Hi there everybody, welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. My guest today is the legendary Robbie Whittall. I have been dying to get Robbie on the show for years and years, and it finally came together really as a result of the Kiwi tragedy. Those two were very, very dear friends and had many, many adventures together over the years and a lot of history together with Ozone. and unfortunately, I didn't get to meet Robbie on it. I was there for the first few days of the search, and then he came in afterwards, and then of course came back when they found Kiwi, and I didn't get to meet him then either. But we did get to share a lot of texts and some laughs and some tears, and finally got together to do this show.
So, really excited to bring you this. Robbie is, of of course, one of only three people to have won the world championships in hang gliding and paragliding along with Judy Levin and his mate John Pendry, uh, all British pilots. So we talk about why the Brits have been so dominant in this game from the beginning. We talk about his crazy racing for a few years in the Isle of Man race, widely known as one of the most dangerous motorsports races in the world. It's held every year. It's been held almost 100, or maybe over that now, and and just in 2016 alone, they lost five people in that race. So it's crazy, you got to google it. There's some links up in the show notes, and with some of that racing, pretty wild stuff.
We talk about him starting one, being one of the founders of Ozone, and all kinds of stories, memories, and his dominance, and why he got out of the sport really at the top of his game, what he's doing now, what he plans to do in the future. And this was an emotional one for both of us talking about Kiwi. Of course, talk about that a little bit. But just great. It was just so awesome. I'm so thankful and grateful to have Robbie on the show and share some of his his incredible history. Before we get to the show, the top of the show tips are actually two stories that I came back to. We recorded this podcast a couple months ago, and I just recently had a fun flight out in the desert with Bill Belcourt and Ravis and Thad, and Bill shared some of the stories, some other stories that I hadn't heard in the podcast about Robbie, and I went back to him and said, hey, can we slide some of those into the top of the show?
So please enjoy these two rather wild stories about Robbie to kick things off, and then we'll get into the podcast.
Okay. Oh, well, it's funny that these stories get remembered and that Bill has remembered that one. Obviously, when it's your own life, a lot of things get forgotten, and I'd totally forgotten about this, but it was quite an incredible story. story. It's happened once upon a time, a long time ago, when I was a much younger man, but we just started Ozone and what had happened was we were going virtually every weekend to Italy because, at that time, I was kind of a bit of a bit of a hero in Italy and we needed to kick start the business quick. And the easiest country, because we were living in France and developing the gliders in France, was to go to Italy every weekend and do a demo weekend. So we were literally every weekend work during the week, nip to Italy on the weekends, do our demos at various sites around the country and drive back again.
Anyway, this particular weekend, uh, we were having a demo meeting in Como. At, uh, with, uh, with our distributors there, Eric, Corned, Zolo, and we, you know, we were a young company, so we, we needed to make things happen. Unfortunately, it was, um, north wind, very strong, fern wind, so there was no way to fly. And when I say it was very strong, it was howling, absolutely howling over the back of the hill, uh, you know, 50, 100 kilometer winds up high. Um, so there was not much we could do, but we had all these people there who'd come to see us, and, um, you know, the draw card for that weekend was myself and John Pendry, and so everybody wanted to see the products.
And, um, well, what are we going to do? And I said, well, I've got an idea. Let's go down to the landing field. For sure, it's going to be an absolute mess down there, but I can just quickly get the wings up and let, at least, let people see them, you know, just quick boom up, have a look, drop it down again, pack them away. So, uh, we just released, uh, the tandem wing at the time, which was the Cosmic Rider. So, I mean, the tandem wing was 34 meters. I don't know what I was thinking, but I was particularly lucky on this one. So I got the, the tandem out, put it up, let everybody see it, dropped it down, packed it away. It was like, my god, that was lucky, being, you know, I didn't get dragged into a fence or something.
Uh, then we had the Octane, and actually happened to have the extra small Octane with us, and I thought, oh, well, that's perfect, because it's actually, you know, even though it's so strong and windy, it's the size you'd want to be handling in these kind of winds. So, you know, there's a crowd of our dealers, they're all watching, and I pop the, the Octane up, and, uh, John is actually just stood in front of me. At this time, I've clipped into the wing backwards because I'm just doing a demo on a flat field, you know, in the landing field. So I've clipped into the wing backwards, uh, literally just going to pop it up, show them the new Octane, and drop it down. Anyway, I pop the wing up and it comes up beautifully, and, you know, the wind's a bit all over the place and you can tell it's turbulent, and we're in the lee side of the hill of the, you know, of the Alps, basically, because this is, uh,
Como is basically the the pre-alps. You've just got the flatlands and then the first hills go up, um, so we're literally right in the rotor of the whole Alps and, uh, so I pop the wing up. Anyway, and she comes up, good looking good. John stood in front of me, I'm clipped in backwards, remember? So, uh, it's for me, it's no problem. I used to do that a lot when I was just trimming wings, you just, it's easier to look at the wing without the harness trying to untwist you, uh, if you've got crossed risers. So, um, I pop it up, it's looking good. John happens to be stood in front of me and, and I just get this sort of weird gust that lifts me off a meter.
And mine and John's eyes meet. John Pendry, this is our eyes meet. And at that particular moment, we're both smiling because it's just as if I've been lifted off the ground a little bit. And it's obvious I'm going to come back down any second. Anyway, I don't come back down. I get a sort of second boost that takes me to about three meters high, maybe four meters high. And now I'm looking at John and John's face has changed. Mine's still smiling, but John's has now changed to a sort of a face of disbelief and kind of like, oh, this looks like it could turn into something. thing. Anyway, then I get another boost. And before I know it, you know, I'm sort of 15 meters high with now the wing starting to collapse each side and each tip is collapsing.
And I'm just getting buffeted around because obviously I'm in the rotor. John's face is now horrific. Mine has obviously changed from, oh yeah, this is all good. I'm in control to, holy shit, What's going on here anyway? The whole crowd, the whole crowd is sort of dispersed slightly and is just looking up at me, and with these tips going anyway, you can imagine, uh, very strong winds in this rotor. I literally just get, um, puppeteered around the entire landing field, getting taken up a bit higher sometimes, maybe, uh, you know, um, 20 meters, 25 meters, then down again to 15 meters, back up to 30 meters, down again.
And the whole time this is happening, I'm clipped in backwards, okay? I've got, I've got tips collapsing on me and I'm trying to work out what interwind is, because hopefully sooner or later I'm going to come down anyway. So I do this tour of the landing field with the tips collapsing, seeing and I'm, you know, this is a totally, uh, the I was totally out of control of where I was going, but I was at least in control of the wing and, uh, so I'm just trying to keep the thing inflated. I'm not looking at the ground anymore, it's just like, "Whoa, holy crap, what the hell's going on?" Just getting rocked from side to side, it's totally intense. Anyway, suddenly I sort of find myself out of that bit of turbulent air that had picked me up and sent me around the landing field.
I'm just, "Oh my god, right, I've got to get this thing down." So I'm come, I'm flying forwards, but I'm clipped in backwards, so I've got to look over my shoulder to work out, you know, how to fly this thing back to the landing field. Anyway, it just turns out that by total coincidence, my glide path and everything leads me back to where the crowd of people are, who are all just literally mouths gaping and look of fear in their faces as I come down, land right next to them, flare perfectly, and I'm clipped in backwards still. Well, at this moment, you know, the entire place just erupted into, to clapping and cheers and mass, what would you describe that?
Just sort of jubilation. Well, jubilation that I wasn't smashed up or dead or, you know, broken somewhere on the other side of the field, you know. And that was, you know, even I was rather satisfied that I brought this one home. Um, but it was amazing, and it took me to another level of stardom in Italy, because this story went around, uh, pretty quickly. And you know, no one could believe that you could get—you could actually take off on a flat field, that you could get slammed around and hammered and still come down and do this perfect landing, clipped in backwards right next to everybody. So this was, uh, yes, it was definitely one of my lucky moments, that's for sure.
Oh,
My god, that's crazy. It
was totally crazy, and the good thing is—and this is one thing I do always, uh, like to, you know, when when I tell a story, it is 100% truthful. I'm not, I'm not trying to extrapolate it to sound bigger or better; that is exactly what happened. There was probably 50 witnesses. John Penry, John Penry was right there. We've actually got it, we've got photographic evidence, because there was a photographer there and he was taking photos of this whole thing happening, and you can see this, this, uh, you know, a sequence of this flight with my tips closed and, you know, clipped in backwards, and the whole thing, do you
Have any kind of... do you have any kind of protection, or a reserve, or anything? Are you just in a little bikini harness? No,
I was in a bikini harness, no protection, no know nothing, just good god, oh my god, just doing the old seat of the pants thing, but it came good, you know? And I, I went down as a bit of a hero, that's
Insane, you know? The only I, I can't, I don't have any anything like that, but I, I think that until you really experience phone like that, it's the one time I, I really, really got myself in a pickle was, uh, from Bell and Zone. I was doing a big triangle and it was a pretty strong north phone day, but there was a couple other Swiss guys that felt pretty comfortable about it. You're kind of protected there, and, and so we, we do the out leg and we do the, the top of the triangle and that's up by the Arolo Pass, and, and it had just been 4,000 meter base, like it was just incredible. No wind, it was amazing, and, and I'm just on the, on the leg back, it's just going to be a nice big triangle and I'm super excited, and, uh, and there, there hasn't been a twitch of bad air.
