Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords
Transcription by CastingWords on a climbing tour in Chamonix we'd passed through Chamonix and I'd seen these gliders coming off the Breville but didn't know anything about it and that was probably a year or two before I saw this advert and went why not all my all my mates had gone climbing in Scotland but I had to be around to do to be on call for the company I was working for so it was kind of a bit of a loose end and then saw this advert and thought yeah why not give it a go and I had I was really lucky I had four days of beautiful weather which is quite uncommon in Breville yeah right and you know it was able to fly by the end of it so and the bug had bitten almost straight away what
did that instruction look like back in 91 here's this thing go yeah
kind of I think we were on airwave magics and other such things so the glide angle of a brick
and we were just on sloping hills so you could kind of just run down the hill you might get a bit off the ground and kind of wobble your way down and then land touchdown again I mean there was no school building or anything like that the instructor Dave Solem was my instructor turned up in his Land Rover we're back in the car park we drove up the hill and that was it I spent the day on the hill did
you did you have any hang background or do you start right off with PG I
started straight away
We've come from clay I've been to climbing a bit I went to University in North Wales which is a bit of the home of We're kind of the home We're climbing at the time We actually met Bob Jew We
We We We We We We We We We
We We We We We We
We We We We
We pilots, Roy Haggard and Tom Pagini and John Heine and those guys. And I'll be going out to California here soon to talk to them. But that documentary of the kind of the beginning of hang gliding is amazing. And the footage they have of exactly what you're talking about in the, but this was the early seventies, you know, when they're just hucking it with these crazy contraptions and, and, you know, they'll fly 10 seconds or 15 seconds and just, you know, monumentally stoked and can't wait for the next one. And it's pretty remarkable.
Yeah. I mean, when I started paragliding, I passed my license in Britain, went to the local club, which was the Haven hang gliding, paragliding Haven hang gliding club, as it was then, I guess. And I turned up, there was two paraglider, three paraglider paragliders. And a room full of hang glider pilots. So hang gliding was, you know, the thing that everybody did at that time.
Right. Right. Sure.
Fast forward a little bit. Then where
did it go?
So I kind of, I met through doing the British nationals and other comps. I met Mike Kavanagh and when they set up Ozone. I spoke to him about a job there. And in the early two thousands, I ended up moving out to France with him. Well, not with him. To Ozone. To come and work for Ozone as their marketing person, doing the website, doing adverts, doing manuals. But back then there was only five, five of us, five or six of us. We were in a very small office and all the gliders came to the office to be then distributed. So it wasn't. It wasn't just doing my work. It was packing boxes.
It was going out on the hill with David and Robbie, who were the test pilots at the time, helping test the bigger sizes a bit. So it was kind of, you did a bit of everything. It was really nice sort of family scene. I had a real family feel about the company and we all worked together and we played together.
So that's what brought me to France. And then.
I'd done.
I, when I was back before that in Britain, when I was part of the club scene, I'd done the newsletter for the club. And so when I was in France and I got to meet Bob Dury, who then became the editor of Cross Country, he then asked me to join him to help with Cross Country. So I ended up moving from Ozone to become Cross Country and doing the design and layout of the magazine. But you were able to stay in
France to do that.
Yeah. Yeah. So Bob was that we both lived in the same village. We're both in a village just behind Gordon, which is fairly well-known flying site. It's where Ozone test team test all the time and BGD are in the same area. And I think SUP Air also here. It's all part of the SUP Air test team are here. Okay. So it's a well-known flying area.
Yeah. I mean, he fly. I pretty much every day. Don't you? You
can do. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit more, bit more challenging in recent years with climate change, changing the winds a bit. Hmm. Definitely. When we first moved here, you'd expect 300 days a year. Oh, amazing. According to Bruce.
Yeah. And you, were you back then, were you also testing gliders or were you more marketing? Cause I know now you do a lot of testing and gliders.
Uh, I was more. For Ozone, I was more marketing. Okay. I did get asked to test, not for, um, not for a safety point of view. So I didn't do the EN test staff line, but I did testing of the biggest sizes to see how they felt. See if they were in line with what the guys were saying for the smaller sizes. So we got involved a bit in that, but not, not proper test flying, not like not the sort of test line that Russ and. Yeah. Honor and do now, which is. Yeah. The safety tests and the. What?
Sure. Sure. Sure. And what was, what was your own kind of path or journey? Uh, I was thinking Jim Mallinson when I say journey, he said that's one of his least favorite words. Uh, but what, what was your, I understand you flew world cups for a while. Uh, you know, where has your passion kind of led you with the flying aspect thing? It sounds like mostly it's been marketing in terms of the work, but, uh, yeah, I know you're a very keen pilot. You. You spend a lot of time in the air.
Yeah. So I started flying when I first flew, there weren't so many of us flying. So, I mean, I remember the first year of flying, I flew about 11 kilometers, I think on one flight and it was in the top 10 of the British league. I was in the top 10 of the British league. So it was very easy to get, find yourself quite highly placed. So I ended up doing the nationals, the British nationals. Oh, and then from that doing the world cup, not overly successfully. Hmm. So I found myself in this bigger pool of very good pilots from Europe and realized I didn't have the skills level that I necessarily needed, but it was fun. It was a learning process.
So, and yeah, so I kept doing national level competitions, I guess. I never had amazing success. I'm not a brilliant pilot. I don't think. I enjoyed it and it taught me a huge amount. So it was a great learning process for cross country flying. Yeah. I think that's probably more of a passion. I, I like flying, flying through the mountains. So here we're lucky. We've got some great routes from the back door. Yeah. You can walk out the back door and take off and go north. And that takes you to some very nice mountains.
Yeah. The, the Maritimes are one of my favorite places on earth. It's just, uh, you know, I only got. To really hang out there very much for the, either the training of the races or the, or the races, but it's, uh, I always say I should spend more time down there. They're, they're just magnificent. You know, they're incredible for bivvy there. I did a, one of my favorite trips in all those years of training. I think it was for the first one in 2015, I started in Chamonix at the Bravant and hiked up the Bravant and, and had my bivvy kit and just flew down the Maritimes and got to, I don't know. 30, 40 K of, of the med and, you know, it's just incredible. You're in, you're, you're right on the, the border of France and Italy.
