Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud Base Mayhem. I had a very cool show today with Benny Boehle. He's out in Austria, actually lives in southern Germany, but he is a designer for Skywalk. And those of you who have been following the rise of parakiting and the mustache and now the line, their speed version, you know the swing and you know about parakiting. I did not know too much about it, and it's actually called flaring. It's really a new sport kind of between kite surfing and paragliding. And many people have been asking me to interview Benny. He's kind of the one responsible. It was his thesis that he brought to Skywalk a few years ago, and they have made it into a thing.
This is a very, very big thing up in Denmark, as you'll hear in the show. But apparently when you go out to the dunes out there, it's about 85 % people flaring these days. Uh, super high energy, very interesting wings that work more, you know... if you've done some kite surfing and you understand bar pressure and letting out a bar and pulling in a bar and the power window and these kinda things, you'll be familiar with these. But we take a deep dive on flaring in this episode and find out what they're all about. What the advantages are. what the disadvantages are how they work the things to be aware of when you're first getting into it and he we wrap up the show at the end we kind of finished it and then he talked about that it was really important to put out there that
what they're seeing you know just like in any kind of gravity sports there there is risk of course and those these wings are so easy to fly that people get overconfident really quickly so he just wanted to put out there that you know remember if you get one of these wings you still need instruction you still need to take it slow you need to do it around other people who know what they're doing you know and launch and put in the beginning you want to fly in places that have some margin and some cushion you know rather than cliff launches you want to do it in the dunes where they're really built for anyway so I really enjoyed this found it very instructive and informative and I want to get one of these wings there I've seen all the videos I'm crazy I'm pretty wild so yeah enjoy this talk before we get to it just a quick bit of housekeeping when I was over at the PWC in Switzerland I bought a pair of Netsu heated gloves I've been pretty down on heated gloves I've tried them over the years and Black Diamond and you know really good brands and they always seem to fail or don't work or you know do that much and so I've been going with kind of a thin glove and an over mitt but that's not that great when you're on the bees you know trying to use a two-liner with the toggles it's just super awkward I always feel like when if you'd have to go to throw your reserve it's tricky so
there was a guy there that's selling these Netsu gloves that are a Polish brand and they've really done a ton of work with external batteries you know so you don't want to just throw them away just throw them away you don't want to You connect a 20 milliamp battery, it's a 20,000 milliamp battery, you run the line up your sleeve and you got one on each glove so it'll last for a long time. And one of the problems with heated gloves is that the batteries go really quickly or the glove doesn't register that it has any more power. There's a lot of faults when it comes to that voltage. It's all about voltage that creates the heat. These guys have completely figured it out. So at the Swiss PWC, they had run out of the thicker gloves so I just got the thinner ones.
They're a liner and that was all I needed. You know, flying around at 3,500 meters, it's pretty cold, still very much spring over there. My hands were toasty. So they're great and I thought they were so great that I'm now a dealer of them over in the U.S. I think I'm the only one. So if you're interested in these, I've got the thicker version and the thinner version. They're being shipped right now. By the time this show goes up, I will have them in stock. I'll bring them to the Red Rocks Wide Open. I'll bring them to the World Cup down in Utah next month. And so you can get them from me there. But check it out. If you've been struggling with cold hands, I believe this is a very good solution. And I'll have them on the website, cloudbasemayhem.com. Enjoy the show.
Benny, great to have you on the Mayhem. It's only taken us many, many, many, many months to put this together. Yeah. But thanks for
joining us. Thanks for making
it happen so last minute. And congratulations on moving into your new place there. It looks nice.
Thank you for having me. And I checked before it was pretty much exactly 12 months, one year since our last conversation.
Sometimes I was surfing through my inbox, which is always a disaster this morning and went, oh my God, I completely forgot about this one. So yeah, well, thanks for making it happen. And thanks for doing this late. I understand it's 10 o 'clock your time. Two o 'clock my time, a little more reasonable, but tell me a little bit about, we talked very briefly this morning about flair and the mustache and, and skywalk. Just get us up to speed. Tell us about your personal journey a little bit, how you ended up doing what you're doing. And then there's a lot of people listening who want to know more about this, this wing and these concepts.
