Hi there everybody, welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. I have a really cool show for you this week with an Israeli-born pilot, Eliya Zemmour, who is now living in Switzerland, but still goes back to his homeland pretty frequently to knock out flights. And on his last trip, he broke the country record, a smasher from way down south to way up north, and we dissect the flight and talk about how he found the launch, and there are some difficulties with flying Israel. Obviously, the borders are no-go zones with Jordan and Syria, and I got to get a lot more geographically aware having this talk, and I pretty much just looked at everything.
I looked at his ex-contest, and looked at his flight, and looked at the countries around him, and Egypt, of course, but it was fascinating, and beautiful, and it's not without its difficulties, but if you're willing to give it a go, it's pretty special. So, yeah, we talk about his flying in Israel, and how he got into it, and how he thinks about going there, and the seasons, and I think it's all pretty inspiring. I have no housekeeping in this one. I just got back from a very adventurous ex-Alps, where I was covering a lot of it there, and I know many of you reached out and said you enjoyed that, and it was pretty wild, and pretty incredible pace this year, and tons of fun, and hopefully I have a job there in the future.
I decided not to compete again and do that, because it was a blast. I really enjoyed it. It was cool getting in the air with everybody every day, and went straight from there to Chelan for U.S. National. I just got back from that, so I need some sleep. That's what I'm going to go do. Enjoy this show. Cheers.
Eliya, welcome to the show. We've been trying to put this together for a few weeks. Thanks for your patience, and I thought I'd be talking to you in Israel, but it's looking out your window. You're not in Israel. It sounds like you're in Chamonix, huh?
I'm in lovely Chamonix. Hey, Gavin, how's it going? Fantastic. It's going great. Thank you. Great, great. Thank you very much for having me. You
bet. You bet. I understand the weather's turning, and it's shaping up over there. I'm going to get on the flight tomorrow to come over and be in your part of the woods, but you've been getting some good flying lately? I
had a couple of good flights. Not too many, actually. This is in April and May. We're not very stable, and it seems like winter was dragging longer than usual here. But the last one, two weeks were... We're quite back into normal routine, and it's getting better, and I'm hoping to do a bit more flying.
Excellent. Yeah, I saw the first 300K FAIs go down about a week and a half ago. There were some nice ones over in Austria, and some really good flights in the Wallis, and it looks like things are shaping up.
Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. I mean, every year I look on the flight, and I see it's getting bigger and bigger. It seems like more and more pilots are able to crack the 300. It's pretty amazing. I mean, the level right now in Europe is just insane.
Yeah, it's really incredible. I just watched the world, and the consistency of the top guys, especially the French this year. Holy smokes. They really put it together. It's very impressive. Do
you compete as well? I'm not doing a lot of competitions, to be honest. I tested, actually, for a while, and it's great to get better. And you learn a lot, but I'm not really, I don't like flying in a goggle.
So I'm more trying to do, like, adventurous flying and going cross country.
So give us a little bit about your history and why you reached out, and what are we going to talk about today? I'd like to hear more about certainly flying in Israel, and yeah, what brings you to the mayhem?
Well, basically, I grew up in Israel. I'm an Israeli and French, but I spent my childhood in Israel. And then around the age of 19, I moved to Europe, and then I started to do a bit of mountaineering, a bit of climbing, and at some point, I started to do some flying.
I got back to Israel.
And approximately six, seven years ago, I started to visit a bit more Israel, more regularly. And I started to go over there with my glider and see what I can do. And then I discovered it's quite an interesting place to fly in for many reasons, actually. You have a lot of sun over there. So it's a great destination if you're trying to escape from the winter in Europe. I want to say, again, just to understand that a lot of people around the world now fly over there. And you can do that with more than 300 sunny days per year. I mean, you can do quite a lot over there. And it's very versatile.
