Thank you for watching.
I just don't want it to, I wanted to get it out there. So we're going to release this as a regular show. And I got a lot of help for this one. I was just recently down in Argentina for the World Cup. And I sat down with Max Jean-Pierre because we had some harness questions that were way beyond my knowledge. And he's a designer for Cortel and legendary pilot. Been in the game a very, very long time. Done a lot of comp flying. So he had some great answers there. Stuff that I didn't know about, about harness design, which I think you'll find really valuable. We talk a lot about wing design and trying to make comp flying fair for smaller pilots. We've known for many, many, many years that bigger wings are just faster and they glide better. And so reached out to Bruce Goldsmith with Bruce Goldsmith Designs, who's also been on the podcast in the past, to dive into all of that.
He just had a great article, which just came out in the last issue of Cross Country, about his weightless comps and how they're trying to solve this problem. But he wrote about it originally back in 2003. So this is obviously something we're still dealing with. Fascinating subject. And I also went out to Bruce for a bunch of questions that came in from a couple of friends of mine, Aaron Beck and Blake Pelton down in Utah, about porosity tests and fabrics and lines and dirt and care and trimming. And all of that also was beyond my knowledge. So Bruce really filled in that gap really well. Reached out to Revis, who was down at the World Cup as well. Reached out to him. And he was there for some weather questions from a couple of pretty newer pilots who were trying to get some out in Mongolia, who were stationed out there.
And they're trying to figure out how to find good weather and use it to their advantage. So they're not just taking sledders, but getting into their first real thermal flying. And so that was pretty fascinating. Gear and progression from James, a friend of mine. And when you should move up to the next wings. This is a subject that comes up a lot on the Mayhem. But I take on that one, when you should move up and when you're ready. To move up. And a lot more. So this one's super dense. There's a lot of great information from a lot of different folks. Some great questions hanging in there. I think you're going to really enjoy it. First up, a little bit of housekeeping before we get to the show. We saw a huge bump in global rescue signups after I've been kind of pushing the insurance side of things. And we've had some pretty bad accidents in the sport.
And people having to come up with sometimes six figures to get folks home. So thank you for paying attention to that. If you're still, if you're traveling. This winter, I've really updated the article I put up on the website. If you just go to cloudbasedmayhem.com and put in the search term insurance, that should have you covered. So insurance for comps, if you're going to fly for comps and insurance for travel, medical repatriation, injury. It's all there. It's pretty dense. It's everything you need, you know, from what happens if you press your SOS on your in reach or your spot and getting home and not footing the bill for it. So. So that's a very, very, very important. If you are traveling to go fly in gliding, paragliding. Otherwise, if you're participating in this sport, don't think it's not going to happen to you.
Don't let this fall on your family or your friends. So check that out again, cloudbasedmayhem.com and put in the search term insurance. You'll see the insurance. It's something like insurance. Are you covered and read that article and as all the links and it'll take you to the right places and get you to the right spot. If you have any questions on that or any updates as always. Feel free to reach out to me. And the other bit of housekeeping I'm putting in the front end of this show is a lot of feet. A lot of people are still having trouble with creating their account as you know, becoming a subscriber. So you have access to all the bonus content we're going to be putting out miles. My editor has been super busy the last few months, so we haven't been able to get to the promise bonus content with the third installment of the ex-alps interviews I did after the race.
And then I did a recording a few weeks back down at. The Red Rocks flying with Ken. George, I never say his name right on wing list sticks, which was terrific. So both those will be coming out before Christmas. So I want to make sure you all have access to that. If you're a subscriber in, you know, I through Patreon, if you're a financial subscriber or supporter of the show, you automatically have an account and you should be all set up. If you don't, if you haven't figured that out, then send me an email and I'll make sure you do. But you are all subscribers just by being listeners. If you get the newsletter. Uh, if you. If you've bought a t-shirt or a hat through the store, if you have had, uh, any kind of. Email with me, then I have tried to set everybody up. I don't want to put anything behind, uh, a paywall.
You know, hopefully someday if you're in a position where you can financially support us, you'll do so. But in the meantime, I want to make this bonus content available for everybody. So whether you support us at a buck a show, which is all we've ever asked for or something else, you are subscriber, you will be one for life. And if you don't have an account, or if you haven't figured it all. That out, just reach out to me, uh, via email through the website and I'll get you all set up. And then hopefully someday you're making enough money where you can send us a buck show. Uh, that would be great. Helps cover all of our costs and I appreciate it. So with that said, please enjoy this great, ask me anything show. Again, we've got some fantastic questions. There's a lot here for every level of pilot. Enjoy.
Okay.
First question in this ask me anything show came from my friend James, uh, about when are you ready to jump up to more advanced gear? He was talking about wings, but I think this, uh, certainly fits for everything. This is a topic that we've talked a lot about on the show. And it's something that I see, uh, way too many people doing too often is moving up to, you know, hotter wings before they are. Ready. So the question is, uh, I heard you mention on several occasions that you observed pilots progressing too fast, perhaps even hopping onto gear well beyond their skillset. Making the jump from sea gliders to two liners had me raising my eyebrows. The first time I got into high wind on the mountain and he got plucked. I've since remedied my own shortcomings by spending some solid time on a nice grassy training Hill.
And I'm doing very well on the new kit. All that said, I've heard you mention yourself progressing very quickly. The question is how do you, how does one know when it's time to push into higher performance? And how do you know when it's time to get into higher performance gear before actually doing it? How did you gauge it yourself? There has to be some level of into the own knownness involved, or we'd all be still on school gliders. So just as an amusing start to this whole conversation, I'll give you the quick rundown on what I did. Uh, which is not recommended. Uh, but in 2012, I'd gotten off the boat late in 2011 and, uh, took, I started taking on Perry landing really seriously. So that spring. Spent a bunch of time in Turkey with Josh. Uh, training acro. He was doing SIV courses out there, but I was training an acro cause I'd done a lot of SIV at that point.
And, you know, had reasonable amount of hours, but certainly no expert, um, in, in anything. And, uh, I was flying for the most part for XC. I was flying the Niviuk Arctic three, I believe at the time, maybe it was the two, three. And so did these courses with him and then started training really a lot with Bruce and my support in the first couple of X-Alps in Europe that year. So I was flying a lot, flying a lot in the Alps and was perfectly happy on the Arctic, which is an ENC. And then that July I did my first comp out in Chelan. It was the Chelan open. And, uh, that went pretty well. And I really enjoyed it. Went back to the, back to Europe to train, you know, to fly, uh, the rest of the summer and then got a wild card for the PWC and Sun Valley, uh, where I now live.