And, and yet you feel like you kind of have it all yourself. It's a pretty amazing area.
I mean, there's a lot
of terrain, a lot of terrain, a lot of big terrain and people haven't been in there. You don't realize it. It's big stuff.
Yeah. Cause it's the main chain coming to the sea. So, yeah. And yeah, Tim Pantry has made some great videos, highlight some of the possibilities and, and flying through the air crown and stuff. And I remember when I first did a lot of cross country fly with Bob Drury, we did some flights through the air crown early on, probably early two thousands. And I think we were some of the first people to fly through them. And it was just, I remember Bob saying it was, it's some of the most intense terrain that he's. And he's flown in the Himalayas and other places. So it
really is. Uh, help me with that. Um, Ebron, the, the, the fort above Lake Ebron, uh,
a real famous flying site by the castle up there, the castle. Yeah. One of my first, I used to do these trips. I did a couple of trips with Toby Cologne with passion paragliding, where he would start in Annecy and end in Nice or start in Nice. And then in Annecy. So it was kind of a van version of the Maritimes part of the X-Alps, but you would just, you would just create a task given the day and you'd go as far as you could. And then we'd stay there and then start from there the next day. It was really neat. It was a cool way to learn that part of the world. And, uh, we, we, one day, uh, we started it at St. Vincent and flew down to San Andre and it's only, what
is that? A
hundred K. I think it's
50 K down to San Andre. Is it only 50 K? Yeah. It's kind of a big. I remember. I remember you tricked us. It's the north of San Vincent on the top of the ridges of Dormeuse and there's a big fort on the very top of the ridge. Yep. And that's our, one of the turn points that we normally use if we're doing triangles from here.
Okay. Yeah. I just remember that being so awesome. I mean, some of that terrain between there, it's just gray rock and spiky and, you know, it's very much kind of like my backyard, you know, it's just, whoa, where am I? You know, this doesn't seem like France. It's really, really magnificent.
It's really stunning. It's really stunning. Big rock places.
And the Brits have, you often have your, one of your national events there in San Andre, right? I remember Russ Ogden saying that his, his two favorite place to places to fly a comp were Chelan here in Washington and, and San Andre. And San Andre is a pretty, pretty remarkable place to fly triangles.
Yeah. There's lots of opportunity now. And I think the great thing about San Andre is in the past, it was, you, those people just flew the Dormews Ridge up to San Vincent back. But now people are flying out into the flatlands and big triangles out that way, out to Cistern and then back across to the top of the Dormews. So, I mean, Luke and Honorin and others have done some big flights from Col de Blen going out towards Cistern and out almost to the big Rhone Valley.
Yeah. And
then back across and then down to create 300K triangles. It's very impressive. Yeah. That one,
what Baptiste did last year, that was that 350 or something. It's just,
.
Even for the normal pilot. Yeah. There's the opportunity to do 200K triangles around it. Yeah, sure. Because you just shorten some of those legs and you're still using the main furraferes, but you can. Right. To come back on and
stuff. Magnificent place to fly. We haven't crossed that. We
haven't cracked
that code over here yet. We just, we don't, the train doesn't quite line up for us in that way. We, we climb awful fast. We get awful high, but we just have not figured out it's there. We know it's there, but we just haven't figured out how to do it. You know, you have those early starts where you guys can fly 50, 60K without making a turn, even at 830, you know, you just stick your wing tip on the terrain, keep going. It's pretty special.
Okay. Switching to the mag. Yeah. And. And you, you know, you are the guy who does a lot of wing reports and wing testing. I would imagine that's tricky from a perspective of the magazine. You know, you want to be honest, but you also want to be, you know, you don't want to potentially ruin a relationship with a, with a manufacturer. How does that work in the back end? I think a lot of people are curious about that. You know, you want to put out a report that is. Accurate, but you know, gear reviews can often be swayed. How does that work?
Yeah. I think we have to be very careful about what we say about wings as in, I don't think you can be overly negative because obviously manufacturers will not take kindly to that. It's not just because yeah, they're paying, they are paying us money for efforts, but we try to be totally truthful about reviews.
We consider much more!!!!
!!! For the lower class wings, you don't get that information because it's all subjective.
Unless you're flying exactly the same harness and clothes even, you can't compare performance. If you talk to the guys at Ozone, they spend a lot of time trying to compare two wings together on glide, and it's really hard. Yeah. Yeah, it was interesting. The pilots and the harness, even the clothing, even if you've got a beard, can affect the glide.
Yeah, it's crazy. Just down at the Menarca in Valle, there were quite a few pilots flying the GR-5, the gen version of the submarine. It's so interesting because none of us really know how good it goes. I was flying the Drifter II, and I think the only one on that harness. We all kind of went, yeah, but we won't know for a year, really. You've got to put a lot of people on this thing and fly it around and see, you know, does it have an advantage on the sub? Is it a disadvantage? Can we even tell? You can do all the wind tunnel testing and everything else and get the numbers, but like you said, it's pretty hard, isn't it? It's got to be, from where you're sitting, it's got to be nearly impossible.
It's also
how usable that performance is, isn't it? Right. For a glider, definitely. Obviously, the harness is slightly different.
And I think, yeah. Again, time gives you that information if it's used a lot in competitions. So I guess now with the sports class competitions, we're going to get that information for that level of glider as well. Sure. Whereas before, it was only really, we were only getting that for the top-end gliders. Now we're seeing the true performance of gliders.
The sports class thing, I've been meaning to do a show specifically on it. It's really exciting, isn't it? I mean, one of the things that I love, about sports like baseball and basketball and football is there's not really gear. It doesn't matter. I mean, unless the shoes, okay. I mean, maybe a pair of Air Jordans is a little bit better, but it's really down to the athlete. And this has been one of the, it's hard when you get into sports like skiing and paragliding, where the equipment is a really big deal. You know, Michaela Schifrin, you know, she ships a container of skis everywhere she goes, and she's got a tuner just for her.