Yes. So it's, I mean, it doesn't matter if you're a beginner or an expert, you can always find something interesting to fly over there. So in just, you know, half an hour from Tel Aviv, you have this lovely beach soaring, which is very, you know, kind of exciting. social, a social flying just along, just above the boulevard, and um, it's, it's quite lovely. And, and you can, you know, it's kind of a cheap air time, and it's very nice. You land, you go for a beer. The north is completely different than that. You have a beautiful lake at the north, and, and you're flying above a green meadows, and the south will look completely different, right?
And the south will be a full-on desert, and, and very remote, very wild, and a lot of places to explore over there. So it's a, um, it's quite interesting in that aspect. It's, it's a big menu for flying, and, and you can just decide how you would like to spend it over there. The other interesting part, it's, it's, it's, it's a very small country, so you can, you know, within two, three hours of driving, you can pretty
Um, the entire country and visit different areas, and each one of them will look like completely different countries and
What? What is the season? Is it year-round? Because you're, you're quite a way south. You're, you know, south side of the med and, uh, I would imagine it's, it's relatively warm year-round. Is that
Right, yes, you can fly over there year-round. I mean, I have to say that, I mean, to begin with, whatever I know about Israel, it's only from the months I'm visiting over there, which
Is a year, and then a bit of March before I started the ski touring season in Europe. And so that's kind of my experience over there in Israel, and it's—it's very interesting. If you would like to go big, shoulder seasons are the best, I would say, around April, May, and okay, during the summer, it's—uh, it's getting hot with a lot of a west wind, and it's very consistent. Uh, you might not be able to—uh, quite big in terms of distance, but you will be able to—to fly every day somewhere and
What are, what are the challenges of you? What are the things people should know before setting up a trip and going there to fly? What are the, what are the—is there, is there tough airspace, or are the borders, you know, could you fly over the border, for example, into Jordan, or is that just no way, you know, in the country?
Yeah, it's not going to be a very smart idea. Um, it's a—I mean, politically, it's a bit sensitive, so don't try to do anything stupid like flying close to the borders. You have a—in the north, the border with Lebanon, Syria, and that's a—that's a bit of a sensitive area. In the south, it's close to Egypt, and in the east, you have Jordan. Um, I wouldn't get too close to the borders. Um, it's—it's sensitive, it's a sensitive system over there. But I think that the first stop over there will be to speak with the local community. The local community of the pilots in Israel are super supportive, and they know a lot about, you know, where you can fly and where it's not going to be a very good idea.
Um, it's—it's, you know, it's a very—it's a very young sport in Israel, and most of it is not regulated, so—I there are no very—there are no hard rules of what you can do and what you cannot do. You just have to use your common sense and try not to fly above, you know, military bases or airports, basically things that you wouldn't try to do worry about anywhere, exactly, pretty much.
And what are the conditions like? Is it... are you launching off, you know, how high are the mountains? Is it... what would you compare it to? Is it like flying in Greece? That's kind of what I'm imagining in my mind, or Macedonia, or... or that totally... is that totally wrong?
Um, I'm not sure about Greece. I never flew over there, but uh, it's not similar to anything I flew before. I mean, it is a flatland; it is in the category of flatland, but it's not behaving like Colombia. I mean, in, in Colombia, it works textbook, right? I mean, you, you get into a thermal, you, you maximize your altitude, and you glide out, search for the next thermal, and you keep going, right? In, in Israel, the flying style is, is very different. Um, it seems because of the predominant wind, um, you always have to work with the wind, so try to choose your takeoff according to that. And once you get into a climb, um, I think that the best thing is try to stay in the thermal and try to, as while you're in it, you will realize that the thermal is definitely is wandering and, and you just, you know, being over there, you realize that you already did like 20, 30 kilometers until you lose it, and then you start to, to search again for a thermal.
Um, I haven't seen this in, in any other places in the world. I haven't seen this in Colombia, definitely not in the Alps, um, not in Mexico. So, I, it's something that you need to be able to, to understand and, and adopt your flying style according to it. Uh, but once you get it, you're going to be able to do it, and you're going to, you can do a lovely distance. The other interesting, uh, feature that you have over there is that there is a often convergence between west and east, and if you will be able to, to find that wave, you will be able to, to do, you know, you can go big over there. Oh, so what, what's the record there?