For sure. I'm 35 years old. I am based in Germany.
And I started in skywalk in the skywalk group 2013, but I started as a team rider for a fly surfer, which is one brand from the skywalk group, um, 2011. So now I'm over 13 years ago and yeah, basically I started kite surfing when I was 10. Um, so pretty long ago, then I started paragliding when I was 16. Yeah. I was always really, um, into theastic about stuff flying around. Um, there'd be model planes, paragliders, gliders, whatever, just if it flies, it's, um, it's for me.
So yeah, I got in touch with the system from the let's, let's call it the parakite system. Actually at my first event as a fly surfer team rider, which was a snow kite event I met, um, Armin Harich, who is one of the founders from the skywalk group basically founded skywalk back then. So yeah, he basically showed me, um, because he knew I was, I was, um, also paragliding and he showed me this new concept where he basically, um, modified an old kite from him and put some risers on them, um, changed the bridle and he was peri, peri motoring it, um, on skis. And then, you know, it was a 15 meter and he was like, it's just speeding up before takeoff and then just hit the brakes and just went straight up.
And I was like, okay, yeah, I want to do something, something with it, you know? Um, and I, I basically straight realized that this is, um, that this could do something to the sport. Um, I didn't know at the time what it would do, but I knew it would have an impact at one day. And yeah, basically, I did my bachelor's internship with, um, fly surfer and skywalk. Um, and I wrote my, my thesis about the riser system, um, from the now, now mustache back then it was, we did not call it mustache back then. Um, and yeah, so basically they offered me a job because they seemed happy about my thesis and, um, what I did during my internship.
And I ended up in the paragliding department as a test pilot. And I learned, um, a lot from Alex, um, Alex Helvalt, um, who's doing some paragliders now. And, um, yeah, I spent with him two years until 2015, um, testing and designing the wings. And yeah, then we had, uh, we had one developer from sky, from fly surfer, um, going from full-time to part-time and my passion, I felt during those two years that my passion is more on the kiting side of things. And, um, I wanted to develop, uh, race kite because back then at the time, um, I really loved to kite race, um, on the hydrofoils, which is by the way, uh, in the Olympic games the first time now.
So, um, I'm also pretty excited about this. Um, but yeah, cool. And yeah, basically I then switched full-time to, um, to fly surfer kiteboarding at one point and started designing all the foil kites. And that's basically also where I'm at now. Um, I'm in charge for the full, um, foil kite range and, um, I'm also head of development now for fly surfer kiteboarding. And if I have some time left, I, uh, design the wings for FLIR. So that's, uh, a bit, uh, the story behind, um, behind, uh, behind me, basically how, how I got where I am now.
How much of your design natural talent or ability comes from your background in kite surfing versus flying versus paragliding? Is that my background is also in kite surfing. It's, you know, it's, it's pretty interesting how many pilots come from sailing kite surfing. It's quite, uh, there's, there's quite a nice crossover, you know, just understanding Lee and power and the power window. And all these things, but, uh, I don't know of too many designers that have come through that path that like you have, maybe there's lots. I just, I'm not aware of it, but
I think the combination, um, from my early start in both sports, basically, like I started cutting when I was 10 paragliding when I was, when I was 16 or 14, but I did my license when I was 16, I developed, I would say, good feeling for both kind of wings. Um, and I think this is the main part, which, um, or where I'm benefiting from now. And at the time when I was learning with Alex, um, I really tried to understand what or which parameters can be used from the kite, for example, in paragliding and vice versa. And basically the, the, the mustache is the perfect combination between, between both systems.
