202. “The Flying Yogi” Jim Mallinson - Jim Mallinson

Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. My guest this week is Jim Mallinson. Jim is a friend of mine. Many, many, many of you know him already. He's part of the Sky Safari's legends, Eddie Colfox and Antoine Laurence and John Sylvester. I did my first tour with these guys back in 2009, when I was just a pup in beer, and came back in 2011, when I was still just a pup, and did my first big bivvy, which set off all the bivvies to come with John Sylvester, an amazing flight we did over the back and landed in Manali and slept in the ice, and then flew back the next day. Back then, of course, Jim was dreaded out; he has lost those—we'll talk about that. He had dreads for most of his life because of living as a sadhu.

A sadhu is someone who's kind of renounced the worldly life; he would spend as much as six months of the year in India. His enchantment kind of got, it got hold of him with India, and when he was 18, and spent a great deal of time there and did spend that six months a year, every year, until COVID hit, but lived as a sadhu, which is, uh, basically just wandering around, not doing a whole lot, and then would come back to Oxford in the UK and pursue his academic career, which is boisterous to say the least. He's written nine books, he's the leading expert in Sanskrit, has translated documents that go back literally thousands of years, he's now a professor as of September 1st will be a professor of Sanskrit at Oxford.

He is a sir, a doctor, a professor, a Mahant, a a bayonet. Some of those, I don't even know what that means. I had to look up a lot of words before I sat down with Jim and talked to him about his amazing career. Just fascinating. We talk about all kinds of really quite wild subjects, like dissolving the mind. We talk about culture and what Western culture maybe has right, what it has maybe wrong, mental health, and just his incredible, I'm going to say it, although he doesn't like this word, You'll learn about that at the end. His incredible journey of through academics and also flying, of course. He's done some pretty amazing things in the Himalayas, and talk about some of his more recent exploits because of COVID in the UK and just a blast.

This was a little intimidating, sitting down with someone who has so much academic credentials, but we had a lot of fun and I know you will to enjoy this talk with Sir Jim Mallinson.

Jim, I feel like we've been trying to do this for years. Potentially, it's been a long time since I've seen you. I think where we need to start is the loss of your dreads. You look a lot different, my friend. What we were just talking about in the opening, uh, you've had them for over 30 years, is that right?

Yeah, that was right. Well, yeah, it was right until four years ago, indeed. Yeah, I cut them off in beard, actually. The little temple, you know, going up to take off, walking up, uh, yeah, that was October 2019. And so, of course, then there was a global pandemic, and there's still plenty of people I haven't seen, so I'm still bumping, yeah, well, regularly going, "Hey, what the hell happened?" Yeah, yeah, have

You been able to keep up your, your going to India every year through the pandemic, or did that get shut down? Have you broken your record that

Got shut down, and then I got really jinxed. I was hoping to get back to beer in October last year, and then there was some fight between the UK and India over visas, uh, so I couldn't go. I had to postpone the trip, and then I was meant to go in March, and then my aunt died and I had to cut the trip short. And anyway, so it feels like I've been slightly jinxed on on going to be and I'm, and now I've got a new job as well starting in October, so I won't be going this autumn. Anyway, I'm hoping to go out next spring, fingers crossed, third time lucky, third Third attempt lucky in a year or two, yeah.

Well, take us back to 88. I've had a fascinating and very interesting and fun morning reading all about you on Wikipedia and everywhere else. And I knew a fragment of this stuff, of course, when we spent our time together in 2009 and 2011 in beer. And I will, we will talk, of course, about your flying exploits and the North-South Cup and guiding and the sky safaris and John and Eddie and and Antoine and Debu and everybody. But those of you listening, those are all names I would imagine you—you've heard of at least in passing. But I'd love for us to go back to—I don't know if it was before '88, I think you would would have been 18, so around there. I read that Rudyard Kipling was your inspiration.

You read Kim and you and you decided, "I'm going to—this is pre-college, I imagine you're—I'm going to India." What was the—what was the fascination there? How did India just take hold? Yeah.

I mean it's kind of with hindsight the Rudyard Kipling thing I don't know if that was really in my mind at the time but But I did have to read it at school. But then in England or in the UK, what we often have people will sometimes take what they call a gap year between school, which I always get confused. I think you call that high school in the States. And then we call it school and university. So age seven, I was I was young. I left school at 17. And I was like, you know, what am I going to do in my gap year? year. And through a weird succession of coincidences, whatever you call it, I decided I was going to read Sanskrit at university, which was already quite obscure. And then a friend had come back after his gap year in India and regaled me with stories of a wonderful time he'd had wandering around. And I just put turn two together and thought, right, this is it.

And I went off with a good friend from school. And he's now a professor of Indian Indian philosophy in a university in Delhi, and I'm a professor of Sanskrit at Oxford starting in September, so it kind of messed up both our lives. Here we are, you know, 35 years on, or whatever, that one trip to India like completely set the tone for the rest of our lives and

Can you put a finger on that? What was it? Was it the... was it the language? Was it the people? Was it the religion? Was it Hindi? Yeah,

It was a mixture of everything, you know, wondering, right? You've been there. It's so great. I think it was, I think you know, I, I, I'd done Latin and studied history at school, and it's the way in India they've got this ancient civilization which is still, still going on, still manifest. So you can, you know, read all these old texts and so forth, and, uh, it's you can see a continuity today. And in particular, I got into also hanging out with all these, uh, crazy wandering holy men, you know, that happened in my first trip actually, up in the Himalayas. It was at the base camp of this trek up to this, uh, this huge ice, this, uh, stalagmite in a, in a cave called Amaranat up in Kashmir, and I couldn't actually do that because my visa was running out, but I spent a few days hanging out with all these wild children smoking bubbles, uh, who were camped out at the foot of the mountain, and I just thought, this is, this is wild, this is great.

They're kind of, you know, I've so I'm, I'm 53 now. I was born in 1970, so I in the 80s like the kind of, uh, cultural movements that, that got me going. Still, we had a bit of hippie stuff going on. And then you had that kind of punk vibe. And these guys seemed to kind of combine the two things together. And I just, I was these sort of charismatic, funny, wild, and also just that sort of don't give a shit attitude. I, you know, I somehow got off on that. And that got me hooked.

Was there a part of you back then that was, were you rebelling against anything at home? Was there something about living in the UK that just didn't feel right? Or was it just, yeah, let's go have an adventure. oh this is this is interesting yeah

I mean, I guess so. I was, I was a slightly difficult adolescent, I suppose. I misbehaved a fair bit. I don't know how one would, uh, I don't know how to justify that, but no, it was more of a pull rather than a push, you know, people talk about other push factors. Wasn't I was running away from anything in particular? It was just had such a good time in India, yeah. And then I ended up, I went to India every year, sometimes for six months, sometimes for a year for the next 30-odd years or whatever, until COVID put the guidebook on it.

Yeah, crazy. Are you quite mathematically inclined? I've always heard that linguistics requires a pretty left-brain mathematical approach. I am,

yes, Gavin. Yeah, I did maths and physics and Latin as my son of high school. Oh, wow. Or I did Sanskrit, yeah.

Okay. I'm quite a fan of Wade Davis. I imagine you're familiar with him. He talks about the extinction of language, and I read today that in the early 2000s, there were over 7,000 different languages in the world, and they expected that to decrease by as much as 90 % by 2050. Is Sanskrit, and I read in your bio, Old Iranian, are these languages that are part of that potentially leaving, or are they pretty safe?

Well, they're very different. Those two, they're like the opposite extremes of the historical record, because Old Iranian, there's only Old Persian. Well, I did a vest in an Old Persian. Old Persian, there's only 600 lines of it in existence, and that's like two and a half thousand years old. But Sanskrit is definitely not going to die out. Even though it's very old, it's the classical language of India, and of course, particularly at the moment with the Hindu nationalist movement, they really promote it, so that's not going anywhere. But there are plenty of languages in India, like up in the mountains where we've hung out, the sort of local dialects and stuff, I think they are rapidly dying out. I don't know what the latest is; they used to say there were 1,200 languages in India, something like that. The way they in India, yeah, you mentioned Wade Dave's huge fan, yeah, and I got, I got lucky to meet him a couple of times in India.

He's

Amazing, yeah, fantastic. The navigator stuff, and he's, yeah, he's, he's, he's really amazing. Mallinson is best described as perhaps the only baronet to wear dreadlocks. Back to your dreadlocks, what is a baronet? Okay,

Here we go. A baronet is, is a inherited English title, so I, I need, so I get to call myself Sir if I want to. I have a lot of titles, Gavin, it's crazy. We might get onto, I'm also my hunt, I'm Professor, I don't know which, what order they should go in. Doctor, yeah, crazy. Um, but that one is, that one's achieved by doing nothing at all, which actually these days, nowadays, they, the politicians here just give titles to their mates and their cronies and the people who give them money. So I think it's actually nowadays the most honorable way to get one. I used to think it was a bit ridiculous; I mean, the whole thing's pretty ridiculous, but, but yeah, so I get to call myself Sir James Mallinson if I want to, and I don't, doesn't happen very often. And in fact, all that, all that seems to result from it is a lot of chaos when I try and check in at the airport because my passport's a mess.

So, something I found quite interesting as I was reading about all this, you know, on the one hand, you've got Jim Mallinson, sadhu or yogi, you know, you go to India, you spend months at a time with a small bag and a blanket and living, it seems to me, a very simple life. You're living with the holy men and you're kind of a vagabond. I guess, I don't know if that's the right term. Fair enough. On the other side, you've authored nine books. You're the world-renowned expert on hatha yoga and its origins, which was also fascinating. You're reading texts that are are still around from, I think, one of them is 1100, uh, or earlier maybe.

Uh, those don't—how do you mesh these two? And the the are are the yogis doing this as well? Are they doing something in there at night where we don't know about? I mean, it's a very—you're almost living in two completely different worlds, at least from my perspective.

