It must be your skin that I'm sinking in. It must be for real, cause now I can feel. And I didn't mind. It's not my kind. It's not my time. To wonder why. Hi there everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. I haven't talked about our subscription model and how that all works. And supporting the show at the top of the show in quite some time. We have it at the end all the time. But I'm sure many of you get to that point and have heard it and move on. So I thought I'd drop this in at the top. Just as a reminder. Of how this all happens at the Cloudbase Mayhem. We rely on you rather than sponsors to make all this work.
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Which we've just released. That'll be shipped in April. Advanced paragliding. You can find all the ways to do this again on the website. And if you can't support the show. I totally understand. You don't need to tell me why. Just send me an email and I'll get you all set up with a lifetime account. Again we don't put anything behind a paywall. What the subscriber. Side of things does is give you access to all the bonus content which we put out. Pretty regularly. Haven't been so great about that lately but we've got some great ones coming up including. A full. Kind of tutorial on using sky site. With Matt Scudder who is the. Main developer behind sky site down in Australia. Sailplane pilot and now paraglider pilot. And a great. Podcast with him that we recorded recently that we'll have up in the bonus material.
Where he takes you through kind of like Lisa did. For us with XCSkies he takes you through that whole platform. It is really powerful. They are. Doing some wonderful things there at sky site. I think this will become if it's not. One of your go to's right now for weather. It will be after watching this. So. Yeah. Reach out. Thank you. So much for your support. It really does. Make this job a lot easier. It makes me smile. And. Let me know. If you've got suggestions for the show. Take those very seriously. We are quite backlogged with suggestions of course. But. I. I do get to them. I do reach out. We've got. Tons in the can right now. I've got shows that will take us all the way through the X help. So. We're well set up there.
But. I'm enjoying it. I enjoy your comments. And your suggestions. And your emails. And I. Love of course. Hearing from all of you who. Tell me that the. The show is either. Saved your life. Or. Kept you from having an accident. Or. Just made you a better pilot. That's why we're doing it. That's very exciting. Top of the show tip. This week. Comes from Josh Cohn. Enjoy.
So we've got two questions from Eric Bader. The first one is. When thermaling. If you fall at the back. Is it better to crank a steep turn. Get back in the thermal quickly. Or carve a nice turn. Would your be. Answer be different on the windward side. So the main. Thing. I think it depends on. Is. How steep the. Lift gradient is. At the edge of the thermal. So if it's pretty smooth. Transition. Then. Yeah. Carve a nice turn. And. Also. If it's kind of light. Tropical. Sort of conditions. You'll often. Just need to. Do a really flat. Smooth turn. To not. To not. Yeah. To still be going up. Especially if you're low. Whereas. If it's. You know. Well defined. Tight. Strong.
Core. Then. Then. Crank it around. And then. In terms of the windward side.
Yeah. Typically. Typically. If there's significant wind. The core on the windward side. Is more well defined. You pretty much want to. Like. As soon as you start. Hitting that windward edge. You want to. Turn pretty quickly. To. To not. Totally fall out. But it's often not. It's often not super. Not super sinky. On that side either. So. Whereas. On the downwind side. It can often be. More turbulent. And sinky. So. I don't know. I want to avoid falling out. Either side. I guess. All right. Second question. When in a spiral dive. Is the drug chute. Better than tucking feet. Under the harness. And spreading the knees. To use the pod. As a drug chute. If it is better. Is it a lot better. Obviously the drug chute. Does not freeze the crotch. But is it worth it? So. I had a drug chute.
For a bit. And. I just never got around. To using it. And then I asked the. And like. Was looking for a place. To put it in my harness. And asked the designer of it. Where he kept. His. And he was like. Oh. I don't use one. So. I don't know. It seems like. They do a good job. Of making spirals. More comfortable. I don't think. Using the pod. Probably works as well. For that. Partly. Because you have to sit up. Which. Changes your whole. Dynamics in the harness. But I haven't really tested that. So. I don't know. Thanks Eric.
Okay. Okay. Enjoyed that. Josh. Cool advice. My guest today. Is Rico. Chances. Chandra. Swiss pilot. Who. Embarked on a thousand K. Solo. Bowl biv. Last year. This was his first bivy. It all went. Swimmingly. And. Just. He reached out. And said. Hey. I did this kind of cool thing. We should talk about it. And. Man. We had fun with this. Conversation. Really interesting guy. And. Had a blast. With his bivy. And. His approach was great. And. He also has a lot of. He had. Takeaways. Both. Both from the bivy. But before then. On. Just. Safety. And how to approach things. That. I really found. Super. Useful. And. Has a bunch of kind of like.
Guard rails. And rules. To keep it between the lines. As Chris Santacroce says. That I think are. Are great. And. Talks about having a superpower. That. I loved. And by the way. The music. You heard. In the opener here. Was produced by. Our guest today. Rico. Please enjoy this conversation. With Rico Chandra.
Rico. Awesome to have you on the show. Thanks for reaching out. This last week. And. I'm excited you. Got to hear that show. With Tim. And sounds like you've just been doing. Some really cool. Bivy. As well. So. I'm excited to hear about. What you learned. And what you're changing. And. How that all went. And. I guess you're in quarantine. So we got plenty of time. For this one. You just got back from South Africa. Tell me. Let's start there. Tell me about. What you're doing down in Cape Town. Well. Thanks for having me Gavin. Hi. I was. I was in Cape Town. For. Three weeks. Almost four weeks. Kiting. Flying. It's. You know. From Europe. It's just a. You get on the plane. In the evening. And you wake up. In this. More or less. Same time zone.
In the summer. So. So. I'm not. I don't really like the cold. So I was down there. Kiting. And flying. And enjoying. Good food. Not too much wine. They have a pretty serious lockdown.
Absolute. Oh wow. Prohibition of alcohol. Oh that's interesting. I've heard that one. Yeah. It's. It's funny. This thing's just so different. Everywhere you go. Yeah. It keeps their hospitals. Less full. Because they have a lot of alcohol related. Oh. Of course. Yeah. Right. How's the flying? Um. I. You know. It's beautiful. But it. The Cape. Freaks me out. In terms of flying. I've. I've. It's super strong. And windy. I think. I think if you want to. I think what you have to do there. Is just. Go. Serious cross country. Try to do records. But like. To go for. Small cross. Like. 50 Ks. 100 Ks.