And that's where I was moving. So a friend of mine that was running that comp. Uh, knew I was moving out here and he had some wild card spots and gave me one. And that was kind of early. The comp was mid August. That was early August when I found out about this and I just panicked. Oh my God, I've never even flown a D let alone a comp wing. So I contacted Niviuk and they were kind enough to, they had an Ice Peak was one of the Superfinal Ice Peaks from that year. Uh, that was when the Ice Peak six came out and they shipped me one and I went and I flew the Ice Peak six. So this is, you know, by today's standards, a pretty tame. Uh, comp wing, but it was, it was the comp wing back in those days. And so I, uh, I, and like I said, I'd never flown a D. So the day before the comp, I had my first flight here with Nate Scales and flew the Ice Peak six for the first time ever.
And then I flew it in the World Cup. And, uh, so that was uber exciting to fly a comp wing, my first two liner in Sun Valley, which is pretty powered up and it all went fine. And that was, it was fantastic. But that was certainly. Uh, what James is talking about. That was kind of a major jump and again, not something I would recommend. But the answer to the question is I have always compared this with kayaking. You know, you're not really ready to jump up to a class four river until you're just hitting every eddy. And basically class three is becoming boring. You know, you're, you're just owning a class three river. Then you're ready to push into, you know, lower level class four stuff. Same thing with class five. So once you're nailing every eddy in class four and you're not, you know, you're not spending much time upside down and you're not coming out of your boat and you're not pulling your skirt and you're ready probably for a class five.
If you know you want it and you feel really ready, but basically you're pushing the boat and your paddle skills and everything to the absolute limit at the level you're at. And then you're ready to come up. I think the same thing applies in paragliding when you're using the full range of your speed bar. Uh, if you're under the speed bar, you're not going to be able to get up there. You're going to be able to get up there. And then you're just understanding how to fly the seas. If you're on a three liner and you're either on a B or C wing and you're really, you're using it to its maximum potential, what it was built for. And you feel like you just got it. Uh, I, you know, my base minimum, I always feel like is at least a hundred hours a year. You know, if you're getting the hours, you're doing a yearly SIV. You've done a ton of stalls. Um, that doesn't even make your heart rate go up and you're really using the full range of the wing.
Uh, so you're not. You know, quarter bar and kind of getting scared. Uh, but you're using the full range of the bar and you know, you're doing a lot of ground handling and you're nailing your launches and landings and you're not getting plucked and you're not blowing either. Then you're ready probably to step up. And a lot of it's just, do you want to, you know, do you, and ask yourself and be honest with yourself, do you need that extra performance? Do you want it? Do you, do you want the less passive safety and do you want the extra performance? So there's more to it than that, but I think that's a pretty good way to approach that. The problem I see, and I really saw it last year, a lot in comps is, you know, people are, they're not getting hours and they go to comps and they get dusted and they don't get the glides and they just blame it 100 % on the wing.
And that's certainly, I know a better, you know, higher aspect wing is going to make a difference. Absolutely. But there's way more things you can do. You know, we see this all the time with the huge triangles that are being flown in the Alps every summer on guys by guys like Bernie Pestle on ENBs that are doing monster flights on ENB wings. So there's a lot of other things you should, you can and should be doing to increase your performance before you step up. Last year at the Menarca, Josh Cohn, one of our best comp pilots ever here in the United States. Yeah. Decided he wasn't really getting the hours. I mean, he, this guy's done a lot of comps since he was 16 back in the mid nineties and he's won nationals and he's done, he's won tasks at PwCs and he's won, he won PwCs.
So he, he decided he just wasn't getting the hours and just had a little baby and stepped down to, I think it was an, it was an Omega X out. So, you know, an E and D, but far below the performance of, you know, the menarca. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. harness design and stability so i didn't know the answer to this and the answer is really fascinating one of the guys racing down at the world cup is max jean-pierre my partner at and been a long time designer there and very long time pilot and bivy pilot and comp pilot and really understands flying and really understands harnesses so here is the answer to these great harness questions both when it comes to stability and what harness manufacturers are trying to accomplish when they have to kind of hit the sweet spot between stability and instability for when you're climbing and gliding and also when you should think about or when you're potentially ready to go from a seat harness to a pod harnesses a pod harness and the advantage and disadvantage and risks inherent therein enjoy
uh designer!
!
! if you just turn by pulling the brake handle you won't achieve a really efficient turn and a really you won't be really efficient in quite thermal so it's always a matter of compromise and it's easier to understand if we go to the extreme for example in competition that's for sure we go we need a really stable harness because one of the key of the performance is gliding and for gliding you need your aircraft by aircraft I mean canopy plus harness
to be
stable I mean to be really to
have a compact
feeling for the pilot because the glider is something which is really big the span is more than 10 meters and when you fly in lively air if not turbo check is check check Your both wingtips do not always encounter the same turbulences and anything. So everybody who fly paragliding, you can notice this feeling. You have your two wingtips moving and transmitting some roll movement to the pilot. And you need your harness to be stable because you try to glide straight. Your glider has an ability for sniffing, for finding the right path in the air mass.
And we want the glider to do this job.
And with the two unstable harness, all this roll movement on the roll axis, obviously, sorry.
All this roll movement, if you have two unstable harness, you have to be stable. And the harness will be amplified by the pilot. Or they will be totally lost because the pilot will try to control all the movement. And for the best glide, we need to let the harness do its job without interference coming from the pilot. Two unstable ones and an inactive pilot will amplify the movement and obviously will start flying straight. And you will start making turns and lose energy because your glider will start moving and all this movement is a loss of energy.
So at the end, it's a loss in altitude. And the pilot controlling too much this movement by counter steering all this movement will lose this sniffing ability that the glider has naturally. So, yeah. And after a glide, you need to catch a thermal. And for some thing, you need a harness which is dynamic enough for being performance. And those two different moments of your flight needs opposite quality of the harness. In glide, in straight flight, you need a stable one for efficiency. And in thermal, you need a lively dynamic harness.
And those two parameters which are opposite, finally, the designer will choose the gliding. We have to... Most of the designers had to make a really stable harness because we are losing much more with an unstable harness in straight flight than the lack of climbing ability. And that's why we had to develop this system on the Cannibal Race 2, which allows you to have a really stable harness in straight flight and unlock... its ability for thermaling. And there is another reason why you... Because in paragliding, performance comes for sure from the glider and all these mechanical parameters.
