Hi there everybody, welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. I've got a great show for you today with my friend Stephan Bernard, a former Air Force fighter pilot in Germany, and has just recently, in the last couple of years, gotten super into comps, and as of last check, is already in the top 15 in the world. So, he has taken how he learned how to fly fighter jets into the world of paragliding, and you're going to find it super valuable and informative and inspiring. Before we get to that, I just want to again mention that these bonus shows that we're putting out, we just put out another one last week, that was the third installment of the Red Bull X-Alps interviews that I did, so I interviewed the athletes right after the race.
This third one has Maxime Pinot, Willie Cannell, Marco Hergetic, I never know how to say his last name, even though we're good friends, and others, including myself, and I think you're going to find these really fun. If you're having trouble getting these bonus episodes, reach out to me, just go through the website, send me an email. You do not have to be a financial supporter of the show. Again, we don't put anything behind a paywall, that's how it's set up, but if you just let me know that you can't support the show financially, totally fine, and I will set you up with a lifetime account. And also, if you've had any contact with us in any way over the years, whether that be just an email, or you're on our newsletter, or you support us through Patreon. Or the website, or just a one-time donation through PayPal, or Revolut, or Venmo, or however you've supported us in the past, you should be set up with an account.
So, most of those I have to do manually, and certainly I missed some, so if I've missed you, let me know. And if you can't support us, let me know. I'll set you up, hopefully sometime in the future, you can. So, yeah, and once you've gone through that process, those bonus episodes will show up in your feed, just like our normal shows do. So, you just have to set up. Subscribe using whatever podcast app you use, and it'll come into your feed just like our normal ones will. If you're having any trouble with that, please let me know, and we'll straighten you out. Yeah, this show, Stefan. I first met Stefan a few years ago down in Columbia. He and I had a pretty good race at the British Open, and this year he's been on a great run. He won the Columbian Open, did great again at the British Open down in Rolaneo.
He was top 30. He was top 30 in the Superfinal, I think, last year. He has won TAS on the PWC. He's just become really good, really fast, and he credits a lot of that to the training he got in the Air Force. And so we learned a little bit about his history, how he was pretty uninspired by his first few lessons, and kind of the real push on passive safety rather than making pilots safe, and just the differences that he saw really coming up through the very professional commercial side of aviation, and also. The military side and what he was being taught, and also kind of the peer group, and some of the early disappointments, and then now where he's come to now with his own flying. And he's been able to take a lot of those lessons that he learned in the Air Force directly to flying, and I think you're going to find pretty valuable.
Stefan is also a guide and instructor for Escape XC, Jocky Sanderson company, and he's been doing some pretty fun stuff in opposite sides of the world, taking people flying. And he's been doing some pretty cool things in the air force. And he's been doing some pretty cool things in the air force. So please enjoy this great talk, my friend, Stefan Bernhard.
Stefan,
what a joy to get you on the show. Thank you so much for your time. And I guess we all have a little bit more time these days for this kind of thing. But I understand you guys are getting back to the air as we are here, which is exciting. We'll see how that all works out. But I thought a cool place for us to start, you've got a long history in aviation, not just free flight, but you've got a whole bunch of years in the Air Force, and then now you're flying for Medjet, which is kind of cool, and we'll talk about all that. But I understand you got into flying, specifically paragliding, before your Air Force days, and then you drifted away from it for a long time. So I thought we'd go back to the very beginning, kind of how you learned, and it sounded like it wasn't super encouraging.
Yeah, I mean, where do I start? It's quite difficult. I mean, as you imagine, as a professional pilot, I was always fascinated by flying. As a little kid, I built model airplanes, and the village I grew up, we had little slopes, so every three hours I didn't fly. I was dreaming of flying.
So actually, my first contact with paragliding, hang gliding, was when I just started the Air Force. I mean, finally after school, I applied for all this, got into the Air Force training, and just before my flight training would have started, I was in officer school near Munich, and a friend of mine decided, let's go and learn hang gliding. That was the first contact I had. So actually, some quite interesting days. It was in the mid-80s.
Ah, way back.
Yeah, way back. But the thing was, if we would have made it, they would have sent us. They would have sent us right away to the States for one to two years to our training. So we went to that course, long story short, and it was fascinating. I mean, flying like a bird, we had these little heels running down with this seat harness initially, and just doing the first hops on hang gliders, not doing big flights. And then it came to a sudden stop because I had a little motorbike, and my friend on the back on one of these days going for training again, basically, crashed us, and he broke his wrist, and that was basically the end of this course.
So Guido, I'm sorry, still after all this years, a very good friend of mine. So he forgave you, I guess. Yeah, maybe it's for the better. I don't know if he would have survived that in these days.
Right, right.
Anyways, that was my first contact, and well, I made it through the Air Force training, got sent to pilot training. I always said, when I come back to Germany, I definitely want to continue that because it was like a dream. I mean, always watching my model airplanes and now sitting yourself in one of these flying machines and feeling this weightless feeling, leaving the ground and just soaring. It was great, amazing. So, well, after the States came back and was stationed in way northern Germany, no mountains, no nothing. And then the intense world came. And then the intense world of being a fighter fighter started. So time was limited. And guess what? I bought a surfboard because the coast was 10 k's away.
And hang gliding basically drifted away until in the 90s, I guess it was. My wife and these times, we had two small kids. I was figuring out doing something together in this environment, right? I think we have a little daughter right now. Yeah. And as you know, having a job. Yeah. Even a fighter pilot is a job. Wife, kids, we build the house. Time is limited. And I thought about paragliding. There was something a friend of mine mentioned that might be something we can do where I can combine everything. You put it in the trunk, go on family vacations, you hike up somewhere, do a little bit of flying. So we both, my wife and I started that course with this goal on the horizon.
And for me then, basically getting into that simple flying again. Flying mountains, fascinating. Because I also climbed in these days and mountains in general really fascinated me. So it looked really promising. So off we go. I went, signed up for a school in Germany. And well, to be honest, in the 90s, I wasn't too much impressed by the way it was approached. At least in the flight school I was training in. Because of the background I had from the Air Force, which is, well, you can imagine really professional training. You have syllabus, you have goals, you have approaches.
And it's really amazing how they get you to a level within a year which you would not expect by just a good training setup.
And I expected something similar from the paragliding world. Not in this complexity. But well, you get there. You go there. They have a school syllabus. We had to do 40 flights. And there's academic programs. So the whole framework is there. But basically, more or less, I just did these 40 flights. And at the end, I made my test, my checkride. And here you go and you have a license. And I didn't have the feeling that I really know a lot about flying.
So they handed you a license. And you're like, I'm not sure I can do it. It's kind of like when you have a baby at the hospital and they let you go home. And you're like, wait a minute, where's the operating manual for
this thing? Exactly. Here you go. And you say, where's the manual? Is there a manual? There's no manual.
