Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the CloudBase Mayhem. My guest today is Jeff Longcourt. I sat down with Jeff when I was out training in California in March. And I had a lot of requests for Jeff, especially after we put out that survey that people found it really valuable to talk to lower hour pilots, those that are firmly in kind of intermediate syndrome and getting through that rather than just talking to the legends and the pros. And so this is one of those. Jeff's been chasing it really hard. He's a search and rescue professional and he's, you know, he's got a good head. But he doesn't get to get out that much because of his job and his work. And he's made some mistakes, some small ones, some big ones, as we all do.
He's had some injuries and gone through that whole, God, do I suck at this? Should I quit? And he's in a very dynamic community out there in Santa Barbara. It's a really supportive community. It's fantastic. And but it's also can be there can be a lot of pressure there. Not that people are doing it to you intentionally. But there's just, you know, there's a lot of people chasing it really hard. And and you want to be part of that group. He's recently put up some some great flights.
Also recently broke his ankle. And that was wasn't real recent. But and we take through we go through all of this in some detail. You know, the the the urge to quit and come back to it. Questioning yourself. Doubt. How to approach risk when you don't really understand it that well yet. And yeah, the power of making inexpensive and sometimes expensive mistakes. How to deal with relationships with your with somebody who isn't a pilot. That can obviously be tricky for many of us in our in our lives. And how to learn how to how the value of acro.
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Jeff, awesome to have you on the show. And really cool that we can do this in person. This is kind of fun. We had a nice flight together the other day. That was really cool. You and Neil and I were in the air a bit for a while. I didn't know it was you, but that was fun. There's a lot of gliders around here. But so yeah, we're in Santa Barbara. We're sitting in my trailer and I'm just about getting ready to go home. And when this comes out, it'll be a couple months from now. So sorry to the listeners that some of this might have changed by the time you hear this. But what I thought would be a fun place to start, you put up a post recently on the Telegram group out here for the Santa Barbara Flying Community and the club. Which I thought was really cool. I think there's 800 and something people on the Telegram group now.
And so this has obviously become kind of a Mecca to fly here. And for those of you who haven't flown, it's a coastal site in a sense, but also a mountain site. We're right on the ocean here. Big 3,500 foot peaks and a big ridge line behind us. And then it steps back another 1,000, 1,500 feet behind that. And then beyond that, you're out in the Mojave Desert. So it's a pretty dynamic, very beautiful. Very cool place to fly. It's often soft and sometimes it winds up and it's pretty high pressure, pretty sharp and pretty full on flying. So it's a great place for me to come and train. And it's also a wonderful place for people to come out and learn literally from their first flight at one of the best training hills in the world.
And then also to excel and get better and train as I know you have in the last few years. So this is a long-winded opener. But what I thought we'd start with is there was a pilot here in the community that was having some incidences, as we all do when we're coming up through the game. And you posted what I thought was really good constructive feedback that was nonjudgmental and very welcoming. And kind of asking this pilot to maybe look at things. And maybe ask him about things in a way that he hadn't. So without reading it, it's a long post, but it really got a lot of attention and some great responses.
And I thought you might be able to just summarize that. So what led you writing it? What were the things that this pilot did that led to you writing the post? And then take us into your own journey a little bit.
Awesome. Thanks so much, Gavin, for having me. All right. Thanks. I've listened to every single episode. It's changed my progression, made me a safer pilot. And that's the kind of information and thought process that I tried to pass on in what I wrote. And I totally agree with you. Santa Barbara is a beautiful place to fly with varying conditions throughout the seasons. And one of the best things about it is there's something flyable almost every day. And that allows us to train in ways that build skill levels incrementally in different aspects of flying and then combine them together in mountain flights that, like you said, can extend into different terrain and into new places, different valley systems, into the backcountry or into the desert.
Many of those I'm still looking forward to myself. Again, I am fairly intermediate. I've been flying for three years. In those years, though, I've worked really hard to understand how to become a better pilot and to use all of the resources available to me right now while working a full-time desk job. And so in that time, I've logged about 700 hours and I've decided to do about seven SIVs. And those things, I think, have been totally critical. And the reason I felt like I could reach out to this pilot is because I was that pilot when I started. The way I phrased it was that my joy of flying was outpacing my abilities.
I think a lot of people at the time when I started felt that I was competing with them or trying to get notoriety or outfly others. But really, it was like this overwhelming joy, like the need to want to launch, right? Like the need to want to experience what other people were experiencing when they had a big flight. Right. When they had an evening soaring session in a high wind environment, but that they'd watch the sunset, you know, that kind of stuff really, I think, can capture a new pilot. And it's, you've talked about this too. It really, that's special to embrace it during that time because that's the unique period where like everything is magical and new. But at the same time, I think there's a lot of risk during that phase.
You know, if you see someone in the air, you want to be in the air and that's not always appropriate. And you might not be aware of it. The conditions changing quickly.
We don't know what we don't know for a long time. And I think that's, it's something I think when you get through that, you wrestle with looking back in terms of just how to, how to approach people in a, in a positive way, how to try to understand what they're going through. It's, it's really tricky. It's just, I think I wrote on the post this morning, like Russ Ogden says, we're not playing golf. It's hard. It's hard to, you know, you can't just go up and help somebody with their grip or with their backswing. It's, you know, we're, we're playing with gravity.
Right. And not only that, but we're totally alone. Like, I think that's something that caught me off guard at first. I come from climbing, you know, when you have a partner, you are multiple partners and you're relying on each other for your life. And you have that trust and that bond. We can fly together, but ultimately no one knows how I'm, how I'm piloting my craft. What techniques?
What I'm
using? What thought process is going on in my head? And you can't reach out and save somebody, you know, that you can try to communicate on the radio or, or give signals, but we're, we're kind of out there on our own a little. And that was, that was a bit of a shock for me at first. And so I think you're absolutely right. It's not like someone can come in and look over your shoulder. You know, I highly encourage people to do a tandem. Eagle makes that part of their, their training. And I learned a lot from Mitch when I took a tandem with him. But other than that, like someone can step in and improve your technique or your decision-making in the moment. And those moments are a high, high consequence at times.
So what summarize very generally, what was this pilot? What, what, what had happened? Not, not each incident, but what was generally happening that you were trying to mitigate in a sense?
Oh, absolutely. I, I thought a lot before I wrote that response because I wanted to get a sense of what was happening. And I wanted to make sure it was necessary. I'm not going to judge any pilot who has one incident. I've had plenty. So if they had one incident, you know, that's, that's one thing. If it's a, if it's a string of incidences, if it's a, a series of them that become a trend, I think in any activity and anything you do in life, if that's happening, you need to take a step back and do a bit of a more of a root cause analysis and understand why is that trend happening? Because if you don't understand, you're not going to be able to do anything. And if you don't understand how to do that, if you don't address it, it can only end badly. I think. Um, so.