But one of the parameters is the pilot, obviously. And by having also a stable harness for long flight, you also save the pilot energy. And after some hours, all the energy you could save during the flight thanks to a stable harness during this long transition will also be a criteria of performance. Because if you are less tired, you take better decision. And a good decision can make a huge difference at the end of the flight. It's a matter of... So it's performance criteria and also a safety one for the same reason, obviously.
Making a good choice can prevent you from going in the wrong place or taking some risk. So...
Next question. Down in Argentina, I spent some time with Patti Latona, great pilot from Mexico, who is... I don't know how much she weighs, but she's very small. And she's been flying, climbing, doing some jumps for a long time. And has been on the World Cup for a long time. She's had some huge flights out of Pato down in Sertão, Brazil this year. So super accomplished pilot. But like all small pilots on the World Cup, is incredibly frustrated because flying an excess wing or smaller wings, you are crippled by performance on many, many different levels. So she wanted me to bring this up on the podcast. We talked about it a little bit with Isabella Messenger a couple of years ago. And it's a real problem. It's not fair.
And weight matters. So I went out to Bruce Goldsmith, the designer for BGD, to ask him this question.
Well, the question is about weight on paragliders, especially in competition. And this is a subject I've been going on about for maybe 20 years now. And there's little, no doubt at all that weight doesn't matter. It does affect performance on paragliders quite a lot. It's actually not all one-sided. Weight or being heavyweight is an advantage for glide and speed and flying fast. And flying light is an advantage in very, very weak conditions. But unfortunately, competition has changed formats over the last few years to become more about racing faster in strong conditions. So this has completely pushed out all the lightweight pilots from competition.
When I used to fly competitions, there was a kind of balance between weak conditions and strong conditions. But now it's really gone very strongly on the side of flying in strong racing conditions all the time. I don't know if you agree with that, Gavin.
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm excited to be talking about this. And it's just so timely because your article just came out. And you sent me a bunch of notes from your 2003 article. And it was interesting to hear you say that, you know, very little has changed. I mean, obviously gliders have changed a ton, but the advantages are all still there for the... I mean, this is something we talk about at every single competition. But I really feel for, you know, I had this great podcast with Isabella Messenger a couple of years back. And she was asked, you know, we were talking about this weight issue. And I was saying, well, yeah, and I'm really small. And she goes, come on, okay, how much do you weigh? And I said, well, you know, 78 kgs. And I'm kind of built like a wombat. You know, she said, yeah, okay. And she said, well, I weigh 50 kgs.
And, you know, I mean, part of it's just, it's so hard to even get an extra small wing from most of the manufacturers. So I just really feel for the people that are light and these girls that are just, they're going to every comp. And, you know, where you see how good they are is when the conditions are really light. And they might, you know, at the Worlds, Petra was the only one that got the goal. And she, it was a struggling, hard, super windy day, you know, against the wind. And she was, you know, she's obviously, these girls are really good. And they just, they don't get, it's not fair.
Yeah. I mean, the problem, I think, goes a lot deeper than we realize. Because when people, I mean, people like to do what they excel at and what they do well in. So if you're a load of people and you start doing competitions, and the heavy guys are going to start winning and the light ones are not. And so the heavy guys carry on flying, flying competitions. And you get, in the end, just a whole load of heavy guys all flying competitions. And the light people are just filtered out right from the very first competition they do. And so I think that's why there's really not so much pressure to do something about that. Because already, you know, 50 % of the pilots have already been cut out and they've just given up, you know.
Yeah, yeah. And Tom Payne talked about that. Once they banned the Open, he just was totally disinterested. Open class, because, you know, that at least, gave the lighter folks a chance in terms of, you know, flying protos and, you know, different types of stuff. But let's stay on the subject here. I loved your article because you tapped kind of the main reasons there are the differences. But I thought we'd just take a deeper dive on some of the things you mentioned, like certification and safety and the percentage. What are the advantages? How much is it?
Yeah, we did a detailed analysis of the performance differences just based on, you know, the weight, surface area, lines, factors like that, that you can easily calculate. And we calculated that at trim speed, the heavyweight pilot has a 2 % glide advantage over the lightweight pilot. And so that's talking about the extremes from extra small through to extra large. And for top speed, you're talking about a 5 % advantage for the heavyweight pilots. So that's huge, you know, that's really huge. And this is interesting that it's not just about the weight, it ties into what we've been trying in the weightless, that the last weightless competition, we tried to do a handicap system and we gave 2.5 percentage points for every 10 kilos.
So 0.25 per kilo, if you like. So, you know, between a small pilot and large pilot, they could get a 10 % advantage. And when we ran the whole competition and we had a lot of 50 kilo pilots and 110 kilo pilots, we could see that this was just far away from being enough. You know, 10 % points, you know, it had to be more like 50 % of the points. You know, it was that big. It was really that big. And so now I've been really going back and trying to rethink the whole weightless thing because, you know, obviously we can't really give 50 % of the points to the lightweight pilots. But also the lightweight pilots were saying they felt discouraged because they could never lead. Because leading is exciting, you know?
Yeah. I mean, all of us have felt this. If you're dropped off the back at the start, two things happen. One, it's psychologically really tough. And then you start... Typically, most pilots will just add mistakes then. You start trying to race too fast and then you bomb out. But it's just psychologically really discouraging.
Yeah. So what we're going to try and do is a new concept of the next weightless. We want to try and do turnpoints with different diameters. So we'd have a turnpoint with a smaller diameter for the heavier pilots and a larger diameter for the lightweight pilots. And then the task setting committee will be able to use those turnpoints when they feel that it's a good idea. So it's going to be a very experimental thing. But what it means is that at every turnpoint, possibly at every turnpoint, the lightweight pilots will get a little boost of maybe 500 metres or up to one kilometre.
So this could really make the lightweight pilots lead out, which is what we have been missing at the last two weightless competitions.
Yeah. And does the algorithm need to be quite a bit more complex as well in terms of instead of 2 % for each 10kg, could it be some kind of maybe sliding scale? I guess these are all kinds of things you're thinking about. Yeah.
Well, the real problem we found is that the small pilots suffer when there's turbulent air and headwind, strong wind. And because there's also very technical reasons for why this is, but you can very easily imagine it that a small pilot is half the size of a big pilot. And so if you've got a small pilot hitting a size of turbulence, which is say 100 cubic metres, for example, then you've got the big pilot hitting the same piece of turbulence. It's only half the size for him. So naturally it's going to affect him less. It's going to knock him around less. He's not going to get collapses. It's going to pitch his glider less. So it just affects him less, these adverse conditions.