He only does her skis. And so, you know, it's a, it's a marketable advantage. When you, when you have, when you're relying on equipment and our sport really relies on equipment. And so, you know, I've, I've often thought, wouldn't it be great if we were all flying the exact same thing? And then we could really see, you know, who is the best pilot, you know, then we would see that honor and still win. But, but probably exactly, but it's, it, it, the sports class is really cool because it's, it allows competition at not such a fierce end of the spectrum where you're not totally reliant on gear. It's exciting. I'm really glad that this is happening. It's a
very exciting new way for the competitions. And I did a couple of the comps this year, last year, sorry. And it was really nice to be there. Yeah. Yeah. really really made me enthusiastic for competition flying again because i didn't have to be on the whizzy machine i could be on a fair you know relatively safe machine yes
i feel
comfortable on it and they go good
uh you know we were just down there there were quite a few people on the on the arctic and the photon and you know the kind of the new enc two liners and you know they're they're you never see them take a hit you know they're they're incredibly uh robust in the air and and you know but they have that two-liner feel that we all love who fly two-liner control as well so and the two-liner control which is a big difference yeah which is a big difference you can feel it and and you can push them which is it's pretty neat
i've really i flew the photon last year mainly and really enjoyed flying that like in italy at jambona and we can go on these long glides and you can use rear risers all the time to control the wing and you feel safe because you've got that control yeah you have that level of extra level of control that you then you had before on seas so yeah
i mean i remember back in in the this has been a long time but uh you know when i flew the arctic two you know enc back in the day you know it was just a mat you know at some point you're going to take a huge hit at some point you're going to take a massive frontal and you had nothing to tell you that it was it was going to happen and you know these days now they just you don't see it happening they're they're they're very it's an exciting development i'm sure the technology is
better and yeah the feels better so you you're reacting to it a lot more yeah
you can feel it you can feel what's happening with the air which is which is great i mean that's you know that's why two-liners are so exciting and i
think the other thing about the sports class comps is they feel very supportive everybody is in there to help each other get the best out of it even the people are pushing to win but you know they're willing to pass information around all the time yeah and
that's special found it a
really supportive environment a mentoring belt built in in a
sense yeah yeah that that's fantastic
people blossoming in that environment yeah
yeah one of the things i've been really noticing in our scene in the u.s comp scene lately is that uh you know you can people are coming up through the ranks and and becoming very accomplished comp pilots way faster than and you know it used to be that you know 10 years before you'd fly an end or a CCC wing or you know a comp wing back in the day and it would it would just it would take longer uh to to get there it would take longer to learn how to do it and i think that's one of the things i've been really interested in is that how to perform with the best in the world. And, you know, with the, with the wings these days, and like you said, with the mentoring, you know, Nate made a comment, Nate scales, my neighbor, who's been in the game as long as you have.
And he said, you know, you, you know, he was down in Valle and he was blown away by the scene now because it used to be competitive. You know, they used to throw beer bottles out the, at the, out of the window at each other's heads. And, you know, if you were on a firebird and, or, you know, there was that team versus the other team and, and it was, it was really competitive and it's obviously still competitive at the, at the world cup and, and people want to win, but it's, there's a lot of mentoring going on. There's a lot of, you know, people are really helping each other out and it's good to see. Yeah. As you said,
pilots are accelerating through the process quite very quickly now. Very quickly. It's almost scary. It's just, wow. But it's. It's. But becoming good pilots as well. Exactly. Yeah. It's not like a shortcut.
I'm sure a lot of that's just the trust in the glider as well. You know, you just, you have this machine that's very different than what you guys were, were dealing with where, you know, you're just the whole object is to keep the thing open. You know, now it's, we don't have to worry about that nearly as much. Not really. We can press. That's
what, like I said, with the reviews, it's, there aren't really bad gliders anymore. There aren't, it's just gliders have different flavors. They have different feel. And for me, the review is to try and express that so people can choose the wings that suit their style of flying. People, you know, people have a flavor. Yeah.
And. Before we get to your, your accident, and I want to spend most of the time of the show on that, because it's, it's, you know, you've had a pretty interesting few months, of course. And thankfully, I think we're heading towards a half. Happy ending, which is great. But before we get to that, you know, you have to put out a number of shows on the X-Ops. He's kind of, you know, a walk and fly down memory lane. And I'm done. I was all with athletes, but you and, and add, and Hugh over the years have been very involved with the Red Bull X-Ops. And I thought it'd be really fun to pause here for a second and get your take on. It could just be a singular story, you know, some crazy memory that you have.
I mean, I don't know if you've heard from it, but you know, we're still a ways out from, from 25, but it's a, it's a subject that everybody knows who listens to the show knows I love so much, but it'd be interesting to get your take from the other side. Cause it was, it was quite different for me, obviously this time being on your side of the fence, seeing it from the journalism side of the fence. And it was, it was pretty wild watching those guys and girls. Amazing.
And it's just every year, every time we get. They get faster and faster and you think, oh, they might not get around this year, but they do.
Yeah. Right.
Yeah. It's, and it's been interesting how it's changed. I mean, I remember it must've been, yeah, it was the first time and Dav DeGaulle was in it and we were, we were in the Ozan office for trying to support him and Nicky, his then partner who was, you know, supporting him. And we were just like, none of the. Technology was really there. We didn't have all the weather forecasting. They do know. And it was just a case of ringing up, you know, the contacts of the company. Who's the distributor distributor in that area. Ring them up, get the information. But I remember Nicky going, I don't know where Dav is. He went over this hill and I haven't got a clue where he's gone now because it's hardly any tracking.
It was really hard and just the technology wasn't there, but now you can follow them. You can watch them firmly in 3d. Yeah. On your screen. And it's yeah. That's sort of, it's really changed and we're getting a lot more access to what happens as watches as viewers, because every team has their own media people now. Yeah. So they're busy recording everything, putting it on their own social and it's so much more open and people say, I do hear a lot of people going, oh, it's more, more and more dangerous. It's getting more and more dangerous. It's. But I think actually what's happening now is. Yeah. It's a lot of people are seeing more of it. If you, I mean, I remember hearing Dab stories at the time and it was just as wild.
