. I mean, it's hard for, it's hard to tell somebody about avalanche safety unless they understand snow. You know what I mean? It's, you can't see it. And it's the same with speed flying. It's hard to, I don't know, project or teach respect without, for, for what that wing can do if flown poorly without, I don't know. Do you see where, you see where I'm going with this? It's, it's hard to, you know, without understanding flight, um, surfing, okay, here's an example.
Surfing is, is, you know, it's hard to get very good at surfing because you get so little time surfing, you know, you spend all the time in the water and paddling out and trying to get in the position, but then you get a six second ride and that's a big ride. Speed flying is kind of the same way. The ride is quick. You don't develop a lot of time.
Okay. I completely, I definitely understand. Okay. I completely understand what you're saying. Um, and when you say that speed wings are dumb wings, I agree. And certainly in the sense where, um, you can develop bad habits without your wing telling you this is a bad habit.
There you go.
Yes. And, um, that's where I see people get hurt. You know, it's bad launches and bad landings. Um, but one thing that you're probably going to develop, you're probably going to do in speed flying is you're going to get way more launches. Um, way more landings than you would on a paraglider. And those are the two critical phases of flight. Sure. Everything in between is like literally you stick a sack of potatoes in the harness and it will be just fine. True. Paragliders, speed wings. They're all dumb wings. Um, really they, they fly themselves. I mean, you've seen those paragliders get picked up by whatever, and then they go off and fly off all along the route. No
problem. That's true. Yeah. We're, we're the, we're the, we're the. Bad part of the equation, aren't we? We're the ones that screw them up. Yeah, exactly.
The second you stick us in the seat, that's when it starts to get weird. Um, so, uh, definitely you need to learn these skills in a safe environment and progress at an appropriate pace. But it doesn't mean you can't learn the phases of flight or laws of aerodynamics or weather or all of that that you learn in paragliding in a speed flying specific course. Just as you would, if you were to go learn hang gliding, um, so you can learn all those laws of air aerodynamics and laws of air and air regulations and, and, uh, weather, but you would start learning it specific to how does it affect you as a speed flyer? Because one of the things that you probably wouldn't learn as a paraglider that really affect you as a speed flyer is going to be density altitude where in the mid day, when it heats up, and now all of a sudden, when you were landing at, you know, 1,000.
Uh, ASL, you're now landing at 3,000 feet ASL from an air density perspective. That really changes, especially, especially, it really changes how you are going to be landing, especially on a speedway
because of the speed,
because of the speed, it's much more noticeable. You'll say, wow, you know, I came in on that landing way faster than I did at 9am. Gotcha. And so that's one of the things is, you know, when you're learning to speed fly, it's sort of, it's a lot very similar to paramotoring, which is how I started my flying career is, you know, early morning, late in the evening, when it, there is nice events and it's also very stable. Sure. Um, and so that's not what you're learning in, in paragliding, really. You're learning, you know, you're, you're starting to launch and figure out what to do at 11 and you're hoping to get up and fly. So you're learning all this information to teach you how to fly a paraglider. Isn't there's quite a bit that isn't relevant. If you can take that weather information and now tailor it to flying safely on a speedway.
Right. Versus pushing these people to learn all this information that's relevant for a paraglider. What happens is they then get rushed through the information to fly safely on a speedway. Or if they even get all the information necessary, uh, is another question. Cause I think what happens is based on the resources, finances, all this kind of stuff, they get their P2 at this point. They're like, Oh my God, I can fly a wing. I'm just going to get a speed, speedway and go fly part of a lot of P2 courses. You know, you have to buy your wing. So now you have this paraglider. That you're never going to fly because you don't want to fly a paraglider. You don't have interest in flying a paraglider. Um,
It's a mismatch.
It is a mismatch. Although I do understand the arguments where people say that flying a paraglider, there's going to provide you some skills to fly speed with. No doubt. Any form of aviation is going to help provide information for other forms of aviation. I fly fixed wing a few weeks ago. A good friend of mine got his instructor license for hang gliding and I've started learning hang gliding. I mean, They
all, they all help, they all help you fly your speed wing.
Absolutely. They all help each other. And when I learned to speed, speed fly, I went major. I went to the closest thing I could find to a speed flying school at the time, which was, um, a course taught by rich Kennedy down in Suboba. And I mean, the guys did an incredible job of developing his own syllabus. He's an it guy. Very sharp. You know, this is a paradigm in the times of engineers and extremely smart, nerdy people in our community. Mm-hmm. And, uh, developed a great syllabus and I learned how to speed fly specifically, um, learned all about, you know, density, altitude, and all these very specific minutiae that were important for flying a speed wing safely and, um, learning to fly that speed wing actually helped me improve my skills as a pair of gliding pilot.