And I'm just cruising along on the south side of what I call the big sea. It's like at the top of the Lago Maggiore, there's that big valley that goes from Bellinzona up around. And then there's the Arolo and then there's the Newfoundland, you know, that go into the Rhone. And the Arolo ties into the Rhine. And as soon as I get about halfway across, and I'm on the south side, so I'm looking up at the Arolo Pass. And I'm just cruising by it. And all of a sudden, I'm in it. Just this, like, the dam broke and I was high. It was 4,000 meters and it was a 4,000 meter SIV to the ground and I mean, I landed in 60 kilometer an hour winds backwards, of course. And and uh and it was just, it went from so nice to, my god, there's the bottom of my wing again.
Wait, there it is at the top. You know, it was just, it was like I was doing the infinite and I don't know how to do the infinite, just all the way to the ground. It was like, Jesus. And uh, yeah, so you, I, I don't think people understand what burn at the phone is like until you're in it like that. You must have just been like, you said, a marionette just getting played.
By the, I was just, oh my god, I was the puppet on the end of the strings. Just, oh my god, you know, I was, I was in control of, like, I say, only, only the wing to keep it open where we were going. And what was the thing was nothing to do with it, yeah.
You, you had nothing to do with that, yeah?
Terrific, just a passenger along for the ride. But yeah, the old, the old fern thing is something that, um, the fern wind up. This is when it's, it's basically normally something to do with a high pressure and low pressure situation between the north alps and the south alps, and so you've got Italy on the south, and then you've got Germany on the north, and one of those will be in high pressure, and the other will be in low pressure. And basically, normally, what's happening is you've got this air mass that is being trying to be equalized, and so you get these very strong north winds. And my funniest story for the, for the fern is, we were flying at the world championships in Fiche, 1989, hang gliders, last day of the event. I was in the lead, all I had to do was bring it home, and it was happy days.
Uh, we take off on the first glide, it's forecast north wind, it's, we're in Switzerland, uh, in the, uh, Rowan Valley, place called Fish, and we take off on the last, last task, all climb up together. It's pretty gnarly, it's already a bit bumpy. We go off on the first glide, all the top competitors are together, like I say, I'm in the lead, all I got to do is bring it home, um, and, uh, head off on this first glide, everyone together, massive squadron, and I'm just flying along. And in the middle of it, for some reason, I don't know what happens, but, uh, my wing just turns upside down on the hang glider, so I just tumble the wing in front of everybody, and literally the bar goes past my face once I let go of the bar, because I'm not a guy that hangs on tight, so that you've got to let the thing fly, so you don't want to be hanging on, you just, you're just controlling fingertips.
The bar gets ripped out of my hand, I do some tumbles, uh, this is in front of the whole, you know, lead gaggle. I do a couple of tumbles, somehow the glider doesn't break, the bar goes in front of my face, I grab it, radio hanging off bits, bits and pieces hanging off everywhere, Vario broken. Anyway, I'm just like, oh, my God. And people are on the radios going, oh, my God, Rob's just tumbled, you know, blah, blah, blah. But I'm still flying. So I stick the radio back and pull everything together and get everything going. I flew 160 kilometers that day. There were only three people at goal. And I was the second person at goal. No way. What?
Has that ever
happened? You tumbled twice and you won? Oh, my God.
Yes. No, I don't think that's happened many. I believe I might have been the luckiest person alive. And again, I would just like to say that, you know, that is not a story that's been embellished to sound better than it is. There was a mass of pilots that saw this happen. And when I landed at the goal on this particular day, it was a super gnarly day. The rest of the flight was horrific. For the first hour and a half after this had happened, I was shitting myself the whole time. But I knew I had to just get a move on. And I'd lost everybody because when I'd done this tumble, I got low, stuck in a gully, and had to spend sort of 20, 30 minutes getting back out of this gully.
By the time I got out of there, I couldn't see anybody or anybody anymore. More so, I just, you know, got the bit between my teeth and went off on this crazy route on my own, flew around the whole course expecting to come in last, and found out I was second. That
Is so awesome! Oh my god, you tumbled twice and kept going, yeah.
On a hangout, yeah. So then, when I landed in the landing field, um, you know, most everybody was sort of totally jubilant, and I was—I was more just relieved because it was, you know, can you imagine the stress you're under anyway on the last day? And then this, and anyway, so that all happens and I'm—look, I'm packing the glider up. I've got the—the battens on one side are all bent, the empty dive rods are broken on one side, um, cross tube bent, keel bent, and I flew one of the—the gnarliest days that has ever been in competition on a glider that was made, made goal. I was, oh yeah, that—that was, uh, what
A story about hanging in there? Yeah, that was definitely
When I was young and impetuous, and it was I needed to get to to take that one home, that's for sure did
You did, you see Robbie? Did you see the, uh, the footage of Rick Brazina, who I competed with, I think, in the 2017 race, I think, but Canadian pilot, who was, uh, he got, he got lifted off the ground in a dust devil in Manila, and it was immediately in a sat configuration, and he sat it up about a thousand feet, just, I mean, just totally out of control. I mean, he wasn't even planning on launching yet, you know? It was just this thing just boosted him, like you get, you get at Chelan all the time, you know, you've seen that. And then he went flew like 180k, he got up, and he was like, well, I guess everything's okay. It wasn't a competition, that's not nearly as cool as your story, but the footage is crazy. Oh my god, I'm gonna scary.
I'm gonna have to look for it, Rick Rosina, Google it.
Rick, Rick, Rosina, Dust Double, just google it. It's freaking terrifying. It's, oh my god, um, that's unbelievable. I, I've never heard of anybody tumbling and not throwing, and let alone winning.
Yeah, I didn't believe me, me neither. Holy shit. These are those things that accidentally somehow sort of skyrocket you towards notoriety or some notoriety. Oh
yeah, that's one of those. Did you hear the story about Rob? Yeah.
Okay, so hope you enjoyed that little taste of things to come. Now, please enjoy the rest of the podcast with Robbie Whittall.
Robbie, this is pretty exciting for me. I have heard all the amazing stories about your past and your World Championship wins and hang gliding and paragliding. I don't think it's too much to, I'm sorry, this will make you blush a little bit, but you are truly a legend in our sport. And it's just a real treat for me to be able to see you here on the screen and have a have a talk with you. Let's just, uh, dive in with with where you are and what you're doing. It looks awfully nice out through that window there, yeah.
Yes, it is. Uh, first of all, Gavin, thanks for asking me to be on the show. Um, probably should have done something sooner, but here we are now. So, it's obviously the the right time. Uh, I'm currently in Raglan, New Zealand, uh, west coast, small, small town, surf town. And um, I'm here fundamentally because uh, wind and waves good for my work, which is still developing kite surfing and still doing speed winds as well. Yeah,
I was gonna just, let's start there. Um, I don't often think of, you know, my background is a bit in kite surfing as well, but never from the designer side. I don't have that kind of mind. I know you've been designing wings, which are kite surfing, or wings as well, for decades now. But speed wings and kite surfing seem odd, and it's a—do you find they really tie together, um?
tied together. I'm not sure they tie together, but it's definitely what I do, um, when I, when I moved out of the, uh, paragliding development and into the kite surfing thing, or the kite and development, um, I was doing the speed wings at the time, and I just carried the speed wing thing on because it's a little bit more dynamic. And to tell the truth, the, the guys were busy trying to fulfill their requirements just to, to keep the paragliding, um, lineup up to date, so I just carried on doing speed wings. And as it happens, they work very well together. You, you know, when it's too windy, or you know, when it's nice and strong for kiting, I can have a good session down here, then nip up the hill, which is a two-minute drive, and go sawing on the coast, which is also good for testing because I've got a land and a nice smooth airflow, you know, makes, makes it semi, semi-safe in the beginning, yeah.
That, I mean, that's interesting. They, uh, I mean, your design background was this—something you, you studied, or you just learned back? I believe when, you know, was your first designing job with Adele, do I have that right? Is it like kind of early 90s? Was that something you studied in school, or you just kind of learned the trade, uh?
No, I learned the trade basically, um, since I started my hang gliding career, very quickly I was picked up by a company back in the day called Airwave, and I just became a sort of test pilot and, um, a little bit of a problem solver because, uh, well, yeah, in all honesty, I, I have, and I think I still have quite a good feeling and a very analytical mind when it comes to feeling, but, um, the rest of my whole development of my designing career has just come about through, um, certainly
not through education in the normal terms, it's just been sitting on designer shoulders and watching how they use the programs, and then slowly I just worked my way into a position where, um, we got rid of the link in between, which is, uh, normally the designer. So to me, it would appear to be a good thing to have a designer stroke test rider who is actually feeling the sensations and able to evaluate, self-evaluate these the nuances of of what makes a good wing or a good kite. So I've literally just sort of grown into the job and found myself in a great position. I thoroughly enjoy it. But I do not consider myself anything other than an artist.
I'm not a mathematical mind. I'm a feeling and sensation and visual kind of person.