Eventually the luck jar is going to run out. Right,
right. You're getting away with it each time. And, and again, if there's something that you don't know, uh, you know, you're putting yourself positions that you're, you're unaware of the risks involved there. You have to take a step back and analyze it and, and fill in those gaps in, in environments that are less consequential. And so in this case, the pilot had had at the time that I responded. I believe two reserve throws. An incident of getting lost in the clouds, uh, incident of landing really deep and having to hike out with no plan or equipment for an overnight. Uh, and a couple of reports of maybe not having great situational awareness and gaggle flying situations, uh, scenarios.
Um, in each one of these, I did monitor the community response. And felt compelled to say something, but really also felt like it was being handled. And in the last reserve throw incident, I felt the community started to get split where some of the response was great for you for throwing. That's the right thing to do. And the other half being, oh man, we should maybe give up. Like it's not really being heard. And I don't think it's ever worth giving up on a pilot. Um, I was that pilot, you know, I was, I was so excited. I was so charged and it, and I was. I was so excited. I remember it hurting pretty bad when I got the feedback. And I, I still tried to receive it and, and listen to it and think about it a lot.
And even if it made me upset. And it took time for it to work its way into my head, you know, and took time for me to make those small. Adjustments or have these epiphanies or slow down and watch others and read a little bit more or listen to. These podcasts. And really embrace. The wider world of knowledge. And, and the slower. State. Of progression. And so. I thought it was definitely worthwhile to write something, but it had to marry those two perspectives of good job throwing, because I would never tell someone not to throw a reserve. You know, obviously the person walked away. In all of these instances. Sure. And that was clearly the right decision. If you don't have the wing control to. Stop what's happening to, to recognize configurations and find an exit.
And safely maneuver. And then I also had to balance. Like that feeling of you better listen. You know, if it was coming from the other side of the community of. You know, we're, we're ready to kind of give up, you know, ready to, to not reach out to this person anymore and be like, look, this is just hazardous for everybody. So how do you combine those two things together and. And be it. Do it in a nonjudgmental way that says, look, I've been there too. I certainly have been a week. We can talk about some of my mistakes.
But let's go ahead and switch to that and then we'll come back to the talk. So what, what, what were your own? Cause I feel like in some ways. Maybe your own incidences that were similar in a sense may have better equipped you to. Understand where this pilot was. I, I, cause I agree with you. I think from the wider community's perspective. I mean, let's face it. Some people just shouldn't be pilots. You know, some people don't belong in this sport and that's one of the reasons I think it's, it doesn't have. The growth, you know, we're, we're very near. A. A metropolitan center of 30 million people. You know, why aren't there more pilots? They see people flying in the mountains. It looks incredible. I'm sure to many.
But not that many people undertake it. And that's probably a good thing. But you, it sounds like you were really equipped to, I mean, I think I, I'm sympathetic with both sides of what you're saying here in terms of the community, half the community or some parts of the community. We got to keep trying somewhere. It's the community. This, maybe this person shouldn't, you know, she's take up a different. Activity.
Right. Right. And it's, I think it's hard to care for someone if they're going to, if they're, if they're not handling themselves appropriately and might get hurt. And, and I think we all feel that amongst our friends in the sport. Sometimes it's like, if someone's taking a lot of risks, you're like, oh, can I, can I be close with that person? Can I be a friend if, if they're putting their life on the line? And in some ways that is what binds us. You know, we're out there pushing and we have to understand that we all have days when we need to push. But again, I think it comes back to recognizing that trend. If you're pushing too many times. You have to take a step back and also listen to the feedback you're getting from people who care about you. And what I love about Santa Barbara's community is we care about everyone. And a lot of it can be self-serving because if we get a new pilot who comes in, who doesn't follow the rules and the website and doesn't do some of their own forecasting and take responsibility for themselves, we can lose a lot of our access here.
As you said, it is a beautiful place to fly, but it's also a busy place. And so though. We've been very diligent about putting up rules that we'd like people to follow. There is a wonderful van service from Eagle that they'll run when they can. And they still will encourage people to do their own forecasting or to reach out to a mentor to get that kind of information. And so I think the community does want to care for everyone, but it does scare them when they see these trends specifically, not just one incident, but a pilot having a series. And for me, yes. I think I was that pilot. And, you know, one of the funniest, and it's only funny because it worked out right. But one of the funnier scenarios was I think I was going up for a second run flying from EJ, which is a fairly straightforward launch at the back ridge that we have here.
And the wind had picked up quite a bit. Again, one of those situations with the conditions changing fairly quickly to the later stages of the day, which is typical here. A wind will come in a Southwest or West wind is pretty common. It's predictable on most days. And there's an instructor there, and he was giving me a look sort of like, you know, do you have this? Do you know what you're doing? You know, he was instructing others and kind of driving the van, I think, that had gone up. And, right, I believe I was a P2 at the time. I think that's a really, really critical point here because of someone's development in Santa Barbara because you're on a lower performance wing. There are launches that are a bit setback. There are power lines. There are valleys. And you need to be thoughtful about the wind. You need to be thoughtful about your flight plan.
I think one of your bailout
LZs is called a snake pit. Yeah. And I tell people what it's like. Yeah,
that's got a key part in the story. You can see where I'm going. Yeah, you don't want
to be buried back in there.
Oh, yeah. It's a tight LZ, especially if you ended up there because it's windy, you know. And if it is windy, it's probably upslope. And that means that you're going to be doing a – Yeah. – a really fast downwind uphill landing if you do it properly. Now, in this scenario, I arrived at one of our forward triggers. It was working okay. And I had seen a couple of tandem pilots bench back. And I thought, this is my time. I want to bench back. You know, the wind is going to help me too. It's a south wind. And, you know, I'm benching back to the north. And I make the move. And, of course, don't quite hook into anything and start flushing off. And I flush off. And I flush off to that side with the snake pit, which has fewer exits and is blocked by power lines to get to a safe LZ other than the snake pit.
And so pretty quickly realized I'm going there. You know, I'm going in. And I thought, you know, other pilots have pulled this off. I'm going to pull this off. And I angled my approach to coming really low over the trees, which I think that's definitely the right move there. You know, you got to hit that spot landing. And at the last minute decided to get a little tricky with my landing. And I think I had recently had a hard landing a few days prior. And so in my head I was thinking, I really don't want to do an uphill downwind landing. I'm going to turn at the last second and land in the, you know, the upper part of that LZ and get a nice asymmetric flare, something like that. And I came in and I swear my feet, like, touched the ground.
And I was like, I thought I was there. And then I got boosted into the air. And suddenly I'm flying like tree height down a canyon with no LZ whatsoever. So you
overflew it going down.