That's. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. anxiety sort of went away. Nice. Nice. So, Hey, for those who are listening, who don't know you, uh, let's give a real brief of your background. When did you get into flying and what brought you to, to vol biv and before we, you know, how much experience do you have? I started flying 28 years ago and made it through these 28 years without, without injury. I dabbled in, in comps, gosh, in the, in the late nineties, stopped doing that. Cause I'm, I'm claustrophobic, claustrophobic. I can't, I can't deal with other people getting close to me. It drives me nuts.
Um, so, so I've been flying XC mainly since then. I wasn't in the higher ranks of X contest until, until 2020. Uh, I guess there was something to be said for the lockdown and all the other stuff going away. I had time to fly and didn't have to worry about, do I go out tonight and have a few drinks with friends and get home late and, or, or do I go flying? It was sort of clear this year. So, so I, 2020 was like the first year where I ended up in the high ranks. And what do you, what wing do you fly and where's home? I fly as you know, and home is Zurich, Switzerland.
I used to travel a lot for work to Washington DC, but now Zurich mainly. And what's your, what's your work? Uh, I, I, I started together with a bunch of friends. We started a company 13 years ago when the, uh, started. I was a security industry, um, selling border monitoring systems to governments. Hmm. And, uh, been, been doing that ever since. It sounds like, uh, COVID has had some kind of unexpected benefits for you. What, what's it been like for you the last kind of nine, 10 months? That's been great. I, um, I'm, I'm, I tend to be someone who's fidgety and running all over the place and, and trying to do 10 things at once.
And for me, I mean, I'm, I'm sorry for all the people who, you know, got sick and, and of course, or, or had serious consequences, but for me, uh, it was, you know, calm, a calm time. And that, uh, really had a, you know, a great 2020 and the flying has been absolutely fantastic. We had great weather here in Switzerland and, and, um, had a couple of really nice flights. I had my vol biv trip in August. So this, this has been one of the better years for me. Yeah. Tell me about this vol biv, 1000K or something. Where'd you start? Where'd you end? How long did it take? Let's get into that.
I took almost, I took the month of August off, um, was on the, on the road or on the, on the track for about 25 days. Started in Zurich, Switzerland. My plan was to go east. Slovenia Ljubljana was the original goal. It didn't go exactly according to plan. Like when I started, the weather was, you know, foul, uh, and, and, and one week into the trip, I was, you know, not, not, not very far from home. And at the same time, Slovenia. Put Switzerland on the, on the, on the quarantine list.
Like you couldn't enter the country. So I'm like, what do I do now? And instead of going east, I went west and made it to Fiesch, had a great flight there, which sort of gave me the inspiration to head east again. And then, um, and then I did go all the way to, to Slovenia. Yeah. To, to Ljubljana more or less or where the airspace of Ljubljana starts. Nice. What was the kind of style of the trip? Did you have any rules or did you have any, or was it just kind of winging it? Um, I, I thought about the rules and, and, you know, I thought about, yeah, like, do I take, do I take cable cars? Do I, do I, do I hitchhike?
Do I sleep in tents? Do I sleep in hotels? And I, I figure I'm going to do it. Uh, mainly out of my own, you know, on my, you know, walking and flying, I'm not going to hitchhike. I'm not going to take the train, but if there's something, you know, a cable car or some means of transportation going up to that launch that I want to go anywhere and anyway, I'm, I'm going to take it. And that's kind of how I did it in terms of. Were you solo? Yeah, I was solo. Yeah. Yeah.! My, my girlfriend came to visit me on, on a couple of weekends, which was nice. Cool. Um, I, I took along a tent, uh, until I lost the tent poles.
And, uh, did you, did you leave them behind? Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, one campsite one morning, I, I, I just, I guess I didn't pack them in. And, and, and then you had a nice tarp. Well, you feel kind of stupid, right? With a tent without tent poles and, uh, and, uh, for, for, for, for, I, I, I, I traded that against a bivvy bag, but I didn't, you know, I, I, I found out pretty quickly that I sleep much better in hotels. I, I, I, the, the tent or the bivvy bag was just to not have to worry about anything.
I decided I'm going to fly. The way I want to fly and, and, and not worry about where I'm going to sleep until I'm on the ground. And if I find a hotel or, you know, a farm or someplace where I can sleep great. And if not, I'll sleep outside. It's just more comfortable if you've got a hotel room and, and, and charging up your equipment as there is something to be set for that also, because, uh, I didn't take along any solar panels or. Or the like or quick chargers. So that was quite happy. And the Alps, there's always someplace to stay. So were you kind of, was your approach, uh, just launch fly as far as you could and then deal and then figure it out.
You know, you didn't, you didn't have any kind of, okay, I'm going to try to get here or there. It would just, you know, take advantage of the day. Yeah. Take advantage of the day. Exactly. Cool. I had a sort of plan for the route. Which I. Sometimes stuck to and mostly didn't. Did you, had you done bivvies before this or this was this your first. No, this was my first, this was my first, uh, bivvy like 20 years ago or 30 years ago. I spent, you know, maybe, um, a night or two wrapped in my wing, but I haven't done full biv before. And, and I, you know, when I was in my twenties, I certainly wasn't keen on doing hiking with my, uh, wing on my back.
Tell me about your kit. Were you flying the Zeno for the bivvy too? Yeah, that was definitely a mistake. Uh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that again. Just cause of the weight. The weight is the least of the problem. It's you know, launching out, uh, launching out of launches where you don't want to get your line stuck. You know, you want you. Or, or when you don't have, you know, if you've got slight downwind tailwind, um, there's, I guess zeolite would have been the perfect wing. And I was, I tested one, but for some reason I had this, this philosophy of you have one wing and you do everything with that.
So I took the Zeno. I didn't want to compromise on the flying and I took the Zeno, but you know, also in terms of packing the Zeno doesn't pack down nicely like the zeolite does. Then also landing the zeolite, you can really get into tight landing spot much better than with the Zeno. The Zeno is not bad. You can, you can flap down pretty good, but, uh, I, I wouldn't take the Zeno again. I'd go for a lighter hike and fly wing. Yeah. So just lighter, easier to manage launch and landing. Easier to pack. What about, what about harness and other stuff? Like you said, you didn't take solar panels or charging. What was the, what was the thought there?