So we really saw that in those difficult headwind conditions and headwind and turbulence, the small pilots just couldn't get through. They were just blocked by the turbulence. There was a strong wind and strong turbulence. And so it's very difficult with any scoring system to take that into account because it just depends on the task and the conditions during the task. Yeah,
that's where it starts getting tricky and you start imagining all the whining that would be going on at like a PWC level. But I mean, we have to do something, because it really isn't fair. And take us through all the things that do affect it. I love your thoughts on – well, not your thoughts, but just the reality that most wings are – you build a wing from your perspective. Bruce Goldsmith designed you're going to build a wing at, say, the medium size, and then everything else gets scaled on that. But you don't scale at the excess size. A, it's going to be way harder to get it passed. So you've got to slow it down. You've got to change it. You've got to make it so it's going to be easier to certify because otherwise it wouldn't pass like a large wing does. But it's also things like the fabric and the lines. Everything gets scaled, but it's not like the fabric gets thinner.
Yeah. Well, the worst
thing is actually the lines don't get scaled. They get scaled in length, but they don't get scaled in size. In size, right. Because normally you do the load test on the large glider, and then you use the same lines for all the other sizes. So this means that a small pilot has lines which are twice as big as they need to be. Sure, way more drag. So
that causes
a load of extra drag, of course. And this is a massive disadvantage.
Take us through each of those things that you talk about in your 2003 article, and then as well as this most recent one in cross country that just came across my desk this morning. And that was the first one I went to. I thought, oh, this is great. We've got to cover this.
I don't actually have the articles in front of me, so I can't remember exactly what I said on each one. Well,
I can give you kind of the headline. One of the things you talked about was certification and safety. So let's brush on that.
Yeah. I mean, for certification, the playing field is, the playing field has leveled a lot more recently. Over the last few years, those gliders get safer and easier to get through the certification. So there's less trimming the small gliders to get them through certification. So that means they're less penalized than they used to be. I mean, it used to be the case that you couldn't get any small gliders through certification. But now nearly every brand has small gliders that they can get through certification without castrating the gliders too much. And so that's a positive thing. And are
you, can I just come in real quickly? Are you as a designer, are you making the XS wings really just to fulfill, I mean, is there any profit in it at that end because there's so few of them being bought or is there enough being bought that it makes sense?
Yeah. I mean, XS and XL wing, we actually sell more XS. Yeah. We sell more XS wings than we do sell XL wings. Oh, okay. Oh, cool. So there's that. But maybe it's because we don't do competition gliders. So we're not selling these large, large gliders. Sure. But just for intermediate pilots, yeah, we do sell more of the small than the large and more of the extra small than the extra large. But the market, as you say, is very small. For the extra small, for instance, it will be less than 10 % of the market. Probably something like 6%, 7%, something like that. So it's pretty small.
Got you. Okay.
And combined with that, it will be the hardest glider to certify, of course.
And it's also quite a bit more difficult to fly still, I mean, compared to the larger gliders, correct? Are they more prone to things?
No, I wouldn't say so. Oh, no. Okay.
With the
scale as we have now, the extra small glider is absolutely the largest. I would say that I like to fly. And I've been flying, like on the Q2, I've been flying all of the sizes. And I just love flying them all. I wouldn't say that I don't like the small sizes. I mean, the large ones definitely glide better. And they're less dynamic. The large ones are more dynamic than the small ones. But you also have, when I'm flying all the different sizes, I'm obviously overloaded on the small ones and underloaded on the large. Sure. But I mean, I do fly all the sizes, all five sizes. And yeah, I really, really like the small, which is why I'm flying at the moment, taking those over the max weight. I fly super well like that.
Talk about Reynolds.
Well, Reynolds number is one of the basic characteristics of fluids and depends on the density of the air and the size of the object moving through it. And there's certain characteristics which are related to this number. And so this directly affects the size of the gliders and the speed of the gliders. I mean, normally the smaller gliders should be flying slower and the larger gliders should be flying faster to keep the same Reynolds number. So if you were going to scale them properly for Reynolds number, you would be scaling the gliders like that. But we don't. We actually trim them all to the same size.
So you would be scaling them all to the same speed. So this doesn't really make so much sense.
We talked a little bit about materials, but the next, in your 2003 article, you went quite heavily into materials, talking about the fabric and the lines. Do you want to touch on that a little bit as well?
Yeah. The fabric of a glider is the same for all sizes. So this means that the cloth is actually lighter in relation to the glider for a large glider. So the fabric of a glider is lighter and heavier and stiffer for a small glider, which also affects the certification. When you have lighter cloth, the reactions are more soft and more light with less inertia. And when you have heavier cloth, then it's obviously stiffer and worse for certification. So yeah, cloth directly affects the safety of the wing. So yeah. Cloth is not scaled.
So yeah, this all works to the disadvantage of the lightweight pilot.
And then one, you talked about pilot drag, and I thought this was kind of interesting. So there's a place where you go, oh, okay, well, the smaller pilot finally has an advantage, but it's not scaled once again. It's not true
at all. Yeah. Right.
That's really interesting.
Yeah. It's the relationship between the surface area of the pilot compared to his weight. And the surface area of the pilot is the same. The surface area is related to the square, and the weight is related to the cube. So they're not proportional to each other. And it's the same reason as why a baby gets a cold easier than a large person, a 100-kilo person, because they just have so much more surface area compared to their weight. So this is what makes - I can't really describe that. Yeah. So that's why babies get cold. And it's the same reason why small pilots have more drag. Yeah. Because they just have more surface area for the weight. Interesting. An important point.
So the weightless comps are an attempt to hammer this out and make comps more fair. If you figure the scale out and the algorithms out, and you maybe make it so we've got different turn points to match weight so there isn't this huge psychological gap,
then you're gonna have this dogs-like advantage
as well. Do you see this potentially being a solution at the World Cup level, or would it have to stay in something like the comps that you're doing? I just imagine the battles that would go on at the World Cup level, but it just - it isn't fair. I mean, I fly the World Cup. I would like it to be more fair. It seems like we should all be in this together.
Yeah. I mean, I regard the weightless as an experimental competition. where we're just playing with ideas. And we're coming up to the third year of the weightless, and this is going to be the third different set of ideas that we've done to try to compensate for weight. I'll quickly go through the history. In the first year, we had weight classes. So we had up to 80 kilos, then 80 to 100, and then above 100. So we had three classes. And the problem with that is that we ended up with people who were from the class below flying with 25 kilos of ballast to get up to the top of the 100-kilo class, for example, which is really against the idea.
