Hi there everybody, welcome to another episode of Cloudbase Mayhem. I've been meaning to do this one for a long time, this would definitely fall into our legend series, but Chuck Smith, who has been running our tandem operation here since the beginning of time here in Sun Valley, has cut his teeth back in the late 80s, and I gotta go through this sheet of names here in a second, but Chuck has just been incredibly instrumental in the flying industry. Chuck Smith, who I've only seen here for the last 40 years, has taught pretty much everybody who's come through, who was anybody at some time, and as we talk about a little bit in the show, there's something pretty special about Sun Valley. I believe somewhere around 50%, maybe even a little bit more, of all the U.S.
athletes who have competed over the decades in the Red Bull X-Alps have cut their teeth here in Sun Valley, including Will Gadd. Nate Scales, Mitch Riley, of course, Hans Urmanek, myself, Willie Connell, goes on and on. Pretty special place for a lot of reasons, but Chuck picked this spot to lay down in his tandem business, and he's been going hard, he's been super passionate about it forever, all these years, and this was his last year. He's gonna close up shop. Close up shop. After this summer, he's still probably going out and doing his Ghana thing, which you'll hear about in the show, but that's it for Sun Valley Paralighting, who's been a staple here for a very long time, and he has had the great fortune of flying with tons and tons of very recognizable names over the last 30-plus years, and let me just get into some of these.
I mean, he got started back east. East in the late 80s, under the tutelage of John Bouchard, and flew with his brother out there back east, Dixon White, the Yates brothers, Michael Gaudu, Philip Renudua, sorry, I had the name wrong, Granger Banks, a bunch of skydivers, Peter Zimarelli, the Domenico brothers, and then Bob Schick, Bob England, Ken Baer, Todd Bibler. You might need to get on the show desperately. A lot of these people I do. Amy Brothers, Lee Kieser, Chris Santacroce, Jimmy Grossman, who died in a kayaking accident here a couple years ago, I miss him, Joe Gudzinski, Scott Gresset, Chris Blachley, Greg Kelly, the Ferguson brothers, Josh Cohn, of course, Zach Housington, Mark Shipman, Jan Stenstervold, Pierre Boulot with Subair, Xavier Raymond, Uli Weissmeyer, Bruce Goldsmith, Richard Gallone, Robbie Whittall, John Pendry, John Heine, I left that on the show, and Robbie, always meant to get Richard Gallone on, and unfortunately, I don't have that opportunity anymore, but he taught a lot of the climbing guides, because, of course, as we've all known, this was originally seen as a descent tool, and now using it, of course, as an ascent tool in the mountains, but he taught a bunch of climbers, Dave Carl, the Grant brothers, Jeff Swayze, of course, Bill Bell, and a bunch of other climbers.
and worked for a number of different manufacturers, it just took him by the reins. He moved to Europe, chasing it. He summited Alca Congua in 89 to attempt to fly off, which turned into a total disaster. You'll hear some about that. He did some stuff down at Kitty Hawk, and a crash out there in the trees. I'm not sure we talked about that in this show, but maybe. He competed in the 89 World Championships. He was our Dialone winner. first U.S. national champion, which you'll hear about what that was all about down at the point back in the day. He worked with the Smith brothers and worked down at Mount Holm. He did tandems out with Dick Jackson out in Aspen, was a co-owner there for quite a while before he made his way to Sun Valley and set up shop here.
He talks about Hobbs and going down there and chasing records with Larry Tudor back in the day and did a bunch of stuff in Europe and back and forth. And, you know, At this point, had completely given up what he was planning on doing with his life and just stuck with flying, and then had a crazy accident that he thinks might have been triggered by an earthquake out near Reno. He talks about life in a pre-accident days and post-accident days. Chuck talks about the World Cup in Japan and landing in the city at goal and watching Mitch McAleer go in and out of the clouds and some of his insane loops. Yeah, we had a lot of fun with this.
It was nice to have him at the house and do it in person. We don't get to do that very often. It was nice to just finally do this show with someone who's been so instrumental in free flight and so instrumental to all of us here in Sun Valley. Of course, many of those pilots I mentioned are scattered all around the world these days, but had a lot of fun. Some great stories. I think you'll enjoy it. Cheers.
Chuck, I don't get to do too many of these in person. Welcome to my house. We've been meaning to do this for 10 years, but that just gives us more time for more stories. How are you, buddy?
Doing all right. Hey, thanks for the invitation. It's really great to be here. Well,
you know, this is a crazy time. You've been the king of our mountain for, forever, uh, way, way before.
That
title's yours, man. You got a distance record up there. Well,
we've got to, uh, we got to spend some time. I'm so glad you made this list of all the legends and all the people you've flown with and been around over the decades, but let's rewind the clock to the beginning. And you got into this with your brother. I understand. How did you, how did this all begin? What year? How old? All that, all that funny data stuff.
So, you know, I, I got into paragliding, I think like a lot of the other early pilots, we came in through the climbing community. And, um, for me, I just kind of fell into it. I, you know, I grew up on Cape Cod and, um, actually there's a rich history on Cape Cod of gliding, um, back to the man, late 1800s, early 1900s, you know, actually in the 20s, the Germans, um, had a glider school out there in my hometown of Wellfleet, which is out towards the end of Cape Cod, you know, on the far end of the arm out there. And we have these really high sand dune bluffs. And, uh, but, um, and I think there were some records set there.
I forgot who said it. It was on the Bay side and that was, um, second only, I think to the Wright brothers. I think their record at the time was about eight minutes. And this was the first time somebody exceeded 15 minutes in the air off some sand dunes. Actually a sand dune called the corn hill. And it's where a lot of people don't know. I'm going to stay on paragliding, but we're going to, we're going to deviate. So people know that the general story about the pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower and going to Plymouth and, you know, landing on Plymouth rock and all that. Well, you know, that's all pretty contrived, but before they actually went to Plymouth, they were hanging out in my hometown for about a month and the outer Cape looking for water and this and that.
And they, they came across this stash of corn that belonged to the law, uh, the local Wampanoag Indians and they stole it. And, uh, so anyway, that's why it's called corn hill. And, uh, they came across that. So besides that history, that goes way back, but, um, but there's a, a lot of gliding history out there. And, um, so just a mile or two from my house where I grew up is, uh, you know, the launch site and also where they had the Germans had that glider school and so on. And, uh, so the main flying site, a lot of people in the, in the U S flying community will know Whitecrest beach. You know, that's where people, if they fly on Cape Cod, that's where you launch from.
And, um, I'd been watching the hang gliders fly out there for years. And I was like, I got to do this. I got to do this. I got to get one. I got to figure out how to do that. And, uh, so essentially saving up some money to buy a hang glider. And then I think it was late 1986, early 1987. I'd been climbing for, I don't know, five or six years. And I read in by climbing
and mountaineering. Yeah.
I started rock climbing. They got into ice climbing and then mountaineering, you know, it's tough being a mountaineer living on Cape Cod. Yeah. We made it work. And, uh, and, uh, so I came, I came across this, uh, this article in climbing magazine written by John Bouchard and, uh, John, of course, uh, is a legend in the climbing community, certainly in the new England climbing community. And it was an article about how he came across paragliders in France. And it was even before I think that the word paragliding existed. We, we, most of the time we use the word parapont. You know, the French term. Sure. And, uh, as soon as I saw the image, oh, those guys flying in France, I said, that's it.
I got to do that because the main thing about it was, and what we believed in the early days that every mountain climber would have one of these as part of this normal equipment as a descent tool. Yeah. So I said, that's it. I got to get one of those. So I actually drove up to New Hampshire one time because with my buddy, Mike Nagel, my climbing buddy. At the time. And, uh, just stopped by John Bouchard's house unannounced one Saturday morning. I'm like, Hey, I want to buy a paraglider. Really? He was making them. Yeah. It was Feral Corporation is, uh, was the company. He already had his, I knew his company, Wild Things. And, uh, he was making, you know, climbing gear, you know, harnesses and, you know, so runners and so on.
In fact, Bill Belcourt was working for him. Right. And that's when I first met Bill. Um, it was, it was about a year later after I purchased my glider. You're kidding me.
So this is kind of late, 87, 80. Yeah. So I'm
not sure when Bill was there. I met Bill probably certainly in 88. Okay. So in 87, I got the glider and it was, uh, you know, you acquired your paraglider a little bit differently back in those days. I mean, there were really not much for instructors. Um, you know, I went there, woke up Mark Twight, who's a famous climber. Working for John at the time, he was living out in his cabin, told him I want to buy a paraglider. And in those days you just told them what glider, what colors you wanted on your cells and, uh, Nine or 11. Yeah. Nine or 11, I think seven and eight, the small ones. And, uh, so they sent it to you, UPS.
You got it in the box. There was, um, understanding, no, not understand. Um, oh, I forgot what it was. It was a book on the web. I'm not
Sure, if it was written.
by Dennis Pagan, but it was an understanding. This guy was a different book that preceded that. I can't recall. I still have it somewhere. And a video, it wasn't really an instructional video. It just showed people flying and launching. Yeah. So I'm in his VHS and I'm looking at it. I'm like, okay, you pull on that thing, you pull this up, you hold there and, you know, went out to the sand dunes with mine. Yeah. Oh, and we flew in our climbing harnesses back then. There was nothing else to fly. Of course. And, uh. Just some webbing. So it took me about half an hour to figure out how to get myself in the air. But when I did, and I know a lot of people will appreciate this when they had their very first taste of flight, it's, I still, I still think of it today.
It's always the best one. I was only like three feet in the air for like three seconds, four seconds at the most. We chased that feeling forever. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That sensation. I don't know. Everybody will understand that. Totally. And you never forget it. Yeah. It was amazing. Wow. And I just like, wow, I just fulfilled the dream just now. It was amazing. And your
brother was with you?
