Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Don't have any housekeeping for you this week except to go vote. We're running out of time. Many states' deadlines for registration has already passed, so make sure you're registered to vote. If you're not sure or need some help voting, just go to patagonia.com forward slash elections, and they'll walk you right through it. So please do it. This is a big one. My guest this week is Koni Schafroth. He is the brainchild engineer and designer behind the XC Racer Varios, that whole family of Varios, which are the most accurate and sophisticated Varios on the market. It many, many people have now switched over to them, and you'll find most of the ex-alps athletes use them.
I've been using them since my first race in 2015. These are just featherweight; many of the Bluetooth ones are just solar powered. You never need to charge them. They just release their max, which is a fully independent, has its own, you know, has a screen. It's a vario that gives you everything like the various of old, but much more accurate. Uh, we talk about, you know, the difference, what goes into them, what makes them different from other varios. The main thing being the accelerometers and the difference between that and a barometer. So talk a lot about various, but also how to climb better, how to find the core, and his amazing history. He's been at this, he's been at flying for more than 30 years. He's from Bern, Switzerland.
So the Bernese Oberland, one of the most incredible places to fly in the world. This is the Interlaken-Eiger-Wallis part of the world. Pretty amazing zone to fly in, in Switzerland. And so we talk about how he flies and how he chases it. He doesn't chase kilometers. He chases beauty and flying over glaciers and midnight flights, and his pursuit is pretty, pretty clean, and I liked that. So, talk a little bit about dangers and risks, and one accident he had along the way, and what he learned from that, and just a really fun talk with a very interesting mechanical engineer, yet another engineer who was taken strongly to the sport.
So, without further delay, please enjoy this conversation with Coney chaperone Coney.
It's great to have you on the show. We've been having lots of emails over the years as the designer of the XC Racer, which everybody knows who listens to the show knows I'm a huge fan of, and we'll be using again. And my fourth XL is coming up, crazily enough, in in June, and so that was just announced. That was pretty exciting, but really fun to to talk to you and talk burritos and climbing and your quite considerable history. I didn't know you've been flying for more than 30 years. How'd you get into all this craziness, I
Don't know. Um, I'm a curious guy and I always have a lot of ideas and, um, flying, I was interested in flying since, since I was a kid. And when I was 16, I started learning to fly gliders on a wooden, on a wooden plane on a K8, and then I made my glider license. And after that, I went to Zurich and studied mechanical engineering, so flying was not that much the priority, rather partying and other stuff. And then when I was 22, just paragliding started and I had the opportunity to fly with a, it was rather a parachute, and I thought, well, this can, can be made different.
And then there, near my parents, was a guy who was making his own paragliders. It was called Northails, I think, then. And then I contacted this guy and said, hey, I can make a paraglider which flies much better than that what you have. And he said, I don't believe, but you can try. And then I made the first one. And it was really, really flying better than the gliders he had. But to be honest, we also had a lot of luck that we didn't have a bad accident. It's really, we have been lucky. Okay. This is how it all started.
Was this back in the 80s? I guess late 80s, early 90s?
Yeah, yeah. It was 87, 88, something like that. How many
cells did your first glider have? This always cracks me up. I think gliders back in those days.
I think it was around 20, 21 cells. And it was the first glider where you could fly over the Lake of Thun. You know, you could fly from Nisen and cross the lake and land on the other side of the lake. This was really fantastic.
Wow. So what was that glide ratio? Is that like a four to one?
No, no, no. It was already six to one.
Really? Oh, wow. So it was a high performance glider for back then.
I wouldn't fly nowadays with it, but yes, then it was a good glider.
Right. How many people ended up in the lake back then?
Only me once.
Because we had a, you know, we had a first, it was my brother flying over the lake. That was no problem. Then we had a smaller glider, and the boss of the company said, "Oh, I want to know if the smaller glider can make it too." And then I took off from Nisen, and that was the era where you didn't have really flight instruments. You had no idea, you just went flying. And then I had the impression, well, glide ratio is not so good, I will not make it because there's too much headwind. And the guy, I said, "No, no, no, no, you're far above the mountain, it works." What he didn't tell me, he was crossing the lake with his motorboat to the other side of the lake, just in case, just in case. So of course, I'm much higher than the top of Nisen then. And then, in the end, I landed in the boat.
nice uh
which was, yeah, but that's easy. Just there is no wind. It was, uh, it was open, I think, when we did it, and that's easy. But then you had the stupid idea to, to have the, you know, to, to tow me back to the, to the shore. That was not a good idea, you
mean with the glider still up, so you landed and you kind of started accelerating. Ah, fantastic, yeah.