A 228 and
that's yours and
That's mine, yes. That's, uh, that's
my record, and that's my record, and that's
Actually, quite a reason from, uh, from last kind of a loaded
question yeah
It was, uh, it was a very, uh, very interesting flight, uh, from, from last March, actually. Uh, it was just magic, uh, magic conditions, and I was just in the right time and in the right place to do that, and so
I'm looking at a map. Take me through it. Where'd
you start where'd you end so um that That weekend, there was a south wind, so I figured out if I want to go big, I have to pick up something in the south. I mean, I think it started... Good to to start by just describing it's a bit of a limited, a country in terms of size. It's very small, um, from a west to east, I mean, the country is very, very narrow. It's 60 kilometers, so if you want to go big, you have to go north to south or south to, uh, to north, where you have approximately 400 kilometers. A valuable or very, and that weekend it was a south wind with cloud base approximately in 2400 meters, and I figured out if I will be able to find the takeoff around the around the south part of the country, then I will be able to go as north as I can.
Um, so a few months before that, I was visiting in the country and I went with my girlfriend into a just a biking tour and I managed to to venture in the In the mountains in the south, and I found this lovely, um, a south-facing cliff, and I just, you know, threw the coordination into my mobile and I said, "You know, if I will tackle the right conditions, I need to check it out." And and then I went to Colombia and completely forgot about it, and when I, um, when I came back, um, like the first weekend I was there, and suddenly, you know, the perfect forecast for that, I was preparing myself, and by three o'clock in the morning I was driving, uh, down to the south, which is—you need to understand—it's like really full-on, a full-on desert.
It's quite remote, um, not a lot of a population over there, and
And I got, I'm looking at pictures right now. I just want to describe this to folks who are listening. I'm looking at elo at the north end of the gulf of, how do you call that? Is that a keba? Is that the... is that the gulf of a keba?
Akaba, yeah, Akaba. That's—that's the Jordanian side. The Israeli side is a lot a
lot, yeah, okay, a lot. I'm looking at pictures of a lot now. Those mountains look pretty big, and man, is it dry? Wow, but the mountains look pretty sizable there. Um,
Well, not compared to the pictures, yeah. But I mean, no.
No, no, but yeah, the Otavara, oh, it looks beautiful. It
Is it is beautiful? I mean, this is the closest thing that that you can imagine. If you will fly above the moon, it's a, it's pretty neat.
Yeah, it's amazing. Okay, so where—where—what was the name of the the area that you started down there? Am I in the right zone? Were you that far south or north of that? Yes,
So, approximately around Akaba, I mean, you will see that there is a cliff that basically crossing from south to north, and on that cliff, I found a north—a south-facing, a south-facing wall, and I climbed over there and
And and the forecast was just completely misleading, you know? I got to the takeoff and just backwind inversion, uh, just completely different than forecast and just, okay, you know, that's the way it is. And I, I realized I'm will not be able to do much with it and just went running and I camped that night on a on the takeoff and the following morning, that that was when the actual proper forecast came into realization, and already pretty much in the morning. Nine o'clock, it was working already, and I could see birds above me, and the wind was already, you know, you, you could feel that it's working quite well with 25 kilometers per hour, and I took off from there.
I mean, the, the first hour were kind of a rodeo, and it was, you know, a lot of work to, to keep the, the glider open above my head, but I was like, "Oh my god, I'm going to be able to do much with it," and after an hour, I managed to go into 1400 meters, and I said, "All right, let's, let's glide to the north," and it just worked like a magic. Everywhere I was gliding, I just found the thermal at the end of the glide, and, and the more I progress into, into midday, you know, that the altitude is getting better and better, and, um, and there is some point in the flight where you need to make a decision whether you stick into the road, just flying above the road, or you need to make a decision whether you, or you're, just going into a very remote part of the country where it's, you know, if you bomb out over there, you really are going to, to have like a proper expedition to get out of there, are
You flying up the... are you... are you just looking at these roads? There's a couple north-south roads and you're... you're pretty much right on the border of Jordan. I'm imagining, are you going up the road kind of Lotan and Yahail and Paran? Is that the exactly...