So my brother, so I'm out there. He's still in school. And, you know, my brother Rob and I, we're kind of like the Wright brothers out on the sand dunes, but not nearly as smart. We nearly killed each other. I don't know how many times. The performance of those gliders were so bad. You're always on the edge of either soaring or getting blown back. I mean, it was that window was so narrow. And then I just can't believe that we didn't really get hurt with the stupid stuff that we did. But, you know, we'd flying in just tremendously strong winds, him holding on to me and holding on to my ankles and getting airborne and letting go.
And he couldn't hold on any longer. Or, you know, we'd go to the beaches where there weren't sand dunes, but the wind was onward. It was wind, you know, and or windward. And so we do a lot of, you know, you know, just tying a rope onto somebody, you know, just up you go. Yeah. Flying you like a kite. Right. And I'd use my climbing harness and like a figure eight belay device to basically, you know, anchor whoever's in the air, you know, and make hand loops in the ropes. And, uh, yeah, we didn't blow up any gliders. I was surprised that we didn't, but we, you know, but yeah, we learned about lockout. That's for sure.
Just towing by pulling. Yeah. Just
by flying them like a kite. Yeah. Just anchoring with a rope, you know, and the pilot just getting too far off to the side. And I remember my brother almost hit a pier or a breakwater, actually giant boulders. I was like, how am I going to explain to mom that I just killed her second son? But we survived and, uh, yeah, here we are. When
I watch those, the, those videos of the early days, the, the stoke combined with the absurdity is really compelling. I mean, you just watch you guys going, that was epic. And you're talking a four second sledder, you know, just, just everybody's in the dismantling it all. I mean, I'm talking about the hang gliders, but dismantling and put it all back together. And just the. You know, how fortunate we are now, our first fight can be off Baldy for 20 minutes. It
was really fun to be part of, and it was all, you know, it was really John Bouchard that really in that, that climbing community in new England, at least that I was in that click. And, um, yeah, it was exactly what you just said. It was that stoke and we're so excited. And it was a lot of the climbing community in North Conway where, uh, John Bouchard lived and where he had his company, you know, and it was like Joe Lentini and, um, you know, the grant brothers, Jeff Swayze, and, uh, another person that still, still around Dave Carl. Um, they were all climbing guides up there and we were all just like, you know, we, we did a climb like white horse cliff and it was this big slab at the top that we'd launched from.
I mean, you couldn't, you couldn't. We were all just like, you know, we did a climb like white horse cliff and it was this big slab at the top that we'd launched from. Well, there's no way you're going to stop. And we'd land down at echo echo lake down there. And I remember we timing ourselves. I'm like, wow, I got, I got one minute and 57 seconds in the air. Like, well, I got, I got two minutes and 10 seconds. I got lift.
But it was, none of us really knew much in those days.
nothing
about meteorology, aerodynamics, or anything, but it was, it was that level excitement and stoke, yeah
Nate's got this great story from here that I think his first flight off Greenhorn, but you know, is that he walked into the ski shop and the guy said, "Hey, you want to go paragliding?" And whoever he was asking said, "No." And Nate said, "I'll go." And he goes and takes him off Greenhorn and he lands and the guy goes, "Okay, well now you know as much as I know I do, I"
Just love it, you know? That's exactly it. Well, just figuring it out. You know what, parallels that a bit too, is it? So, you know, when I got into flying and then, you know, I was going to go back to school that that fall back
east yep
and finished my degree. I'd been out of college for a couple years. I'd done a couple years of college, was about to go back, and "What are you studying?" "Television production." "Photojournalism?" "Oh,"
That kind of makes sense, yeah, and
Uh, so I was about to go back, and then that's about the time when I discovered the, you know, paragliding. And then my buddy Mike said, "Hey, listen, I'm going to Switzerland to go climb in this fall," and I'm like, "Screw school, I'm going back to Europe."
and much to the delight of your parents, I'm sure, yeah.
They were like, "Okay, but um..." So I said that to lead to you that parallel and I mentioned before is that after a year in Europe flying, because you know I, um, I'd been an exchange student in Germany in my, uh, for a month or two during my senior year in high school, and we're still best friends to this day. Wow, you know, 40 odd years later. But, um, so I had a base camp in Europe to stay there, work, and then, you know, work for a month or two, and then take off a few weeks to Switzerland to go flying and climbing and etc. So after that year, I came back to the states would
You say, back then, were you... was your jam more climbing, or was it more flying?
flying took over from the climbing. Okay, yeah, um, not right away, yeah, you know, because it was, I wanted it as a descent tool, yeah, but um, over the years, it was less climbing and more flying. That's why I tell climbers, they're like, "Yeah, I want to get..." I'm like, "Don't do it, don't do it, you won't climb anymore, you just want to fly." And, uh, so true. So I had come back from Europe pretty much dead, dead broke, you know, and I, but I was so excited about flying, you know, because that, I called up John Bouchard and just say, "Hey John, I, I've been flying for a year, I want to be involved in paragliding somehow. I'll cut the material, I'll stitch the material, help build these, I'll do anything." He says, "Well, why don't you start teaching?" I'm like, "What?
But I don't know anything, man." Yeah, yeah. And he's like, "Yeah, I don't know anything." He's like, "Well, you've been flying for a year, you know more than anyone else around here." I'm like, "Okay." He said, "Come on up, spend the weekend with me." So I'm like, "My god, yeah." I mean, it's like John Bouchard, oh, I mean, I'm not worthy. And, uh, you know, spent some time with him that weekend, and we climbed together, and he sent me home with a bunch of gliders, and I instantly had a flight school, wow, and sort of started teaching, teaching out there on the dudes. Is this '90? That's 1988, 1988.
You had your first school? Yep, that's awesome. Yeah, it's like when they hand you a baby. I learned this: when they hand you a baby at the hospital, and you go, "Wait, wait, where's the manual? What, you're just sending me home with this thing? I don't know what I'm doing. Where's the instruction?"
Where's the instruction manual? Yeah, but uh, yeah. And then, you know, we spent some time with some California pilots and started just—I mean, we're just like sponges, and you know, yeah, just learning everything you could from everybody you flew with. I'm looking at
I'm looking at your list here: Bob Schick, Bob England, Ken Bear, John Bouchard. I see Todd Bibbler on the show.
yeah amy
brothers who are the circus performers, yeah. So that's what
Was interesting, you know, there was definitely, I at least my perception from that time was that, you know, the vast majority of the of the people that are involved in paragliding in those very early days, it was the climbing community. And then there was this other kind of subset of where they were circus performers, you know, people like Cirque Topol, that's why his name was Cirque after circus, you know. And um, Dixon White was involved in Dixon, God bless him. Yeah, I wish he was still around. Yeah, and Michael, Mike Godot, he, he and I used to juggle together on launch all the time, but he was um, he performed a lot with Lance Burton, who was kind of like a, I think he's a retired magician now, but he had a big act in Vegas for many, many years.
He's kind of like a David Copperfield and um, I'm trying to think who else. Well, yeah, well, uh, Granger Banks, I think he was a big actor in Vegas for many, many years, I think was doing that stuff, circus stuff. And uh, Philippe Renaudon, he was a French guy out on Long Island, one of the early guys, he came here as a circus performer, amusement park stuff, and he was involved in the F1, you know, um, you know, car racing and stuff like that. But so you had this weird combination of climbers and like and circus, circus, and then there was the skydiving element too, like Peter Zimily and the Dominico brothers, they had Excalibur and uh, you had the Yates brothers, you know, Jim and John, they had their uh, climbing company making gear.
And so you had all these different factions and there was a whole faction of like of pilots up in the northwest you know, shipmen and so on, that I didn't know them that as well, but uh, it was just interesting to see how these things different locations
It's kind of interesting that that's still totally exists, you know? I mean, the Frenchies, uh, the—that's what they call themselves, the Frenchies. You know, they're—they—they do all the high lining and the playing the instruments and basing and winds, wingsuit and flying. And you know, they're—it's always the French, isn't it? They're pushing this stuff, but they
Are, yeah, I mean, well, of course. And that gets back to like the stuff I do in Ghana until he passed away just a few years ago. You know, you know, Girode Basson used to live in Togo and he joined us in Ghana, and he was one of the three original Frenchmen that were out there running down slopes with their skydiving rigs that really, I think, turned paragliding into a sport, right? You know, depends on what, how you, you know, how you perceive the different area. I mean, the British were parasending, you know, and Dave Bearish was running down slopes with his single, you know, those multi-lobed kind of single surface things that he had, you know, but I think it was really the French that, yeah, they really got it going. They like to have fun, don't they?
They
Do, yeah, they like to push it. Uh, gosh, look at all these names, buddy. It's incredible. They're just, uh, it's so... what a, what a journey that you've gotten to cross paths with. So, you know, wonderful.
characters I've been, I've been so fortunate to fly with so many legendary pilots that are just, just giants, you know, and
How did it go from instructing back east? How'd you end up out here? And if we're jumping too far ahead, to just slow me down, this is all I want to. Yeah, take, take your time. No,
Um, yeah, the I was teaching a lot of it was, you know, kind of clandestine because it's national seashore out there. And, you know, what we needed out there was easter winds, and the east winds for most of it, and that's pretty rare. But, um, then, um, I started traveling out west. We were flying in the Owens, like, you know, it gets a little blurry. I remember John telling me, "Hey, you need to come out here with me," because we were meeting in the Owens, I think, for like a friendly competition, but it was also kind of a meeting when we started putting together the APA, the American Paragliding Association, which preceded USHPA, okay? And, uh, so it's myself and a lot of those early pilots, and we were just, you know, and Fred Stockwell, um, was really spearheading, I think, a lot of it, and, um, and
We're, we're guys like, not Larry didn't cross over to paragliding until much more recently, but uh, Larry Tudor, but uh, we're, we're the, we're the hangies already coming over at this point? Or is that still, they were still pretty in their group and you're, yeah, I think
Not too many crossed over it yet. Okay, okay. Um, I think when, when the performance started getting better, knowledge started getting a little bit better, then more of them started crossing over. But it didn't take, you know, it was a couple years. Okay, years later. Yeah, but, um, but yeah, we all just got together and started coming up with a pilot proficiency program and things like that, just kind of, you know, the, just the seminal start of, of, uh, the APA, and that was exciting. You know, but once again I was like, I don't know what we're doing right to make this stuff up as we go along, you know? And, uh, and then, um, '88, I guess. Yeah, we had the first U.S.