I really don't like – I mean, the idea is to remove the advantage of weight. So if people are carrying tons of weight ballast, this is just not working. So that was the first year, and so we learned from that. Then the second year, we then had this penalty system with 20-kilo class. Two and a half percentage for every 10 kilos.
And obviously, we ran the competition and scored it, and the heavy guys still won the competition. And it was clear that there wasn't enough advantage, and there was also this problem of people being discouraged because they were not leading out. The lightweight pilots could not compete and lead out and have an exciting competition, really. So now in the third year, we're trying this new idea of having the turn points with different radius. And I know that the FAI are looking at the competitions and how they go, and also the PWC. But until we have a solution that works and everybody's satisfied with it, then nothing's going to happen for sure.
I
love that you're doing it. Hats off to you. That's great. I mean, it's a touchy subject, but it's been around since the beginning, and it seems like it's something – I really like that when you have it as the classes, say the under 80 or 80, 100, and the over, that's what's always bothered me, even about just the male-female class. I mean, clearly, there are pilots at the World Cup level that are female that are just awesome. They don't belong in a different category. I would think it would be more exciting for them to just compete with everybody else. Still have the women's class, but have the – and if you have a class dependent on weight, I'd rather race everybody, and I'd rather them race everybody and get on the podium for flying well.
And if we could balance it all out and make it fair, it would just make racing more thrilling.
Yeah. I mean, you could design out the differences between small and large gliders. For instance, by having thinner lines on the small gliders and thicker lines on the large gliders, but you could also have – Yeah. higher aspect ratio gliders on the small gliders and lower aspect ratio ones on the large gliders. And, you know, many different things you could do to compensate for it, but it kind of defeats the object, really, because everybody just wants maximum performance. So it's a shame to penalize the top guys by giving them a disadvantage, basically. But that's what the smaller guys have right now. It's a smaller guy than the others right now. Right.
Right. Right. Yeah,
that's – it's a tough one. Yeah. It's nothing that's going to be easily solved, that's for sure.
Next question from my friend Aaron Beck. This is actually a whole series of questions, so I'll let Bruce just take these on. But this is mostly about glider manufacturing and performance and lines and fabric and a lot of other stuff, brake feel. So, Ian testing. And so, here's Bruce again.
Well, I'll go on. I'll go on to the question from Blake Pelton about porosity.
First of all, he's asking a question about porosity values on the upper and lower surface of a wing not being so super important. I mean, the first thing to say is that it's only the porosity value of the top surface leading edge, which is important. Obviously, the ribs are full of holes anyway, so they can be completely porous. But actually, the bottoms, the bottom surface can also be completely porous. There was one manufacturer designed a glider with mesh on the bottom surface once, and it flew super well. Wow. And also, nowadays, we have single-skin gliders, which have no bottom surface at all. So, you know, porosity on bottom surface is completely irrelevant. And, yeah, so it's just the leading edge top surface, which is important.
And, yeah, when you're talking about the overall aging of cloth, there are three very important things that need to be considered. First of all is porosity. Second is tear strength. And there's an instrument called a betsometer where you can measure the tear strength. And a lot of most service centers have the betsometer so that they can check the tear strength of the wing. And the third item is elongation or deformation of the sail. And up to now, there's no good measure of, of deformation of the sail. And sometimes gliders stop flying just because the sails move out of shape. So deformation of the sail is very important.
But as I said, nobody's checking it, and there's no good measure of deformation at the moment. We have considered trying to perhaps print a dead straight line on the rib above, say, the B tap. And then over the years, you know, look at the deformation of that line to see what's going on. And then we'll see how far out of line it goes. And perhaps that could be a measure of deformation. But yeah, we haven't actually got around to doing that. Maybe we'll all be doing that one day.
Do you have any kind of rules of thumb on this type of thing when it comes to lightweight gliders versus standard, you know, when you're using lightweight cloth? Is it, you know, is a usable, you know, lifespan of a wing half? Or is it 80 hours? Is it 150 hours? Is it, you know, is it close to the same? I mean, I know I realize things depend on care and a lot of other things. But, you know, are you seeing that, you know, that deformation happen much earlier in lightweight wings?
It depends a huge amount on the structure of the wing. And if you have the same glider with the same structure, but one with lightweight and one non-lightweight, then you might see a difference. But some of the lightweight gliders also have less structure in them as well. To make them light, of course. Because they're, you know, they're for hiking up mountains and the rest of it. And I think if you, if the structure is less complete, as well as the cloth being lighter as well, then you are going to see shorter life in the glider. But it depends how extreme lightweight the lightweight glider is. So as I was saying, just the cloth is only one consideration. You know, the structure is probably more important than the cloth. You know, some gliders have a very good, good support inside.
Whereas other gliders are actually relying on the torsion of the cloth to keep the glider in shape. And gliders that rely on the torsion of the cloth are the ones that are going to, you know, get deformed out of shape with age. Whereas you can have another glider with the same cloth, but because the structure is better, the cloth, the glider won't go out of shape and will carry on flying much longer, even though it has the same cloth with the same deformation. So it's, yeah, it's not something you can isolate really, you know, the cloth from the glider. The same thing goes for porosity as well. Some gliders cannot withstand a low porosity on the leading edge, whereas other gliders can have really porous cloth and have no problem at all.
Like a lot of jumping chutes have very porous cloth, just because it reduces the opening shock. But they don't have a deep stall problem, even though they're using porous cloth on the top surface. So again, you know, the porosity depends a lot on the actual design of the wing. It's not just the simple question of, you know, if you have low porosity, your glider is going to be dangerous. It's not as simple as that.
Hmm. I understand. That internal construction, his second, his latter part of this question is about rib condition and rib strength.
Mm-hmm. I mean, obviously, if you have three, just to take it simply, you know, if you have four rows of lines, then the load inside the ribs is going to be less than if you have three rows of lines or two rows of lines, because there's just a bigger distance between the lines. And so the structure has to do a lot more to keep the glider in shape. And that's talking on a simple level, you know, just in the number of lines. But obviously, the design is much more complicated than that and includes the diagonal ribs. And the orientation of the cloth within the ribs and within the diagonal ribs and on the top sail. So it's a whole package. And it makes a huge difference to how the glider ages. Probably more difference than whether it's lightweight cloth or heavyweight cloth.
Wow. Fascinating.
