Thank you for watching. I'm a bit different than stuff we've done in the past. I was on the Soaring the Sky podcast recently, and they had me on as a guest, which is dedicated to glider pilots, sailplane pilots. And one of the guests that had been on their show reached out to me, Clemens Siepek. He lives down in the Boulder, Denver area now and flies there, but he's an Austrian sailplane pilot and fascinating individual.
And he got into sailplanes a long time ago and then went away from it for also, again, a long time and then came back to it about four years ago. And he's got a blog and video series and has just really chased it hard and really figured a lot of things out. So he's been listening to this podcast lately and reached out and was pretty fascinated with the various differences and similarities between the two. We talk about risk tolerance and weather and finding lines and just all the differences. I haven't flown in a sailplane. I'd love to and I need to, but we just kind of dug into both of each other's worlds and really enjoyed it.
And I've needed to get a lot more sailplane pilots on the show. So here you go. Enjoy this time. Talk with Clemens Siepek.
Clemens, welcome to the mayhem. I'm excited to have this conversation with you. We kind of got connected through Chuck Fulton's show, Soaring the Sky. I did a podcast with him recently and he recommended we have a chat about flying sailplanes. And I think you heard that show and you caught a few things that may have been not exactly true because I don't know anything about. Yeah, I don't know anything about flying sailplanes. And I've always wanted to and I've always been super fascinated with them because I fly with next to and very briefly next to sailplanes in the Alps all the time. It's super popular over there. We don't see them much in my part of the world, but King Mountain's a big site here. You know, they have a fly-in. They used to have a fly-in every year. I'm not sure if they still do. But anyway, welcome to the show and I'm excited to talk to you.
Yeah, well, thanks, Gavin, for having me. This is it's super exciting. I also just. got hooked up with the show through Chuck. I actually wasn't even aware. This is how much we fly in the sky together with paragliders and sailplanes all the time. But we still typically don't talk to each other very much. And I listened to a few of your episodes and it's super exciting. And I'm like, yeah, this is really cool stuff. And so I'm going to be a fan of your show for sure. And I'm super excited to be here. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Yeah, I've always just, you know, I think we're going to delve into, you know, your progression and what you've learned flying sailplanes. And, you know, we've emailed back and forth a little bit about, you know, it seems like the difference about 5X, you know, in terms of distance covered and speed and all that, which sounds about right. But you don't, let's start here. I believe you're sitting in Boulder, Colorado, my alma mater. And, but, you know, you sound like you're from the States. What's your history?
Yeah, I'm originally from Austria. So that's where I grew up. And I actually learned to fly gliders in Austria. I did my license when I was 16, flew probably for about five years at the time. And then, you know, then Korea got in the way and the family and global and stuff. And, you know, I had to move to places where you don't really fly gliders like London and Paris. And, you know, Minnesota is not a super great place to fly gliders either. So, and then I was in Ohio for a while. So it just, it just didn't work for a while, but then I'm like, you know, reached a point in my life where I'm like, this is what I wanted to do all the time. And I'm going to go back to it.
And this time I'm going to do it really, and I'm doing it seriously. I'm putting a lot of time into it. I've probably, I learned, you know, this, it's almost like a full-time job, though. for me because I'm also club president here in Boulder. So I'm super into it. Bought my own plane a few years ago. And I've been doing some really cool flights and progressed pretty quickly. I also put up a YouTube channel, Chasing the Air. I saw that. It's
really some terrific content there.
Yeah, I mean, it's very technical content. It's really for glider pilots. It doesn't really meet the entertainment need as much as for the general public. I haven't figured that out yet. But I've used all my writings and videos to progress myself, quite frankly. So I used it to learn. And I learned so much from going back and analyzing my flights, especially when I fly with, you know, we have a bunch of national champions, world champion contenders out here in Boulder. And, you know, if we fly together, I will go back and look at, you know, what exactly were the differences? What did they do better than I did? And where did I actually make the better decisions?
And that really helped me tremendously to progress very quickly. So, I mean, I'm now flying nationals. And it's been a lot of learning in a very short period of time. And I think at this point, it's super exciting. I'm also finding that a lot of people now look at this and say, yeah, I really like that. I want to do that too.
Take me through the kind of steps of progression with sailplanes. When you start and you start learning, is it just, again, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to...
Yeah, it's quite interesting because what you're being taught, and I don't know if that's the same for paragliding, but what you're being taught in gliding is basically just to take off and land safely. Okay. That's... That's really what you're taught. It's like, you know, it's... You're... To get your license. And, I mean, it usually takes... It can take... If you go to a school and you want to do it really intensely, it takes about two weeks to get it done. But for the most part, if people do it in a club environment, it's several months. And all they learn in that period is really taking off and landing. They have learned nothing about soaring.
Oh, okay.
So, to get your license, you know, I mean, yeah, sometimes you might have flown in a thermal with an instructor and the instructor might have told you, oh, this was a thermal.
But it's... You haven't really learned anything. So, you get your license and you're a pilot and you haven't really learned anything other than, you know, you can control your plane and you can operate in an airport environment. You know how to use your radio and your instruments and, you know, how, you know, you have your lessons in stall prevention. You know, pattern altitude and operating in an airport environment. Those are the things to operate safely. That's what you've learned. But you haven't learned soaring. So, it sounds
like is that, you know, is that initial instruction, we would call that our P2. You know, you're getting your novice license where you can fly without an instructor. Is when you do that in the sailplane world, is it quite similar to learning how to fly a small airplane? You know, you're... Because you're... You know, we don't get as much of
the information that we get from the airplane. We don't get as much of the
airspace training because we're not dealing with it as much. We deal with it, of course, especially if you're in Germany or you're in the flatlands in Europe. You've got to, you know, airspace is a big thing. We start flying cross country. But it sounds like it's kind of the... A lot of theory and...
The theory... Yeah, there is a lot of theory. And the theory is very similar to the airplane theory. So, in fact, you learn a lot of things that you have to do in the US in particular, much more so than in Europe. In the US, you have to learn all the rules that affect airplanes, even though... You will never come across some of those rules. No. Like, how do you stop short at the runway line? How do I stop short, right? And wait for takeoff? I mean, it just doesn't happen. So, you learn a lot of stupid things that actually never have any material application in your real soaring. But the real learning, honestly, the real learning only starts once you're done with the license. And then you're basically on your own unless you have... mentors or coaches or friends who help you along the way.
There is no formal... There's no formal progression from there other than, you know, you're encouraged to do some badges and you get some recognition around it. But there's no more teaching, no formalized teaching around it. So, you're basically on your own. And so, we lose a lot of people in the sport after they have done their basic license because they don't know how to progress from there.
Yeah. I mean, be talking to a paragliding instructor right now, you just said exactly what I hear from all the instructors. I mean, we call that, you know, the whole nest thing. You just, you know, they get just enough information to get out of the nest, but you don't really teach them that much about going somewhere. That's exactly
right. Really, the attrition
rate in our sport is massive because of that. That's the theory anyways because you just, you know, you're kicking somebody out when they know just enough to be really dangerous.
Yeah. And I'm passionate enough that I don't want that to happen, right? So, I think that's part of what I'm, you know, my own personal interest is helping people not to get stuck in that phase and actually helping them jump over that hoop. But we've created a lot of good content and we're really, at Boulder, we're one of the top soaring clubs in the world. Really? Yeah, we are. It's in the US, we're one of the top clubs, but then we compete, for example, we compete, at a club level competition worldwide against, it's an online, you basically upload your flights and there's a world speed league where basically the way it's handled is that your flights get analyzed based on a two and a half hour duration in the flight where you have, where six legs will count towards your distance that you've flown within those two and a half hours and the average speeds that you achieve over that,
over that distance, will count towards your league score. And the way it's scored at the club level is that the, on, I think it's like 19 consecutive weekends during the season, flights on weekends will count towards the league score and the top three scores from each club, from different pilots, each weekend will count towards the club score. And we were number three this year, worldwide, out of 1,000 some soaring clubs, and last year we were number two.
Whoa! So
we're among the top soaring clubs in the world. That blows
me away. I had no idea it was that strong in the U.S. That's amazing.
Well, it's not. The U.S. isn't that strong in soaring. It's just bolder. It's just, you know, we're very good. The Minden Soaring Club is exceptionally good. They were the number one, so Minden, Nevada.