Nationals. I drove cross country with my brother. My dad would let us borrow the car and drove all the way to Utah and, uh, and
The first nationals, got to talk about this. What was it? How did you win? Because you were, you won, you were our first national champion.
Yeah, yeah, you know I didn't screw up. Um, yeah, it wasn't much for cross country in those days, you know? It was out there at the point. I mean, we're flying, it was basically speed over a course and, uh, some duration, extra bonus points for, you know, if you were spot landing after you finished your your flight, things like that. And, uh, so
Is it the point? Yep, north side, north.
side yeah
And it's kind of an endurance thing, right? I mean, you just stayed in the air longer. Yeah, some
endurance. A lot of it's just speed over course, okay? You know, get to this point, at that point, and there's
A lot of people who
get who did it the fastest and stuff, and uh, yeah, yeah, lucky. And, you know, but the cool thing that did was kind of open up some windows for me, or some doors rather, and uh, and I think sometime it was either it wasn't there, but it was at one of those sessions when we were getting together, kind of coming up with the APA stuff, that I met Greg Smith, and uh, so he was importing comet gliders at the time, and then
He was one of the primary designers of the original katana made by UP. And he and I had done some work together. We had taught a course down in, I think it was 1990. We went down to Kitty Hawk and taught a course down there. And so we worked together really well. We flew together. And he said, hey, you want a job with UP? Come on out here. So that's when I moved out west.
So at this stage, you never did go back to school. At this stage, your survival is flying. Yeah. Okay.
Life happens when we're making other plans. Yeah, right. So yeah, paragliding just took over. And I was really a bit unfortunate for a long time that way. But yeah, I'm trying to remember. Is your
brother at this point still into it?
He's still flying. Not much. He was out here. This summer, I would have liked to put him. He flew tandem with my buddy, Eduardo.
Oh, cool.
But yeah, I wouldn't feel comfortable sending him off the mountain. But off the sand dunes on a calm day, he'd still be fine. But he's a Secret Service agent. He's got his hands full. Yeah, he's busy. He's busy. Used to be a respected position.
But yeah, he's getting ready to retire from there. But
back then, was he still flying with you much? Or was he already off on his career?
Yeah, off and on. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay. So for whatever reason,
they grabbed you more. No, yeah. This was your thing. Yeah,
I was a little older. And he was still involved in school, high school, then into college. But he got there. We had some good, fun flights together.
But I'm just trying to think else. Yeah, so before, I actually moved out west. And Greg and I had done that.
We had a clinic down at Kitty Hawk. It was funny, because John Harris, he's still around. I don't know if he still owns Kitty Hawk Kites or not. But we went down there. We're all ready to, you know, it's like, I know the dunes. I know them well. I'll be able to teach out here, no problem. We got out there, and they wouldn't let us fly. We're like, what's going on? It was a surprise to John, to me, to Greg. And we're like, what's wrong? And where they fly out there. You know, where the Wright brothers flew. And like I said, Kitty Hawk Kites, they still have their hang gliding school there. I'm assuming now they teach paragliding as well. But it's State Park. And the North Carolina State Park said, nope, there's no parachuting permitted in the state parks here.
And we're like, it's not a parachute. It's a paraglider. Right. And they're like, nope, that's a parachute. And we're like, the federal government considers us an ultralight type of hang glider. And they would not budge. So we had to do towing instead. Really? It worked out okay, but it wasn't the curriculum that we were certainly hoping for out there. But I was just like, man. And that's kind of like the first time I kind of butt-headed, butt-heads with the state government somewhere. I was like, man, just let us be.
One
of my funniest experiences with that kind of a thing was with Santa Croce. At the event center in Hood River. He came through on his way. Remember when you used to do all the towing up in Seattle on Lake Sammamish? And he was coming through Hood River on his way up to Seattle. And he called me up. And I had just done my instruction. He said, hey, you want to do a couple of bro-toes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we went down to the event center. And it was just him and the boat. And he was literally hooking me up. And I had just watched the videos. But I'd never towed. And I was like, wait, wait. Don't you need to give me more? Don't you need more instruction than this? And he's on his way running back to the boat. And a cop comes up. It wasn't a real cop. It was kind of a security guy. And he goes, hey, hey, you can't do that here. And Santa Croce goes, you can't do what?
Exactly. And the guy goes, well, I don't know. Whatever you're doing. And he goes, you don't actually know what we're doing, do you? And he goes, no, but I know you can't do it. And he goes, I'm going to run the risk that we can.
That's exactly the same thing happened to me on that trip. Really? Down to Nags Head. So we finished up, and I was flying out of Norfolk. And I'm not sure why Greg wasn't with me. I think maybe his flight was earlier, and I had a long delay prior to my flight. So I went down to Virginia Beach, and I was just on the beach ground handling. And some people are like, wow, what is that thing? And I'm like, hey, is there like a hill or anything around here? They fly off, and they're like, yeah, Trash Mountain. So it's an old dump that they've covered in grass. And everything turned it into a park. And they have the state emblem on it. So I'm like, cool. So I went back there. I flew off the top, come down and landed in the parking lot. And they come out of the building.
They're like, you can't do that here. I'm like, do what? That. Whatever that is. It's precisely the same thing. Yeah, they didn't know what the term was. And I'm like, all right.
Show me the rules where you can't, because it's not in there. That's right. I guarantee it. That's awesome. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And then when you came out here, so you're at nationals. You win nationals at the point. Was Utah home? Did you have a home? Or are you just floating?
So, well, I was living still back in the Cape. Moved out west. Okay. Took the job with UP. And so Greg and I were running the - And is that Elsinore? No, we, so Dick Cheney, I'm saying who else? So at the time, UP was primarily Japanese owned. Yeah. Mr. Isomura. And so we had our hang gliding production facility up in Mountain Green. Okay. Which is at the Morgan County Airport. So you go up Weber Canyon from Ogden. Okay. Beautiful area. Yeah. And so we had our facility there. Greg and I were running the paragliding aspect of things.
But we produced the hang gliders on the spot there. That's when we were making the detours. TRX and so on. The first, you know, kind of production, you know, carbon fiber hang gliders. And of course, Mitch McAleer was around. Spent a lot of time with Mitch, which was awesome. And so our paragliders, though, at the time were being manufactured in Korea at the Airman Factory. And people know the owner of that as Jinsong. Yeah. You know, as Jinsong, of course, now. But that was before he had his own company there. At least his own line of gliders. So he would manufacture the gliders, ship them over. I'd test fly each glider before I went out the door.
And either by towing or foot launching one or the other. And so, yeah. So we had UP Europe. We had UP in the U.S. up there at Mountain Green. And then UP University over in Japan. And
was that... Was this a time that would mirror the early 70s with hang gliders? Were there just a ton of companies, tons of stoke, sales were great, the future looked incredible? Or was it different than... Because hang gliding, was there like 60 companies or something early on? It was crazy.
There was...
Well, in the States, by this time, I think Farrell had stopped. And Bouchard had combined. He had combined with ITV for a while. I think he was still producing at the time. The Yates brothers had Summit Magic. I don't know if they were still producing domestically. But it was definitely European-based, most of the companies that were still around. But the stoke was high. And Greg and I worked hard to build the dealer network and get the best pilots in the country. On our equipment. And, well, we had Camelot for a while. It was really good. And I'm trying to think.
And then they started making some changes at the upper management. And that's when we decided it's time to leave. And Greg went to... He started importing Adel, which I think most new pilots now know nothing about Adel. Yeah. But Adel was... It's as big as ozone is now. I mean, that was the equipment. That was the one. And, you know, they have a lot of sponsorship for pilots all over the world. You know. And that's one thing I have to say. You know, working with Greg was awesome at UP. You know, Greg was really probably the first person to really seriously start sponsoring pilots in the U.S. You know, it changed the whole atmosphere.
You know, it changed the whole atmosphere here. Right. Yeah. So... But, yeah. UP days were some good days. I did a lot of test flying and a lot of travel, a lot of competitions. I was really fired up in those days.
And so that was... So now things are really shifting towards XC and race to goal or not yet?
Yep. Okay. Yep. Race to goal. And the... We didn't have flight computers or anything. Yeah. Sure. You're taking pictures. You're taking pictures in those days. Yeah. You know, you get your finger over the lens. Oh, no points for you, man.
You know, and of course, you know, you had to be in the quadrant, the correct quadrant to photograph your turn point. You know, and, you know, sometimes you're just getting your butt kicked in thermal turbulence as you're trying to take the picture. Yeah. You know, and you get this camera hanging around your neck and, you know, it's just, yeah, it was different.
Yeah. Slightly. Yeah, definitely.
But there were some good days. And, you know, the projects I got to work on were really fun, really interesting. You know, big trip to Europe to get our new gliders, our new prototypes through the DHV testing. That was a fun job. I don't know. Load testing and flight testing, of course.
And did they have a whole kind of a, I think of it as kind of an air turquoise system, but they had a whole, you know, you'd force deflations and asymmetrics. And was it that kind of testing? Yep.
Okay. You know, in the load testing we were doing, I forget what the facility was, somewhere in Bavaria. And so they had a vehicle pulling like a small trailer and the test pilot, you know, my job was the, for the load testing. They'd hook up the wing to. You know, some quick, some weak links and go streaming down this tarmac and generate X amount of G's on this thing. And, you know, the test pilot would then, you know, fly the glider from a seated position in this trailer and to keep it up overhead correctly. And I think, I think we're going to about eight G's. Whoa. Maybe it was a little bit less.