Yeah. I essentially made a turn and pointed myself down canyon. And it's a pretty, you can't really tell from the air. It's a pretty steep downhill at that point. So I went from facing north and doing that uphill landing to facing south now and flying downhill. And there's, you know, I'm going to do that. I think if I do that now, I may have the wing control skills to kill the wing appropriately and put that landing in. At the time, I certainly didn't. And I thought about some of the advice I'd gotten. And I thought, well, I'm going to land in the tree. And I'm going to aim for a soft one. So I dodged a hard looking tree. And I made a turn and did a full flare into kind of a glorified bush.
And I landed. And the next thing you know, I think I was hanging by one leg upside down in the tree about four feet over the ground. And I was able to get the whole wing down. And this is really funny. Even though I had a reversible harness, I still carry the huge Niviuk black backpack. And that helped me a few times in my early progression because I could pack the whole wing into it. So just stuff the whole wing into it and just like walk the beautiful trail down with my tail between my legs. And there's a tandem pilot who is also my SIV instructor, Dylan Beddetti. And he called me on the phone. I think he was still in the air. It was just, you know, are you OK? And I said, yeah, I'm already packed up. And I remember him being pretty surprised, like, oh, you're pretty packed up. You know, and it was clear I was trying to get out of there pretty fast.
I was super embarrassed. And I thought I was totally in the clear, like no injuries whatsoever. But then I get home and I'm from New England. And we don't have a lot of poison oak up there. I had no idea. So before I know it, everyone in my myself and my girlfriend were just covered with poison oak. It was like we did. You know, the clothes got everywhere. Yeah, it's just unbelievable. And I thought it would go away. And before I know it, I'm getting like, you know, shots in the in the butt to get rid of stuff. So there's some things in California like there's not a lot of, you know, mosquitoes or bugs. But man, some of the things here can get you. Yeah. Bushwhacking can be brutal. And the heat sometimes can be brutal.
And the poison oak can be insane.
Yeah. Landing out here, you know, the front range is one thing. And but when you when you huck it over the back and get in the Chaparral country and stuff, you know, when I look at that stuff, I always think, OK, I could put it in and I'm not going to die. But then I slit my wrists because I'm not going to be able to walk out of this crap either. You know, I mean, you'd have to abandon your gears. No way. You're getting it out of one of those trees. And then, you know, it's thick. I mean, the thick stuff on the backside here is it would be torture. Brutal. Oh, my
God. I I had a situation where I landed. I got again. I think one of the things that really challenges new pilots and one of the things I advise this pilot to be more thoughtful about was flying in wind. And I remember falling out of the back of a thermal. This is a bit later in my progression and getting kind of pinned against the terrain. And I realized I'm going to land here. You know, I was up near where you top land the other day. The OR, but just to get shallow to the west. OK. And I landed there and I swear I could throw a stone to the road. And two and a half hours later, I crawled under the bushes and got out. It's amazing. It was like a football field away, you know, but I couldn't get there. I had to walk for hours and then crawl underneath this wooden brush. So so it is it is pretty real.
And in you know, I can reflect on a few of those situations. And the biggest one probably for a new pilot in the mountains is to be aware of those changing conditions and the wind especially. Right. Because all of a sudden things happen so much faster, whether it's falling out of a thermal or getting stuck behind terrain or other traps that prevent you from getting to a safe LZ with a lower performance glider. Yeah. And so like in that situation, that was a great takeaway. Not listening to that instructor, you know, who I greatly respected. And, you know, just because I was. I thought I've practiced high wind launches before and I've ridged sword and high wind before. That's not the same in the mountains. Right. And that's
the lesson learned right there. Yeah. So you had the snake pit one. You've had some others. Oh,
yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it's it's always a series. And to the community's credit, I know they informed me, you know, after these and and or they were, you know, very respectfully honest, you know, and I again, it was it's hard things to hear. But I think it's a great lesson learned. But if you're if your mind and ears aren't open to it, you could risk life changing injury, I think, in this sport. And so I've tried to challenge my ego to be accepting, more accepting of hearing everything I can or even, you know, learning from others. Sure. Pick out a couple. Yeah, definitely. What are the
what are the what were the ones that had the greatest learning? Yeah,
I'd say of all of them. And we'll just go with this one. And I can I can do more. I can go all day, unfortunately.
I think one of the absolute biggest one was a morning when I was really excited to do a hike and fly. That's been something really special to me because I have this history in mountaineering. And that is kind of what led to me flying, you know, climbing and mountaineering and the legacy of that sport transitioning into some people who fly like the Bill Belcourt's, you know, and and the legends of of how climbers become better. And so I did this hike and fly mission. I'm going to start throwing out names. So so I was with Andrew Byron, who is just an amazing, thoughtful pilot and friend.
He's he's got incredible wing control and like the foundational skills. And so we hiked up together and someone had told me that there had been a north wind warning, which is our mountains face south. And we're launching to the south. So that would be coming over the back on us. And that's typical here in Santa Barbara. And I had expected that to change in the morning. And when we got there, it felt like it was blowing in, but but only very lightly and inconsistently. And I knew I was nervous about the launch, but I didn't say anything like I didn't bring it up to Andrew. And in fact, we were rushing. Or at least in my head, I was rushing to launch land and then catch the Eagle van for another run. You know, maybe I could do two or three. And that kind of thing is typical in the summer where conditions are stable.
So you're looking as a new pilot for multiple sledders. And again, I think that we because the conditions are sort of soft and stable, you don't think they're going to change that much or that the morning will be that different. I know that impacted a pilot recently here who launched in the afternoon and it was totally different from his morning flight. You got it. You said this before, but you've got to treat every flight as its own.
Life changing adventure. Right. It's its own unique experience in evaluating conditions every time. At least that was one of my takeaways. But I set up on launch and before I think I even had a chance to turn around from laying out my wing at at Skyport, which is where we were. Andrew had been able to forward off and too much to this day. It blows my mind. Having someone forward off Skyport. It is like three steps and then you're off. We recently there was some bushes cleared there. And so now it's way better. The things that I'm about to tell you probably aren't as likely to happen to the next pilot. And I'm really grateful for the improvements that have that have occurred.
But Andrew Andrew got off and it was he did it in a beautiful way. Just really demonstrating his skill and ability there. And again, the cycles were really light and consistent and switchy. And at that time, you know, as a pilot, I'm more of like a feeling pilot. Like I think you talked about this. There's analytical minds that look at all the data and then there's more of the emotional and feeling pilots and there's positive and benefits to both. One of the negatives, I think, to my approach at the time being one of those types of pilots is I'd feel like a what felt like a good cycle and go, well, this is good. Let's do it. You know, let's pull up. Let's make it happen. Like, I'm ready. And I've, you know, since then, it's I've tried to incorporate that observation and that data component to launching.