And for me, I would say it was, or the mustache would not be the same as it is now. Um, if I would have only been kite surfing or only would have been paragliding. So I think the combination of those two sports was the key for fully understanding the system, you know, really implementing or adjusting all the single parameters, which you need to design a good wing, um, to fit the target group. I would say, which we did not know really who was the target group for the mustache at the beginning, but in the end we, we really focused on, on soaring, but yeah, something we'll for sure talk about later.
Yeah. Uh, why mustache?
Um, yeah, mustache. Um, it's actually pretty funny story because, um, we, so basically we, we launched a brand in February, 2022 and two years before, I said, okay, I will, I will freeze the design now more or less. And, um, we'll do some, you know, some long longevity tests and some, you know, just give, give the, give a few wings out to people, um, get some feedback. Um, yeah, see how the wing is changing, how the trim is changing. Um, and for this like, um, field test, I would say I wanted to have something, something funny on the wing, um, to, you know, just not give them blank white wings or whatever, because there was no, no flare brand, um, at this time.
So we were still, there was no brand. There was no name. There was no nothing. Um, we just knew we want to bring it somehow, um, to the market. So, yeah, at one point I was like, um, saying to a colleague who, he was, um, or who came in my office and I was just thinking about stuff, how to, how to put on the wing. And yeah, we, we thought about a funny mustache or whatever, you know, we just have something that the people talk about it because it's so different. And also when you see them flying, it is different. And so we wanted to kind of do something funny. Um, and then at the end or at the end, pretty soon, um, people were like talking about the mustache already.
So we were not giving, um, the wing the name, but. Yeah.
The wing was already known from the prototypes as the mustache. So yeah, it was basically said, um, the, the name for, for the first paracord, everything came from a joke, actually.
All, all the best companies are starting from a joke. That's perfect. So your audience has no idea what we're talking about. Let's imagine that for a moment. Uh, many of them do, of course, but let's just imagine they don't. Why is flair different? What, what's different? What's the same, what's the concept? Why are so many people talking about it and why do they look so damn fun?
Um, yeah. So let's talk about the paracord system or, and yeah, in this way, the flair system.
So basically I think everyone knows the basic concept of a paraglider. So we have basically our brake lines attached to the, to the trailing edge. Um, and then the accelerator, basically, if I activate the accelerator, I pull down the leading edge and change, um, the angle of attack of the wing. Um, so basically what we're doing with the flair system is exactly the same, but the opposite way. So on the paraglider, we cannot change the length of the sea level or the B level. Okay. Depending on two or three liners. Um, but we can pull down the A level and accordingly, the B level, um, in between.
And with the flair system, the A level is exactly the same length all the time. But when we give hands up, then we extend the B into C level and the brake. So we basically go lower in angle of attack and fly faster. When we give our hands up, we put hands up. And the same goes if we put hands down, we increase the angle of attack. So, um, yeah. So basically we brought the D power from kiting, so where you can get rid of the power and release basically a trailing edge to get less angle of attack to get rid of the power. We brought this into paragliding. Um, and the
main advantages from this system are basically that you can use your accelerator from paragliding. You can use it already on the ground because when you have a little, let's say a highway launch and a paraglider, you, you're launching the wing and you have instantly full power of the wing. And when you're flying, then you can basically activate your accelerator and accelerate forward. But with the flair system, you are, you can just release the brakes. The, uh, the, the wing will just inflate slowly. And will not pull you because you are not pulling. So the trailing edge is open. We have low angle of attacks, so we can handle way, way more wind on the ground because we can use our accelerator already standing on the ground and not only while flying.
Um, which gives you way more possibilities of top landing, positioning yourself, you know, if we are ridge soaring, for example. Um, so yeah, it's just, it's just, uh, super, super fun system. Um, you have to get used to it for sure. It's not, you know, just for a paraglider, it's not only to hook you in and you're, you'll be totally fine. So you would need to get used to it. But from our experience, kiters, like really experienced kiters who had no experience in paragliding and they have the right spot on a nice dune, you know, no rocks, but just a nice dune, not too high, good wind. Um, they, they are not having, uh, or they're not having a too, too hard time getting used to the paragliding system because they know that the, the sense of deep power already.
