Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Cloud-Based Mayhem. Quick bit of housekeeping as we're getting into the holidays. First of all, happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States. Big one coming up this Thursday. But also wanted to let you all know that I now have the book available on the website. Unfortunately, only to those of you who are in the U.S. Sorry, it's just a shipping thing, and we've got dealers that are tied to Cross Country Magazine all around the world, so it's much better for you to get your book from wherever you're from if you're not in the States. But if you order the book on the website, I think I've got about 40 copies, between now and Christmas, and use the coupon code HOLIDAY, I'll give you free shipping, and that'll apply to anything else in your cart. So if you need some Christmas gifts for yourself or for a loved one, head on over to cloudbasedmayhem.com and line that up.
Again, the coupon code is HOLIDAY, and it'll be good between now and Christmas, December 25th. My guest today is Kirstie Cameron. I was excited to get an email from a fan of the show and a good friend of 4 Acre who connected me with Kirstie. I've been flying with her in the last couple British Opens down in Roldanillo the last few years, so I know Kirstie. She's had some really cool flights recently, a couple records, and she's been racing paragliders for longer than I realized. Been on the British team, a member of the world's team a number of times, and just has gotten after it. And we talk about a lot of her history and comp flying and the difference between two-liners and three-liners and her recent move down to a Zeno and why, and also how flying has changed for her.
With the recent addition of a little boy. She's got a four-year-old, as I do, so we talk a lot about risk and how that shapes how you fly and how it may change how you fly and how you pursue it and how it can affect, obviously, relationships, all these things that most of us have to deal with. So I really enjoyed this. We had a blast, and I think there's a little something here for everybody. So enjoy this talk with Kirstie Cameron.
Thank you. Kirstie, I'm so glad that Viv reached out and connected us. I've actually been meaning to get you on the show for ages, and that was just a great reminder. Congratulations to your countrymen. Thank you. Double gold with Russ just dominating and showing how skilled he is in very light conditions. Well, the whole team.
The whole team were good. Yeah,
they're fantastic. And I know you've been on that team many times. Thank you. That must have been fun to watch, but also kind of painful to not be there.
Yeah, it was difficult, really. I mean, there's various reasons why I couldn't be there this time, unfortunately, not least the fact that our boy, our four-year-old, has just started school. So I've got a young family now, so I've got a few other extra responsibilities these days. But yeah, I've been chatting to Guy a little bit, and it's both me and Guy have been on the team a few times over the years. And yeah, we've been doing a lot of work. And we're just so, so happy for the team. But at the same time, we were loved within ourselves as well.
Yeah, yeah. And like you said, Guy's been on it many times. And so, well, it really looks like the juniors program that the British have set up is paying great results. And yeah, I mean, I was proud of them. I'm not even a Brit. They just did really well. It was neat to see Theo flying so well and Seb. Yeah. And everybody. Sure, sure.
They're all friends as well, aren't they, at the end of the day? So it's just nice. It's just really good to see it happen. Yeah, yeah. And for Russ, you know, I mean, it's fantastic. They've got the double gold. It's just brilliant for the whole team. But at the end of the day, I just so wanted Russ to win.
Yeah. And I mean, he's been second many, many times. We actually talked about that on the show, that he feels like he's kind of lacked that killer instinct. Instinct over his career and just been shy, you know, Superfinal a couple of times. And so, yeah, it was nice to take home the big win.
Definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely. He deserves it. You know, he say does. He's been so gracious and defeat so many times that it's just, yeah, yeah, yeah. Couldn't go to a better
person or a better pilot. That was really terrific to see. Yeah. Well, let's start there. You know, it's it was the flip side for us. The Yanks just got. Crushed. We had a really hard race. We had quite a few there that had just competed in their first World Cup, you know, with COVID and everything. Selection was was quite interesting. It was kind of weird this year, which I'm sure it was for a minute.
Yeah. So few new names there. Sure. Yeah.
Which is great. You know, it's good to give them, you know, the chance at seeing what that's all about. But how have you know, I talked about this a bit with Robbie, you know, the Brits in the history of free flight, hang gliding and flying. Paragliding have just done incredibly well historically. And, you know, you don't come from a place that has great flying. I would say, you know, it has very interesting flying and there's been some awesome, you know, the North South Cup and, you know, it's it's a it's a great place to fly, but it's it doesn't have, you know, consistently banger conditions. And and I'm just wondering if that's the reason you guys have to chase it so hard or what it is you think, you know, because like, you know, you've
been flying for a long time. You
have been on the time the team many times. And, you know, you know, that game flew the R11. You've got a lot of records, which we're going to talk about here shortly. But I'm just wondering what you chalk it up to the British success.
Yeah. I mean, I knew it's often put out there that it's because we have to fly in such rubbish conditions. But yeah, we do, I suppose. I mean, I think less that we have to fly in rubbish conditions all the time. More that. Interestingly, we don't get in the UK at least. We don't get a huge number of days each year that are really good days. So we do get those really good days, but then the sort of few and far between really. So. Yeah, I think we're quite sort of determined. That's for sure. Get out on really good days and I made the most of it. And I suppose we do end up having to fly in.
Yeah, I say less than classic conditions, I suppose. So I suppose that interestingly, personally, I'm not actually that good at flying in really weak conditions. I should refer it when it's quite strong to say. I don't think I sort of fit the typical UKXE mode really. And I've had to sort of train myself over the years to be more patient in UK conditions and slow myself down and not get sort of impatient really with the conditions. And when I first started doing competition flying and flying abroad, I went to places like San Andre and absolutely loved it because there you can definitely fly at more than a pace than you can in the UK.
I really enjoyed that. So. So, yeah, I don't know that it's entirely to do with that. And, you know, some of the some of our team, you know, don't even live in the UK currently and fly abroad. So, yeah. So I don't know. I don't know whether it's purely the fact that we're good in the week stuff.
Certainly, we sort of certainly punch above our weight in terms of if you think of the number of UK pilots. Yeah. And, you know, quite a small population. We seem to do quite well out of it.
Yeah. I mean, in talking to Guy a while back, and I think it was Roldanillo a few years ago, he was talking about, you know, the kind of the juniors program. It seems very supportive. And there's it seems like a lot of energy is going into your younger pilots and kind of bringing them up and teaching them the ropes. And, you know, here in the States, it's very much more cowboy. You know, if you want to pursue that, you know, you're going to have to do that. You can, but you're on your own. You're not going to get any support from USPA or, you know, it's you have to fund it yourself and time yourself. And I mean, I think it I think that really showed in Loma Bola in a sense, the conditions that, you know, you often have to fly in because I was down there for the World Cup a year ago.
I guess that was two years ago now. And it's, you know, it's pretty light. And they were certainly had, you know, they had a lot of rain this time. A lot of cloud. Didn't sound like it was it was the opposite of strong. And it was just really patience, you know, won the day and, you know, kind of hanging back and not leading out much. And, you know, like Russ always says, being very disciplined, it certainly paid off there. And I think the Americans really struggled with that because they like to go. They like to go hard. That's not the game there.