I'm just going to figure this out. Are you crazy?
Yeah. I mean, in these days, I was around about 30 or something like this. And I mean, I was a full hot shot fighter pilot in these days. Flying MiG-29s. I was flying this Russian airplane in Germany. And so I was really full on. And then I come to this paragliding world. And I thought, it's not possible. Flying was invented 100 years ago. And these guys here try everything from scratch again, right? Even safe plane pilots, they had a lot of good lessons learned in the last 60, 70, 80 years. But it was a bit strange. And to be honest, well, I drifted a little bit negative to this world. Because A, I completely expected different people there. Like something like I found in the mountains.
Normally you have, how do you say this? Low profile guys. You get judged by what you climb. There's not, how can you say that?
Yeah, yeah. In these days. There's a lot of humility.
I call them, might sound a bit harsh. I don't want to really blame people. But a little bit of a wannabe world, right? It's like, it had the label of extreme sport. And you saw a lot of people showing up basically. It's like, well, there's an easy access to extreme sports. Right. But not a lot of people were extreme. And the way they were treated in that flight training, I think, was not for the benefits. It's more that psychological game. And that's what I didn't like. And even I, I mean, you didn't get a lot of answers. You had so many questions.
And I remember days. It's perfect weather. You look at the sky. You have an aviation background. And the guy says, oh, guys, last flight, two o 'clock. The phone comes through. And you look at the phone. Fuck, we have no wind here. Stable high. Can't be. No, no, no. Phone comes through. So we get all these questions. Every takeover was standing up there. And it's like, is this safe now? You didn't just get the tools you needed to make a good decision. And I think that's the main thing for pilots. Training to make own good decisions. And long after that, I just realized that it more or less was this time to stop to have a beer in the beer garden at two o 'clock. And then the phone was coming every day.
You know what I'm saying?
For me, that's a little example how this world was in these days. And I think I don't know it too much. I think it developed dramatically. They have really good people now on the DHV. And they have good programs. And the instructors are trained differently. And I hear a lot of good feedback from some schools here nowadays. But in these days, if I look at myself, I struggled with that a long time. Because, for example, in the Air Force, you're the same. You're a young guy. You step out. You say, hey, welcome. You made selection. Here's the class. They give you the training, the academics, all you need to know. And then they take you out flying every day. And in the beginning, you need, I think, a little bit of training. Because it's very, very important. No matter what you do or fly, you need a calibration of your mind.
Is this safe? Is it unsafe? Is it on the line? Because as a beginner, you don't have a clue. You don't know if these turbulences are too strong or too soft. Is it handlebar or not? Unless you try. But in our game of paragliding, well, you don't want to try everything yourself the first time alone up in the air. Because you cannot say stop.
And I had a lot of experience. I had a lot of learning myself to do it, to find out what are limits, where is it safe or where is it unsafe.
And again, maybe an Air Force example, they teach you aerobatics right from the beginning. And the first flights are always, they show you the red line. This is a stall form. They spin you and they show you how to get out. And these are the first flights before you do even the normal training. Just to show you where the boundary is, to calibrate your mind, that you develop a feeling. Well, I think I have to watch out now. This sound, this speed, this feeling on the stick. Well, I think we're approaching the limit. I have to be careful now. And this is what I really missed in paragliding in the beginning.
And it's a different concept. If you look at it, and a couple of years later when I started again, it was a big topic for me. We talked to a lot of people. Now I just let it go. I think that sometimes we do a little bit of a wrong approach. Because at least here in Germany, I think we stress too much the passive safety. I know the background. It is a approach to flying. We make the environment safe and the glider safe and everything safe so the people don't get hurt. But I believe in a little bit more different approach. I think you have to make the pilot safe.
It's surprising. This has come up quite a bit lately. Alex Roby was the first one to really voice that concern about if you really stress the pilot safety, you take away the autonomy of the pilot. And the desire to, you know, you're aviating in a slow glider that can collapse. You got to take responsibility for this. There's only so much.
There's only so much
we could put on passive safety. And if we offload it, if we offload the responsibility to passive safety, we never really become autonomous pilots. Manu really brought that up. I'm not familiar with it, but it sounds like the APPI system, the Swiss system, handles this pretty well. They put a lot of emphasis on SIV. And, you know, like SIV in the States is totally elective. And you have to really chase it. It's not part of any of the ratings we get. And in fact, you know, in a sense, USHPA looks at it negatively, like it's a potential way to get hurt. And so they don't push it. And it's just the total opposite of what we need to be doing.
I believe. I completely agree with that. Completely, Gavin. Because this is how I saw it coming fresh from this. Well, extreme fighter pilot world, which was my normal world to that. Because I think it's even more important in a non-professional world where you do not fly every day, train every day, and be current every day to go, I don't know, to combat or something like this. And I have so many examples. I mean, especially in Germany. I don't know how in the States people are always talking about the glider classification. So you say, what do you fly at this? What is that? There's a high B, a low B, a mid B. And then you fly the glider and say, what's the difference between that? And in the beginning, I don't know.
I wouldn't classify it like this. I did a lot of motorbiking, too. So after the air, we went two or three years to the racetrack for fun and stuff like this. In the motorbike world, which is also a dangerous world, nobody is classifying the motorbikes and would make the bike responsible, right? Sure. Everybody can buy a 200-horsepower motorbike, and the approach is more, well, train it, be careful, and handle it. And nobody, that is my example for gliders when I oversee their training, you know, all this passive safety, let it fly, hands up, let it fly. Now, imagine you're on the motorbike, and your knee is on the ground, and your front wheel starts drifting. Nobody would tell you, take the hands off the handlebar and let it recover, right?
That's insane. So stuff like this, it would be the opposite. You have to know what the line is and then what you do when it happens. And basically, the training, especially in the 90s, was way too much focused in Germany on let the glider do the job. And I think that has a bigger implication because if you learn it like this, especially if you're somebody who might be just a normal person, not the most talented or whatever, it gives you the wrong feedback. Because the gliders were designed to more or less dampen out all the inputs. So how will you get the feedback of your own actions if the glider is not translating this to a motion, movement, or reaction? I mean, I saw people taking off in Greifenburg on training with an A glider, and they launched a glider, they started running like a sprinter, moving arms up and down, up and down.
You look at the glider on top, he does the job. He just ignores the input of the glider. It takes him in the air. So my approach is more, why not build a glider that doesn't let you take off if you do that, right? If you do that, you should not be able to fly or stall or whatever. So you never get the feedback that you do something wrong.
Dumbing it down too much.
Yeah, definitely. And this was the training. Like, say, with the SIVs, you said, in these days, I was expecting something like this in my training, like the Swiss do, too, I think. And now they do it. But definitely not in the 90s. And I said, hey, can I fly a stall? And they would say, a stall? Are you crazy? Not even a stall. I mean, I was flying. I said, well, it's a glider. I'm vulnerable. Might be weather coming up. How do I get down? It's not an airplane where I can just push the stick forward and this plane goes down, put the speed brakes out and land. The only thing they taught were the big ears. But why not teaching me the spiral? Because this is the most effective way to do it. No, no, no. Are you crazy? That's too dangerous.