Um, so yeah,
that's basically the, um, the main concept from the, from the flare system and to make the flare system really work, you need to do some tweaks to the, to the canopy itself, because it's, it's not, it's not really working of, you know, just buying a flare system and putting it on, on any other wing. Um, it's not working that easy actually. Um, and to find the best combination of wing and, and riser system, let's say, um, took me quite some time.
So take me through again, the kind of deep power power that it it's, it's, it mirrors have a cow kite surf works. In other words, when you you're pulling in the bar, you're increasing, the, the, you're increasing the pole, you're increasing the power.
Yes, exactly. When
you let it go, you're decreasing the power.
Exactly. So, um, how a flare system looks, we have, um, uh, the, the break handle and from the break handle, there are two lines going away. So the first line is the break line, just going through a trailing edge of the wing, just like a standard paragraph. And then there's a second line, which is going through a pulley on the sea level.
Mm-hmm.
So there is a pulley system on the sea level, which basically splitting your input from the break by one third. So one third of your break input is translated to the sea level. And then from the sea level, there is another line going through the B level, which is already, or again, splitting or dividing your input by two again from the sea. So one third of your break input is translated to the sea. And one sixth of your break input is going to the B level. So basically when we depower for 60 cm, 30 cm, we, uh, we, we, we gain 30 cm of sea length and, um, 15,
um, no, so 20 cm sea length and 10cm, um, on the B and the opposite way around. Um, so what we're doing, we're changing the angle of attack of the wing the whole time so it's like so for all the the pilots who fly in two liners um it's the same as you would fully accelerate and pull it down your a and fly your wing with the b level so that's basically the the exact same thing so we're you're then changing only angle of attack and not really the camber of the profile because you're not pulling the brake but at one point with the flare system when we keep pulling and pulling pulling at one point the brake is also activating and then we we change angle of attack plus camber if
we are basically approaching the the the slow speed position we can decide if we want to translate our speed into height or our height into speed at our fingertips basically so if you think about in paragliding if you go if you go into a steep turn you don't really have the the possibility to then stay down keep your speed and decide when you want to go up you will go up anyway and that's the cool thing which gives you just so much more more possibilities playing with the ridge um especially during soaring um but also um while speed flying but for speed flying we have a we have now a um another product a product line and we have a product line and we have a product line and we have a product line and yeah
it's just a super super fun system um and yeah for for all the kiters like you said it's like exactly like you have your your kite bar in your hand and that's how you also steer and
is does this translate into a wing that you said it sounds incredibly playful to me that's how kites are you know on the water and the snow you know soaring do you do you end up with something that translates to a lot more energy or is it more carvey are we are we more you know is it kind of skateboarding or is it would be the analogy here you know is um i'm trying people who have only flown or maybe even only kite surfed what does it feel like how is it different than me going out on a mini wing and and standard mini wing and soaring
so i would say it's very dynamic um so the yeah the dynamic you can pick up during a turn when you put hands up is just crazy so when you go on a turn with hands up you take up so much speed and then whether you can just you know just keep your hands up and take the speed and go far and flare or you pull the brakes and you get this full energy or not not 100 from it for sure but most of it back again and you gain the height again which makes it a very dynamic wing especially the small sizes because the small sizes are for sure also more agile so um maybe about the sizing which is also a good point right now is that in paragliding usually you have your takeoff weight whatever it is 100 kilos including your your equipment and you're flying whatever an l wing um but you are flying the l wing but with parry kiting or flaring it's more like kiting where you change your wing size with the wind strength so if it's more wind you just go down to a smaller wing and vice versa so that's about the sizing so
you can fly your 15 meter
with 100 kilos which would be way way way more dynamic than your 22 or 26 meter and that's also an important point to understand if you get into flaring also if you already flown mini wings you will get so much more speed with the same size or if you compare it to the same size paraglider that it's better to start with a bigger size so let's let's say you flew already a 15 mini wing and you're comfortable with it it's better to get the 18 start with the 18 because you will have the same speed as your 15 but you will have way more dynamic turns because of this energy retention you have available so
i hope you get a bit of an idea how the wing flies is there any