No, you're right, is absolutely right. It's two completely different worlds, but I think I need the two to; I couldn't do one on its own. You see what I mean? The the sadhu life, uh, a it was never feasible for me to completely commit to being a, you know, a Hindu yogi, not not least because I've had the luck, been lucky enough to have the love of a good woman for more than 30 years, and part of that, well, renouncing all those kind of pleasures, um, and so I always sustained it with academic inquiry, you know, trying to understand where these guys have come from, what's going on, what are they doing? And then vice versa, the academic stuff would be too dry. I mean, people there are, there are famous scholars in my field who never even went to India, you know? They're just reading the texts, and that could never be me. You know, I had to have the the living, the the living world that fascinates me in order to sustain me through, you know, reading old manuscripts for hours and hours on end and so forth.

So yeah, the two things balance each other nicely.

Is the transition for you quite simple? For me, I haven't lived in your world at all, but right now I'm on vacation, which I've never really done in my life. I've lived as if your life should be something you just want to do. You don't need to go on vacation, but I've been building this house and working like a dog for quite a long time. I just needed to get away, get away from the house, get away from the build, spend time with the family. But it's hard for me to be here. It's hard for me to relax. I would imagine, you know, if you were home in the UK, you're with your kids, you're with your wife, you're wrapped up in the things you do at home, writing books and being an academic and getting funding and grants and all these things.

And then you go back and you're a Sadhu. Are you just there? Do you pop hop into it? And where I'm going with this is with flying, it's... yeah, it's often hard. I think what we love about flying is to be present, right? But and it forces us to be present. That's hard to do, at least for me. I think for a lot of people, to be present is... is tough, no?

I agree. The transition, I mean, it got, got easier over the years, but it's pretty difficult. I will normally find it more difficult coming back from India and then going back to normal life in the UK, but it got easier over the years. And I, I'm the same with flying as well. I don't know about you, but like, if I've, you know, if I've had a layoff for a few months, I feel like a beginner, but I can't quite even believe I'm doing it. I'm like, "What? I fly that crazy thing?"

It's very uncomfortable, which yeah, but

I think that's a good thing, isn't it? I think that's—I always find it amazing, these guys and you interviewed—I can't remember his name, but some brilliant, uh, alpine triangle guy who goes out six Alex.

roby alex

roby and then there are others what's his name uh danini didn't he you know when when he was the dad, he's Luca. Is he Luca, is the dad? Yeah. And he would just, you know, just come out of his hotel job and then go and win World Cup or something like that. For me, it takes me a few days kind of transition just to get into it again, which I think for me is necessary kind of mentally and the safety and so forth. You know, I think it's probably a good safety mechanism to be daunted by that. But yeah, I guess it's the same. yeah it takes a while to transition between the two worlds but congratulations on managing to take some time off

Yeah, but like I said, it's, it's, it's, it's not easy for me. I, I'm one of these people, I like to get things done. I like to, you know, I like to accomplish things, and I feel like, and I keep telling, I'm accomplishing a lot. Spending time with my family, that's all I came down here to do. I should just do that, but it's, oh, it's

Tricky, did you got a wing with you or a kite? Kite board, I brought

I brought my tandem, which I, I got around the time I met you. I've never been a tandem pilot; I've never done it commercially, but I wanted to fly my daughter down here, and we went for a flight the other day, and that was, that was a blast. Very uncomfortable, because I'm not a tandem pilot, you know? We were way, way, way underweight. I wouldn't say it was very natural, because I was trying to act very natural with my daughter's, but you know, you've got when you're flying your family, I found very uncomfortable for me, just, just being overly cautious. I guess, how old is your daughter? She's five. She's just turning those little

small harnesses you strap on the solo that makes it a bit easier. That's why I used to do, I'm

Gonna do that now. I, I shouldn't have a tandem; it's, I should just get a slightly bigger wing. So yeah, that's, that's the way forward for sure. We had no, no penetration. If there was any wind, we'd be in trouble.

How much of your own, you know, your, your studies of, of Hatha yoga and history and meditation and transcendental meditation, how much of these, I also read that you don't go, you don't go to a studio and practice yoga. You never have. But how much of your life is, is participating in meditation, yoga, How big, big of a factor are these outside of the academic world for just you personally? I

Probably shouldn't make this too public, Gavin, but here I am on your mind. Maybe, maybe there's not so much crossover like you say, compartmentalized lives. I don't know how many of my kind of yoga colleagues and students and so forth will be listening, but I don't, not much. I don't meditate a great Denali. Mean for me, it was more always the lifestyle. I mean, I've done a lot of yoga over the years and I've mastered most of the weird techniques that I've read about and published about in these old manuscripts and so forth, but nowadays, you know, I do maybe 20 minutes a day, if that. At the moment, I've been a bit slack recently; actually, I put my arm out and they got tennis elbows. I'm not doing the postures so much and I just sit, sit for a bit, but I'm not super dedicated. For me, it's always been more about the whole sort of lifestyle, uh, about the life of the yogis and I...

the reason I got into, in particular, into studying yoga was it was the one aspect of that world I've been living in India that was well represented in Sanskrit text. Because you were asking like, you know, do the sadhus and the yogis, do they are they also scholars? I think was the implication of your question, actually quite the opposite. They, you know, they think that the sort of stuff I do is a complete waste of time, that reading books is a waste of time, and all you've got to do is live your live your life and do your yoga and and so forth. Um, so I guess I subscribe more to that, but... But to be honest, Gavin, I actually feel slightly remote that whole world to me at the moment because of my guru dying in 2019, which is why I chopped my hair, and then COVID. I haven't really lived in that. I mean, I'm in touch with people, but I haven't lived in that world now for nearly five years, I guess.

Kiwi used to wear a shirt that said, I am not your guru. What does that mean, having a guru? guru what did that relationship look look like what was it

Yeah, I guess it sounds, sounds weird to some people. They think it means, you know, just completely giving yourself over and, uh, like being brainwashed and so forth. But it's, it can be that you can, you know, you can commit like that if you want, but it's more being—you're being sort of brought into a, a tradition, a lineage of yogis or whatever. So by being initiated, I was initially, I didn't even realize I was being initiated with my wife in, well, she wasn't my wife at the time. It was in 1992 at one of these big Kumbha Mela festivals, which Kiwi used to come to, actually. Kiwi came to two or three. He was, uh, yeah, I got some funny stories about that. Like, I mean, it's the biggest gathering of people in the world and he, he turned up one day and couldn't find us, and so found some camp, some people looked after him. He spent the night. The next morning, he got up and said, "No," typical Kiwi, took a huge dose of acid and then found us within about two hours.

He

was just led to you.

One of those festivals when we first hang out with our guru, he's very charismatic. I don't know if you've seen the movie I made with them, uh, Dominic West called West Meets No, I just, I just

I'll need a link to that, because I read about it today and I wanted to ask you about Dominic, but uh, yeah, yeah.

It was they, it was because it was broadcast on various channels, but I think—and they said they were quite careful—I think you can now watch it on YouTube anyway, so

So I

can give you a link. But so you'll meet my guru if you watch that. He's a very charismatic, good fun guy. And he sort of took us off in the middle of the night and initiated us on the banks of the river. And we really didn't know what was going on at the time. But that then means you're part of this whole extended family and part of this huge lineage of hundreds of thousands of yogis and stuff all over India. So it's great music. I can turn up anywhere in India and just show my credentials or say a few words and I'll be looked after. After so that, in fact, that's one of the, you know, that I think with it ties in with flying. Actually, one of the things I love about flying, I love traveling and seeing new things, going new places, you know? This is nothing I like more than a good cross-country flight where you're going in a new route, you know? It doesn't happen very often these days, but that's what I particularly like in flying, as well as doing new things that I haven't done before, and same in India, so that facilitates.

So being part of that network facilitates being able, you know, just to turn up at any kind of temple town or pilgrimage place or something, and you're part of the gang and you can be looked after.

We mentioned Kiwi. How much of your journey or being with sadhus or this living as a vagabond, exploring this lifestyle, does that involve, do the sadhus, or does it involve a lot of drug use? Does it involve a lot of hallucinogenics, or is it mostly just weed? I mean, I know they smoke a lot of weed, but is that been a critical part of your critical thinking?

Maybe it's damaged my critical thinking. I don't know. I haven't smoked plenty of weed with them, yeah. No, they, yeah, it's a good point, because people think of India as like the, you know, it's a very sort of psychedelic place and so forth. But no, there's not a lot. It's not like, you know, Wade Davis's books. Is it, uh, one river, isn't it? Where he, he points in the footsteps of, what's his name, Evans Schultz, and they're, you know, in, in South America, there are thousands and thousands of different combinations of plants and different psychedelics and so forth. In India, they don't really take psychedelics, actually, traditionally. I mean, there is—this people might argue slightly against it—and there's this notion of soma, which is three or four thousand years old, but everyone's forgotten what it is. No one's doing that. And in fact, as you, as you alluded to, it's mainly the sadhus are just sitting around smoking dope.

And the interesting thing about that is that the smoking part of it is a new arrival in India as well. It came, you know, like everywhere else, came from the New World in around 1600. So, so when someone like Kiwi turns up, though, with a pocket full of acid, a lot of the sadhus are quite keen, to be honest. They're interested. They're interested, you know, they'll, they'll take it, but it's not kind of a part of the culture.

Ah, interesting. Yeah. Tell me about dissolving your mind. I have that in quotes. I read an article that you talked about dissolving your mind.

Well, I guess that's one of the various different ways of describing, you know, the final state of yoga if you accomplish it properly. You know, like samadhi, you'll hear the term samadhi, and that's a laya. The Sanskrit word for dissolving the mind is laya. And so you find that in text quite a lot, and normally it just seems to be the idea of a state of kind of no fluctuations of the mind, so you kind of achieve a state of no thought, really, but it's said to be blissful at the same time. So is

This different than the I've always been told with meditation, you're—you're looking at a ticker tape in a sense of your thoughts, and you're just letting them go. That's, you know, you're not trying to have nothing, you're just, okay, fine, let it go. Okay, yeah, that would be a

sort of Buddhist mindfulness approach where, you know, Buddhism understands there not to be any self, any permanent, uh, aspect of reality, and so it's just a sequence of moments, yeah? And you just accept each one and let it go, whereas most Hindu traditions aren't like that, and so they do think that there's a, there's a, um, you know, an ultimate reality to our existence, to individual existence. And the most common concept of the kind of the final state of yoga is recognizing that your individual self is the same as the ultimate self of the universe, and if you can realize that identity, then that's, then that's enlightenment, or smart people, however it's termed, that it bears different terms for it.