And they fly in the Owens Valley, so they're in amazing condition. Especially for that type of flying. Moriarty is pretty good down in New Mexico. And then there are some clubs on the East Coast. But the East Coast, they basically have only rich soaring conditions where they can go really big distances where they have to fly, you know, 100 feet or 50 feet off the trees for like six, seven hours at a time. Whoa! At V &E, basically. So these guys are... That sounds exciting! That's exciting. It's a very intense way of flying. Whoa! Our flying is much more, you know, it's much higher above the ground most of the time.
I've had this theory that, you know, the best in our sports is this guy, Chrigel Maurer. And, you know, he's famous for not turning. And
he's very, very
often on the terrain and using little bits of lift coming out of the trees. And, you know, where I fly here in Sun Valley is very similar to the conditions you get in Poland. You know, we get really tall and we go on these monster glides. And your glides would be, you
know, just ridiculous here. I've flown glides for 200 plus miles in one direction without making a turn.
Oh, stop it. Not one
turn. Get
out of here. Just, no, no.
I mean, especially, we have these amazing convergence conditions where we have the westerly winds is blowing over the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains. And we have thermals rising. On the east side of the continental divide. And these thermals are pulling in air from the plains. And so, you know, I've got a ground level flow that is coming in from the plains. And you've got the wind coming over the continental divide. And where those two meet, that's where our convergence line sets up. And it's an amazing convergence line. You can go from the Wyoming border. You can go, you know, past Pikes Peak. And you basically don't turn. Wow.
Is the bee's knees for you guys big FAI triangles? I mean, that's what we, you know, that's the holy grail of paragliding. Yeah.
Triangles are a big part of the sport because they're more complicated. Right? Because you cannot just do yo-yos around the convergence line. So for us, I love flying triangles because it's a real challenge. Especially in our conditions because now for us to fly a triangle out into the plains usually doesn't work. Especially we've got this big Danbury airspace that is sitting right next to us. So for us to fly big triangles we have to go far west from Boulder. So that basically means we have to cross multiple mountain ranges especially if you want to fly like a 750 or so triangle. I mean, basically now you're in western Colorado. So you're taking off in Boulder. You fly maybe south towards Pikes Peak and now you're then you're heading over towards Grand Junction.
And so you're basically crossing multiple, multiple mountain ranges and then on the way then you have to go take to another triangle lake that goes more towards the Wyoming border. You have to cross all those mountain ranges back but in and they have different configurations and and then you have to you know, still have the conditions to at the end of the day make it back home. For
you guys, for you guys is that, you know, you're in serious 14er country there. For you guys is that is that a little puckering? I mean, I mean, we can find places to land a lot easier than you do. We actually have one
of our biggest club things is what we call the 14er challenge and it's a career challenge. So it's, it's a career challenge for all Colorado pilots or for anyone who wants, it's open to any glider pilot in the world who wants to come fly in Colorado. We have this, we call it the 14er challenge. You basically have to fly above all you, all the 14ers over your soaring career and you basically have to tag them all and there's a sort of minimum distance around the peak. You have to basically be above each peak and there's 58 of them and so you, there's only five people so far who have, have completed it. I'm, I'm well on my way. I've got a few left. Those are the hardest ones that I've still got left but it's, within three years I've, I've gotten, I've gotten pretty high up there already.
So, but that's, that's one of the coolest challenges we, we have out here is, is fly over all the, all the 14ers. It's a super, super demanding and interesting. Why,
why can't you do the triangle out over the plains? Why can't you just run the, run the east side of the, of the mountains and, and then punch it out and come back? Is it just too much west wind?
No, it's not so much the way that the conditions over the plains, they tend not to be that good, quite frankly. I mean, there are times, yeah, there are times when it's, it's fine. Well, there's, and there's a practical consideration. So for us, particularly in Boulder is we have this big Denver airspace, right? Class B airspace. And it's, it's pretty big. I mean, there's people that, there are people have flown around it, around the airspace. And that's one of the kind of interesting flights you can do from here. You can try and fly around the Denver airspace. Conditions aren't super good usually. And, and it's, it's more wet, right? You got into the, the, the, the Platte river valleys, the North Platte, South Platte river valleys.
Thermal, thermals don't tend to be as strong. They are not as reliable. It gets more windy. Cloud bases tend not to be that high. The conditions over the mountains for us are usually way better than out in the plains. Interesting.
Let me get back to my question. You know, when I was talking about Chrigel and gliding. So the, the, he would say that we're flying really inefficiently here by, we're turning too much. Half the time, you know, when you're turning half the time, you're going the wrong way, right? Yeah. Well, I know you don't, but I was just thinking about, you know, when you're, when you're doing these 14, you know, when you're doing the triangles up into the 14 years and stuff, you know, for us, you know, looking at a 20 K or even a 20, we often have a 20 mile glide between one mountain range and the next, when we're going towards Montana, we got to cross all these mountain ranges. And so, you know, we'll get real tall before we go across the flats for the same reason you just said that the flats, they, you know, in the middle of the day, you're going to find a climb somewhere across there, but they're not going to be, it's not as obvious and it's not as easy and they're not going to be as strong as the mountain.
So we'll, we'll spend some time getting super tall, you know, get up close to class one and, and then our class a and then, and then we'll go, then we'll go on glide and hope we get to the next, you know, we hopefully make it to the range. Whereas I feel like, you know, Chrigel hasn't flown over here, but I feel like if he was here, he would have more of an Alps approach where he would, you know, only get as high as he barely needed and then kind of just work it on a really good line and, and get, get, you know, so I'm wondering if you've been able to, are you guys constantly trying to use more of the kind of the terrain or you've got the glide where you just get tall and you stay tall?
We have, we usually have the glide. In the Alps, it's different and the conditions in the Alps are very different. So I've flown quite a bit in Austria too, in the Alps and in the Alps, it's, compared to the rock, it's very interesting. What I find in the Alps, you have very, very relaxed and reliable lift around, along all of the spines. So you basically, as long as you stay right on top of the spine, you can usually go straight without having to turn. And, and here it's not that obvious because the cloud base is so high and the thermal, the distance between the ground and the, and the cloud base, it's just, there's so much space in between that there is a disconnect that develops between what's happening at ground level and what is happening at the, at the cloud base level.
And that's why I think it, Colorado in particular, it is not as, as easy as obvious to go straight along the spines. But, in part, it may also be that we're not doing it, number one, because we don't have to because the clouds are so high so we can, you know, be, be up there and it feels a lot more comfortable being up there. And number two is because so much of our terrain is so forbidding, right? So, so in Colorado we don't have that many places where we can actually safely land. I mean, we're, as sailplane pilots, we're mostly confined to airports. I mean, sure you can go into a farmer's field but every landing in a farmer's field means that there's a risk that you might damage your, your glider. Those gliders are pretty expensive and then when they're damaged they're also down for months at a time.
So, so you really don't want to damage your glider.
What about backcountry airports? Are they, are they fine for you guys? Dirt and grass or not really?
Most of them are not because most of them are too narrow. Oh. The narrowness is the biggest issue, right? We've got these long wings and they're pretty close to the ground and everyone who's, you know, most of the people who have these big backcountry airstrips they built them for, you know, this, this big, big tire kind of backcountry airplanes. They're all tail draggers. They're all Yeah, tail draggers with high wings and so if you land a glider there the chances are you're going to catch a tree or a bush or something right on final approach or just as you, as you, as you touch down and you're touching down at 60 knots or 50 knots, you know, maybe 45 knots but that's still a lot of speed and a lot of energy that has to get dispersed.
So, if you touch down and catch a wing then this whole thing will, you know, it will turn around and chances are your tail boom is broken. So, you don't want to, most of the backcountry strips aren't good. So, I spent an inordinate amount of time looking at landable places in Colorado driven around. I have a drone that I fly over fields to check them out and, you know, do measurements in Google Earth how wide is the, how wide is the runway. you're dedicated. Detailed database of all the landable sites across Colorado that I personally am feeling comfortable I can use, you know, making it available to other people but obviously always at their own, at their own risk. I mean, things, things change so quickly too.
So, but yeah, most backcountry airports aren't very good.
Take me back, the people that you were talking about that get into it. First, how much does it cost if somebody's listening to this going, man, I really want to get into flying sailplanes?