Sure. Yeah. I mean, it all, it all feeds into the same system. It all feeds into your brain. Yeah. You're learning stuff. Absolutely. No matter what you're flying. So what, you know, right now, uh, Gavin McClurg wants to go become a speed flying instructor. What, what do I have to do to accomplish that?
If you want to become a speed flying instructor, how we would do it right now is if we decide to get through this, we presented it, the boards approved it. Um, we've achieved all of our goals for this framework and syllabus development. What we would do as an organization is hire somebody. Who is an instructor that has been doing this for a long time, probably from Europe to come over and do an instructor's course to teach, uh, current speed flying people that hardly have a base knowledge or other instructors to be become speed flying instructors. So you're the syllabus is there. They can do the skills. They understand the curriculum and operating limitations, and then they're taught how to be instructors.
But
you're talking about what? What you're trying to develop. I'm talking about right now. Like if I, if I just wanted to become an instructor right now, what, what hoops do I have to jump through?
Oh, right now, like it's the wild west. It's just, it's like anyone can be a speed flying instructor. You see what happens is there'll be, what's happening right now is there's a vacuum for information on how to do it. So you see people that are trying to fill that vacuum. Some people have done a really great job of it. Um, I've had a ton of help. On this project of mine, uh, Chris Grantham from fly above, fly above us down in Santa Barbara, uh, rich Kennedy has helped me a lot. Uh, Mark Shaw from the HPA, um, has helped provide a lot of information. Asher and Chris from ski and fly. They, they've been doing these camps and incredibly, incredibly in depth camps for speed riding in France, Norway, New Zealand.
Wow. Do they have an incredible syllabus? Um, so there's these guys that are. Are, are fantastic that are filling that educational vacuum with information, but then you have these other people on the other side of the coin, which are filling that vacuum as well. But it's, you know, it's not great as you're experiencing in some of the areas that you're in.
Right. So, so what you're saying is you, it just, if you want to be an instructor, you can call yourself an instructor and go teach regardless of your background, regardless of your ability, regardless of your. Your safety record, you know, it's, it's, there's not really, there's not, there isn't a syllabus yet. That's what you guys are working on.
Yeah. Well, in Canada, it's be flying. Isn't recognizes in HVAC. So, so it has nothing to do with us. It's, it's their own group. It would be, if people wanted to come in and say that you were wanting to learn kite boarding, it's like, well, you know, go, go figure it out. Cause we don't have anything to do with that.
So there's no, there's no regulating body. Yeah. That has. Has decided to say, Hey, come on here, guys, you're, you're with us.
Um, and you've even seen some of the, yeah. And you've even seen some of the manufacturers try and help fill that void. They're even seeing, you've seen ozone put out these how to videos, like how to fly on rear risers on your speedway. Because even they're seeing this educational void, um, because we, you know, we want to prevent and, and educate so that we don't have the accidents that we're seeing.
I don't know if you heard the, the. So with, um, um, man, I should have pulled it up, but was it Bernie, but I forget Swiss guy. Um, he was saying that the statistics right now in speed flying are worse than wingsuiting. I don't know if that was, you know, backed up, but that's, what's happening in Europe that I don't, I think they're much farther along than we are. This is, you know, it's, it's been there more and there's a lot more people doing it. And it sounds like, like you said, uh, yeah, I'm not familiar with their systems. And their syllabus and their, you know, kind of rating system and regulation and stuff. But it sounds like they're quite a ways ahead of where, where we are. Um, certainly, but it's still like, it's the sports, man, it's, it's taken its toll.
Yeah. I mean, I don't, I couldn't verify that statistic at all. The one thing I can say in speed flying for sure is that none of the data is statistically significant at all. Statistician would look at you and laugh. Um, because we just don't have enough data. Then, you know, how, how are these accidents being reported? Are they being reported? Right. Um, you know, it's the same issues that we have here in North America when it comes to accident statistics. Uh, we just don't have enough data to make any real sense of it.