And I think completely the opposite. I need these tools and I need to master it and I need to train and learn it with an instructor who can show me and tell me what I do right and wrong and where it's dangerous before I have to train it myself alone with low hours somewhere because I want to learn it. And
is that why, Stefan, is that why you left the sport? Because you stopped flying for a dozen years or 15 years or something, right?
Yeah. It's like I had some crazy first two years. I mean, A of this. I was younger. I expected something different. I had not much time. So basically after my training, I immediately decided this is not my peer group. This kind of environment. This is not. This is this. I think Jockey named that once Groundhog Day. And that nailed it right to the point. And I was sitting in Bassano on the first year's family vacation. So I wanted to fly. And it's a beautiful day. A little bit from the left. And then it's like 20 guys sitting there. Only a few girls. Everybody shades on. Nobody's saying hi when you come to the takeoff.
Everybody's looking really, really cool. And every time somebody took off, there were comments like. I don't know. Like in the crowd of birds. Right. Oh, yeah. Shouldn't take off. Oh, that was dangerous. Oh, did you see? Oh, mom, not with this wind. So is it great? And it was going on and on and on and on like this. And I said, dude, are you having fun? Do you really want to do this? It's your sport.
So pretty soon I decided, well, it's not what I found in mountaineering, skiing or motorbike world. So where is it? More like, hey, nice. Where are you from? Let's fly together. What do you think? And make some realistic judgments and then, well, give the other some respect to make their own decisions. I mean, I have so many of these examples from the beginning. I remember. Well, just tell you, my approach then was like, OK, I want to get away from this crowd. So I got this great book from Oliver Gune. Rest in peace. I met him in my pilot training. He wrote a book like the 100 most beautiful flying sites in the Alps or something like this.
I think it's quite now. And I said, well, let's take these 100 takeoffs off. I think I made 30 or 40 in the first two years. And my approach was only fly once at everything and then move on and go somewhere else and try it. But I, for example, what I just explained in Bassano, I had a happening that was on Colvo Della in the Dolomites. It was the same.
I think that was in the day of my when I did my check, right? It was in the neighbor valley. And then I just moved on. That was my first on flight. There was a guy obviously very nervous. It's it was the the South takeoff just in front of the gondola there. I think it's very famous now in the autumn. Hundreds of people go there. It was crowded. A lot of people there. Again, the same crowd. Crowds are crowd mostly. But it was crowded. Everybody watching, not taking off themselves. Everybody looking cool again. Bit of a strong wind, but quite nice. I mean, doable. Have to be on your reverse launches and stuff like this. And so this elderly guy coming there wants to fly. Obviously pretty nervous to see. Nobody really helped him to open the glider.
Only one guy got up and like 30 others just watching. No comments. And then he messed up his takeoff. He twisted out the wrong way. So he got dragged the next push and tumbled over. But nothing happened. So I think I was the only one who jumped off basically and helped him. Everybody else comes here. What a what an idiot turned around the wrong way. Blah, blah, blah. How could you take off here like this? Blah, blah, blah. This time. Come on. So the guy was there and it was shaky and he was sweating and saying, hey, come on. Not so bad. Calm down. You know what happened? It's like, I don't know. And I got dragged. Turned the wrong way. So and he was, ah, do it again. So come on, let's sit a minute. I want to talk. So and I calmed him down.
Then I had him to do it often and talked a little bit with him. And I was a beginner, you know. Right.
But at the end, he was calm again. And he said, I thank you so much. Appreciate that. Because what I needed that basically then he took off and he flew away and had a nice flight. So. But again, I. I. I started to have this strong disconnection again with these people who were there that day. It's like, I don't want to be like that. It's not my crowd. That's what I meant. And this is why I tried to move away from it. So I flew for myself a bit with a then a big lighter and combined it with family vacations and stuff like this. And I think the only thing I had was that I didn't have a peer group. My friends were not flying. And I was living in an area where there's no flying sites for, I think, 800 case around in northern Germany.
So then at the end, they died basically. And then we moved to the Netherlands on an assignment and it just drifted away. And I said, well, that's not what I thought about. But still reading all these stories about guys like you doing this crazy mountain stuff and so well, it must be out there somewhere, but probably not where I have been the last two years. I didn't find it there. So
back to flying back to the Air Force and that kept you occupied. Obviously, your kids kept you occupied and it just kind of remained in the back of your head.
Exactly. Yeah. So I never sold equipment. I still had it. I mean, finally, then after when I started again, finding my old glider in the basement after 15 years, I sold it for a hundred bucks for some ground handling. And what was... I still dreamt of it. And I had a good peer group when I did some assignment to the Air Force and finally ended up in Cologne where I live right now.
Joining up with some old friends from the Air Force again. And I think that's my main peer group. Like four or five guys here. We did all the same. We're climbing, mountain biking, skiing, ski mountaineering, you name it, surfing, everything the same. It's like this connection you had from the Air Force, which can be really strong. And nobody was paragliding or say like this. Two of them were, but stopped to because of different reasons.
And finally, one of my best friends here, Andy, probably listens to the podcast later, say hi.
He's flying for Lufthansa and he also always tends to paragliding. Hey, man, you have to do a license. Let's do it. And still having this hike and fly, mountaineering stuff in our mind, climbing up, flying down, going light and all this. And believe it or not, after the financial crisis, basically my company had a hit. I got a sabbatical year and the kind of a job share program was pretty nice. And Andy had time because it was changing fleets. So he did his license on paragliding. And that was the initial kick for me. Yeah. And when I got myeren
And then how can you kind of encapsulate since then, you know, kind of compact it together in terms of where you, you know, how have you approached when you came back to it? How did you approach your training in a different way than when you did it back in the 90s? How did you kind of go from there and to being a comp pilot now?
Well, I mean, with all this experience I was talking before, I didn't want to go on this side of the sport. And I was really happy to fly with Andy. And basically that was, we did a little tour de Mont Blanc. I could fly, but we used huts for that one. And flew Barcelona and just getting back into this. And then he had to work and I had a whole year off. So at that one point I made a decision that, well, why not designate this year now to do some sort of training? And more or less I put myself on a little roadmap for what I wanted to do. For example, I never did an SID until then and stuff like this. So I said, well, autodidact is a little bit difficult in the sport because if you mess it up, you might hurt yourself.
So I was looking for training. So the first thing I did, basically, obviously, I booked an SID. Try finally to nail this with stalls and stuff like this. I looked into a second SID. This is actually where I met Jocky in Annecy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's really great. And I looked around on the internet for XC courses because I just wanted to do a bit further flight, not only the top, the bottoms. I did before more or less with some small 20, 30 case flights. And I found only one in Austria these days. And I went to that one. So the thing is, I more or less wrote myself a list of what I wanted to do. It's like more the episode.