I think it's the most critical aspect of a flight in most cases. Right. You got to get away from terrain safely. And so not just feeling the cycles, but really looking at the bushes and how they move. And, you know, one person I talked to at length after this is Logan, because he you know, he Logan, Andrew and I and a bunch of others have really come to terms with it. They eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually I didn't do those things.
I was curious, did you have, you said though, when you first got there, you had a sensation of, you know, something's not right or you were a little bit nervous. Oh,
absolutely. Yeah. I knew that I didn't have great light wind launching skills. I was on, and we can, I guess, talk about wings a little bit too, but I had recently stepped up to a higher B and I was kiting a lot, but with my lower B, you know, so I hadn't, I think that's really important early in your progression is to match your, or just, or just embrace one wing, you know, at least early on so that the wing you're kiting all day at the hill and practicing landings with and things is also that wing that you can trust in a mountain launch of any type. And so I'd recently changed wings a little bit. So I was probably nervous there. And then not just was it light, but I think once in a while it would blow down a little bit.
So I think that North was still there. And I didn't have at the time, the sense to check wind talkers better, check the forecast better, understand. I remember learning in ground school about how it could rotor over the top and feel like it was coming in, you know, but at the time I was like, you know, I, I just figured I was nervous about the launch, but I was going to do it anyway. I think, I think a lot of early pilots do the same thing where launch is a foregone conclusion. Like I came all the way up here. I hiked up here. I want to make it. I hiked the van, but I'm nervous about it. And you don't really listen to why, but when you look back on the root cause, if you do that root cause analysis, you're like, wow, there's a lot of things like a newer wing early in the morning. So not as settled.
The North maybe hadn't blocked. And there was a, there was a possible North wind warning. Didn't check any wind talkers to do any forecasting, you know, another really good pilot had to forward launch off and I'm not prepared to do that. You know, so those, all of those things. Yeah. They eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually
eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually And I kind of visualize it now like one of those cartoons where like the paraglider is flying straight and level above me, but I'm getting dragged through every bush and it's slowing down. And then finally I hit a rock with my left foot and I hit it so hard that my shoe disappeared forever. I never found it again. It came off and I went back and looked for a couple of hours. It was like a point of personal pride. I'm like, I need to like own this. Where did that shoe go? You know, it was expensive, like Solomon's shoe. And I never, never found it again. Yeah, it was gone. It was annihilated. I think it's in pieces. Yeah. I've never to that point, despite all my climbing injuries, which I've racked up like one surgery per limb. And then this left, actually this left ankle, which broke in this accident was like my, I completed the circle of limb injuries.
But in all my injuries, I'd never broken something. I think I have pretty strong bones and I hit that rock really hard. Wow. Yeah. That
must have really hurt. Yeah. This place can bite. I remember I came here two years ago. I was training for the, I guess that would have been, I mean, three years ago. I was training for one of the X-Alps and I went in the trees off that launch you guys have off the road. You know, the one where you kind of, you're kind of like running uphill a little bit. And, and I just, you know, I just didn't, the wing wasn't quite pressurized. And now a few people got off that morning. And then for me backwards, nobody got off. The conditions had switched and it just wasn't really coming up. And so I just tried to do a really, really fast running forward and just went right in the trees. And then I think a day later, I got low back in your mountains where it gets pretty flat back here by Casitas Pass.
And, you know, like you said, you, you're not going to make the glide if you're low. And I landed in another tree and I thought, wow, this is really interesting. I'm an X-Alps pilot and I've landed in trees. I think it was two days in a row.
I mean, not the kind where you're hanging out of it. It was just, you know, the second one, the both of them were the kind of thing where I was on the ground and my wing was in the tree. But it's, you know, the extraction was an hour. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, oh, this is going to be a while. Yeah. Yeah. They're tingly. They're tingly bushes and trees. It goes back to that whole bushwhacking theory back here. Yeah. Wow. So you broke your ankle.
Yeah. Yeah. I broke it. And in a lot of ways it was a blessing. And that's why I say that. Not only did I learn from all, you know. Yeah. If I had gotten away with it, I wouldn't have learned a thing probably. Right. Sure. But then you get, you have that happen. And not only did I learn from all the factors of the accident, but I also was forced to have downtime. And that's something I still struggle to make myself do. Right. You know, if I look back on my progression, it's like, oh, actually, if I had flown a little bit less, like, you know, the airtime, you get that event, you know, as you go. But if I'd done a little more of the reading and the research. And the homework. And that caused me to sit down and do some of that. At least I think I read 50 ways to fly better. And I started to listen to every one of these episodes of cloud-based mayhem to start.
And then I watched YouTube videos of Greg Hamilton and fail videos of people crashing. And a lot of the community. Less
more, more, more knowledge, less excitement.
Yeah. More breaks,
less gas. Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think in this, this letter that I, the open letter that I wrote on telegram to this other pilot, I, I phrased it to kind of to the effect of this, this reading helped me fill in the gaps of what I was feeling. We don't know what we don't know. And by reading and incorporating other people's experiences, we start to fill in those gaps. And then the next time you do get airtime, it starts to piece together better.
Yeah. And then you throw in a reserve a couple of times. Yeah, this is good. I feel like
getting a lot off my chest here. Yeah. Yeah. Air it out. Yeah. Well, one thing after these accidents that I so greatly appreciate is the community again. Right. So when, what I found is if it's, if it's a small incident, they let you, they really let you know about it. And it can be kind of, you know, sometimes I walked away and feel, well, that was intense and maybe a little negative. Like I had someone who was like, oh, I don't know. I'm not going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I was trying the wrong way in a thermal as a new pilot. I got like boosted into the thermal. And we're like best friends now. Shout out to Jason Lombard. Thanks for the correction on that one. You know, and I think that stemmed from learning experience where you went from, you know, a ridge soaring, you got boosted up into a thermal. Right. So that's a really difficult thing, I think, for new pilots is to change the rules or the pattern.
Right. And adjust appropriately and be aware of the situation. And so there are moments like that where it were minor errors and people were able to catch me on them. And I was like, whoa, that was intense. But when it was a serious accident, I got serious phone calls of people who really cared. And one of those people is, again, that SIV instructor, Dylan Bettadetti, who called after I broke my ankle.
And the funny part, again, about that accident was I had exploded the airbag on my harness. And I'd given it to Eagle to maybe fix. And they put a tag on it that says airbag, quote, doesn't hold air. Just the entire thing was like exploded. But that got, you know, did get fixed eventually. But I, he had seen that picture. Dylan had seen the picture of the airbag and thought I'd been seriously injured. And he gave me this meaningful phone call and others did as well. You know, any of the crew here in the community, when something really serious does happen, like there's no judgment. You know? And I've learned that lesson too. There's no judgment. And what the community does look for then in either the small or the big incidences, I think, is steps for correction.