Um, there's certainly, I don't, I don't have anything cause I don't know. I don't know what statistics he's quoting, so I can't comment on it. We're not seeing the same thing here. Um, I don't think we're seeing the same thing. I think in North America, it seems to be based on the last study. I saw that, uh, uh, when they first launched the errors for you, they included, uh, mini wings, speed wings into an analysis to find out if there were any wing types. So hang gliding, paragliding, meaning wings, if there was any wing type that was more dangerous than another and they couldn't come to any solid. Yeah,
I think I saw the same thing. I think in this last year, the accidents, PG and, and speed flying were. We're about the same, uh, you know, they're always bad, but there wasn't, you know, I don't think one, I don't think it leaned one way or the other, but then of course then, you know, you start thinking, okay, well, but how many people participate in each and, you know, you know, data gets tricky depending on how you look at it.
So they were, they were, they were doing it based on like per capita, like how many people were in the sport. Okay. Uh, I know the guys over at the ski and fly that they, Asher and Chris, you know, they, I asked them about that and, you know, they were saying. They were saying something different than that Swiss guy was saying. So, uh, yeah,
population dependent, very population dependent. And also I think you can make data say what you want it to say if you have any sort of bias as well. Sure. Sure.
So what are, you know, when you guys meet, when, uh, your board meets, uh, what, what's kind of the, what are the arguments? What are the. Uh, you know, what, what's the, what are you pounding your fist about right now? Just kind of trying to get this, um, you know, trying to get this kind of syllabus in place, getting instructors at a, at a level where you feel comfortable that they could go out and teach in the right way.
I think that, uh, one of the questions. Which we're all, we're, you know, we're fielding mulling them over. One of the questions would be, Hey, if we decide to put a rating system together, we want to say speed flyers, Hey, come be part of this. This group, we support you. And here's an education rating system to help make sure that you can do it safely. What would it, would you be interested in even joining or are you guys just too cowboy? You want nothing to do with it. You know, you're fighting the man and that's the end of it.
Um, and so that's, you know, is that a question? All the speed flyers and speed riders that I know very much want to be part of it. A lot of them are bending the truth to be part of it now in the sense where they'll just go get their P two, but really they're just a speed. Wire. They don't fly pair of ladders. Um, so they're desperately trying to get in, but you know, obviously we're driving them through a different path right now. I think after listening to your previous podcast, I heard one thing I heard from him was that he really wanted regulation after seeing other places that had regulation training and education. He was, he thought, wow, this is a really, really good idea. Um, so even someone, maybe that is more in the. The arena being cowboy, it's definitely identifies and sees the value of a rating system and being part of that group.
We
were talking about before we, before we started, um, recording, we were talking about that, you know, what, something that I see in paragliding is, you know, even though there is the rating system and there is kind of the regulation aspect of it. So much of your first 50 hours depends on who you go to, you know, there are. You know, they've, if you're a paragliding instructor, you have to be an USHPA rated paragliding instructor. You've gone through the courses, uh, and, but, you know, it's still so dependent on that person's personality and their background and their ability to teach. Um, you know, some people are better at it than others. Uh, and so it really depends on who you go to, uh, and, and that could have lasting effects in your, you know, in your progression as a pilot.
Um, how should. You know, someone listening to this show, that's maybe a paraglider or that's doesn't fly, that wants to become a speed pilot. Um, how, where did, what would you recommend they do? Where, where do you go find the right person to learn from?
Oh, man. Okay. That's a great question. I think that, you know, one of the, one of the things that you need to definitely mesh with on that person is, is, you know, values and personality fit. Um, can you deal with them? Telling you what to do and how to do it? Uh, do you like their style? Uh, do you feel that they're going to give you all the information that you need to do it safely? When I was first looking for a paragliding instructor, I went and interviewed every single instructor that wasn't close to me. I didn't just go to one. I went to every single one of them and then tried to choose one that I felt really cared about what they were doing and was going to make sure that we learned everything that we needed to, to go.
Fly safely and fly. Well, progress. Well, it's easy in our local community. You look at the top pilots, they they're all coming from either one or two instructors and there, you can say that has to do with their ability to put out really great pilots. Um, so if you're, if you're trying to find a good instructor, do the same thing, go interview and talk to people with speed flying. It's going to be really hard, probably to find somebody. locally because there just are so few here in north america but there's a lot over in europe new zealand um rich i don't know if he's still teaching at sabova but that is a fantastic place to learn you know the earth is pretty soft there it's pretty forgiving um and he puts on a great program you can get a lot of flights in a day i think i did somewhere between 15 and 20 a day that is a lot of launches and landings which is what you need to build as uh as a new pilot is that skill to really dial in their launches and landing right after each other because you're learning that muscle memory good technique and implementing that yeah
sabo sabo was amazing uh i was yeah i was going to ask another question but i'll save it go ahead yeah yeah
another thing that we're you know was a concern was you know how is our insurance going to deal with this and you know we've talked to our insurers and they don't see it differently and they don't see the differences in the way we're doing things so i think it's I mean, we're all still considered hang gliders to them.