I just didn't want to be bothered. I, I, I always felt sorry for, you know, when I see pictures of solar panels hanging out on the front of the, uh, the, the cocoon, I thought, gosh, I don't want to have stuff dangling around. I'm not going to do that. I'm here for the flying. I'm not necessarily here to do. Yeah. I've proved to the world that I'm the world's greatest adventure sportsman. I, you know, I'll, I'll do great flying and then, uh, but yeah, I didn't, I didn't want to mess with solar panels. The harness I had with a lightness too, which, which was good for that purpose. There's loads of space to pack stuff in, especially if you take out the protectors.
And what were you using for instruments? I just had my, my iPhone and the fly sky high app and the XC Racer mini two. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great piece of kit. I had that, I had a charger, uh, an in-reach with me and a fly master, uh, sky. What's it called? Sky cracker. You know, one of these tracker things. Yeah. Fly master. Yeah.!
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. better is I made it to Fiesch, got in a decent sized triangle there, and then headed east via, you know, crossing from Switzerland into Austria, then across the Timelsjok into Italy, then from Italy back into Austria near Siljan, and then for just a second, Italy back into Austria near Siljan, and then back into Italy by Villach in Austria. Yeah, down the corner there.
Yeah, then into Slovenia across the... Gredil Pass. Is that down, is that right there at Triglav? It's not exactly where Triglav is. There's a mountain called Mongart, which is well known. It's the first place, it's like north of Bovetz and Tolmin. Yeah, gotcha. Yeah. Okay, so a little bit further east. So you kind of, you went as far as you could. Yeah,
yeah. In
Austria. Yeah. And then dropped down into Slovenia. Yeah. Maybe we could get a track log or a picture or screenshot of your whole route, and we'll put it up in the show notes for those that aren't familiar with that area. Because of course, those, all those names you just said, I know, because we have spent so much time over there, but many, many don't. That's a nice route. Beautiful. Yeah. I mean, I had never flown Slovenia until this, after the last ex-alps went with my family and we stayed in there for about a month and sorts. And then we flew down to Italy, and then we flew down to Seneca and some, I forget some of those launches, but we, you know, we'd fly down that ridge line and then into Italy and then keep going into Italy, which is pretty wild. And then back, and it's just the most amazing out and back. It's gorgeous. I mean, the Soca River and.
Oh, beautiful. Just like, man, who dropped acid in my punch today? Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I thought, I thought it was, I found it really intimidating. Oh, yeah. I found it really. Really intimidating. Slovenia, you know, coming in from, from, from the north, you know, high mountains, lots of wind, tight valleys. There's a stretch there where you can't land. And then, and then also the last leg from, from Tolman, from, I think, Kobala is the launch to, to where the airspace of Ljubljana starts, the place called Skofjallovac.
That's just a stretch with, you know, Slovenian valleys with the heavily forested and not, not generously equipped with landing sites. That was. Yeah. There's some. Edgy. Yeah. It's very treed. It's one of these places. I don't know if you've flown, you know, when you, when you leave Slovenia and go into Italy, when you're doing that kind of classic out and back, you, you cross Gemona and you get into a zone there where. You know, I was, I was flying with a guy, Mike, who'd done it a bunch of times. If I hadn't been with somebody, I'd be like, what the hell are we doing? There's nowhere to land. You just keep going. You know, it's going to work, you know, but you're just like, holy shit, this is deep. And I just, I don't, I don't think people expect that in Europe, you know, in the, in the X-Ups you have, you get in this mindset where you, you just keep pushing no matter what, cause you know, there's going to be an LZ, but man, in places like that, there's not.
Yeah. You could, there's those little lakes you could, you know, there's trees all the way around them. There's like little damned lakes where I guess you could probably burn it in and then man, you're in for a shit of a hike and there's no roads. There's nothing down there. There's no, there's no trails. There are at least that I could see from the air, but you, it's a, yeah, it's a little intimidating. It's, it's weird because it's, it's like the locals just know it's going to work. And if they have the right winds and the right sun and everything, you just keep going. But you're like, man, I hope this works. Yeah. For me, it was. It was the end of the trip. So I thought, well, you know, worse comes to worse, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll land in a tree and, and, you know, I don't need the glider. And that's sort of the soft talk.
Some of the soft talk I had in those. Okay. We're going to leave that in, but I don't know if that's, it's, it's like my thoughts about Monaco at the race. I hate Monaco so much, but you know, my Bruce, my supporter in the 20s. 2015, 2017, he was like, you know, you got to stop thinking like that. Cause he hated it too. He hates Monaco. And he was like, you know, this isn't really the attitude we want to have. Cause that's where you actually want to get. No, but you can leave it in. Cause my, my attitude as you'll see, I'm, I'm, I'm super safety conscious. And, and that's, you know, that's some of the self-talk to deal with anxiety while flying. But, but I'm, I'm, I'm really, I'd say. I'm safety conscious and, and I wasn't gunning it.
And I've, I've given up on the rule of thumb. There was always a place to land. If I don't see a landing analogy where I think I can get in, I don't go on a land and walk that that's one of the rules of thumb that I sort of, you know, that you'll all, you can always, you'll always find a place to land. I've, I've given up on that. I'm too old for that. Nice. Yeah. Well, let's get into that. Cause that's, that's a good one. I'm more inclined towards that as well. Since my days with Will Gadd and the Rockies, you know, it's like, Ooh, this is a long ways. Well, are we sure we're going to make this? And, but you, you wrote when you reached out to me about this baby, you wrote the, you know, there were mistakes made as there always is.
And I think there is on just normal flights as well. So let's get into some of that. What did you learn? What were the takeaways? So mistakes. I'm, I'm, I'm kind of analytic about this. And so I grouped the mistakes into procedural mistakes and tactical mistakes. The procedural ones fall into two categories. The first, this is, this is, this is embarrassing. It's about losing stuff, but yeah, like losing my tent poles or, or losing my cap. But I noted pretty quickly, if I lose an essential piece of gear, that really sets me back or that's the end of the trip. So. Yeah. It's not like you're, it's not like you're taking extraneous things on a bivvy. You got, you know, you don't, you don't have, you don't have extras, you know?