Exactly, so if you continue without... exactly, so if you continue without that road, it's pretty much a safe flight. So if you bomb out, you can always hitchhike somewhere, but until you get, like, you know, 30, 40 kilometers, after that the road is going either, um, either to the west or, or to the north. And in the middle, you have, you know, a piece of desert that's called Thin Desert, which is quite remote, and you would like to go over there only if you're pretty sure that you can, um, clear it out. So
Are you, are you basically heading towards the Dead Sea then? And that's in this part of the flight? Yes, you're
heading into, oh wow, yeah
it's wow
It looks amazing. It's, it's pretty, a pretty cool area to fly about. It's just super wild, but, but I was super lucky that you're by
yourself yeah
I was flying solo; I didn't have any partners with me and but but conditions were perfect. I couldn't ask for any better conditions and and it was just a lot of surface, just just going up very easily and somewhere around
around, I don't know if you, if you see that village over there, um, I encountered a beautiful inversion, which is basically a wind coming from the south and from the east, and once I was on that, it was just a highway, you know, just put a speed bar and just go as, as far as you can. Um, at that point, you know, any, any nylon bag would, would go pretty, pretty far.
start hucking balloons out of your harness and try to beat them
Exactly, exactly. So it was, it was a lovely feeling from that because, you know, the flight became super easy. It was easy, and it's just, uh, just maximizing. And, you know, there are some flights that you are very much, very much aware of yourself, and and you are in control, but you're always kind of, you know, you're very on it. And some flights
Are in a state of hyper flow, you just... it's almost like you can look at yourself from, from a side, can't
Do anything wrong, exactly?
And and I think that at that point I was just in a really flow state. Um, everything was on automat pilot and for three, four hours I was, I was in that zone and it was just mind-blowing. I mean, you fly and and at some point you're crossing above, above Jerusalem and and you see that the Dead Sea just, um, just to the east of you and and you're crossing this, this amazing part of the country which is a full-on desert and then you go into, into the more, you know, populated area and, um, it is, it's very interesting. It's very interesting, so I just at some point, you know, it was still
winter winter time, so approximately around three o'clock, I started to feel that, uh, thermals are getting a bit weak and and you need to, you need to be careful where you're going to land over there. I mean, some parts, um, around Jerusalem are not the best place to to land, um, uh, just because it's, you know, politically a bit, a bit complicated over there. So you want to be able to to go into into the valley area of of the Dead Sea and and land over there and over there, which is a bit more a calm down. And so approximately around three o'clock, I started to realize that from here on there is a good possibility I'm going to bomb out. And then I was starting to kind of, you know, take my flight more to the north northeast and I just took my last glide over there and it was lovely.
I'm
Having trouble understanding the border here. Is that it is, is is half of the Dead Sea in Jordan? Is that what that is, or is that a ferry route? I can't tell what's going on here. Is it
Well, you're many people like, you are going to be very much confused about the borders over there. You know, it's a very, um, gray area. Um, it's, it, part of it is disputed, right? I mean, this is what I mean, part of it will be sure what you call like the, the Palestinian, um, territory and, but, but that will be the part which is somewhere, um, middle of that sea, then towards Jerusalem. Okay? Yes. Okay, and
And what are the... I mean, could I just come to Israel tomorrow and go flying, you know, hook up with the locals and go flying? Is that safe? Or, or do I really need to understand? I mean, were you thinking a lot about how where you were going and where you were going to land? Or as long as you kind of land on a road or nearby road, you're all right? So, I mean...
You need to be able to get in touch with the with the community, because you're all going to get quite a lot of information about a takeoff, a takeoff area, which are, you know, pretty critical in a in a flatland, a flatland zone.