They don't see a difference and don't care what size of wing you fly.
Are you guys self-insuring? I don't know if you're familiar with the RRG. Okay, so you've got an underwriter. You've got some other, you know, an established insurance company that's doing it.
Yeah. Is that across Canada? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's national.
Okay, gotcha. And
from what I understand after speaking to some people on the HVAC board, the insurance also doesn't care what size wing you guys fly. I think it would begin starting to split hairs because there's a lot of disagreement between manufacturers and people in the industry of, you know, at what size and what wing loading are we, an acro wing, a mini wing, a speed wing? You know, where do we draw the line? There's a lot of debate about that.
Right. You were talking about before, again, before we started recording, you've got kind of a unique situation there at one of your skieries that you guys are allowed to literally speed ride while the skiery is open. This is something we don't do here. We have this kind of 150-foot rule during operating hours just to protect the skiers. How do you guys, you were saying that that's, you know, you're obviously a little worried about that because you want it to last. That's a really cool. Yeah. That's an amazing opportunity. So what, you know, like if I just showed up at the deck, you know, there tomorrow on a ski run, could I go just do that? Or do I have to, you know, sign some documents? Do I have, is there a waiver? Is there a, you know, do you guys check my ability?
Yes. So we do have this ski resort here in D.C. that we have negotiated with management in the resort. Andy Foster over there has been a big advocate for us. He's awesome. And they love us. We held a big fly in there to celebrate opening this for us in the spring. And they, you know, they couldn't wait to do more. They were so happy with the results and how it turned out. So it was a great experience. So if you were to show up there, you would, you would have to have HVAC insurance. So you'd have to be an HVAC rated pilot.
And you also have to sign some documents.
And I'm not really sure if we do a site briefing. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure that we do. My guy down there, Sean Dillon, he's done a great job of really maintaining the relationship with Andy and ensuring that we keep that. And yeah, we're allowed to do on-piste so we can actually speed ride, which means touching down, which is awesome. Of course, just like you would if you were skiing or snowboarding, you have to avoid other people. We put in the rules that everyone else, it gets right away. So if anything happens, it's completely your fault, whether they cut you off or whatever it is, it's on you. And we hope that nothing does happen and that we can continue to fly safely and have fun.
That's what it's all about.
How do you regulate that in terms of the, you know, you have to have the, you have to have signed the waiver, you have to be an HVAC member, you have to have the HVAC insurance. How do you keep people from just showing up? Going up at the lift and going up and speed riding without that?
It's a small mountain and it's difficult to just sneak on to.
Okay. They have to have a card or something or they have to have a.
Yeah, you have to get a lift pass. I mean, if somebody is going to sneak on the mountain, they're going to sneak on the mountain. But, you know, the rules are that you check in with guest services and you get a special pass.
Oh, okay. Special pass. Gotcha.
Yeah. And then they check, they check in with you and make sure that you're a member so they can go on the HVAC. HVAC website. It's all listed. They can type in your member number and confirm that you are a member in good standing.
Okay. Gotcha.
Yeah. Cool. So that's all, that's
all kept at the mountain, but the mountain is basically that that's your firewall is the mountain. It's not one of you guys standing there every day.
No, no, it's, it's the mountain. Okay. Gotcha. Cool.
Yeah. You mentioned when you first reached out to me that, you know, some of the things that you'd heard on the podcast were worrisome. Uh, bring those up and, and why.
Yeah. Okay. I think some of the things that were worrisome were what would come out of somebody who has been using the resources that they have available, but mostly self-taught, uh, where sometimes it sounds like this is the most logical thing to do, but in reality it should be doing something different. Um, certainly one of the things that was the most worrisome is not flying with a reserve. Uh, always fly with a reserve period.
Really? That didn't. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, even if you're just proximity flying, even if you're just speed riding.
Yeah. I mean, most of the mountains here in DC, you're going to spend, um, a certain period of your time with plenty of altitude away from the mountain because you're going to have to fly into your proximity line and then fly away from that proximity line. At some point, we have very, very few places that you could fly where you can start right at the top proxy, fly and land at the very base of the mountain. Okay. So there's going to be opportunities where you can, if you were to encounter something where you get throw a reserve, another big one, big site for flying here is the skirmish chief, but you know, you can throw your reserve at almost any point during a flight off the chief. There's no reason not to wear a reserve there.