Yeah, he started accelerating, and then you can imagine the rest. That's so good in
Your, does your brother still fly, uh?
yes but he doesn't have that much opportunity because he moved to the netherlands which is not so good for flying but But you can fly there.
Yeah. The dunes. My next guest is going to be Ferdy, you know, Van Shelven, who has done really well. And he took a bye last year. He took some time off, and he was hanging out with Tom DeDorlando during the race just to see if he really missed it, which he did. So he's applied again, and he's also – he'll be, as always, one to beat. So he's going to be in the next show. But he's from the Netherlands, and he's doing pretty well flying in the mountains. So they must figure it out.
No, you can't. Actually, I was flying once in the Netherlands. Funny story. I went to visit my brother. And then Lisa, my spouse, wanted to go to the sea and to walk. And then my brother and his wife made the proposition to go to walk in the dunes. and then we were walking there in the dunes maybe for, I don't know, half an hour or so and suddenly I see something red. Just a short glimpse, something red appeared and disappeared. Strange, what is it? And then a few seconds later it appears again, it was a glider. And then I said, okay, it might be fun to fly there at the dunes. And then I couldn't convince my brother to fly with to ask a guy that I can fly or use a glider.
So he didn't want to do anything, so I said, okay, I tell myself, and you can imagine, there's the Dutch experts, the guys who know really how to fly on a dune. There comes a guy with dirty jeans, with a leather jacket, looks a little bit, I don't know, not so fresh. He approached the first one and asked him, can I take a glide? And he looks at me and, yes, if you want to try, you can try. I'm sure he was convinced that they will not be able to take off. But the story was, it was not so difficult because there's a spot in Switzerland where we often go soaring in the winter, so I was quite used to it. And then I just, yeah, you inflate the glider—I inflate the glider—and then my brother pushed me to the to the dune, and I was flying there back and forth, and with a little bit of break, the glider was trying to was almost stalling, and a little bit lower of angle of attack, it was collapsing.
So I flew for a few minutes, yeah. Yeah, very dangerous. I flew for a few minutes, and then I landed and said, hey, with this glider, please never fly again with this glider. Something is wrong. And I asked him for his address, because I thought, well, it might be a good idea to send him a mini-tool, because he was so nice to let me fly. And then a week later, he sent me a mail saying, oh, thank you very much for flying with my glider. I had to trim it afterwards; it was really completely out of trim. You're right, it just was very dangerous to fly. I think it was 15 centimeters, the long, the longest deviation from... oh yeah, yeah, that's a little
out yeah
Yeah, yeah, that was fun.
I've actually sold quite a few of my comp gliders to pilots in the Netherlands because they—they apparently, you know, because it's pretty windy and they—and they're, it's in the sand, so they, you know, they're—they get abused quite a bit because you're—you're flying a lot in the sand and the dunes and—and so they just want gliders that are really fast, uh, but they don't really care if they're old or, you know, the lines are bad as long as they're, you know, somewhat in trim and they're fast, then they can. That sounds like a perfect kind of wing for there because you can just—you can fly a little bit more wind because they're nice and fast, and it sounds quite fun.
i prefer snow
snow yeah
absolutely yeah
totally because
Snow is soft. If you make, if you make something wrong, if you, you can crash into snow. If you have one meter of powder snow, nothing happens. If you have sand, oh yeah.
Exactly. No, it's very, very forgiving. I think that's—that's, uh, Chrigel always talks about that. That's one of the ways he's gotten so good at dealing with a lot of wind. It's just going out in the snow because you can—you can mess up, yeah.
exactly yeah
yeah and that's that's So that's kind of your zone. That's where you fly. You live in Bern. Are you from Bern originally, or is that just the area you're from?
No, I was born in Bern, and then the family moved to Thun. This is where other ones is. And I grew up in Thun, and then I went to Zurich for studying mechanical engineering at DTH in Zurich. And then I moved back to Bern.
You had another engineer in flying. This is a topic that comes up a lot on the show. It seems that the sport really attracts your kinds, an engineering type of mind, which I don't have much, more much more by feel, but it's interesting that the number of mechanical engineers and the number of engineers in the sport work, yeah.