Um, so I, I think it's a, it's a good idea to, I mean, that will be the, the first stop, but within that, I mean, do your homework, you know, read the maps and try to, to understand where are you flying and what the wind is doing that day. And like, within that, uh, within that boundary, I mean, you have a lot of a area to play with, but yes, absolutely. I mean, you can pack a glider tomorrow morning and then just go and fly over there.
Well, I'm just, I'm, I'm loving looking at the maps here, just imagining it all. Incredible. I, I can't, for some reason, X Contest is, is blocking. I don't know what's going on, but I can't pull up your flight. Where did you end? I'm looking at your flight, but there's no map or anything. It just shows 228.6k, but it does. I don't know, I've reloaded a million times. I can't. Something's wrong with X Contest right now, but how? Where did you, did you get past Jerusalem?
Yes, uh, not by much. I landed just after
Okay, I see it. Oh, wow! That must have been so cool. And now tell me, what you know—the the Israeli flying community is big. It was this pretty inspiring to the community. Are there lots of people chasing it now and trying to beat your record? Are they going back to that same spot, or how many people fly in here? It is finally came up. I see it. Okay, how many people fly in in Israel? What, how big is the community there?
I think that you have approximately 400 active pilots, um, so I wouldn't say that it's a very big community, but it's very active. So I thought it was
Bigger than that? Yeah, okay. They
Are flying around, I mean, year-round. And I have to say that the the level over there is pretty, pretty good. Um, I've seen as well, you know, Israeli pilots that never flew in the Alps, and then they're coming to the Alps and it's completely different terrain, right? I mean, you need to understand how to fly in the in in big mountains. So they, they, you know, they give it a go and they get it, they get it because you, they know how to tackle a, you know, a lot of wind, and they know how to, how to, how to, you know, the takeoffs in Israel are sometimes not the easiest, and they're able to, to fly pretty well. So it's quite a, quite incredible to, to see that, um, the majority of the classical, um, routes are actually not necessarily in the south.
There are more in the north where you see a, from, you know, from the west, if you see a bit of north to Tel Aviv, Zikron, you can cross from there toward the Kineret. That will be a lovely 70 kilometers, 70, 80 kilometers, and you have a lot, a lot of flying going on around completely in the north, uh, from the Tavore, which is around the Galilee area, uh, that's also a very popular, uh, flying area. And, and if you don't have a lot of wind that day, you can really be creative and go in many directions. Um, but, but you know, you need to remember that the, during, you know, from May until October, you have a pretty predominant west, um, going on.
So you need to remember that the wind is blowing, so you, I mean, within that period of time, you can only go east, so it's something important. And how
Much of a sea breeze? How much of a sea breeze effect is there? Is that just a daily occurrence? Yeah,
It's very, um, it's very present over there. You need to think about your takeoff in, in those terms. You cannot, it's not like in the Alps where you know, as long as you don't have a strong wind, you can pretty much go anywhere and, and take off. you really have to think about what's the meteorological wind and and work with it on the other end you don't have the wind valley system which is pretty awesome
And is there, do you tow there much, or is it all foot launching? It's
All foot launching, uh, there was an attempt to to work with, uh, with towing a bit. I think that it's not being done anymore, and and actually it's, it's pity because I think that especially in the south, where it's a bit more challenging to to find a, uh, to find a takeoff, especially around Bear Chevrolet, I think that you can do wonders with the with towing.
Yeah, it seems like a good towing place. Would the roads be conducive to that? You know, not much traffic? Are there dirt roads that you could use for, for towing?
Um, in the... in the north, yes. In the north, yes, not very much. In the south, in... in the south, it's a bit like flying in very remote area. I'm talking like India or Pakistan. I mean, you need to be ready, um, to... to fly with, you know, BB gear and to be ready to spend the night out and make sure that you have an InReach and everything. Um, that's if you're planning to go big in the south. Some areas, if you're going to bomb out, you might have a very good chance to spend the night out and... and like walk for 20, 30 kilometers. God...