No, definitely not. Certainly not in the last few weeks anyway. That's for sure.
Yeah. Well, tell me about the You've had some records or something. I don't know much about this. What's happened recently with some big flights?
Yeah, we've had some good flying in the UK this year. It's not been what I would call a classic year in terms of, you know, lots and lots and lots of really big flying days. But the ones that have been good have been really quite good. And we've had some this year, I decided that I wanted to sort of focus on the UK cross country as I said, you know, got a young family now. What with COVID and everything else going on, I thought this year, I'm just not going to, I'm not going to travel. I'm not going to fly. I'm not going to get into all the fuss with testing and everything else with COVID. So I thought I'd just stay at home and just go out on the days that are good. I've got a job at the moment that's reasonably sort of flexible around my time in the sense that I can sort of get days off from work at sort of very short notice, which is good to say.
So I just thought, you know, I'm just going to throw myself into the UK scene this year and see what I can get done.
So more than normal, because like the typical year, I'm sort of giving out quite a few days of holiday to going abroad to do fly comps, you know, so certainly when I'm doing the cat ones, it's sort of two and a half weeks out of my holiday leave. And then if I'm doing a couple of other cat to use as well, that's taking up quite a lot of my leave really. So this year I thought, yeah, I've just picked a good day off. I'm going to take a few days off and see what I can do. And it's been an interesting year because there's been a sort of a group of us that got together as a team and sort of focused on the XSEAC, not just in the air, but, you know, in the planning stages, deciding which sites to go to and very much deciding that we're pretty much prepared to travel anywhere in the UK just within reason, not necessarily quite up as far as Scotland, although that has happened this year, but more sort of, you know, quite happy sort of travel three, four hours to get across to a good site, which I'm sure for you sounds like really small distances, but it's quite a distance for us to go each day.
Sure. Yeah. So we think teaming up with Beatrice this year, because I've been flying a lot with him, because he was back in the UK after he'd left gin and sort of between looking for another job, he's been out all the time because his dad lives in London. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's it's it's it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it mid wales flying right across the right across england landing on the east coast so we went out to a site in may a couple of times to try and maybe try and replicate that we managed to do a couple of flights and 250 kilometers in one day oh yeah yeah that's
crossing the whole island isn't it pretty
much pretty much pretty much only if you're doing 300 you definitely are you're going almost coast to coast so um yeah
so that must be awesome is there is there are you dealing with a lot of airspace when you're doing that you are
you are i mean that's the other complication in this country so to do a big distance in this country is quite achievement because you're dealing with a lot of airspace as well so yeah you
must get good at that we don't deal with airspace at all here so whenever i go to the x helps i'm always that's the thing i worry about the most it's just oh god the
airspace the airspace i think it helped to the world again this time as well you know because the brits uh the brits actually sort of i don't know why i just respect airspace but you know probably probably good at sort of actually flying and actually working with the airspace you know and and not being too much of a distraction because it is a distraction and if you you know we've actually got quite good at actually doing our flight and also happen to you know keep one few brain cells on on the airspace as well you know because it can really distract you so how
do you how do teach the audience you know what are your steps to prepare for a flight that has a bunch of airspace or you know for for me in the x ops i use that side view on fly sky high and that just has been so valuable once i learned how to use it because you can see it you can see it coming okay well i've got to be below there or above there or you know creed talked about it this year that he had to you know barely was able to fish through that pretty hard airspace going to piss below and if without that side view that kind of thing's tricky
i actually try and memorize it oh
really okay yeah so
i will actually before if i'm if i know i'm going to do a big flight like that i will actually and it's if it's through an area that i'm less familiar with i will actually go over that a few times in my head looking at the screen as well one of my home on the laptop i'm actually trying to remember roughly you know what what airspace is going to be coming up because typically when i'm doing these big flights these downwind flights then you're typically doing that on a windy day so the airspace can come up at you quite quite quickly you know sure um you know one minute you're sort of like thumbing away and the next one be like oh i've got airspace one kilometer you know downwind of me and it can get too late kind of on the paraglider because you haven't got that kind of also you can start to make the flight quite difficult and it can put you on the ground because all of a sudden you're
trying to sort of cross wind and thermals around you know around a piece of airspace which is a lot more tricky on a paraglider than you can use on a handglide instead on a sailplane it's easy to um yeah so it's best to try and avoid those situations you know and be sort of starting to cross wind earlier than you than you you know um as early as possible to try and getting up close to the airspace in the first place um because often it's too late once you're up really close to it i said it's put me down for an hour i had to try and really really dramatically cross because i've not paid attention to the airspace yeah exactly so uh and in fact we were doing out on this particular flight from the yulian valley where it was quite funny actually because we got about um probably best part of 100k into that flight and the first part of our flight was incredibly quick we did i think we did the first 100 kilometers in about just over two hours which is
oh pretty fast yeah that's fast 50k an hour average
there's a group of sort of five or six of us working it and we kind of thought that we'd be able to um possibly break 300k that day we really did at that kind of speed initially unfortunately it then slowed up and we had a section where there was a lot of sort of decayed cloud streets really and all that all they would do they were almost providing lift but not quite sort of just zeros underneath them and then and then the whole lot was in shadow below on the ground so eventually started dropping through that and then we ended up scrabbling around in the shadow trying to find clients for a while which is definitely one of the cruxest of that flight and then it all switched back on again and then we got out into an area called the cambridge flats which is as i said as i say just completely flatlands and that area works really well and you get out into that area and it's kind of like game on again cell planes everywhere and getting much better times again so that really helped that day what i was going to say was so about 100k that flight we're on radio and everyone's everyone's mapping was dropping out i think um joe had lost all of his time and i was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry it's almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost
it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's I still had my mapping working. And they literally knew they were coming up to sort of the Birmingham airspace, so it was going to be a bit more sort of dodgy. And guys coming on going, Kirsty, where are we now? What's the airspace?
It's a bit ridiculous, really. But, yeah, so that showed really that if no one's got mapping, all of a sudden you're completely blind, you know, and it's dangerous. So, yeah, it was a good flight. And then later in that flight, I think we dropped Joe, and then it was down to me, Guy, and another guy called Tom, and another guy called Dougie. And both of them were on PBs by the time we got to 190K, I think. Wow. And they both went over 200K for the first time as well. And it was a PB for me that day as well. So it was a good day out.
Yeah, that's a great day out. And what were you flying? Were you on the Enzo?
I was on the Xeno. So I've been on the Xeno now. I've
been on the Xeno for
the last two, three years. I
was going to say, like me, you've got a four-year-old. We both have four-year-olds. Is that a kid decision, or is that an hours decision? You're not getting the time? You flew the R11 for a long time, and
you were obviously comfortable in two months. I was. I went on to an R11 in 2011 when that flight came out. Of course, it was then banned the same year.
And then I ended up on an Enzo I, then an Enzo II. I've been on an Enzo II for four years as well. So the best part of seven or eight years, I was on those high-end gliders.