And I want to be the person who, and I think any pilot should also be the person who steps up and puts the work in. So if you've had an issue or a series of events, you should put the work in. You should tell others you're putting the work in and ask for their help. And so at that time, I decided that doing more SIV was going to be really important. And so in SIV, and this is a long way to answer your reserve question, but in SIV, I had the reserve come out accidentally doing a deep stall where I popped it out. You know, I grabbed it with my hand by accident, trying to hold a bad stall configuration.
And it's funny because I wanted to blame like the zipper on the harness. But when Logan and Galen pulled me out of the water, they're like, oh yeah, it's toyed the zipper. And then later they're like, dude, that was you. Yeah. It doesn't do that. Right. Like you definitely plucked your pins out there. Yeah. And we had a good laugh about it. But what it gave me in that unique experience was that's what a reserve feels like, or that's what it feels like when it comes out. This is how we disabled my wing quickly. And I think having it, that's another example of being able to practice those things in a low consequence environment. And then when you're in the mountains, those pieces can come together and really help you in the critical situations that would otherwise. Be extremely damaging. So my real in the wild reserve toss was pretty full on.
I went on my first desert mission ever and admittedly was exhausted on the drive in the morning. I think I'd been working really late. I had an ankle injury that was bothering me. The same broken ankle, I think. Okay. Right. It was still lingering. I had recently moved it from the Calibri, which I was really enjoying. Uh, as, as a nice sensitive lightweight harness that I could do hike and fly with to a bigger harness. Um, that while it had more protection, I think was more dampened. So all these little factors aren't huge in the story, but I think they all add up. Sure. It's always dead. So we get there and there's a lot of debate about, do we fly it or do we fly it? Blackhawk. Um, I, again, I'm tired and I'm a little stressed and this is stressing me out more.
And eventually, you know, people are trying to make a decision and wandering away to sort their gear and then coming back. And we see the clouds popping. Let's go, you know? And, uh, before I know it, I volunteer to go to the other site and we're at Ord. So I volunteer to go to Blackhawk. And, uh, again, without really doing a good head count, we all just jump into one car and go. There wasn't, I don't think we all had the wherewithal to really plan logistics well. And so I ended up in the trunk, literally on top of Othar, who I didn't know who he was at the time. Right. But we are on top of each other. Uh, the car has a lot of trouble getting up there. I think, I think credit to the driver had like two run on flats. It's got two hang gliders on it and like six paragliding bags. It's like a BMW SUV. It's like no place being there.
We have to walk a lot. My ankle's killing me. So by the time I get there, I'm probably compromise. Yeah. And, um, but still have maybe this inflated confidence, you know, and the same thing that maybe got me on that launch before where I broke my ankle kind of crept in here. Which is like, I got this, you know? Yeah. And I think it's important. It's important to have the self-assurance when you launch to do it, to do it confidently. But I feel like in paragliding, anytime you're like, oh, I got this, it's going to slap you down. Like that extra bit of arrogance, perhaps.
Right. You
know, uh,
competence versus arrogance then. Yeah. That's important. Yeah. Hard to be able to differentiate that in the, at the, in the moment though. I mean, cause there's a lot of, there've been a lot of times in my flying life where, you know, I'll have the PBGBs Yeah. fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation fermentation It's hard sometimes to differentiate between those two.
Yeah, I think that's the sport in a nutshell. It's like, do I got this or not? Yeah, there you go. Okay, podcast done. Yeah, yeah, we're wrapping it up. I think for me, it's trying to find the balance between those two types of thinking. Like, how do I feel and what am I observing and what data points do I have? And in climbing, I was always trying to minimize risk by looking at the factors and limiting exposure. So if risk is the probability of something happening times the consequence of it happening, if you can do that math in as much detail as you can, at least you're doing something. At least you're trying to break it down into pieces that your brain and body can understand.
I've
said this before, but something that's been really, really helpful for me that I learned in the backcountry with skiing is there's a guy in our local community who gives really great talks. He talks on decision-making, and this is for backcountry skiing, not for prairie lighting, although I had him come and talk to our club, too, because I thought it was so good. But he talks about, well, fast forward. You're thinking about skiing this line, and you know what the hazards are or could potentially be. If it goes, if you screw this up and it avalanches and you wrapped around a tree, imagine what the accident report would read. Same as in climbing. Just think about it. Just think about that, because that's a good way to highlight and expose.
You're on the way to Blackhawk. You're tired. You've got a bad ankle. You're a little overconfident. You've got all these things. So in an accident report, all that stuff comes out, because a good accident report is like what we've learned from TEM with airlines. They go all the way back. What were the threats? What were the errors made along the way? And you start looking like an idiot. When you think that when you start thinking about the accident report, you go, wow, I would not want to be that accident. I would not want to be the victim in that accident report. You've already made all these bad decisions before you're even thinking about dropping in. So anyway, keep going. I've brought that into flying a lot more because I think it's a helpful way to just think about it.
Because we often are tired, dehydrated, all those kind of things. And you really... You really do have to decide, okay, is this the day to step off the hill?
Yeah. Yeah. And what I ended up writing in that letter to come full circle a little bit is to imagine that what if. To play that game of what's the worst case scenario? What's the backup plan? What is a safe exit in LZs? Do I have margin? And think about those things and don't just go for it. Yeah. And that was kind of the... And in climbing, like you said, in skiing, there were... I read accident reports and I read those. And you get that voice in your head the next time you're out. It's like, you know, Gavin, you know, this age, this experience level put himself in this position. And I do think that is super helpful because it causes visualization. Sure. And it forces you to imagine yourself in the worst case scenario.
And I found the same with climbing. If you're going to place protection on a trad lead, you have to visualize what it would look like if you fell. And what swing you're going to take. What direction of... What force is going to be applied to your piece, your anchor. And so all of that gets you comfortable with the idea of visualizing these scenarios. And then mitigating the risks where you can. And accepting some when you can't. Sure. And so, like, when you talk about flying through the pass low, I think you're doing that. You're like, I'm going to land... If I have to land, I'm going to pick, like, this soft tree where my feet are still on the ground. But I think in the beginning stages for a pilot, they don't think that far ahead. You know, they might land in a much worse scenario there. But they know to.
But
they know how to. Yeah. Like you said, you don't know what you don't know. Okay, so you're a black hawk. Yeah, coming back. Things are kind of working against you in a sense. You don't really probably know that at the time. Well,
so I... In this situation, I think there were visual indicators. Well, there was the physical ones. The exhaustion and fatigue and some pain. And again, some nuke. Equipment. And a little bit of overconfidence, perhaps. Or building myself up so I could pull this off. It was very strong. And I think, again, switchy on launch. It was... I visualized the wind was wrapping around the ridge a little bit and coming back at launch. And I think it was... There was some pretty strong thermals just off launch. And my first attempt, I think I caught some woody brush up there. And so I packed it up for a second and watched the other pilots. And Othar was amazing. He got off and out of there.