First, I have to know what is the limit of the glider. So SRVs. Handling aerodynamic envelope of the thing. There's some major differences to airplanes. Like we don't have a rigid wing. We don't like negative AOAs.
Collapses, stuff like this. And stalls. And then basically building on these just mechanical flying skills to know your glider. Going to the next step, basically, how to use thermals, environment, et cetera. And for this. I just went on an XC course. Not that I learned so much there. But I realized very quickly. And this is the red line through all this. This is mainly a mental game. Because I think the paraglider in general is the easiest tool you can fly with. It's the only airplane I can say when you don't do anything, it flies straight and doesn't crash you. So actually you don't have to do anything in still air.
So. And the skills to manage. It is a normal glider in normal conditions. Not extreme. You can learn this. Almost everybody can learn this. It's more about the mental game in your head. Am I on top of it? Am I scared? Am I anxious? And the decision making. And this is what I had to learn. The weather. We are so vulnerable on this thing. And this point of no return. Once you're up there a thousand meters above the ground, there's no way to get down now. So the decision making. That was the main thing.
Did you have any questions? Did your training and did your flying in the Air Force, do you feel like that really impacted how you approached kind of relearning flying? Were there lessons you'd learned in terms of approach to risk or the mental game that you were able to bring across that might be new to those of us who haven't flown airplanes?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, we could talk a little bit about comms. I think in comms even more. I think in comms even more than in the initial how I approached flying. In the initial part when I restarted, it was more have it a bit structured. It's like a checklist. You want to know tick mark and SRV, tick mark there. You want to do a 50K flight. How you approach this. Get the knowledge straight. Read about weather and stuff like this and the decision making. And then later, definitely. But in the Air Force, basically, I learned there that my own judgment sometimes is wrong. There's a lot of studies in all this.
You might know this is 10,000 hours people say or intuition versus rational decision making and all this can be quite complex. But all that say, we are all really emotional or listening to our feelings. But if you are a brand new beginner, like even a small kid in a dangerous area, you cannot know if it's dangerous or not. So fear is not a good advisor in these scenarios. It always puts you on the very, very safe side. Sometimes, most times, irrational fear.
I mean,
same sometimes with climbing. You can train this too. If you're safe on the rope, why not try to move? If you fall, you're hanging the rope. That's fine. But still, you feel that fear to do it and the anguish. Then you have to say, well, everything is safe. Let's try it. So in this paragliding world, I think it's very important. Yeah. What I say, A, I need to find where is the limit where it's getting dangerous but in a manner to be on the safe side because the worst thing in paragliding, I think, is that you scare yourself too much. If you have a very close call, if you have a gross misjudgment, if you hurt yourself, if you have an accident or something like this, I think that can throw you back a big time.
Not many people can handle that very well because it's very deeply inside of you. You lose trust and stuff like this. But how do you approach it now? That was my analysis in these times because the whole official paragliding world is always talking about, oh, it's too dangerous. The fern is coming. The glider is too big for you. There's so many examples of this. So how do you approach it? For example, how I tackle this, I was flying on this Swift, which was a B in this time. Before that, I was flying a A glider. Before I stopped flying, I was flying a B. And everybody says, oh, go slowly. You have to change. Blah, blah, blah. I think you have to look at the individual.
That is in general true. But then also for yourself, you can see, well, some people are really talented. You get people who start this sport and are really, really good after two years already. And others take 20 years and don't progress much.
So I said, I want to fly. I want to be a competitive glider because I was doing some smaller comps too. I did all my homework, like my SID is ground handling on my small wing. And I got to that feeling it's holding me back. So I bought the used and poor D wing. And everybody was saying, fuck, that's not good. You should fly C wing first, good distances. And then it's like, well, in general, they were right. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to encourage people to go and throw away your A glider. And go to a two liner right away. But the way, and this was the approach you asked for. A, I bought a used one because I didn't know myself that I'm able to fly it. I left that question open. It's like, well, everything, I'm not the most untalented.
I did flying my whole year. I know I approach things. It's a certified glider. So the glider itself is not a prototype. Everything tells me I should be able to learn and handle that one. So I put myself in a safe environment. A, I bought a used one. So if I can't handle it, I could set it with not a big loss. B, I bought it in the wintertime. So I just went up and generally tap it on really still days, basically from ski slopes. And did normal glide flights with that. And just played with it. It's like left, right, small wing overs. And then do a little spiral. Oh, yeah, yeah. Glide's different. So that's what I mean with a build up approach. That's an air force approach. A build up approach. Do it step by step by step. And once I was comfortable. I took it to competitions, basically.
And then you push it more and more and stuff like this. And maybe one add to that. It's a very good example even in my mind. With that background and all this thinking I did, I remember one of these winter days. Taking off with my Mantra M4. And it was a little bit wind up there. Nothing. Everything completely safe. Just not very still there. So the glider was moving a bit. But in my mind, the mind game was, Oh, it's a D glider. It's a hot ship. And I never flew this before. And I watched myself just like doing all this left, right and the brakes here a bit. Two centimeters here. And after a minute, I say, What are you doing? And I just forced myself to keep your hands still and watch the wing. And nothing changed.
And it was only this mind game. It's like there was nothing going on. It's just my mind game telling me I'm on the headship. And I have to control it. I have to control it. And I took a deep breath. And that was completely gone. And this is what I call a mind game. This is kind of this build up approach, which you have to do. And for me, that was I identified this as the biggest problem to get out of this world where I trained and learned mentally and to approach it in a healthy, safe, but rational way how to progress. That's what I tried to put on the line.
And you pretty quickly got wrapped up in kind of the comp scene. I understand. You felt like that the comp scene just pulled you in. And I mean, I think this year, you know, you've had some great results. You're now 15th in the world. So that's pretty meteor. That's fast. That's a quick, you know, going from 2012, you know, basically just learning really a new to to be in 15th in the world. What do you credit that to? What has been your approach? How have you approached progression? And training?
Yeah, I think that started in that year, 2012.
Because from the mindset where I wanted to go, because initially, like I said, it was more the mountaineering side. But now at this time and this whole year off and what I did in the same year when I well, I did the S.A.V. with this swift port that mantra. And then I did a second S.A.V. Because again, the effort was a process. Now I have a hardship. I need to do an S.A.V. And I believe that. And this is where I signed up for Jocky Sanderson S.A.V. and NSE Escape Adventures. And I think Jockey, if you listen to that, thank you so much. I think you're really, really without you, I would not have pushed that to the limits or not to the limits to the to the place I'm right now. I think, you know, Jockey. I know Jockey well.
He's awesome.