Yeah. Yeah. Flying through storms, avoiding storms, getting tumbled. I mean, he told me about getting tumbled coming down through the valley and his reserve popped out. He might grab it, put it in his pocket and flew on. Of course, as you do. But nobody really knew about it at the time, but now that would be all over social media. Right. So I think. When people are going, I think the race is getting sketchier and sketchier. It's not, it's the same race. It's just, we can see it a lot more now.
Wow. That's an interesting, yeah. And it's interesting. I'm sure. You get to see
every moment.
Yeah. It's, it's. Especially
now you were there flying alongside it and that gives another element to it.
Yeah. And I've, you know, I've really upped my kit since then, you know, this time I just showed up and they went here, use this and it wasn't, it wasn't that it was bad. It just wasn't quite right. And it was. It was, it made it really hard to take off. And, you know, I had my own little X-Alps adventures because of the, because of the filming equipment. So I've, I've, I've now got really good gear and we had, you know, we had this live platform that Red Bull gave zoom, I think 48 hours before the prologue. So, I mean, we, we really didn't figure it out until the race was over. You know, we kind of had it figured out when I was dialing down over Neith Ellie over Ellie, you know, in a spiral dive, going to the raft. Yeah. I mean, that was. I mean, finally it works, you know, literally at the end of the race. So I think that's going to be really exciting.
We might be able to tap into Starlink next time. And I think that'll be. The possibilities. Possibilities. Bigger and bigger,
aren't they?
Yes, exactly. You know, there's just so many stories embedded in that race that never even come out. You know, there's just things that happen to every team, every race that are, you know, that would, that are, they're a book in themselves. I'm sure. Yeah. Everybody's got their own little tales. What's
the, what's the,
when you think of the X ops, what's, what's the craziest thing you saw either personally or story you heard, you know, of all the years, that's a tough one. I'm putting you on the spot here, but is it, are there any that just, I remember one of my fondest and kind of head check memories I have is after the 2015 race, you know, we made it to Monaco that year is the only time I made it. And. Yeah. Had, you know, I had the, the van booked for the wrong return. I couldn't even go to the party. We drove all Bruce and I drove all night after we got to Monaco and we were just hammered and just so tired. And we got to the zoom office and Fuschel and Ed was there and, you know, big ad.
And he, he gave me this look in this. Then he gave me this hug. That was just, I'm glad you're alive. You know, 2015 was a really windy year. And there were a lot of accidents that year and a lot of withdrawals, but, you know, he just kind of knew, he knew what I'd gone through and he gave me this look that was just, oh, cherish it forever. But it was, it was a real look of concern. And I was, you know, and I, I often read that in you guys, cause when you're embedded and you're hearing the stories and you're reporting on it and you're, and you're seeing the weather, uh, it's a little spooky. We
get to know all the athletes there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This, the, the brilliant thing about our sport is you can talk to anybody in the sport. Yeah. And everybody's approachable and it's, they're like your friends within about five minutes because we all share this thing in common. And so when we wander around at the start and we talk to people, we become friends with them there. We have a vested interest in them and we worry about them when we watch the show. What's the race going on? We're going ahead from our offices. We, we're worried about these people cause they're our friends. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. And I think that's something really special about our sport is that we, we get to mix with the best in the sport.
It's like walk, you know, meeting people that are in the NBA or football, premier league footballers and you just walk and talk with them.
Right. Yeah. You want to talk to Chrigel? Go talk to him. Yeah. He's happy to talk to you. Every,
every top, every, everybody in the ex-Alps has always got time. I know they have to come and talk to us because we're the magazine, but I generally feel that they all have time.
Yeah. Yeah. That is special. That's really neat. And it's
something special about our sport as well. Maybe walk onto Gordon, Russ is there. He'll talk to you.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is really special. All right, bud. So what happened? What, uh. Uh,
on that fateful day.
So I think it was, it's a story of complacency. I think it's kind of the end. It was the end of season. Yeah. Season of lots of flying. It was good flying and enjoying myself. And it was just another morning doing a hike and fly. I've been doing lots of hike and fly on our local hill and nothing special. Just a normal day. Walked up lovely conditions early in the morning. So nothing really happening. Took off, flew around a bit, using some gentle lift, flew along the hill a bit along the ridge and then came back, decided to try and get up in the cliffs.
And, uh, I think it's taken me a while to work out probably what happened. And it is. Yeah. A bit of conjecture because I don't actually have a full recollection of what happened. We all got blanked out at the time. We're snippets. I can remember snippets, but that's it. Interesting. And I remember working a little bit lift in this corner in the cliff. And I've I followed it back over the sort of edge of the cliff onto the sloping slope behind.
And I turned to try and keep it. We didn't keep it much longer. this little bubble lift and I think I just spanned the wing at that point mainly and looking back at it I think I'd been flying a normal big ENC two-liner earlier in the week which has quite long brake travel was used to that had been flying wings with fairly long brake travel a lot of the time and flown the little mountain wing quite so much
and it's brakes are set very short so I think I just went to turn tightly and just overdid it not in itself a problem I recognize the problem like you know we've spun gliders lots in testing and stuff and it's something I always do with gliders when I first get them is you know search for the spin and just take it to the spin point and do 180 degree spin and fly out and I think you know I think I've done a lot of things in the past and I think I've done a lot of things in the past and I think I've done a lot of things in the past and I think I've done a lot of things in the glider start to spin so I released and I remember the glider going out in front so I went to catch it the next thing I'm on the ground so I think I just pendulum into the hill because I hadn't left enough space you didn't have enough margin there okay yeah so I sort of yeah have that snippet of it being in front and then I have a then I'm then
you're on the ground
then I'm on the ground hmm
and then I have to think about rescue so with complacency again I hadn't really said what I was doing
my partner my wife and was not there nobody really knew I was actually flying
hmm yeah you're just going out for a little quick hike it's
fine I'm just going for a hike I'll be landing at the fields it's fine but one luckily one thing I've always been careful about is keeping my phone in a place where I could always reach it and it's just something drilled been drilled into me so luckily I was able to get my phone and call for help and uh I was very lucky that the local school were on site so our local instructor Cedric Boussard was teaching students he got told there was something happening he then got involved in the
!!!!!!! He sent up his TI, ran up the hill to me, along with one of the students who happened to be a nurse in the fire brigade. So they were running up the hill. One of his other students had a drone. So he sent the drone up to find my exact position and guide these two guys into me. And at the same time, the helicopter was being called and that was on its way. So, and luckily, another good thing here in France is we do have these rescue helicopters. And here it's very close. It's at Nice.