You're talking about Othar Lawrence? Yeah. He was out there with you guys? Oh, yeah! I didn't know he was still doing it. Well, this was maybe a year and a half or two or three ago. Two years ago, maybe. Wicked. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, just an amazing person to watch fly. And my friend Peter, who has more experience than me, took off. And he flew this flight path that kind of took him, I don't know, lookers or launchers left, if you will. And I watched his... His wing oscillate in that way, you know, where it pitches way back and then forward again, then way back and forward again, which I would now correlate with some rotor, whether it's mechanical or thermic. And I remember seeing it and thinking, well, I can handle that. You know, like I...
You know, he handled it. I can handle it. I've had training. And it led him to the thermal, you know, and he flew out. And sure enough, I flew basically the same course from launch. And the first 10 seconds go by. And I get a little lift to... I'm trying to visualize now, but I think the east side of launch. And then I come back to more of the west side of launch and get into that area where he'd noticed those pitches and that pitch activity.
And I start to feel it, you know, like that roller coaster feeling that none of us really enjoy. I go back and then forward and I check it. And then back and then forward and I check it. And then back. And the next thing I... I feel was new to me. And it was sort of like the wing crumpled or deflated or was just going down, you know. And I think that I just... And I had maybe just experienced a bit of sheer or downward force from the backside of both being in the lee of the thermal and the situating. And a lot of break.
It sounds like maybe a lot of break from checking it.
Perhaps. Because what happened next was... It essentially did frontal and my hands fell way back, like you said, in doing a ton of break to compensate for that falling backwards. Right? Like riding the roller coaster, feeling the wing kind of start to deflate, lost the brake pressure and then buried the hands to find it. Both because I was losing my balance falling backwards and because I... You're always taught to follow the brake pressure. But there's always exceptions to the rules. And in this case, right, like I went from a frontal to a stall and knew enough to... From there to like put into back fly. But my brain was slow to catch up. I just...
I was holding in back fly, looking at the wing being like, why aren't you flying? You know, knowing I didn't have a lot of train clearance. This is 20 seconds into the flight. This happened right off launch. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, well then fly. And I let my hands up. And the right... Tip was cravatted or just didn't fly properly. And I went right into an auto rotation. Like got thrown right into it. At least from the SIV experience, I could recognize that. And I was like, oh, I'm in an auto rotation. You know, and I start to sort of slow it down a little. And that tip banged open. And I was like, oh, I'm in a spiral now. And I knew I could solve that configuration that I could pull out of it. But I also knew I drifted back over launch.
And if I... Was wrong about what I was seeing out of the corner of my eye. Like I thought I had the train clearance. But if I was wrong. Or if I didn't perfectly pull out of the spiral. Like I knew I was dead. Like straight up. So something else in my head took over. And I found that handle. And threw it. And it opened like a gunshot. Like immediately. Because I think there's a lot of energy in the spiral. Sure. And went to depower the wing. And then looked down and realized I was about to land. So I landed. I landed probably within like five seconds of throwing. Yeah. So that was a... Nicely done. I landed. I fly... I probably am all up. I'm 110 kg. But I fly with a 140 kg reserve.
I know everyone can have their choices. And we could talk at length about that. I think for my primary reserve. Knowing I have one of that size for a softer landing is nice.
Yeah. Especially in this terrain. Yeah. Especially in Blackhawk. Those... If you're listening, don't know it. This is just a desert mountain site with a lot of rocks. Black rock. And it's pretty helter skelter out there. Helter
skelter. It's pretty raw. Yeah.
You know, it's big air. Yeah. And it's not grassy Alps.
No. No. Yeah. I landed on my feet. And that was wonderful. A nice soft landing. But my reserve and wing went into these bushes that... They didn't do any damage. But it took forever to get out of those. Like if you think... You know, if you let your lines dangle while you're collecting them. Or if you drag them on the ground for a second. You're looking at another 30 minutes. Yeah. And I was really fortunate. I was right near the road up. If you want to call it a road. It was very off road. And Fast Eddie, who is our retrieve driver. Who's kind of a legend around here. Came up and he like started to braid all the lines. Into like daisy chains. So that they wouldn't keep catching. And he helped me get out of there. And we even got the reserve container. Because it had landed right next to me.
That's how close it was. So a lot of lessons learned leading up to it. And then again, I can't say enough about putting the work in. I knew there might be from your podcast. Some mental recovery required. And then some physical practice in my instincts needed. And so I did... I think I did two SIVs. After that. To work specifically out what had happened. And the first one of them was the most critical one. And Dylan worked with me on completely reproducing what had happened. In that specific scenario. So we went up. And I pulled huge funnels on bar.
And would even stall it at will. From there. From the funnel. And then recover the stall. You know. Or go into. Extra. You know. Find ways to do extra energized. Asymmetric. Asymmetric collapses into auto rotations. And we sort of invented together a few maneuvers. That allowed me to restore my confidence. And rebuild those instincts.
I think that configuration. I mean it sounds like. Well it sounded like A. You had had enough training. Which a lot of people don't. To recognize what was going on. And that's a big Denali mean you know. Most. People. When they're. Learning. Or haven't done a ton of SIV. When you ask them what just happened. They have no idea. Well the wing just collapsed. Or whatever. You know. But the whole. Process of it is very fast. And. They don't. Notice all the little things. Whereas someone who's had a ton of training. Can tell you exactly. This is what happened. This is how I lean. This is where I put my hands. And. Most.
Kind of. Bad cascades. That I've seen. Are when. You have the initial. Collapse. And. People. Instinctively. When you fall. You put your hands down. That's what we do as humans. And. Then they have no concept. That their hands are too low. And so. What do we do? We're heavier than a wing. We fall underneath the wing. The wing's over our head. And we get really confused. What the hell. Why isn't it flying? Well it's. It's not flying. Because your hands are. Pull your ass. And. But when you ask somebody. They will say. I. The first thing I did. Was what I was trained. Is put my hands up. No. Look. It wasn't. Because you're falling. It's. It's. It's. Very non-instinctual. I think it really takes.
A lot of training. We've talked about that. Quite a bit. On the show. But. Sounds like. You know. Your hands were lower than. You thought they were. And. You're looking at your wing. Oh. Why aren't you flying? And. There have been several times. Even for me. Me. Relatively recently. You know. I was on a. I was on a really rowdy flight. With Matt Beechinor. Last spring. In our. Spring. In. In Sun Valley. Can be really. Really. Really on. Very. Very sharp. Very strong. Very cold. So. You're. You're battling the elements. In a sense. And. I. Three times. On the flight. I spun the glider. And. It was just. Incredibly confusing. You know. And I was having to. Just do this. Really. Really. Dramatic. To me.