I think that normally engineers are not so, not so emotional people, and paragliding is only about emotions, in fact. And I think that's a good way to to have good emotions. I think that's why it's very attractive for engineers, or programmers, or this kind of people.
That's interesting; I haven't heard that side of it before. So it allows you to tap into a part of your brain? It's not very natural to tap into, yeah.
I think so, it might be
Interesting, um, you... you told me before we started talking that your real passion for the sport, and now over 30 years, has... has never really been, or maybe it was at some point, but it certainly isn't now, kind of kilometer crunching, which is for many people, you know, they... they get into it and it's just amazing and the... the... they're... They're blown away, and then they get into this kind of endless search of bigger and bigger and bigger. That doesn't drive you.
No, no, not at all. It's just I like the beauty of it, and it can be a short flight. It can be a long flight. It can be a flight of 4,000 meters flying over the glaciers. It can be midnight soaring or after midnight soaring, deep snow. snow. Uh, I look, I like all this stuff. Or going to sores for soaring along the coast. Um, it's just when it's beautiful, when it's nice, that's what I like. I don't have to prove anything, so I don't have to count kilometers or whatever. It's not my style is
that been, are you, are you quite passionate about? Have you, have you kind of kept that passion for the sport since the beginning, or does it kind of ebb and flow? No,
It's, I think it, it remained. It's just, uh, if I can't go flying for, for two or three weeks, I, uh, get a little bit kind of nervous. It's not good, uh, I think, you know, it
yes yes indeed
Yeah, yeah, but when I can fly, then all is good.
Huh, how has flying changed your life? I
think it, it makes it a bit unpredictable in the sense, um, when you have an office job, you have an office job, you know more or less what's going to happen. And then you go paragliding, you, you never know what's going to happen.
I'm pretty sure that I will get back in one piece, but you never know where it ends up. If it's a long flight, it's a short flight. If you fly far, if you fly high, you never know. And this is the, it gives some kind of adventure,
some kind of unpredictability to daily life. Um, so it makes it more interesting. It's difficult to explain; maybe you'll get it, I don't know.
That doesn't—that's not difficult at all. You explained it really well. When you—when you plan your flying adventures, is it—oh, it's a good day. I'll just go see what happens, or do you have a—an objective?
It depends. A few times a year I go to Fiesch. And then the objective is always to fly as far back to Bern as possible. Until now it was impossible to do it completely.
Yeah, sometimes I have objectives, sometimes I don't care at all, I just fly. And very often I go testing, so meaning, uh, if it's not, it's not—if it's not for the fun of it, uh, we go testing hardware and software, so that's completely different. Then sometimes you just have to stay in the air for three hours to, to see if the code is, is reliable, consistent, so it's different and
Is your job now exclusively XC Racer, or do you still have your day job and XC Racer is a a on the side kind of thing you're
Right, no. Exit tracer is consuming, consuming far, far too much time. It's impossible to have a job besides exit tracer, ah.
Well, that's good, though. So you can, you can pursue something that you're obviously really passionate about. That's fun, yeah.
That's fun, but it's really a lot of work, and nobody imagines how much work it is. It's really, we try to make a product which is as reliable as possible and which is as simple as possible, and this makes it so complicated. Sure, this is the—this is that—this is the main problem, yeah.
It's like Yvonne said, the hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life.
Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit like that. It's really, it's a really big effort. Um, we produced, uh, we developed, uh, robots, for example, for the production we have now, uh, how many are six? I think we have, uh, six different robots we use for the production. You
mean robots to put them together, uh
To do some tasks, yes. Wow, wow. Well, it's not—it's not complicated. Robots, we have to—you have to develop them, and nobody knows, and we don't—we don't show them because we don't want the competition to know what we're doing. But, uh, it's—it's—it's a lot of stuff that, uh, that the the customer doesn't see, so it's really—it's really, really time-consuming, but
That I can't, I just, I can't even imagine how much goes into the... well, let's, well, okay, let's rewind to the genesis. How did you decide to even get into this project? Um...