And kind of a crux point, I suppose this often happens with pilots when they step down. I had an incident in San Andre on the Enzo II. Noah was, what, seven months old. And it was the only time I've ever thrown my reserve. I was at quite high, about 2,200 meters. About the start gate. About literally less than a minute to go to the start. And it was pretty rowdy up there. Have you flown San Andre?
I've flown there, but back when I was really early. And we've kind of skimmed through there on a couple of the ex-Alps. Not really. But I had kind of an eventful flight there. I've never flown a comp or anything. Let's put it that way. But yeah, I mean, I know it can get rowdy.
Yeah. I mean, I've probably flown more comps there than any. Anywhere else I've flown competitions. I've flown probably six, seven, eight comps there. Wow. Because the Brits have been there a lot. And it's very easy for us to get to. And we can jump on EasyJet and be down in Nice in sort of two hours.
Yeah, it's the favorite venue for the British to go to. We haven't been for a while, but it's, yeah. And historically, I've loved it. I was saying at the beginning of the chat that the first time I flew there, I just loved the place because I always feel it's a bit like if God designed a paragliding venue, it would be St. Andre. It's kind of like a skate park for paragliding. You know, like a skate park. They've got all the ramps and the light cases and all that. You go to St. Andre and it's just like ridge after ridge after ridge. You know, you can fly. They can set tiles in virtually any direction. Yeah.
I hear a lot about that, you know, that there's a lot of really full bar racing right on the terrain. It sounds like. You know, especially first timers when they go there always a little bit like, I mean, if you don't do that, you're, you're, you're going to lose the gaggle. You can, you gotta do it. And it sounds, it sounds like it can be a little spicy.
Yeah. Yeah. There is a degree of doing that. I think on a, on the good days, less so. I think on the good days you can get up to train a bit more. Certainly there's, um, what I call sort of get out of jail free cars in St. Andre. If you get a little bit behind, you can just point at a ridge and you know, you'll get there and there'll be a six meter climb on the ridge. Every single time. Right. You have to wait a few seconds. Some of them will come. Um, certainly in the early days, I quite liked that because you know, you typically be on a lower aspect, we get a bit behind and you just go right, go to that ridge and then boom, that base kind of time. You know, and it, and it's big climbs there. I mean, I think that the time when St. Andre doesn't work as if it's windy, if it's windy, it's very thermic and if it's windy as well, it just becomes a bit of a washing machine. But, um, assuming that task on, on, you know, decent day.
Is when it's not too windy then it's good solid climbs that it's not, they're strong climbs, but they're not tiny little course, you know, like good solid climbs. So I think it's a good place to fly. But anyway, I was going to say, so there I am at the start gate, 30 seconds to go. It was particularly rowdy that year. This is going back two or three years and it's been very dry there all season. And we tend to fly that towards the end of the season because in July, August, it's just too windy and too strong anyway. It. Was. Particularly punchy this year and I'm up there on the end zone 30 seconds to go. And the wing just went. Just complete. I think I was a little bit tight, you know, that classic thing that was pretty rowdy up there.
Yep. And
you know, this is the thing that's coming out from SIV a lot, you know, just
just a little too stiff, a little too overreactive, just
a little bit too overactive, a little bit tight. And I knew that it was bumpy. It felt pretty horrendous up there. And it just went on me completely. And I think I just, I think I just held it back just for a split second too long. Um, and then it just went bang down in front of me, like literally nose down. This, this is all over the course, the whole, you know, it's like when you slide is it sounds like that's in slow motion, but this is all happening over the course of probably less than a second. Sure. And the gliders down below me and then it went straight into like a pretty tight alteration. And I just, I just. It's the first many times I was like this. I was just completely spontaneous. I just threw the reserve. There wasn't even any kind of conscious.
Right. Yeah. Time to throw it.
It was just, it was just reserved. It was just out instantly. I just knew it was beyond my control, I guess, completely. Um, so yeah, so, so the reserve out came and I was high and I drifted for a long way and I came down and did the main re inflated. But I think this is something that's not getting discussed too much. I mean it's it's it's it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it
it it it it
it it it it it
it it it it
it it
it it it
it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it call. Just a little wake up call and I just, yeah. And then I wanted to fly the rest of the comp and
Pepe was there. I think Leckie was there. He had his Zeno with him. So this is now and the Zeno had just come out really, so this is 2018.
And he said I could borrow that for the rest of the comp if I wanted to. And I thought, yeah, you know, I'd like to fly one anyway and see what it's like. So I threw that for the rest of the comp and I just loved it. I just loved it. So I decided to buy one and that's what I've been flying for the last few years. So for sure that incident was definitely a kickstart towards me stepping down slightly, I think, really. And I just really like flying the wing. It's just a bit easier to fly. It's a bit easier on the ground. I like the fact it's easier on the ground. It's always the case with wings, isn't it? How they behave on the ground is going to be a real big indicator of how it behaves.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And it's just a lovely cohesive wing on the ground and that very much translates to how it flies in the air as well.
Yeah, and it's proven itself over the years as well. I mean, when we saw a ton of people jump onto it, I think the initial thought was these folks don't have the hours to fly a two-liner, but it's really, you know, it doesn't seem to surprise. I mean, still paragliding and still accidents, of course, on every wing. But it seems to be, quite a gentle, you know, if people move to that from a three-liner, it seems to be quite a nice move for most people.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, as you say, you still have to give these wings respect. Absolutely.
It's still
a relatively high-performance wing for sure, but it's definitely a little bit more benign when it does go for sure.
Yeah, a little bit easier to get back than an Enzo.
Yeah, I think so. I've touched wood. I've not had any I hardly ever collapses, to be honest. It's only not in the UK flying.
But that's something
nice about UK flying. You don't really get many collapses.
Right, yeah, yeah.
Not certainly not in thermal flying. No, it's a good wing. It's a very good wing. I mean, it's often the case, as you say, people jump onto these wings because they're the new thing and often when they're initially reviewed, everyone says, you know, it's the best thing. Yeah. And typically, about a year later, you start to get
a lot of
in the stories, don't you, about actually. Maybe it's not quite as good. But I think, yeah, generally speaking, I don't think anyone's really sort of come back and said that the Xeno is a bad wing at all. It's
classic. Yeah, it's kind of held up over time for sure. You know, like the Enzo 3, it's been out for a while now and it's still, you know, people are still loving it.
I say to Russ, he needs to get back from Argentina and get the Xeno to Satchel. Yeah.
That's his priority.
It's coming. Yeah, okay.
I'd love to hear more about your son and being a mom and flying because that's not a topic we've discussed with too many moms on the show and, you know, because I'm asked that all the time and what's changed with your, you know, risk tolerance and how you approach the sport. And I'd love to just hear if there's been a shift.
There has been. I mean, I think I don't think I suppose I should say there's been a shift because I don't want to take risks and all of that kind of stuff. But if I'm brutally honest, I think that's not the main reason, to be honest. The main reason is around well, I suppose there is a risk element and that stems from the fact that I'm flying less hours. Just don't
have the currency that you did.