I love it. That's awesome. I mean, I don't, I, I would imagine most people listening are like me, that that blows them away a little bit. You don't think of Israel being really super remote. I think of it being, you know, very populated and and like you said, small and. But you're right. I mean, I'm looking at the map here and you've got, you know, you've got the the population center around Jerusalem and then it just goes into full desert.
Exactly, exactly, and and there are two main main features over there, which which are really really cool. So one one will be the the Dead Sea area, which is, you know, first of all, beside the fact that you're in the lowest lowest place on earth, that's, you know, minus 400 meters, it's just stunning. It's a stunning area, and I mean, you cannot do big cross country from from the Dead Sea because of the inversion over there, and everything is very very stable. But hike and fly wise, wow, that's that's, I think, this is really a nice place to explore. And then you have another feature, which are the the craters. The craters in Israel are just just massive balls in the ground, you know, some of them are in a in a radius of over approximately like, you know, 20 30 kilometers, where this is like flying in the moon, and it's pretty high.
We're talking about 900 meters above a above a sea level, and it's working pretty well in the in the shoulder seasons, and and the beautiful part of it as well that you can I mean, if you're willing to walk a bit, you can. From you can take off from every part of the crater; you just need to walk and just find the the proper edge against the wind, soar a bit, take the take the altitude, and and then you can go somewhere just
Now it finally came up on X contest. Did you have cloud support all day, um?
Not much, uh, not much actually that day. I mean, that specific, uh, record flight I did, uh, last March, I, I had like a lot of time to do that, so I'm not sure if it's going to be a completely blue day, um, but very often, if you have conversion, you definitely see this, uh, from, you know, across the Arava Desert, from, from a lot, uh, all the way to the, all the way to the, let's see, it's very easy to see that conversion and, um, yeah, I mean the thermals over there, especially around them, it's peramon also generating a lot of clouds. How
How far do you think you could go? What's—what's on the table there? Could you fly southern border to northern border, or reverse? I mean, could you get all the way to Haifa, for example? It's not too much farther than where you went, really. I guess you could all
Right, I... I think that maybe
That's no, that's probably too much. That's probably too far to the west, though. You'd probably hit the sea breeze as you got up there, right?
Um, could be, but I think that, uh, if you pick up a day which is not very, um, and I mean not too predominant west wing, west wind, then I think that, I mean, you can go pretty far. I mean, you have to remember that in March I was still working on a winter clock, so I was, you know, by three o'clock I was already pretty much with a weak sun. If you're looking on some of the forecasting in May and April, you will be, you will be able to cloud base in three thousand meters and, um, and and north wind or south wind, which are pretty good for flying, and you have another three, four hours of daylight
So, if you take my flight at another three, four hours, you, yeah, you can. I think that you can do the 300 kilometers.
Yeah, like Nazareth, or something. That'd be pretty neat. Go in and Nazareth. Oh, amazing. You, you talked about, you know, just how some flights you can't really do anything wrong, you're just in flow. Is that something you've experienced a bunch? Rarely. And if, if, if, if so, when you do experience, is it something you can, if you found, you can kind of induce and and, uh, you know, do something in your mind to get you into flow, or is it, it just happens? It's
It's very, it's very different from, uh, from one flight to another. I mean, all of my, you know, big flights, I can, I can, I can attest that I was, I was in a flow mode. I had another three, I mean, I had another 200 kilometers flight, a triangle in a fish, a last year, and I, and I was definitely in that zone. I had a 200 kilometers, a, a week and a half ago from on a sea, and I, I experienced that. I feel like when, when everything is turning into automatic pilot and, and you just let the wing fly and, and you stop calculating too much and you just put your fears aside, um, this is when you can really maximize your performance. And that's as well, I mean, how it works for me when I'm overthinking it, when I'm, I'm not listening to my instincts, when I'm trying to, yeah, basically just overthink the day, um, or set up too much expectations, then, then this is, yeah, well, just I'm not performing so well and somehow just I'm trying too hard or thinking too much about it, it's not, it's not working that well when
You think about flying in Israel? Sounds like you travel quite a bit. You're down in Columbia, you've experienced flying in different parts of the world. You know, it's just not something we hear about too much. Flying in Israel, would... would Israel be a destination you would go to fly if you didn't have the history there and the and that you hadn't grown up there? Is it... is it... is it warrant that kind of... is it... Is the flying that good that everybody should know about this and start getting over there and and sending it, I
Mean, I wouldn't go to Israel and try to break my personal record, right? That, that's something I wouldn't do because I, I cannot say that, you know. Every day is a magic day, I mean. It comes, you have like, I don't know, like 10 days like that in, in a season, um. But okay, if you would like to, to find a cool country where you know, you, you can maximize your, your, your air time and still enjoy exploring a country on, you know, air and ground, and I think, I think it's, it, it is something to look at. I, I wouldn't go over there if I didn't have the, the connection I have with Israel. I have to admit, um, but because I have that connection, it kind of forced me to do, you know, try to maximize my airtime in Israel and, and my nature, I like to go and, and explore and explore areas, and I went over there and saw what I could do with the, with the paraglider and, um, I came across those, those beautiful lines, um.