It totally depends on whether they have aviation background or not. So, if you're a paraglider, a hang glider pilot or you're an airplane pilot, actually, I think hang glider and paraglider pilots will probably make the fastest transition quite frankly because for them, you know, if you're good at it already, you already understand how this thing works, you know, where to find lift. So, then it's more about the mechanics of controlling a sailplane and I mean, but you know what it is that you're controlling. Essentially, it's not going to take you a long time to figure it out. So, typically, it takes, you know, somewhere between, you know, 20, it could be 20, 30, 40 flights with an instructor. These are usually short pattern flights where you just learn to control this thing and you fly your solo flights until your instructor is comfortable
with you getting the license. It varies greatly. It usually gets more expensive the older you get because it takes people more time. Kids learn it quicker. It's a few thousand dollars usually until you get the license. And then if you are in a club environment, you don't have to have your own plane. I mean, it depends on the club, right? I mean, we're one of the, you know, that's also one of the distinguishing features of the club. Of Boulder is we're just an amazing club. We have, you know, two, we have two very strong, you know, top state-of-the-art two-seaters and we have two state-of-the-art high-performance single-seaters as club aircraft. So, all of our members can fly
those club gliders and that's really cheap to do. But then, even if you want to own your own, the cost varies dramatically, right? So, you can get a good sailplane and you can get a, you know, a decent sailplane. It used to be world-class level for $20,000, $30,000. But, if you could buy, you could also buy a new state-of-the-art competition glider that you would buy right now and to be top of the line that gets up to $250,000, $300,000.
So, the range is pretty wide but you can to have, you can, you have just as much fun in a $20,000 glider than you have in a, in a $300,000. $300,000 glider. And is
that technology changing pretty rapidly or is it just microscopic, you know, improvements at this point?
it's, it's in stages. I think at this point it's more fine-tuning. The latest generation of gliders that came out over the last five years is maybe has a 2 % 3, 2, 3, 4 % performance improvement over the prior generation. If you want to win in the world, That's a lot. want to win in the nationals, 2, 3, 4 % is not that much, right? Oh, for us it'd be quite a bit. Okay. In percentage terms it's not glide points. Yeah. I mean, my glider is, for example, my glider is 17 years old. It's the prior generation. I've got a glide ratio of 48 to 1. I could get a new one now at the top line. They would be at maybe 56 to 1, something like that in 18 meter class.
But the, I, you know, I've done some math on it in comparison flights. I don't believe that those differences are as great as that difference. So I would say it's a few percentage points.
So you can beat the guys on that. Just make a couple better decisions and you're fine.
If you're making the better decisions, you're, yeah, yeah. The glider is, the glider is secondary. It's the pilot that counts for the most part. Oh,
cool. All right. So when you come through with, the club provides the planes, you pay your club dues and you have access to these.
Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah.
And is it growing worldwide?
It's, we're, it's, the sport worldwide is not growing. We actually have a pretty good demand out here. Last year, we had some, you know, bottlenecks with instruction because of COVID. So we actually had a long wait list of people wanting to join the club and get trained.
Go do stuff.
And we have, you know, there's some capacity constraints at the airport, but by and large, I think we, we don't have a lot of issues attracting people. And there's, there's a lot. We also have a lot of former, particularly hang glider pilots. We've got a lot of hang glider pilots that are wanting to join the sport of soaring once they reach an age where they're no longer comfortable that their, that their legs are, that their legs are an appropriate landing gear substitute. So it's basically, so that's, and you know, our chief flight instructor is a former hang glider teacher and the other school, hang gliding school is also very strong
sailplane racing contender. So yeah, it's, it's, there's, there's, there's, there's a lot of interest and we don't have that problem. There's, there's a lot of clubs actually in the country that struggle, but we're not one of them.
Okay. Yeah. Great. Back to learning the, you know, you said you learn, you learned when you were younger, when you were 16, you got your license, flew some, and then you left it for 25 years and you've come back to it with this just dedication and passion.
When you went from that newbie, you know, you're coming back to it and you're just getting tossed out of the nest. What would be some advice to people in that same position to get to where you are now? What's a, what's a rapid way to, we always talk about in paradise, there are no shortcuts. It's just, it's just time and currency and, you know, studying everything you possibly can if you're not getting the hours, but, you know, so there's obviously training and you can do, you know, you, you can, you can get there fast, but you've, you've got to do all the work. There's no short, you know, there's, there's no, you know, there's, there's not a, I don't know how to say that.
There is no, there is no, there's no substitute for flying experience. That is, that is definitely true. But I think there is, there's a lot of pilots who have been pilots for 20 years and have not made a lot of progress versus there are pilots that can make a huge amount of progress in a few years. And I think there is a, the, the personal attitude that you have towards it makes a huge difference and whether you actually really invest the time and the energy to understand what is going on in the atmosphere, how exactly you're going to do it, how exactly is it working. There's a lot of studying that you can do. There's actually, the theory really actually makes a big difference, right? But it's, it's not the theory that you learn from the glider flying handbook on it, you know, it's like, like government publications.
You have to go well beyond that and, and really try to understand what is it that, that makes this thing work, right? And really try to understand the atmosphere. There is, what, we're lucky we have, there's a gliding, you probably have heard about this, this, the Condor Soaring Simulator. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's basically a computer simulator for glider flight that is developed for competition glider flying. And it's also an e-sport platform and it's, it's actually a pretty serious e-sport platform. So I would recommend to anyone who wants to fly gliders, that is a great tool for progression simply because there are certain things, like for example, thermal entry, and keeping the right bank angle, keeping the speed,
keeping the, you know, staying centered or making centering corrections. You can do this perfectly in the simulator. And there is, there isn't, that isn't that different, quite frankly, from the real life. So if you can do this well in the simulator, you can probably do it well in real life. So if, and that's a, that's a big difference because in, in that, because it's, it's, that's cost free. You can do it every day. Soaring weather on the simulator is good every single day. I mean, you can just basically put in the weather that you want to have in the simulator. Right? So you, you put in the parameters that you want to use. It's not perfect, right? By no, by any stretch of the imagination, it's not perfect. It doesn't have, it's in the current generation, it doesn't have convergence.
It doesn't have thunderstorms. It doesn't have, the wave is still not very good, but thermals are pretty good. You know, ridge lift is exceptionally well done and maybe a little bit too strong than it, than in real life. But, but, but there's a lot of things that are very, very similar and that is something you can practice with and I find, I found that super useful. So I actually did, before I came back, I, I did some simulator flying and I got into the plane and after 25 years of not sitting in a glider, they basically said, oh, you can still do this. I'm, I'm amazed. So I'm, I was basically back into it on day one just because I had done maybe two, 300 hours on the simulator.
And
are these, can you get in the Condor and, and flight, do a flight simulation anywhere in the world? Is it built for, I mean, there's,
there's, there's people, there's volunteers that are creating sceneries and those are photorealistic sceneries. It's a lot of work. It's volunteer work. People, there's a hugely committed community towards doing this stuff. And there's, there's multiplayer racing every single day. So if somebody wants to be committed and doing multiplayer racing, you can, you can fly, you know, at a super high level. I mean, these, these guys are just as good as the top world class soaring glider pilots in the world on the simulator. And I think if you're, if you're, if you're top on the simulator, there's, there's no doubt in my mind that you can get into a glider and with, you know, after the basic instruction and, and learning how to operate in an airport, the counter doesn't teach you that stuff very well, right?
It's, it's really more about the flight itself and dealing with decisions on, you know, how far can I glide? How do I final glide calculations? How do I do, how, how, how do I do the, the, the thermaling? What is the tactic? When do I fly fast? When do I fly slow? How do I switch gears? Which side of the, you know, on which side of the ridges will I find lift? Where will the lift come up? The, this is really well modeled. And so I would, I would seriously suggest anyone who wants to make a, make, this will, this is definitely a great boost in, in speed. Maybe not a shortcut, but a great boost in speed.
Wow. That's fascinating. And I
know there's, there's people who are pressuring the counter people to, to, you know, create some modules to let, to, to open it up for paragliding and for, I
know, I know paragliders use it a lot to, to see terrain beforehand. One of my friends that was in the X-Ops with me, Eduardo, talked about that, that he kept going through the course over and over again. And of course, the speed's not correct. It's fantastic to learn scenery. Great to see it.
Yeah. Yeah. So when I flew, for example, I flew last year in the 18-meter nationals in Nephi, in Utah. And this was, condo is a perfect way to learn the scenery. So when I, when I showed up there, I, I knew what the mountain ranges were. I knew, you know, I knew the terrain. I knew, I knew how, how wide the gaps were and knew where the terrain transitions would become a problem because you had to go, you have to go, for example, if you go across the Vassar plateau from the, from the, the east side to the west side, you fly into rising terrain and you have a sense of how wide that is and you, how high you have to be on the east side so you can make the safe transition over the west side without getting stuck on top of the plateau, which would be not a good, not a good place to be.