Yeah. And I think that I'm sort of
taking more risk. I'd be taking more risk if I was flying an Enzo all the time, certainly abroad, you know,
in bigger air and so on. Because I do think these wings are a little bit exponential in the way they behave, you know. I think I'd be fine flying an Enzo through the UK. I don't think that'd be a problem at all. But I think when you take wings into bigger air, they ramp up quicker on the higher end wings. That's my experience of it anyway. Things get amplified quicker in bigger air on these higher end wings. So I think given the number of hours I'm doing, it's just a bit more, it's a bit safer and it's a bit more relaxed really as well to be flying slightly lower spec wings. But still with enough performance to generally cut it. I mean, I noticed in sort of cat twos, like flying in the Brits, for example, that being on a Zeno is not really too much of a disadvantage, but you get to PWC or you go to a cat one, and you're at a major disadvantage being on a Zeno.
You really are. I noticed that in the last Worlds that I did was in Macedonia, which was a nominal competition. I did 10 out of 10 tasks. There was two things going on there. One, I wasn't particularly race fit really. I'd only done a couple of comps that year before I went to Macedonia in August, which didn't help. You know, I think by the end of the second week, I was just about race fit, really. Just warming
up at the end.
Yeah, genuinely, really, I think. So there was that going on. And also you just lose out on the longer glides and stuff. You're just at a disadvantage on the Zeno compared to being on a Lenzo. Sure.
Yeah. I mean, I think you see it, you see that when we had Chelan this year, you know, it was pretty hard, you know, on the downwind tasks, the Alpinas would be right. Right with us. You know, you don't really see these huge jumps until you're flying triangles and there's no wind, you know, when there's, or you're flying triangles and you're going to wind, then, you know, then it's really okay. And that's where you really start noticing. I think it's mostly, Nick said it once that I really appreciated this, that you just have more options on a, you know, it gives you, you know, you have to be, you have to be a much better pilot if you're flying a lower end wing to keep up because you're, you're just going to, you're going to come in. A hundred meters higher, 200 meters high every time. And you just have more time to fiddle around to find that sweet spot that, whereas, you know,
I'll come back to that in relation to the UK season this year, flying the citrus, cause it was, it was quite interesting. Um, but just sticking to the, to the, to the question you asked me about being a mom and everything, but yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, so, so that's, I think that that's the main reason for sort of stepping down in terms of wings. Cause I just not, just not doing the hours really sort of justify flying that level of wing. And yes, you then do come unstuck when you get to the big comps. For the most part, I think, um, I think just being on a slightly lower spec wing is the way to be at the moment really. But, but yeah, still able to go out on a big cross country day or go to a cat two competition and sort of hold my own. I wouldn't want to be on anything less than a, you know, in the likes of Zeno.
Really. So yeah. And you really are in a different world really.
So yeah, nothing's really changed massively other than the fact that I have less, less time to commit to selfish sport that is paragliding. Yeah.
It's quite, quite time consuming, isn't it?
It's time consuming and it's not, it's not a particularly, you know, it's not a particularly exciting sport for, for the family. I mean,
no lights coming out and watching me fly on the, on the hill and so on and so forth. But you know, once I'm up and in the air, then. Yeah.
We'll see
her for dinner maybe. Yeah,
quite exactly. So it's like, you know, yeah, quite selfish in that respect as well, really. So, um, yeah.
Yeah. Has that been more, is this something you struggled with in the sport before you had your. Son?
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I think even in and around a relationship as well, it's, it's, and even with friends, you know, relationship with friends and stuff. I mean, for UK flying, you have to be able to say, you have to keep your options open in the summer. You have to be able to not make any commitments to anybody about anything. Right. Because you know, if it's a really good flying day, you need to go to go flying. And, and if you did make a commitment to someone and then you're with them, it sounds awfully selfish to say it, but you're looking at the sky and you're not really focusing on it. You're doing, because you're out for a meal or something, or some friends and in a park or something. And you just think of the sky going, I just want to fly. I just want to be flying. I don't, you know, which is an awful way to be to people, you know, really. So, so I have always struggled with that, you know, over the years. Um, and I, I know it has cost me.
Probably some, some friendships and stuff over time, not because I've fallen out with people, but just because I don't see them enough. You know? Yeah,
sure. I mean, eventually, you know, well, I'm not going to invest a lot of time in Kirsty. She's just going to go. Paragliding. I, I've also struggled with this, especially lately, more so than before. And I don't think that as much as maybe it does with my daughter, but, uh, I, I have wondered this, uh, that it doesn't see, and then this might be totally erroneous, but I'd like to get your thoughts on it. But I've, I've often thought that that doesn't strike the Swiss and the French and maybe Germans as much as it does us. And let me explain that. I think because. I think it's really seen as a very legitimate undertaking. Yeah. This is, you know, for the French and you know, you can make money doing it. You, this can be your job. Um, and I've often found that.
You know, like when we go through the fundraising aspect of the ex Alps, I just can't stand it. I can't stand asking people for money to send me paragliding. It just doesn't seem bright. Even though when you ask those people, they said, well, you're it's incredibly inspiring and it's, I love watching it. It's awesome. And, you know, I think this is a real personal issue that I need to get over, but what do you think about that? I mean, you know, if you're Maxine Pino, this is your job. This is what you do. It's legitimate. You know, Charles, this is what you do. Yes.
Yes. I mean, there is a very different setup for them, isn't it? I mean, I can relate to that with UK flying and other in other ways as well, because I think, um, uh, Cycling family and all of that, but in terms of us having access to sites in the UK. It's all. Private land ownership. You have to sort of almost beg farmers to fly on their sites. And, you know, some do begrudgingly others will kick you off. If you know the slightest thing happens with some paraglider landing in the slight, they're on place, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I do feel that we're very much begrudgingly accepted as some kind of wacky sport in the UK. Whereas, you know, you go to France and it's literally got, you know, members of the French cabinet. We fly car gliders, you know, say it's a very, it's a. Very much a different, um, demographic, isn't it?
And they're very much a different sort of love, as you say, level of acceptance. And it's much more integrated into the culture almost, um, than it is. Um, cause I think that, I mean, how many people fly paragliders in the States, you know, relative to the same thing
since I started 20 years, almost 20 years ago. And now it's about 6,000. Yeah. I mean, can you, I mean, that's just 6
,000. Yeah.
I mean, they say, they say you can. With the. The hang gliding and paragliding it's 10, but I've heard a lot of people say, yeah, but that really depends on how you count, you know, are they just renewing their license and never even flying? But the number I hear a lot of 6,000, I mean, it's just, it's pathetic. It's. Such a strong
nation. Yeah. It's literally,
I mean, most people, even in a place that has flying, if you say that you're, you're a paraglider, they say, oh yeah, I've done that in Cancun. Behind a boat. You know, they're talking about parasailing. They literally. Yes.