As I said, I'm curious and, uh, I like to make sports, and a few years ago over Easter, and I wanted to go skiing and the weather forecast was so bad, I needed a desperate desperately needed need something to do, and then I stumbled up over an Arduino starter kit, Arduino, some kind of microprocessor, simplified microprocessor environment, and I bought such another starter kit, and then it was tinkering and the first LED blinking, and then had a few leads LEDs blinking, and Lisa always said I was still good for, and at the time I was working and from 10 to 10 we still do, um, on the watch project, and after a few days I had to, oh, I could use it for making measurement, measuring measurement instruments for, uh, for my watch project, and this is how it started, and, um, I always said that instruments the time like this is something I didn't like because it's not intuitive, it's like when you're sitting in a car and then you're on the highway and then you, you know, the exit is coming, and two seconds before the exit, you have to turn the steering wheel roughly 30 degrees, and then one to two seconds later, the wheels will actually turn.
I don't know. This is Barrios a few years ago, and I didn't like that. And I always tried to convince a friend of mine who was working at the startup to build this, but he never wanted. it and then with the arduino starter kit it wasn't so complicated to add a pressure sensor and start tinkering so nothing was planned it's just and
So, that the first ones, yeah. Okay, let's get in the technical side of things a little bit. What is an accelerometer, uh?
An accelerometer is a simple, uh, a small device which is measuring acceleration and
So, and how does that differentiate between a barometer, um?
A barometer is a pressure sensor, and um, as you can imagine, that when you measure the pressure, there's some kind of noise on the signal. That means you can measure the pressure, and then you can measure, measure it a very short time afterwards, you will get a different result. So it's noise, it's noisy. This signal, when you, when you make the average, it's very, very, very stable, very, very accurate and accurate. But this noise, you have to filter the noise, and then you filter the noise. Whatever you do, you always have a time lag because it may, you make some kind of an average or whatever you filter algorithm use, but it's, it's, it's ending up with some kind of time delay. And this is why a barometer with just only a pressure sensor always has a time.
So
when I first started flying with the XC Racer, I meet, and this was your first edition. This was way back, you know, the bigger one and without the solar and, um, right out of the box. I loved it, but I felt like it was so fast. Like it, it, it, it felt the air as fast as I could feel it. And I was used to flying, you know, my 60, 30, you know, my fly tech, which is obviously, like you said, that's, that's measuring it differently. So it's, it's more of an averager, uh, as I understand it, then something immediate. Um, I was, and so I got the config, a config file from a PWC pilot, which I've now shared with hundreds and hundreds of people because I've put this out on the show a few times.
Are we wrong? Should we not be dampening? Should we learn how to fly with the device just set up as it is as you send it to us? Should we, in other words, should we learn to fly immediate I
would say so big, I would. Yeah, I would say so because, um, actually tracer indicates exactly what you feel because when you feel an acceleration, it's beeping, or when the third, when the thermal stops, the warrior stops beeping immediately. So it's, it's, it's immediate feedback. You must get used to a bit because when you're flying with an old warrior for 10 or 20 years, then you might have some issues because it's like marriage, you get used to it and it has its good sides, its downsides, but you're used to it. It and, um, yeah, I think so. It's, it's really just try to, to remove the damping factor as far as much as you can. You can leave a little bit, um, but, uh, go down with the damping factor as much as far as, far as you can.
Alex Roby, I had him on the show a while back. It was actually just after the last race, and he's always, you know, right up there in the top five X contest at the end of every year. Does these just amazing triangles this year went down to? Well, actually last year I just went down to Brazil for COVID, and it did. He's an amazing pilot; he actually flies with two. He flies with an XC Racer that's dampened on one shoulder and in an immediate, let's call it, out of the box on the other. I thought that was really interesting, maybe a way to hear, you know, to kind of balance between the two because I love the immediacy of it, but I just, I found it harder to find the core. I found it harder to just, because it's so immediate, it's so quick. So that, that's interesting.
If I maybe, maybe if I just slowly lower my dampening down, then I'll improve in terms of flying, in terms of climbing. Sorry.
I think so. Yeah.
What would you recommend to people, pilots who are, you know, you got to think back a long ways here because this was 30 years ago for you, But pilots that are just getting into the sport, you know, it, you know, learning on their ENA wing and they're just starting to punch into, uh, the thermal part of the day, what would you recommend to them for learning how to utilize thermals, uh?