So, Robbie, take us back. What was the catalyst? how old were you when did you take your first flight how did all happen uh
Well, I was very lucky; my father was into hang gliding from the very beginning, um, and so I grew up on the hills watching, occasionally getting a piggyback ride, and this was from the age of sort of four onwards, um, piggyback tandems back in 1975 where they just swing a little harness on my dad's back and And, you know, back in those days, you were just flying top to bottoms. But, yeah, it got me back then. And then we watched for lots of years because every weekend my dad would be going out flying. And we'd jump in the car, me and my brother, and mess around on the hill with kites and some radio models. And basically, we just grew up around flying.
But my father was also a motorcyclist. And I can safely say that I was more interested in motorcycles than I really was the flying part. And, you know, I used to sit on my dad's bike in the garage and pretend like lots of kids do.
And when it came to being 16, that was when I could have a motorcycle. And, you know, I was banging on the door of one of the motorcycles like crazy. And my father said, "Look, uh, if you don't get a motorcycle and um, you get into, you know, basically I'll buy you lessons from a hang glider so you can get into this avenue," because he knew that I was a little bit reckless when I was young, and I was very involved in BMX riding, and he knew from the way I could crash a BMX that I could probably crash a motorcycle even bigger ago. So he got me into flying, and I had my first lesson with a friend of ours, and uh, you know, it was just beaming from ear to ear, and I knew straight away, "Oh my god, you know, I found, I found my thing.
This is, this is what I want." And so from then on, it was um, just step by step progress. My, my father's a firm believer in steady
progress where you learn each stage rather than just jumping to where you would like to be. It's to mature through the learning process and get each level absolutely sorted before you move on to the next level. It always kind of worked out fantastically. As my soaring capabilities increased, my desire increased, east and then you couldn't keep me out of the air it was uh yeah it was a full mainline addiction
Did you, did you see it then as a potential way of life, or as a way to get paid to make a living? Or is it just, it's just such a blast you had to do it? I mean, was there a, was there a progression in terms of, were you seeing it as a progression, I can make a job out of this? No,
Absolutely not at all. This was, uh, and uh, my life is like this anyway. I'm purely passion-led person and, um, I had a very hard time at school and sort of left feeling very unsuccessful because, obviously, it's a success-based system that we have and I wasn't very successful, um, and then, you know, I started hang gliding and that just all evaporated. And the joy and the passion that was put into my hang gliding was life. You know, that's what made me wake up every day.
That's what drove me. It was just, God, this is so fantastic. And, you know, when I was at school, I can remember sitting in classrooms watching the seagulls soaring the building. It was a four-story building, and I just watched the seagull soar in the building, and I would dream to be one because here I am, trapped in the school room, not understanding, not even understanding what they're trying to teach me, and I'm just looking out of the window at these birds going, "Oh my god, what an amazing life they have," they're not answering to anybody, they're not responsible for anything they're just flying and when they've had enough of flying in one place they just fly up to another place and that's pretty much how my life has been really you know yeah that
That's what has has made me, you know, is
There, any kind of a, you know, back then that I mean, certainly when I was—we're not too different in age, I don't think—and but back, back then, you know, I never heard of ADD or ADHD. Nobody talked about that. But do you, do you looking back, was there any kind of dyslexia or ADD or any kind of thing like that that you felt was maybe a because I, I've, I've often we come across that, that a lot with pilots. There's, there seems to be, you know, there's a lot of engineers that do it, but there's, um, a lot of folks that get into flight that seem to watch the goals and can't keep their eye on the board.
Yes, uh, I, I'm very averse to the labeling of anything, um, because, uh, that, that would, would give us the understanding that there's some form of normality. There is no form of normality. There's a form of being pushed through square holes when you're around, but it doesn't make you normal. And so, yes, I did have sort of, I would call it acute dyslexia. I couldn't really read very well, and I still can't read and write very well. Um, and also I guess having a, I've been diagnosed with this, which is again something that's probably not a good thing to be diagnosed with because it gives me an excuse, but I, I do know this is a reality.
I have an incredibly bad short-term memory and an even worse long-term memory, but the beauty of that is it makes me live in the now because I'm not in, I'm not interested did in the past. I can't remember most of the things that really happened because I can only do now, and I do look forward a bit, but my forward planning is probably a couple of days. And people ask me, "Oh, when are you going there? When you're doing this now?" Oh, I don't know, March sometime. I never put a date on things until I need to put the date on it just before it, because what is only here and now? So it's better to be present, and um, I think that's also what happened. Why I, I was particularly good at flying was because it is a form of meditation, and the more connected you are to that moment because you know you're flying in a fluid, a natural fluid, and the best way to be connected to it is to be present, and you know one
of the things that happened in paragliding that turned me off was the advent of all the electronics because Because it took away from my skills, which were to be able to understand and connect and read the sky and the conditions and the wind naturally. And so once all the GPSs came in, instead of there being five guys in the lead group who were all exceptionally feeling natural pilots, but suddenly there was 15 people in the lead group and 10 of them were reading computers and five of us were flying by the seat of our pants. And unfortunately, the guys with the computers started to beat us because they were getting information or gathering information that you could say
was broader reaching than ours. So we'd be trying to finesse a final glide from where we dared to do it, But now you've got an instrument telling you you can do it. There's an
alarm that goes off.
Yeah, yeah. And that for me was the end of my flying career because I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in the pure heartfelt connection to the environment. That's what I was. Oh, that's what I was living through.
You just answered a question that was way down my list. Oh, sorry. That's why you got out of flying? No, no, no. It's fascinating. I mean, in some ways, your brain is kind of a lottery ticket. I mean, to live in the now and to be present is, I mean, people have to go into caves and meditate for 20 years to do that. And it sounds like that's just a natural inclination. Was that something you worked on or is that just how you've been?
No, it's definitely just something how I've been, but I didn't recognize what it was for a long time. Um, how you say, uh, I believe, and again, you know, this is, this is only my point of view, and uh, nobody has to agree with it, but um, I believe one of our biggest problems is that we've separated ourselves from true connection, uh, to the natural powers of the universe, um, and that this is why we're in the—you know, don't get me wrong, the world is beautiful. What happens is just part of the human development process, regardless of whether we go fully electronic or whether we go fully naturally, it doesn't matter in the end. But I think we would have a much more harmonious world if they were teaching
I'll use the word spirituality, but I don't really like it; I prefer to call it connectivity because
As soon as you put the word spirituality out there, people are like, "Oh yeah, very, very rubbish." But um, it's not. And this connectivity to the natural world is something that we take for granted, and when you take things for granted, obviously you forget to respect them. And that is the respect that is required for us to be able to nurture ourselves properly and the environment around us. And I am, I am also guilty of exploiting for my living and for the companies that I work, work for, of course, the uh, the natural environment. So um, you know, I, I do have an, my own mental battle to be able to balance these two things, but I'm also fully aware that we're not nurturing enough connectivity, yeah.
Amen, let's get back to your learning. You know that you, as I understand it, you know your, your two hang gliding world championships and then pretty quickly after that, paragliding world championships. I know we'd all love to understand better how you know, there, there are exceptional athletes, you know, Kelly Slater and, and others, and you know, it's always some component of that's really hard work, but it sounds like, um, you really truly had a talent and a gift. What, what can you identify that? What, where did it, where did it come from? How did it, did it start with your dad and his approach?
That's, it's quite funny that your, your father tried to save your life by getting you into free flight. Yes,
It is very ironic, and there are people that you know raise their eyebrows at that one. But, uh, you know, first thing is, my father is, um, a very good role model in terms of many of the things that he's taught us. Um, and fundamentally, it's always been around respect. You know, respect what you're doing, because especially with flying, you know, gravity takes no prisoners, so you need to be on top of that game. But, um, honestly, Gavin, if I look at these things now retrospectively, I think what it was more than anything was that I was lit purely by, by true passion.
And somebody who is lit by passion is virtually unstoppable, because when that passion is absolutely the burning desire within your heart and in your head, the noise stops. You are connected and literally, you know, I can remember competitions where
I could be flying with 10 other guys, and I would just have the feeling that I need to be over there, and the 10 other guys would sail off that way, and I'd go off at right angles, and they'd all be thinking, "Oh yeah, where's he going? He's gonna, he's gonna blow it." Lo and behold, they'd all sink out, I'd climb out and be a goal. It was just allowing
the free flow and being in those moments and lit by passion, as I say, drags you to the right place to be and And I never entered a competition. In fact, one of the reasons my career was a little bit up and down is while you're lit through passion, everything comes to you very easily. But the minute you start trying, everything disappears. And the problem with winning anything is that you try and maintain that. And then you take away the passion, and now it's a maintenance thing instead of a passionate thing, and it becomes very hard to be as successful because you're not as connected, because now you're worried about the result. It
Sounds like it... sounds like when you were allowing yourself to kind of go into flow state and fly intuitively, you would do really well. And then, when you would try to do really well, you would screw it up. Is that basically it? You'd cut... you'd let your conscious brain take over and when to try to win, and then you... then you... then you bomb, yeah.