Plus it adds ballast and wing loading is great fun. I'm for speed flyers. So why not? Sure. Yeah.
Uh, I, I've known a few people that have passed away that if they had a reserve, it would have saved their life.
Wow. Okay. Yeah. This that's totally new to me. I, I have a never used a reserve when I'm speed flying. And certainly there are times when you're right. I'm away from the hill. It just hadn't, that hadn't been something I, again, I was cowboy and I, you know, I, I've never been instructed in anything with speed flying, you know, it's just, I'm a paraglider and I figured it out, but so that's probably one of the things that makes you whinge.
Yeah. Most new pilots are not proximity flying. Like if you were to be able to pack one of Henzie's lines into like a 30 second video, you'd be like, wow, that is just amazing. Incredible. But to go out and expect that the entire sport are doing lines like Henzie is just, it's not happening. So the stuff that we see on YouTube of speed flyers flying these lines, they're at the pinnacle of the sport. That's not what it's like. For early pilots, they're not dropping into these canyons and valleys and doing that kind of stuff. Sure. Yeah,
sure, sure, sure. Is, is, are you seeing, you know, in, in, in paragliding, we see accidents at every level, you know, beginner novice, cause they don't know intermediate syndrome. We call it intermediate syndrome and paragliding. I'm assuming you have the same thing in, in speed flying as well. Well, I'm sure you do. Absolutely. You know, it's like you think you're better than you are. And then you have the expert halo center. I'm like, you're really good. And you are really good. But you, you get complacent. And do you see, are people dropping at every end in speed flying as well? You know, like the guys that are dropping, I mean, we've got a few guys here, Andrew Dunning and Michael Dunning and Will Burks. I mean, these guys are, are, they're doing the same stuff that you're seeing Jamie do in the videos. I mean, it is awesome. And they're really good.
And they've put a lot of time into it, but are you seeing, you know, are you seeing people at every end blow it?
Absolutely. Yeah. We have beginners that, that, you know, right now, I think we have a lot we can prevent in the early stages because we just don't have a great educational syllabus. So we could be preventing a lot of stuff at the early stages, intermittent immediate syndrome. It's going to get you no matter who you are. So you, whatever sport you're flying in and whether whoever your instructor was always trying to be cognizant of intermediate syndrome. And then the guys that are at the pinnacle, well, it's kind of their gig is to be pushing it. Yeah. Is to push that, that line of what they're capable of all the time. So you're going to have those guys in any sport as well, which is what we see in paragliding too. Yeah.
That's what worries me about, you know, has always worried me about wingsuiting, you know, with just the accidents there, there's no margin in wingsuiting. I mean, you're, you're alive, you're dead. And then, you know, with, I mean, there's very rare exceptions to that, but in speed flying, it's not, you know, you're not that much, slower. I mean, you're slower, you're not terminal obviously and stuff, but you're, you know, you're here, you're again, you're flying with very little protection, very, very fast. I mean, this stuff that these guys are doing in the canyons is so bitching. It's really, it's really amazing, but man, you're not far from a mistake there, you know, a little bit of weird air, a little gust or, you know, a little down flush. Certainly these are the things that get us in paragliding. And I can't imagine, I don't know.
It worries me because in wingsuit, proximity stuff, it's, you know, the rush is never matchable unless you get a little bit closer, a little bit faster, a little bit deeper. You know, that's what you just, that's the thing that gets them. I'm told from the guys that do it all the time is it just, you got, you know, that you just keep pushing that a little bit further, a little bit further, a little bit further. And then, man, there's not much margin. Whereas in paragliding, you can keep pushing that and there's a lot of margin, you know, we've got, we've got time to deal with stuff. Yeah. But is that, I guess, it's the inevitableness of it is makes me nervous. Right. Like rolling a dice, something like that. Kind of. I mean, well, just, just that, you know, because, because that rush is, is diminishing in all of these sports.
It's never the same. The first time you hop off a mountain is the best flight. Most of us will ever take because it's like, Whoa, are you kidding me? But then you kind of, you know, then you fly your first 5k and then 10k and then a hundred K and then you got to go to her K and, and in the speed flying, it's, it's, you, you've got to get closer and faster and fly a deeper, more committing line.
Yeah,
absolutely. There. I, I can see that. I can't really say that there, that it's any more than any other sport that we're doing. When you're at the pinnacle, if you're flying these lines, if you're one of these guys, like Kate Palmer, these guys are at the pinnacle of the sport and, you know, they're pushing themselves. If we were to take those same, you know, from a speed perspective. So 20, 20 paragliders are like 12 to 50 miles an hour is where we're at with paragliders. Speed wings are 20 to 90 miles an hour. So you're going, maybe you're going 90 at the pinnacle and you're really ripping it.