He's an awesome guy. And he had this opposite attitude. The attitude I always was looking for, looking into the positive side of this sport. It's joy. It's not about getting scared and stuff like this. We do that to just have fun, enjoy flying with each other. And it was such a great positive motivation for me to meet him there and to do his S.A.V. course with him. So he helped me basically mastering this M4. And we do a little bit of a XC in NSE. And then he said, well, I think was was it him? I think him or did I sign up myself? He said, why don't you come to the Sharper Open? It's next week.
And I had time and stuff like this. So basically, it's through him and his courses. I more or less ended up in the Sharper Open in La Rangia. I think by now everybody knows that it's kind of a beginner's comp. It's more or less designed for B gliders, C gliders. They don't want two liners in there. It's like a step in competition where the focus is on flying together, learning together, having a beer together in the evening. Jockey does deep breathings every evening, talking about the task. It was like an educational comp. And basically, I said, why not? Let's do that. And this is basically where it clicked. I did really well in this comp. I think I won in my class there.
And it was such a feeling of wow, finally the people sitting together. There's enthusiasm about the sport. You fly together. You have problems to solve. And you have a beer together. You talk about it. You do it again the next day. So I had the feeling that this is the environment. And these days, I didn't plan on going to World Cups or something like this. So I was like, well, this is a training ground. That's what I saw, a training ground where you can progress quickly. And that was it for me. Initially, it was these comps. Where I think besides the basic flying skills on handling a glider and SREs, I learned the most. Because, I mean, everybody, I think, would agree who's doing comps.
In environments like this, you just learn so much in so minimum time. And the basic thing, they give you a problem to solve, like a task. And the turn point is there. And it's not a question if you should fly there. If you go for yourself, should I fly there? I know that's cut right. But it's not a question. No, you have to fly there. Now solve it. And this kind of environment, I think, made me progress so much. You try stuff, and sometimes you fail. You bomb out. And say, oh, what did I do wrong? No. And then the Air Force life kicked in again. Because I found so many things, parallels again, from my Air Force life. This basic stuff they taught you in the beginning. It's like this, I don't know if you heard this.
We've had this 70s proper pre-flight planning prevents this poor performance.
Or decidedness was always very important. I mean, a fighter, you go 400 knots low level somewhere. And these days, still, it goes really quick, everything. So there's no time for hesitation. But you want to make good decisions.
And what I saw in the comp world, too, is how you deal with frustrations or wrong decisions.
Like, oh, damn it. I should have gone left. I missed that. Why didn't I stay? It's only really bad thinking. And this is what you learn in fast jets really well. It was a mistake. Don't think about it. Look ahead. The more you think about it, the more you're behind your airplane. And what is happening in front of you. You cannot change it. And this acceptance of the things you cannot change to just let it go and not get emotionally involved and just deal with the situation right now. This is the kind of thing that I think is really important. And this I found in paragliding comps the same, too. So many times after landing, people say, oh, I should have done this, should have done that. That's fine, maybe, for debrief. But a lot of people in the air get quite emotional by that and then miss out to assess the situation in front of you.
Get too wrapped up in what just happened instead of what's just ahead.
Exactly. It's like, I mean, in hindsight, I thought a lot about my, you know, my, you know, my what was normal life for me, my squadron life and stuff like this, how you Denali mean, you fly with your buddies in a squadron. Not everybody's your best friend, but most of them. It's intense. It's your life depends on each other and everything. And it's not always like, say like this, it's so intense. You don't have the time to be always nice. Now, debriefing is very straightforward. And this is true. And you have to be able to disconnect emotionally, even if you're angry at yourself or maybe angry at yourself. You have to be able to get your buddy because he did something who endangered you or basically or sacrifice the tactics. Um, and the way you do it in the air force, you get call signs.
Sometimes that's blue one, two, three in the formation. That's the not the Gavin and Stefan. Uh, so I call you a blue two left bar and then it'd be debriefing. You would do it the same. You depersonalize it stuff. Hmm. And I found out from this fighter pilot where that had me a lot because, uh, sometimes in gaggles. I'm like, Oh, I'm going to get a little bit tense or in the start cylinders. You know, there's really close. Some people fly too aggressive. So I never get angry at somebody. Never, ever. Uh, my picture is what I see. It's just a situation in front of me. It's moving objects. I always call it. Some people laughed and so it's not pilots or people. Well, if I know you as a, well, that's given me out.
I
seem to remember almost taking you out of the air in Columbia a year and a half ago. You were very cool about it. I was like, Oh dude, I'm sorry.
No, but I think that helps a lot. People have problems with that. It's not only in comms, but flying somewhere. It's not about blaming others or things. So it's just like, well, there is an object who's just now crossing my flight path where I want to go. How do I deal with that? I can continue and I crash into it or I have to deviate or something like this. And that, that makes it very unemotional for me. I just react to it. I react to things that happen in front of me. And again, an air force thing is that's what they teach you in air combat all the time. It's always this assess, predict maneuver, and that's a constant loop. I mean, even in the one, we want dogfight. And he says, okay, his nose up is probably below a corner velocity.
So he cannot go over the top predict. He will have to come down in five seconds to the right maneuver. I pull lead to that. I intercept him at that point and enjoy my gun or something like this. But then you don't stop. So you do that at the moment. You assess, predict, maneuver. You start again, assess, predict, maneuver, assess, predict, maneuver. What's next? And that is so quick that you always get in this loop. And this is the same like what you can use in comms that in general, this assessment starts with observation that you always scan everything and assess what will happen next. Then you predict where you want to be or not. And then you maneuver.
That sounds a lot like tactics to me. And you actually mentioned tactics just very recently there. Let's talk about tactics a little bit in comps. Maybe specific, you won the Colombian Open this year and then did really well the next week in the British Open, which is to me, pretty fast World Cup. There's a lot of talent at the British Open these days. Yeah. Tell me about tactics.
Yeah. Well, tactics, for me, it's a little bit, I always say it's chess in the air. I mean, probably a lot of people would say like this, or sometimes I even title it from my background as that slow motion air combat in the two dimensional world.
So for me, sometimes it's, I don't know, it's like I can eat my banana on a big glider and do that all. And it's like, if somebody put it all on pause, I don't know. I have to be on it right away. So but it gives a lot of times to do that. It says, but the baseline, I think about all these tactics is this observation and assessment what's happening. It can be simple things. I mean, I had that even in PWC, I think it was one task in Brazil. Last year, it's pretty good. I think I even finished fifth. Yeah, that was really cool. We had six or seven tasks. I learned a lot during this competition. So yeah, I think that's pretty cool. I have some good and funny example. Remind me to give me example of one task where I basically messed up my seven piece.
Let's let it start there. I'll remind you right now. Let's hear that one.
Well, it's a very good example. There were a lot of things come together. I mean, the comp was really good for me. I was doing well. I was like top 10, top 20 at the end. Like I said, I made it to fifth. I was like, I'm going to do it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it.
And when I did it, I did it.