No.
Yeah. We don't want to land on
the land
and the Uintas either. Right. There's a friend of mine, Stuart Midwinter, back in the day, flew all of it, flew hang gliders, paragliders, or, you know, early, early paragliders and sailplanes and he reached out after that, the show I did with Chuck on the Soaring the Sky podcast and said that he, he saw back in the day, I'm curious from you what you're seeing now that foot launch pilots, so, you know, paragliders and hang gliders will, are way more comfortable banking it up in sailplanes than pilots that just get into sailplanes and don't have any of that experience. They're, they're more comfortable in the cockpit using the air. Does that make sense? They're, they, they get it faster.
Now, obviously, that makes sense that they get it faster because they know what, how it all works and the principles are all exactly the same. But, have you also seen that, that they, that they thermal differently? In other words, he was, he was postulating that they definitely core tighter, that they're willing to.
Yes. Yes. Interesting. That is, that is true. So paragliders and hang gliders coming into sailplane flying, they have a better, they have a, definitely a much better appreciation where the thermal originates off the ground. Okay. So, and, and that is because when you start off with sailplanes, your instinct is never to be close to the ground because we just, we just can't be, and be safe, right? Because we have to keep a glider, a landable spot in glide. And even though, yes, our glide is way further than, than, than in hang gliders or paragliders, the,
it's, it's still hard to find, you know, keeping the airport in glide keeps you usually further off the ground. And also because our higher speed requires a much greater turn radius to begin with, we, this, this usually not a, it's, it's very difficult to get that sense where exactly the thermal generate is, is coming off the ground. Usually you're finding it somewhere under the clouds. Most of the time you're actually orienting yourself by the clouds and not by the ground. It's, it's rare that, especially in the early years when people start to glide, that they, that they focus on the ground. They focus more on the clouds, especially out here in the, in the, in the Western US where the cloud bases are as high as they are. And, but if the hang glider, all those foot launches, right, that you described, well, you start on the ground,
right? So, so of course you've got to look for thermals based on the terrain and not on the clouds. It's not like you go up on the, on the hog back here in Boulder and you look up into the sky and say, oh, there's a nice cumulus up there at 18,000 or 22,000, 22,000 feet. Right. I'm going to launch right now because it's, it's up there. You can't, you can't do that. So, you, you know exactly, you know, this nook and this cranny and this, these rocks, that's where the lift is probably going to come from. And most glider pilots don't think that way. Most, especially not at the beginning. It's a, it's a progression and you have to deliberately get there and then even if you know that's where it is. So, that happens to me all the time when I'm flying is I'm like, there is probably a thermal coming off these rocks and then I fly there and I notice there is a thermal coming off these rocks but I, with my minimum speed, especially when I'm flying ballasted, so I put water in the wings and, make the glider extra heavy and now I have to turn at least 60 knots to, to be safely turning.
So, if you turn at 60 knots and you crank it at, even if you crank it at 50 degree bank angle, you're still making a pretty, pretty wide circle and chances are that this little thermal that is coming off these rocks is not usable. Not usable. Yeah. Versus you in a paraglider, you can just park yourself right on the rock and you, you make your way up. Sure. How, how much of your
decision making is, is made, and I'll ask you to answer this without thinking that we have an audience for a second because I would imagine as you get better and better and start getting bigger and bigger distances, you start worrying less and less about places to land but is that, is that the case in, in sailplane flying because we, we, you know, we, we're always taught what, I'm sure the same thing you are, never fly over an unlandable place and always have something on glide but as you get better and better, you start, you don't worry about that. You, you know there's going to be a climb, you know you can fly over this huge section of trees where there's no place to land and, you know, if you've got the skills and you can read the sky and you under, you know, the, the crossing I did of the Canadian Rockies, we flew hours sometimes without a place to land and it's, that's a whole nother level of flying.
I'm not suggesting people do that but, you know, we, we're not really so confined by an airport, obviously. We can put it down in a tiny little scratch pad and so, I'm just wondering, but to me, when I think about sailplanes not knowing anything about it, that would be an overriding concern. You're, you're flying a really, you know, expensive aircraft that needs, you can't just put it down in a little postage stamp. Is that a big deal or has it become less and less?
It, it becomes less and less but it is a big deal. And, I mean, that's, I think individual risk tolerance comes hugely into play in that area. So, if somebody is like, you know, you know, I just love this so much. If I have, if I, if I wreck my $300,000 glider, I'll just buy a new one. If, and I'm confident that I can survive, you know, they might, they might take the approach, they might take the approach as, yeah, it doesn't matter. I'll find, live straight ahead.
Others may be less so, right? I mean, where I'm at is, is, I'm at the point where I am, I'm, if, if I'm, I'm absolutely confident and sometimes I am just totally confident, right? That, that there is going to be lift. It's just, it's just totally confident. Then, then I don't, I don't worry about it because, but I, I've reached this point in my, in my progression where I'm,
that, that is often the case that I, I can really, if it's like 100%, I know it's 100%. But if, if it's only 90%, then I will hesitate. Then I will not, I
will not do
it and risk, I will not go into unlandable terrain if I'm only 90 % confident that I can fly out of it. Okay. It's just, that just does not work because I can't take a 10 to, I can't take a, a 9 to 1 gamble that I'm going to wreck my glider. You know, even if 9, 9 is, 9 is that I won't, but a 10 % risk. That's pretty high. That I'm going to, it's pretty high, yeah. Okay. I mean, I'm not doing it. So you've got to
be way more constrained by places to land than, than parameters. You are,
but the, the, what is, what is offsetting this though is that you have way better glide. Sure. Right. And I mean, for the most part, I mean, I, if, if I'm at, you know, we're in Boulder, you know, where the Wyoming border is, it's like, what is it? 60 miles to the north. If I'm at the Wyoming border at 17,000 feet, I'm, I'm in glide of Boulder. Okay. Right. So, I mean, for us, more, oftentimes, I can fly, from Boulder, you can fly, you can, you can, there's, there's, there's badge progression that we have. So, you go from, you know, silver, there's a silver badge and a gold badge and a diamond badge. The diamond badge requires you to do a 500 kilometer flight and a 300 kilometer declared gold flight.
You can fly, you can get almost all the badges in Boulder by flying within glide range. Wow. It's, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. We don't have to get out of, even out of Boulder, you don't even have to go to the airport. You don't even have to think of other airports to have to be in glide. So, oftentimes, you can just, it's not hard to keep airports in glide. And how, even if they're far away.
How do you think about when you said, you know, if it's a 90 % chance, so when you're, you know, you're somewhere pretty deep and your, your glide computer showing that you've got so-and-so airport on a, you said you're, you're, you're, you know, all things considered null, your glide on your, on your wing is, is, did you say 48 to one or 45 to one or something? Okay. So, are you, are you calculating, okay, this is safe. I've got this on glide per current conditions or are you going, okay, it's saying that I can get there on a 61, 60 to one glide and, you know, I've got this crazy tailwind. I'm getting 80, 90 to one right now, but that could change to 35 to one. So, I'm going to go to 35 to one.
No, you, you basically do it on current conditions. Okay. And so, you, you watch, the, I'm probably, I'm assuming you have the same thing where you can put on your glide computer, you can put a, a current glide, L over D and the required glide over L over D. Totally. And you can look at those side by side and you say, well, my, my required glide over L over D is, is, is 40, but my current is 60. I'm like, you know, I'm, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get there.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. So, you're just constantly balancing
those things.
I look at those two things all the time. And then you also look, at, you know, you can use, the MacReady settings for what you think the next client is going to be and, and dial those up and they will actually, you know, they make you fly faster. And when you fly faster, obviously your, your, your sync rate is higher and, and your glide goes down. So, that actually gives you, in your flight computer, if you look at, what is, what is necessary to reach a safe airport and you have a, a MacReady setting of four, that gives you an inbuilt, a safety cushion into this thing because it assumes that you're flying faster than you actually have to fly. So, you could get a better glide if you have to. So, you can dial it back down. If you find that conditions deteriorate, you can dial the speed a bit, a little bit back and then, and then you can still get there.
For you guys, wind is way more, I mean, wind is important for us. Obviously, it's very important for us, headwind, tailwind. It doesn't have nearly as much. Yeah. As a, yeah, wind
can just totally kill us. For sure. We can,
kill it, right? I mean, you have a 30, 30 knot headwind. No. What
do you,
what do you, what do you do?