So we're fast, but you know, hang gliders are going a lot faster than us. And there's a lot of, there's now a lot of younger guys and hang gliding. I don't know if you've seen those proximity. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool. So you, when you're playing with speed and, and the terrain, definitely you're reducing your margin of error. Absolutely. But I think what we're doing, there's a mistake in defining speed flying by proximity flying.
Oh, there you go.
Okay. And that most of the people that I know that, that fly mini wings are not doing that level of proximity flying. If you were to watch their videos on YouTube, it'd probably be rather boring. Good. It's yeah. You know, they're, you know, it's, it takes a lot of skill to, to get to that level where you can, you know, trust your abilities and trust the air and weather that you're in, um, to be able to, to pull that kind of stuff off. Um, you're probably flying a lot. Again, you're at, if you're at the pinnacle of the sport, you know, we see it when we go to paragliding comps is that people are pushing it to razor thin margins and they're definitely getting hurt.
I mean, every, every single comp I go to, you know, people are getting hurt. It's unfortunate. Um, but that's what we see at the, at the pinnacle of our sport. When people are, are, are pushing it, what you're doing. A lot of, a lot of times I'm in a comp, I'm like, why am I flying in this weather right now? If I was at home, I would not be flying this, but because I'm at a comp, um, you know, it's part of the, it's part of it.
Sure. Yeah, sure. That's the, that's the downside of comps for sure. Are you, are you guys seeing, um, you know, there was this big buzz with, uh, speed flying, just like there was with Kaiser vein. Kaiser vein has really leveled out in the last few years. Are you still seeing, is, is speed flying still booming?
Um, it's a good question. I, I don't know. I don't, we don't, I don't have the data for that. It's, I would imagine that it, that it's still, I still see a lot of people getting into it.
It's hard to say. I, I wish I had, I wish I had the data on that. I think until we can implement something and start seeing people coming in, it's hard to, it's hard to say one way or another, whether, whether it's growing or what's happening.
Um, one thing I can say is that, uh, speed flyers eventually become paragliders.
Yeah. That's been interesting. Um, the guy, the guys here locally who, you know, were just, who really just got into speed flying, you know, they went down and got there. You have to, you have to be P three to fly off our, our, our main site. You know, off the ski mountain, cause it's regulated and it's an insured site. So you've got to get your P three. So they would, you know, like you said, just do the bare minimum to, they had no interest in being paragliders. They just, but, but now they're showing a lot of interest in paragliding. You know, they see the Alaska film and the Rocky's traverse or whatever. And they're like, man, those guys are staying up for nine hours. That's pretty neat. So that's been really cool. And that's one of my huge motivations to pull these communities together. You know, we should all be working together and we should all be friends and we should all, you know, be working towards the same things, same site preservation, the same, like you've got with your mountain there.
I mean, that would be so cool to implement something like that here. I'm not against that at all. You know, if it's, if, if we could do it safely and, and you know, reduce the chance of, of something bad happening, that'd be killer.
Absolutely. And if we were to compare speed flying, paragliding, hang gliding, which one is growing, definitely speed flying over the other two. We've seen, we've seen the other two shrinking. In, in Canada, it's sort of maintained, but that's, you know, we also have a lot of immigration into Canada from European countries and places where they paraglide a lot. Interesting. Okay. But it's, I think it's a great thing for, for the paragliding sport because it's a, it's a gateway drug into paragliding because paragliders start to get older and certainly foot launching, you know, there's going to be a physical ability limit on, on, because you gotta, you gotta be able to run and I think speed riding, if there was more ski resorts open to it, that would be a big one because you know, launching and landing a speed wing on skis is no brainer, really,
really easy on skis. Cause you don't have to run it out. And so anyone of any age can do that.
God, it's such a hoot. I mean, so fun. God, it's ridiculous. You don't have to be good either. You can just coast down the mountain and hoot, but an holler and you know, maybe do a couple of turns as just, it's so fun. I love taking people do it to do that. Cause it's just, it adds this whole dimension. That's just a blast.
Oh yeah. Speed riding would really would be the booming side of the sport. If we can just get more ski resorts on well involved, even, you know, in, in, in Europe, they'll have certain paths, you know, certain parts of the mountain that are dedicated, dedicated to it. So maybe certain areas that are off where there aren't very many people, you know, going down that we certainly have areas like that in Whistler, Blackhawk, and that can be opened up for, for people flying speed wings and be well out of the way of other people.