Mental health, this seems to be a growing topic these days, and it's also a big one in flying. There seems to be quite a bit of mental health. There's certainly anxiousness and depression is prevalent in our community. Is this headlines or is this something that you feel like mental health is declining around the world for various reasons well

I don't know, I wouldn't, I can't, you know, I'm no, no real expert on that, that sort of thing, but I can't imagine that our kids growing up looking at their smartphones all day long, it's going to be much good for mental health and looking at other people. But I think also, you've related it to flying, and I haven't really. You probably thought about this more than I do, but I think it's a... there are some particular character types that are attracted to flying, and some of them probably are a bit depressive as well. You know, I'm not going to name any names, but a few brilliant pilots that come to mind who are also quite sort of dour and not particularly sparky. There's plenty of others of all sorts, but yeah, I imagine there's quite a lot of UK pilots at the moment with pretty poor men. I understand you're

having some pretty rotten weather

it's appalling as I said right now we've got the first named storm of the year outside Storm Anthony we've got 50 mile an hour winds it's been appalling I've been lucky actually, I've managed to have a few good flights I've just somehow got, you know, timed it well and got out and had some good ones but it's, I think it's I haven't looked at the numbers but it must be the worst year for many, many years Yeah,

I've been hearing that I'm on some groups.

I'm on some groups with the keen, you know we've got one called Size Matters for about a dozen of us who are keen cross country pilots around here and everyone's very glum these are basically written off the season already this

Is the problem with putting too much weight into flying, isn't it? We've got to have an escape.

Another thing going on, if you live here, that's for sure.

Yeah, no, it can't be. It can't be tough. I've gone down that path quite a lot. I can't remember if we opened up with this, but you're an endologist. I had to look that up, and I... I wrote, I read somewhere that you even have a hard time describing what that means, but it's the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent. So I bring that up only because I feel like you've spent most of your life really studying culture, language, in a really very different way of living other than Western culture and and how we're, uh, how most of us live in, in Western society without having to have spent the kind of time you have in academics and studying it and living with the sadhus and living with, you know, with a blanket and a small bag all these years, what are some things you can impart to me and the audience about what you've learned that would be helpful in our day-to-day life?

And what, what are the, what what are you teaching your kids? Where do you want your kids, your kids to go with your what you've learned? You're

Putting me on the spot, I think I feel like... I feel like I've got... I should get Kiwi's T-shirt. I'm not a kid, I tell you. My... my... my friends and my wife—well, not my wife, not so much, but my friends for years have been saying, "Jim, you've got to set yourself up as a guru." I'm in the perfect position. I really could, as you know, you read my bio, if I wanted. But it's really not my... my thing, and I'm, you know, I don't want to. I'm not. I've never, never been one for telling other people how to live their lives. I think we all have to muddle through our own what reality throws at us. Um, so I don't know what have I learned? What I have learned is, if you stick at anything for long enough, you get good at it, don't you? That's... that's one thing. I... I well, I try and get my kids off the screens and I try and get them to do stuff that they're interested in and... and stick at it. Um, and just...

just keep going with it. Other life lessons. I know it's terrible. You've, I've by accident, I found myself in this position of responsibility and people think I must have it all worked out, but I haven't, Gavin. I haven't, and I've had some very good, exciting, and interesting life along the way, but I still puzzled most of the time. I'm still like, "What the hell's going on?" I think that's actually great. Once you've got the answer, you know, you're enlightened, aren't you? That's right. Then I'll get myself up as a guru.

But yeah, I mean, you could probably, you could tell me, I'm sure, better life lessons than I can

tell you. No, I mean, it's interesting. At your time with the sadhus, do they have something figured out that we don't?

Well, that's another interesting thing. You know, they are, they live such different lives from us. You know, my guru would never give me like specific life advice about how to live my life. They were just kind of, it's more living, exactly, do their thing, live by example. Um, even though the example is not something you can follow unless you're fully committed, so they occupy this position in Indian society where they've renounced everything. They don't have a job, they don't have a family, they live off donations, and that sounds like they're beggars, but in fact, they're valued as long as they are, you know, as long as they do have some sort of charisma or something to offer in terms of just, I mean, just that the if they play their role in society correctly, then people give them money, people look after them, you know?

People, people like having... we don't have something, we don't have anything like that in our society really anymore. Um, and so yeah, they just kind of live, live their lives, and that by being with them is seen as a blessing. They're not actually telling you what to do or telling you how to... they will in some cases, they will, but that's, it's almost, almost frowned upon. Again, I've told, I was told by my guru, you know, sometimes babas would set themselves up at Kumbh Mela, sitting on the bed and preaching, and then the others would come along and throw them off the bed and beat them up and say, "You shouldn't, you mustn't do that, you know, you're not allowed to." They could have a phrase for it in Hindi, gyan dina, you know, basically telling everyone how it is, and they don't like you to do that, you know, you should just get up, get on with your thing, and and impress people like that rather than telling them what to do. Yeah, well...

Is this what drove your interest initially in learning Hindi? Is just so you could communicate better, yeah?

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. I was obsessed early on. I kind of just, yeah, I taught myself. I mean, I was learning Sanskrit at the same time, and the two things are related, but I, I'm, yeah, I was more kind of obsessed with with picking up Hindi. Yeah, Eddie's been like, I've been with Eddie last week, he's been doing Hindi Duolingo really. Finally, I'll be catching up. Yeah, ah.

nice Nice. That's fantastic. Yeah. I got to get him on the show as well.

Okay. One more on the spot kind of question. And Western, we've talked about Western culture. What would you say if you could pinpoint what, what have we got wrong versus Eastern culture versus, and that's a massively generic general question, but again, Again, thinking about your kids, obviously the phone is a tough one and brutal.

But going forward in the next 50 years, what could you say that Western culture could really do an about face when it comes to X?

Gosh, I wouldn't make that distinction between Western and Eastern culture. So people have this idea that the West is materialist and the East is spiritual and so forth. But there's plenty of materialists in India, you know? They're some of the best merchants in the world. As we go, after CEOs of the tech companies in the States are all Indian, aren't they? It's not like they're very dry. I wouldn't make, yeah, I wouldn't make that distinction. In fact, that's so the the title of the movie I was telling him, it's a pun because I was with Dominic West and so we go to, you know, that. So it's called West meets East, all right? Is the title, but that's a a that's a play on a line from a Kipling poem, a poem by Rudyard Kipling, which is like, "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." Are you saying there is this kind of different, you know, these two totally different cultures?

But I wouldn't draw such a, uh, uh, you know, a big, big line between the two. And what can I mean at the moment? To be honest, I don't know. Like my, so my elder daughter's 18, you know? And at this age, I mean, she's going to come, we're all going to India in the winter, but so she will do a bit of bit of time there. But her friends and that people aren't so interested in going to India anymore. In fact, India's got a bit of a bad rep, I think, amongst the youth because of this Indian nationalist government at the moment. You know, they're cracking down on Muslims, they're pretty oppressive, authoritarian. And so I'm I'm maybe we need to teach India something at the moment, you know? I I don't, yeah, I, yeah, sorry, you keep asking me these questions and I'm kind of completely throwing them, throwing them back at you. But I don't think I I wouldn't, you know, I don't think it's like we've got a lot to learn from India or vice versa.

I think in some ways that's

encouraging. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's not clearly you're not coming back to the UK, going. Gosh, I wish they could just do this or that, or you know, it's not maddening to you, well.

I think there's a, there's a, you know, richness of, of, of life the people in India, I think, but particularly people that they're obviously much poorer and then, which means that they're, I mean, not all of them, but um, people are much more giving of their time and their person, you know, just going down the chai shop and hanging out can be a lot more entertaining than going down Starbucks or whatever around here, you know, people there's that, there's sort of personal interactions, uh, that I find more invigorating. Yeah, there is, maybe there's, maybe there's that the kind of openness towards other people, which we certainly in England, we don't, we don't have so much

The the the journeys you've done to India over all these years, are you always with your wife? Are you alone? Or how, how is that? And how did that work with the kids? Yeah,

Well, until the kids came along, yeah, it was... she was, she was with me all the time. We had a wonderful life where we would... we, we lived in this house, actually quite near where I live now. We moved in in '95, which was the year I started flying, and, uh, it was a farm, rented farmhouse with a bunch of friends. And then in October, we would say, "See ya," walk out the door, and come back in April. We'd spend six months in, in India. And then first daughter came along, and my first... UK, when we had to make a decision, what we're going to... send them to? We're going to live in India, send them to school there, or UK? And we went for the UK. I can't remember why. And so my first winter back in the UK after 20 years was a real shock, totally like sitting through the mud and the rain. Um, but, uh, that was...

yeah, that was the same time I started flying, same time I started doing my PhD in '95. So we did that, yeah, for about I Guess it was until 2009, my daughter went to school and that was that she was around about then, or 2008, that we started Himalayan Sky Safaris because I've been going to beard for 10 years or something at that that point, but um, you know, I think you know how it is now with you, now that you've got kids that can't, you can't just clear off them for six weeks. So part of the justification for Sky Safaris was earning some money, you know, I've got to go, I've got to go, you know, I didn't have a formal academic job, it was

a reason more than just fun

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was—I mean, I love the idea and it was brilliant. And when, you know, when John agreed, so Eddie and I kind of thought it'd be cool, and we thought, "Let's ask John how amazing it'd be to get." And when he said yes, it was like dream come true, and off we went. Um, so that was—was fantastic. But that part of the motivation was to do something more, you know, justifiable, you know, that you can expect. It's all right, darling, I'm not just going off having fun; I'm actually going to come back with a few couple of thousand quid or something were

You part of the initial forays into Pakistan as well, no?