Let the glider fly. You know. Because I just. You know. I was in the. I was in this kind of. Okay. My hands are. I'm looking at them. Going. My hands are definitely high enough. For this glider to fly. But. I trade. I. Use a lot of different gliders. I move around on gear. Constantly. And. You know. This is one. I hadn't flown in a while. The brakes were a little. They. They were. I actually extended them. After that. Because to me. That. You know. I was up in the pulleys. And this thing wasn't going. And. You know. It was. It was very. I think if I hadn't. Had. All the SIV training. And acro training. That I've done. It would have been pretty confusing. Why isn't this thing going? You know.
Oh. Absolutely. And. I think. Myself included. When you get to higher aspect wings. Like that spin point. You know. On certain wings. Can be quite soft. Or quite high. And you're trying to also. Turn tight. Right. To. To stay in course. And. If you're turning side falls. This. This almost got me. The other day. The. The. Turning side falls out of a. Tight bubble. Like we have here in Santa Barbara. You better be ready to. To release her. Or. You're going into a spin. And we've had a few pilots with. With issues with that. You know. Yeah. So. That sensitivity. Comes with the training. And I think comes with time. And. It's great to hear you talk about it. Because I think you've put so much thought. Into all this. Different scenarios. Different conditions. And different pieces of equipment.
Have you. In. And I know there have been other instances. But I think we've tapped. Several that are. That are great. And they're not. You know. There. Incidences that happen to a lot of pilots. But if there. Is there ever been. In the last. Three years. Four years. You started flying. In your 700 hours. Is there ever been a. Sitting at home. Moment. Where. Maybe this isn't right for me. This isn't maybe. Or is it always just been. Yeah. The sport itself. Yeah. Is there ever been. Is there ever been real doubt. Because. Like you said. The. You do have a big community here. And. There is a lot of. Feedback. And some of that. Hasn't been easy. To digest. You know. Where I fly. You're lucky. If you get any feedback. Because usually. You're totally alone. So a lot of times.
You can just run. And hide from this stuff. It's just. It's an incident. That's happened to you. You don't have to post it. Nobody has to know about it. You can. Run. Run away with your. Your tail between your legs. And. Process it or not. Right. Right.
I think. To answer that. Absolutely not. I never doubted. That I would continue flying. Cool. Which. I never would want to put. Other members of the community. At risk. Or their access. At risk. Sure. That's a real. You know. A real. Concern. In this area. I would say. Like. We need pilots. To be making smart decisions. We have a lot of pilots. Trying to launch together. Or fly together. Just because. The triggers are. You know. Thermals are tight. And there's. Very. You know. Key. Triggers. And so. Everyone. Needs to learn together. And progress. And improve. Every day. And. I don't think you can afford. To hide your. Mistakes. In a tight-knit community. And. Nor should you.
Like I think it should be open. And accepting. And positive. Though. If there's a series of events. Right. Then. Then it gets. Harder to handle. For me. These. You know. We can list out these things now. But. While. They do constitute. Maybe a series. Of events. Where I could pick out some. Extra. Items. That I need to work on. Like. Some. Key themes. If you will. That. You know. That may run true. For each of these instances. Those are the things. I should tackle first. And that's what I tried to do. But. All of it stemmed from really. The joy of wanting. To be in the air. And. Have these adventures. And experiences. Hopefully with friends. Hopefully for a long time. So. There was never.
Even a doubt. Because of how much. I love doing it. That I would. Ever quit. Or stop. Doing it. Yeah.
What's your. What's your perception. Now. Of your. Skill level. After. You know. Going through. All the SIVs. You've had some. Pretty. Fun. Successful flights. This year. Cross country. You know. Some personal best. Some. An extremely high flight. Talk about that. 17. 999. Something. Yeah. And. But. What's. What's your. Your. How do you perceive. Where you are now.
Yeah. I guess I would. I think I have the confidence. To. To stay with. Some of the better pilots. Out there. Or at least. The knowledge and skills. Are available to me. To. Attempt. Distance on big days. And big conditions. But. In terms of. On a spectrum of. Progression. I think I'm at the very beginning. And so that's an interesting. I guess mental state. To be in. Is that. I know the skills are there. I know that I either have the knowledge. Or it is readily available to me. But I still have this sneaking. Suspicion. I'm not doing nearly enough homework. You know. I'm not doing nearly enough reading. I'm not learning enough. About weather conditions. Forecasting. And various sites. That I want to fly at. And I.
I also know. That I have a full-time job. So I'm not. Getting to pick. Necessarily my days. As much. Or. Or train as much. As I would like to. And. Finally. I just. Know that. I. I only have an ounce. Of the experience. Of. Pilots in this community. And pilots. In the wider. Scope of flying. So. I both feel like I have. The potential. To. To do well in a big day. But also. Know that I have a long way to go. Before I can understand. The more complex. The complex factors at work. On a day that involves. Multiple types of terrain. Different. Changing winds. At different levels. Of the. The atmosphere. And. Being able to make. Uh. The right course decisions.
To. To open up a challenging day.
Can we talk about the spectrum a little bit more about. I think your Blackhawk flight is a good one to use as an example. On the one hand. You've got. You gotta be confident. You just have to. You can't do this sport without having confidence. The other hand, you've got to have a lot of respect for it. And. Fear is a good thing.
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Yeah, good. That's a good comparison.
You talked about that a bit with your post, with the pilot we've been kind of talking about here.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I tried to break it down a little bit. And I guess when it comes to how to gain skills and experience without learning the hard way. And in my past, I actually I created a ice climbing club to do that in mountaineering. Like I ran ice climbing events for about 10 years where we would instruct and teach. And within the club itself, we self-educate as much as we could to prevent that learning the hard way. Can you practice these things in a safer environment and then build them back together when you need them in the scenarios that require them? I think it's going to require all skills at once. Like I don't think it's necessarily easy to learn on a big mountain day because there's so much going on.
If you're not, especially if you're not at that level, if you're not, if you're a little over your head, you're going to go way beyond the mental capacity to take it all in, process it, especially in the moment, but even afterwards sometimes. Like you were saying about someone's wing control incident. They might be like a car wreck and they can't piece together what's happening. Or even afterwards. Or they might be like a car wreck and they can't piece together what's happening. Or they might have a memory of it. And I think mountain flying can be the same, especially the higher wind environments in the mountains. Like I think things can happen just so fast to someone that they're not visualizing processing the way the air can be moving and responding to it. So my advice to that pilot was to build non-mountain hours. And that's something that's special about Santa Barbara. We can go fly the coast and you can just get airtime under your wing.