It's difficult to say; it depends on the warrior. They have normally, the instructor tells them, "Uh, you have, you fly into no thermal, it's accelerating, so you know that you're climbing." And then after a second or two, it starts beeping, and then you wait two seconds, you come 20, 21, 22, and then you turn to the left or to the right. And this is a conventional vario, and when you have an exit tracer, you can just wait until it's beeping less, and then you can make the turn. The fact that what I with a conventional vario, what I feel, what my body, what the body tells me, and what the warrior is telling me is never, it's never the same. So, um, I always had to, to judge, is it, is the warrior correct, or I am correct, or, uh, was, what is it?
Um, it's not nice to fly like that. And when you have a warrior like exit racer, you don't have to judge because what the warrior tells you is what you feel, so it's consistent. Yeah.
I can, I can vouch for that, uh, you know, 100 over 100 hundred times. It's just, it's, it's, you feel that little bump in your left butt cheek and that it tells you at the same time that you just felt a little bump in your left butt cheek.
I'm doing a show coming up. We, we call them ask me anything shows. And one of the questions that came in, I haven't recorded the show yet. We'll do that in the future, but I'm going to give this one to you. I was a newer pilot who said, you know, I'm starting to really get at thermaling. I understand, and I'm starting to feel okay. It's, it's this one's more on my left, or this one's on my right. I'm going to turn that way, that way, but I, I'm very often being out climbed. So the question was, how do I find the core, uh
What I normally see when, when, when people are out climbed, they make circles that are too large. That's, that's the, that's the main, uh, that's the them an issue. They don't, they don't dare to make tighter circles. So what you can try is just wait until the varios beeping less and then make a turn and then you'll find it quite quick and
What if you turn the wrong way initially? Oh,
then you fall out of thermal, that's very simple.
But do you recommend people stay with that turn and just widen it out and come back on on the next one, or immediately make a change and and say, if you were going left, you immediately make the change go right? Depends.
I can't tell, uh, depends on the situation where you are. When the glider already has taken a lot of speed, um, a lot of energy, then it's better to continue with the turn. Um, if you're thinking a lot, I think continue with the turn. It's difficult to say. It depends. Are there other pilots flying? Is the mountain close? There's a lot of factors playing into the decision.
Wind being a big one as well. When you say you're doing a lot of testing and refinements, you just released the MAX, which is kind of the gold standard of barrios in the world today. There's no real doubt about that. How can these things keep being improved? What do you try to enhance at this point?
There are different things. We constantly try to improve the quality of our products
because when you get the very back for the after-sales service, it's always a pain. This is one thing we try. The other thing we try is to improve the production for that we can produce more barriers in the same time. Then we try to make them more reliable to get their even better GPS reception. We're constantly trying to improve the sensor data fusion algorithm. We're trying to improve the the wind estimation for For example, it's just small improvements here and there, and when we have something new, then we just release it to pilots.
Tell me about FLARM, because that's not something that's very prevalent in the U.S. You may have followed, you know, we just had this massive search and rescue effort for Kiwi, and there was a lot of discussion as that was going on. And then after he was found about how we could improve our instruments and ability for sending and receiving information that would be helpful to the outside world, especially because we fly most of the, very, very often in the Western US, we don't have cell service where we fly, or at least huge patches where we don't. And tell me about F-LARM and why it's valuable, mostly in Europe, and what that allows.
What is the added safety of having F-LARM?
The thing is we have, in Europe, we have a lot of traffic in the air. So we have a lot of gliders, we have a lot of helicopters, a lot of small motor planes. And FLORM was initially developed as an anti-collision system for gliders. Because gliders are white, clouds are white, and it's very difficult to spot them. And if they're flying with high speed, 150k, 200k below a cloud, so they approach each other with 30, 40 meters per second or even more in 50, It can be very difficult to spot the other glider, and there was quite a few accidents where glider were colliding, and when a glider collides, then it's almost always at least one is going to, it's going to die.
And so that, that's why a florm was, uh, was developed, and um, then, uh, it was first, it was just for gliders, and now, as I said, it's also used by, by helicopters, and by motor planes, and now we use it also for, for paragliding, and for paragliding, there are two effects. Um, with, with a form beacon, I can make myself visible to, to glider pilots, or to helicopter pilots, or whatever, so they know that I'm here, even if there's a cloud between us. Um, they will see me over a distance for a few of, a few kilometers. So this is one aspect, it's just the safety aspect, aspect of getting seen, even if the, the view is not so good when you're flying below a cloud.