I've never, well, I've been to Pakistan. I've never been flying in Pakistan, okay? I

I that came up this morning, and when I was, when I was looking into you, I didn't know that Eddie was a part of that. I knew John was, of course, with his films and everything, but I didn't know Eddie was, was well...

Eddie had the original movie, I think. I don't know when they did it, it was a long time ago, called Hypoxia, yeah. I mean, typically, I think he had—he had the world altitude record at the time he went up to about 7,700 meters or something. But, uh, typical Eddie didn't have the right instruments, so he couldn't prove it. I think he had something that told him me, but it was no, you know, probably, probably couldn't get a track off it or something like that. But yeah, they had some—they had some crazy, crazy trips, and that's so—that's how. So, I've—I've known Eddie for years, but I didn't really know John. And Eddie and John were friends through that, and then, so it was through them the three of us came together to do eminence guys.

And when did that start? I

Think that must be... I think it was. I was looking into it the other day. I think it's 2007, yeah, because 2006 I made a film with Kiko. Then, if you saw that, "Temples in the Clouds," flying lying around, yeah, um, yeah, which has a bit of the Sadhu world in it. And that, then the following season, I think was the first, uh, Himalayan Sky, so far.

So we were relatively early 2009, and then again, and yeah, I remember, I think in 2011, that's when we did the thing. You guys were, we're starting the the tandem volpev idea, and we—which I don't know if that got off the ground, but I don't know how far that went, but the—remember we brought Thayer Walker, the writer from outside, and he was, was the passenger, and Jody was the photographer, and we did that article, and I had my first kind of real incident there. I don't, I think you were right there with me, but all right, lost my wing at 360 and terrifying, terrifying, and I just walked away. It was crazy, but that was weird. We were

breaking it, we couldn't believe it when you reappeared. Oh my god, that was, that was

pretty spooky, but I still talk about that one. But yeah, that... I well, anyway, so the the 95 was the the what was the catalyst? What, how'd you get into flying? What, how'd that all get

A friend of mine, a good friend, really good old friend from school, rang up said, "Hey, let's you know, let's learn to paraglide. You can do it on the Isle of Wight where we've always had a family." My dad was living at the time and I said, "Brilliant, great, what's that?" I had no idea, and I'm not, because I'm not like an adventure sports guy at all, not like you who's done every all this, all this kind of stuff, definitely not an adrenaline junkie. You know, for me, if I'm flying, if my heart rate goes up, it means something's gone wrong and I'm not not enjoying it. I'm like, "We've got to keep keep this relaxed." Anyway, he and I was thinking about it actually the last couple of days because I was in the Isle of Wight and, uh, if had I realized at the time that the flying school was the opposite end of the island, which isn't very far, but it's an hour's drive, so every time we went to fly, it was like I probably would have said, "I don't know, hang on, that's not going to work out." But no, I kind of said, "Yeah, great, sign me up." And off we went and I got totally hooked straight away.

Um, Claudia, my my wife, and Rupert, the other guy, you know, they got into it, but they kind of didn't didn't run with it at all, whereas I was, soon as I think it was, as soon as I realized you could stay up. I mean, the first time my feet left the ground, I was like, "Wow, this is amazing." And then as soon as I realized you could stay up and ridge soar, and I was like, "Wow, this really is." And then when I found out you could go cross country, um, and I think it's that, you know, you were asking earlier if I've got a mathematical brain, I have to some extent. I think it's that the combination of sort of theory and and then the, you know, being able, the kind of flow movement of flying, the two things together just worked perfectly for me. And I didn't look back. I got totally hooked straight away.

And back to the kind of the simplicity of being a yogi versus, I don't, I mean, I guess flying is quite simple, really, when it comes down to it. But are these transitions that your brain can, that your brain loves? Is it tricky? Is it?

No, I get quite stressed on takeoff. I mean, it's simple once you're in the air, isn't it? There's a lot of bloody preparation, a lot of fapping about getting stuff ready. I'm not very good at that. I mean, I like paragliding, in that I'm not a mechanical person at all, and the fact, you know, you don't have to tweak it, right? You just get it out of the bag and off you go. But then remembering how you know I don't like, I had a quartel, uh, cannibal two for a year, but there's so many different things to click up and it's so big, I can't cope with this anymore. I just know I want it simple on takeoff, yeah. I, I don't, I don't like, I don't like being rushed, but yeah, once you're in the air and it's all, then it's, then it's simple, isn't it? It's just, you haven't got much to do.

You won the British 2006. You were, you were aggro about this for a while. You were, you were competing. You were going for it.

Yeah. Yeah. And I got, I got, I was, so what happened? Yeah. 2000, I did my first British nationals. I learned in 95 and those, that was a quite quick progression. These days, people get good in a year or two. more info out there, but I then went, we had a British Nationals in Wales and my first task, they said like a 50k downwinder. It was pretty strong wind and I got quite near goal and then I realized I wasn't going to get there because it was too crosswind to make it and I thought, well, so it's a great day, I've only been flying an hour or two, I'm going to keep going and I flew

135k, 132k, which at that point, this is 2000, was a big flight. I mean, the British record, the British record, I think, was 170k, Steve Ham, but like no one flew further than that for about five years. And here was me first, first comp, you guys, everyone was like, "Whoa!" You know, just like, yeah, just by staying in the air for five and a half hours and, uh, you know, made my name like that. So that then got me into doing some other comps. I did a, and then in beard in 2003, there was a pre PWC and I won the, yeah, I must have done that on a comp wing, mustn't I? Yeah, I think I did it on a, on a Avax RSC, and then so that qualified me for the PWC. So I thought I'd do a season of PWC with, um, and I was going on Nick Greece, funny enough, hanging out with Nick Greece and Jamie Messenger.

I mean, it's classic, it's such a classic

oh man yeah

hysterical, as you can imagine, but we the first, the first leg was in Basano, or what's the place behind it? Felt, felt, felt true, felt true, and was

that where Bill Belcourt threw his reserve and ended up in the fence. I

Don't remember that was 2004. I don't recall, okay?

All right, was there a big, big gust front one day? It got canceled. Everybody was in the air. Was that that year? Okay, different. Okay, that

Rings a bell, but no, it wasn't, because we didn't fly until we had six. It was week-long comp, PWC six days. No, you know, terrible, but I didn't fly last day, last day, okay? And they said a regular task, I think it was Basano. It was kind of out in return, and so this is my first PWC task. I'm stoked, and I've got the—I think I just got the Avex RSE, which is a proper comp wing, you know, in those days uncertified, all that. And I got low quite early on with a group of pilots, and then I got out of this hole, and quite a few people landed, and there was just a lead gaggle in front of me, and I thought, "Right, I'm the nuts here I am." And this glider had trim tabs and speed bar, and so I let the trimmers full off, speed bar full on, and I'm cruising along, this blasting along this ridge thing, and reeling them in, and then suddenly, big frontal, and the whole thing just went berserk.

I was on top of the wing, I was all over the place, virtually looping it, and then I looked down, I'm not sorting this out, didn't have much room through the reserve, and then started thinking about trying to pull in the main, look down again, oh no, I haven't got much time, and—and hit the deck, and I was incredibly lucky because it was a steep, steep mountainside with trees and rocks, and then just a small patch of grass, and I hit this patch of grass, and I was—was windy, all right. And I then I just got a mobile phone and I rang Claudia. Claudia was out there. I told her what happened, she came to get me, and I, I did manage to injure myself walking down to the road. I think I tricked over onto the road and bashed my knee and everything.

Anyway, I got back to the to the HQ that evening and I, I think I think it was Akim Juice was the—I don't know if if I'm pronouncing that right, but I think he was the test pilot for Gradient, you know, he was the the factory pilot. And so I got talking to him and I said, "Uh, you know, so what happened?" And I when I told him I'd let off the trim tabs and gone full speed by, he just looked at me like I was a complete moron. I thought you did both. There's no manual coming with these uncertified. I didn't realize, I didn't know that. That was a stupid thing to do, really. Fly at

your own risk, yeah, I

then realized, I mean, I that I got, but through that I guess I got a minor fear injury, as you as you would call it. And I mean, not too bad, uh, but I kind of realized then that for me, if I was going to do compete really seriously, it was all or nothing. As I was saying before, you know, these guys who just fly a few days a year and do brilliantly in comps, all these big cross, I find that very impressive, to be able to switch it on and off just like that. For me, I kind of I felt that I needed to stay on top of it, and so I kind of eased off. I thought, I'm not going to be doing these um, these these big, you know, world world cups and so forth. I mean, I did another couple of rounds, but didn't do well at all, but enjoyed myself. It was a lot of fun hanging out with Nick and Jamie and the rest of them. I think Krieg, I think Chrigel was just starting out, so I can say I did pwcs with Chrigel, but then I, uh, yeah, he got a little bit better than I was getting a little bit better.

Then I said, "Then I..." but I kept doing the British. The only comps I proper, proper comps I kept doing were the UK legs of the British Nationals, okay? Which, when it's good, it's just fantastic. We have one year, 2007 maybe, I can't remember, uh, where you have four amazing days, like 100k tasks every day, and some of them landing back at the count. Anyway, it was just, as you can imagine, fantastic, but too, too many years the weather would just completely destroy it, okay? So it wouldn't happen. And then, after, I think it's about 2009, 2010, the comps panel decided they wouldn't have UK legs anymore. They used to have one or two foreign ones and then one in the UK, and they got rid of that. And I, I didn't like the foreign one, I got fed up. Also, I'd hate the sit, you know, you go to the Northern Alps and sit in the rain for a week, and that would just do my head, all the waste of time.