God, you know, when I think about that here in the States, I just got it. I'm like, yes, I'm hopeful, but at the same time, I'm like, there's no way that would ever happen just because the lawsuits and the, I don't know, just that whole scene. But it, do you see that as being something that's realistic in Canada?
I see. I mean, to me, I don't see why it couldn't be realistic anywhere. I think we just have to change how people look at the sport. I always look, I always think about it. Like let's, let's just pretend that snowboarding was first before skiing. Let's pretend we were all snowboarders. Right. And then all of a sudden these people who rode down on sharp planks, carrying two spears, wanted to come on the mountain. Seriously. We would say, what the hell? We're not letting those. People on the mountain. It's dangerous. They ski down the hill with two spears.
This would be crazy. We can't let these people on the mountain. It's dangerous. And, and you know, and people, the second you talk and roll on skis, man, you can go so fast. It's incredible.
That's hysterical. You're totally faster
than you can on a speedway. Cause you go at the second you start creating lift, you're off the mountain. You're no longer skiing. So, so we just have to change how we're looking at it because we're so used. Yeah. Entrenched. We're like the frog in boiling water. We're used to skiers and snowboarders. No longer do we see that as something that's dangerous, even though a lot of people get hurt and die doing that on these resorts. But again, they're really great at sort of just not letting anyone know about it. Like we have downhill mountain biking. It's incredible how many people are getting hurt and dying doing that up here, but you just don't hear about it. Because it's happening on the resorts and they do a really good job of controlling the media about it.
That's a really good point that I think is a under shadowed or I don't know, just people don't think of nearly as much. I mean, I think I've gone back and forth on this too, because you know, we've had a really bad summer. There's been a lot of accidents, several of them fatal and it's like that every year, you know? So I mean, it's, it's not like I was just talking to cross country magazine the other day cause I was working on an article about margin and, and out and he and I were like, Oh my God, it's been a bad year. And then add the editor was like, dude, it's, it's always a bad year. But at the same, like you said, um, I think a lot of times we are too magnified on that issue in this sport. I mean, we need to be, we need to be safer. A lot of these accidents that happen are not necessary, but at the same time where I feel like we're belaboring it way too much.
You know, I, I mean, if, if I, if I'm just going to choose for the, the day, what I'm going to go do with my time, if I get on a mountain bike, I got a much higher chance of getting hurt. Period.
Partly because I'm not that good on a mountain bike, but also because I mean, those guys packing in all the time. Now, usually it's not fatal, which is a, you know, and that's, you know, when our, our stuff, our injuries tend to be spinal and that's ugly or fatal and that's ugly too. But, um, anyway, I, I don't know where I was going with that, except that, I mean, I think, I think a lot of times we, we belabor this stuff, we belabor this stuff too much. And we're too worried about getting access taken away from us, uh, because we don't have that much access. Honestly. I mean, compared to the European, they just don't, they don't think about this stuff. They don't have to worry about where they land. They don't have to worry, worry about where they launch. They can launch in land anywhere they want it. I mean, they're, they don't have access problems and they know they're not getting sued and landowners not, they're not going to get sued.
You know, the landowner is not going to freak out if a paraglider lands on your land, except if you land on grass, that should be for the cows. They get a little upset about that. But it's just a much different litigious environment or legal environment than what we have here.
Yeah. And you know, that's why the ski resorts are a great place for it is because they've been dealing with that forever. Right. Liability and litigious issues is something that they're, it's just part of doing business for them. So again, that's why I see it as really the perfect, perfect place for it. Um, and as a community, if we can, the best, the best way for us to make this safer and stop pushing, because what we're doing is we're pushing people out to the fringes. And of course, that's when people are going to start getting hurt. And, um, it's going to get ugly is when we start pushing people out to those fringes by bringing in education. Um, you know, I always compare it to, uh,
sex education and a community. And if you take sexual sex education out of a community, teen, pregnant, you know, you're going to see a lot of these skyrocket it's because people are not going to stop having sex. It's fun and it feels good, but the best way that you can prevent people from doing it unsafely is by providing education and speed flying feels good. And it's a lot of fun. Uh, people are not going to stop doing it, but the best way that we can prevent unnecessary accidents or incidences is provide providing a path for education. And as a community, we can start shaping the message to these ski resorts to bring it into that fold. So instead of it being something that people see negatively, like we did snowboarding, we can start seeing it as, as a positive in a way that they can be part of that community can be part of the ecosystem.