Visibility, visibility can be very bad, but the glider will know that you're there. This is one aspect, and the other aspect is that, um With our floor, you can also see where the others are, so we can see where the other paragliders or hang gliders are. And you can use this as a body, a body feature for when you fly in a team, then you can see, "Oh, this one is flying just two kilometers on the left side of my, of me," or "is 10 kilometers ahead," or whatever. You see them. And, uh, the third feature that can be very useful is, um, the max will not switch off automatically. You have to switch it off yourself, and the reason for that is, um, it will send as long as the battery is, is
still a bit charged, it will send a floor peak in twice per second. And this could be used for, uh, for, for tracking in the worst case when you have an accident.
Is the, would the F arm be as accurate as say a live track 24 that has, when the devices have cell service, is it, is it the same kind of accuracy better or worse?
I don't know the other one, but the accuracy that we have is a few meters. So it can be very accurate. This is not a problem.
Oh, wow. Amazing. You know, in the last three X-Alps, you have created a config file for all of us that has allowed us to use it as an IGC tracker when we're on the ground. So it's another backup feature, which has been just unbelievable. And the, the, the solar version, the, the, the mini has, I don't ever have to charge it. It just goes forever. So, it's things like that have for the race, or when you have all this other stuff to charge, is is really valuable. I mean, obviously at night we're going to put it on charge just to be safe, but I don't know that I've ever—I mean, this whole summer I've flown with my mini all summer, I've never charged it once. Yeah,
This is, this is as I said, uh, we're constantly, uh, trying to improve our products. Um, we are good engineers, but we're not good salesmen. You can see that on our web page, yeah. And you have, it's difficult to explain. We have a, yeah, how should I tell that? We have a certain way of, of doing things. Um, first of all, we try to source as many, uh, stuff as we can in Switzerland. For example, for the Max, the glasses from Switzerland, the plastic injection molding is made in Switzerland, the PCB manufacturing is in Hungary, and the PCB, um, pick and place mounting is made in Switzerland. The assembly is made in Switzerland.
So we try to make as many things as we can with local suppliers as long as it's as Long as it's as you can pay for it, so we try to get—we try to avoid to buy stuff from from China for two reasons. One reason is that it's good to have product production locally, and the second, it doesn't make sense to buy something 10,000 kilometers apart and then just transported here. It's just, I know it's just a certain way of doing business. We just try to make an honest business; we don't try to to sell as many values as we can. We just, when you have a customer, for example, a Cooper, a copy car coming to us, and then a potential customer being very enthusiastic and blah blah blah, and then in the end it turns out he's flying paramotor, then we tell him, "Okay, we can sell you an exit tracer, but it's not worth it because you will not need an instant vario for, uh, for flying para," which doesn't make sense.
Go to competitors that you can, you can buy a cheaper warrior there. This is good for you, that's it. And the reason for that is, um, first, we really think so, it doesn't make sense to sell a product to someone who cannot fully use it. This is point one, and point two is we will then then see the same guy one year later, and he will not be pleased when he sees us because he says, well, you sold me something which is too good for me.
No, it's true.
No, I get it. Yeah, it's funny to think that something is too good for somebody. But in the paramortal world, I totally understand that. That makes sense.
Yeah, it doesn't make sense. So that's how I said it. Maybe a bit different. I don't know. We just want to make honest business. And, for example, we launched the Xe Tracer 2. And when we launched the Xe Tracer 2, Rikkel was flying with prototypes of a Mini 2 GPS, the first X-OPS. I don't know if you have seen that.
Yeah, sure.
But we have not been 100 % sure that the solar panel was really good enough for charging the whole Vario. So we said, okay, we better make the bigger product, even if it's bigger than some competitors. But then we know that the solar panel will charge the way that it will work. And as soon as we are really sure that the Mini also works well with the solar panel, then we will release the Mini, not before.
And is there any – this is a curiosity because I still have that one. I have that on my comp kit and I use the Mini 3 on my hike and fly kit just because then I don't have to switch them back and forth. I know that's crazy, but it's just nice. It keeps me from forgetting something. But is there any, am I missing anything with that in terms of the, you know, each one gets a little bit better, but in terms of the sound and the accuracy, is there much reason to, if you've got one of the older models, should you upgrade? grade
No, no, it's not. No, there's no—there's no need for that. It's—it's, we, uh, if we have a code or new sensor data fusion that also runs on the old, uh, varios, then you also, uh, release it for the old varios. The sensors are not that good, but, um, um, you don't, most of the time, you don't feel the difference, yeah?