They don't
know what it is. So it's just not, you know, you don't even see it like you do in the Alps. So, yeah, it's, it's definitely not considered, you know, if, if, if I told somebody, this is what I do for a living, which I don't, but I mean, if I did, they would go, what? This is a job. Yeah. It is interesting
actually, because I almost sometimes feel, it sounds stupid to say it, it's such a British thing. I think that my partner, Emma, sometimes she said, you tell me, tell me that you fly. We've met someone new. I said, tell them you fly paragliding. It's really interesting. You know, it's like, I often sort of hold back and don't want to, you know, because I just often, I think just people think you're a complete loon if you tell them that you fly paragliding. It's interesting actually. This year I went to a local site. There's a site quite close to me. So I can get out to flying sites in about, my nearest sites are just under an hour. I can get to other sites in sort of local sites in sort of an hour and 20 minutes. That kind of thing. It's pretty close. But I've got one site that's sort of literally four hours away. I go and fly it very often because it's kind of under airspace for Heathrow.
Not right under the airspace. You can fly up to about 2,500 feet. But there's much better sites you can go. You can't fly any distance from it because the direction down when you just take you straight towards Heathrow and London, so you can't go into there. But it's quite an interesting little site. And there's a particular little flight I'd always wanted to do from there, which is sort of fly down the ridge for a few kilometers and back. And it's just a really nice scenic flight. And I never had the conditions there to do it. And this year I've finally done it. I've finally managed to do it in really good conditions. It was great fun. No distance involved, no records, nothing like that. It was just a really fabulous flight. Anyway, the day I arrived at the site, I literally walked onto a little opening in the trees where you take off. There's a couple of benches there. It's in the middle of summer and it's in the evening. But there was a couple of groups of people up there.
And there was this guy sat on the bench with some other friends or family. And he says, you're not going to jump off of there now, are you? You're not going to go there. You're not going to jump off of there. And I was like, yeah. I mean, it just was like, it was no interest at all. It was just like, you're a nutter. You know, you're about to go and kill yourself. And anyway, so I just thought, I'm so big and everything. And I had perfect take off and I took off and I went straight out to like, you know, two, two and a half grand in fantastic conditions. And I just thought, well, hopefully you might see it in a slightly different light now that I've done that. But probably not.
Probably not. You're still, you're still a complete nutter, which I guess we all are to some extent. So you just gave away. My next question was going to be, where are you from? Where do you live in the UK? Sounds like you're in the South down by London. And then, and how did you, how did you get into this? What was the, what was the catalyst? Yeah.
So years ago, my uncle used to fly hang gliders. So we used to go out on the hill and watch him. I mean, not every day. He doesn't live in part of the country, but when we visit and stuff like that, sometimes we go out and watch him fly. So that was my first sort of introduction to it. And that really got me interested. And yeah, so when I was obviously a lot older, I was able to actually have a go. I had a little go at hang gliding and then got into paragliding. So, and now I live down south. I'm originally from the South. I lived in Wales for a while. But I've been living down south now again for the last 20 odd years. And we live kind of 20 miles west of London. So just outside Greater London. And I can get out to sites sort of west of here, north of here.
So I can go into Wales as well, reasonably easily, not too, not too huge a distance. So there's a lot of flying sites, but they're all, I mean, I'm sure compared to what you're used to, they're tiny. You know, the site down south, tiny. But all you need is somewhere where you can get off and find a climb. And once you're up in a thermal, it's, you know, you're up in a thermal, the site doesn't matter anymore in that sense. So we sort of tend to call them sort of little launch pads really. Yeah. There's a site we flew this year, which is kind of just north of London, going up towards a place called Luton, which is another airport there. Another London airport. And the site is under airspace where you take off. It's three and a half thousand feet. And you fly west from there. It's an easy launch.
And eventually you end up in less airspace restriction. And it's not a site that gets flown that often. And it really is literally a launch pad. And that way. Yeah. But you'd be amazed if you went there. I mean, any of you British pilots would be amazed when you go there. Because you take off in pretty much a flat field. And I genuinely mean pretty much a flat field. It's got very, very slight slope to it. You can't soar the bit where you take off. And you take off and you just flop into this. You literally have to put your feet up, go over a couple of bushes and flop into this tiny bowl. Which, and again, I'm genuinely not joking. If you flew to, you could fly to the bottom in about 10, 20 seconds.
Oh my gosh.
And, but the back of this small bowl is kind of like some huge beach trees, which kind of almost double the height of the hill really. So I think the thermals literally hit these trees. And you can, and people have done, you know, people have done over 200 kilometers. Oh
my gosh. Yeah. It just, we wouldn't even look at that as a place. Yeah. I mean, you know, we're always talking about, well, you don't have that much room to work. Yeah. With 2000 feet, you know, you're talking. Yeah. You've got less than the tree tops.
Yeah. I mean, yeah. I think the whole height of the hill is probably sort of three or four, three or four tree height.
I guess this is why the Brits are so good at, you know, low saves. You're not, for you, you're not even low for us. Oh my God. Right on the deck. And for you, you're well, we're way above launch height. This is nothing. Well,
that's right. I mean, one of the sort of things that gets said is when you take off from the British Hill, you're your first climber is your first low save of the day.
Oh, that's great. So you're, you said your, your, your uncle was a hang glider and he kind of got you into how long ago was that? How long have you been flying?
So I've been flying, I kind of learned sort of at the end of the nineties. But I've kind of been sort of properly into it. So from sort of about 2005, 2006, I did my first comp out in La Rania, which is not too far from San André. Yeah. When they first sort of started the ozone shabber open out in France. I think it was second year that year. I've been around for 30 years, 2006. That's my first call. And I haven't looked at from there really. I kind of, so that was that comp. And I think I finished, I finished top one of that comp and out of all of the back in the days of DHB one, two, I was second, the DHB one, two class in that call. That's most of the gliders really. And you were hot.
Yeah. So that was like, oh, okay. Not too bad. Too shabby. So the following year I did the Brits first time I did a competition in an opening in Pietra Jeta and then an opening in San André in 2007. So, so yeah, so sort of about four, 15, 16 years now that I've been going
at it. And have comps been the most, is most of your focus gone into comps? Sounds like lately it's been more kind of, you know, distance and kind of fun stuff and got a nice group of people there. You can go hunt down big distance with it, but is most of your time been comps?
About half and half to be honest. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I've always done quite a bit. I always try to do a reason out of XC. Never had the chance I had this year to really just focus on just on the XC. I've always, you know, it's only reason I'm at XC each year, but yeah, I mean a lot more comps than I'm doing at the moment for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Normally most years I've done a lot of comps. But for a good seven or eight years I've been doing at least one cat one each year and doing at least two or three comps as well.
When you look back at those, you know, 15 years of flying comps, was there any kind of aha moment, breakthrough moment where, you know, like Russ talks about discipline. Has there been any kind of a mantra or something that's really clicked for you in those years where you've gone, okay, I've got this at least somewhat figured out. Mm-hmm.