Yeah. So I, I got really pedantic, like I got really pedantic about every time I, I got up, I like pedantically double check. Did I left something like conscious consciously check? Did I leave something behind or I consciously, uh, make sure my. Like the zips of my pockets were closed that I'm not losing stuff. And there's really only two ways to, to not lose stuff when you're, when you've unpacked somewhere and packing up and heading to the next place. And one is you have a checklist and the other is you make sure you left nothing behind and the left nothing behind works pretty well.
It's a fast one, but it means you have to. First. Of all, when you're unpacking, not be a bit mindful where you, where you unpack and have it sort of in a confined zone and stuff. And then also consciously check. Um, when I left, when I lost my tent poles, it was, I'd already started walking like 10 meters and thought, ah, should I just turn around, do a final check? And I just said to myself, no, I've got so little gear what's there to lose.
The classic, you know, I, I had a, uh, I had to learn this, the hardware, the very first day of the 2015 race. And we'd actually practice this because my team knows that I'm a space cadet and, you know, but you can imagine you're in a, you're in a hurry, you're in a rush, you're trying to do everything really fast. And the first day we had a big flight landed and I just dumped everything on the grass. And then later, of course, you know, there's a missing glove. My Bluetooth, the earpiece was gone. Yeah. It's tiny. I didn't have it tied in. And so I've learned now with Bivy, my first thing that comes out of the pack is my little tarp. And I just put everything on the tarp. Yeah. And in the race, I don't have a, a, a tarp. So in the race, it's on my jacket. So the first thing is jacket comes off and all the stuff just gets stacked onto it.
Cause like you said, you have to make it part of your procedure. You gotta be pedantic about it or you just lose stuff. Yeah. Just because there's grass, you know, a lot of times. Yeah. In the Alps, especially there's pretty tall grass and it's so easy to just misplace something little, even tent poles. They just, you know, they could disappear.
Also, also I like make, made a point of, you know, carrying my, when, when I'm doing my pack and, and, and setting up to fly to, to carry my canopy up from where my stuff is dumped on the ground to not be covering up, you know, spreading my glider over stuff that I know. Yeah. That's a big one. The glider covers all kinds of stuff. Another day, I think that's first race. I think I took off one time and I dropped, I had the camera, some device. I had like three things under my leg. I was like, sorry, Red Bull. Can you bring me new stuff? Yeah. Oops. Yeah. So, so losing stuff, that's, that's one you can fix by having good process, like procedures.
The other procedural one where I was constantly messing up with resources. Management. So under resources, I think of things like water, food chart, you know, having your devices charged, hooking up your P2 to fly washing your law. You know, I had two sets of boxer shorts, two sets of, of tee shirts, always, you know, sort of one clean and one blind from washing it, getting that stuff washed, but also stuff like downloading. Downloading the maps and the apps before you actually run out of cell phone coverage or figuring out, you know, the, how this map app works before, before you get, I was like somewhere in the, I remember I texted you, Hey Gavin, what was, what was the app that you use for the map?
Because I was, you know, my, my three map apps were not giving me what I wanted and I was in the middle of somewhere. And I, so that's when I reached out to you on that. And thanks for, for, for the recommendation. The right way to do it obviously is to practice with those apps and maps and download the stuff before getting going. It's, it seems obvious, but it's just, uh, I was constantly getting all sorts of resource management wrong. Yeah. I, I'm glad you brought that up because I think it's so easy to, you know, have the checklist and check them off before you go. But, you know, like even the intro. Yeah.
Yeah. Obviously in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in for me before the race, even though I've used them a million times and I've used them on all the expeditions and stuff, like I'm really familiar with Gaia and some of the other things we use, but it takes, you just got to always reorient to it unless you're using it all the time. So if you have even a little fake, you know, uh, bivy in your backyard and just fake it for a couple hours and, and set yourself little tasks just on foot, then it really helps. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And also like the charging sequence, when you get to,
to a place where I can charge your stuff and what sequence do you, you charge your stuff? Yeah. And then, then, you know, you spent the rest of the day editing your GoPro footage and stuff like that. And there is a sequence, like the resource management is figure out what the sequence is to, to doing stuff. And there's so much you can do. Yeah. And I would agree with you. I mean, I think that there's, you know, when you have the solar panels hanging off your cocoon stuff, you know, Ben Jordan style, I, you know, there's, there's a place for that, but there's also, you know, with a, with a decent external battery. And, you know, if you're doing a bivy in a place like the Alps and assuming you're going to get to a hut or something every three or four days, you really don't need a panel.
And the other thing is, you know, just with an extra battery, I think you do need the extra battery. And the, you know, appropriate cables. But I've never on, on even the longest of my bivys, have I ever needed to charge while I'm flying? You know, there's always in a bivy, there's so much time in a day where you're sitting around in the morning, making coffee, whatever, where, you know, a little seven or nine watt panel can go, can do a lot of good. But then if I was doing one in the Alps, I don't think I'd bring one. I just don't think it'd be necessary. Yeah. You're not bringing a battery or? No, a solar panel. I bring a, I bring a battery always. You need a battery. You need a battery. Like a power bank, bank. And, oh, by the way, you mentioned food, uh, or you mentioned like making coffee.
I didn't even, I didn't take a stove. I didn't take stuff to cook. Cause in the Alps, there's always some place to get, I had like enough food for one meal and water and a couple of like, um, power bars or whatever. But there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, in the Alps, you'll always, you'll always find a restaurant or, or a farm or something and they'll give you food. So I didn't, I didn't want to mess with, with, with cooking. By the way, in the show notes, we can also link to that. I did, I did like a video diary and we can link to that on YouTube and there's the entire list of stuff I took. Oh, great. Um, tell me, let's, let's move on to, so you've got this kind of procedural stuff in resources, which is super important.