You can't even
fly in that. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. No, you're, you're, you're either, you're terrified if you're going downwind and you're, and you're terrified even more if you're trying to go upwind because you're not. You're flying backwards. Yeah. You, let's talk about risk for a second. You, you mentioned something in our email exchanges before we, we sat down today that surprised me that sailplanes are, statistically, not that dissimilar. And I, there's a big, there's a big difference there. You'll talk about that, but that surprised me. yeah, people are cratering in sailplanes too. It's like when I,
when I came back to the sport, I really wanted to understand how dangerous it really is. And so, the way I thought about this was I tried to look at all kinds of activities that people do in their, in their, you know, in their spare time that are somewhat risky. And I, I tried to say, you know, I tried to figure, figure out how risky, how, what's the chance that you die
doing it within a certain, by, by activity hour. So, per hour that you're doing it, right? So, how long can you safely do it before you were basically expected to get killed? It doesn't sound very good.
No, but you know, it's aviation. But,
yeah. And so, so I did that study and I tried, it was very, really hard to come by good data. Really, really difficult. So, so I tried and it took me a few months to, to this, over the winter. There wasn't any flying and I didn't have any, anything else really to do. So, I worked, I worked on this stuff. Yeah, it's, it's not hugely dissimilar. So, flying gliders, the risk of dying in gliders per hour is, is not a lot lower than it is for paragliders. It is lower. It's about, I think it's about 1.5 is the, is the difference factor. So, it's, it's 1.5 times more risky, to your life in, in paragliders or in hang gliders than it is for gliders. But, that risk difference isn't, isn't, you know, it's not very high.
I mean, it's like, if you compare it to commercial aviation, we're now talking 200 times less risky, not, not 1.5 times less risky. So, it's like, we're, we're in totally different orders of magnitude versus, we're in the same order of magnitude. We're not far off, quite frankly. Wow. We have a lesser degree, a lesser risk of getting severely injured on top of that, that dying risk. I'm assuming every, take off every landing in, in, in paragliders has some inherent risk. Definitely. You're going to have some injury of, of, of, to your legs or to your back or to, I don't know, you know. Yeah, no,
that's definitely where, you know, statistically it's launching and landing. You know, it's very, you know, that, that, that certainly we have a lot of the catastrophic stuff that happens low to the ground in the sky. You know, typically if you're high, people can deal with it and reserves work really well. But, you know, it's the, it's the stuff that you would think, you know, it's the launching and landing and it's when you're trying to scratch out and you're low, you know, you're trying to get up from a low position.
And I also look deeply in detail into what, what is it that actually makes it so dangerous? What are the really root causes? So I read a ton, a ton of accident reports and, and in many countries that they're doing a lot of work on accident reports. Germany, in particular, Germany has about a third, accounts for a third of all glider flying worldwide and they do an exceptionally great job at documenting every incident. And I speak German, so that helps understanding these reports. So I went into and tried to find out what are the really root causes? When do people get into situations where they kill themselves? And is it, is it, is it pilot's fault or is it, is somebody else to blame? And I found about 90 % of accidents can be avoided.
So I think that's an important thing. So you can actually think about it. Like in 90%, you'd say, yep, you could definitely have made a different decision as the pilot. So that's really then understanding why is it, what went wrong? Why did it go wrong? And then I found that the most important, the single most important root cause is when a pilot delays the decision to land for gliders. I can't say that for anything else. But if you, if you're getting too low and a lot of them happen right now, next to the airport, people come back and they find the runway is occupied and they're like, I don't want to push my glider back so far. I don't want to land far at the far end and then push the glider back. I'm going to wait until this runway is clear.
And then they keep circling and circling and circling. And then they find themselves, okay, finally, the runway is clear. Now they are so low, they try to find, fly the final approach. Then they make the turn to final and there's trees in the way and they're trying to get over the trees. And now they're getting below stall speed. And suddenly the, suddenly the glider spins in because they're below stall speed and they're on a shallow, but they try to, you know, then they try to fly uncoordinated and keep, keep the, keep the lower wing up by flying the turn with the rudder. Now they're skidding through the turn and they spin in and that's the recipe for death, basically. Because once you're spinning in and the glider close to the ground, that's when you die. Because now you're rotating into the ground and the wing is going to hit the ground first and it just drives the nose into the ground and then you die.
So that's a classic case, very simple to avoid incident. Just make your decision to land early enough. I never thought about that with the,
with, with you guys that, you know, we were talking about, I was imagining, okay, you're at 16,000 feet and you've got, you know, you've got Grand Junction on glide and you decide, okay, you know, it's the end of the day. I'm going to go there and you give, give yourself 200 feet of, you know, wiggle room, you know, maybe not nearly enough and, and then you get there and the runway is occupied. So are you, are you talking to the tower way, way, way in advance to make sure, you guys can't just go on a, you know, around a few more times.
Yeah. I mean, usually the way you do it differently. So first of all, most of our airport landings are not towers. They're just uncontrolled airports. Okay. But, but the, the way you approach it is, is you, you, you're supposed to approach an airport that you are arriving at a 1000 feet above ground. Oh, okay. So, so whenever my flight computer is, actually my flight computer is set to 1500 feet, especially for airports that I don't, it's set to 1500 feet for airports that I am not familiar with. Okay. Or where there may be more air traffic. And especially in most cases, when you arrive at an airport that doesn't have glide operations, chances are, there's absolutely, nobody has a freaking clue about gliders.
The, I've talked to many airplane pilots and they, they're like a glider? What is that? So there's a lot of glider, a lot of airplane pilots who don't even know that we exist. Wow. So now you, you turn up at an airport and you're in the pattern. You say, I'm, I'm a glider. I'm about to land him like a glider. And then somebody will tell you, you know, you're number three, you're number three to land hold. Yeah.
Hold your altitude. I'm like, I can't, I can't hold my altitude. I'm landing right now.
So that's common? Really? Wow.
It, it, it would be common. So basically what you do is, is when you land at another airport, you are, you arrive high enough, you announce yourself, you say, I'm a glider and I'm, I'm about to land. And, and then, you know, if somebody pushes back, you just tell them you're unable. To do whatever they wish to do. And, um, you're allowed to do it. You have, you have priority by the rules. It's just, most people don't know about it.
Right. Right. So you can just be a little, a little verbally forceful. but it's not a
situation where I'm going on a final glide and I'm like, uh, I'm barely going to squeak
it in.
Yeah. Barely going to squeak in. I mean, some people do that, but it's not a safe practice. Uh, I would definitely not, but it doesn't, it doesn't have to happen. It really usually does not have to happen. The only times when these, these things tend to happen is in, in, um, in soaring competitions, uh, as they used to have them when they had the, uh, the arrival at the deck, basically just at, at ground level at the airport. Uh, those rules are gone. So all our competitions. So for example, when I flew the nationals last year, the, the arrival was a 1500 AGL. So 1500 feet. You've got a whole end of speed cylinder.
You know, you've got an end of speed. So the race stops and then you get plenty of time. I feel like that, I feel like that. You're getting into the finish,
a finish cylinder. You're getting into the finish cylinder. You have to be over 1500 feet to not get penalties. Uh, you're getting penalized. If you fly, if you come in lower than that. And so you basically, and the penalties are so high, it's not worth it. So, uh, you definitely want to arrive at 1500 or above. And if you arrive at 1500, there's plenty of time. Now you have got a few minutes if you need to, to sort out the landing. And especially in the contest, I think it's hugely important because now you've got in a contest, you've got, you've got a lot of time. Many gliders arriving at the same time. So now you've got a runway. Yeah. You got to see, you got to sequence your landing somehow. Right. The,
the, can we dig into that? 90 % could be avoided a little bit more. What are the other things that were really, that really popped out? So you, you talked about, you know, that you, for the most part, it was people not landing early enough, you know, not making a decision to
land is a huge factor. Um, another huge factor is, um, is flying into the, flying too close to the ground, uh, especially on, on rich flying in rich flying conditions, uh, where people will just, um, you know, get hit, hit the ground. Um, or in re and so one, one risk for example, is, is, um, uh, that thermals and you must have the same thing. So you flying along the ridge and you get a thermal that is starting right off where you're, where, where you are. Uh, it creates a lot of turbulence. It's around it. Uh, so what can happen in the glider is if let's say you're flying on the region, there's an outcropping below the reach and the thermal is breaking off below the rich, not at rich top, but it's breaking off below the rich.