And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. And when I did it, I did it. errors. So that day it was pretty nice. We're doing really well, fine, and I'm at takeoff and
everybody's getting ready to go and I put my stuff together, I have a coffee. I'm normally pretty relaxed and I'm never really excited. And suddenly I say, man, where's my cockpit? And I fly a cannibal race, you need the cockpit to otherwise you cannot fly with all the instrument, everything. And suddenly I realized I forgot my cockpit. Ah yes, schoolboy here.
Exactly. Never happens to me, never ever. I'm a pro. Right. Well, it did. Here we go. And now that was a proper pre-flight panning. I messed that seriously up. Now when I look at the watches, one and a half hours window open, I might be able to make it. But now I have to find a car because we had to go this long drive with the bus, Pico da Gavail. I think the bus was a little bit too long. I think the bus was a little bit too long. I think the bus drive was an hour something already. I was like, wow, that's bad. So I tried to find the meat director and another guy. Not everybody spoke proper English. I don't speak Portuguese.
Then I found somebody might have a car, big story took forever. Finally, I got somebody with a comp car who would drive me downtown so I could pick up my cockpit. So we're racing downtown with this car. Gas station had to fill it up, he gave me the keys and I said, good luck. So went back. We were living outside of the village, even in a little ranch we hired. Found the cockpit, came up again. So the majority of the field already took off. Really sweaty. I get my stuff together, put it on. And I remember this moment and this is this effort's worth again where you have to, I think the big picture when I get some less stunt over here, you have to be able to blend stuff out. Well, I really did a big mistake.
I can be really upset about myself, but there's no time for it. So really focused, do all this. At the end, I was the second last with Claudia. Claudia Bulgakov was with me at the takeoff. It's exactly the moment where the wind turned on the takeoff. On this place, you can take off from three sides. I think we're on the south takeoff, but at one moment, the wind more or less switched to the north. I looked at my watch, we're just trapping in. There was like 15 minutes to go. Going to take off at like 10 minutes till the start opens in the air. And I was like, still top 10. I wanted to do that. And I said, shit. And then Claudia standing next to me says, sorry, Stefan, I don't take off here. It's back wind now. So I go over there and I said, Claudia, if you go over there, we never make it to the start.
Well, let's go. And then at this moment, just like, okay, what do I need? Wind is the limit. And you have to have your skill. You know what you handle with your hands or not. There was a big windsock on the left. Little look, there was two birds surfing there. The windsock turned a little bit. Showing to the center of the thermal. And my assessment was just like, I have to take a window. Now I go left for 200 meters. My best assumption is that there is a thermal all signs are pointing for that. I go to the base and then I might be just in time. Basically, I took up did exactly like this took off manage the glider come to the left over the windsock. I hit right away a three meter climb. I made 800 meters. And then basically, I was two minutes late at the start just 200 meters below the lead.
And when I got to the
Like a beginner's mind, mentally calm down and let everything go and focus on the stuff which is right there, right ahead of you and which is now important in that moment. No matter what happened before, what the weather did to you, what another pilot did to you in a getaway or what you did yourself in a bad decision that might still happen. You have to live with that and have to let it go. And I think you can train that a lot with mental training. I mean, besides my Air Force background, I meditate a lot, to be honest. It's like it's a really cool way to train your mind to let thoughts come and go, not get attached to it too much.
And are you meditating like at the start, before you take off? Are you talking about like when you wake up in the morning or do you have any kind of a practice that's specifically tied to flying?
Yeah, it's like. It's like. A while ago, maybe three, four years ago, I discovered this. Many people know this Headspace app. Yeah, Headspace is great. It's like this Andy from England. I think it was a monk somewhere came back and his approach was like a more Western approach without the too much spirituality. It's just about the techniques and everything. I use that a lot. And now basically I have a daily routine. I more or less meditate every morning. And if I miss it once in the morning, then I find something in between. So I have a lot of time to do it. But. Like, I think people who meditate a lot would agree it's not only about the meditation itself. I think. How can I put this?
Meditation, maybe it's a tool, a frame to train awareness.
And awareness in everything. Are
you using that awareness and, you know, kind of meditation? Are you using that to help you either? Enter or get out of kind of a flow state when you're flying?
Yeah. I mean, what I discovered when I started meditating is that I found kind of the same feeling, this flow awareness. And so in almost everything I did in my life, that was definitely the fight or fight of life. It was very intense missions and hard to tell how that was. But you get in a state like this. I found this in like climbing. And on the motorbike, on the racetrack and stuff like this, it's it's just typical flow thing when you're just there. Things slow down. You have a clear mind and a clear view. And I think meditation, especially in our world, in the paragliding world, is a good tool to prep you for this moment that I mean, I know a lot of people who are really excited before a task, for example.
You can use that to just let it go. Breath breathing is a very big. Uh. Center thing and meditation uses that as a main anchor.
And awareness, I mean, not only aware of the task itself or the flying itself, it means in the moment, for example, what I try to do, it's a lot of people who said you have a routine, how you prep for the task. I mean, you go to the briefing and you set yourself up. Everybody has different techniques for that. But I like to be in a bubble for myself. My. Get myself. Stuff out. It's packed always the same. Um, it's like again, this effort background have to have habit patterns. Stuff goes to the same. Uh, when you click in that you. It's simple. It's not that I just have this bucket in my hand. So I really see the buckle. I feed it. I feel when it clicks your homes you in on, on just this moment.
And that's the whole way till you take off to glide as spread. You listen to your breath. You feel the wind. You have a quick look, smile at some people. The glider rises. So you go from step to step to step. I'm not far ahead now on the, on the final glider. Somebody said, try just to be right here right now. Enjoying it. And that's the really nice feeling. And then it basically comes all together at one big thing. Um, because you go from one moment to the next one, um, in a very relaxed and open way. And this is the way I use it.
You know, one of the things I were, we're just finishing up. The, the book about the podcast had been talking about this in the last few shows and it's, it's basically, you know, my job's done. It's now in the editor's hands at, at XC mag, but it was really interesting going back through all the shows where, you know, the books based on the first hundred shows kind of pulling out all the best of the best. And the, the, the folks that are really, really top pilots, especially at the competition and the things, but also, you know, even in things like the X-Alps and, you know, intense, high control. Fly races. They, a theme of like being cool comes up again and again. And by, by that, I mean, you know, it's, it's the folks that are laughing the most that are the most relaxed that are the most chill.
It's often, you know, the, the really consistent pilots. And now, you know, there's some young, you know, French pilots who are just amazing, but you know, the, the ones that you kind of see consistently in that kind of top 10, top 20. You know, almost every time they don't, they, they, they seem to be very detached from mistakes. Like you said, I mean, I think one of the most valuable things I've learned in flying was from Tom Payne before the 2015 race. We went and visited him in, in in Zurich and, you know, he, he competed in 2009 and then he supported John Chambers in 2011 and 2013, I believe. And. Yeah. He. He said, you know, one of the first things he said when we walked in, you know, Hey, what can you teach me?