from a traditional standpoint are there any downsides is there are there any warning you know by by dynamic that means to me there's a lot more fun but is it a lot more speed and energy and risk too or how what would what would be the non-marketing
tackle that if
we're talking about steep turns or let's say let's let's keep it for um let's compare it to the to a deep spiral um
traditional paraglider if you really go into a deep spiral you will get a lot of g-forces but compared your your sink rate is not crazy high so let's say you have like you go in a spiral with like a descent rate of like 15 meters per second you already have proper g-force where you know an untrained person really needs to focus you know that you're not blacking out basically which is not really
a good thing because you're not going to be able to do a lot of turns but but you will gain a lot of jump Participantazione the case
with the mustache because the mustache you you're your your um sync rate is way higher compared to your gforce and your turning speed so you would basically because you will do the deep spiral with hands up so in your full speed position so you will go more down instead of really going in the rotation um and that's why you can gain or you can have way higher descent rates with way less g-forces and that's what you basically so when you're used to your g-forces on the paraglider and you're trying to do the same spiral or to get the same g-forces with a mustache you're descending with like 35 to 40 meters per second basically which then results in like crazy loss in height in a very short period of time which can be dangerous because if you don't know how the wing takes up the speed you know the ground gets close really fast so that's one point that's a dynamic side of things but then also in in slow flight i would say there is a disadvantage to the classic paraglider because when
we pull the brakes we're constantly pulling also b and c down so we are constantly constantly all the time also increasing the angle of attack on the leading edge itself because in a paraglider the leading edge does not get any any pull on the b when we pull the brakes basically so the the angle of attack on the leading edge basically stays the same which is not true because we're flying slower so the the angle of attack will change anyway but with the flare system we have both effects so we are increasing the angle of attack on the on the leading edge because we're pulling down the b all the time or the further we go down the more we pull the b and we go slower so the angle of attack is again increased so basically what it means that the airflow is separating a bit quicker from the leading edge top sail than with a normal paraglider so your overall stall speed will be a bit higher because the the point of separation or the or the let's say that this yeah the stall speed is higher because the airflow separates a bit easier from the leading edge because we increase the angle of attack on the leading edge a lot which does not mean that it's dangerous because you really feel it um so it gets really hard on the bottom um or or in your slow speed position um so you can really feel you're close to the you're close to the stall point and you better be careful basically um which
is also the case with the paraglider but the stall speed is for sure a bit higher if you compare the same size paraglider to the same size moustache yeah
it sounds pretty critical then to the you know when you first grab one of these wings you've got to understand the differences and and probably work in slowly to understand the differences and and probably work in slowly to understand the differences understand you know the the potential for you know height loss really fast and then then the the necessity to keep your your airspeed up
yes yeah so basically what we what we did and also still do is um we do let's say a safety call so you can order the you can order mustache directly on our homepage but if you're not coming from a partner from us um you will basically get a call from us and we will just you know chat with you talk to you what your experience is if you maybe or if we think you should maybe get a different wing like size wise so if you have experience in paragliding since whatever one year and you order a 13 mustache we would maybe um you know put our weight to it and send you a but no it's it's basically that we we want to make sure that people really understand the system and have watched our videos um and in the best case even um take a small course um take a small introduction with our pro partners um and they will basically show you all the points you you need to get safely into the sport of flaring if you get a wing or if you try a wing um you can use it while ground handling first do whatever 10 15 20 minutes of ground handling feel the stall point know how it behaves with the stall point and we also have some some markings on the riser where we have basically the best glide position the i mean full speed positions anyway pull the arms up um but for the beginning the the best glide position marking is a really good reference um where the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the where you're basically in the middle of your um range of motion take take your time ground handling for sure um because ground handling anyway you get such a good feeling for for a wing you could anticipate how it would react in the air so