The other thing that's mentioned here by one of the listeners is the loadings on the lines and how it affects the, the trim of the glider. Obviously, you know, in the question, he's completely right, saying that A lines are heavier loaded, C lines are lighter loaded. So the A lines get longer and the C lines either stay the same length or even get shorter. But one thing to point out is that, yes, the technique of stretching your lines to make them long again really is not advisable because they'll simply shrink back again, and they'll shrink back again soon. You're better to actually not stretch the lines and just readjust the lines, even under the light loading that they're under.
And then, well, normally you'd use the standard 5 kilos to measure the lines and then trim the whole glider with the 5 kilo lengths being correct and not overstretching the lines.
Bruce, I've been told, is this just an urban myth or urban legend? I've been told that, you know, when I get a brand new two liner, you know, to not go throw it all around, you know, to not do big wing overs, not to do big spirals, or if I do spirals, you know, make sure they're symmetric, you know, do them one way one day and one day the other, just, you know, to balance things out because things are stretching differently. Is there truth to that?
It's not some, you know, I haven't followed that advice, that's for sure. You know, as soon as I get a glider, I often just do spirals immediately just to load it up and get it more into shape. Because what happens is, you know, when you get a new glider, there is some deformation and it settles in. And what we try and do at BGD is that once the glider is settled in, then the lengths of the lines should be the same as the lengths in the manual. And that's also the same as the lengths of the certification. So what I'm saying is that when you get a new glider, the lines are not the lengths that are in the manual and not the lengths that are certified. They're the pre-certified. Pre-settled in lengths, if you like. So that means the A-lines are shorter.
The glider is probably a little bit faster when it's brand new. And then it will settle in over, say, 30 hours. And then the A-lines will get a bit longer, the C-lines get a bit shorter. And then you'll be settled in to what the glider was like after it was certified because they've also done probably 30 hours of flying by the time it's certified. And also what's in the manual. So those are the check lengths. This is the opposite to what some of the other gliders do. Some brands do. Some brands like to have new line lengths and put the same lengths in the manual. Then when your glider is settled in, they like to force it to try and make it back to the new line lengths again. And to me, this just doesn't make sense. So that's why we don't do it. But I think the brands are kind of split between these two different methods of calculating the line lengths and the check lengths in the manual.
How often should we trim our gliders?
I would say, I mean, we always put a loop on the lighter loaded lines. So that's the stabby line and the C-lines. And I just release that loop after, say, 100 hours of flying.
Oh, you go 100 hours before doing that?
Yeah. Wow. Okay. So 100 hours of flying, release the loop. And then we recommend in a line check every 150 hours. This is in the certification label of every glider.
Okay. Interesting.
But you don't actually have to do a full line check. You can also do what I call a relative line check. So instead of going – if you can't go to a laboratory to do the full laser line check, what you can do is you just take the A1 line and then compare it to the B1 line and compare that to the C1 line. Okay. And normally the difference is maybe three centimeters. You can check it in the manual. It's supposed to be three centimeters. Then you have a look and see whether it is three centimeters. It's very easy to get a quick check on whether your lines are roughly right or not just by doing that.
Just A1, B1, C1?
Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Even if you just check those three lines, that's 80 % – you're 80 % of the way there. Great. Because the number one lines are the most important. They take the most load and that's what defines the trim of the glider the most. And so if you just check in, there's A1, B1, C1 and the relative difference between them because then you don't have the trouble of trying to have exactly the right load. If you just take one line in one hand and one line in the other hand, as long as you have the same load on both, then you can see the difference. It's a kind of auto-compensating system.
That's fascinating. Great. Love it.
Yeah. I'm surprised not more people know about that. I've never heard that. After
you have a system
to teach all instructors worldwide.
Yeah. No, I've never heard that. That's great. What a great one to know.
Yeah. And it's also good just for a quick check if you feel the gliders. Well, the other thing is the way the glider launches is extremely important. As long as your glider launches nice, then you can be 99 % sure that the glider will fly nice.
Hmm. Another one I had in there, yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.
I mean, for my own gliders, I always – if a glider launches without pulling on the A riser, then for sure it flies fine.
Some gliders don't launch very well without pulling the A riser, but all my own gliders always can be launched without pulling on the A riser. So if you can launch without pulling on the A riser, for sure the glider flies fine. You're
talking – you've got some breeze here you're talking about, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So if you can't pull the A riser, you just lean into it. It takes a little bit of skill and timing, but you just lean into it and then move back towards the glider. And if the glider just pops up on its own, then for sure there's no trim problem on that glider. Okay. We have a question here about the EN certification and whether it's really making gliders safer or holding back designers. This is a very difficult question and has very recently been discussed. In an open meeting in Switzerland about six weeks ago, which I attended, and most of the big brands were there, where we were discussing collapse lines and whether collapse lines should be accepted in the ENC class.
I mean, the result of that meeting was positive, and they decided to accept collapse lines in the ENC class. But this is very much relates to this whole question of how certification works. Is holding back design or not holding back design? And I think this kind of relates to what a paraglider is. A paraglider, when I first started flying, it was described to me that a paraglider is a flexible structure so that when everything goes really wrong and the glider goes below the pilot, the glider should collapse. Go back above the pilot and then reinflate and carry on flying.
And this is the basic safety mechanism of paragliders. So they're designed to collapse so that the glider stays above the pilot, basically.
Whereas if you've got a hang glider, for example, hang gliders don't collapse and they tumble instead.
And that's so it's a complete... And so the only thing that keeps a hang glider safe is the pitch stability of the wing. And you have all these design features to help the pitch stability of hang gliders. So that's luff lines and reflex sections. And it's a whole different way of designing and testing gliders. So this question about whether a glider should collapse or not is a fundamental question about the principle of how a paraglider flies and how a paraglider is safe. Do you get what I mean? Totally. So it's a very difficult question. And when you start to talk about collapsible gliders, then you're really talking about something completely different.
And now as gliders get more stiff with more and more plastic in them, then we're getting into a gray area where the gliders are not really paragliders anymore. And if that happens, then I think the only way for us to do that and to go forward from that is to start to design a paraglider like we design a hang glider. So that means you have to design a glider with pitch stability so that it can't tumble. And nobody's even thought about doing that, I think, so far. But it's a logical result of the way things would go if we started to design non-collapsible gliders.