I'm afraid that's about it, uh, and I, I see it today, you know, in, in virtually every sport. It's really interesting. Once you are, at least, uh, my perception of these things is, you see absolute fantastic talent coming and they go all the way to the top, and then they disappear again. And they disappear because they started trying; they stopped flowing. They started wanting instead of accepting. And when you want something, the chances are you're gonna have to work to get it. And if you just let these things happen, then the fruits come, come to you naturally. And, you know, I watch you the motorcycle race and you see such great talent coming up, you're like, "Oh, yeah, fantastic," and they make it to the top, and then they start taking it too seriously.
The fun is taken out of it. The, the joy is taken out of it. And then your passion is automatically dwindled because of that, because now it's not about you expressing yourself. Now it's about the result of your expression. And lo and behold, many people drift by the wayside.
I've been working with Thomas Therlo a bit this time around before this X-Alps. He was Chrigel's coach and supporter for the first four, and then they're doing it again together this year, which is really exciting. And scary, and but he talks about that, that you know, you can't, you can't think about placing. That's a stupid goal. It's, you have to think about process. You can think a little bit about performance, but everybody's going to be within one or two percent, you know, both on the ground and in the air. But so, process goals are important, you know, packing your bag fast and that kind of thing. But he said that there's, there's very often in the race where he has to, not, I don't know if I think Chrigel's gotten pretty good at this himself, but, you know, Hey man, do some wing overs. Don't be so serious, you know, relax.
What would you normally do right now if you weren't in the race? And let's just take you out of the race for a little while and, you know, just have fun. You know, in other words, remind, reminds that, you know, this should be a game.
Exactly. We're human beings. We are taught and indoctrinated to take everything too seriously. We need an answer for everything. It's just, no, no, no, no. Turn it all back, plug into the flow state, let it happen. I guarantee you success. But while you try too hard, I can guarantee you probably more failure than success.
Robby, I was talking to Bill Belcourt, your good friend, yesterday to get some ideas and stuff, I've talked to you and he, he had some really funny stories about, he said, well, when Robbie would come to a comp, you know, usually you'd go to a comp, like say, say it's in the Rocky mountains. You're, you're, you're pretty, you're thinking pretty hard about conditions. Is it going to overdevelop? Is it going to get too windy? Am I going to get my ass kicked today? You know, cause it's, it's always big. Right. And he said, but when Robbie would show up, you were actually more stressed out about the days where you weren't flying because you had to go hang with Robbie. Like he said, you know, you're one, one of the things you used to say was, you know, half of the comps won on the ground. And I was like, well, what does that mean? He said, well, yeah, because you would have to go four by or race motorcycles or do something and party like crazy and then show up the next day, you know, and it was just kind of expected.
So, was that—was that really part of your game plan? Is that how you—how you also kind of won? Or was that just who you were? And you—you just—you just, it sounds like you kind of lived full throttle or live full throttle. We're going to get into the isle man stuff, so obviously you haven't backed off too much. Well,
Yes, uh, I like, it's very nice that Phil remembers me like that. And, uh, yes, it probably was the case, and I definitely do maintain that competitions can be won on the ground just by your presence and your ultimately. I know this is adverse to what I said earlier, but ultimately your lack of respect for virtually everything because also, when you're in flow state, you don't need to worry too much about anything else, just go with the flow, it'll all be good. Um, but also at the same time, I was a test pilot and I'd spent so many years falling out of the sky as
for a living, and I'm—I'm talking about especially, you know, when I was working in Germany with Firebird, I was just falling out of the sky every day, every day, every day. A different wing, different tests, uh, different conditions, and it gives you a certain ability to cope with the—the rough stuff. And for sure, you know, the rougher and gnarlier it used to get, I knew that I was the best equipped. And so where everyone else is slightly nervous on takeoff, I was just yahooing because, holy shit, yeah, right? No matter how bad it is up there, I've got the best equipment, I've got me underneath it. So if I'm shitting myself, they are absolutely crapping it, you know?
So here we go. Oh, Robbie,
where did, where did that confidence come from? I mean, is that, is that a question you can even answer? I mean, cause that's, it's exceptional. And, and there are, I think people can get to that level through a lot of training or they're just incredibly competent people. Uh, you know, probably a combination of both, but was that something you just had? That's something you had in your back pocket or is that something you developed uh
Well, it's—it's something that's also being developed. It's something that I had, I believe it was also, uh, one of the positive results about being a failure. You realize that the world is judged by other people's standards, but inside, you know that you're a fully functioning, uh, human being that has potential. You just haven't necessarily found it, but obviously, I—I found some of my potential with flying, but um, I
Don't like my life to be restricted by archaic ideas and method methodology methodology, um, because other people have drawn those limits and those lines, and those other people, I truly don't believe, were as talented at drawing those lines and those as limited as I am. I'll draw my own thanks and I'll find out what my potential is rather than someone else defining the limit of their potential and saying that's as far as you can go. So the confidence comes from the fact that
it's a self-belief that every human being only has a body, two arms, two legs and a head. What's inside the head, of course, is also relevant to what happens, but if another other human can do something, and the chances are I can do it because they're only as equipped as I am, um, and that's within my my field, my my my fields, uh, I could probably be a brain surgeon if I had to, but I'd struggle to do that, and it would take a lot more work. Whereas in the things that I'm in, the sports and things that require, um, the skills that I have, then, uh, I just find it easy to to challenge myself, and then that brings you confidence, because when you challenge yourself and you prove yourself, right?
Guess what? Carry on next time, do the same thing next time, do the same thing. Don't be limited by other people's fears and lack of determination just because they can do something, I
want to get back into kind of the precision of some of the sports that well the the precision that's required by some of the sports you undertake like the Isle of Man and base jumping, that kind of thing. But before we do the Brits, the Brits come from an Island that doesn't have awesome flying and not a lot of mountains. And yet year after year, after year there have been people like you Pendry and Goldsmith and Ogden. Why? What is it about the British program? The British mindset? The what is it? Uh, I mean, because you guys on a world scale can often step in with the Swiss and the French, who have the juniors programs and the Alps, and you can get paid doing it.
And you know, I obviously there's a lot of, of history here, but it is quite fascinating, uh.
It, it's something that, uh, you know, for sure I was so proud at the time. I still am proud. Uh, we had such a good run in our day; we were fundamentally the team to be revered, and one of us would normally take home the individual title, and and it was normal for us to take the team title home, whether that was virtually all the hang gliding events, we were just on top. But I believe that comes from a certain British tenacity that is a culture-based thing.
And you can see the history of our tenacity, whether right or wrong, by our crusading and land grabbing around the world. And then, when it comes into the context of paragliding and hang gliding, let's face it, good conditions are easy to fly. It's just go out there and do it, because there's thermals everywhere and there's mountains showing you, you know, literally telling you where to go. And in England, the conditions are terrible, and every flight is not, not terrible; they're very inconsistent. So every flight is a struggle, and if you get good at struggling, then when it's turned on for you, it's just kind of a walk in the park.
It's, you know, you're struggling over low flatlands with a low cloud base and weak lift, and then you get thrown into the Alps where it's high cloud base, massive mountains, and strong lift. It's like, let's go, you know this is a piece. He's like, hey, there's thermals everywhere. Look, I'm just going to glide to that ridge. Boom, another massive, strong thermal. I'm just going to glide to that ridge. Boom, another massive, strong thermal. Yeah, so I truly believe there's nothing better than to practice in difficult conditions because that's what makes it easy when the good stuff comes along.
What do you credit your so many wins to? Two, you had the—you had the, I believe, the two hang gliding world championships, the two paragliding world championships. You're one of, I believe, no, no, no, no.
It was only one hang gliding, one paragliding, a
one-on-one, okay. The the, but you're one of, I believe, three, uh, that have done that one and both, what, what's, what was your approach? What was your, how, where do you credit that to, uh?
There was never ever an approach back in those days again. That was when I was in the flow and not trying to achieve anything other than my best. That's another thing I think is very important: when you turn your competition against competitors, you are guaranteed to lose. When you turn the competition to oneself, you have your best potential. It might not be to win, because people often have more potential than you, but you're going to get your best result by trying to beat you. That's—that's where the
results were coming from... really, I was just trying to fly my best and be my best. I wasn't worried about who or what or where the position was, just go out there every day and do my best. But, um, in In answer to the question, I was surrounded by great people, fantastic,
you know, John Penry was an amazing friend, mentor, Pepe
Lopez, the Americans, I was so lucky that a lot of the good pilots saw my ability, and one thing that often happens is the not-so-so good pilots always have a knee-jerk reaction to immediately sort of try and vilify the young guy who's coming up as reckless and dangerous. And yes, I'm reckless and dangerous by your standards. But by my own, I was not even reckless or dangerous. I was just doing what I needed to do. And the good pilots, they recognized what they were dealing with and they just brought me in and enjoyed uh enjoyed my progress and success and um you know this you
can learn so much from these people because they're, they're open and they want to offer, and um, yeah, so basically it was a rubbing off even from club level. You know, some great people took me under their wing and just, you know, before I could drive, I had a guy by the name of Colin Rider who would with his wife pick me up, stick my hang glider on their roof. Uh, I was stuck because, you know, my dad was working or something. They'd pick me up every weekend and take me up and look after me. It was just, and again, I think that was also because, um, a lot of these people just saw all this your passion and you're right, let's facilitate the next level tell
me about the the kind of early years with Adele, just anything that kind of pops up. That was kind of funny, you know? I know you started it, Adele. I believe in the in the paragliding. Well, actually, let's start there. What was it like to transition from hang gliding to paragliding, um?