Um, but I, I would always commit, you know, I'd always go to the UK ones, and then they stopped it. And so that was when With Hugh and Hugh Miller and Jocky Sanderson, we got together and we, we devised the North-South Cup. We thought, "Look, there's got to be a way to have a decent competition in the UK." Uh, and so that's, so the way we make it work is that we don't call it, we don't call the venue until two days before. So we fix a weekend and then, literally, so everyone has to be prepared. One day is a travel, travel day, and then we'll meet online on Zoom or whatever on the, on the Wednesday normally, or Tuesday or Wednesday, check the weather forecast. Hugh's the main weather guru these days; he loves going through all the charts and everything. And then we'll call it, you know, we might go off to Scotland, we might go to Wales or something.

The first, first or second year, we had it right here because I live at the foot of some pretty good small hills, but you can go a long way when, when the conditions are right. And so that's, yeah, that's kind of my competing, these, these days. Um, that just sounds brilliant.

I mean, everybody I've talked to about the, well, you know, Jockey's super excited about everything he ever talks about, so I'm not, I'm not sure he's the best gauge, but when I've asked Jockey about the North South Cup, he just, he really lights up. And Russ, everybody, I mean, they just, it just sounds fantastic, and I, I'd love to come out and join it, join you guys. Yeah, well,

You're open invitation, Bevin, for sure, and

That's always in May, right?

Well, yeah. Well, no, this year, funnily enough, we wasn't in May because Jockey was too busy with various stuff, so we said it for July. But unusually, we've done it once or twice before, we had to postpone the forecast. That was really bad, yeah. So we've now got the last weekend in August, so fingers crossed it'll be all right and we'll get something. So I've done it this year.

Okay, oh okay, so it's totally flexible. You just pick a weekend, yeah?

Totally flexible. Oh yeah, I mean quite a few people who were able to do the July one can't come, but it's 30 aside. I mean, it's—it's Sat, it's quite informal the whole thing. Like last time, was it the last one then? We, yeah, there's no GPS scoring. Uh, we just—we go back to you way before your time, I imagine Gavin, but we have a big map and we put pins on the board, yeah.

Are you guys taking pictures of the turn points?

Yeah, no, we don't—we don't do the pictures thing, but we, we get everyone. So, what we've got, it was pretty close last year, and we get there's like red pins for the north and yellow pins for the south. Everyone has to put their pin in the board, and then, you know, Jockey and I stand back and look at it and go, "Who's won? Who, you know, who's who's done better?" In fact, last year it was so close, we ended up having to get a bit of line and going around all the pins and stretching it out, working out whose line was strongest and, uh, longer screw.

X contest now, you're doing it with yarn, darn exactly.

It's kind of, yeah, we're trying to, trying to take the tech out of this, so the people like Eddie can compete because, you know, they're not very running their instruments, but we smashed records we've loads of times. We've broken British records and stuff like that because if you get enough, you know, because all the, all the best pilots like to take part. Um, you know, it's quite competitive to get a place, although I often get accused of, you know, bribery and corruption and so forth, but who gets chosen in the sound? The old boys' club. But yeah, you know how it is. If you throw enough good pilots, yeah, even onto a half, on a half decent day off the hill, then yeah, magic.

happens yeah

And then the real crazy magic happens in the evening when, you know, Jockey's doing because we was we as it's also now become the prize giving, prize giving for the previous year's um XC league, and so Jockey does all of that, and then we have an auction as well, a charity auction. It's a lot. It's the one time basically that the, you know, the kind of top UK pilots get together.

Yeah, it's brilliant. That's great. Well, we're going to go, we're going to go back to beer, but talking about magic, I had to look this up embarrassingly considering all the sailing I've done, but tell me about this Solent flight. You flew some enormous distance over the ocean, right? I have that right?

Yeah, yeah. I wonder, actually, I've put this out there. I sometimes wonder if it's the longest ever. I'm sure it is. I've never

heard of anything longer than that. Talk about it, but I would like to get your thoughts on, there have been a lot of people reaching out to me in the last couple of years, seeing cloud streets at sea, you know, and I've spent a lot of time at sea and I'm pretty convinced that wouldn't work, but it is an interesting phenomenon. You're not getting thermals off the water, obviously, but you're getting, I think, if you're close enough to land, it is a pretty interesting, you know, you know, flying between the Hawaiian islands, for example, you know, you see clouds, it's there, are exactly, you're right there. It's just, but it's just, I can't imagine, pretty committing, I

Don't know, I don't know if you ever—you were probably again before your time, but Richard Westgate, did he ever cross your radar?

yeah Yeah. And the

brilliant, brilliant UK pilot, very sadly, sadly died, maybe because he was an airline pilot and they think it was through poisoning from the, you know, the air systems in the, in the, in the cockpit. But he had, he had, he was one of these real dreamers as well of kind of crazy flight. And he, in his, not long before he died, he was seriously talking about trying to fly across the channel, not the Solent. So it's 20 miles or something using sea thermal cloud streets. I don't know. I mean, he, he was, he was, if anyone was going to do it, And if he thought it was feasible, there must have been some way of doing it, but I'm not sure if anyone's anyone's ever ever managed. But people, yeah, people do use sea thermals here occasionally, but it's normally in winter. Is it spring? Yeah, yeah, really.

unstable, very good labs, yeah, something

Like that, but what I did, so I learned to fly on the Isle of Wight and I grew up on the Isle of Wight and we still got a family place down there, so it always been my dream to fly down there and you used to be able to do it. So it's a small island off the south of the UK with the strip of sea in between called the Solent, you know where you've got Southampton and Port's a big shipping channel and the far west of it there's actually quite a narrow channel, it's only maybe two kilometers, something like that, and people used to fly that quite regularly on hang gliders and then early paragliders, but then they there's a new airport, Bournemouth, and they close down the airspace, it's impossible to do that now. So the only way to do it is to the east, um, where it's then about six, six and a half kilometers wide, something like that, and also getting there is tricky. So what I had to do and I tried a few times, but I would get to Portsmouth, you have to take it, had to be a reasonable, a nice northerly, but not too strong because you'd have to loop around, um, I could put, I could put the link to the flight in the, in the notes, you have to loop around Southampton airspace and then come back into Portsmouth, which is where you then decide, right, am I going to go for this or not?

And I think I've done it two or three times, got there and thought, no, I didn't have the bottle, it didn't look right, uh, and I so this time it was a couple of years ago, I guess maybe three years ago, maybe more, time has gone weird, isn't it? Maybe four years ago, anyway, and I've done it once again since, but so all the way, all the way around along looking at the island, you can see the cumulus over it, thinking, okay, it still works. The worry is the sea breeze and this, the time that I did it first, I got to Portsmouth and I'm, I can see that the clouds are dissipating, but I'm at about three and a half thousand feet and I had a reasonable simple tailwind and I thought, so, you know, it's now or never, I've got to go for it. I go for it, but having said that, I wasn't very well prepared, didn't have a radio, didn't have a life jacket, but it's all a bit, bit crazy, but I thought, this is, this is looking good, and for about half of the, half of the crossing, I was just like, no problem, right?

About halfway across, I hit the sea breeze and my glide went from probably 15 to 1 or something, a bit of a tailwind, reasonably buoyant air to, I know, probably four or five, oh god shit, putting up in my harness, you know that is when you, this thing, you don't want, you don't want

The thing you shouldn't do is what you're now doing, and you can't help but not do it, yes, and

That, that, that bit, that period was only a couple of minutes where I wasn't set, but I was looking down, looking at boats I might be able to land on, that kind of thing. As I said, it's a big shipping lane, um, but then, then I realized I was going to make it, but I only got, I only had 500 feet when I got there.

That's getting pretty tight, yeah.

So, and yeah, I think it was six and a half kilometers. I wonder, you know, if anyone's done a thermic flight that's involved, you know, that long a crossing I've

Never heard of one, yeah. That's it.

Would be possible? It would be possible, but yeah, yeah, that's

pretty exciting the

Second time I did it, I mean, I was a bit more sensible. I managed to, well, I don't know if I was more sensible, luckier, but I connected the the other side as well and was able to carry on firmly. Yeah, would

you, if you had everything perfectly planned, would you have a cutaway? Would you have a chase boat? I mean, what we don't want to do is have people listen to this start flying across the ocean, uh, you know, water tends to be a little dangerous, um, but I would... there be ways to mitigate some of the risk, you know, the, the... I've thought about this a little bit because the, the worst thing is just if there's any waves at all whatsoever, you're in deep shit if you're in your gear, but

I guess you could do one, I guess, chase boat with the radio. Yeah, I mean, it'd be like the IV over a lake or something. It's not too rough; that'd be

fun, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. Uh, must have been beautiful.

It was, I was definitely screaming with joy when I realized I was going to make it. That was amazing. Yeah, I funnily enough, I wrote it up for Cross Country and it's going in this new book they've got coming, oh

Cool, I just saw, I just saw Hugh's newsletter yesterday about that. That looks, that That looks really neat.

Does that mean you've got a story in there as well? No,

no, no, no. I don't. Because

he said, I got to send a thing to the authors. I've got two stories in there. I'm being very privileged.

Yeah, cool. No, I think more of that's before my time. You know, it's the legendary stuff. And I can't wait to read it. It's going to be fantastic. Yeah,

it should be a good win to read.

Speaking of just really memorable flights, I asked Debu about this as well. You've done a lot of flying in the biggest mountains in the world, and and beer is pretty special. Anything that's still just, I'd love to do that one again. I mean, the magic of flying is they're never the same, but any really memorable flights from the Himalaya that

Yeah, well, I mean, these as I haven't been there for a few years and you know, things have progressed so much this. So the really memorable flights that I've got, people are now doing, you know, doing the same thing like flying to Monali. You did it with John, yeah, I

did i

Mean, that's an amazing flight. Yeah, I mean, people are doing that and back regularly, yeah.

yeah the

First time I did that, that was just... that was incredible. I mean, and often it's not the the biggest or the longest flights that are the most memorable. Is I mean, one of my first flights there was with them, with Bob Drury and Rob Whittle, and just flying into the back with them, and I was really green, and I'd only been flying two or three years at that point, and they kind of convinced me to follow them over the back into the map, and they were all prepared for camping out, and I and I bottled it. I I didn't have any kit running, so I flew back to beer, but I'll never forget that.