So it's not very far away. It's 10 minutes flight time away. And I was very lucky that it was available. So it came straight to me and it was with me in 20 minutes, I think. Did
they have to lift you out or could
you land? They did have to lift me out. I don't remember the lift because...
I remember them arriving. They dropped the two paramedics and they came and checked me over. I said, I think I've broken my pelvis. And I had some other small wounds. But they then, yeah, obviously checked me over, decided I had what my injuries were. And they said, right, we're going to have to lift you out. And at that point, they gave me gas and air and I passed out. Because they couldn't... I didn't get a stretcher in because I was just in a harness anyway. So it would have been fairly excruciating. I would have thought it was a broken pelvis to be just harnessed out. Did you just have a little string bikini harness or a
proper... Did you have some protection?
I had an airbag on the bottom of it. I had a reserve as well. And another good thing that I had was a proper EN certified flying helmet. Did that take a pretty good hit to your head? I took a chunk out of the helmet. The helmet? Wow. And it was... That was something... We had been flying in climbing helmets, like, probably earlier in the same year, me and my wife. And one of the readers had complained because they were on some videos going, oh, you should really be flying EN and EN certified helmets. And we kind of went, yeah, you're right. And at that point, I went, actually, we're not even saving any weight. Yeah, right. You're not. Go compare the specs. And Ed was going, I think...
As a magazine, we should be seen to be doing the proper thing. And I'm so glad he said that because, yeah, I took a whack to a rock somewhere along the way and my helmet took the brunt of it.
I'm glad you brought that up. We actually made that a... You know, that's been a mandatory thing in the X-Alps, which for a long time I didn't really understand. I mean, climbing helmets got to be... Or ski helmets got to be just as good, but they're not. They're not made for the same thing. No. And by a long stretch. And so, like you said, you know, the sub-air helmet, I think Ozone's got one now, too, that are... They're just as light. Yeah. That's what
I was using was the sub-air pilot.
Yeah. The pilot. Yeah. Which is great. I mean, that's what I've been using for years.
So, broken pelvis. What else?
A broken vertebrae up in the thorax.
Which was... I believe from the sort of hitting over, bending over under the impact. Okay. So, your body gets thrown forward and that movement is enough to break a vertebrae. And I think it was a couple of cracked ribs and usual stuff. And so, yeah, I was taken to hospital and was left in a coma for a day. Kept in a coma for a day. Oh. And then... So, you were in... So, once I passed out... They induced
you in a coma?
So, once I'd had the gas and air, I passed out and I didn't come around for a whole day. So, they kept me under for the next day. Next 24 hours. They did that on purpose? Yeah. Because they wanted to stabilize me.
Ah, okay. Oh, wow. Okay. So, there was risk then of spinal cord injury.
Yeah. They weren't sure at that point. Yeah. I mean, I remember... It's obvious. It's obviously one of the first things you check when you're lying on the hill. You're going, oh, yeah, I can move my feet. That's all right. But as they said to my wife, that's no guarantee because when they move you, they're doing... They're keeping you alive. That's all they care about. Sure. Right. That's the first thing is they're keeping you alive.
Yeah. So,
if they have... Obviously, they will try their best to keep your spine straight and stuff, but they can't guarantee it. And they... Yeah. And with... Obviously, with the pelvic injury, there was lots of grinding going on down there as well. So, yeah. I was kept in the Cobra and then they operated... They did the first operation on the pelvis just to stabilize it. Okay. With two pins. And then they brought me out of the Cobra and I woke up in ICU on the ventilator and... Oh, come on. Yeah. Feed tube and stuff. Welcome back to the world. Which is kind of... Yeah. Scary. Yeah.
That's very scary. I
think more scary for people watching. Like my... I've got two teenage sons who obviously came to see me and the look on their face, I won't forget for a long time.
Yeah. They're thinking, is dad going to be in a wheelchair? Is he going to be... Yeah. Oh, man. Scary stuff. And the vertebrae,
did that require surgery? Luckily, that didn't. No. I had scans and they decided it didn't need surgery. So, was that a...
Forgive my lack of body knowledge here, but is that the... Was it a disc or was it the vertebra? It was a compression of
the vertebrae.
Okay. Okay.
According... Yeah. So, you're a little bit shorter. So,
the scan says
it's a 50 % squashing of that vertebrae, but without any bulging. So, that's a good thing. There was no bulging into the... Okay. Okay. The central canal.
What did they do for that? Did they go in and do MRI? MRIs and just make sure there's no little pieces that can cut stuff? Yeah. So, I had
MRI scans to check that that was all right. And that's when they decided they didn't need to do surgery on that. Okay. But... How long
were you in hospital?
Well, I was in... So, I was taken to Nice Hospital, which is the local emergency hospital for our area.
And that's where I had my... So, I was there in ICU. They then did the first operation. And a couple of days later, I had the main operation, which was to put in two big screws and a plate across the front of the pelvis with lots of little screws. So, I look like a Meccano set now.
And they...
So, I was there for probably 10 days. And then here, we are lucky we've got these rehabilitation centers. So, I got moved to one that's in grass, which is just... Basically, you can see Gordon. I'm not going to get any insight from it.
And there, they can do physio. Yeah, they have lots of physios. And it's... You've got all the stuff you need to make your recovery, to get you back on your feet. For me, the biggest thing was I had to wait for the bones to heal before they could do too much. So, I had two months of not being able to go above 45 degrees inclination. So, basically flat on my back. Partly because of the vertebrae and partly because of the pelvis.
Oh, God. That's a long time to lay around.
That was the hard part mentally. Just the waiting. And also... What did you
experience there? What were some of the...
Did you latch on to any... I don't know. Did you start meditating? Did you read like crazy? Did you watch Netflix? What were you doing to help get you through that?