Yeah. The procedural mistakes, the tactical mistakes there, there were sort of four, four kinds that I made. And I mean, there's obviously a lot more, but those I, you know, makes no sense reviewing them without a map, but there was four sort of general ones, which are independent of topography. One is giving up, you know, often I, I did give up, uh, due to fear or discomfort and that, probably applies to XC flying in general, where you've, you've had enough and you give up. So, so you, you classify that in this, in these instances as a mistake. In other words, you were, you were kind of just over it, but it was probably definitely good enough to keep going.
It's a slippery slope. Yeah, sure. I mean, it is a mistake if it's due to discomfort, like if you're giving up due to discomfort, because, uh, you didn't attach your P tube or you've got cold fingers or you're freezing. Copy. Yeah. Fear, fear can also be mistake. You know, sometimes when you're on a wall, when you're on your own, you get scared just because the, the, the, the rocks around you look very intimidating and you're alone. And, and, and if there were other paragliders there, you wouldn't be, you wouldn't be, you wouldn't be able to fly. You wouldn't be afraid. So it's kind of a mistake, but I, I'd be careful.
I, it's a, it isn't a bad mistake to make, but the consequences of, of, of landing too early are, you know, I sort, I sort of thought, well, that's not going to tell me that I might lose time or I might look stupid, but that's not, that's not a big deal. Height management, height management was like, um, landing, landing. High taking off, launching high landing highs, sort of a no brainer, but, but oftentimes I realized I could have landed higher, but when, you know, um, didn't think I'd make the glide, but then I'd already started gliding for the lower landing site and launching.
I have this, this rule of thumb, like, you know, when you're vol bivving, how, or a hike and fly, how high do you hike up? Before you launch? When, when, when are you high enough to, to hook a thermal and fly? Uh, my rule of thumb for that was this wouldn't be applicable for, for, for the X-Alps, but for, for myself, if you were like recreationally flying, then my rule of thumb is I want to hike up high enough that if I bomb out, at least I can walk up another mountain and don't have to walk up the same mountain and that, that for motivation. And for recreational purposes, that's like, I think that's a really good rule of thumb. Oh, I like that.
So you, so you would get to a place where you're like, okay, I can see that if I don't hook anything, I'm going to be able to glide to there. And that's going to get me to a different launch down my course line a little ways. And it's going to be manageable energy wise. Exactly. Cause there's, there's launches you, you walk up to, and then you launch and you land, you know, and the only option you have left is to walk right up to where you want to be. And that, that, that's not good for motivation.
Then other tactical mistakes were map reading, uh, trusting the GPS reading, um, you know, of my, of my iPhone, that's not always correct or not reading the elevate misjudging the differences in elevation. On the map. That's I did that a couple of times. Are you talking while you're flying? No. Okay. No. While hiking. Okay. While hiking. Actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other, the last bullet of like tactical mistakes is when to rest. You know, since this wasn't a race or race therapy, you know, I think there were three, three days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll rest. And I think I, I regretted it all three times because the next day was even worse weather. And so, yeah, resting, the decision to rest, I think if you can, if you can, if it's good enough to make distance, then make distance. Okay. So maybe, maybe better self-assessment, you know, okay, well, you know, rest would be nice, but I don't really need it right now. I think we just do have to be tuned into how switched on are we? Because rest is important for sure. And Bivy takes, you know, it can take a lot out of you. Yeah.
Although, you know, if you, if you put in a rest day, then like by three o 'clock in the afternoon, you've caught up on your blogs and emails. Yeah. And, and, and you've charged all your equipment, wash your clothes and you're like, what am I doing here? You know? So yeah.
Let's move to your hierarchy thing. And this is cool. Five types of outcomes of bad decisions. Talk about that.
So bad decisions, like some of them, some of the stuff we talked about, it's got different outcomes. And I grouped those into five categories. So bad decisions, like some of them, some of the stuff we talked about, it's got different outcomes. And I grouped those into five categories. So bad decisions, like some of them, some of the stuff we talked about, it's got different outcomes. And I grouped those into five categories. So bad decisions, like some of them, some of the stuff we talked about, it's got different outcomes. And I grouped those into five categories. So bad decisions, like some of them, some of the stuff we talked about, it's got different outcomes. And I grouped those into five categories. So bad decisions, like some of them, some of the stuff we talked about, it's got different outcomes. And I grouped those into five categories. So bad decisions, like some of them, some of the stuff we talked about, it's got different outcomes. And I grouped those into five categories. and the lowest on the hierarchy is looking bad.
I mean, we're human. I did feel pressure having blogging about this and having people follow me on live tracking. It's nowhere near the pressure you must have during X-Alps, but bombing out isn't a feeling of I'm so awesome. But decisions have consequences, and those consequences fall into these five categories. The way I dealt with those categories is I absolutely don't want to get hurt.
And I am really going to try to avoid losing or breaking equipment. And the rest of the stuff, I'm not going to worry about. I'm not going to worry about discomfort or hiking, because if I was worried about discomfort, well, you shouldn't go on a ball biz anyway. I wasn't going to worry about losing time, because one of the reasons I was doing this is sort of to face up to my own, fear of missing out and chill. So I'm not going to worry about losing time. And looking bad or looking like a fool or feeling like a fool, I decide to completely let go of that. And one thing that helps with that is blogging, because then you feel more like a journalist, and you can write about your feelings, which makes the blog more interesting for those reading it.
And it gives you an excuse to, you know, to, you know, it improves your content if you're not doing well. So that's how I dealt with those, how I sort of grouped those things. So all I wanted to prevent was getting hurt or breaking or losing equipment. And did you have, is this a good segue? Is that where the rules of thumb come in? Yeah. So the rules of thumb that I have, they apply to flying more generally. So it applies very much to, I think, but some of it just applies to XC flying in general. And, you know, there is a lot of questions that you don't know when you were learning to fly.
Like, when can I jump into the lee of a mountain or, you know, how long can I edge out? How long can I remain in the air when there is a storm? When do I need to go land? And you just don't know these things. Nobody teaches you. And, and, and so I, I guess I started out years ago, I guess with, with just setting up. So a couple of rules of thumb, like hypothesis. And, and then I, I wasn't necessarily pushing all the way to, to, to the border, but just testing those hypotheses and, and then I started to think about, so for example, when you're one of the most common added dangers, I think vol biv brings is edging out storms.