I mean, it's one of these things where it doesn't provide a lot of money to the resort, but from a visual perspective, seeing wings flying down the mountain just looks really cool to other people that are there. That's what our mountain loves.
That they've said that over and over again. I think it's kind of a pain in the ass to deal with us, but they love it. Um, yeah,
it's beautiful. It's like part of the marketing budget. Sure. It's like these guys kind of cost us money, but we'll just consider it a marketing budget.
That's sort
of like the, you know, the back country steers, they don't provide almost any revenue for that, but the photos they get and the kind of videos they get is, is great marketing for these resorts.
So you snuck in the sex education thing, which was brilliant. I'm glad you got that.
I'm glad you got that
in there because that's something we can all relate to. Hopefully. Um, yeah. And ecosystem. I like that. Touch on that just a little bit. I mean, because that's, that's the problem I see is, you know, you could go through all this work at HVAC and create this syllabus and create this, you know, um, rating system. Then you got to make people use it.
Yeah. Um, so that's going to be the toughest part, right? Uh, execution, getting people to use it is going to be very difficult. I think it, it might, it might be difficult. I don't know. I'm going to anticipate that it would be difficult, of course. Uh, but I think that people are going to really want to do it. And people that, um, have looked at it and been part of it, sort of waiting for this to come down the pipe are, are anticipating or sitting around anticipating, waiting for it to happen.
Yeah. I like it. Uh, Tyler, thanks, man. I really appreciate it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I wish you guys at HVAC, all the, all the luck in the world. I hope you do put this together because the community needs it badly. Um, and I'm sure you've thought about this, but it seems like we could steal from what the Europeans are doing and implement a lot of what they're doing. They, they tend to be quite a ways ahead of us on this. Like, you know, like the whole APPI system and some of the systems they use in Europe for paragliding or, um, you know, I don't want, don't want to knock USHPA too much, but they're, they're quite a bit more progressive and, uh, they, they cover the skill sets that you need. I think much better than a multiple choice test that we're doing, still doing here, you know? So I, I think it's something we could, we could, you know, across the community we could learn from.
Yeah. That's what, yeah. I've had a few guys from over there, like Mark Shaw from the British hang gliding and paragliding association helping out. And then Asher and Chris from ski and fly, which do their instruction in France, Norway and New Zealand. And, uh, I mean, there's so much further advanced when it comes to teaching, people. And yeah, the multiple choice thing, they just hate that stuff. They're like, that doesn't teach somebody's knowledge. It just, uh, you're testing their deductive reasoning skills. Right.
Right. Yeah. No, it's just, it's, it's wrongly placed. Um, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I, I, I take to your point about the youth too. I mean, that's what the sport is suffering from in everywhere. Uh, not nearly as much in Germany and France and Switzerland and stuff. They've, they've got really good youth programs and it's in the schools. And so, you know, they're, they're holding on to their growth, but, um, it's all going to go the way of hang gliding, unfortunately, unless we attract youth to the sport. And I think, uh, you know, the, the youth are a lot more attracted to speed flying because it's got that, you know, it's, it's faster. It's, it's fun. It's immediate. Uh, you can go out and really have a blast right off the bat. You don't have to spend a week ground handling and, you know, I mean, you should do all that.
You should do all that stuff anyway, but you know, you can go have fun and pretty quickly and, you know, get a buzz and, and that hopefully will turn into a love of, uh, for a lifetime.
Absolutely. We shouldn't cut off our nose to spider face. I mean, it's absolutely a great marketing platform for our sports for free flights. Um, you can pack it into a fantastic 30 second, 15 second little clip. Um, it's hard to do that with paragliding.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, for those of you who are listening, um, there will be contact details in, in the show notes to get ahold of Tyler. If you've got ideas, uh, or ways to assist, or, you know, maybe you're working on your own syllabus. We should all be working together. We shouldn't be doing these, this stuff in our own silos. Um, so, you know, reach out to Tyler, reach out to me and, offer your assistance or guidance or a question or whatever, and try to get this, you know, this should be something that the whole world's working on, working towards the same goal.
Yes. Gavin, please. Anyone who's interested in, uh, helping out, or want to learn more, please reach out to me.
Yeah. Tyler. Thanks a lot, man. I appreciate it. Thanks again for your time and appreciate you coming on the show. And I hope we get to, uh, meet at cloud base or ripping down the chief one of these days. Thanks a lot, man.
Thank you very much. Yeah.
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