Well sort of like the opposite of that. I was going to say the very first time I did the Brits in Piedra Gita I did terribly. I mean absolutely. I mean I was, you know, it was a proper kind of what's the word. It kind of toughened me up I think because I was a real leveler. Just
took your ego and shook it around and stomped it on the ground and walked away. I know. I was
in tears by the end of that competition. Like I say, the year before I've done quite well in this sort of entry level competition. I've been doing some quite good things. good distance flying as well you know and um I think I yeah the beginning of that beginning of that year I'd gone out to Australia um I was on a project which overrun and they kept telling me when I'm going to take my leave and then the next minute they were saying well you still just work so I made a bargain with them that um if I finish this project can I just take all my leave in one go so I took six weeks of leave and just went out to Australia and uh just literally went down eastern seaboard doing those and it's flying I went to Manila and did my first 100k and just yeah I had a great time with all of that and then I came back and I went off to this competition in Piedra Jita in the summer and thought I was reasonably okay I suppose and I was literally just bombed every single day I just couldn't get the measure of the place it's a particular type of place to fly it's Piedra Jita anyway and um yeah I just I literally I mean and of course it's a place for doing quite big distance as well so you get all these pilots I'd be back at the bar you know at like one in the afternoon and they're just getting going to like nine in the evening or something and they they all come back they'd all flown 150k or um yeah it was just very demoralizing do you think
do you think some of that was uh when you look back at that do you think some of that was expectations I mean was it was it that you literally went in thinking yeah I think I can do pretty well here and you just didn't have your eyes wide open yeah
um so I think there was a certain case of trying to sort of keep up with the Joneses I think and just failing and then falling out the bottom of climbs and then being stuck on a bridge or you know all that kind of stuff so yeah I think that that didn't help at all um but but I sort of picked myself up from that and went to San Andre and as I said earlier on really enjoyed it there much better times so that that was an early lesson in how to be how to sort of control delete reset yourself and carry on um and then now can
we before you leave that can you dig into that a little bit more because I think that's something most have experienced I I had a similar thing where I had some real beginners luck and thought wow I actually know what I'm doing here and I then I learned I really didn't um um um got floored and uh and it's also not that fun it kind of sucks going to a comp and sucking it's pretty hard uh it's just like god i gotta do this again and oh there i go again i suck uh and so well yeah what if she
said that it was um one of the sort of traits in me that he really likes is the fact that i have over the years been prepared to put myself back up and carry on because it does wreck certain pilots some pilots just can't deal with that you know and they'll be up and coming they'll be a good pilot you know in terms of their actual flying when it comes into like a competitive environment they just can't handle it you know if they're not winning so to speak um you know and at the end of the day only one person wins and everyone else loses so um
there's a
lot of
losers in our sport yeah
exactly i mean you think you think about the world you know um you've got 150 pilots there and russ won and you know you've got people that are way down in that competition you know but but they're there and they're competing and they're helping make that competition what it is ultimately so yeah but um yeah you do have to have a certain like any sport isn't it it's mental really yeah but once you get to a certain level with your flying in itself in terms of your skill the rest of it is just a head game really um so you have to you've got to learn to deal with defeat you have to learn to deal with defeat in competitions and to progress really because you will you will fail so if you next day you're not if
you if you kind of identified any type of mental
place i'm not articulating this very well but you know a headspace a particular headspace you try to take into a comp so you're you know let's let's imagine it's february you're you're getting ready to leave the uk to go down to the brits and roll the neo or the world cup or whatever uh you know is there is there some kind of a place you try to get to before you arrive
i think so i think um i think it's to try and be humble about situation actually to realize that at the end of the day you're just doing you know a leisure activity that most people never even get on a paraglider let alone start playing competitions and so on and so forth you know so i try and sort of certainly if i'm if i've had a bad day that's the kind of place i'll take myself to you know and i've always enjoyed the comps for the sort of the buzz of being with other people being in a different country you know there's so much in there to take from a competition um and as much as if you're trying to be competitive you have to try and be competitive edge and it's not just about being on a leisure holiday but i think on the days when i've done badly then i that evening i'll just sort of meet up with meet up with the guys and have a chat and you know have something to drink have something to eat
enjoy where i'm at you know like somewhere like um when you're out in your veneers it's a great place to just hang out isn't it you know you say um i'll just try and just sort of go into that into that kind of a space really and and just um just be thankful for things that i that i do have you know that helps that definitely helps me get to a better place rather than
being upset and cross about the fact that i'm not going to be able to do anything else i've had a bad day because at the end of the day it doesn't really matter does it yeah yeah it really doesn't you know it really doesn't yeah yeah yeah and i think that's something um i did a talk recently um to my local club and i was i wanted to touch on it more but i forget some time constraints but the whole thing about um
you know the red mist really in flying uh especially in competition flying and you know like i said i'm not going to be able to do anything else i'm not going to be able to do anything else like if you're if you're playing a game of tennis and you're getting uptight because you're losing you know and it means you hit a few bad balls and the ball goes out the court that's not going to kill you whereas in paragliding it could kill you literally you know um and i think there's even though just some cross country flying as well because i'm jumping around a bit now but like on big flights people see that you've done a big flight and they think oh i bet that was lovely you're up it's you know five thousand feet the whole day cruising along it's not like that at all because you always get low moments in a big flight maybe one maybe two maybe three well you've got to get a low save somewhere you've got to dig deep and it's that whole sort of thing about how deep do you dig before either you might literally be it sounds melodramatic to say it but literally digging your own grave because
you get it wrong on a paraglider it can unravel alarmingly quickly i think that's something i've learned with beers as well you can be you can be in a really good place can't you if you're flying and literally within you know a few seconds you can put yourself in a really bad place you're not careful and that has caught me caught me out and i you know i've had a couple of couple of instances over the years where i have actually hurt myself because i've allowed myself to get too stubborn too determined you know russell said to me oh you're good because you're you know you're stubborn and you're determined you don't give up you know nothing of not giving up but there is a certain point where you're not giving up and you're not giving up and you're not giving up you have to give up because if you don't you're probably going to hurt yourself um so um how do i get onto that yeah
i mean i i think that that's a it's certainly a topic that comes up a lot too is it you know that i think yeah it's it's it's a funny thing to try to um not teach but just you know i always worry about you know people getting into the sport because i remember that time and you know it's it's one of these weird ones where like any sport you name it you have to make mistakes to get good yes uh but our mistakes hurt and yes uh yeah i mean i don't know if you saw i just did this article for xc mag about why this was my last X-Alps and it was really totally i mean there's a lot of reasons but you know the time and the commitment and the money and all those things but the the big one is just that you can't compete you can't be even remotely competitive in that race unless you're constantly pushing way farther than you ever should these are not things that we're normally doing i don't even think those the people that are winning are normally doing that just going out it would be it would be terrifying and it would be wrong you can't do that all the time um and it's and it's yeah i you know you i think there's it's a good thing every once in a while to pull back and get some perspective on that tell me about the some of the accidents you've had um you you talked about your reserve toss in san andre but i don't know what happened
i've had a few accidents over the years and they've all been in competitions save one oh
wow okay
um and i think they've all been in competitions because of that that doggedness you know and that you know not wanting to give up not her to make defeat you know um and a couple of them have ended up hurting me you know so i had um