I can't quite remember exactly. Gee. Basically you had to, the weak links had to fail before any line failed or any line attachment on the glider failed or any stitching, anything. You had to have a hundred percent. You had zero fails. Right. To pass the load testing. And then, and then of course, you know, we were doing a lot of the flight testing, getting ready to go to the DHV. The weather was bad in Italy at the time. They guard us. We ended up doing it, a lot of it in Monaco.
And I
look back, I'm like, man, had I ended up in the water, I mean, we didn't have a boat.
But a lot of my flight testing was over the ground. So it was, you know, same thing. Better than that. Full stalls, spins, everything, asymmetrics, everything we do today. Wow. So, yeah, I didn't get paid enough for that job. But
back then, I imagine you didn't care. I didn't care. You're young and dumb. You're having a blast. Yeah, yeah.
But, you know, there's all kinds of stories. I guess from that trip, I don't know which ones you want to hear. Oh, yeah, the best ones. There was a good one. Well, the cool thing on that trip, I got to work with Ernst Strobel. And so he had come on to UP. And we were working on kind of the second generation of the Katana. In Europe, it was known as the Flash. And so one of the things we had to do, we were in Germany with Ernst Schneider. He was the head of UP Europe at the time. So it was me and him, Monty Bell. I can't remember if Ernst Strobel was in the car with us or not. So we're going to the Betzau, Austria for this weekend trade
show slash symposium for manufacturers. So basically, all the different glider companies were going there for the weekend and just kind of showcasing our new gliders. So everything we had. Yeah. The car with us was a prototype. We had maybe, I don't know, 12 or 15 pair of gliders and a couple hang gliders. And everything was a prototype. It was unsellable in Europe.
And so it's Friday night. We have to be in Betzau at like 6 or 7 in the morning because that's when they have this little glider ratio contest. You know, everyone's flying off to the same point, seeing which glider goes the furthest. You know, just a simple thing. And then we set up a stand. The people could come in and show us their flights. Line, you know, credentials. And they could take our glider out for a test flight or whatever. You know, it's like test driving a car, that type of thing. So we're at the border going into Austria. And we show up. It's like 11 o'clock at night. We got to get to this place. And they stop us. And they're like, okay, where are you going? What are you doing? Blah, blah, blah. And they look at all the gliders and like, you can't come in. And I was like, what?
I've never been denied entrance into a European. Country, at least in Western European country. And they're like, yeah, you have all those gliders. We need a bond. Because yeah. I'm like, why? He goes, well, you could sell them here. And I'm like, they're unsellable. Yeah. They're prototypes. We're the company. We need to be this location in the morning. First thing we're going to totally screw up what we're doing. And they're like, nope. And of course it's like 10, 11 o'clock at night on a Friday. There's no banks open. Right. So we can't get a bond.
Yeah. Yeah. Cause you're, you're, this is way before the Eurozone. You had to deal with this shit back then. Yeah, of course. This is
nine 91 or 92. I can't remember that, but we're like, well, we're screwed. What are we going to do? So we all decided in our infinite wisdom, well, let's just go down the border, another 20 kilometers and try another border crossing and sure. It was a much smaller road, much smaller border. It was a much smaller border crossing and the guy just waved us on through. Nice. Okay. Perfect. No problem. So we get them, get their hotel, get up the morning. I come down, it's the early morning glide ratio thing going on. And I land in one of the, the, uh, coordinators of the event comes over. He said, Mr. J Mr. Smith. I'm like, yeah, he goes, where, where is her Schneider? And I'm like, he's sleeping at the hotel. He's like, oh, we must go down right away.
Like what? And I look over and there's these three guys with side. Arms on their hips and they're from Austrian, they tracked
you guys down. So
what they saw, I guess they had a camera at that and they saw this, uh, our license plate and they're like, yep. And so they tracked us down and I was like, oh man, Ernst is in a load of shite now. And I told, I got there and I earned something. I was like, listen, tell them, tell them it was my fault. What are they going to do? Deport me and kick me and kick the American out. You're the one that needs to live here. So I think they might've give them a fine, but, uh, it ended up being, okay, no time for Ernst or anything, but man, it's just like, I've never, like I said before, I've never been denied entrance into a country before because I had too many paragliders.
That's amazing. That's amazing. The, uh, we're already ahead. I'm going to bring you back a little bit. So 89, you go to Aconcagua and I, I didn't know about all these mountaineering feats until I got here. Until I talked to Dick Jackson, I didn't know that part of your background, but what we, before we started recording, you were telling me a bit about, about that. So you get hired to go, to take somebody to fly off the top.
Yeah, it was a guy I was teaching to fly. He was from Boston and, uh, his name was John Nordlinger. Great guy passed away from ALS a few years ago, absolute bear of a man, but he, um, he hired me to teach him how to fly and also guide him on to fly off. And, um, and then we also had Brian Becker with us. He was a guy, a mountaineering guide from Colorado. So the three of us went down there, but, uh, you know, we kept, we needed a visa to get into Argentina and, uh, Brian had been down there a couple of times prior. He's already climbed Aconcagua before, and, but we kept it. He didn't have a visa yet.
And we're like, dude, you got to get your visa. He's like, oh no, you can get it at the airport. And we're like, eh, I don't think so. I mean, it says right here, black and white, you got to do it prior. So sure enough, we were all supposed to rendezvous in Miami and then go from Miami to Buenos Aires. And so John and I are Miami and there's no Brian. And yeah, they wouldn't let him on the plane is we're out of Denver because he didn't have his visa for Argentina. I'm like, ah,
better to find out there than I've done it the other way. Get down to Brazil. Oh, you need that. Oh. Oh, shit. Back to Copenhagen.
Yeah. So we just continued on. We're like, well, we have to continue. So we're in Buenos Aires for a while. And then Mendoza and just basically waiting for Brian to get his paperwork sorted out. And so it was taken about a week. So we're hanging out at the hotel and we ended up meeting this reporter and he introduced us to this guy that he knew who was involved with this hotel. Yeah. And he said, I'm going to be your host for the night. And we told him what we're going to do because we're going to climb Aconcagua and fly off of it. And I don't think it had been done at the time yet. Maybe. And they're like, and they didn't know anything about paragliding, really. You know, this is eight. Yeah. Eighty nine, I think. And so they wanted to be involved.
So they sponsored the entire expedition for us. Really? Yeah. Just. Yeah. I was like, great.
Wow. What a nice delay.
Yeah. Yeah. So it actually was serendipitous that Brian didn't make it because otherwise we wouldn't have made those connections. Wow. So we just, you know. Meant to be. Lemonade out of lemons. Yeah. It worked out great. And, you know, we had free lodging at this hotel and, you know, we climbed Aconcagua and that's, it turned into an epic. We don't need to go into it. Oh, yes, we do. No, it was just, John wasn't feeling well. And I just, one thing led to another, I ended up losing the tips of my toes to frostbite, went down a shoe size. Really? Yeah. You lost parts of your feet? Yeah, just two big toes.
Wow. And so, yeah. I thought I knew you, Chuck. Yes.
And, but we survived, put it that way. Did you
get to fly off it? No. Aconcagua was windy.
Got a pair
of windy. Yeah.
You know, like a lot of things. So, yeah. And that's kind of what led. I think, you know, they cascade and one little thing leads to another. And before you know it, you're in a life-threatening situation. So, it was, yeah, it was.
Anybody else in
those parts?
Coldest night of my
life coming down off that mountain, I'll tell you that. Oh, God. 23,000 feet. Yeah. Yeah. It was, I don't want to be that
cold again. Anybody with any kind of edema stuff? Any kind of? Yeah.
John was, he was suffering a bit from pulmonary edema. Pretty acute. Yeah. Okay. We got him down. Yeah. And luckily for me, the muleteers that we had, the arrieros, they were training a new horse to learn the route because it's about a two-day, you know. Just getting in there. You know, getting into base camp. Yeah. And exiting base camp. And so, I got to ride a horse out and that's what saved my toes. Otherwise, I think I would have lost a lot more. Really? So, I got to ride a horse out because there was river cross, multiple river cross. And just, yeah, two days of trekking, it would have beat the crap out of my toes. So, that's what saved my, oh my, my toes to a horse. I wish I remembered that horse's name.
Yeah. Because I feel guilty for not remembering. But that turned into then, we ended up staying down there. You know, working, doing promotion for that hotel company and promoting this Umbre Acero, this big like Ironman type of competition they were having. So, we're traveling around the country. Flying and just promoting that. What a cool
time of life where you can just. Yeah. There's no. You can stay away. There's no agenda. Yeah. Just, okay, we'll stay here. Yeah. Beautiful. That's amazing. Did you ever get to fly off it? Did you go back?
Nope. Never got to
fly it. Yeah. I don't think it's been done much. Yeah. Dick got off it, I think. I remember him. Yeah. But it wasn't the first time. I think he had to go back or I can't remember. Yeah. Oh,
yeah. Yeah. It's always, it's the Andes. It's always windy. Yeah. Always windy. But. Yeah. You know, that's what I, one thing I was bummed I never got to do while I was, you know, in New England, never got to fly Mount Washington. Really? Yeah. Because it's a third of the year there. It's, you know, it's hurricane force winds are higher. Yeah. I mean, the sailplane pilots fly and
wave there.
Yeah. Yeah. But I know John Bouchard flew it. Okay. You know, for sure. Yeah. I don't know anyone else. Maybe Dave Karl did. I'm not sure of any of the other local guides up there in the colony ever got to fly. But yeah, you had to choose, of course, the, you know, the right day and get lucky. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we all know it's all about the wind. It's all about the wind. It's all about the weather. Yes. Why
do we do these sports that are so dependent on the weather? I don't know.
So. Yeah. What else is out there? Yeah.
What about this, the world championships and coasts? I've heard a couple of stories about that already, but the coast has got a special place in my heart because we go through there, of course, on the X-Alps every year. I'm going to have another little nip of this gorgeous bottle. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, you know, I think Austria is so gorgeous. It's so incredibly green. The mountains are so beautiful. But yeah. Yeah. On the U.S. team, it was, let's see, Mark Shipman was kind of like our team doctor. It was John Bouchard, me, Mark Axon. Yeah. Greg Smith, Ed Pittman.