benny the the the because this is an audio podcast the listener didn't get the benefit of watching what you're doing with your hands when you're describing you know when you're pulling down it's it's deflecting the the brakes but it's also deflecting the c's and b's uh and but you were saying i just want to make sure we don't confuse you were saying that's increasing the angle of attack i in my mind that's decreasing the angle of attack you know when we when we're accelerating a wing hitting our a's we're increasing the angle of attack is is this just semantics or am i misunderstanding something so
basically well in paragliding when we when we pull down our a's we're we're changing the angle of incidence so the the angle between let's say if you draw a line between leading edge and trailing edge to your through your wing watching it from the side and then we are as a pilot we're basically like a pendulum um below our wing so we always want to to go underneath the center of of lift from the wing so if if the wing moves forward we are behind the center of of lift and we go we we're we're um pending underneath the wing again so to have a stable system we want to be really um straight downwards from the center of of um lift so but what we are doing now if we pull down the a we are basically changing the line
between leading edge and trailing edge of our wing so we are bringing down the leading edge and the angle between the airflow and this line going through our wing is getting lower or is getting getting smaller so basically that's our angle of attack so our glide path our glide path the angle of attack is the glide path or the angle between the glide path and the angle of attack this line going through the leading edge and trailing edge of our wing so if we decrease this angle then we need to go faster because we still need to create the lift of whatever you know weight which needs to be supported so we're accelerating so now the wing creates the lift of let's say 100 kilos with a way higher speed and the same goes if we increase the angle of attack we still only need 100 kilos of lift but
we can go way slower so it's basically
basically the the polar of the wing is um is dependent from the speed we go and we want to change the speed if we hit the accelerator um and that's why with the flare system on the most popular wing we can go way faster and we can go way faster and we can go way faster and it's basically we're doing the same thing but we're doing it on the trailing edge so we're not pulling down the leading edge like on the paraglider to change this angle but we're releasing the trailing edge up so we're still changing the angle in the same direction as we would pull down the a on the paraglider so accelerating is hands up and going slower is hands down and if you tried the first time it really feels intuitive um within the first 10 minutes of ground handling um you will feel i mean you will not feel everything from the wing but you you get a pretty pretty good idea of how the wing would feel flying it what's
it like it's great to understand it that way what's it like to you know jump back and forth you know you're flying the mustache for a few days and then you go jump on your xc glider is it is it your radio radio rattle your cage a little bit or is it become pretty natural i'm actually
the wrong person to ask because i did not touch my xc glider since i think now four years i think wow really yeah because um i'm actually i'm actually only only fairing anymore um if i want to go xc um i basically just started um flying gliders um and so flying gliders is just so much more efficient than going with the paraglider on cross country flights um and yeah i mean when i really flew a lot uh in in the beginning when i started with skywalk um i for sure flew all the flew all the the two-liner prototypes we had and we went on cross country flights um but it never really
catched me it never gave me this yeah i would say this adrenaline kick but what gave me this kick is flying on the five meter dune with a 15 meter mustache um and just being being able to fly so precise with whatever you know like half a meter or even centimeters off the dune with 60ks um
and always being able to just pull the brakes and just take off and have this safety margin of of this extra speed which you kind of have also in paragliding but it's a different it's a different dimension um of this energy retention you get with the mustache yeah fascinating wow so yeah um to to to to to go back to your question um i've i did i did a lot of research on paragliding and i touch a paraglider um a few weeks ago when we were on a test trip in um in denmark i i flew uh the the enzo um from a friend and um yeah first of all launching in because it was pretty windy i mean i know it's fine um i could still fly without accelerator but it was still windy um and if you if you're used to the to the flare system
where you can basically you know you can pull up a 22 meter in 20 knots of wind you know if you have space and nothing is tangled then there is there is no issue at all but if you if you just you know pull up a 22 meter enzo in in 20 knots of wind you better know what you're doing um and this yeah i mean for me for me there is not really a way back um i would say for the flying i do for cross country flying 100 100 um the the current two-liner designs out there are let's say overall the better system for cross country um because there is one more point i did not mention before which can be also a bit irritating at the beginning when you start flaring if you're a little bit underpowered so