uh so i had one instance well i had a very i had an incident very very early on it was not into your competitions i had a towing accident actually which could have easily killed me uh and i fractured my back in that one had a crush fracture um where i uh i basically had the wing up with knots in my lines and then when i was i was doing a conversion course at the time and uh the rider collapsed on me um very fortunate i had a very fortunate accident and i was able to get out of it and i was able to get out of it and i was able to get out of it and i
was able to get out of it and i was able to get out of it and i was able to get out of it and i
was
able to get out of it and i was able to get out of it and i was able to get out of it and i was able to get out of it and i was able to get out of it and i just
went through a really really horrible bit of lift which i flew through okay um at which point i probably should have turned out and gone out into the valley but people were sinking out really badly in the valley so i made the wrong decision as it turns out to fly back along the ridge again um at sort of average height or just below ridge height and um i connected either with the same piece of air or another piece of air which completely did a piece of involuntary SIV on the on the glider it's on the nenzo one and apparently it looked like i had literally done SIV a ridge fight on the glider from what people said and um it went into um i caught it but then it went into twists so i ended up with three or four twists on the glider and i'm now descending
and i managed to um land on a very very crash onto a very very steep part of the hill and um got away with it i didn't actually break anything oh so
you weren't you were you were trying to just you you were like okay i'm beyond the possibility of a reserve i'm just going to try to pilot this in yeah i was so low okay i mean i was so
low all i all i had the wherefore it's like i've been punched it was that bad an incident so by the time i'd sort of mentally come around from being punched i was like literally about sort of 40 foot off the ground and yeah before the next thing would have been to go to reserve but the ground's now coming up so quickly i just buried what i left my brakes and just hit the ground so that was um that was a an incident which could have been avoided if i'd been more reflective about what was going on on the on the side because i imagine i was due for a dusty probably yeah that's probably what happened um and yeah so i should have been more aware of that and i should have just flown out into the valley and taken my chances and all the other gliders right
and i think most of those
gliders got up of course from
out in the valley sure and like you said at the end of the day who cares
so there was that incident and then i um the most serious incident i had was in the wilds in um in rolda uh in 2015 um so we're going into the last task and i was lying second place female in the court behind seikik so i was in a very good position after two weeks of you know very competitive flying and i absolutely loved it i'm so grateful for that and i'm going to go to the first time i flew in rolda and i took off and i had a knot in my upper knots again a lot in my upper brake cascade um and it meant that every time i tried to the guard was flyable um i just i didn't really have too much problem with roll control but every time i tried to fly on full bar i'd get a collapse in that side of the building um so i couldn't basically fly full bar
um and even flying on half bar i was having to sort of weight shift to try and keep the glider straight so it wasn't great and in a normal situation you just go and land you know you just go and land but you know classic situation i'm in a good position in the competition i didn't want to have to go and land because of this um so um i haven't the thing with that situation is i'd actually flown away from takeoff by quite some distance before i even noticed there was a problem because i hadn't gone on bar of course right i was stermining and
sure i got sort of
at the start gate the start gate is typically they're way away from launch as well they were in that competition so i was like three four k away from launch before i even noticed the situation now i've got 20 minutes before the start and then the start came up and off i went of course and i started going on bar for the first time and noticed this problem um so i carried on racing basically and i ended up getting further and further behind because i couldn't properly be competitive on bar basically um and i ended up further and further back on the task and then i ended up in a sort of scrubby area off to off to the east um slightly off track now because i was trying to work big climbs and again i wasn't really focusing on the day because the day was actually switching off no one actually made gold on that particular task in the last day not super violent but of course i was all i was thinking about was my position the fact that i was miles behind in this task not properly taking account of the fact that the sky had changed and the conditions weren't great anyway and if i'd been thinking about that i probably would have realized that you know maybe i was not going to be able to do it and i was going to be able to do it and i was going to be able to do it and i was going to be able to do it and i was going to be able to do it maybe pilots wouldn't have got to go
around and of course i'm trying to stay up in this low scrubby area and um i came onto a ridge and i'll never know quite what happened this day but i was crabbing along this small ridge about to land on it so the day switched off and um the blinder just went on me completely don't know what happened and i landed on my back and fractured my back um and i'd imagine it was again it was to do with the configuration of the lines and everything there's a knot in there maybe no one else was there so that that that day didn't end well either and again you know another example of yeah shouldn't have been doing it really did
kirsty have you had any the those incidents or in san andre has there been any kind of fear injury that's gone with any of those has there been any kind of i know that they we often talk about that it's not so scary if you totally know what happened um you know if you can kind of relive it through your brain and you know you run flow and i saw you know
i saw a lot of people who were like oh my god i'm so scared i'm so scared you know
it all happened really in slow motion versus what the hell just happened what happened there it was it sounds like that second one was or that one that one you just discussed yeah it's kind of like that the one
in the one in um in in rolled up i don't really know what happened um and like i said all i can really put it down to is the fact that glider wasn't in its proper configuration that's what caused that to to happen but i don't actually know and no one else was there when it actually occurred i was only sort of you know 20 feet off the ground anyway so yeah i don't know i don't know um yeah i suppose instance like that should should have should have changed me that if going to find briefly obviously it hasn't that's one of them made me think i should stop paragliding right and and when you when you sort of dwell on that you kind of think i must i must be a nutter really because seriously because i think a lot of people in a lot of walks of life you know they think paragliding is completely bonkers in of itself it would not even think of going up in the paraglider sure they're like the guy on the hill that day you know it's telling me i'm mad you know and yeah i i'm prepared to carry on flying even though these things have happened to me which um i don't know it either shows i'm mad or it shows that the sport it's just so utterly addictive and such a compelling thing to do that that trumps everything else and i think that's probably it really i just i just love paragliding so
it
it it it it it all a little bit nutter for sure um kirstie just i want to be mindful of your time here i know it's getting a little bit later in your part of the world but i'd love to ask you a few just kind of quick questions but you don't have to answer them quickly but just kind of fire some some random stuff at you here and yeah sure i'm trying to
dive off a tangent no
tangents are great dive as much as you want so um okay what's the funniest thing you've ever seen in flying recently the funniest thing yeah you're a brit and you all have great humor
yeah okay i can think of something that's quite rude actually that not rude but just like just unbelievable okay which is um the very first cat one i did was in um uh in mexico uh in b promising um i was that was my first cat one um team comp uh ross was there and there was another pilot i don't know if you've ever met him called mark hayman yeah he's a yeah mark who's he's kind of retired from paragliding in those days but he's such a character and you know he'd be quite blokey but just always just having stitches about everything and um he we were we were stood in the uh the queue um i i used to have like the red bull arch and yeah he's all kitted out you know you're always a bit like a trust chicken aren't you when you've got your gear on and everything and you know they were they were quite particular they're actually radio and we're all like you know so the last thing you want to do is when you're in that in that queue you've been queuing up for a while as well the last thing you want to do is exit the queue it is like i did it's like well you have to go out the queue you know it's like no no and he just literally went there and then you
i was like oh my god i cannot believe you just done that but yeah that's right in front of you yeah yeah yeah
oh that's fantastic that was
one but yeah that definitely comes to mind that's quite hard to hide that's it