Well, for me, it was amazing because I was super gung-ho and still
In my element, it was a new, a new craft, but I was still in my element. And so it was just learning to fly this new, this new wing, and yes, it was slow and it was rubbish, but like everything I absolutely love to learn, you know? I, for me, everyone's trying to accelerate the learning process, and I want to do this and I want to do this, no, no, slow it down, because the learning process is the most satisfying, enjoying, enjoyable part of anything. Once you become moderately okay at something, the big bus is gone and everyone's trying to get to this next level, whereas now just accept where you are, because it's the best way to learn.
Anyway, is to draw yourself back, be totally self-critical, and enjoy the learning process, because you know it's like a flower blossoming. You don't want the flower to go from a bud to a flower instantly, you want that thing to, to slowly grow in front of you and each petal to slowly unravel itself, and that's like each step of the ladder or whatever, and that's the process to be enjoyed, and yes, I just got on the paraglider and enjoyed it tremendously, and it seemed obvious that that's what I should be doing next. And I'm a very "next thing" kind of person; once I've got
to the level of ability that satisfies me, nobody else—that's me. Um, then I'm looking for the next hit, you
know, sitting here talking to you, that I, I would have expected maybe not more recklessness, but more, um, I mean, the stories are that you were so aggressive with life
experiences, but also just you're clearly willing—you had that mind frame of test pilot, which is, you know, a lot of confidence and also, you know, just willing to blow it up over and over and over again. Um, but I, I just gather—I haven't talked to you very much, but I just gather you're very calculated. Is that right? Uh,
No, I, I am more calculated now because the filters of life have been slowly drawn across because, uh, that's one of the things that happens when you get into business and you have to make a living and those associated responsibilities. I was definitely, and also immature, you know, I was young, immature.
I
definitely was the reckless, crazy, pushing the limits, instigator of all kinds of stupidity.
Because, and I'm not saying that maturing is either a good thing or a bad thing. It's just something that naturally happens, you know? Like a, like a good wine, as it ages, hopefully becomes better. And, you know, the sharp edges that you could taste earlier, yeah, you know, you can deal with them, but um, long term, probably not the best way to live your entire life. So, I just feel that I'm maturing into a, yeah, well, hopefully a continual path of it maturing, whereby I can still—and I am still totally reckless and lunatic regularly—but um, I, it was reflected a lot more in my personality then, whereas now I just turn it on for when I need it, rather than wind people up and generally be a lunatic all the time because
The the 90s, you know, as I kind of understand it, there's, you know, open class was the big thing, and it wasn't just Firebird and Adele, it was, you know, that was everybody showing up on prototypes, everybody's racing open class. Uh, you know, as you say, many of them are rubbish, and sounds like, you know, the carnage was, was pretty high, and they, they called you at some point, you know, the father of the serial class. Was that about when you and Kavanaugh started Ozone? Give me the timing of that, and what, what was, it's kind of funny that the kind of the godfather risk in a sense is also like the godfather, like, you know, we got to trim this back a little bit.
Yes. Well, it came, yeah. Okay. So this is the late nineties and we've got into a situation whereby the competition scene, yes, had the, well, it was only open class then. And the wings were performing better, but they were getting, or they weren't particularly safe, and the ability that you needed to be able to fly one safely was literally the ability of a test pilot and what we could and a factory pilot. So what we could see was the testing factory pilots basically had an unfair advantage over most of the field because these wings were a handful, and people were unfortunately hitting the ground far
too regular. I recognized that my advantage was my test piloting and the frequency with which I was flying and flying those hot wings. And I just didn't think it was fair. And I also didn't really enjoy seeing people that I shared a camaraderie with being splattered on the ground because, you know, for what we're meant to be in this for, fun and enjoyment. And I still was totally in for fun and enjoyment, I still am. And yeah, so when you only see your friends being injured and, in some cases, dead, this becomes a certain futility to the whole thing.
So this is pointless. And, and what? For what are we? What are we measuring here? Um, it's, it's not something that is measured on parity with the rest of the field. I fly almost every day, you fly every weekend. Well, I should be better than you. So why are you spending all this money to come to a competition to then end up in an ambulance going to a hospital in Spain and being dealt with not particularly well? You know, it's just like this. It was absolute madness. So I tried to rally the troops into the idea of basically certified paragliders for competitions that everyone could fly for another reason as well. I truly believe in a level playing field. I don't like the equipment race.
I don't think it brings out the best in anything or anybody, including the manufacturers in a way, because it
turns the business into a fashion business, or not a fashion, but a rapidly successive improve our performance improvement business instead of making better pilots. And at the end of the day, we're trying to measure the pilot, really, I thought, rather than the wing. So the idea of zero plus was to to level the playing field and let's see who the best pilot is, because we still don't know who the best pilot is nowadays. One's on an ozone, one's on a gin, one's on a Nivea, whatever. The requirements for certification are so open that it's not really certification. So it's still a performance race between the manufacturers.
I prefer that race to be between the pilots.
Yeah, it's not basketball, is it? It, I've always had a hard time with these sports that are either judged or that are, you know, I grew up ski racing and a lot of it was your wax guy, you know, on I was, I was a speed guy as a downhiller. Yeah, I just, you know, why can't we all ski the same gear? Yeah,
Exactly, and this is the thing I find it so interesting that, you know, the competition truly is the human element in there. But we are now removing the human element and putting the technical and the technological element in there, as you know, literally the prime factor. If you look at Moto GP or Formula One, they're mapping the car or the bikes for every corner, so you know that the the track map is put into the bike, and if you're coming around this corner, you can smash the throttle to pull the the traction control knows it's corner number four and only delivers this much power, going up to 100 % as you come out. Well, once upon a time.
That's crap. Well, it's the same as a GPS. It's doing the same thing. It's giving you the – or it's taking away that sensitivity on the throttle where you'd have to wind it on so carefully because you know you've got 200 horsepower at the back of the wheel and if you wind it on too quick, boom, you're off. whereas nowadays, and that's why a lot of the crashing has stopped, and you hardly see any eyesides because as they, as they hit the apex, they know that at this point, boom, flat out, the engine, only the mapping, only gives you a certain amount of power until you've got the bike upright, and then you get it all back again, but I
Had no idea these things were being driven so much by computers. Oh god, it's crazy.
Yes, but like I say, paragliding is no different. But look at everybody's flight decks now; they're enormous. I used to have one little tiny Davron Vario, but I often used to switch off as well because I like silence when I'm flying. I just go with feeling, and that was it. And now it's massive flight decks, and you've got your spare battery pack and this that and the other, and before you know it, oh
yeah you know
it's like
two loggers, two screens, two, yeah, the whole, whole thing, and
And we're still actually trying to masquerading under all that. We're trying to find the best pilot. What are you doing exactly? You're now, you've now almost eradicated the pilot. You know, you could fly one by drone with, you know, autonomously, um, and probably win a competition nowadays. Oh, not when, but certainly plays very well because you don't need the pilot in that. So that, yeah. But hey, that, that's only my personal beat.
But again, it comes, it comes down to this epoch in time where we're, we're masquerading the human element, and it's the human element that needs to be prominent, because until the human element becomes more connected again, all this um detraction from the human element is basically leaving us further away from our natural path, and the further we go from our natural path, well, I can assure you the harder life is going to get, well.
said it's interesting to hear you were talking about your own risk profile and you know getting older and learning as we all hope we do and then And I mean, I didn't, you just get pretty busted up in the aisle. So tell people about the Isle of Man race and maybe I have this wrong, but isn't it the most dangerous race in the world in terms of just numbers? Is that right?
Um, I don't know if it's the most dangerous race in the world. Uh, I wouldn't like to categorize it like that. Um, what I can tell you is it's ultimately, it sends goosebumps, you know? Whenever I think about this thing, uh, for me personally, everybody's different. It was the ultimate challenge. I was a little bit older than most people take up that kind of thing, but I'd always loved motorcycles, as I told you earlier, and uh, eventually I got into motorcycles, and then I got into a bit of track day riding, and then I got into some racing, and then I did some street racing here in New Zealand, and I realized, oh my god, I'd love it on the street, you know, road racing proper on the roads, um, and
The next level was to go to the Isle of Man, which is a 60 kilometer course, 37 miles, uh, around a small island off the coast of England. And you know, there's brick walls, trees, it's just a regular road that's closed off, um, and it's insanely fast and, for sure, very dangerous. Uh, there are a number of deaths each year, um, but that has to be expected. And you know, it's these, there's not a person that doesn't line up there knowing full well the risks that they're taking. And they are the risks that you're prepared to take because the, uh, the enjoyment level, stroke addiction, is so compelling.
and fulfilling
But, uh, yeah, it's no problem. That's what we're doing now. Just, uh, keep your eyes down, head forward, forward. And, yeah, our eyes forward and head down, and, uh, try and, try and keep it lit as much as you dare. And, you know, I was never very good trying to stretch your imagination, but, um, in, in my latter years—and we're talking, I started this at 45, which is, I started racing out of my 45, and was definitely one of the oldest guys there by a long way. But, um, it brought me back into the focus and the flow state that I'd been missing for a lot of years because I'd been concentrating probably a little bit too much on work, so it was just a beautiful thing for me.