I didn't realize beer had so much history. I was about to ask you a stupid question, you know, who kind of pioneered it. But I remember I had Larry Tudor on the show, and they used to have hang gliding comps there. He had this amazing story of they all took acid. I can't remember if they'd gotten to goal and took acid or if it was a non-flyable day and they took acid and they were all driving down the mountain. And the the the driver had some, he had a little guy next to him because the brakes didn't work, and a little guy would have to crawl down in a hole to activate the brakes. And the brakes went out or something. They're going down this mountain and everybody's on acid and having this amazing trip, and Larry's tripping too, but at the same time still had some of his senses about him going, "No, listen, this is super sketchy. We don't have any brakes in this freaking bus." You know, it was, it's a hysterical story, but I don't know if that was, I don't know what decade that

was yeah that

Yeah, and then the first paragliders, I mean, I—I because I, as I started flying '95, but that was when I started doing my PhD as well, so I was always kind of tied up in the autumn. So I didn't get there until '99 or 2000, so I felt like a bit of a late arrival. But even in those days, it was still like, you know, maximum 10 pilots on takeoff. Everyone knew each other. There was a tiny little, a tiny little gang. You know, nowadays, I think last October, Eddie's saying probably four or five hundred over the course of the season. Yeah, boy, that'd be a chaotic launch.

I mean, it was—it was a chaotic launch when I was there in 2009, and just that, I—that's one of the more stressful launches I've ever been on, yeah. Just because there's no wind, there's a lot of people, and there's a lot of screwing up. It's just, I don't want to watch this. I don't want to watch this. I just want to get off, off the hill, yeah.

I think they've, they've massively landscaped it. Oh, okay. Since they last time I was, they'd already done a bit. I think they've done more, so it should be, should be a bit easier. But in terms of memorable flights, there was one amazing flight with John, which was also written up in Cross Country, which he wrote up, I think. So I don't know if it's gone in the, in the, in the new book, but, uh, I was, you know, as part of the whole yogi spiritual trip, there's a mountain there in the back to the northwest called Money Mahesh Kailash, and it's so Kailash, you know, you have probably heard of Mount Kailash in Tibet, but actually there are a few Indian mountains that have a good claim to be the original Mount Kailash, and this other one might be it as well. Um, that's the whole other long story. Anyway, I've determined to get there and, or to get close up to it, and so it was with, um, with Eddie and John and another guy called Dean Crosby, actually brilliant British pilot, and we camped out on the high, quite high up on the Dollar Dark.

You know, we'd flown out and then the plan was the next day to take, to take off early because often it's difficult to get high on the, on the main range later on in the day as the cloud comes in, as you know. And so the plan was to take off early, uh, and then go over the back to, uh, Money Mahesh to this, this holy mountain And yeah, we managed to do it. I... it was looking a bit sketchy, but I was just like, again, it was a... a bit like the Isle of Wight flight. It's now or never. I'm never going to be in such a good position, so I just logged over and only John followed me. Eddie and Dean, like, those guys are crazy. And we did get a bit flushed, and anyway, then had had a really, really amazing flight up to five and a half thousand meters and got up pretty close to this holy mountain and then

Then there's a lake at four thousand meters, which is a big pilgrimage place. In fact, John John said he'd never seen it, and I got photos of it, and he was, "I can't believe I'd not—I didn't notice it." Again, anyway, we then flew on around and landed. I had the sketchiest landing of my whole life, I think. It's kiss the ground in this tiny little gorge above the town of Brunt Moore, which is in a gorge itself, and the wind was just switching everywhere. But that was then. It was somewhere I did with this town of Brunt Moore, which is a long, you know, by road from Beer. It's about 10 or 12 hours or something like that. We got there, you know, a couple of hours flying, hour, hour and a half, but I needed to go there for a research project I had on at the time. So we then spent a couple of days because there's these amazing seventh-century temples there, and we spent a couple of days, and I was looking around all of that.

And then we got a cab back, which I was able to charge to my university research account, and then, uh, but you reminded me of that because we were driving. The guy, the driver, was lethal. He was like 50, he was probably 55, I think, who's ex-military would have been a taxi driver, he said, for 10 or 20 years. He just drove so fast, and I kept saying, I kept losing it with him in Hindi, and would give him a load of grief and say, "That this is just ridiculous, stop it, you keep this up, I'm gonna have to take over, blah blah, you're gonna kill us." And, uh, and then I, then I noticed that he was driving with, with one hand kind of tucked in his lap, and he was changing gear with his right hand as well as, as well as steering, hearing I'm doing that, and he said, he said, "I thought, well, I thought if I drove with only one hand, I might drive a bit more slowly." Some

of them that I, I'm sure you've experienced way more than I have, but some of the taxi rides I've taken in India are quite harrowing, especially in the cities. It's just, how does this possibly work? I mean, in, uh, in Lima, Peru, I remember the first time I really started traveling down to South America, you can drive on these, you know, where there's, there's three lanes, and yet they've made 10 lanes out of it. You know, you're going, good God, they're so close to one another and so much speed. It's very impressive.

Yeah, well, people's, yeah, because I've, I actually found the end of my last trip in 2019 was not my life, but that trip when I cut my hair, I had to give back my jeep. I don't know if you remember my jeep, I had that black, yeah, black car. I've been over a hundred thousand kilometers on that, but people used to, I don't, for 20 years, it's very sad to give it back, but people would always say, "You know, God, you scared driving yourself," and I said, "Well, it's safer than letting someone else." Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, do

You guys still have the house, no?

I had to give that back as well in 2015 or 2016. The guy who owned it, the landlord, he retired and said he took it on. That was... that was precious. Yeah, that was fantastic. That was amazing, but the

Colonel's still there, Colonel's

Still there, yeah. And his son, Vikram, taking over, yeah. I'm hoping, as I say, get out there next spring, I think.

Yeah, do you typically fly? Do you, well, you're out there for typically six months, but uh, do you mostly chase the spring now or the fall? And I mean, I know for the guiding you always did the fall, but the, you know, for you personally,

Well, I think I'm going to go back in spring. I mean, I think, and I maybe I'm more as I as I say gammon, it's kind of, you know, it's been three or four years since I was there, so it's a very weird time for me. Um, but I probably would prefer to go in spring. These days, it's quieter, isn't it? You know, it's less, but you need to go for a long time. You don't, you think, as you go in, you go in the very short window of a month, whatever it is, but you can pretty guaranteed that out of 30 days, you'll get 28 days fine, or something like that. Or in spring, you'll, there's a good chance to sit around for a week at some point, do some flight and a good day I'll come. But yeah, I'm hoping to get back there, hopefully with Eddie, actually next, next spring are

You guys going to keep guiding when that when it opens back up?

I'm not, I'm too, you know, too busy, too busy with other stuff. But Eddie's, Eddie's been, but Eddie, I think he, I don't know if he's still going to be doing sky safaris, but he's now working with, um, Foram, I can't remember what her company's, who work with Jockey. Yeah, yeah, so he's doing a bit in Debu and Antoine, they're all doing that stuff, yeah, all those

years of guiding, uh, I, I've never guided. I've always been nervous about that. Just, I just trying to help other people. I don't know, it just makes me nervous, especially in big mountains like you guys have done. What are the what

One thing from guiding has been most important in your own flying, your own survival, your own risk management, um...

So, it's a very good question.

Wait, what did I learn from guiding? Um, I can't, I can't think of a good answer. I mean, I, I really enjoyed setting things up. That's, I got, I get, I got bored of it after a while, to be honest. It became setting it, setting, I love—I don't know about you, but I like setting things up. I like new things, starting things up, and it was so exciting. It was so brilliant to do that, especially with John and Eddie. You know, we're pretty good trio; we all had very complementary different skills, I think. And, uh, you know, amazing to fly with John. I learned a lot from flying with John, actually. Yeah, I wouldn't, and I don't know if that wasn't necessarily because of the guiding, but the way you must have experienced this, the way he could—what he would call it, milking it, you know, fly super close to the trees, just soaring along ridges without turning.

Yeah, we used to play around that kind of stuff, you know, you could, you'd have to go back and pick up clients and then you would play, play around, actually being quite competitive with each other sometimes, and who could, uh, you know, who could, who could do the least turns and in the whole, in the whole process of guiding? But we had a lot of fun. What I really enjoyed as well was setting up the 360 camp. You know, that was the sort of thing, I don't know if anyone's done anything similar anywhere else in the world, but India is just the perfect place to do it. And we had the, the colonels' guys, so people listening thing, just to explain what that was, was there was a, a place very easy to top land about 50. It's only about 15k east of the billing takeoff, and in fact, it figures in the film, it's the first night, first place that Kiko and I stay in the film we made temples in the clouds.

And then, you know, no one was hanging out there, like we gave it the name 360, um, but what we could, what we would do with our clients and we're guiding is you get the colonel to go up with his guys and set up a camp And then we'd fly in, and you know, there we'd land on the top, and there'd be cups of tea waiting and a lovely, lovely campsite, and they'd make beautiful dinner in the evening. We would have a party, big bonfire, and then the next morning you take off and fly off. And sometimes we go off in a different direction, often everyone, you know, we, but the amazing thing about beer is people who are pretty inexperienced, hadn't done much flying, they'd still be—you'd still be able to, uh, especially if you're doing one-on-one, it's amazing what you can do one-on-one with them, with people who have not got much experience. And so often people would be quite—that would they would be stoked enough just from that, but they'd want to fly back to beard.