That thermal can be so strong as you fly through it. It can, it can lift up your, uh, the, the wing that is on the, that is away from the rich and then turn the, it will turn the glider right into the rich. Um, and, uh, and I don't know if you run into that. Oh yeah.
Yeah, totally. I mean, the worst thing with the, I guess the SIP, what would happen to us is you could take a collapse on the wind on the, on the ridge side, which is worst case scenario, because then you're spinning in towards the hill rather than taking a collapse on the other. So yeah, no, it's that it happens a lot.
Yeah. So, so rich flying close proximity to terrain, that is just, that's a, it's a, is a good, that's a judgment call. That's in that case, it's, it's sort of, you know, I count those as avoidable. Um, some, some people, I mean, it depends on your, depends on your viewpoint, right? I mean, every accident is avoidable by not flying. So, so, I mean, that's, but that's not how we can look at it. Right. So it's, it's, it comes to a judgment call, uh, whether you call, uh, what, what hardly ever happens to us. And this is, I think is a big difference. Uh, it's equipment issues are hardly ever an issue. And if it's the equipment, then it's usually the pilot's fault for putting it together. The wrong way. So that used to be a big issue for old gliders.
And if somebody goes into gliding and they buy an old glider that doesn't have automatic hookups. So it basically means you, as you put the glider together, you have to, uh, hook up each of the control surfaces separately, uh, from the, from actually assembling it. Um, there, there have been numerous accidents, uh, over the years where people forget to hook up, uh, let's say the elevator control. Uh, if you hook up and forget that, and you, you take your takeoff roll, you take off behind the tow plane and you have no elevator control. You're, you're already crashed. There's, there's really nothing you can do about it. We call
those schoolboy
errors. He's just making dumb mistakes. Right? That's a dumb mistake. Uh, and, but those don't happen with modern gliders because they all have automatic hookups. So when you put it together, the, the controls are already hooked up to still have to check it, but equipment failure is hardly ever the reason. So these gliders are way more sturdy than the airplane. Uh, so turbulence will not do anything. You know, you keep, you're
not going to get a wing ripped off of it's booming. It's
weird. I mean, it happens, but it's so exceptionally, it's so exceptionally rare. It's exceptionally right. I mean, it would be like if you're flying, you know, say you're flying above VNE in wave and you're, you're just hitting the, the, the, the mother of all rotors. Uh, that's basically what would have to happen. Yeah. Um, so if you, if you like slow down to a hundred knots and not do it at, at 150 knots, when you hit the rotor, it's not going to be a problem. You might hit your head on the canopy pretty hard, but, but the glider will, you know, those gliders are super sturdy. Is, is
wave the most dangerous flying you do?
No, I don't think so. No, I mean, wave is wave can be dangerous. Wave can be dangerous. Depends. I mean, wave could be very, very dangerous depending on how you fly in wave. It's really comes back to the pilot again. I mean, the risks in wave are, uh, you know, obviously oxygen is to work. So you have the hypoxia risk. Um, there's a risk that you get dragged into clouds. That would be, that could be a catastrophic risk if you're at high altitude. Now you get dragged into, into a particular cloud that, that, that builds right on your side. You might not even see it if you don't watch out for it, but those happen rarely. First of all, not many people fly in wave conditions at these altitudes. So the frequency of those is pretty low. Um, uh, I would say for, you know, in practical terms, a risk I'm, I'm concerned about is that I,
uh, that my glide path to the airport gets blocked by thunderstorms, uh, especially, you know, with big hail. Uh, so we do have that here. So each time I come back from the, the west towards Boulder, for example, if you fly across the continental divide, uh, there's sometimes you have to make a decision. Do I, do I commit to flying towards Boulder? Uh, or do I stay on the west side, depending on what the sky looks like without knowing for absolutely certain that there's a clear path towards, towards landing. Uh, so that, that is, I think weather risks are a risk. You could avoid that. Obviously, you know, that would, in my book count as an avoidable accident, as a pilot mistake, because I could just, I could just say, yeah, okay, I'll land in Granby on the other side and just have to call my buddies.
And they, they have to get the trailer and then they have to drive for five hours and pick me up.
Good, good, good segue. How important, how much weight do you as a community, not just you, but is it to get home? Is it's, it's not as easy to retrieve as we are. You don't get to go out on the road and stick your thumb out. Um, is that, is that way heavily on you or on a big day? You don't care. You're going to go big.
Uh, we go big and, and we have a, you know, it's, it's in our community. We have basically, we have a volunteer retrieve list. So everyone, and in our club, we've got probably 40 members that are on that list who basically say, well, and it's a, it's a mutual commitment. We just basically say, if somebody lands somewhere else, uh, we're going to retrieve them. And in exchange, uh, you have the promise that you will be retrieved, um, by your buddies. Right. So it's a, it's a mutual thing, but it doesn't happen very often. So the impractical terms, it's not a big deal because we don't often land somewhere else. Uh, I mean, I have, there's very few times in, in, uh, my, it's close to a thousand hours now. Uh, I've very few times that I actually had to land somewhere that, um, that I didn't intend to land at.
So it doesn't happen. Take the day,
take, take the day and, and imagine, you know, a perfect day is a hundred percent. How much, what percentage? So we've got, you know, mind frame, preparation, currency, all the things that, that go into making, you know, you're going to go out and do a 1500 K FAI triangle. You know, the biggest you've ever done, right? I don't know. I just threw that out there, but that would be a big one. That'd be a big one. How much of that is weather and not, not by that day, I'm talking forecasting. How much of that is, is you spending time in front of a computer looking at, tell me, is it sky site XCSkies, Noah, what do you know? So tell me the resources you use. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. It is, for me, it's sky side most of the time. Okay. And I do use XCSkies. It,
I'm struggling a little bit with picking which model, which model to pick. There's so many models and it depends on the site that you add, which model tends to be giving you the better results than, than the other models. So I find just most of the time, I'm just too lazy to, to try and study eight different models. Yeah. So I, I tend to personally, I try to use, I tend to use sky side. There is some, some other resources too. Dr. Jack's is for us. I don't know if that rings a bell. Yeah. Yeah. We use Dr. Jack's a
lot. So you use the balloon soundings. We
use that. Do we lose soundings? Yeah. But for the most part, sky side is, is actually, sky has become my go-to tool. I use top media for a while. I, I put some Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney Attorney What term points should I declare that would be best aligned with the weather?
When will it get me on final glide early enough? And you do the timing calculations of when do you have to take off and where do you have to be at each of the term points to make it back home.
And then on the day off, I'll check in the morning before I drive to the airport. I'll check if something has changed. And that might cause me to change some of the term points or I might dial the whole thing back or it might make me expand it a little more. But that's about the extent.
We have this saying that, you know, fly the day, not your desire. And I've often found, you know, if I put a lot of effort the night before into, you know, I've seen it usually a few days out on GFS. And, okay, it's looking like a good day. And you start rallying your crew. And Thursday looks good. And, you know, start thinking about, okay, what can we do with this? If I, you know, on the way up to launch, I've got my task in. And I've often found that it's hard for me to break from that. If I've set that up as a goal, man, I want to fly that goal. Whereas, you know, it's obvious that that's not setting up now. You know, models are just models, right? And do you find that also hard?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's
true. I mean,
there's maybe, I would say, I would probably complete maybe one out of two tasks. Or maybe one out of three tasks. So if I set myself ambitious tasks, maybe I'm completing one in three tasks. And it's just, as you fly and you find, you know, what are the tasks that I set for myself? It's just not going to work. But I'm going to still enjoy the day. And I'm going to change my plan. But I think that is very uplifting.
I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very uplifting. I think that is very up Attorney. I think that is very up Attorney. Attorney. Attorney. day, they just try to do that task. And chances are it will take them a long time to complete the task, unless the task is really simple, right? I mean, there's tasks you can set yourself tasks you can complete almost any day. But yeah, I think it's totally individual.
I'm going to ask you a question I'm not sure you can even answer. But we talked about that hang gliders, paragliders, and foot launch pilots might have this advantage coming to sailplanes because of their background and their understanding of thermals and being more comfortable with banking it up. We're just more comfortable doing that in our aircraft maybe. But what do you think would be the reverse? Are there some things that sailplane pilots that we don't know, that we're not clued into, that if you came, if we reversed roles there, what would be the, whoa, what could you teach me that I probably don't know?