What, Tom, what, what do I need to know about this? Cause I was so freaked out. I was going into this race for the first time, you know, what do I need to know? And he said, the, the most important thing you guys need to have is, is conflict resolution. You know, conflict's going to come up and you need to figure out a way to deal with it. So it doesn't take you down as a team. And, and we just decided, okay, well, we're going to make mistakes. That's inevitable. Everybody makes mistakes. We're going to make a ton of them. And let's, let's figure out what it was and drop it, you know, immediately. We just hear it. Here's the mistake. Let's not make it them again. And there's no blame. There's no, there's no tension. There's no anger. Let's laugh it off and move on. And so I like that when you said that to be detached from mistakes, I haven't had that so much in mind for comps.
And of course that makes perfect sense. You know, that these guys that, and gals that are really good. I think one of the reasons they don't get that upset when they bomb out is because everybody bombs out. Even they, I mean, it's just inevitable. You're going to make mistakes. So whatever. Exactly.
Yeah. Because everybody makes mistakes and we have to acknowledge this. There's a bit, what we had in training in the beginning of our talks is like everybody expect a hundred percent safety. It's not possible. It's not there. You have to just realize that. And the same with no matter how good you get, everybody will make mistakes. Even Russ often makes mistakes and he knows that. But you have to learn from them. And it's like, I mean, there's all these lines. I think everybody knows. If you do not make mistakes, mistake is necessary to progress and learn with no mistakes. You will always stay at the level you are. And you might know some pilots. There are few pilots who always blame something else.
The weather, the wind, the pilots or something like this. And. And if you're not able to open up to your own mistakes, you will never change because only a mistake allows you to analyze something and to progress and to make you in something better.
And that's not maybe not like some of the Air Force world in this 20 years plus Air Force flying. I had not a single flight where you didn't debrief. And more complex of sometimes you flew one and a half hours only in the debrief for three to four hours. And you sit down, the door is closed. And you have your matrix to go through versus always any safety calls. Well, to get it out of the way. What are things? Every caveat, every radio was good. Blah, blah, blah. No excuses. Boom. And now you deconstruct or reconstruct what happened. Right. But with a line. And in our world, a lot of times people think they debrief and think they debriefed when they reconstructed the plane.
What happened? I saw you there. Yeah, cool. And then I jumped to that bridge. Fine. And I didn't catch the thermal. I bumped out. Blah, blah, blah. So what's your best learn? Well, I didn't catch the thermal. But the reconstruction is not the debrief. It's the base. Now to draw the lesson learned. It would be like, okay, you reconstruct the quicker you can do that, the better. Nowadays, with a GPS track, you could do that even on a task with us. We had like in the beginning, we have chalks and boards and notes made in the fly. And then you have GPS trackers can do that. When you know what happened, it's just a rewind. Then you can start to analyze. And then it's more like, okay, did we execute the game plan? Game plan today, transferring it to paragliding.
Okay, my game plan was I want to have a good start right in the front. I want to push the first 30 % of the race to get max leading points. Then I want to hang back a bit and stay for the group tail goal. So now you would ask yourself, did I execute the goal? Did I execute the game plan? And I say, oh, I had a shitty start. And now I didn't really push the first 30. I checked in the end and pushed there. So you didn't execute the game plan. And then you would say, well, did it work or not? It's still good. Fine. Then it's okay. But why didn't you do that? Well, I forgot that the main lead points were in the first 30%. I was distracted. And my P2 wasn't in the right position. I was on a seven piece again. So little things. And you would go through something. And then at the end of all this, there must be a lesson learned.
And every single flight of my Air Force had at the end now a lesson learned. And LL would formulate. So if you would do the same thing tomorrow, would you do the same thing again? Or where would you do something different? Even if it's a little bit. Get my P2 straight and then push in the first 30%. And I remember exactly there where I left that thermal. But that was on the point of the race where I didn't want to do it. I wanted to do that because I wanted to hang with the guys. And then you have a debriefing going. And you can use that. So the mistakes are very, very important. So you should embrace your mistakes. They are your friends. So a flight without any mistake is kind of a sad thing because you don't learn anything. You see it like this. So it doesn't have to be a catastrophic mistake.
But especially in POMS. And this is the difference between doing it joyful or getting angry or frustrated. Mm-hmm. I mean, I remember, I think it was two years ago in Ager, German Open.
I was really good at one task. And was it Mark Wenzel and Johannes Baumgartner? They were pushing like hell on this rich full bar speed. And I tried to stick with them and fine. And they're going and going. And I look at my instrument and say, hey, guys, we have to go left at one point. We have to leave it because the next turn point is like 15K to the north. Or possibly going east. And they were such in a like racing each other that at one point, I just like, no, see you. And I peeled off and I was alone. I had to cross this whole thing. And they bombed out. And at the end, they said, well, we just forgot about it. Because we were just having fun. They really missed it. But then at that moment, I said, yeah, great.
I did a good decision. And there was now like the front edge little groups now split it up and transitioning. And then for this analysis, what I just said. And then I saw this these two birds circling at the end of the canyon. I was not the highest anymore. And the sun was in there. So I was like, I should go there because this is a trigger point. If I catch this, I can win that house. So I go for that. And then I suddenly realized the rising terrain. I push. I still had options going left to right. I was alone. Nobody else with me. I cannot reach these two birds. They're climbing out above me. And I basically landed at the end of this rugged canyon there somewhere in Algiers. And I was like, fuck. I just went there finding out, well, this is not really a path out.
And basically, I packed up my stuff, hiked two hours till the next street. Jessica was picking me up there with the car. And I was scratched. And all my t-shirt was ripped. Because it was just the middle of nowhere. But I was just sitting down. I remember when I was landed, it was so beautiful. Because it was quiet. And these fresh bushes, the smell of them. And I just laughed at myself. Like from zero to zero in like two minutes. Right? It was a huge mistake. Huge mistake. I just could have hung back, waited for Pepe and the other guys, joined up with these guys. How
many times have you done it? It's incredible. This is a lesson we have to learn many times.
Man, it was still like 20, 30 k's to go. There was no rush or something. But I'm sitting there. And I remember them. And this is what you can train out. That's what I wanted to say. It's like I could be there and say, damn it, what did I do? Man, that's stupid. Instead of no, it just happened. So you sit down and then you just analyze it for a moment. Very good decision to leave the ridge. Mark and Johannes, completely wrong. Stuff like this. Everything fine. Here's the critical point. So why did you do that? So the next time, and I visualize this, I rewind the whole tape, see myself at the same position where I took the first step. I took the decision to go for this spot with the two birds. It's like, no, don't go bar. Go off bar. Get max height. Wait till the others come. You have to have an advantage then. And then basically you join that gaggle and fly together.