I... Yeah, did a lot of reading. Did watch quite a bit of Netflix. I mean, I got... I got... Lots of good advice from some quite, you know, well-known pilots. Was straight... Messaging me lots. And like Tom Dodola, who had quite a big accident, I think, said, just take every day one day at a time. And that's so... Such good... Such good advice. Because it's really easy to go, oh, it's six weeks is my goal. I get six weeks and I'll be all right. And then you get to six weeks and the surgeon goes, actually, you need another two weeks. Two weeks. And you just drop. I had that in that they said, you get different information from the surgeons along the way. And they say, so it'll be six weeks for repair.
And then you can start walking. And then you get to six weeks, they go, no, you need a bit more because your bones haven't consolidated enough. And when you've set that goal and it's taken away from you, it's such a huge mental drop. Yeah. Yeah. I don't mind admitting there were tears at those moments. Absolutely. They were quite bleak moments. But, you know, all the advice I was giving, people giving and taking one day at a time, and that's really helped. And I just kind of focused on working for each day. And then you go, oh, several weeks have gone now. Yeah. There's only a couple more weeks.
That day's done. Yeah, right. But not try
to think too far ahead. And just do, for me, it was, you know, I was motivated to do what I could with the exercises I could. And the great thing is, because I was in this rehabilitation center with the physios there, even when I could only lie down, they would take me up on my stretcher bed into the physio room and I would do exercises with my lower legs and with my arms to build the strength there, just to keep everything moving, but without putting force on it. So it meant that when I finally got the go-ahead to stand up, I could move a lot quicker, I think. And the acceleration, once you could stand up,
it was like one, in a couple of weeks, I went from not walking to walking with a hoist holding me up, to then walking with a big walker frame, to then walking with a normal frame, to walking with crutches, to walking without the crutches, all in the space of two weeks. And it just felt, that just felt really incredible.
Kind of like being 11 months again. Yeah. It sounds like. It's like you just suddenly go from the ground to the sky. Whoa, I'm doing it. Yeah. And it's probably just as exciting as it was back then.
But you do these things and you kind of, I remember thinking paragliding and climbing are really good training for some of these recovery things, because a lot of it's the fear of the unknown. When you first take weight on your hips again, you're like, is it going to? What's it going to be like? Is it going to hurt? Is it going to break? Is it going to fall over? And I think for us as paraglider pilots, and I've come from a climbing background a bit, you do get used to taking those steps into the unknown a bit. And I think mentally we're conditioned a bit to be able to do that. So I think that helps with our recovery. And I definitely was able to draw on some of that and be a bit more mentally strong.
Because we have that.
Was there guilt involved with your family, with your wife, with your kids? I know that Ed made a big point of when I was preparing for this to talk to you, that you're a full-on family man. You take your family very seriously. You spend a lot of time with them. I recently had a guest on who also had an accident, a towing accident. Dad Spencer, a friend of mine out here, he had a towing accident in Minnesota. And he talked about that, just this overwhelm. You feel you're not contributing to the family. You're not helping out with dinner. You're a patient. You're a baby. You're getting taken care of. Especially, I think men are not very good at this.
We're not very good at being convalescent.
Yeah. And I think you had to kind of almost mentally turn, some of your wanting to take control. You had to turn it off and sit back and let people do stuff for you. Because otherwise you'll get frustrated. You'll spend, it was, yeah. So much of it is in your head. And you have to sometimes take a step back and go, no, I have to let these people take over because they know what they're doing. They are caring for me. And it is hard, as you say, especially for, probably for men that are control freaks. Or I think most, a lot of paraglider pilots are control freaks as well. Yeah. Quite strong personalities and egos, even the quieter ones.
And it's why we do this sport. It's part of why we do the sport, I think. But yeah, for guilt. Yeah. You obviously feel bad for the family. I mean, I'm so lucky that I've had a wife that's just, she is a pilot as well. So she understands that side.
She's been a solid rock through the whole thing. She's been there all the way and supported me. And we've obviously, we've discussed flying again together. And she understands that flying is such an important part of our lives. You know, it's almost, it feels weird that I wouldn't not fly again.
I was going to say, is there, is there, have there been any of those conversations? Is there, you know, in any of the teary moments, has there been any, I'm not going to do this again? I did.
At one point earlier on, I was like, will I fly again? I don't know. I don't know if I'll fly. And I think, like you said, the guilt thing was very much in there. But you have conversations with the, with like conversations with my wife. I've had conversations with the boys as well, because they're old enough. They're teenagers. So we can have those sort of conversations. And.
And that helps you realize that it's part of you. And it's for me, I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm sure not everybody would come to the same decision and that's everybody's, you know, their own person. But for me, it's such been such an important part of my life for 30 years. It, for me, it would feel weird if I couldn't come back. I mean, I'm not there yet. Are you flying now? No. Okay. Because I think. I. I, it doesn't feel like I'm ready yet. Physically. Physically. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sort of only walking 3k at the moment. Okay. Yeah. Still a bit of an effort. There's some bits of nerve damage in the feet.
When was the accident? Remind me the date. I remember I had sent
me a text that day, but. It was September the 15th. So it's been quite a while. October, November,
December. So it's been three. Wait. September, October. Four months. What is the prognosis? Is it a hundred percent? Is it 80? Where, where did the doctors think you'll get?
I've been told it should be a full recovery. Huh? Great. Although I might get some pain where the pelvis wasn't quite closed properly. Okay. So maybe not doing big, huge walks, but yeah, the prognosis is good.
Is this your first, is this your first pound and paragliding? No, I, I did break a vertebrae very early on. Okay. Actually in the world cup in Switzerland, many years ago, like 25 years ago. But that was fair. Yeah. Relatively minor. And the fact that it was a compressed vertebrae, I wore a corset for a few months and that was it. Okay. Other time.
It felt big, but yeah, compared with what's just happened, I realized it's not that big, but, but it did have, I know it had a, an effect on my flight and afterwards as all these things do. Like I became a lot more careful about landings after the accident.
Yeah. Do you, when you think about flying now, coming back to it or, you know, I'm sure you're kind of envisioned your first flight after this, you know, off some lovely peak in the, behind your house. Is it really, is it, is it scary to think about that? Is it, oh, I can't wait. How does that feel?