Whew, I think that's a difficult one.
I mean, we have, I really don't know what you don't know. That's my problem, right? I mean, where would we be really good that a paraglider? Yeah. I mean, I think
that's a difficult one. For example, Chuck asked me a question in the show that I was really surprised. He said that his buddies that fly out at Marshall in the San Bernardino Mountains, they'll often be up there on a blue day and having a good day and they don't see paragliders. And that really caught me off guard because I thought, well, they're either not seeing them or I don't know that crew. I thought that. I thought that. I know I have a lot of friends that fly out there religiously. A bunch of them live there. And if it's a flyable day, they're flying. They don't care if it's blue. I mean, we obviously just like you. I'm sure we love it when there's clouds. But, you know, blue days are you got to train for those, too.
And, you know, so my thought was is probably more windy than he than those guys. You know, we can't handle a lot of wind. And I would imagine it's just more windy on those days. That's what I think. It's fine.
But that's what I suspect. I don't I don't see that blue day thing as I was surprised, quite frankly, about that, about that observation when I listened to that to the podcast. Yeah. And I mean, I listened to your answer. I think there was some discussion about you thought there was there were way more para paraglider pilots out there than than glider pilots. And as glider pilots, we think there are more glider pilots out there than there are paraglider pilots. Awesome.
See, I love this.
So I thought that might be a good a good point of discussion. If I fly out of Boulder, I often see, you know, it's a pretty big paraglider community. It's a reasonable pair. I mean, you tell me how many, you know, I don't know. I think
it's very big. I don't know the numbers, but I know that I think it's the fastest growing region in the States for paragliding that, you know, that their clubs doing a good job. When I
go fly, most of the time I see glider pilots that I don't. See paraglider pilots during flight. So so the the the time when I see paraglider pilots is right after launch. Right. Especially on days when you can actually get off from the airport as a glider pilot reasonably, reasonably early. We oftentimes have to tow far deep into the mountains, but most of the time we don't. But but sometimes we don't. And the paragliders, they always most of the paraglider traffic here tends to be pretty close to the foot of the hill. Exactly. Yeah. And it doesn't go deep in versus we fly always deep in. And when I talk to paraglider pilots, they tell me, well, we did just they look at our flight traces online and they say, how on earth are you going to fly that far back?
I wish I could fly that far back. And they they they listen to my stories about the convergence line and where the convergence line sets up and how it sets up and how to use it for flying straight. And I'm like, I wish I could get back there. And I'm like, well, me too. Because if I don't get back there, I can't fly at all. Yeah. I often so we tend to fly in different spaces most of the time. And it's rare. So it's I mean, I do see occasionally I see paraglider pilots high up in the sky, far away from anywhere. So happened in Utah last year, happened a few times where I'm like over the Wasatch and at 17000 feet. I'm like, holy shit, there's a paraglider. And I say, holy shit, because. Because. Because we have I think that's maybe if the if the sport grows and keeps growing,
there's there's a potential for a safety risk. Sure. Because because the glider pilots with our technology were increasingly, you know, obviously you have to look out the window and you do all the time because you're looking for the clouds and you're looking for where to find lift. But in terms of orientating yourself where other traffic is. We're very the technology has so advanced that we see everybody where they are. And increasingly all the gliders have ADS, you know, have transponders, they have flarm. So we have anti collision systems, increasingly even ADS be out. And the more technology there is in gliders, the more you expect that any object that is flying out in the sky shows up when your instruments and if you don't see anything on your instruments, your brain might assume nothing is there.
Yeah. And I mean, let's face it, you know, when. If we're at the same elevation and we're, you know, we're ships in the night, you know, coming right at one another. We are really hard to see for you guys and vice versa. You guys, you
guys are actually a lot easier to see than gliders.
Well, yeah, I was going to say, I mean, you're. The way you got colorful
canopies. Right.
But if it's right at the same level, you know, you know, it's one thing if we're banked up, you know, but if we're right at the same level, it's, you know, same thing. It's hard for us to see one another. And so. I mean,
we're freaked out. I mean. But gliders against gliders. Yeah. That is the biggest concern. Right. So because we tend to fly the same lift line. So and most of our flying is straight, as I said. Right. I mean, my I think my average for last year was, I think, below 20 % circling percentage. So I'm at it's 80 80 % of my time that I fly is straight. More than 80 % of the time. Sexy. Straight. Yeah. But so but but now and it's at 100 knots. And so now you've got two gliders coming. At each other at 100 knots. Closing speed is 200 knots. And we're flying exactly the same lift lines. Right. We're flying the same height band, usually between 14,000 and 15,000 and 17,500.
Some who are between 15 and 75. That is for the most part where I spend my time. Almost all of my cross country flights are almost all in that height. So mid
airs must happen.
They they do happen. Yeah. They don't happen that often. We're more concerned about them than. Than is statistically. Sure. Appropriate, if you will. Right. In Europe. In Europe, it's a bigger concern because there's more glider traffic, much more glider traffic, especially Germany and in the Alps. Yeah. That's where you have a lot more glider traffic. But but but for us, it's a big concern. That's why we have all that technology in gliders. And so now I'm saying, you know, I'm always monitoring. I'm like, I know where my buddies are flying. I the entire flight. I know where people are. Yeah. And we also will make radio calls to each other and say, you know, I'm here. I'm I'm I'm over. I'm over Mount Evans and I'm northbound 17,000 feet northbound.
And so everyone knows northbound means that he's going to fly along the. Convergence. Right.
And exactly nowhere. Right. So and so we monitor each other and we so we communicate with one another. And so we're trying to have this situational awareness and mental. Picture of where everybody is.
Yeah. And our our new various are often they often have that form now. And it's you know, it's it's slowly transitioning. You have
flying now. Yeah. It's slowly
transitioning. Not many people here because because it's just it's not nearly as well. You know, most other pilots don't have it yet that, you know, when you're in the Alps, it's you know, it's highly recommended because everybody's got, you know, all the sailplanes have them. And and but here we just like you said, there's. Not that much traffic. And so I think it's been a much slower uptake. It's definitely, you know, people are talking about on the forums and stuff. And I think, you know, hopefully it'll it'll get there. You know, the big the big change for us has been, you know, pretty much every pilot has an in reach these days. And that's. Yeah, we fly with those two.
Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure you do. I mean, they it must be complicated because you've got a lot less room to carry stuff. Yeah. And everything's a weight decision. You
have to carry
it up the mountain. Yeah. Right. I mean, you you basically. Absolutely. Carry all.
Yeah. I mean, we're trying we try to trim wherever we possibly can. But, you know, but our our various are, you know, they're in the low grams, they're tiny. And it's just a it's just an audible Vario and it connects to your phone, you know, so the phone has really eliminated a lot of the stuff that we used to have to carry. And and then and the F arm is built in there, you know, so it's it's tiny. It's just no big deal. What we don't have is, you know, a very easy way. You know, you'd have to have another device. They have it on the phone now, too, to show you, you know, to so we see you, too. It mostly is set up so you can see us and we rely on you because you've got a nice cockpit and, you know, you've got better instruments to avoid us. It's not so much the other way around. So
you're you're much less maneuverable. You're just much slower. That's it. I mean, if you came right at us, you're we're toast. Hard to avoid. Right. I mean, I'm super careful when I fly with paragliders. I mean, I enjoy it. I really enjoy it. And they use, you know, it's just it's kind of fun to to get up people circling in the middle and you just flying around them. And it's a it's a nice competition and see if I can if I can keep up.
Yeah. And I, I, you know, we I've never talked to anybody that minds flying with sailplanes. It's always a wave and we're psyched, you know, and it's just it's always thrilling for us to see, you know, how fast you go. You know, so Chuck asked me, you know, is it annoying to fly with sailplanes? I've never you know, I've heard of a couple mid airs with sailplanes and and paragliders in in the Alps. And they've the ones I've heard about have been catastrophic for both parties. You know, so it's something obviously we're careful about. And but we know you are, too. And you know, same thing. You don't turn nearly as tight as we do. So when we're in a thermal together, it's pretty easy to share.
Yeah. Yeah. It's usually it's not it's usually it's not a problem. I mean, there's only so many people I can watch out for it. So if there's more. Than three or four in the gaggle, I tend to stay away from it. I don't I don't like to fly. Yeah. When you have a gaggle of with 20 paragliders, this is not it's not I'm not going to I'm not going to mess with that.