Next question. Next question comes from Taylor. He and some buddies are stationed over. I'm not sure if they're stationed or they're working or what's going on, but they are newer pilots in the kind of 50-hour range who are over in Mongolia and trying to figure out how to get weather resources and what they mean when they find them. So I went to my weather expert, Murevis, who's my supporter in the X-House. He was also at the World Cup in Australia. And I apologize for the sound here a little bit. We were right outside where they were scoring for the World Cup, and there was a lot of traffic at the hotel going back and forth and people in the pool in the background. But Miles will do his magic, and it shouldn't be too bad. But Murevis is definitely one of the preeminent weather people, I think, in the world right now when it comes to flying and assessing weather.
So I asked him this question.
Hi, Taylor. Great question. I understand your need to get out and fly more and how difficult it can be to predict the conditions that are going to allow you to build the airtime you're looking for. I use a variety of different resources in the various places I fly, and I don't know how many of them will be applicable in Mongolia, but I think I have a few that will be helpful for you. Probably it makes sense to start by talking more about the general conditions you're looking for to achieve soaring flight on a paraglider. If you're just starting out, you'll want ideal conditions, and even so, it'll be challenging flying for 250 miles. You'll want to be able to get up to a 50-meter hill to get good enough at thermaling to build the airtime you want.
The only way to do it is to get out and try, though. Generally, there are two sorts of conditions you're going to want, and it depends on how mountainous the terrain is in your area and how much moisture you get. Either you're going to want a high-pressure condition where bridging is in effect, and that's the case if you're in an area that's prone to overdevelopment and storms. If you're not in such an area, then you typically are going to want more post-frontal conditions where a trough or front has moved through and mixed out any inversions and brought a colder air mass, increasing instability. So once you know which of these sorts of conditions you're looking for based on the area you live,
you can start with your basic point forecast, whatever weather resource you have available in your area, to get an idea of what you're looking for. You can get an idea of whether pressure is trending higher or lower, and the most obvious indicator for high-pressure conditions is an increase in temperature and sunny, clear skies. So if you're in a place that's prone to overdevelopment, you're probably going to be looking for the time when the temperature peaks and there are no forecasts for clouds as the day that you want to take off to get out to the hill and hone your thermal-learning skills. If, however, you live in an area where overdevelopment is very rare, then it's much more likely you need the instability in order to give you enough energy in the air mass
to do the thermal-learning you want to practice. In this case, watch for increasing cloudiness and a decrease in temperature in the coming days. In the northern hemisphere, you'll typically see the winds shift to a southerly direction ahead of a cold front or trough. As the trough passes, there'll be a significant increase in cloudiness, you may get rain, and the winds will probably increase as well. Then they'll switch to a northerly direction immediately after the passage of the trough or front. It's going to depend a lot on your specific location, exactly which day after the passage of that front you want to go flying. Typically, I would say in the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere, it's likely to be one or two days after the passage of a front. However, if your ground doesn't hold a lot of moisture,
maybe it's even the day of the front when the wind passes early enough in the day. The main key here is how much wind are you going to find on the backside of the trough, and how long will it take for the sun to cook the moisture out of the ground so that not all of its energy is going into evaporating moisture. I can't give you an answer for your location in Mongolia, but look at one to two days as the most common answer there. Let's talk a little bit about the models and tools available to understand what weather you have and what you have approaching. The National Weather Service of the United States runs a global forecast system model, GFS, and there are a variety of ways to view that information. A lot of paraglider pilots use Chris Galley's XCSkies tool.
It's a subscription service, but it provides a really good way to visualize the GFS data. GFS is not particularly reliable, detailed. It uses a large grid size, so it's very much an approximation, but it does cover the entire globe. So it's one of the most general tools available. Another global model that a lot of times is outperforming the GFS these days is the European model, the ECMWF. The only source that I'm aware of for viewing ECMWF data without outrageous subscription fees is Windy,
which is available freely in the web browser. It also provides a lot of different ways to visualize this data, and it's worth spending some time playing with it, digging around in the user interface, reading help documents and tutorials to understand exactly how you can pick apart the data that's available through Windy. Those tools are probably your best options worldwide for getting a handle on what you have approaching in terms of good paragliding conditions. Beyond that, I have a folder of bookmarks for each location I visit, and the local resources vary drastically in availability and quality. I don't know if there are any soundings being produced
in Northern Asia, in Mongolia. I don't know if there are any local high resolution models. If so, reach out to anyone you know in your community who might have those pieces of information and find links to view the data.
I also asked Max a question when we were in Argentina that hadn't come through from the listeners, but it's come through many times in the past. When is a pilot ready to step up to a pod harness from a seat harness and why? And what are the advantages, disadvantages, and risks inherent to do it?
So when it's time to fly with a pod. Actually, in a pilot life,
you have to change your flight plan. You have to change your flight position.
There is quite interesting things,
which is the role inertia,
the mechanical inertia of the pilot. When you're a beginner, you need something really stable. So you start with a stable glider, a stable harness, and your flight position,
sitting really upright in a pride position, makes the pilot, the physical system, really stable on the roll inertia,
which goes in the right direction because it dampens all the movement coming from the glider, coming from the harness. And also, when you are a beginner, your field of vision is located to the ground. So by having this right position, your field of vision is in front of you, and below you, you can see exactly where is the landing, where to go, how you built your landing, blah, blah. The more you fly, the more your field of vision has to go higher. When you start thermaling, you still need some indication from the ground, where the thermal can start,
a few indications, but more and more you need to watch the sky, where are the clouds, where to find the thermal, how are the clouds, how are the pilots surrounding you, and naturally you will have to go in a more reclined position. And the more you go reclined, the less your roll inertia will be. And by doing this, so you're changing your point of view, you're not watching the ground, you start having more information coming from the sky,
and you're lowering your roll inertia, and just by doing this, without having changed anything in your flying gear, you start becoming more sensible, because all the movement coming from the glider will be transmitted more precisely, you will feel more, you will get more information from your glider, from the same glider actually. And the more performance, the more skilled the pilot is, the more he will go in a prone position. And for top pilot, cross country pilot, competition pilot, we all fly in a prone position, because the information we need are up in the sky.
We need to see the clouds, we need to see the birds, sometimes we need to watch the ground, and also something really important, you need to see the glider. Because the more you fly in a high level, the more your glider is demanding, and by flying in a prone position, you always have your glider somewhere at the border you feel a vision. And all the movement coming from the glider, you have a visual indication, maybe not conscious, but it helps for understanding what's happening with the glider, how it starts moving, so you see it moving before you feel the information, and you get more precise in your action.
So this change of position is quite natural actually, and it's natural, and compulsory somehow. You have to go, the more you fly in a performant way, the more you have to go prone position.