Who else was on the team? I know. I'm forgetting somebody. But yeah. But we, it was Mark Axon and John and I were flying on ITV. That's when we kind of, ITV came out with the Saphir. I don't know if anybody knows that. I think we'll wrestle you to the ground if it can. But it was. No, I will not fly. I will not fly. Yeah, God, I still have it. It's in the bag. I'm holding on to it. I mean, it hasn't been unfurled since 1991, but I want to take it out because it was such a cool glider. It had that checkerboard color pattern on it, and it was kind of delta-shaped, yeah, had that swept-back leading edge, and it was screened with valves in it, and you know, and it had that little tail section, and and it had, of course, this, this um, you know, the steer seat, yeah.
And at that time, we thought that was the way to go, right? You know, I was like, well, that makes sense. Yeah, it's like a hang glider; you're changing your CG a bit, you're leaning, and you're in your, you can steer your wing that way. But then, yeah, when you think about it, it doesn't make any sense because to go fast, you had to lean forward, so you're making your body totally perpendicular to the airflow. Yes, you, which is completely opposite of what you want, right? You're trying to go fast, right? And then, of course, in turbulence, and the thing's just tossing you around, yeah. So that was the, uh, times of the steer seat. But yeah, so we went, uh, the three of us end up in, uh, onsea at the factory picking up the glider and then flying over onsea, and you know, I would, it was um, their test pilots.
It's the Ali Gali and, uh, what's his name, Terry Babu? He's still around. They were the chief test pilots for ITV, and they were kind of walk us through the, you know, the maneuvers and so on with it. I was just scared, but this And, uh, but yeah, we went to the coast and we didn't do that. Well, what
Did the... what was the comp? What'd you have to do it?
was all xc of course, just like today, okay? And um, but taking pictures and all that, but yeah, okay. And uh, yeah, but the weather wasn't that good in the finals, I don't think. I forgot what the hell, if they actually named the champion or not. Andre Bucher was around back in those days; he was like the favorite, and uh, that's another story. I don't know if you know about him getting arrested eventually, no.
tell it
So, but book, I remember in the early morning, boogers, he was flying this huge glider, big and slow. It, but he gets an incredible glide ratio out of it. But, um, I think they know named Carlo de la Rosa, or de la Rosa, the actual champion. But, um, but I don't think they got enough, uh, enough tasks in to make it official, okay? But yeah, Andre Bucher, though, he was one of the biggest names in paragliding in Europe. Sure, and it was years later, I forgot, I don't know how many years later, he and his girlfriend robbed a bank, I think. He got into, yeah, he got into some financial issues, I decided to rob a bank, I think, in Germany, Austria, and they had one of those exploding die pouches in there.
So he had it in the car and it went off, and that's how they caught him, and he ended up serving some time in jail. I'm not sure how long, and then, but he just, he just passed away from, I think, um, cancer, not too long. Oh, really? Yeah, was
This, uh, when did you have your pound? You didn't... was that... am I getting way ahead? That...
Was in, uh, um, April 25th, 1992. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's when I had my, I started my second life. Yeah, really. Oh, yeah. So we just finished, yeah, I we just come back from Europe, come back from flying the, um, the World Cup in Japan. That was me and Greg and Mitch McAlear. That wasn't really a cool, um, experience at that, uh, competition, so
Mitch is flying paragliders, are you?
Sure, yeah, I'm not sure.
and he
Was there doing, um, some hang gliding demonstrations? Oh,
That's when he had his the whole thing folded around him, right? That was a different trip. Okay, okay, this one's really cool, I tell you.
Man, when I was that competition Japan, that was... I was looking at it fondly. I was like, a rock star, you know? Yeah, I mean, I was coming off of '91. I was the number one rated pilot that year, and so I'm in Japan, and they just love that stuff. I was getting autographs. I'm like, I like Japan, you know? But, um, you don't get that talk about high industrial flying now. Man, we... they had us land in the city of Kiddie, Kyushu, one time. All right? I mean, you're flying through these huge buildings into, right, downtown city. Wow, it's really cool. And then, uh, but man, power lines everywhere. And when you're out on flying, you're Jesus on your task, man. If you get, you know, pushed up, or you know, stuck on some ridge or some slope somewhere trying to work your way back up, and you're just worrying about these giant power lines all the time.
And wow, but one of the coolest things I'll tell you, Mitch McCleary, in my opinion, is the best hang glider pilot that's ever existed. Yeah, you know, you know what his loops are? Ballet. Oh my god, they're crazy. Yeah, when he does them, he just... he knows right where he can take it. Yeah, before he finishes the loop. Most people, they do the snap loops, you know? Heine's really good, John Honey, but you know Mitch is, Mitch is, uh, so the cool thing, we were at launch one day, in cloud base, that morning was really low, and Mitch is on his hang glider and he thermals up into the cloud and he lose sight of him, and everybody's there at launch, there's hundreds of people, spectators, all kinds of, and, uh, all of a sudden, he comes out of the bottom of the cloud in the full dive, just straight at the people, straight now.
He only did that, too; he did buzz to people at the launch, he had people jumping out of the way, but he comes straight out of the bottom of the cloud and then he commences his loop, and the apex of his loop goes back into the cloud again, so you can't see it. So you're watching him come in and out of the base of this cloud, I was just beautiful. I wish I had video of it because somebody does, because there's all kinds of TV crews there, but it was just beautiful to witness. Awesome, awesome legend. He is a legend, still is, still you.
Go out to California, you're like, "There he is, above my ass. How the hell is he doing it?"
Wow, cool. So, so at this point, is it more—are you more in up design admin that world, or is it more competitions and more going around being a rock star? I
You know, I had such multiple roles at up. I mean, I originally went out there because they wanted to get a up school going out at the point, yeah. And then, I'll a sudden, it was just more of admin stuff, traveling around with Greg, you know, building our dealer network competition flying and, um, so it was just were you really
Jazzing on that, I mean, it was competition. That was your thing, yeah?
Yeah, I was fired up. Yeah, fired up about competition at the time. I mean, like, I think a lot of pilots are, yeah, you know, I've been really lost that that fire, you know? And that's one I kind of found that tandem flying kind of fulfilled that, that void in a way, and
We skipped it, so we were going down this road because your accident, so with your, oh yeah.
So yeah, um, so yeah, we had just done the um, the Tory Pine speed races, what's that? And so yeah, so those were, I'm not sure how many years that went on, it was a couple, two, two, three years at least. So basically, um, we'd come off Tory at the main launch, you flew down coast, and you had two pilots launching simultaneously. One would turn right, one would go to the north, one go to the south. You had a turn point, hit that turn point, they had judges there make sure that you hit that, that, that turn point. Then you race back, the other race back the other way, go to the other turn point, and come back to the finish line. Cool.
And so it was gliders racing together, but then of course it was, you know, whoever
had the fastest time as well, yeah. And I think they'd go head to head in the, in the end. I'm not sure exactly how that was structured, but it was a fun event. So at that time, it was, I think, spring of '92. Greg had already left up; I was still there. And, um, so I had my team, Bob Sheck, and, uh, some other really hot pilots. And that's when we—nearly here's this, here's another story. Yes, so keep coming. So Bob Sheck and I decided it would be a great idea because we want to mess with Greg. We're best friends, but he was, he was Edel, yeah, at the time. And I hadn't, you know, I hadn't left up yet. And, uh, and, um, so it was a friendly little competition we had going on.
So it was one night Bob, Sheck, and I decided, "Let's take one of these little smoke bombs, right? Those are the ones with little canisters, little chain you pull, yeah? And, uh, we'll mount it under Greg's car."
and we'll tie a string to it, so when he's driving on his way to Tory that morning, so... but then, you know, hopefully then the the smoke bomb would be initiated and he had all the smoke come out of the bottom of his car and he wouldn't know what it was. All right, great, good plan. Okay, so it's in the middle of the night, we can't really see that. Well, I'm under one side of the car, I think tying the string to somewhere on the axle, I think on rear axle, and Bob was putting the smoke bomb up in the bumper of uh Greg's vehicle and he... it was a Mitsubishi Montero, so what we couldn't see in the darkness was that there was a wiring harness right next to where he put the smoke bomb.
Yeah, so we waited. We parked down the street from Greg's hotel room, and he was with his girlfriend, excited, little kids going, "Oh yeah, it's gonna be so much fun!" And he was with, um, his girlfriend, Lisa Halls, and Christoph Kirsch, who was the European paragliding champion at the time, okay? And, uh, so they're in their vehicle riding, and we're riding behind them, and nothing happens. I'm like, "Ah, we're like, all right." So we break off to go get some breakfast. A little later, we go to, we go to Tori, and then Greg pulls in. He's like, "Okay, who's the smart ass, you know?" And we're like, "Well, what happened?" Which we didn't witness.
Is the bench? I think the string was slipping on the, on the axle, and that's why it finally engaged aged after we had left. And so the smoke bomb, the heat from it ignited the wiring harness, the plastic on it, so it was on fire. Flames are shooting up So Greg explained the story to us. It was like, yeah, we're riding down the road, smoke comes out—you didn't really see it—but then the flames start shooting up from the rear bumper, and they're right next to the gas, the gas tank, and Christoph Kirsch is crying, "Foil! Foil!"
But you know, luckily, and you know, it was cool thing, Greg, he was prepared. He had a fire extinguisher vehicle, and he put it out. And, uh, but man, I was in tears because I was like, we nearly killed Greg and the European champion and Lisa, all in one fell swoop. I mean, how did we ignited the gasoline tank or something? But that car never rode again correctly. They replaced the wiring harness and stuff, but Greg said, "Uh, yeah, the electronics on were always screwed up."