And then I let it go. Because once you have your lesson learned, it's no sense in drooling it again and again and again. And it was quite funny because then I remember I had to wait for Jessica quite a long time on this deserted road. And that was like just a very, very long time. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. And then I remember just a wasp fighting with an ant. And I remember me sitting like 10 minutes on this road watching them. And this is what I mean with awareness. It's just try to be the moment. And this big mistake, well, threw me back in the comp, but it gave me a memory of life. I will never forget this day. The smell, I will never forget. This hike and this magic moment of this insect. Yeah, that Jessica finally comes and picks me up. Then we find something to eat and drive home.
So life is good. Life is good. Life is really good. Yeah. I can't change it. And it's more or less, it's more for me, it's more funny, but it was a good lesson learned in comp flying when to risk and when not. Sure. This risk to award is always a big thing.
Yeah. And I mean, I think there's huge crossovers there to just recreational XC flying as well. I mean, you really do have to, that's a constant analysis and you got to get it right or you end up on the deck. Yeah. But when you end up on the deck, that's okay too. Stephan, I want to be mindful of your time. And I also just heard my little one waking up, so it's about to get really loud. So we'll wrap this up in a sense, but I know you're doing, or you have done some guiding and some bivy stuff and cool adventures with Jockey and all over the world.
What's a risk in your students and the people that you're guiding? What's a risk that you wish students would have? What's a risk that students would take and more of, and a risk that you wish they wouldn't take more of?
That's a good question. I mean, if you do your homework, I mean, from a baseline of, I always say this, you have to be humble in our sport, like with, I think every adventure sport, which is remote, same like climbing or something like that. Because we don't have a net below us or something. Yeah. The outcome of huge mistakes can be fatal. So you have to be humble. And whenever you have a feeling and everybody's different, kind of, I'm fighting nature. I conquer it. Sometimes Moyes suggest stuff like this. You're always, always, always the weakest link. So out of this position of humbleness, of being nothing, being smaller than an ant, playing intelligently with your knowledge and your skills.
You can progress a lot. It doesn't mean you have to be anxious or something like this, but never, never forget that you are the weakest link in whatever you do. And if you build on that, then be also self-confident enough to push your limits in a safe way. Pushing your limits. I don't mean I go full bar now and I have three collabs in one minute. I have to be, I have to push my, not that type of limits, but we all reach plateaus. Yeah. Yeah.! It's in controlled environment. The story of what I did with my M4 in these days, try to push your limits or with a good SID instructor, try to push your limits or with courses we do, with jockeys, stuff like this.
If you are not really sure, join a group, go on an XD course, we even did the baby course in beer two years ago, um, and explore it with people who, A, can teach you something and B, you have to mind saving money. same mindset with you. So, uh, be honest to yourself. That's the main thing. Um, this honesty every day, uh, am I fit for it? Am I fit today for it? Am I on my wing or not? And don't push yourself mentally in a corner where you don't belong.
How important you're, you're a super fit guy. How important do you think fitness is to flying well? And, and how, how did, how do those relate? Do you, do you stay really fit because of flying or is that just who you are?
I like sports. I cycle every day right now. But, um, I think, um, the type of flying you're doing fitness is very important. It's like, you know, that, I mean, if you have to hike for hours, days or stuff like this, uh, it's a complete different environment, like in a competition. Um, I think in normal flying, um, it's like in life too, the mental fitness is the main thing. And our, I think the world we are living in the Western world, we stress the physical fitness way more than the mental fitness. It's not part of our life or society.
Maybe it's way much more in the Asian or in the Eastern cultures. Um, um, the changes a little bit, you know, this is this meditation or is my mind fit for that? What I'm doing? Can I work on that? I think this mental fitness, um, gives you a big advantage and XC flying in comp flying and stuff like this. You have to be able, I always say to enjoy and regenerate in flight. I don't get tired when I'm flying. I, even if I have a bad night and shitty day at the moment, I fly after feeling I can regenerate. I'm comfortable harness. I'm in the air. I feel great. I look around the longer combi is normally better. I get because, um, the mental state is different there.
If you don't manage your mental fitness, you will drain. You only have a certain amount of attention bucket. I always say, and every little bit you train it, you train it, you train it. If your gear is not fit, you train it at takeoff because your, uh, reserve is not nicely fitted. Uh, you train it in the start gaggle already. Because you're not, uh, comfortable flying close to others. Uh, you train in the mid time because you, uh, the turbulence, your skills are not up to date. And when it's empty, you're tired and you do more mistakes. So for me, I think the mental fitness part is a very underestimated, uh, uh, value or position in paragliding. For me, that's very important.
Hmm. Last question. How has flying and put your air, force into this too. And so all the flying you've done, how has flying changed your life?
Wow. Um, it was always a part of my life. And, um, that's a complex question because, well, say like this from a young guy, just coming from school, dreaming of being a pilot, you have to doubt and everything. So they only take like a few of 10,000. So want to do that. You never make, this, they're all superheroes and stuff like this, this experience, uh, what the effort showed me, um, to show me what capabilities are in myself, which I never thought I would find there. Um, was a big point in how I see myself in life, what I do in the same time, not like in overconfidence. That's the complete different way.
It also showed me the, uh, this weak side is humbleness and stuff like this. So you have to work hard. You can achieve something. But with the right attitude and this, I think for myself gave me a feeling that I can deal with life in any, uh, way it comes to me. This, uh, this basic relaxed confidence that I can have with things and stressful stuff. That's the one thing. And then when I, I always say I rediscovered it in paragliding because I do not find this in the civilian flying. I do that. It's a complete different world. But in paragliding the same, um, it's that feeling of freedom. Finally, it's one of the few things in our society, uh, which are left over your self reliable, separate, nobody's telling you what to do and no rules and regs it's you.
And only you who doesn't make the decisions and you, and only you can be blamed for it. There's nothing else to blame. And this is kind of a. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a constant recalibration of who you are as a person, uh, and a constant recalibration on how you should see yourself. Because I think modern society doesn't give us this anymore. Everybody's great. Everybody has a cool job, uh, money and stuff like this. And people start to believe that till the point where you really get dragged out of this environment. Maybe your job, maybe you earned the way you live. So, and who are you? And so flying. I think deeply philosophical about that.
No, where am I? Is it really me or not? What do I want? What is important? What is not important? This feeding of just being a little nothing in a big kind of environment, nature, universe, whatever. And giving me a very, very solid and deep gratitude for this life. And, uh, this, this few years I have on this planet. So it's. I think it's the whole baseline of how I see my life now. I'll go through it. It's it's more or less shaped by, by flying.
Beautiful. Yeah. Stefan, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I can't wait for us to fly again, my man. Uh, that'd be so fun and give Jessica a huge hug for me and you guys be safe, be healthy and see a cloud base here sometime.
Yeah. Hopefully soon. Take care, Gavin. See you out there.
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