Like how long do you, how long does it take you for you to say, nah, this is, this is that cloud's too dark. I'm, I'm going to go land. And, and the rule of thumb that I, that I use there. Is.
So, so take this, I, I got it. I feel I have to put a disclaimer on this because I don't think you can just apply this to your own flying without having, you know, tested it as a hypothesis for a long time before applying it. But the rule of thumb with storms is as long as there is blue sky above me, I'm still good.
So I think, I think I even learned that from someone. But, you know, I picked it up and had it as a hypothesis for the last 15 years. And for the last 15 years, I've been every time I fly or see others fly, I've been testing whether that hypothesis is true. Can you, is it, is it okay to have the rule of thumb? You can fly as long as there, as long as there is still blue sky above you, you're good. And for all I've seen so far, that rule for me works pretty well when it comes to, you know, the clouds are getting big or getting tall. How long do I remain in the air before I go land?
So I'm not suggesting people follow these rules, but I'm suggesting it's, it's, it's worked out for me to set up rules of thumb and, and observe over years, whether those make sense. And, and one of them I had to give up, which was, there's always going to be a place to land. I decided that is not true for me. There's not always a place to land. I'm going to, I'm not going to, I want to see where I land before committing to a valley that I fly into. Hmm. Yeah, I would, I guess I would put the disclaimer on the blue part with, you know, every situation is different.
And you said that, but you know, I can think of a few times, you know, certainly in the, in a desert environment, which is very, very different from the Alps, you know, we can get massive cells a long ways away and still be in cold air. Exactly. Well, it's just, if you can stay in the air, you might be okay. But if you decide, you know, that you need to land and you get hit in that Gus front, it could be very blue where you are, but you're suddenly, the one, the one experience I've had in the Alps that was similar to this was, we were flying from fish,
in down to kind of core. And then we actually made it over and we were heading into Davos. And so down the Rhine basically. And we were on the, I think we were on the north side of the Rhine heading, heading east. And all day there was a huge cell on the Italian coast. So it had a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, a really big, 50 miles away, which is unusual to be able to even see in the, in the Alps, you don't get that tall most of the time.
And so often these cells are, are, you know, you don't even see them. You know, they might be on the other side of the, of the, of the main spine of the Alps and you don't even see, but this one we could see cause it was so big and it was so tall and, but it was just brilliant. So at Coor, okay, let's keep going. And we got over the range and, you know, Davos is down below us and we were both like, okay, that's enough. We've, we've pressed this far enough. And we both spiraled to the ground really fast and touched down literally about 30 seconds before the gust front hit. So this thing had finally exploded and, and started running down the valleys. And we found it, we got on the train and we were heading back to Fiche and we found out there was, I think the Swiss open or some, some pretty, big comp was, had been, you know, going that day and two people, I believe, I think one died and another one ended in the trees because they got hit in that gust front.
And so just to, again, you know, anecdotal, but it's, you know, one of these kind of, you know, there's always a, there's always an exception. And I think if there's big stuff around, you gotta be thinking how much time, how far can I press this? We certainly press it a lot in the ex-Alps and there's been a bunch of times where we're like, oh, I'm not going to press this. Boy, that was close. But to be, to be clear when I'm saying blue sky, I mean, blue sky. And oftentimes when you have that kind of storm, like you were talking about the anvil really extends out far and, and, you know, the cirrus clouds from the anvil, that is not blue sky. So. Okay. Oh, good. Okay. Good. Good. Yeah. That's, that's important to mention if, if, and, and yeah, I, I, I believe there are probably exceptions to the rule, but the rule has worked pretty well for me.
And oftentimes it's the, you know, with big storms, it's the anvil that, that takes away the blue. Yeah, no, good point. And it was probably, I bet by the time we landed, well, I remember this because it started raining pretty quick, you know? So by the time we, by the time we were dialing down out of the sky, it was getting gray. So no, it's a good one. I like that. Do you have any other of these kind of? Yeah. I have one, which is a prize mainly, I have one to fly, as you mentioned, like flat land flying, like one, one that works for me very well in, in, in the flatlands, like in, in Piedra Rita or in, in, in the Northeast of Brazil is like the, the two zones. Like if I'm higher than 800 meters above ground, I'm in, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm gunning it.
And if I'm lower than 800 meters above ground, I'm in, you know, I'm, I'm in survival mode and I'm in survival mode. They're the rule of thumb. That's, you know, that's the well-known one that I follow, which is never leave lift to search for lift. So if I'm, and for me, you know, the survival mode, the border is strict, 800 meters above ground. I'm not going to leave lift to look for better lift. I'm going to wait until I'm higher than 800 meters above ground. And if I'm, above 800 meters above ground, I'm, I'm going to snob anything that is slower than the day's average. I'm not going to turn in anything that's, that's slower than two meters, you know, that, that's, that's going up slower than two meters or whatever the average is.
Yeah. That's great. That's sort of two gears that worked really well for me in the flatlands, also being disciplined on, on the survival mode to not, not be optimistic but be pessimistic. And when I'm in the, the, the upper layer, I'm, I'm optimistic in the Alps, it doesn't work out that well because you, you can't set a height above ground or a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,
a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,
a, a, a, a, cutoff between survival and and gunning it and you know because often we wouldn't have that 800 because we're right on the terrain but we're still really high you know we're right over the peaks or something you know if we went out over the valley we'd have 2 000 meters or something yeah yeah i think you can still i think you can still do it but it takes it takes more fine-tuning am i in which zone am i now in and it's it's very tempting to not admit that you're already in survival zone or or very tempting to remain in survival mode too long where you should be gunning it i find it more difficult to to set a clear dividing line between the two let's return real quickly to your your your fifth uh one in the list of
you know from bad to not so bad the the last one was you know not looking like a doofus and i mean i you know it makes you laugh but i think we all struggle we don't mean we're we all have egos and it's an important one and you know i've been reading a ton of sports psychology books in the kind of run-up to this race because i've you know obviously the mind is the thing that is the most important uh you know there's all you know there's the physical and everything else which is obviously and skills and all that but the mind is the thing that is the most important uh you know there's all is the big one and i'm wondering if you had any other tools to help you drop the importance of those kind of last couple you know you don't want to you don't want to trash your gear you don't want to lose your gear you don't want to get hurt but you know we don't really want to care what we look like who gives a shit you're the one out there having one and and everybody else is watching you on live tracking you know yeah but it's easier said than done no i but i think i have a real
problem in the world in the world in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in about it without bombing out, this sport would not be interesting. We'd not be doing it. No one would. I mean, that's what makes us appreciate the good flights. And for me, that sort of developed.