and ultimately just, I can't think of anything, it's very hard to describe how totally consuming this is because, Well, for the first week, you're having practices in the evening and you're getting about out two laps, maybe four laps if you're lucky, practicing for the first week. Then the race week starts, you've only got two races, um, or I only have two races, and each one is four laps, so you've got 37 miles to do four times. Takes about an hour and 20 minutes total, and it's an hour and 20 minutes of absolutely in the moment meditation motorcycle riding, you know, you are
You're trying to nail everything as good as you can nail it, um, as fast as you possibly can. There's no—there's no warm-up on a race day. At 10 o'clock, the race starts. Everybody's let off 10 seconds apart, so it's a time trial and basically you're sat on the start line at zero miles an hour, having no warm-up in the morning, not nothing. And within a mile, you're doing 160 miles an hour down a hill with a big kink at the bottom of it, and you're absolutely pinned, flat out. Maybe, maybe if you're good, you're making 180 miles an hour down there, and you hit the bottom of this thing, the bite compresses and literally less
than a mile ago, you were sat on the start line pole. Now, you are thrown 100 percent neck deep into this, and that's only the beginning. It just, it gets, it almost gets crazier, and as you warm up and get into the flow of this thing, so you have to gather. You know, can you imagine what that start line is like? You have to gather yourself from getting up, having breakfast, having no warm-up, no nothing. You know, I've done a few exercises and things to to get my body warmed up. You're sat there at zero miles an hour; the next minute, you're doing 160, 180, trying to hit, trying to pin this machine and wring its freaking neck. You know, and all your lines that you've learned, uh, you know that everything is so 100 committed, and I loved, and I found it so empowering that there was something in
this world that dangerous, but also totally within your control, because it's up to you how fast. And you have to, again, it's one of those moments where if you misjudge your ability, you're going to be dead. And I love that it's where you have to be brutally honest with yourself. So I would love to go as fast as the fast guys, but I can tell you right now, I don't have those skills. No problem. Right. So whatever you got, Rob, let's go out there and do your best.
You're never turning it down to 99%. You are giving it 100%. But 100 % of what I got isn't close to 100 % of what these good guys have got. So you still give it your absolute best, but you know to not try harder harder because if you try harder it's not going to end up a whole big mess so yes that was the
very answer no
Just to say, it's that it's, it's Jeff Shapiro talks about, you know, it's the, it's the teeter-totter where, you know, in family, it's really wide. The fulcrum is, you know, and then it just keeps getting narrower, like wingsuit base jumping. The fulcrum is, is a microscopic dot where, where if you're proximity flying, you can't screw up a little bit. That's dead. That line is just so tiny, and it sounds like maybe it's even tinier in the Isle of Man.
This is why I can sort of – I'm not trying to big it up because I don't need to big it up. This is what it meant to me, and nobody else even has to really be able to understand that. It's just what it meant to me, but um, if you think of proximity flying for one or two seconds, you might be close to the ground. And when I say close to the ground, you might be a meter, a meter and a half off. Well, at the island, man, you're a meter off the ground because that's maybe how high the seat is, or less than a meter, 800 centimeters off the ground, and you're doing phenomenal speeds way
faster than terminal, yes.
You're doing phenomenal speeds for an hour and 20, and proximity, proximity flying lasts for what, two seconds? This is, this is, this is what I'm talking about. So you have an hour and 20 of not messing up. Um, wow, if there's anything, how do you, how do you?
Mentally, how do you mentally train for that? That, I mean, you, it's quite... it doesn't work, work to go on a racetrack to do that. I mean, how can you just go out and drive, you know, and and and race at 180 miles an hour on a windy road and train for that for an hour and 20 minutes? That's insane. Focus, I guess, it's just flow. It's not even focused, right? Yeah.
Yeah, well, it's focus and flow all together. Um, how do you train for that? Well, I did do a lot of circuit racing, obviously, to train for that, but also I was riding the roads around here like the lunatic that I can be from time to time. So there's a lot of very good roads here in New Zealand. Very small population, there's only sort of about five and a half million, which means that the roads are not particularly busy, although they are a little bit dangerous. They're not the best kept roads in the world, but that's... That's good, too, because the Isle of Man is very, very bumpy and undulating and very rugged on the bike.
So I would just go out here and terrorize the local farmers, I guess, and be very reckless and throw caution to the wind and ride like an absolute idiot.
Can you describe what it's like? You said you imagine showing up at the starting line. You've had some breakfast. Can you describe what that's like, you know, mentally to fly your stuff over the aisle, man, and go through this? I imagine it's pretty wild. There must be some pretty heavy emotion.
Well, remarkably for me, I don't know why. It's another skill I've managed to pick up on the way.
I can just drop everything apart from what I need to be doing. and I normally understand that being nervous or being on the back foot is the worst place to be. You've got to be on the front foot and ready to go. So I was always very calm on the start line. It was just literally, you have to also understand that there's not many people that can qualify for it, can afford it and all these things. I just saw every time that I rolled up there to just be the privilege. I'm about to race a motorcycle around, put it this way, that
I, I don't know of any unleashed fun like that anywhere else in the world that exists, and if there, if I did, I would be doing it, but there isn't. For me, that was the ultimate, and it's, it's brought me a certain amount of, um, clarity and calm now, because I was always searching for the ultimate buzz, the ultimate enough, but it's gone off. Next thing, you need more, you need more, you know, like the, the consummate addict that I am to adrenaline, it, uh, it was just such a privilege to be racing there, because man, who else is getting this intensity? Nobody. You know, the percentage of population who have done this, or who are going to do it, or who do it, is so microscopic, and I'm privileged enough, enough in my life to now manifest myself on this start line with a beautiful machine under me.
The only thing that's between Me and the finish line is myself, you know? It was, each time was amazing, and in actual fact, finishing the races was super emotional, you know, because I fucking made it. I did it. That was a
surprise yes
That was, well, it's not even survived, I think. You know, you're going to survive, but the accomplishment was just incredible, incredible, something very difficult to describe is
It was, it is, it hard for you to end these? Like, when it's over, is there a, you know, you're, you're in that flow state, you're driving 160, 180 miles an hour. Life doesn't get any better than that. When you're done, is there a dip? Is there a, fuck, I gotta go home, I gotta go back to work? Is how do you deal with that side of it?
Um, I'm just very lucky. I know a lot of people do have sort of withdrawal symptoms as such, and for sure, uh, then the nostalgic side of me does have withdrawal symptoms because I would love to keep doing it, but uh, the first thing is it costs a fortune, you know, you just piss some money to the ring. It's not particularly environmentally friendly, although most of my life isn't anyway. Um, you know, I, I basically produce large items for landfill, and in between, some humans get some enjoyment out of them, but still, it's not exactly very wholesome, and um, so yes, I would, I could leave the leave those places very easily actually, and just pack up and be on to the next thing because also I'm the guy that is living in the now.
That's finished. Now what am I doing? Oh, now we're backing up. Now we're going home. Now I'm flying back to New Zealand. Now I'm getting on with work, so it was just, uh, yeah, it was all relatively easy, but uh, if there there was one thing I would like to have been able to continue doing. It would be more Isle of Man with this. But again, I understand that that's just an addiction. And
there's a point where you have to be more powerful in your addiction.
That time has come.
I'm going to bring up something that we may not – we'll have to see how this goes. I don't know if this belongs in the show, but our mutual friend, Kiwi, Um, you know, you and I both went through that in some ways together. We didn't see each other there; you came just after I left, and then we missed on that, you know, after we—they found him. Um, but a lot of people reached out to me, you know, with very serious, real condolences, and you know, I—and you know, I hope people have sympathy, of course, right? And I, I...
Miss Kiwi, of course, and I loved that dude. And, but of all the people I have known, he certainly seemed to have the best relationship with death of anybody I have met. And it seemed to me like that guy lived so many lives as you have. And I never felt this like, oh, poor Kiwi. I always felt like, man, what an awesome way to go. And um, and I, so my question is, what is your relationship with death? I mean, it seems like you must be pretty comfortable with it, uh...
Yes, um, yeah. Once upon a time, you know, in my younger years when I didn't really understand everything, or everything I didn't understand much—I still don't understand much, but it's a little bit more than I did. Um, I had a very much more altruistic view, and I was obviously trying to save the parrot lighting competition for fraternity from themselves and from, you know, market forces, and wanted everyone to, to be alive and kicking and such. Um, and you know, I not
necessarily easy things to talk about, but I lost a couple of my good friends when
I was younger and
that
affects the way you relate to death, and for a long time I didn't want death to happen, especially to friends, but now I just, yeah.
It's part of life, and it's just something you got to get on with, and I, I have absolutely no fear of death because, uh, again, and because of Kiwi and our—how would you describe this—our mutual enjoyment of the psychedelic realm, then I believe I visited the place that could be a passing point into towards, uh, so-called bodily death. I'm not going to imagine, or I, I don't have to imagine; each to their own, but but spiritually, I think there is, our connectivity continues.