But other times we would then, you know, lob over the back and maybe try to fly to Manali or whatever. But I think that, you know, that was really exciting, being able to set that up, which was a—I think probably, probably unique. I don't know if anyone, any other guiding company in the world, has managed to do that. Maybe in the Alps, I suppose you could do stuff with huts and so forth, but also the thing about being as the weather's so reliable

Yeah, yeah, that's the thing about the Alps is it's not reliable like this, especially in the fall. I mean, it was just so accessible and special to land there and then have the donkeys come up and everything's set up. It was, it's a really cool way to get a bivvy experience having not have done any bivvying, you know, or top landing a lot of people, I think, you know, luxury bivvy, luxury bivvy, yeah, no.

but you, that was where you fell out. This guy wasn't, that wasn't even, so no.

It was, uh, you know, we had all top landed there, and then it was, you know, relatively strongish. I don't know if I would think that these days, but it's—it was to me back then. And and John and I took off again, and I was basically just—you were just talking about learning and guiding. I mean, I hard to say now, that was a long time ago, but I feel like I learned more from John, following him around, than anybody I've ever flown with, partially because I, I could never understand him when he would say things on the radio, and it was always just pure excitement and no words, just blah. He was so excited. And so you just had to kind of follow him. And like you say, I, I was a very pup pilot and, but it was, I just loved being able to follow him around the sky.

And I don't, I think it was that trip that I did the trip with him to Manali in the, in the back. And that was just mind blowing. And, but that day, yeah, out, we took off and I was just turning away from the hill. And you remember there was that gully to the left side coming up and something just hit me. I, I have no idea if this is the case, but we later learned that that wing, you know, that wing had been in the ocean a lot. Uh, I had done a lot of towing with that wing on the boat. And that was what was the gin rebel. I think it was was the sea. And I think it was radically out of trim. And so I like to think that that was part of it, but I don't know.

But yeah, I took a big hit and was kind of helicoptering as I remember. And, and then I hit the ground and, and, you know, I had this thought at one point I should throw my reserve, but it was quite windy. And then I panicked because I thought I'd get blown over the back. And, and, and I kind of got it a little bit stable as I remember, but still very much in deep stall and hit one of those little flat, you know, terrace areas with grass, and it was like landing like a kitten. It was just totally, so obviously enough of the wing was... I think at that point I was kind of... you guys couldn't see me, and so everybody just thought, and it was just... I mean, right before I hit, I thought, "Oh wow, this is really gonna hurt." And, uh, and then it didn't hurt at all, so there was obviously enough wing.

I was probably so scared that I had the wing perfectly in deep stall; I had my, my hands way too low, and, and it was just holding there nicely. And so, yeah, just chalk that one up to pure luck, yeah.

We were very, very pleased. Well, I think someone ran over there and, you know, said on the radio or something, "You were okay?" But yeah, it looked sketchy. I remember, yeah, yeah. And that week, I mean, we—it was, um, yeah, I—I think I got like, going back to the whole the the Himalayan Sky Safari thing, it was great and people had such, such wonderful experiences, you know, the looks on people's faces. But it once we got to a point, I mean, Eddie's always up for doing more crazy adventures, but I was, I kind of thought that, I mean, crazy adventures with the with the clients and pushing it further and further, and I always, I was always trying to rein him in a bit. And also, I think we got to the limit of what we could do, and then, as I say, I like setting things up when it became more kind of management and it felt like risk management. We had a few accidents; we had one lovely guy, poor guy, the Norwegian guy, I was there.

Yeah, right. It was that year. It was that year. Of course.

So after that, then it just becomes more, you become worried about it. A bit like what you were saying. You probably didn't, you know, you're just worrying about the clients and this is paragliding. We know anyone can hit, get hit. It wasn't anyone's fault that Stein crashed, but it just became more stress than fun. um

What percentage would you say that has back to 95? Let's just take your life from 95 to today, what percentage of your life is academics, uh, and study and writing and your life outside of flying versus flying god?

In recent years, much less flying, Gavin, than than before. I mean, yeah, I haven't done much traveling for flying. I mean, I live in a brilliant place for flying. Uh, as I say, in in small redounds, it's kind of used to literally, I can walk to a takeoff, takes me about 20 minutes, 25 minutes, got a short up up a hill. Uh, and the British hang gliding, paragliding records used to be used to be from there. Now people, now that's gone a bit further, but there's scope for about 260k or something. So I will go out if it's if it's good, you know. I I go out as much as possible, but this this season's been pretty terrible, and I guess I haven't been to be enough for three or four years. Uh, hoping to get back out there for a good stint next spring. As I keep saying, I'm worried I'm going to get jinxed on that.

But yeah, there's the North South Cups. I'm a keen cross country pilot through the season, but again, you know, I've got family and things, so quite often you have to grit your teeth, grin and bear it, and try not to look up at the sky because you know, and nowadays, of course, you can bloody track everyone and all that's torture. You've got to, they'll be sitting on some boring Zoom meeting, isn't it? Click out Xcrt whatever it is and watch people having amazing flights. But I've managed, I've been like I said this year, I got out. I've had three three really good flights. Um, and that's kind of enough, isn't it? It keeps you, I find nowadays like, but I almost feel the bit if you get a really good one or two in at the beginning of the season, it's like, oh, now I'm just going to be completely hooked or something. You know, it's harder to ignore once you've had a bit of a fix like that, then you just keep wanting to to have it.

But at the same time, as long as you keep getting one or two, three fixes of amazing flights a year, maybe five, I guess, then then that's that's enough to sustain me.

You've, you've heard this one on the show, but I love it, and so do the, so do the listeners. If you could go back to your 50-hour self, which I'm assuming is 95, what would you, what would you tell that? Let's see, you, you were born in 70s, you know, would you tell that 25-year-old self, if, if you could, if you could

Um, well, it sounds like an arrogant thing. I don't know if anyone has said this in response to this question before, but I—the fact that I'm here, touch wood, I haven't broken anything. Um, and I've had a lot of fun. I've met some of my best friends, you know? It's still through flying, like Hugh, Eddie, Hugh's god-godfather to one of my daughters, you know? I've met amazing people, amazing friends, and I haven't hurt myself. I've had a lot of fun, still having a lot of fun, so I wouldn't change a thing, to be honest. I don't regret—you know, when you see all these comp reports these days, I like, for I will follow them, I kind of, you know, check in. That's been a PWC in Turkey. I don't know what it looks like, just scared the pants off, I tell you. There's no, I, I wouldn't want to do it. That doesn't, not my idea of fun. And in fact, I'm not a—I've been realizing more and more, I like to fly on my own, you know?

I don't know, it's an interesting thing. Like, you talk about getting into a flow state as well, so the whole gaggle flying is not my cup, even when I go out with groups of friends here. I, I'm very, I'm very competitive, which I think is part of the reason why I don't want to do competitions because you can't sort of guarantee you're going to win, for a start, and it just kind of interferes with my head. And I find I have my much, so I've gone away from the question, but I have my best flights when I'm on my own and I can get into that sort of flow state, and it feels like everything's just, you know, everything's right. And if there's other people around, I'm comparing airing myself with them and other plenty of people here that, in fact, the people who are super keen, you know, who will go to the takeoff the net the day before and in the hope of a good flying big groups, and they all like, you know, being on radio and sticking together the whole way.

But that's not my, not my thing, um, but yeah, to go back to your question, I wouldn't change anything.

Yeah, I like that I

think I think if I'd gone too professional on it as well, I would have got sick of it. I'm you, I don't think I could be like a tandem guy doing tandems nonstop through the summer. I think I'd give up flying pretty quickly.

I think finding that balance seems to be the key as the years go by. We can't all – we're human. We can't have that itch and scratch, that need and passion that we have when we first discover it. That's not going to stick around. You have to fly for different reasons and have to find the passion in other ways. But, okay, I haven't done this. I'm kind of excited about this with you. I haven't done this in at least over a hundred shows. If you listen to any of the early ones, you might remember this, but I used to do this, the Proust questionnaire. It just seemed appropriate with you. But it's interesting that I used to do it because I found, you know, these questions somewhere, and they had—they weren't the questions that are the actual Proust question. I don't know where they came from, so this one has some of the real ones that were actually from Proust, but not others.

I've kind of thrown in a little, a little mix, but so we'll take these, and then I'll give you back your time because I've held on to it for a long time here, but your favorite qualities in a man

Oh gosh, favorite qualities, well...

There's lots of my favorite qualities. I mean, you know, reliability, having one's friend you could be able to depend. I mean, that's almost the definition of a friend, someone you can, you know, if the shit hits the fan, you can give them a call and they'll help you out. Someone who's there for you. Um, enthusiasm, you know, being up for stuff like. It's so great hanging out with Eddie, like I've been hanging out with Eddie this. Eddie's just always up for doing the next thing. I mean, it always drives you mad, you know, like after a few, few days with him, I was exhausted and one evening I just want to watch a bit of TV and he's like, "Come on, let's go." I just want to tell you, please, so much.

energy yeah he's

Great, yeah. You know, it just makes life worth living, though it makes life, you know, doing stuff, um, yeah, I guess. Is that it? Yeah, perfect.

favorite qualities in a woman. Imagine, you think about your wife, what do you think about this? It sounds like you have an amazing relationship, yeah.

Well, that's, you know, you think I could get in trouble answering that? Of course, don't

worry nobody

listens

Well, it's you've kind of pinned me, I should say. The same thing, shouldn't I remember that? I mean, being there's, I mean, there's an actor in a woman in general, you know, you know. I've got a wife, if you, I'm thinking about my wife, she's also a mother, you know. She's extremely dependable and reliable, and always there for everyone in the family, absolutely. Um, maybe not so much up for crazy fun all the time like Eddie, and that's probably quite a good thing. Yes, great.

um, back to balance, yeah.

Yeah, I guess, um, you know, it's kind of loyalty—sounds a bit patronizing—but dependability, you know, something just... I think that's that's what you want in in your in your everyone, everyone who's there, everyone everyone who's part of your circle, yeah.

Another one from, from the actual questionnaire, your idea of happiness, and then the flip side, your idea of misery and happiness. I, there's a weird word, but joy. However, you like to think about happiness, well...

I wish you, I wish you'd prep me with these guys. There's

better on the spot.

because you always ask another question, which I have prepped. I haven't been asked that final, remember we can

We can edit; you can think about this.