A bit
of both. I think. Yeah. I think. Yeah. I really love flying. I love the freedom of it. So I can't wait to be back in the air, but I, I know I'm pretty sure it will be scary that first time. Yeah. I'm a bit nervous about that and a bit nervous about how I will react. Hmm. Having had such a, Yeah.
But then I'm also, I've had so many people messaging me about their instances and like telling me about their stories. You know, it gives you hope for your future and you go, if they've done that, I can do it. And that was one of the reasons I was really happy to talk to you about this because a lot of people, I didn't broadcast it much at the beginning because it was all a bit personal. It was a bit scary. It was a bit scary. Yeah. I didn't know where it was going.
But as I've got better, I've put stuff on Instagram and stuff like walking out of hospital and things like that. And loads of people have then messaged me going, it's great to see that. It's really encouraging for me. I'm in the same situation. I've had an accident and it was the same for me. Like Tom was one person that got in touch and Violetta, her story with breaking her pelvis. Obviously. Yeah. Yeah. It was close to me. And Maude Perrin broke her pelvis last year. The acro pilot who's now back in the air and seeing these people, you know, overcome it and move on, especially people like Violetta, who's not only overcome it, but it's now in the world championships.
It's competing at high levels on the podiums at high level comps. And it helps you move on and overcome it yourself. It's not. It's so unknown.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, and with, with Violetta, I need to get her on the show about that, but it, you know, it wasn't just one, you know, she, I think she's had six is by my count, pretty major incidents. Uh, not all of them physical, not all of them, you know, uh, ended up in the physical harm, but, uh, or trauma, but still traumatic, you know, it's traumatic going in. And, and, you know, she's really stuck with it. It's impressive.
Yeah. And again, it's the beauty of our sport is we have access to all these pilots that will take their time to talk to you as well. I feel very blessed that I've had so many people sending me messages that every day in hospital, I was getting messages from around the world from pilots. Some that I knew really well, and some pilots I didn't know very well, just giving me encouragement, giving me. Yeah. You know, they're, they're blessed, you know, their wishes and it really helps. It really, really helps.
That's interesting to hear. I never know how to approach that. It's always, uh, you know, it's, is it too much? Is it too little? Is it, it's, it's great to hear that those were all received so well. It's nice to hear from
everybody. Yeah. For me, it was really helpful.
Uh, just maybe
feel part of the family again.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
To me, paragliding is just one big family and I feel very privileged to have found this sport that gives us that feeling.
I had a kind of a similar complacency type thing that, that ended better in terms of, you know, the, the lack of trauma. But mine was a throwing reserve that wasn't attached. Uh, and I've talked about this on the, on the show before, but it was switching gear late night, you know, coming back from a comp. We didn't consider much of it much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much you know, uh, acro kit, I just, it didn't flash into my mind immediately that I had a second reserve.
So I watched the one fly away from me and went and literally thought, wow, that's funny. And, you know, it's just perfectly deployed reserve that wasn't attached to me, but, you know, had I reacted faster, I did end up throwing my second one, but it took some amount of time. You know, it seemed to me to be forever. It was probably two seconds, but, you know, I was already very low when I threw the first one. So the second one I, I threw and I watched it roll out to the end and then I hit the ground. And so it didn't have a chance, didn't deploy, but it was along the same type of lines that, that, you know, it was the gear switch that, uh, you know, my mind just wasn't. And ever since then, you know, we always talk about, you need these cheap mistakes
ever since then, you know, when I go from a hike and fly to my, my comp kit to my Acro kit, you know, it's this, I do it every flight now where it's, you know, my, my hand goes down to the, it, it, now I'm on a different bit of gear. Now this is where this reserve is because it's different. You know, we've done a lot of talks over the years and the magazine's been very good about covering this, that they should all be the same. But until that time, you know, we, we have to just re re remind our brains over and over and over and over, you know, where this stuff is. You, you didn't have time for a reserve. But it's, it sounds like the, the switching of the gear is, uh, that's gotten me as well. The break thing. Yeah. That's, that's also gotten me, you know, some of us fly a lot of different kit.
Um, and you especially fly a ton of different kit.
But, and it's not something I didn't know about because a friend, a friend of the magazine, a writer, somebody that writes for the magazine, Andy Pag had a big crash in the pool a few years ago where he'd been flying tandem all season, jumped on his, his solo wing, forgot the spring travel was much less span, hit the hill and broke his back. And that's, I've always remembered him telling us about that. And so it's not something I didn't know, but yeah, you don't think about it. You need to think about these things.
Got a lot of lessons here. The, the, given the span of your flying and, you know, you had the, the, the one accident in Switzerland, the World Cup, this one sounds like kind of complacency margin gear.
How do you incorporate this? What are you thinking about in terms of just, uh, when you do get back in the sky? I mean, that sounds like that would be it. Those are all great lessons, you know, we need these, but I
think, yeah. To make sure you're in the moment all the time and think about, yeah, every flight is a flight. Yeah. It's not just a little bit. It's not just a little fly down to go and land. Yeah. Once you're off the ground, the consequences are high if you make mistakes. So you have to treat every flight with respect.
I wonder how it's, uh, how has it impacted your wife's view of flying? Is she less excited about it? Same? Is it not flying
at the moment anyway, because she did her ACL last year. Shoot. She's on a recovery from that, but she's due to start flying before me, I think. So she seems quite up for it. I would, I thought it might affect her as well, but I'm sure it has. You can't be around accidents and not be affected. Can you, especially when it's people that are close to you and, uh, but she's, you know, she's worked in the industry. She's. She gets to hear about, I mean, we get to hear about a lot of accidents and we, so it's not something we don't know about. I think if you're maybe if you're a weekend pilot, you can maybe ignore that side of it a bit more, but if you're in comps and around, yeah, right.
For the magazine, we hear about probably every, lots of the accidents that happen.
So it's not like something we can get away from knowing about. Hmm.