you have to basically scratch the flyer and then you have to scratch the flyer and then you have to scratch the flyer for for lift and scratch to stay up then it gets pretty exhausting with the mustache because you're basically holding one-sixth of the load from the b level and one-third of the load from the c level in your hands all the time so
they're really suited to flying in ridge lift and wind i mean i would assume it's nicer when it's laminar wind but that you want some wind with these things if that unless you're just descending to you know on a speed route or something so
that's also why we have two different products okay um so we have the mustache for soaring and the line for speed flying um so the mustache is made to basically stay up so your arm position where you fly for your best glide ratio i would say is totally different than on the line so the line is basically made to go really steep and really steep
and then you have to
and have the possibility to basically glide away from the from the slope um or do do a glide out or whatever or have a really flat um takeoff so where you need the glide ratio and then you you drop into a line whatever um but the line is not made to to fly or to to fly for a long time in your best glide ratio because this the sweet spot where you need to fly with your brakes is really low so you basically um you're on the edge of not pulling down the brakes but more pushing down the brakes like before before landing um when you when you just before stalling the wing you're basically pushing down the brakes um and that's really exhausting over time so if you're soaring with the line you need a lot of wind and a really good
lift and you have a lot of updraft that you don't need to fly that low all the time um so you want to fly the moustache and the especially parry kites um i would say more powered so whether it is a bigger size in the same wind speed or um a smaller size in more wind um but you want to have this extra of lift basically um you want to you want to leave or you want to use the wind speed the the the potential to go full speed um with arms up because otherwise you're you can't use it you know if you can't get up you you can't use your your your height and translate it to speed i
hadn't realized i i love that the company is flare and that's actually the name of the i mean it is this it sounds like this is now a unique sport called flaring i hadn't realized it is
it is it really is and um especially i would say in in the netherlands um so i was on the test trip i think three weeks ago in the netherlands um and i did not see a standard parry kiter flying there really but i have seen i have seen like 25 parry kites yeah wow so for soaring like in in denmark in denmark there's still and you know a lot of german pilots go to denmark um because it's just so easy flying um there are so many soaring spots always laminar wind you have space for ground handling a lot of you know a lot of um travel groups paragliding travel groups um ground handling courses go up to denmark um and there is not 100
parry kites yet but in the netherlands there is already i would say yeah 75 % really with a parry kite system wow um so there is um there's little cloud now they they released the wing and they also released already um a riser to basically upgrade your um your uh other little cloud wings you already have um to a certain extent um for sure not with the same range um as you get with other um other wings but you get the the the the the the the the the the basically it's it's nice to get into into flaring into parry kiting because you don't get the full range or not as extreme range i would say but it gives you the idea how this how the whole system works it's a little bit of a step over from paragliding to flaring um and then there are just more more radical designs i would say with you know old race kites modified with risers and it's like
netherlands is uh um yeah i would say that the netherland or the dutch flying community um they are they are unique i would say they're
fully adapted
they're convinced yeah so
wow no but but we are very very um optimistic for the future of soaring doesn't matter if it's really only inland soaring or coastal soaring but parry kite system is is is really really um or outperforms um the paragliding for sure and
you mentioned that you know right now an enzo standard two-liner is still you know totally the way to go if you're flying distance could that change with this system is there a way that there's a tweak in the mustache down the line in the future that would yeah it's it's quite interesting because there was an article in the last Cross Country Magazine uh with honor and amard the french champion who's saying that basically you know the shark nose two-line concept uh you know the current enzo really can't be improved it they've kind of hit they've kind of hit the wall there you know there's little things uh little adjustments but you know the enzo three has been out now for what seven eight years um and and so could the parry kite system be the next you know the way forward potentially that's