I'm sorry, sorry man, yeah, so
I think maybe that was really funny. Yes, it was literally a week after that when I was passing through Reno, um, unveiling kind of our new stuff and, uh, you know, it was still a prototype. I was on the new, the new flash because we hadn't quite finished, um, the final testing with the dhv and I just was out there at p-line. You know, it was mid-morning and just coming in the land and wrong place at the wrong time, man. It
was a dust devil, right? Devil.
Yep, and uh, there's a—there's a theory, um, who was it? There, uh, anyway, people said, well, there was an—there was an earthquake at the time. I said, well, that was—that earthquake was me hitting the ground. Yeah, right. But uh, they said, no, there was actually a tremor that went through, which
You have a lot in Reno, I mean that, and I think that
might have triggered the dust devil because there were some other people up higher, and they all reported like a couple minutes after I impacted, and they were up a thousand feet or more, that they all hit all this turbulence at the same time. So it might have been all these multiple, really, you know, warm air dust devils triggering off it's a theory, yeah.
I mean, I grew up in, in that part of the world, and I mean, my, my parents used to, you know, you're a kid, you sleep through all that stuff, but they, you know, there was, there's a lot of tremors in that. That, I mean, you're right on the fault line. Yep, it's not that out there to think that that could have done that. That's wild. Yeah, so you were how far off the ground when you, uh
60, 70 feet, and you let that glider—as you can imagine, it was, you know, it was on its on video, and I can see, yeah, I might over-control a bit. It stalled. I couldn't control the surge because it was upside down. I was, I was just getting thrashed, so I the glider and I hit the ground at the same time. Wow, so I basically just, just as it was surging, it was hitting the ground, and yeah, I was out, so
There's no canopy over your head.
You were okay, accelerated into the ground, and I was out, and um, I
Got what? Are you in? Are you—I mean, what? What was the harness? What was it? Was there any protection? Nah, yeah, you're back in that, okay? But
I rearranged my insides pretty good, you know, and collapsed a lung, and I gotta say I probably gotta credit like Bill Anderson with help, and this other guy—I was his name, last name was Fraser, but real Bill, thank you Bill for, uh, saving my life, really, yeah, because they got to me and I was turning blue and I couldn't breathe, yeah. And so I think what, and one lung was already collapsed, and, uh, of course I didn't know that at the time, but I think my airway was a bit obstructed with my insides that were all kind of moved up, and they put a board under my back and sat me up a little bit, and that I think released a little bit of that, uh, pressure off my airway, and I could at least, you know, breathe on one lung.
What was broken, well, I herniated my stomach, colon, and bowel up through my diaphragm. Jesus, I take your things from kind of your lower area and shove it up into your chest. So yeah, really to break anything, really move the insides around.
Good God, you're a wombat man.
Yeah, and the the doc, I gotta say, Myron Gomez, I will never forget his name. He was the emergency doctor that sliced me down the middle and put everything back to where it needed to be, and I wrote him, "Oh, you were"
Really disorganized in there, yeah.
Oh, they had to open you up? Yeah, they sliced me down the middle and, uh, put things back to where they needed to be. Good God, but, uh, yeah. So, yeah, so how old were you?
29, okay, okay, yeah, yeah. And, uh, so, but I, um, ICU for a few days, hospital for a week, recovered, um, in the reno for a bit. And then, uh, I made myself fly at five weeks. It hurt, but I made myself fly just to get back on the horse. I was like, I gotta get back in the air, yeah, you know? And I knew it wasn't like, "Oh gee, I'll never fly again," or something. It's like, I knew, I analyzed it, and I knew what happened, you know? It's just one of those things, move on. But yeah, get yourself in the air and make yourself fly again, which I did. Was that scary? It was uncomfortable physically, but not mentally.
Okay, felt good, yeah, you know? And then, um, then That's when some more things were changing at up when I got when I started getting back into was that your first crash
Yeah, I had some minor little ones before, but that was the normal stuff. Yeah, that was the first time I'd really messed myself up. Okay, it's just minor little things I've never, yeah, okay, anything real bad. But yeah, then I decided, uh, I don't, you know, I think I'm gonna move on from up. I've, you know, it was a tough decision to make, but um, so I ended up going to Aspen and helping them develop their tandem program there with Yon Stintz of old and Dick Jackson. Yeah, that
Was that? Was right after the accident, yep.
Did that summer, and then that autumn, Greg and I got together because we're like, we because he was full on with Adel, and we know we worked great together. I mean, Greg was just awesome, and uh, so he and I started kind of reconnoitering all around the west to find a location where where we could have a flight school and like a demo center, and a place where he could also base the import business, Adel. And we landed in Sun Valley. know so we started sun valley paragliding together he had adel and uh what
year is this
93-ish. Oh, wow, yeah. So then, but so flying had gone on here at Sun Valley for quite a while, you know? Ed Simon, you know, he was the president of the club, and they started what
So, and uh, so they had recreational flying going on here for, you know, several years, but nothing commercial. So when we came in, we had to negotiate and we'll start the process of getting a permit from the Forest Service to operate up on the on the uh on the, you know, ski resort here. And that was taking a long time because it just hadn't existed yet, right? So months and months, I think it was what, eight, ten months had gone by, and it was just like, I, you know, like financially, it wasn't working for me, you know? So I ended up going back to Aspen and working with them again, and Greg kept the business here, the Adel, and you know, and he had it took him by the time he got the permit, I was already in partnership and with Dick and Aspen and
Was a big part of your business back then? Is it, is it instruction, is it selling stuff, or is it just me? Both, I mean. Okay, before
I left Sun Valley; it was instruction, okay? Basically just, but kind of clandestine teaching here and there because we still didn't have a permit, you know, to operate. Yeah, but need to do something just, and then, uh, but then back in Aspen, yeah, it was probably 60, 70 percent tandems and the rest of the instruction, okay? You know, yeah. And then, like I said,
Greg got, you know, we got the permit here. I just said, "Greg, you just keep Sun Valley Paragliding. I'm... I'll stay in Aspen, okay?" And then that goes on to the next chapter. So, Ed,
Simon's flying here, I mean, Ed.
Simon was here. There's a lot of names in this place. Hans Hub, he was teaching up here. Okay, he's still around, I think. He doesn't fly, yeah? He's ancient, but he was the pride of Aspen, the first person to fly off of Baldy. Really, paraglider was Hans Hub, yeah. And then he taught Ed Simon how to fly and some other folks, but he never really had a school, a formal school or anything like that. So that's why we were worried before we came up here initially with Sun Valley Paragliding with Greg and I. You know, we didn't want to step in on any toes, yeah? But it seemed like the place to be. You know, we'd already been here for a competition the year earlier. You know that, uh, Paul Potter and Garth Callahan and Ed, they were, I think, part of the organization that it was a pretty good comp.
But that's how we first got introduced to Sun Valley. That we were looking at this place, we were looking at Steamboat Springs and a few other locations, and what, we landed in Sun Valley. And that's why we started calling and saying, "Hey, we don't want to step on toes if we come up here and start a business or like in a school or anything." And they're like, "No, no, come on up. You know what Hans is doing isn't, uh, anything formal." So yeah, and
You know, before my time here, there's—there's just a string of names from this place, you know, Dave Bridges and Will Gadd and Chris Santacroce. I mean, yep, Santa Croce, back when he was in his teens, right? I mean, yeah, yeah.
I think I took Chris on his first tandem, really.
i think
Holy, that's incredible. I remember it was when I was working for Up, and we're at the point, and Chris had his mobile home out there. I'm like, "Who is this kid?" You know, it was cool back in the freaky days, yeah man. But he, yeah, he just, he just took off, man. He just had the skills and boom, Robbie Whittall.
right
Yeah, Robbie Whittall was here. Yeah, there was a window of time there after I left and Greg still had the business here. Yep, it's exactly what he had. Dave Bridges up here, Robbie Whittall, Mitch McAlear, Mitch...
was here
Mitch was here for a short time too, yeah. Wow, and uh, yeah, I mean, like, you know that roster of pilots, man. Yeah, and Santa Croce was here with him. I mean, it's like he was, you know, it's like the dream team, yeah, yeah. But I unfortunately, I think, you know, Greg got into substance abuse and never really put that much energy into the school in the tandem aspect of things. He was still, you know, doing stuff with Adle, important, and making a bundle of money, you know, because Adle, it was the biggest market share at the time, well.
And substance abuse back then was kind of the go-here anyway, because it wasn't ski areas. Yeah, nope, it
tends to happen in a ski town. Yeah, yeah. So, how
long were you in Aspen about
eight, nine years, almost 10 years, and
It was you and Dick, yeah.
I worked for Dick and Yawn, yeah. And then when they split, I became partners with Dick, right? And those were some good years. That's when I was doing quite a bit of cross-country flying, which I enjoyed, and um, and
They were having a lot of comps and stuff out there in Aspen of the day.
Yeah, in the latter part there, in the latter 90s, you know, we had the Red Bull Over, you know, Wings Over Aspen, really good comps. We had all the Euros coming over, and I was still competing. I was then competing tandem against solo pilots, which was fun. Wow, really? Um, yeah, I just, yeah, I try something new. Yeah, of course, we had a huge disadvantage, but it was still fun, right? And, uh, I did this TV show with ESPN one time with Bart Connor, he's the gold gymnast, gold medal gymnast, yeah. And he flew a day in the comp with me as, uh, you know, as my navigator, and we did that part of that show. But the cool thing with that little segment that we did, it was called Action Zone, this TV show, but I got to fly with Nadia Kobanich, his wife, right, who's, you know, best gymnast, yes, you know, and they were so
Good, and I was like, "Oh my god, I'm gonna fly with Nadia Kobanich."
Such nice people, incredible. I mean, the both of them are at the apex of their their sport, and they are the most humble, nicest people you ever meet. Yeah, yeah, that was really an honor and really eye-opening too, talking to her about because, you know, she's Romanian, Eastern European, under you know that? Yeah, behind the great, before before the Berlin Wall. Yeah, of course. And um, that was how one of the ways you would um, you know, become successful in the Eastern Block or in those communist countries at the time: either you become a party member, or you became like a phenomenal athlete.