yeah you're not exactly yeah yeah
but that was funny
what would you like to see more of in the future in our sport
uh i would like to see more um i would love to see more i mean it's a classic you know i'm about to say this but i would love to see more women um competing yeah i think i think actually i like the fact that we all compete together you know there's not like in other sports like tennis where it's all you know all the women compete together and all the men compete together i think having everyone competing together is a good thing i think it actually over the years certainly when i first started doing cat ones and i was super like not just with a few other women but with a lot of other people obviously mainly men helped me improve my skills hugely so i actually quite like the fact that we're mixed in that sense and i love the fact that in paragliding competitions again you're not you're not flying in kind of like a what's the word like a different leagues you're actually all flying together in that competition as well because in you know it's literally like me you know when you first start doing a competition it's like you might be there with you know someone like a lex or creagle or russell whoever you know who you know what other sports do you get to actually do that you know you don't so um so so but yeah i think it would be lovely to have more women flying in the sport um especially in the uk i mean the depths of women competing in competitions in the uk is incredibly low so so yeah it would be good for that to happen um always get asked as to why there's less women flying in the sport i think it's really important to have more women but that's a whole other conversation really i think do
you have a i mean we have i had a great conversation with adele uh about this a few years back and she had some great thoughts do you do you want do you want to touch on that for a bit is it is yeah
i can do yeah it's something i've been asked lots of times obviously but um why i mean i think at the end of the day it sounds sort of glib almost to say it but i think most women are operating in a completely different level of risk really so i i think a lot of women don't get into the sport because just the act of paragliding in itself you know um it is considered too dangerous i think probably i think there's an element of that i think men typically are prepared to take a lot more risk i think uh i think that risk in the globe is really is quite different i think there's an element of that but i think the women that do get into it i mean there's absolutely no reason really
um some of the you know physical constraints around wings wing sizes and stuff there's absolutely no reason why why women can't compete at the same level as men but i think there's so few actually getting into the sport in the first place that it's it's hard for that to get and get translated into into women doing big things in the sport yeah
and i mean i think it's it's uh it's really proven itself out in the last few years as well that you know you you do have radically smaller numbers and yet so you can't expect you know huge numbers at big comps but you know you've seen seiko and laurie and this in this world's yael was 18th or 19th overall i mean yeah she's tiny yeah and laurie and yael were they were crushing in the ex-alps not where they did they both did um you know which is an incredibly physical endeavor yeah so it's really impressive
the power of the instrument yeah yeah
there's there's definitely this huge disadvantage with the weight thing and you know with bruce doing this weightless comps is i think an awesome idea and i really hope that gets more teeth but um it becomes a lot more popular because it's it's there really truly is a massive disadvantage there that we don't need to get into and it's been documented a million times but what's great about paragliding is it doesn't require much different physical ability at all it's it's like you said that's right
exactly it's
very a finesse sport yeah
exactly i mean that's one of the reasons why we can sort of compete together really because on a sort of purely physical level other than having to sit under a smaller wing you know there's nothing really going on that you know you can't do as a woman same as a man really you can all walk up a hill you can all pull some strings you know so um yeah but it's just getting more women into it in the first place i mean are the reasons i don't i don't know i sometimes wonder if it's a social thing i mean i
it's it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it
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it sometimes maybe um yeah does your partner fly she has flown um she didn't fly before i met her uh and i didn't fly and she she felt compelled to have a go when i when we started going out that wasn't for me i really don't feel that you know your partner has to do what you do sure at all so but she she was sort of under her own volition decided she wanted to have a go and she did get qualified but she never she never got the bug you know she never really got bitten by it um but she actually something she actually wanted to do um so um and i and i do think that actually i think probably with emma as well i think it's to a degree it's that whole
not that it's a lonely sport but you have to be very self-confident i think with it actually and i coming back to the whole thing about mental side of things as well i think i miss that in my even in myself sometimes it's quite a quite a thing to go on to a mental side of things as well i think i miss that in my even in myself sometimes it's quite a to a hill and set up all your kit you know which again you're doing on your own essentially making sure all of your stuff is going to work for you there's no one else to check it really as such and then getting into the air and then making all your own decisions about what you're going to do you know it's quite it's quite a thing in a way and i think it's not that's not for everyone is it you know um so how
did the two of you handle your obsession how does that work in a relationship that's that's one that that's a question i get from a lot of people it's a testing navigate this yeah it's tough i mean like you said it's it takes a lot of time it
does we talked about it earlier on a bit and um yeah it's definitely a who's that phrase a bone of contention but i think it is to degree you know it is a selfish thought especially when you've got a young family to say uh do you mind if i just disappear for the day you know you can look after noah i'll just i'm just gone you know i mean that's you know say um and you know emma's got her interests as well obviously but not ones that take up that degree of you know it's a bit like if you play tennis you might say well can i just go and play tennis for a couple of hours you know that's very different to saying right i'm gonna go i'm going to columbia for 10 days you know yeah or actually i want to go on a holiday i want to go on a holiday for two and a half weeks without you which is like yeah is that okay you know so it is you know it does it does come to play of course it does and i and as much as um i still do it you know that i am conscious of the fact that it's a bit one-sided in that respect so let's
end on this last one and you've kind of answered this but i think it's still i think it's still be an interesting one to to ask you does free flight make other aspects of your life better or worse
oh that's that's an interesting question it really really is um does it make um i think well i would touch on the other one i think in some respects it's made it worse you know i think in terms of uh friendships and so on i definitely push some friendships over the edge in terms of and what's not happening or i probably would have had more sort of um maybe more friendships outside of flying you know a lot of my friendships are in flying for obvious reasons really um so but i think i think overall i just can't um ever imagine it not having been part you know a major part of my a lot of my life you know i just it just just is me really i just yeah i can't think of anything better to do in paragliding really i mean i've done other sports as well and that none of them none of them have quite hooked me the way that paragliding has you know because again to use that it sounds a bit glib again but it is leonardo da vinci's dream isn't it literally you know can you imagine when he was there you know several hundred years ago he kind of thought about these concepts you know like the idea that we can now do it in a way that's even more incredible than he even sort of imagined really yeah it's insane yeah i mean like on these new gliders now you know you can literally get hold of the the lower line set you know and sort of in one thing it's it's it's it's like nothing there is there it's like literally nothing and that holds you up and hold all that gene you know and all of that stuff and it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's and that's pretty amazing technology really that can do that and you can fly hundreds of kilometers like that and then put it back in a bag and get on the train or get in a car it
is a magic carpet it is a magic carpet
yeah yeah kirsty
what a joy i i uh i've been i've been smiling for an hour and a half and my face is getting exhausted so much yeah yeah it's it's it's great to connect with you And next time we'll have to do this in person in Roldanillo or someplace where we find ourselves in the world. But thanks for sharing your thoughts and time and good luck raising the little one. Thank you. That's quite a journey. That's really good to hear your
voice. And yeah, like you say, hopefully we can meet up in person again soon.
Sounds great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Wonderful. Thank you.
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Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.