So, that was inspiring for me. I mean, I, I'm always trying to do something which is a bit off the beaten route. I mean, if I did something, I'm trying to go into another area and try to do something a bit different.
Is it a an appropriate place to maybe do some some bivy, or is it just too dry, or maybe bivy with car support or something, ah?
Probably with the car support, but it's not the best place for BV, simply because you have a limited area of takeoffs. Um, yeah, you don't have a lot of mountains over there, and and the view that you have, it's a bit, you know, sometimes problematic to to go over there. I mean, for example, you have the Hermon in in the north, but you need to have authorization from from the military to take off over there. So, I, you know, I wouldn't, and sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. Um, so I wouldn't count on it. And let's say if you, if you take off from there and you bomb out somewhere in the in the center of the country, I mean, to hike to a takeoff might be a bit, you know, be a bit of a a bit difficult.
So, what I do recommend is hike and fly. Hike and fly days, especially around the Dead Sea, is just magnificent. It's it's it's very beautiful, and it's remote, but not too remote. You you still have a um, you know, the highway, which is kind of crossing uh crossing the Dead Sea uh south north. Um, but it's a it's a beautiful hike, and for people especially that didn't didn't taste the the desert. Uh, that could be, you know, quite, uh, quite a kick have
You spent much time in nearby Jordan? I hear wonderful things about Jordan. I've never heard of anything about it for flying. It looks—it looks very flat. But, uh, do you know—have you flown in Jordan? Do you know much about Jordan? I
Uh, so when, when, when you go flying in the Dead Sea, you always see that the Jordanian side, right, which is it's not flat at all. You, they have mountains of 2500 meters over there, and it's whoa, yeah, it's just crossing Israel from north to south, and I think that you can do amazing stuff over there. I, I never flew over there, actually. I was planning, uh, to go over there for a, for a small expedition with a few Swiss friends. The problem over there is you need to get a special authority to fly over there. I got in contact with a local community in Jordan, but it seems like they're just very pessimistic about, uh, what kind of a, you know, pyramid you can get to to explore the area, um, but
Um, if if we put aside, you know, the what you can do with with the authorities and just focus on the on the flying part, I think it's it's super interesting area to fly in
I mean, when you, when you look at Google Earth, you know, compared to Israel or Egypt, I mean, man, it's a long distance between places. There's, there's not a lot of towns and stuff, yeah? It just looks, it looks vast. It
Is it? Is vast? It is, and, uh, but, but, you know, it's not a boring desert. It's not like all of it is like the Sahara and just boring dunes; it's, it's very, very technical terrain. You have like gorges, and you have a lot of cliffs, and some of it is dunes, and some of it is just rough terrain, and it goes from a 1000 meter above a above sea level into minus 400 meters, so it's just you have it's a very versatile terrain, beautiful, just beautiful. I
Was recently watching a documentary on the... the, I think it is the, yeah, here it is, the King Salman Royal Nature Reserve in Saudi. And I mean, you look—I'm looking at it from space right now—it's just massive. That is incredible. Yeah, it's a neat part of the world, isn't it? I... I... it's a... it's a... it's a part world that you know, on this side of the pond, we don't discover, we don't get, we don't get to that part of the world very much. And I had... I had a couple clients on my boat, you know, when I back in my boat days, that were from Israel. And they... the way they spoke about it just... just sounds magical. And you know, the... the sea and the... and the Dead Sea and the... and the towns and the food, I'd go there just to eat.