Yeah, I'm like, and there was money for the athlete, yep.
Yeah, and I was talking to her about it. It's like, wow, you—it had to be pretty amazing, or just interesting. Or it was like, how did it all work, you know? And um, because you were the perfect 10, you were the first gymnast to get a perfect 10, you were the most famous gymnast in the world, and she says it was horrible. Yeah, because yeah, Ceausescu, he was the leader of Romania, he despised her because she was more popular than him. Whoa, typical tyrant dictator, you know? And um, so he made her live in a home. He lived in a palace, right there in Budapest and uh, and so, or Bucharest, sorry, and um...
He, uh, yeah, he made her live in a house just outside his palace and had his secret police watch her all the time. Jesus, and then she told me how she explained egos. Oh, yeah, but it was interesting how she escaped, you know? They got into Hungary and she told me how they had to go over this, these mountains in the middle of the night, like waist-deep snow, just trudging through there to get out of there and, uh, yeah, pretty amazing, crazy, yeah. But, yeah, the Aspen days were some good days and, uh, and
the characters you must have met, I mean, that was, you know, oh yeah, and
Yeah, and I think I know, Dick told you the story when, uh, he took, um, Maurice Herzog, yeah, flying, yeah, and, uh, yeah, and Dave Bridges, and I ran him down the sled because, of course, he couldn't run because he's got stumps now. But, but, yeah, that was a special, special day being part of that. Yeah, yeah, I was like, "Wow, you know, first guy I've"
ever met in my life.
had to climb an 8,000 meter peak and, yeah, yeah, and then just awesome days working with Dave Bridges. Yeah, I can't remember when Dave left Sun Valley and came down to Aspen, exactly when, but man, talk about—I mean, he was two-time national champion, yeah, phenomenal pilot and just incredible athlete. Yeah, unbelievable. I mean, before, yeah, when he was going on that, on that expedition to Chisholm Pangma when he got killed, he was a great athlete. Yeah, he was a great athlete. Yeah, he was a great athlete when he got killed with Alex Lowe. I was strength training with him, really, and, uh, I could keep up with him in that at the time, but when he would go up the mountain, I'm like, "See ya." He was just a lung beast. Yeah, lungs with two legs. Yeah, unbelievable.
Earlier,
killing jornay kind of, yeah. I just did, yeah, yeah.
phenomenal heart of the man. You come home, you make sure you come home. He didn't, but yeah, that was a huge loss, you know, to the flying community in the United States. Yeah, you know, there's been a few of those people, like Bob England, if he was still around. I don't know if he was phenomenal pilot, yeah, you know, and of course Greg and Dave and, uh, yeah, some of these people that were just phenomenal in our community and they're, I don't know what it'd be like if they were still around.
Yeah, Kimi was like that. I mean, you wouldn't put him up there with the phenomenal, you know, level pilot, but what a phenomenal mind and person and just, yeah, just character. You know, we've got a lot of those in this, there's characters, there's characters. Yeah, a lot of alpha chuck. Tell me about Hobbs, so you know I've got a real affinity for Larry Tudor, uh, his, yeah, hearing about him, you know, when he was back in his record chasing days, you know, the Dark Prince and, oh yeah, and, uh, Larry, Larry, what the fuck are you doing? What do you mean there's a tornado man and and, uh, you know, some of that kind of stuff, but, uh, you know, Hobbs is, I've only flown there once, coming back from Texas a couple years ago.
We were chasing it down there, we just had to stop because of the Larry stories, and I flew Hobbs and, you know, it was a good day. Uh, it wasn't, it wasn't a great day, but it was. That's a neat place, but what was that all, what was that scene, yeah?
That was all with up when I was working there, so they sent us down there for two weeks and we were like, "Oh my god, we're gonna have to wait a couple weeks to go do record, you know?" Attempts, Mark Axon was with us as a official observer, and it was me and Greg and Matsuo from Japan. He was a character, man. Uh, he ended up dying in a car wreck in Thailand, but uh, and then I think there was another German pilot there, but it was all with up. It was cool getting paid to go fly distance, yeah? Try to bring in and uh...
Then, um, so Greg ended up—I ended up putting in a lot of miles those two weeks, but I never got the record. If you added up all my miles, I had huge. But yeah, and the one day when Greg got the record, I think was 63 miles at the time. Uh, that's the day I sunk out, of course. Damn it, anyway, of course. Yeah, yeah. But, um, but it was really cool. We were towing up at that airstrip down there, and, uh, we never got the optimum conditions we needed the way that the skyline's set up, but, uh, we still had some. It's a pretty good flying, but I remember one day. So, I—I don't know if I had met Larry before that or not, but we were at the hotel one afternoon and the car—car pulls in and Larry gets out and he's just covered in cow shit.
It's like he, I think he was on a paraglider, yeah, had to be. Yeah, and um, he wasn't part of our, our team there; he was just there for his own personal fun or whatever. I'm not sure, but he had landed in the stockyard and got drug in the high winds, just right pulled him right through all the cow dung, and he just discovered, I'm like, "Dude, sorry." Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it was, it was windy. I remember constantly landing backwards, yeah, you know? So I just spent around and, you know, just
staying in the car, you know, trying to get out and and
steering the glider in, looking over my shoulder and, uh, staring at with the rear eyes or some stuff like that, so you
said earlier, there was the first life, second life, you know, the post-accident. How did your own flying style approach? What changed?
you know, I probably subconsciously, I'm probably just not as fired up as I used to be. You know, it's hard to say. You know, I still flew come some competitions after that, but not nearly as much. Okay, but um, you know, I stopped flying comps, I guess, in what, late 90s, you know, 96, 97, somewhere in there. You know, maybe 98 was the last time. Yeah, just lost that, that fire, you know, but uh, but like I said before, it's, you know, that the tandem flying kind of became a new project after that, yeah.
And see this, so this is something I've never done. I, I've taken people tandem, I have tandem kit, but I've never been a commercial tandem pilot. I'm not rated, uh, but you know, when we all got together this summer for Evan's wedding and we had a lot of good pilots out here, yeah, you know, you're still, you're so fired up. I mean, it's just, you're, if you loved it like that the whole time, I
Loved it. I loved it. You know, the camaraderie, yeah, it was such... and then still, it was, well, back then it was a really small community, yeah, and it's still pretty small these days, yeah. So I like that camaraderie and that friendly kind of competition, you know, but, uh, yeah, and just getting that feeling, getting fired up for, you know, getting out there and after it, but, uh, yeah, when
Did you transition here to in start of the tan business you so I
Came here in 2000, okay? Spring of 2000, yep, from
aspen yeah
It was, um, not directly wasn't the plan, okay? You know, I sold my shares of the business in Aspen and, uh, I got engaged and at the time, and I was becoming an innkeeper, yeah. And, uh, you know, my, my significant other at the time, she came in from restaurant management and stuff like that, and she really wanted to become an innkeeper. So we bought a this Victorian mansion, sea captain's mansion up in Maine, yeah. And I went back home, so yeah, almost. And, uh, I was gonna open a sea kayak business with it. I wanted to run tours between inns. I thought it'd be a really cool, you know, thing to offer, but that just, uh, blew up.
I chose the wrong woman. I didn't—we never got married, but you know, I'm not going to get married. But, um, yeah, she had a plan I didn't know about, okay? But I'll tell you, I will tell you 100 that ghosts exist, really.
yeah okay
Yeah, it was a 22-room mansion. I'm by there, but I'm there in the winter on an island in Maine, are
We going to some shining shit here; I'm already gonna say it was
like The Shining. It was just me and the ghosts and that thing and, uh, yeah, yeah, you
Don't strike me as someone that believes in this kind of
thing, I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm not gonna
Stop, you no man without
A doubt ghosts exist? Whoa, spooky, man. Yeah, yeah. So then, um, but they had that old thing blew up, and so then I just found myself like, well, what do I do now? And that's when the Forest Service up here were accepting, uh, applicants for the, for the concession on the mountain. By that time, Greg had lost the business here; he was long gone. Yeah, so I said, well, I got nothing else to do, so I put in for it. Here we are. Wow, 20 years later? Years, yeah. It was just... didn't expect it, but, uh, you know, I love it up here.
the and you, you enjoy the tandems. I mean, the to me, it's, uh, it's a big, powerful place. I, it's
A lot of responsibility, yeah. I would, you know, and it's a whole new shit doing what
you're doing yeah
I mean, you never know what you're gonna get. There's percent of the time it's freaking awesome, I love it, but um, there's at times I'm like, "Oh my god, what am I doing?" You know, but there's no times too that um, it's pretty magical, and I got to be part of at least three or four times now of end of life flights where I've taken people where their last, you know, their last uh dream, or their what they want to do before they die, is go fly really.
This is kind of a bucket list thing there. That's it. Wow.
So I've take, I took a guy oh years ago. He had ALS. Once again, I think it's the most evil disease you could ever get because you just, you and your brain is perfect. Yeah, your thoughts are perfect. You know, you have, you're totally cognitive. You just can't, your brain just can't communicate with the rest of your body. Oh god, it's like being an Anakin in body or something. But so, I had that guy, took him. He checked out a month after I took him flying. Well, that was his dream. He was one of his last things he wanted to do. Um, I took a woman here a few years ago. She had Parkinson's, similar thing. She couldn't speak because they're not, especially the ALS's latter parts, they can't.
He couldn't speak, he couldn't move his arms, he couldn't move his legs, basically quadriplegic. But the eyes will tell you everything. Wow, yeah. I have a hard time talking about it, man. Yeah, because I get, uh, yeah, I get emotional thinking about it because it's All in those people's eyes, and they can't talk, but they can still smile, and their eyes are just lit up. They're still getting it, yep, and being part of that, yeah, that's what makes it really special, yeah, yep. So I had a few of those, and then, you know, there was one time—is it?