That's, that's a hard way too, coney. You're not making things obsolete like Apple, where every phone you get, you gotta get a new charger and a new thing and a new remote and new headphones and, oh my god, drives me crazy now.
We try to make the products as good as we can, maybe not good for business-wise, but that's how we work well.
Good for you. That's—that's refreshing. Um, okay. Well, let's—let's, uh, switch to some of your flying. I wanted to ask, in all these 30 years you've been at this, have you had any accidents? It, uh,
Yes, I had one, uh, three years ago, four. It's like, it's like always, it's a lot of factors who play, uh, play a role there. Um, I had a glider which was before, I always had gliders. Um, that when you break too much, uh, the wing was going to bend before it would make a stall. And this new glider, it was just stalling over the whole wingspan, just was stalling back. This is one reason, and the reason was I was testing warriors and then I wanted to land on a, on top of a hill and there's a rather large field and
Um, I didn't... there have been some clouds, and I didn't really look carefully because when I approached the field, then it was covered by cows. Cows, but you know, the real cows with horns. So, uh, it was not possible to land there. And, uh, that the large field was in some kind of a lee, but, uh, since it's large, no problem. And then, just before the field, there was some kind of a platform made of concrete. And so, in a land on a concrete, concrete platform is not a good idea when you... when you're in a lee. So I tried... uh, I had to avoid... I had to fly to the left side. On the left side, there have been trees and the leaf was stronger. And then I had a stall roughly two meters above ground, and it was falling on my back.
which was not good. What
Did, did you break your back, uh?
Yeah, it was just half broken, but I was very lucky, so I don't feel anything today.
Oh wow, great. Did... were you... did you have a good proper harness with a big pad, or was it just... you just...
landed our alky, uh, that helps.
no no
I had a good. And it really was just different factors that led to this accident. And I was really embarrassed because before that, I was flying without any accident for 30 years.
It's funny how the embarrassment comes in. It's an interesting emotional aspect to what we do where just a little tiny bit of complacency or just thinking about something else briefly or just doing something that you know you didn't need to do.
Yeah, and then that's too late. And
then it's too late? Exactly.
Yeah, yeah. What I've learned in 30 years is that paragliding is very, very difficult, in fact. And my landing spots get bigger and bigger.
And still after 30 years, you can learn new things about aerodynamics, for example, or about weather. Things you never would have thought it's possible, but it happens. Yeah, I think paragliding is probably more more dangerous than we think, than we believe I
think that's probably 100. I think that's for sure we've
pushed the boundaries a bit too far. That's, uh, that's that's the issue. Why
Why have we done that? What's what's pushing that? I
Don't know. It's, uh, I think it's just, uh, to have more kilometers, uh, in the logbook. At the, the end of the day, I think, um, I think it's, this is the reason. I don't know, yeah.
I would agree. I think there's a, you know, there's a really good side of something like X contest, and there's a bit of a dark side as well. It's, you know, it's great to have the database, it's great to have the knowledge, it's fantastic to have the inspiration, but it's also—there is a dark side there. There is a, you know, that's not really the reason. Well, this has come up a lot lately. I'm, I'm not trying to be preachy in any means because I definitely fall into that category 100%. But it's a dangerous pursuit.
Yeah, it's just I think paragliding is dangerous and there are just some certain weather conditions where we simply shouldn't fly. The eagle can fly maybe, but the otters shouldn't. Yeah,
that's right.
And this is my problem, I think.
Yeah. for sure. I think, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting. I asked a lot of the, we did this kind of, uh, we did three shows after the X-Alps where I interviewed a lot of the participants and a lot of the athletes in it afterwards. And, and that, that came up a number of times that it's, it is quite dangerous, but it's the least dangerous for Chrigel. He's the most relaxed. He's the most relaxed. He's the most trained. He's the most calm. And when you watch him, especially when he gets out in front, he's having a lot of fun. He doesn't seem to be having to press it nearly as hard, whereas the rest of the field is they're sleeping less, they're pressing harder, they're pressing their bodies harder and harder to try to keep up.
So I think in the end, he's actually taking the least risk.
I think so because that's always the case. When you're in front, you have to take less risk than the other ones.