Clemens, what's the what's the in your sport? You know, I hung out with Gary Asoba quite a bit. I think a legend and, you know, hang gliding. He was the one that found Zapata or a group of those guys found Zapata. I'm not sure if it was actually him, but, you know, I've talked to him quite a bit. He's down in Moriarty and he talks about flying speed. You know, his his big thing now is flying really, really fast and and not so much, you know, the ten hour, eleven hour trying to break distance records, but trying to get around the course or the task as fast as possible, you know, more nose down, kind of flying like you talked about. It sounds like an X contest now or however you do use X contest. Is that
nice? It's different. It's different. OK,
so but. Is it, you know, are you building towards Perlan? You know, is that just the ultimate in sailplanes or what is it?
No, Perlan is very specific. It's one glider that is specifically built to fly in ultra high weave. It has to have a pressurized cockpit. I mean, it's not our world. I mean, we watch Perlan out of great interest, right? We're fascinated by it, but it's more as a spectator. I had a chance to, they had a simulator for Perlan at the last soaring convention and you could fly in the simulator and land the Perlan thing. You almost can't see out of this glider because the windows are on the side and they're like round holes and you can't even look straight. Oh, really? It wouldn't be for me, no.
No, the gliders, I would say there's a few different, I mean, there's a few different gliders. Oh, really? Like in all sports, right? People have different intentions, but the sport of soaring, I would say there is comps. Obviously, there's racing. So people who just enjoy that and that is more, is as much of a social thing than anything else. You just like to compete and you like to fly with your friends. That's where you go to soaring contests. You don't usually use the full day. You don't fly as far as you could, right? So, for example, at this 18-meter nationals that I mentioned, we had like a
couple of days of soaring contests. We had like
the most amazing weather. We had one of the fastest soaring flights that were ever flown, which is pretty amazing. We had almost everybody finished with more than 100 miles per hour average speed. So the winning speed, John Seaborn, our local champion here, he finished that day first. He flew 188 kph, so 118 miles per hour, I believe, 118 miles per hour. This was over a 568 kilometer task. But we only flew 118 miles per hour. We only flew a 568 kilometer task. That day would have supported easily 1500 because that was just an absolutely amazing day, right? But that's what you do at contests. You fly with friends, you fly fast, you compete, you're having fun, right?
So that's one that's one set. There is a few guys, and I really admire them, that do these absolutely amazing, spectacular flights. A lot of them are in Europe. I don't... There's not a lot
of... There's not a lot
in the US, but I'm super fascinated by them. I find it super inspiring. There's a guy called Klaus Ohlmann. He's... Yes. I think he's... I've been trying to get
him on the show. I want to get him on the show. Must be around
80 or something. I'm not sure, but he's like... Legend. He's amazing. A legend. Absolutely a legend. And he would fly these unbelievable flights where he takes off in France, in the Alps, and then he crosses the sea to Corsica, and then he climbs in wave over Corsica. And then he will fly over to Italy. And then he flew from Italy. He flew down in Italy, flew down to the Suez, Sicily. Then he climbed in wave. What? He crossed over to Greece. And then he crossed Greece. Jesus. He crossed Greece and landed close to the Turkish border. What? Isn't that unbelievable in a sail
plane? So I've heard all these triangle stories that blow my mind, but you're basically following the Alps. This is... What? Are you serious? That is crazy. I'm serious.
That was last year or two years before, two years ago, something like that, a year ago. Unbelievable flight. Oh my God. Another guy did the same Corsica thing to Italy, but he then flew a triangle back. He flew north in Italy. So he had to go in wave across to Corsica, and then in wave to go, climb in wave in Corsica high enough to get to Italy. And then he had to reach, he reach soar the portion, and then he thermal soar through the Po Valley, which was almost impossible. And they need to get back over through thermals over the Alps to make it back to the starting point. And that was a triangle flight. Awesome. So there's some unbelievable inspiring flights that people can do.
Where in North America are they doing stuff like that that you're looking at going? Is it the Owens? Is it the stuff they're doing out in Nevada, Stan? Is it
just... Yeah, the Owens. Well, the Owens Valley is... I mean, the Owens Valley is amazing conditions. Yeah. But it tends to be like this north-south route that is just... Down back. You
can go
extremely fast flights because you're... And that's usually most of them are in wave. So you do in the Sierra Nevada wave, it is north-south. The Yo-Yo runs at exceptionally high speed. They don't interest me that much personally because it's kind of flying in waves. It's once you figured out how to do it, it's kind of boring and cold. So I always freeze my feet off. And you just... You know where to point it and you just go straight. And they go straight all day long. They never circle. Not once.
Do you fly in sleeping bags and stuff? How high can you get and literally not turn into an ice cube in your plane when they're not pressurized? When does it start to just get beyond...
Depends on the season. I mean, in the summer when we fly, we have to fly below class A most of the time, right? So there's very few places we... There are some places where you can get localized wave windows where you can climb higher. But most of the time we fly below 18,000.
Oh, okay. So you're not going... You're not boosting the 40s
and stuff. I mean, there are... The Colorado state record is 45,000 feet. So that would freeze everything off. But not many people do those high altitude flying is a very niche thing. And it's sort of... And it's because it's kind of capped by... Whether you have a pressurized cockpit or not, there are no new records to break, really. The only way you break new records is with a Perlin glider. Okay. Right? So it's... And if you don't break records, it's... Whether you climb to 30,000 feet or to 34,000 feet, it's just... To me, it doesn't do anything.
I got you. Yeah. It doesn't do anything. What sort of...
What sort of,
you know, would inspire me would be like a flight from, you know, across all the Rockies. Like if you could fly from a desert...
Kempton Izuno is the guy who proposed that flight. That would go from Boulder to the Pacific Ocean. That would be pretty amazing. If you could fly in one day from Boulder, take off in Boulder and land in California at the coast and do it in one day. That would be pretty big.
What would that... What would that route look like?
It would go... Well, it would... First, it would cross the front range. I would probably do it at the sort of, you know, northwest of Estes and then fly along the Rabbit Ears Range. And then from there, there's ridges north of the Moab area. If you go north of Moab... Yeah.
You know, you can see where
these Mesa Plateaus are. Yeah. You know, basically along these mesas into the high Uintas. And then along the Uintas. And then you cross into the western desert west of... Basically, rear south a little bit, north of Nephi, south of Salt Lake City. Get out of that, you know, don't get into the airspace there. Yeah. Towards Eli, Nevada.
Okay. And then
from there... Yeah. You can make it from there to the Owens Valley and then you're... Up and over. You're up and over, yeah. Whoa.
See, that's the kind of stuff, you know, even a short version of that would be exceptionally rare for us because it's always west, you know, and we just can't go against the wind. I mean, you get these, you know, spring and fall, you get these rare days where... I
don't know if that flight is doable, but it's an inspiring idea. Oh, God,
that'd be incredible. What a party when you get there. Yeah.
Wow. That's amazing. I mean, I got to look at Klaus's flights. I had no idea he was doing that. I knew he was, you know, I'd heard about these monster 1500K FAI triangles, you know, seven countries in a day type stuff that would just be amazing, you know, flying the Maritimes and the high Alps and just seeing it all in one day would be incredible. But I just... I didn't know they were crossing the Med and
wow, into
Greece? I mean, that is
unbelievably... It's amazing, right? That's absolutely amazing. I just... I had no idea that was possible. There's now guys who've connected the Alps and the Pyrenees. Yeah. And that is another amazing thing, right? Where you fly the Alps and then you basically make the jump over to the Pyrenees and you fly the Pyrenees. Oh, see,
this is the thing about, you know... Ah, the sailplanes are so cool. It's just that, you know, it's... I hope people listening to this go, yeah, okay, now I really got to do this because, you know, it's one of these things I've thought about for... I've always just thought, yeah, you know, someday, you know, like you said, when my landing gear is not as good, then I'll get into sailplanes. But, you know, that's just got to be incredible. Well,
you should come back to Boulder to your alma mater and we'll go flying.
Let's do it. Let's do it. How about that? I'll take you up on that. Let's do it. Clemens, thank you very much. What a joy. And this was a lot of fun. And I
hope you have a great day.
And I really appreciate your time. Thanks for sharing this with me. And good luck with your... Good luck with racing and your speedy education there. And congratulations on the success you've already had.
Well, thank you. I mean, thanks for having me. This was a ton of fun. I'm going to, you know, this is... I'm going to go back and listen to your past episodes because it's... I go trail running. I need something to listen to. This is perfect. Great. Great.
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