I honestly think that's a superpower of mine. I'm not too concerned about that. And to see it that way, then even enforces that, to think of it that way enforces it to be a superpower. And you can even think of it as actually I'm here to have fun while everyone else is competing. And for me, that works really well. It's also a sort of luxury I have because I'm not working in this business. I'm not. My livelihood doesn't come. I'm from this business. I'm not an instructor. I'm not sponsored in a big way.
I don't owe anyone anything. So I can just be the recreational pilot I am. I think there's, you know, we've talked about this on recent shows, but when I look at the really consistent World Cup pilots that you kind of very often see in the top 10, there's one thing they have in common, and that's that they don't freak out when they bomb out. They've been there enough. They've done it enough where they know that you're going to bomb out. We all bomb out. We all screw this up. And, you know, it's just another day, another experience to put in your experience bag and move on. And, you know, one of these books I've been reading lately, I've been actually just reading it cover to cover over and over again because I love it.
It's called The Champion's Mind. And it talked about, you know, that people that really excel and succeed in sport or anything else, they dump mistakes immediately. You know, they don't, you know, you think about like a football player or a basketball player, you know, it talks about Michael Jordan. You know, he was given the opportunity to make the game winning shot. I don't know how many times, you know, lots, but he missed it like 28 times, you know, a bunch. And, you know, if he let that get him down, how could he ever try to make another game winning shot in the future? You know, you just can't, you just got to let it go. And, and, and get onto the next thing. You're going to drop a pass. You're going to throw an interception. And if you, if you let that bug you, how can you play the rest of the game?
Exactly. And our sport is one, which thankfully it humbles all of us so often. And as soon as we get cocky or even if we don't, it humbles us. So yeah, I'm, I'm really good at bombing out and then enjoying the rest of the day, you know, enjoying the hike or whatever. In fact, one of the in, in Alps free ride, I don't know if you've heard of Alps free ride. It's a, it's a, it's, it's our team here in Switzerland. A couple of the really good XC pilots are in it. It just in the Swiss. It's a cross country cook. And there's a lot of excellent pilots there, but especially one of the Serena Ronke.
She's a, she's a young, you know, she's been flying for two years or so. Like her attitude is just really amazing. I've, you know, when, when we go flying in the Alps, when we go cross country flying, usually for me, it used to be, you get up early, you get to launch, you fly. And if you bomb out after. 30, 50, 80, a hundred kilometers, you go home. But no, she, she, she walks up the next mountain and continue to, if it's a good flying day, why would you go home? Why, why would you go home? You came to fly. So it's a good flying day. So make the most out of it. I, I, I found, you know, that, that added to, to be super. Rico, before we move on to kind of the next thing, is there anything we haven't tapped into yet in terms of what you learned from the bivy any other stuff?
You want to add any other stuff you want to add to that? I want to pass on. Let me give you my take on why vol biv carries some extra risk compared to just regular XC flying. Number one is flying into Lee situations. That just your, you need to get, you know, your, your path that you're trying to follow or the place you're trying to go will invariably take you through Lee situations almost every day. Then strong wind coping with strong winds. So you want to have a strong wind landing in strong wind flying on days where you, you know, usually when you go fly, you pick the day according to the weather, but on a longer trip, well, you know, very well from X, X-Alps. So strong wind slope landings is something that an additional sort of danger that comes with vol biv edging out storms.
And the last one is sort of on, on. Like when you, when you, when you land, you're not going to be able to fly. So in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day, but in a windy day and not clearing those boulders. So those are some of the added dangers I compiled. Then there's the one about flying into lees.
Is that a word that's used in English? Yeah, I think so. So I don't have a rule of thumb for that because there are so many different lees and there's what I sort of tend to, the way I deal with those is first step, gather all data I can. So is it how strong is the wind? And that includes even while flying, looking up wind data from other wind station. How stable is the day? If the day is stable, the lee is going to be nasty. How much ground clearance do I have? Super important in a trajectory and through the lee, especially the worst possible trajectory through the lee, assuming a lot of sink.
How much ground clearance do I have? And can I sneak out of there? Is there a way to get out of there? So analyze all the data that is possible. And is it while approaching the lee, is it bumpy or smooth? Is it sucking? Or is it washing? And then once you've analyzed, when you think you've taken in every source of data that you have, sort of try to plan out what's the worst possible outcome if I fly where I'm intending to fly, what trajectory is that going to be? And then if you're willing to, if you map it out and say, even in the worst possible case, my trajectory will be more or less safe and I won't get stuck.
So if you're willing to, if you're willing to, if you're willing to, then sort of go with the flow, you know, go with the flow and be on the bees and, and, and try to try to go fast. Yeah. What I found with Lee is there's often this, you get into, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. And then you get into the wash zone or something, something that, you know, obviously you can't see. And, and the, the tendency right then is nasty. I'm going to run. And it's usually just a matter of pressing a little bit farther. And I'm, again, this is not, this is scary to make this as a generalization, you know, every, every situation is totally different, but usually, usually if you just keep going a little bit and press it a little bit further and hang onto the wing and then, then it's going to turn into the Lee climb and, and that will, you know, but you've got to have,
again, not always, you've got to have enough sucking enough, climbing to get you through the, you know, cause you're going to hit it again. You know, when you get up, if you start climbing and get up above it, you're going to hit that wind shear layer. And so it needs to be strong enough to punch you through that. But I think, I think most important question for, for Lee's and also other potentially dangerous situations is, is it worth it? Is it, is it worth it? I mean, is it like in, if I'm just flying on an afternoon at a site, I'm not going to take that kind of risk because it's not worth it. I'm not going to take that risk even for an XC flight, unless it's going to be one of the best flights I've done.