And so the fear of losing my physical body, there isn't any. I just, I don't even care what can happen today, tomorrow. I've lived such an incredible life. I've had so many unique, beautiful experiences that I don't need to cling on to the physical realm anymore. And again, through that psychedelic venturing, I can be comforted in the fact that, you know, if nothing else, I will go on and be a part of the universal force that is all around us. So, yeah, there's nothing to fear. In fact, I'm almost looking forward to it in a very positive way, not in a morbid kind of way, just in a very positive way.
Yeah.
And the reason I brought it up was that I want that to be a comfort, actually, to people that miss Kiwi, because I sat in a hot springs with him in the middle of Nevada six days before he disappeared. And we talked about this very thing. We talked about other stuff too, but he was a fascinating individual. And that's what I miss is talking to somebody who's so fascinating, so smart and so world traveled and so amazing. But he wasn't scared of death. I mean, he, he, he was, he was ready. And, and, and he, in some ways, you know, he would say he'd seen it and experienced it and, and not by a near death experience, but also through psychedelics.
And I think that, um, you know, I mean, to me it was, he, he brought us on this beautiful last adventure and what a way to say goodbye. I don't know. I mean, you know, I'd rather do it that way than, than being hung up in a cancer ward or something. I just thought it was, I thought it was really, I thought it was really beautiful. Yes, it
was fitting. Well, yes, it turns out to be fitting for the man that he was.
Obviously, it's very, it's still difficult.
It's, yeah, it's maybe a bit too difficult. But the
reality is, is it's only my ego that is mourning his loss, or our loss. um that's
Very well said. That's very well said. It is, it's, yeah.
I know what you mean, yeah, yeah.
He was just someone very special to me, but
Hey, here we are. It's, you know, it is totally all good, and I, I am totally good with it. And, uh, I know that I'm just catching them up later; it's not a problem, but we
still yeah
like you, I just miss having somebody with that potential
to be able to see into things in a different way that my mind sees into things, and I think that's why we harmonize so well, because you know, basically he was a genius and like
I say he was too big for this world, you know? His, his thoughts were too big, and I, I do also know, and I, regardless of what anyone thinks, his books and his writings in the future will become a milestone in our understanding and perception of the human potential, should we say, or the human existence. Because, you know, I, I believe that he was one of the first questioners to, um, uh, study and self-experiment into DMT and the effects of DMT to the level that he did, and combine that with his intellect, and there is something incredibly powerful happening there.
I can't profess to understanding it all; I've been there with him on some of these journeys into the DMT realm and, obviously, the other psychedelics, mushrooms, and
Ellerslie, mescaline, pretty much all of them. And I know what they bought him, and I could see that this transformation with his intellect and his perception of the human being as such was something not ready yet to be accepted by our very, very restricted spiritual society at the moment. But I'm sure in the future people will be hailing him as some kind of revolutionary, I hope, because that's pretty much what he was, and
inspiration.
Yeah, and there's real movement in that realm recently that I think he was such a big part of. And like you said, I don't know how to articulate this or tackle it whatsoever, but his energy—I mean, from the first time I met him, he had this energy that was so compelling, and he made so much sense. He—everything, he—the way he looked at the world was bold and truthful and exciting. He's the most fascinating person I've ever met, and um, and I did... didn't explore any of these sides like you're talking about.
That's just... that's something I don't know hardly anything about other than, you know, college. Well, yeah, it's, you know, he... sorry.
I didn't know much about him until I met Greg, and uh, we got on like a house of fire from day one. And uh, he was already, you know, an experienced uh, psychedelic practitioner with, you know, um, LSD and mushrooms and mesclun and such, and he opened my mind to that side of things. And then DMT came along; he opened my mind there as well, and I just feel in a way so privileged that my
psychedelic guru, as such, you know, was the greatest of our time. I don't know anybody else, and I've met lots of his friends, and we went to Burning Man a number of years together, and we've lived together, got a house in the Dominican Republic together, you know, so
You know, I was this running mate lunatic for quite a number of years, and I just, you know, what a privilege, yeah.
Exactly, what a privilege. His, his book I got from him, he had just finished it and, you know, self-published under the influence: 20 Tales of Psychedelic Noir, which is just such an awesome title. And he, he was so proud of this thing and he, uh, he gave it to me when we were down in Texas. We were trying to fly in some distance down there and it is freaking brilliant. It's so fun and it's, uh, and again, because I knew him from flying, that you know that wasn't... I went out to see him one time and at Halloween and, you know, for me it was a big night, but for him it's probably... and, you know, so I got to see a little, little bit of it, but that just wasn't, you know, I, I kind of like, you, I, I'd heard a lot of stories, but I didn't know that side of him and that book really gives a window.
Yeah, I'm going to encourage our listeners to get this thing. It's just, well, the funniest thing out loud, it's fantastic. The
Funniest thing with that, Gavin, is when we used to live in the Dominican Republic together, I'd go down there for the summers to develop snow kites, believe it or not. And, uh, so we had this—we've got this crazy property down there called The Tower, and it's three stories, octagonal buildings, totally unique. I mean, it's classic, Greg, or Kiwi, you know, just it's not like anywhere else. Anyway, so we had this place, and he'd be writing these stories, and he'd be passing them to me to read. So I don't know how long I've been pushing him. Come on, Greg, get the book finished. Finish the short stories, finish yourself. So I've read all these stories through numerous iterations to sort of perfecting them as such or putting the final touches to them.
And I'd be, come on, you've got to get this thing out there, man. These aren't going to be anything when you're dead. They need to come out when you're here. And he'd always laugh at, yeah, you're never a famous author until you're dead anyway. way. Finally, he gets the book out, which was very satisfying for me. I know how much it meant to him and, uh, you know, I, I went back down to the Dominican after I'd, uh, dealt with great affairs in New Orleans and, uh, I was sat in the house up on the third story balcony. You're at canopy level, so there's palm trees and beautiful green fauna and flora around, and I was reading through the stories again. Oh my god, I
just
emotionally and again
I bet I'm sure. And, and again, you know, when you, when you, it helped me. Um, it helped me with this death because reading about stuff, it's like, "Jesus, this guy, yeah, has lived so much." I mean, he's just the stuff he did because, of course, it's, you know, quote-unquote fiction. And he and I had some great, you know, Walter, and you know, I was like, "Dude, you're in every story," you know, you're real easy to pick out. You're the big bloke. You're the big Kiwi who's constantly, you know, like maybe getting in a fight, but you don't know how to fight, but you're real big. You know what I mean? I know who's you in every one of these stories, you know? And, uh, but yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's a lot of fun. Um, well, we should, we should get back to, to flying and the other stuff.
It's, it's great to, to talk about him with you. Cause I know, I mean, you guys have a lot of history together, You know, living together in Driggs and Sun Valley. I mean, you know, you guys have combed the world together and I'm sure had a lot of pretty incredible adventures. One of the adventures that has kind of reached legendary status is your A4 with Othar and those guys in Slovenia. I wonder if you could tell that one because Bill said that would be his quote from you. is give it more gas or something you know as you guys are going on so what what's this one
Oh, it was, uh, yes, it was a PWC in Slovenia and, uh, this was Ozona just started and basically I was broke because I, I wasn't saving money during my career as a competition pilot because there wasn't any to say I was just, I was just doing it. And then we started Ozone and, um, yeah, I've thrown everything thing I had into that pot, but I think we had the first gliders out and so needed to go make a bit of a showing and we went to this PWC in Sylvania. Othar had shown up, he'd landed in Italy, rented a car, it happened to be an Audi A4 and, uh, he was there and, um, Bernie, uh, second name from Canada was there and a few others.
Anyway, uh, it was back in the day when some people still sort of held me on with some kind of regard and put me off some kind of pedestal and this one of the pilots, his father just opened a new restaurant, and he wanted us to go and sort of christen the new restaurant. And each year, they're allowed to shoot a certain number of bears in the region, and he had shot one one bear and he wanted to prepare the bear for us that night so and well, it was mainly admittedly for me, um, but I said, "Oh, yes, but I'm with this crew because you can't leave, you can't leave your crew behind." So we took the whole crew, whole crew, up to the restaurant, and going up there, it's this beautiful windy road with switchbacks, and I'm already wishing I was driving because, but it's a fast car, so we're driving up there and it's like, "Oh my god, this road deserves to be torn apart." I used to love to drive like a maniac, I really was a maniac anyway.
So we're driving up there, we get to the, uh, to the restaurant, it's a beautiful side of the mountain type ski lodge restaurant thing, and the owner, as soon as we walked in, just took a shine to me in terms of, "Right, we are having a good time tonight, and the Slovenians had to have a good time." So he was plying me with alcohol from the beginning, you know, just, and I'm a lightweight, so I was totally, totally lit already. Then we had this absolutely incredible meal there, which I haven't eaten, I haven't had before or since, and it really was divine. The meat was incredible, um, and we had this big night, everyone's pretty lit by the end of it because the owner was, you know, there was no bill to pay, the owner was just quiet, and Bernie was the only guy left who, who wasn't drunk, which was lucky.
So Bernie jumps in the car to take us home at the end of it, and I think there's five of us in the car, so there's three in the back, me and I think, and I was in the back, um, Otho and Bernie in the front. Anyway, we start driving down, "Come on, Bernie, you're driving like a freaking pussy, give it some gas!" And then I start, I start coaching him through the gears down into second, you know, "Set it up wide, blow it, come on, more gas, more gas!" And anyway, these are really steep switchbacks, it's on a very, yeah.