Yeah. it's hard to
compete with the food in Israel, it's pretty awesome. It's pretty awesome and, and you know, I mean, awesome. You can visit in the beach and just, you know, just enjoy a bit of a, of a easy life, or you can go down in the side on the south, or biking, or trail running, and it's just a lovely playground. It's a lovely playground. So, it's a something that I think that we can look further into it and, and in that sense, I think that as a community, we need to look a bit more on, on the Middle East altogether. I think that there is much to explore over there. I mean, it's an area that gets a lot of sun and it's not that flat as we, as we tend to think. I mean, there are many places where we can, where we can take off and, but you know, it's, it's going off the beaten road.
You need to be able to, to have a mindset of, of exploration. So, so forget about the car and, and use your legs and, and try to think creatively about the different lines and study the weather patterns over there, which is another issue. I mean, the forecast in that region is not, is not necessarily the best because, I mean, you know, the more remote is that, the less measurements you have. So, the forecast is not necessarily very reliable, but it's consistent. I think it's consistent because of the, of the sun, ah.
Man, you've inspired me. I'm, well, Eliya, thank you for sharing about your flight and your experiences there in the Middle East, and I hope the folks listening, I'll get inspired to hop on a plane and go, go explore some of this. I mean, I'm just, I've spent most of this time just looking at the map and spinning around, getting familiar with the area. The, the closest I've come, really, is, is Turkey. I've done, I've done it, did a World Cup there, and I've, you know, I've done the ole dumbbells things, but I haven't been to the south, but I haven't done any of this stuff to the south and not, and except, you know, Morocco and places further south in Africa. But it looks like a lot of fun.
Yes. Yes, it is. I did actually, I mean, in the last four or five years where I was spending a bit more time exploring that area in Israel, I thought that it would be a good idea to have like a small guidebook for hike and fly, and that's available for free online. So just search hike and fly Israel, and there are, you know, a few possibilities of what you can do over there. I think that that could be a good start.
But you need to remember it's not all pink. I mean, sometimes you will, you know, you will get to a takeoff. It will be just going to be too strong, or it's going to be not exactly according to the forecast, or, you know, the border. Over there is not something that you want to tackle with. The funny thing is that actually I think that the best lines, because of the west wind, will be to take off somewhere from the Golan Heights and just go east. But in that case, and if you look on the, you know, the cloud base around Syria, it's pretty neat.
So you can take off. You can take off over there and, you know, land in Damascus.
And that's probably possible almost on a daily basis. That seems a little dicey right now. Exactly. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. I'm not recommending it. I'm saying it's possible. I'm not saying don't do it, although it's very tempting over there. So it's, I wouldn't recommend it. Yeah.
Yeah, you got to do a little bit of study on the maps and the borders and everything before you go. But that just looks, it looks fantastic. I just pulled up some pictures of the Golan Heights, and it's gorgeous.
Every weekend, the local community are gathering somewhere and trying to fly together. And I think that it will be smart to, you know, in the first visit over there, at least do that. You know, get with a few of the locals that will, you know, get you to have a briefing on the site and what you can do and what you cannot do and just fly with them a bit. And perhaps in your second visit over there, it can be a bit more, a bit more. Adventurous.
Adventurous. Yeah. Cool. Elliot, thanks, man. I appreciate it. What a fun talk. And it's good to see your smiling face and dream about the Middle East. And thanks, man. Appreciate it. All right, Gavin. Have a good one. You too. If
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