And in addition, by changing this position, you also gain some performance, because your aerodynamic shape gets better, the front area is lowered, so you have less drag, you make less drag, and you gain in performance. So, when is it time to start flying with a pod?
There is no precise answer, but I would say it's when it's time to do it. When you start making cross country, when you start improving your skills, when you start also flying for a long time, because you can have the same advantage in terms of sensitivity, in terms of weight shift ability, without a pod, just by flying with the foot stirrup in a prone position. But then when you start flying for a long time, the pod has a huge advantage in terms of warmth.
It's much more comfortable to fly with a pod, because you don't have to wear a flying suit, in which you are sweating at the take-off, then you're wet, when you reach a cloud base, you're cold. With the pod, you don't have this trouble, it protects you from the airflow, it's a way better insulation than any flying suit.
And same,
by saving this energy, you increase your safety, because saving energy, means taking better decisions, it may avoid you to make a wrong decision, a bad choice, going in a place you did not identify as being dangerous or whatever. So everything is linked somehow.
And of course, life is never simple. When you get something, you always have to pay back something. And the pod has a disadvantage in terms of safety,
because it's lowering your drag in straight flight, but it's increasing the drag when the airflow comes from the side. Obviously, this huge surface is really increased when you see it from the side. And when does the airflow come from the side? It's when you get into trouble, when you start rotating.
And when do you rotate? The more you rotate, the faster you rotate, the more drag you create with the pod. It's when you do 360, deep spiral, then you control the thing, so it may not be a problem. But obviously, it's when you get a collapse and start rotating because of the collapse. In that case, having a pod may increase the risk of twist, because you'll rather start turning and the drag will be reduced. So, created by the pod prevent you from following your glider. So, flying with a pod means in case of trouble, you have to change your position really quickly. You go upright position, bend your legs, try to minimize this size shape, this size drag, for avoiding twist.
Because the twist might be one of the most delicate, the most tricky things to manage when you get a collapse. All your sensations are inverted, your visual is inverted, and it's really complex to control a glider when you twist it. And regarding the pod, and what I just said before, with the risk of twist, that's also a reason why we are now, increasing dramatically the size of the rear fairing. It's not only for aerodynamic, obviously it helps, but this fairing will also compensate the front side area.
And by compensating this, by making them equal, somehow you improve the ability of the harness to follow the flow and go with your glider when it's needed. And it's minimizing the risk of twist.
So Max, on that point,
there's been this huge advancement in super lightweight harnesses to match with the X-Alps and all these hike and fly races. And I know Cortel's on the cutting edge of that. What are we giving up when we give up seat boards and fairings? And what are we giving up when we go to, uber lightweight gear? Because there seems to be a huge demand for this kind of equipment. But I'm assuming there's a huge compromise there in safety and in performance.
There is a confusion that people make quite often. Super light harness, pod harness, hammock harnesses.
And there are mainly two different geometry. There's a pure hammock. A pure hammock has almost no dampening system. And in that case, it's really unstable on the roll axis. And they're really tiring to fly. And that's the geometry we didn't like for the beginning. And we developed our own geometry with the Colibri, which is split like a harness. It has almost any mountain harness, ultralight mountain harness, seated harness. And that geometry makes a pretty big, has a naturally a pretty big dampening system.
And it's quite stable. And it really helps for controlling demanding glider.
So they are not, it's an ultralight,
harness without a seatbelt is not necessarily
really dynamic and lively on the roll axis. It can be stable and even quite stable. It's just a matter of parameter to adjust. But it's possible to make a harness really, really stable, even with such a,
even without a seatbelt, I mean. But in any case, you're losing something which is precision, because a seatbelt harness, when you apply your weight for weight shifting, when you apply a force, the force is transmitted directly by the plate, which is rigid. And with this harnesses, with this seatless harness, it's flesh. Flesh which is transmitting the force. And you're not applying force on a rigid plate on weight shifting. You're not applying force on a straight webbing. You are just rolling into your harness and this is somehow a lack of precision for weight shifting.
And there is another thing, it's the independence of the two legs.
With a plate, with a seat plate harness, when something is happening on the right side, it's transmitted equally, equally, by the plate to your whole body. With this harness, so her arm work obviously it's pretty much the same, but without the dampening system, it makes it really dynamic. And with a split leg harness, like the Colibri, then your two legs are moving independently. And that might be a bit disturbing at the beginning.
With performance glider, we are not used to feel these two half glider so much. So independently. And it's a matter of time before you really get used to it. And that's for the difference in behaviour in flight. But for sure, there are also some other things you're giving up when flying, when deciding to fly with such a harness. In terms of performance, still,
there is a very simple test to make. You sit in your harness, you go and fly, and you just bend one leg to catch your speed bar. And you will see your hanging point moving. The moment you bend your leg, the hanging point on the same side is going up. When you start pushing, it's going down. When you're pumping for controlling the glider, your two hanging points are moving up and down following your movement. And which leads in loss of energy for your glider. You start making your glider moving, and you lose.
Whatever you do, you lose in terms of performance. With a pure competition harness, a huge one, rigid, when you move, inside your harness, nothing moves. Because it's much more rigid. And this really light harness, they are really soft. They have no rigidity. And all your movements are transmitted to the glider, make it move, and make you lose, make it lose a few in terms of performance. There is obviously another loss. It's the durability.
Light gear can't be as durable as a really heavy one. It's physically impossible. We know that a lot of people are asking for lighter and lighter ones, but durable. This is just impossible.
And you also lose in terms of money, because they are really costly.
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too. Yeah, check this one out too. check this one out too. Yeah, check this one out too. Yeah, check this one out too. check this one out too. Yeah, check this one out too. Yeah, check this one out too. Yeah, check this one out too. Yeah, check this one out too. Thanks for listening.
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So I hope you dig that. You can support us. If you go to cloudbasemayhem.com, you can find the places to support. You can do it through patreon.com forward slash cloudbasemayhem. If you want a recurring subscription, you can also do that directly through the website. We've tried to make it really easy. And that will give you access to all the bonus material. A little video cast that we do and extra little nuggets that we find in conversations that don't make it into the main show, but we feel like you should hear. We don't put any of that behind a paywall. If you can't afford to support us, then just let me know and I'll set you up with an account. Of course, that'll be lifetime. And hopefully you'll be in a position someday to be able to support us. But you'll find all that on the website. All of you. All of you. All of you who have supported us or even joined our newsletter or bought cloud based mayhem merchandise, T-shirts or hats or anything.
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Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you.