a really really good question um and i don't have the answer yet um but for my for my vision of where the whole parry kiting sport um could go or in which disciplines it could go i don't really see too much in cross country um because you're you're flying you or the goal is to fly as long as you can basically in cross country to go as far as you can um if we break it down to the basics so you can't you know you can't make a record cross country flight in three hours um you will have to exceed basically 10 hours of flying um but
then it's just very physical because you are you want to stay up you you want to glide far but you don't want to go down in a way you know you want to go forward um and with the mustache and the parry kites and in general it's more like at one point we want the lift to really break down that we go down and not forward we want to stay on the ground and then translate this energy um to height again so it's a bit of a different a different requirement um you're asking of the wing because as i said an enzo is made or a two-liner cross country wing is made to go forward to have the best possible glide range or glide ratio also in full speed bar um and
that's not what we want soaring on a dune for example because we want to keep dragging our feet in the sand and if a gust hits you and we get more lift we want to find a way to get rid of this lift exactly and that's what you don't need for a cross country flying um and that's why i don't see a too big of a potential in cross country with the system as it is now
gotcha not
saying in five years we whatever um have an idea and it's yeah or someone else has an idea um yeah there are many many smart um designers out there so sure yeah
yeah yeah we we can never really predict that kind of stuff can't we uh final question because i know we're up against a time stop here for both of us but the is this wing you mentioned that you know if you come from a kite surfing background it's very intuitive it feels very familiar you can learn it really fast is there are there groups are there is this a is this a wing that isn't appropriate for a certain kind of pilot you know for example a 10-hour pilot who's just barely getting their novice rating is is this isn't an advanced wing is an advanced concept it doesn't really sound like it but um you know are there any warnings we need to put out there in terms of uh you know for the pilot community who's inspired as i am from your stories
um i would not i would not put a general warning out there but i would rather give advice um for new pilots or kiters who want to get into flaring or peri-kiting um take
your time and not you know not just get a second hand wing somewhere and just go flying um take your time take take an a course or introduction from a partner really take or go to a spot where all the let's say all the the the risk factors can be eliminated i would say i mean you you never can get rid of all the risk factors there will always be some some risk um but it's it's a different story if you are at the at a cliff launch with 20 knots or if you're standing on a sandy beach with 20 knots and can ground handle the wing up a sandy dune you know sure instead of being on the clip launch and or a cliff launch and need to launch up there um so the spot is very very crucial for
let's say the skill level you need to fly a parakite safely if you have let's say a cliff with you know some some some lips um to that like some some some ribs and the wind is not coming straight on but a little bit from the side so you get basically turbulences behind those those ribs going out of the ridge um that's something which can be very yeah you you don't really see it too with the parakite you can stay down really easy so you can you can fly very um very low to the ground and then you can go into those um turbulences and then um you could get a collapse for sure but um yeah so in the beginning for sure take some lessons get an introduction watch all the the videos there are there are safety videos um on our home page or on youtube um you will get a
idea of the whole system how it works maybe it's nothing for you maybe it is um but yeah overall it's uh it's a small revolution at least for soaring um so yeah i'm i'm really optimistic for the future so
benny would there be anything you know here at the end that you'd want to put out is just a message of advice for people you know getting into flaring you
know i just want to put out the or make clear that that the most dangerous part about parakiting is that the pilots get really confident and overconfident really quick and that's where the accidents happen or can happen um so what i want to say is basically that you get more range or you can handle more wind while soaring but you should use this extra range for safety you know if the wind increases and not push yourself or place yourself already on the upper limit that's the message i want to i want to put out there
benny uh we're glad there are people like you in this world you've uh you've done something really cool with your team there and uh uh it's great to learn about this about flaring like i said i didn't even know that was a sport so uh that's terrific and this is some of the videos i've watched are just awesome it really looks fun so i look forward to getting my hands on one of these myself but thanks for sharing all this information i really appreciate it thanks for taking the time and uh staying up late and and uh good luck man yeah
nice uh having me and um thank you so much and yeah see you somewhere uh at lake kimsey perfect
perfect if
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