Watch how it moves, what it needs. Do pitch control. Watch other pilots. And those powers of observation are really going to keep helping you again and again. And so is that need to continue to put the work in and practice and do it in an environment that isn't going to punish you. And to that point, we also have a training hill here. And I think a lot of communities have that. And so going there frequently, I think I wrote, if I don't go there once a week, I don't deserve to fly the mountains. I think I wrote that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And generally, I think that stems from not practicing enough, like always. You got to be honest with yourself.
I don't ever want to commit to a top landing that isn't right. I mean, that's something I've heard on this podcast many times. But I do want to be proficient at it. I want to be able to do it. I think that's the dream. And that's one of those frontiers that I think, like if I'm on the spectrum, right? Maybe that spectrum applies to each skill set. And when it comes to top hill, side hill, and tight landings, like that's one that, man, you're always going to have to work on that. And it's going to be forever before I'm like, yeah, no problem. You know, I got, yeah, no problem. I got that. You know, in fact, I don't ever want to probably feel that way with something with consequence like that. Like I always want to take them seriously. I always consider myself a beginner and someone who's learning. And again, like I said, anytime you just are complacent, it's going to slap you down.
So having a training hill to practice at. And do those things again and again is going to give you the confidence to execute it in a common collected way. And then it's going to allow you to know when it's right or wrong. And all of that's going to save you from having a serious injury when you do it for real.
What little things do you love and appreciate about flying? What kind of keeps you fired up? Because we go through, we go through ruts and valleys. No, peaks and valleys. Ruts and valleys.
And for, you know, for, for a lot of people, it becomes kind of a lifetime of flight, hopefully. And, you know, it never gets dull, but it's different at different stages. If you had any lulls or if you had any, yeah, what keeps you fired up about it now?
I just don't know if that's ever been a problem. I am always fired up.
You seem pretty fired up.
Well, I just said, I think that, again, the people I get to fly with always impress me. And I learned so much from them. And then because I work a full-time job, the only thing that is difficult is when I get, when I, it's how much self-awareness I have to have after like a long week or a long day. You know, there might be a great opportunity to fly, but I might have to make sure that I'm mentally and physically prepared for it now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't really have to, when I first started flying, actually, I was working part-time and that was hugely helpful to have the consistency and the progression. I did find that flying all of the time kind of did cause that like little burnout where you're, and that burnout isn't necessarily, oh, I don't want to fly today, but it's sort of like
maybe a loss of experimental thought while you're out there. You're like, oh, that's that trigger. And I know what it's going to do. Oh, that's that thing. I know what it's going to do. Or, oh, the day's pretty much over. I'm going to go land. But when you only have a couple of days a week, and the day is good, like you're not like, don't, don't tell me to land. You know what I'm saying? Like, I want to like see what's going to happen. I want to have that adventure.
Um, I want to take it as far as I think it can go. And I'm open. I'm more open to what's right around the corner, you know, not calling it early, not assuming that a trigger is not going to work, you know, that kind of stuff. So it's helped motivate me even more, but I have to have the self-awareness to know that I'm ready for the day. And borrowing from, from others, some of those strategies, it's like making sure I'm packed the night before. It's not even something I used to do, but doing that and giving back to the community by writing letters, like I did on telegram or working on the board or trying to protect our access to sites, uh, is all stuff that I try to do in the time I'm at a desk. So that later, if I, hopefully someone helped me out with a ride or like, or I overpay for gas, for example, because God, I'm so sorry.
I'm so happy if someone will drive me up, you know, or help me with logistics. If I can get out at a little bit early and we can go soar the back country, you know, that's, that stuff's such a relief and so important to me that, um, you know, I try to put that into the same boat as all my other preparation. What can I do to kind of smooth logistics out or get a little extra support from someone on the team? You know? And so, so all of those factors have helped me kind of get out more and stay more sight.
Final question. Cause, uh, my girls just showed up here. So this is. So this will be a good, uh, wrap. Uh, you've got a significant other Kate, I believe. Yeah. What does she think about all this madness?
Well, actually I just signed up for my tandem. Ah, so we'll see. And she's, she's been working on her P one and P two for a while. Oh, wow. Um, I think we both know that there's a lot of risks involved. I, you mentioned a flight where I took off, uh, somewhat underdressed. I think it was maybe one of my first flights on big flights on a two liner as well. And I ended up. I was soaring the edge of a cloud at a 17,000 feet or so. And then, um, which is super rare, I think in the back country here was during a heat wave. Yeah. Um, and ended up gaining a lot more altitude than that as I tried to exit. So I was flying toward the edge of the cloud being like, ah, these clouds, they've been benign all day for the most part. Great street ahead of me. I'm going to go out to the sunny side and get some clearance and, uh, and got caught in what my barrier said was like a 13 plus.
Whoa. Meter second bubble. Jeez. Yeah. That, um, had me in the cloud for a few seconds. Um, and I think in those moments I focused on three things, which was breathing, uh, keeping the wing open and maintaining the heading, uh, toward that, uh, the line, the cloud line that I was aiming for. Yeah. And, uh, I felt the wing kind of go out in front of me and that's at least what I thought I felt in the white clouds.
It's hard to tell what's
going on. And, uh, it stayed totally open inflated. Almost like I was slipping. Yeah. And then I kind of came back under it and came out of the cloud and, oh my God, like it was, it was super beautiful and everything. But I think, and I don't, then I was up there at, um, am I supposed to say altitude? It's probably not a good idea. Just say tall. I was really high. You were really high. I
was up there. Higher than you should have been. Yeah.
Let's not go. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't actually share that track log publicly either. Um, good. Yeah. And, um, I, you know, I, I was pretty cold up there and it was a good point of reflection. You know, about being prepared for this, but also being prepared with the people you care about. You know, the whole thing isn't something we talk about a lot, but, uh, she's always been really supportive. And I imagine eventually there'll come a time when I'll dial it back for sure. But I do also encourage everyone to kind of fly the pilot. You know, you are, you know, fly, fly that way. Uh, you know, when we talked about feedback from the community, one thing that bothered me in the past was generalized responses, like sort of like, Oh, dial it back a bit.
Right. And I don't think that's hugely helpful because in pilots might fly with hesitation. They might, they might fly with someone else's voice in their head where they might doubt their decisions, which I think is just as hazardous. And so in my letter that, um, that I wrote on telegram, I tried to give very specific ways that a pilot can put the work in and very specific ways to improve. And those are things I'm going to work on. Not necessarily just dial it back a bit, but just how every little piece of the process can be more proficient and always, like you said, visualizing the worst case scenario and leaving the margin.
Jeff, terrific, man. Thank you so much for sharing all this with, with all of us. And I wish you great success with all this madness that we're embarked on. And thanks, man. Yeah. This has been awesome. Thanks so much.
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Bye.