No, no, no. I've got an answer to that. Hang on, what was it? What's... what happened? Well, they kind of flip side in the... like I mentioned earlier, I love new stuff. I get, you know, I think it's, you know, it's why I'm a researcher. I'm constantly trying to find that new stuff, and I like changing my mind. I like being like, you know, having to realize I was wrong. There's nothing more exciting than that, you know? There's nothing... it's awful to be sort of fixed and certain of your opinions. There's nothing better. But even, you know, in my academic world, or in life generally, like new stuff, having to reappraise the situation. So I like change and stimulation. So that's my idea. My idea of someone who's been at my hack is driving my Jeep in India to a new place, whether it's a new flying site or a new temple in the middle of nowhere or something like that.

For me, that's perfect happiness. And so the flip side is, man, I hated lockdown. There's people who say they like lockdown. And that really, you know, I like, I need to get out there, be stimulated, be doing new stuff. And I, yeah, I can't, I don't believe these people who say, "I love lockdown, it's great," but maybe, maybe, maybe it's, it's true. So yeah, for me, happiness is, is, um, is development, progression, you know, just new stimulation, which is maybe not, uh, maybe it could be conducive to poor mental health. And that you constantly, I mean, I've always been like that. In my school, when I was really small, when I was like four or five, they sussed out that the one punishment that would really annoy me was make me sit on the stairs and with no books or anything and just have to look at the wall, aren't

you thankful that guys like us when we when we grew up because I was born in '72 that they didn't have ADD, you know, you couldn't be diagnosed, no one was ADD back then, but I spent half of my youth in the principal's office. I mean, I would, if I was born in the 90s, they would have put me on Zoloft or whatever that stuff is. I just, I'm so thankful they didn't have that back then because I wasn't being fed sugar. It wasn't my diet. My mom was great. She was a great cook and I had great food. So it wasn't that. But I was just a kid behaving like a kid. And I think now it's just, oh, that kid's too hyped up. We're going to have to put him on something. I'm glad they didn't have that back then. Yeah.

Least favorite word.

Least favorite word. word at the moment, I, you know, you, I, I don't like that that the the very common metaphor journey, when someone says you're on a journey, and I use that already a couple times. No, I know you, well, I would have noticed you say. I don't think you've used it in this interview. You know how, how you know where you've got to in your paragliding journey? I don't know, why something like that? Interesting, maybe trivial, minor one, but it's kind of, I like it, cliches I don't like, and

Here's where we'll end favorite word.

favorite

word

Wow, did you really? Because I thought I listened to the early ones. No, these are different.

Yeah, like I said, I, I actually looked up the real Proust question this was part of. At least, according to Wikipedia, this was—these are the questions that were on that one, so they're very different than what I used to ask. Oh,

man, I I can't think of anything right now. My favorite word.

Could

be Hindi.

Yeah, there's some good Hindi. There may only be square words and Hindi words. That's true, actually. There's lots of good Hindi words.

Yeah, there normally be terms of abuse that my guru used to use that would make me laugh, makluf, or what else? Or some place names.

Oh, you said place name. I thought of Denali for some reason. Yeah,

I was thinking of a place called Dhinodhar, which is somewhere I really, I'd love to fly from a mountain in, in southwest, uh, Gujarat, in, in India.

There's some nice place days aren't there? It's beautiful.

Yeah, that's the place that conjures up lovely images for me, but I could, after a whole other podcast, I could talk to you about that. But what's

it called

He knowed her. It's a volcano, volcano in India where a yogi's meant to have stood on his head for 12 years. In this really wild place, really remote in the far, far south, so is

that it, you're gonna... don't you normally ask this time? Don't you normally ask some question about, what's the craziest thing you've seen? Let's

do that one

Sure, yeah, you have one prepared because this is a story I want to get out. Yes, it's a short story, it's not too long, but it's something I remembered the other day and I think it was actually written up in a Cross Country years, years ago, so it would have been about 2005. And this is not an India story, this is UK, in fact. We took off just from my house with, um, Hugh Miller and Jerome Mopua. We had this fantastic flight, it was called Harvest, this fantastic spread in, um, in Cross Country. It was this time of year, but it didn't look like it's—there's the fog out there at the moment. It was a lovely golden harvest season and we did a great Cross Country flight of about 120k or something up to the the Malverns, um, with Jerome just taking pictures all the way. And there were crop circles, so where I live is like the capital of crop circles.

There's lots of ancient monuments and the hippies, like my local pub is a sort of where all the very interesting gatherings of people throughout the summer, so you've got these wonderful shots. Anyway, we were about 100k out and Hugh was in front of me and I think Jerome and I were behind and I was looking at Hugh and then suddenly this—this sailplane comes screaming in from the right, goes under Hugh, loops him.

What? And

carries on. I was like, what

did I just see? What?

What? And then, okay, well, then, and then we finished the flight, and we had, you know, hit, shave, whatever, retrieved, got on a train, got on a train back, and a text message comes in to Hugh from Richard Westgate, who I mentioned earlier, whose brother Guy Westgate was the pilot, was a um, sailplane aerobatics pilot. And so he, uh, Richard texted saying, "Three paragliders, uh, southeast of Malvern, 3 p.m." My brother says, "Hi, no."

Way, are you kidding me? So, did he just see you guys and do it, or did... was he tracking you on some kind of f-large he?

must have seen us. He must have... there was no tracking. Oh, this is a wild guy. Okay, yeah, but he... he would have known that his brother would, you know, his brother Richard was just like the, you know, the guru of, um, cross-country paragliding in the UK. Always wanted to know what people have been doing and stuff, so he knew that his brother would know who had been, and so he must have landed. Is awesome. I thought I... I couldn't, I thought I'd imagined it. I just see this good and sketchy.

at all, or just total? Oh yeah, clearly he's got us. He's not just he; there's plenty of distance. It was totally cool.

enough distance, enough margin. Yeah, people

Ask that all the time, how sketchy it is flying with sailplanes. I just find it so, I've never had a situation ever with a sailplane that was. Cody Mittanck told a story on the show that was the funniest ever I'd ever heard. They were flying across, they were trying to make make it to Moab. So they're out in the middle of the Utah desert and, you know, he's up there almost 18,000 feet, a big day, and he's freezing cold and shaking hands. And his, you know, his, uh, his visors icing up and it's, you know, it was 18,000 feet. It's, it's paragliding at 18,000. It's kind of sketchy and wild and cold and turbulent. And the sailplane, you know, just cruises at the cloud base, just goes by him. And he's thinking, you know, that guy's probably just listening to Bach.

but they seem to be, I don't know, I'm always very encouraged when I see sailplanes out there. You see a lot of, of course, in the Alps, but it's always, I think, I always think of it as a good sign. They're, they're beautiful, but

I get a bit nervous at cloud base. Yes, yeah, I've seen a cell in the last half hour, like, kind of, because I sometimes go a little bit. Yeah, because they all radio each other, don't they? In fact, that reminds me, another... I'm going to get one last thing. I'm excellent. This stupid thing with Eddie, Crazy Eddie, uh, we were a few years ago, we were in a thermal going up just off a hill near here, and so it's one of those lovely calls when you're opposite each other and there's the two of you going up like that, and we're getting near cloud base, and Eddie's chats over, "Jim, let's hold this pattern and take it in."

You lunatic, there's no effing way I'm earning it. See you, we'll

Just keep it up. Oh, I'm glad you laughed, Jim. That's good. That would be terrified. Can you imagine? You just, wait a minute, I don't know where I am. I don't know where he is.

Jim, what a treat! I really appreciate it. Thanks for your time, thanks for making the connection come together. We're on different sides of the world right now, but I really appreciate it that that was a blast.

No, it's always an honor. Thanks a lot for asking me on, Gavin. I hope you get to see it. Come and do the North-South Cup. Yeah, yeah,

I'd love to. Late August, that might be tricky. I'll still be down here, but I will join you guys one of these years. That'd be a hoot.

Maynard, it will be.

Perfect. I'll do that.

All right.

Thanks, bud. Thanks. If

you find the Cloudbase Mayhem valuable, you can support it in a lot of different ways. You can give us a rating on iTunes or Stitcher or however you get your podcasts. That goes a long ways and helps spread the word. You can blog about it on your own website or share it on social media. You can talk about it on the way out to launch with your pilot friends. I know a lot of interesting conversations have happened that way. And, of course, you can support us financially. This show does take a lot of time, a lot of editing, a lot of storage and music and all kinds of behind-the-scenes costs. So if you can support us financially, all we've ever asked for is a buck a show. And you can do that through a one-time donation through PayPal. pal, or you can set up a subscription service that charges you for each show that comes out. We put a new show out every two weeks. So for example, if you did a buck a show and every two weeks, it'd be about $25 a year.

So way cheaper than a magazine subscription. And it makes all of this possible. I do not want to fund this show with advertising or sponsors. We get asked about that pretty frequently, but I, for a whole bunch of different reasons, which I've said many times on the show, I don't want to do that. I don't like having that stuff at the front of the show. And I also want you to know that these are authentic conversations with real people, and these are just our opinions, but our opinions are not being skewed by sponsors or advertising dollars. I think that's a pretty toxic business model, so I hope you dig that. You can support us if you go to cloudbasemayhem.com; you can find the places to support. You can do it through patreon.com forward slash Cloudbase Mayhem. If you want a recurring subscription, you can also do that directly through the website. We've tried to make it really easy, and that will give you access.

We have access to all the bonus material, little video casts that we do and extra little nuggets that we find in conversations that don't make it into the main show, but we feel like you should hear. We don't put any of that behind a paywall. If you can't afford to support us, then just let me know and I'll set you up with an account. Of course, that'll be lifetime and hopefully you'll be in a position someday to be able to support us. But you'll find all that on the website. All of you who have supported us or even joined our newsletter or bought Cloudbase Mayhem merchandise, T-shirts or hats or anything, you should be all set up. You should have an account. You should be able to access all that bonus material now. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your support. And we'll see you on the next show. Thank you.