It's usually not worth it, but there are situations where it's worth it because, because you're, you know, because it's going to be a 200 kilometer triangle or so, then, then, then I'm willing to take a slightly greater risk than I would. Yeah. And in those cases, like, like, like we'll, Gad says, when you do that and if you crash or screw it up, then, you know, we shouldn't have any sympathy for that. You know, that's it. We're knowledgeably making that decision with, with full knowledge of what we're doing. And that's, that's important. And there are times where that, that is what you want to do and needs to be done. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm super proud of myself that I've, I've not hurt myself ever flying and I wanted to stay that way.
So I, I tend to err on the side of caution. I try to detect when I'm compensating skills with courage. I really try to avoid that because the fact of the, I mean, the truth is if you, if you chase this, if you, if you chase it hard for a decade, you are likely to break your back in this sport. And that's just something I'm super aware of. I've seen it happen. It's happened to a lot of friends and I don't want to be one of them. And I'm, I mean, flying is really awesome. It's given me so much, but it's not worth it. It's not that good that I would, you know, risk my back for it.
And, and the fact that back injuries are likely if you chase it hard is, is just something I don't want to put up with. So you'll see me, you'll see me flying, taking more at it, you know, adding an extra safety margin compared to most pilots, just because I don't want to, I don't want to accept that risk. Yeah. I don't think anybody would, you know, after breaking the back go, wow, that was worth it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, that just no way. So yeah, that's a good thing to, you know, kind of always have in your mind, you know, is it worth it? Rico, as we get here close to an hour, do you mind if we switch over? You know, we did this survey that we, we put out some weeks ago now, and I got all these fun questions and I've been kind of pinging people with, with various ones.
You mind if I just ask you some random, go for it. Quick response. Okay. What was the biggest aha moment you've had with flying in the last year? I think, I think probably to let the glider fly to,
to it's made, it's more than a year. It's, it's one and a half years, but I guess that counts also. It's, it's, you know, early morning in, in, in Kaiko in Brazil, you're, you launch at six in the morning and yet there was really not much out there and, and no way to figure out where the thermals are. Just, just following your intuition and letting the glider fly. And you don't really know. I think letting the glider fly to, to sniff out thermals is like an aha. That's been, I, it's taken me 27 years to get to that point. What's the funniest thing you've ever seen flying either recently or ever?
In Geneva. I used to live in Geneva and there was an awesome flying club there. The, the LZ is sort of next to a farm and there's, there's, there's chickens there. And on a strong, strong thermal day, someone said, oh, let's, let's take a chicken up to launch and then, and then, and then let go of it and the thermals and, and, uh,
and imagine all the other pilots thinking, you know, what her, her coring the thermal and a chicken comes their way, like centering next to them. And it's the kind of day where I swear, I, I swear to you, I swear to God, I saw a chicken. No one did it. Of course. No, no one took the chicken up to launch, but that, that's what comes to mind. That's a great one. What are your goals this next year? You know, you had some big flights down in the Sertow and you did this cool bivy. Where do you want to take your flying now? I've been wondering if I should try to learn like the sort of X-Alps landing techniques, you know, the fly on the wall stuff, Chrigel as a tutorial on that.
Although it's possible that those sort of landings are reserved for people who do, you know, 300 hours a year, you know, shouldn't be tried by, by people who aren't really professionals. That's something, but that's something I w I would really like then the, what I strongly want to do is learn more about from, from other pilots. Uh, I've been most of my flying life. I've been, I've been flying alone. And now these, these last few years, I've been flying a lot with, with, with my buddies and Alps free ride, and they are just amazing pilots. And I'm learning so much from them, learning so much about topography fees and, and different valleys and how to do certain stuff.
Speaking with other pilots, Alton and the Swiss league, they're doing great. They're doing a great job to sort of share information. There's really so much where I'm, I still want to work on then in terms of, uh, accelerate and speed bar technique. I think I can get much better in efficiently flying on my B risers versus pushing and pulling the speed bar, you know, with the, with the two line. I, I, I've been flying two lines, one wings for two and a half years. And I, I think there's still so much for me to learn there. Yeah, that's a, that's almost never ending. I find this always get more efficient.
Um, last one, Rico, if, if you could only make one more flight in your life, where would you go? What flight would it be? Oh, I don't know right now. There's, there's a whole lot of them. There's a whole lot of them, but right now we're in the midst of winter and, and, and they're not, they're not, they're not taunting me. So I, I, I, I, I, I, I asked me something else. That's did you, did you enjoy flying in the Sertau? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's, um, it's great flying. I, I, um, I'm not good at the team flying, but I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I don't tend to get into a flow as a team. I just like to fly alone, but it's, it's magnificent and,
uh, such good flying. They're such good vibes when you land somewhere in the middle of nowhere and, and, and, uh, chill with the locals and wait to get picked up. Uh, yeah, that's really awesome. Okay. So this will be the final one and this is even harder. So I'm ramping it up for you. Uh, why, why do you fly? I've thought about that quite a bit. There is a couple of reasons. One is it's nice to have, have a mission and flying gives you a mission and it's a nice mission because you're every minute or every spare afternoon, you're trying to get out into nature and spending time with nature and, and trying to do something that is not really intended for humans to do and trying to do it as best as you possibly can.
I think flying is one of the best, best sports you could practice because, you know, if you want to have that sort of thing, because it's, you know, it ages while, uh, where you're a couple of years older than me, not much, but you're among the world's best pilots. Which sports is that possible? You know, you could, you can, and you're doing adventure racing, XC flying. There's no reason why you can't be an excellent XC pilot. You'd be 50 years old or 60 years old. So that, that it was a good choice. It wasn't why I started flying, but it's definitely why I'm going to stick with it for a long time. That's great.
Rico. What a joy, man. I appreciate it. Thanks for reaching out to me and, and sharing with all of us here, your adventure and very cool. We'll put some stuff up in the show notes about that. I'm sure. And, but thanks, man. I, I appreciate it. That was a lot of fun. Very welcome. Good. Good to see you again. Next time we see each other, it'll be somewhere at a, at a, at a launch and ready to take off. Absolutely. Let's do it. Cheers. Thanks, Gavin. Bye-bye. It's like the strawberry field. I treated you bad. You bruise my face. If you find the cloud-based mayhem valuable, you can support it in a lot of different ways.
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