That's interesting. I was just actually talking last night with my wife, not about accidents and not about paragliding, but there's a Dave Chappelle bit in his latest, you know, comedy standup comedy series where he, he starts talking to a young person in the audience and says, you know, I, I really feel for you because, you know, back in my day, I remember being at school when the challenger blew up and it was a huge deal. The whole world. Yeah. And people were, you know, it's like, it's like Kennedy assassination, you know, where you were, you remember it, it's a big deal. And now with social media and every the news around the world, everybody knows everything. If you want to, you know, you, you have access to everything and you just become Gaza, Ukraine, bad stuff every day, all the time.
And, and it's, it's hard to feel much emotion about really bad things. Cause it's, you just, you're inundated, you know, it just kind of, oh, bad, bad, bad, bad scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll.
In, in our sport, unfortunately does have a lot of this. And I have noticed even in myself that, you know, some, some things are just, they just kind of brush aside another pound. And there are some like Nick Manans that really, you get desensitized. That's the word. And there are some like Nick Manans that just, I think really shake. The foundation of, you know, well, if he could get hurt, uh, I mean, and obviously he was taking enormous risks mostly, but not that day, you know, not the day that he went in, it sounded like a pretty reasonable day to go flying. Um, yeah, these, these, these do in a sense, not set you back, but they grab you. Don't they? I mean, they just, whoa. I mean, it's, it's that realization that if it can happen to him or her, it can happen to everybody.
And I think it's interesting what you said about not taking risks. Cause I think that's one of the things that I've maybe struggled a little bit with is the fact that I thought this was a really safe thing I was doing. Right. Yeah. That the hike and fly thing, this particular style of hike and fly is something I did a lot and it was always something I felt was very safe because it was from a known site in a, you know, good weather always. And it's not, not like flying cross country through big peaks or. Yeah. Strong days when it's going off. Yeah. It felt like a safe thing to do. And then still I managed to hurt myself doing that.
So that's.
Yeah. I mean, I get, I get, that's the, the, that was a more, uh, articulate way of saying what I was trying to say is that I, in some ways I don't like these accidents more. Yeah.
It's they do make you think more. Really?
I mean, a really, really good pilot. Who's very experienced. Who's got a ton of years under his belt. And, you know, it wasn't, you weren't competing in the X-Alps when it's blowing 60 K an hour for a morning. Perfect. Perfect day. Uh, you know, I, I went in pretty hard and beer on a pretty perfect day, uh, where, you know, it was just what the hell just happened. And it was,
that's complacency, isn't it? So absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. Complacency. It's a chapter in the book. As you remember, you helped me write that book.
That's it. That's an interesting thing. I mean, for sure. We, I spent a lot of time with Juergen, the safety director, the rebel X ops this year up at Tracy main, when we were, you know, we were waiting for Ellie to come through. And so we we'd seen a few athletes come through and we had a long chat about this, this very thing, you know, just the, the enormous risks that, that Chrigel is willing to put himself in the to win. We didn't consider much of it much much much much much much much much much much much
much
much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much
much doing it because I could not take that kind of risk a day before the race or a day after the race, pretty much guaranteed. I'm going to pound it because you're, you're just, you're in it. And you're, you're, you're, you have this invincibility, which I know is not accurate, but it's, it's a, it's a mental, you are in it. You know, there's nothing else. There's no other distractions. There's no complacency. There's no, you're, you're on the, you're on the ball. You're paying attention.
Yeah, I'm sure. I think, yeah, I mean, I've, I've not, I've done some hike and fly races and my experience of them was incredibly
mental, mentally draining because your brain is just going all the time and you're on that heightened level while you're flying and finding takeoffs and preparing to take off. And
but yes, you're taking risks, but because your brain's working that much harder, you,
you're taking control of them, taking control of the situation. So you're less likely to have an accident, even though you're in a riskier, riskier environment. Yeah. Yeah. You don't operate like that normally, do you?
No. And it is interesting. I mean, to, to, in my experience, to fly well and to cover kilometers, you really want to be more on a flow state. You want to be very relaxed. It's kind of the opposite side of what we're talking about. You know, I mean, but then when you're in a flow state, of course you're, you are very, you're letting your system, which knows what it's doing, take over and, and you are incredibly reactive and on it and your speed is, you're, but it's, it is interesting, isn't it? Because you don't feel very, you feel very relaxed and almost, you know, when I perform the best, I'm almost asleep. I just, you know, kind of, so then when you look back, you go,
actually I was on it. I can see, tell I was on it. Yeah. It was just happening sort of almost back in the subconscious. It is. Yeah.
Right. Slow thinking, passing.
Marcus, thanks for sharing your story. I really appreciate it. It was probably hard to relive some of that stuff, but I think it's useful and it's a good reminder for all of us that, of what we're doing. Yeah. Aviation's, aviation's dangerous.
Yeah.
You should bear that in mind when you take off. That's why we need complacency. Every flight's a flight.
Yeah. Okay, Marcus, we're going to sign off here, but anything else you want to say? I understand you guys have a nice little promo going on.
Yeah. Just, we'd love people to come and subscribe to the magazine, be part of the family. It's a great, we just, we, we hope that it's a great source of information for pilots and it brings everybody together. And at the moment we've got a prize draw going. So if you subscribe by the end of the month, you could have the chance of winning a wing. So we've got, you could have the choice from Advance, Ozone, Gin or Saper. Whoa. You get to choose your wing? You can choose your wing up to ENC, up to and including ENC. So any wing up to and including ENC from those four brands.
And where do people go to do that? XCMAG
.com? Forward slash what? Subscribe? XCMAG.com forward slash subscribe. There we go. And you can see the different options and you don't have to have the paper magazine. You can have the digital magazine if you're on the road all the time. So you can just subscribe to the digital magazine. All the subscribers are going to be in the prize draw. And that includes all the subscribers that supported us over the years that we're very grateful for. They'll all be in the draw again.
Fantastic. There you go, folks. Go to XCMAG.com forward slash subscribe and be in to win a wing of your choice. Marcus, thanks. I appreciate it. I'm excited for the healing you've had and the healing to come and excited to see you back in the air one of these days. And there's no rush as we've all learned. There's plenty of time to partake in this incredible activity. So good luck and yeah, fasting. Thank
you. Great to speak to you.
Thank you.
Thank you.!
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We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done!