Sure, sure, sure. Well, we get to see him perform in his seventh this June. That will be fascinating as always. If you could rewind the clock to your 50-hour flying self, what would you tell that tony knowing what you know now be
more careful, I would say, when I—when I—when I had, um, when I was, uh, flying on my own paragliders, um, alerting to fly my own paragliders, uh, we had a lot of luck. I was 20-something, 22, so, um, yeah, today nowadays I see things completely different, but they're much older, so right
Right, you did... you say, uh, do you have kids? No, but you have a... your... you mentioned your partner, Lisa. Was that her name?
yes and
Does she fly? Yes.
She flies too, yeah.
okay and
She learned she was flying a tandem with me for more than 15 years, and suddenly she said, "Okay, I want to learn it myself."
Wow, were you a commercial tandem pilot for a while, or just for fun?
No, no, never, no.
okay Okay. Wow. Interesting. I was going to say, if you had kids that had that change your, well, let's talk about risk. How has your risk profile changed over the years?
It's getting less and less risky.
Yeah. Do you, do you attribute that to age or knowledge or seeing accidents or all three? I
think it's all three. It's all three. It's just, you learn more, you know more what can happen. Um, you see things you wouldn't like to see, and then you get old, you get older. I think you know that too. It's just when you get older, you think more, and uh, which you simply take less risks.
Well, let's let's end this on a super positive note. Uh, best flight, best flying experience you've ever had, and feel free to think about it for a while. I know we've all had many, but is there... is there something that pops to mind you can share?
There are a few of them. There's not just one.
Share more than one. We have plenty of time.
No, it's always absolutely great when you can fly over the glaciers. And it's fun to see when everybody's chasing the valleys up and down. And I'm trying, I'm trying to fly over the glacier to climb the Finsterhorn, or whatever mountain, to fly as high as possible. It's very—this is very, very emotional. It's very, really, really great. It's one thing; the other thing, which can be, uh, very fun, is um, we have—we have been once in, uh, holidays at Mallorca, and Lisa's kids wanted to have some fun, but there wasn't much. But we had the opportunity to rent a tandem, and then we were soaring along the coast with the tandem until sunset.
Wow.
that was
really amazing because we didn't take anything with us we never thought that there would be paragliding this time of the year But they flew and we could rent a Tontem for little money. And this was really, really great. It just came out of the blue.
Yeah, I've sailed around Majorca. I can't remember. I think we flew, would it be like the northeast side of the island? We flew from a little mountain, but it wasn't on the coast. It was, you know, we flew over dirt. But was this, was the flight you did, one of these cliff kind of flights where you're over the water?
Yeah, yeah. Those are just
magic. I had one of those. It was actually that picture from that went all over the place and outside magazine and stuff that Jody took. But I flew – what's the name of the – Sao Miguel out in the Azores where we were staying on the south. We were anchored on the south side of the island. And the local paragliders, they have a really active club. They have that huge festival out there every August. And Joao, it was, is kind of the head of the the club there, or he was at the time, and he, he took us over to the north side of the island. Every day for 30 days, we went over there because just, just in the hopes that we could fly this spot, and it was always too cross, or too strong, or too light, or, you know, it has to be just right, because otherwise you go in the ocean.
And finally, on the last day we were there, we got it right, and it's still to this day. And that was a long time, I mean, that was 2009, I think – no, 2010. And it's still one of the most memorable flights I've ever had. I mean, you just couldn't – it was just perfect. You didn't have to worry about going in the ocean, and you're just flying over the Atlantic Ocean. Next stop, United States. That was pretty special.
When you go flying on the source, it's really special. special. The problem is that when you go fly in our source, and when you come back, then you need holidays because you, you meet the local guys, and then three or four times it ends up at two o'clock in the morning, and you're dead.
That's really, these guys are some kind of crazy. It's really, really, really right. This is also one of the of the best flights we had there.
Yeah, those, they are a special group. And man, you're right, they know how to party. They have a good time. Yeah, yeah, big, big shout out to them. They, they throw a good, they throw a good festival. Um, coney, really special to spend some time with you. Thank you for your amazing instruments; they have changed my world radically, and I appreciate them, and I know everybody else does as well who uses them. And, uh, look forward to sharing some skies with you in the Bernese overland. You live in a special place. Thanks. Thanks, Coney. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Talk soon. Take care. Cheers. Bye.
Thank you. Bye-bye. If
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