I've driven those roads; I know exactly what you're talking about. They're but
Slovenia as well is quite poor, so there were no crash barriers on any of these corners. Us, anyway, well, it wasn't those days. Uh, this is probably 19, 1998 or 99 or something like that. Could have been 2000. So we're going down this road. Come on, Bernie, faster, faster! More gas, more gas! Nail it, nail it! Come on, great, nail it! You know, anyway, he's doing well until at one point on one of these tight switchbacks, he loses his bottle and instead of following the instructions he kind of freezes and we literally just sail off the edge of the road and we're passing through the canopy through the trees. There's leaves going past us and I'm still so lit.
I'm in the back going, "More gas, more gas." Anyway, but the story gets more and more ridiculous. We fly through the trees, we manage not to hit any trees, and end up crashing into this big rock. Car's sort of on its roof on the side. It's a bit of a shock. Is everyone okay? Everyone's okay. Oh my god, everyone's okay. Oh, wicked okay, right? Let's get out. So we get out, climb back up to the road, and it was a proper... applying back up to the road, you know? We've covered some serious distance. Anyway, uh, then we mobile phone someone and they come and pick us up, and they're like, "Yeah, we'll deal with that in the morning." So we go back up the next day. You can't even see the car, it's so far gone, you know?
It's down. And yes, oh my god, like, what are we going to do here? And our car goes, well, uh, I rented this thing in Italy and they said you can't drive it in Slovenia because it won't... it won't be insured. Oh no. Okay, I've got this great idea. Let's take the license plates off, take the stereo out, and you know, make a few things, and let's pretend
it was
Stolen? Let's pretend it was stolen. Well, this is... this is... this is what silly minds do, you know? Immature, silly minds like mine. And so then we made the police reports and did all that shit, and both I went back and said, "Yes, Yes," it was stolen, but not in Slovenia. And, of course, it was an Audi A4 in Italy. It could have been stolen because those kind of things happen. Anyway, of course, what you forget is that the seasons change. And so it was all covered in foliage and God knows what because it was down in a ravine and there was trees in the way. But in the middle of winter, it probably stood out like a sore thumb. So about a year later, Othar gets this call from some Italian investigation bureau saying, yes, we have reason to believe some kind of fraud going on here.
Oh, shit.
So you basically have two choices. One is to stand up against the fraud charge, or the other one is to pay the bill for the car. So the bill for the car was paid.
Yes. But I have to thank you. How
much was that?
That's not a cheap car; it was 15k, actually, at the time. It was obviously rental rates, so it was actually a cheap car, but I have to thank Opa about the juncture in time because I was broke, you know? I didn't have any money, so, uh, I think, and you
were kind of the instigator
As I often was, I'm sorry, but I have, I have spent loads of my money on, on everybody else, you know? I was the guy buying the ski boat for us to have fun. I was the guy, you know, just get in, let's go. Because, you know, I was being paid more than they were earning. So, you know, I never went shy on petrol and food and all that kind of shit. So it all evens up in the end. But, oh, my goodness, total stupidity, total craziness. But everybody okay. You know, that was the main thing.
Yeah, great. Great. Robbie, if you could rewind the clock all the way back to the beginning, would you change anything? And if so, what would it be?
Yes, I wouldn't change much. It would only be my personality in those situations. I would have liked to. Well, I wouldn't.
I could have done it with more decorum. That's all.
Can you put some more on that? What do you mean? You could have just been more of a gentleman, or what do you mean? Yes, I
could have been more of a gentleman. I was young, aggressive, impetuous, uh, you
know the fact that I was totally loaded with energy wasn't the problem; the problem was the delivery sometimes, and I definitely ruffled some feathers and caused some shit. Nothing that I regret to the point that it stays with me, but when you asked me to rewind it, then yes, I could have—I could have been more of a gentleman, I could have been slightly more accommodating to other things. I was very
Me and us orientated, it was me and my crew. It didn't involve anybody else, so I could have been slightly more open. Now, what's
the craziest thing you ever saw, either you or something you saw in in flying something that you think back is, I isn't there a story about you going backwards at like 90k an hour or something and jumping out? Or I don't know if that was you, but there's there's got to be some in your now
Actually, this is a—this is a good story for people as well to, to listen to and maybe remember, because it's—it's not a particularly, uh, nice story, but it's very poignant in terms of, uh, your own longevity. And we were at—we've gone to a competition in Telluride. Um, it was the usual crew plus some new people that we didn't know, and we went up to launch on the first day, and it was pretty windy, and, uh, there was a guy pulling ring overs on launch, and they were—they weren't particularly good ring overs, and you know, Telluride launch is a high launch. I seem to recall it's, uh, is it a 9000? Yeah, it is. It's over 9. My memory, it actually worked for something
And those aren't really the kind of altitudes that you want to be messing around with wing elders and stuff close to the ground, you know, especially in the type of conditions that tell you I deliver and
It's actually terrible, but I turn around to our crew and I'm like, "This dude's going to be freaking dead if he carries on doing that." Boom, hit the ground and was dead. Holy fuck, it's just... oh my god, literally. And first off, he didn't really have the skill; secondly, he was in the totally the worst place for doing it. And I thought, you know, unfortunately. Now I look back at that and I just recognize how important to this to to always be present, recognize your own level, recognize where you are, have some respect. It's like, my god, that there is the quintessential example of when you don't have those three things.
And yes, that's actually stayed with me ever since because it's there it is you know it's all there You just got to play it by the book instead of wanting to show off or needing that feeling so bad that you're prepared to risk everything for it. You've always got to recognize the balance. I'm sorry if that wasn't quite what you're after.
No, no, no. That's great. That's a great lesson. How has flying those years that you flew a lot? I mean, you're still kiting. I'm still
flying too, yes.
How has flying, when you kind of look back, how has it changed your life?
Oh, my goodness.
Well, yes, without a shadow of a doubt, it was the ultimate gift. Has it changed my life? It has been my life. You know, it's meeting exceptional people, traveling all over the world,
experiences, views, views that other people will never see, will never, can never understand.
Robbie, well, well, well said. And I feel like you and I could probably sit here all day. It's amazing how fast the time has gone. What a treasure, man, and a pleasure. pleasure, and um, again, I'm, I'm sorry we couldn't, couldn't find Kiwi, but it was, uh, this has been a real joy, and it's, it's nice to have these because, you know, like with Kiwi recording this summer, it was, I'm so glad I had that just as a little, you know, something. So it's, it's great to, it's, it's great to share this time with you, and thanks for sharing a little bit of your life, uh, with all of, of us. Thank
You very much gavin for having me. It's awesome, and uh, I hope that, uh, you know, if if it inspires people or it makes people think, you know, I'm an idiot and do it a different way, I don't care so long as there's some form of inspiration that can come from it. Then that's fantastic, and thanks for having the time to, uh, to talk to me.
Thanks, Robbie. Well, good luck with everything there with Ozone and building kites and racing bikes and and having fun and, uh, one of these days I hope our paths will cross. I'm
Sure, they will. I really hope they do. In fact, I'm going to make a point of it happening. Awesome.
if
You find the Cloudbase Mayhem valuable, you can support it in a lot of different ways. You can give us a rating on iTunes or Stitcher, or however you get your podcast; that goes a long ways and helps spread the word. You can blog about it on your own website or share it on social media. You can talk about it on the way up to launch with your pilot friends. I know a lot of interesting conversations have happened that way. And of course you can support us financially. This show does take a lot of time, a lot of editing, a lot of storage and music and all kinds of behind the scenes costs. So if you can support us financially, all we've ever asked for is a buck a show. And you can do that through a one-time donation through PayPal, or you can set up a subscription service that charges you for each show that comes out. We put a new show out every two weeks. So for example, if you did a buck a a show and every two weeks it'd be about $25 a year.
So way cheaper than a magazine subscription and it makes all of this possible. I do not want to fund this show with advertising or sponsors. We get asked about that pretty frequently, but for a whole bunch of different reasons, which I've said many times on the show, I don't want to do that. I don't like having that stuff at the front of the show. And I also want you to know that these are authentic conversations with real people and these are just our opinions, but our opinions are not being skewed by sponsors or advertising dollars. I think that's a pretty toxic business model. So I hope you dig that. You can support us. If you go to cloudbasemayhem.com, you can find the places to support. You can do it through patreon.com forward slash Cloudbase Mayhem. If you want a recurring subscription, you can also do that directly through the website. We've tried to make it really easy and that will give you access to all the bonus material, a little video cast that we do and extra little nuggets that we find in conversations that don't make it into the main show, but we feel like you should hear.
We don't put any of that behind a paywall. If you can't afford to support us, then just let me know, and I'll set you up with an account, of course. That'll be lifetime, and hopefully you'll be in a position someday to be able to support us. But you'll find all that on the website. All of you who have supported us or even joined our newsletter newsletter or bought Cloudbase Mayhem merchandise, t-shirts or hats or anything, you should be all set up. You should have an account and you should be able to access all that bonus material now. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your support and we'll see you on the next show. Thank you.