That is it, that stuff that just keeps you fired up about it? Yeah, it's just because you kind of seem fired up about it anyway, yeah, but it's
Those, those extra special ones where it really gives it meaning, yeah. And always remember, too, there's one time there was this little 10-year-old girl I took flying and, um, the dad said, "Hey, you know, she's really introverted and you know she's not gonna say much." And, um, we took her flying and she was very demure and so on, but he called me up, I think the next day or two days later. It's just like, "Chuck, thank you really, it's changed my little girl. She's come out of her shell. It's amazing the transformation." I'm like, "What? Like a paragliding flight?" I guess it just totally changed her. Wow, I was like, "Wow, this is really cool to be part of that." Just, yeah, that's
neat yeah
That's really precious. Oh yeah, there's the other ones when you get puked on, yeah.
Well, and you got—you got to take the playboy girls up one time, you know.
That was pretty fun. That was a fun gig, I gotta say. That was a good day at the office. I'll never forget that one. I was flying back east and I'm in Boston airport and checking, uh, my voicemails on my phone and waiting for my luggage to come out, you know? And I get, there's, there's this message, "Hey, this is so-and-so from so-and-so production company and we really like to talk to you, okay?" So I called him right away and I'm like, "What's going on?" He goes, "Yeah, well, we're going to talk to you." And I'm like, "Okay, we do this show." And he goes, "Would you guys object to flying with women that were, you know, topless and most likely naked?" I'm like, "Yeah, twist my arm a little bit more, that'd be okay." Yeah, so that was a fun gig.
It was for, uh, yeah, uh, the Clayboy Channel called Badass. They have a show called Badass on there. So, yep, we took him flying. How
Many of them was there.
It was three, uh, they look like they had a blast.
Yeah, I've watched those a couple times. Yeah, yeah, and
Then when they left us, we flew that morning. I kept it under wraps; I hardly told anybody, right? Because I'm like, you know, I got so many calls from 10 to pilots all over the place. You, yes, Ob, why did you tell me? Like, yeah, exactly, because every swing in, right? You know what's gonna be showing up. But I'm like, I gotta go keep this under, because I didn't talk to anybody about it, right? And we, we had a, we parked our Suburbans, kind of three of them in the crescent shape, so that we could kind of, you know, people could see something was going on in the landing zone, because we landed and go right behind the Suburbans, right? And people could tell something was going on, but they couldn't quite tell what unless they got a little closer. Yeah, okay.
I'm gonna put you on the spot here, uh, where we've just covered you decades of amazingness, but craziest thing you've ever seen in sport? Oh,
Man, the craziest thing, I don't know, man. Oh, man, and you can think about it. Remember, I'll get thinking about it here, but one of the coolest things, even better when, uh, which I think is kind of unique, it's not crazy, um, like the World Cup in Japan, which I still, still, the organization I've been to the World Cup and that thing was awesome. But at the end, Uli Wiesmeyer won the, uh, the comp, and we had this, this ceremony, the award ceremony, and they, they brought him out, this green blazer like they do during the Masters in golf, yeah. And he had 10 grand in cash in this pocket.
I'm like, that's the most I've ever known of anybody getting paid in a, just in this sport, for sure. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty cool. That is cool. Yeah, wow. And, uh, yeah, we see what if I can think of something really crazy.
yeah i
Love, I love all the names here on your list. It's just, it's just incredible. I mean, then I can tell you, know, at one point I figured, Chuck, I was i was doing the math that that this is no longer the case. But I think in my first or second X-Alps, it was... it was something like 70 of the U.S. athletes who had competed since the very beginning, you know, the U.S. athletes and had either cut their teeth here or spent time here, you know, Hansa nate me, I mean, there was there, and I'm missing several, uh, well, Will Gadd, of course, you know, he was in the first. That's it's kind of a no, I think that's
I mean, I noticed that year that I was like, "Yeah, look at that. Yeah, look at the Willy Sun Valley. Yeah, there's Willy Sun Valley connection to the X-Alps for the U.S. is pretty wild." Yeah, yeah, anyway,
I, I cut you off. What you were thinking about?
there, but no, it's
A special place, yeah.
It is now this is, I don't know any other flying location in North America where more records, yeah? They just keep set and reset, and they're still here a couple, yeah? And just got the FAI last summer, yep? Yeah, nice going, Galen, yeah. Awesome flight, that was awesome. I know farmers all fired up, yeah? We're all fired up, yeah? We gotta get back, get back to the locals, yeah? But you know, the the amount of talent, it's of pilots that have gone through here, it's, yeah, pretty remarkable. It is remarkable, yeah? It's really neat.
Tell me about Ghana. This has been your gig for how long, yeah?
Gone has been an awesome, awesome experience. I fell into it, you know? I started doing it in 2006 and really, um, yeah. So I got an email from Mike from Matt Gertis. He said it was like, a email he sent out to all the ozone dealers saying, "Hey, there's this, this festival in Ghana and they're looking for tandem pilots and, uh, you know, it's a free trip to, to Africa. You know, you just go there and fly." And I'm like, "Ah, that sounds cool." So it's only like 10 days before the festival, I think, by the time I reached out and, um, I sent an email and it was Walter Messer, who's now one of my best buddies. Yeah, Walter's phenomenal, phenomenal pilot. Climb flew for you
for a while here, yeah.
Yeah, he spent some summers here flying and, uh, I spent
some time at his house on our way to Malawi to, uh, yeah, to do that whole gig. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so
he's um i
mean, his whole thing with raptors is awesome. Yeah, yeah.
His knowledge of birds and so, oh my god, so yeah. And um, but he's in Israel these days, really. He's met, yeah, he's spent something here. He's not in
south africa anymore
Nope. Oh, wow. No, he left South Africa not that long ago, but he's been in Israel for that for a while. I was actually gonna go work with him a couple few years ago, um, right there during COVID and work with him at APCO. Oh, wow. But, um, yeah, it was just gonna be a two or three month gig, but I couldn't get into the country. Yeah, Israel kept shutting their borders down, right? But, um, yeah, he sent me some a WhatsApp message a couple weeks ago with the, uh, missiles flying overhead, the intercept, the Patriot missile interceptors. I'm like, "Get inside, it's gonna fall down on your head." But, um, but yeah, so I, I reached—I reached out. I didn't know Walter at the time, it was six, so I reached out to him.
I'm like, "Hey, listen, you know it's probably too late for me to come to this Ghana thing, but you know, please keep me in mind for next year." He's like, "Oh, no, we got time. Good, we'll get you here." So, We met, had a great time, and uh, been friends ever since. And then he got so busy, I think it was about five years later, he was getting so busy with the raptors in his facility in South Africa. Yeah, um, they just couldn't do the Ghana organization anymore, and um, so Sabrina Kirwin took over. Oh wow, about a year, and we had a lot of pilots that year, Becca and Cade, and oh man, I'm just, I forgot that it was a big year.
And then I don't know if it was a good fit for, for Sabrina, so that's when Ed Stein, my buddy from California, and he's a long-time pilot, one of the old guard, yeah, he and I, so he and I'd been doing the gig because when I first got in '06, when I first found out about it, it was, uh, I told Ed about it, I'm like, "Hey man, let's go." To once you come with me to Ghana. I'm doing this gig, and so he and I have taken over the organization of it for, um, at least for the pilots. We don't—we're not the hosts or anything; the hosts are the Ministry of Tourism and the Ghana Tourism Authority. And so, what they do is they tell us how many pilots they want, what's going to happen, then Ed and I build the team and national team.
And you're just taking locals for flights, right? So what...
It is they; it's a paying gig for them. People pay to take the flight flights, but that money goes back to, or to the organization and the overhead of running the event. Okay, so I got a hand. I don't know how Walter did it because he walt the whole started because Walter was there working on telecom towers, and he was up there on top of this because it's a escarpment that they have and, uh, in this area called Qua, and it's where everybody goes to celebrate Easter. So he somehow convinced the government and kind of like, "Hey, let's cut the swath in the forest here. We'll make a launch site for paragliding." And, uh, so now it's become the integral part of the of the country's Easter celebration.
Oh,
wow go
Figure, I don't know anything else like it in the world where you have a government sponsoring a paragliding event like this, and it's at Easter. So, it's like the rising of Christ, the resurrection of Christ at paragliding. Go figure! But everybody goes to this region in Ghana to celebrate Easter. It's like, if you want to celebrate Mardi Gras, you go to New Orleans; you want to celebrate Carnival, you go to to Rio. Yeah, so this is where people go to celebrate Easter. The rest of the year, this area is quite, it's quiet, quite slow. But in Easter, it's insane; it just turns into street parties and dancing and music. Nothing happens without music there, yeah. And so, and they love Americans. The Ghanaian people are so hospitable, and they're just ready to just party and have fun and enjoy themselves.
Wow! And, uh, so the festival, yeah, people pay, the money goes back to the government to cover the overhead. So, for the pilots, it's basically a free trip; everything's paid for, your airline, you're lodging, all your food, everything's paid for. It's a cool trip in a cool trip ed, and I get paid a small amount because we actually run it, run it, yeah, put together, it's
a cool trip
It's a lot of, you know, a lot of international paperwork stuff like that, but
And what? How big is the team? How many pilots do you need?
It varies; the most we've had, I think, is about 14 or 15. Oh, wow, one year. Um, and are
you flying
All day? Is it that kind of site? Wow, all day doing interlocking, it's just doing laps and like 85 of your flights, they're assorable, you know? It's that equatorial air, yeah? Big, soft edges on the thermals and diameter, nice and he's they'd they'd like us to work faster because it generates more, yeah? Man, you get in the air because I mean, it's so hot and humid, yeah? Yeah, it takes you a while to get used to it. I mean, you just think about leaning over to tie your shoe and you break into a sweat. So that's why when you're in the air, it's it's just feels great. You can get the cloud base, how many?
tandems, are you doing a day well?
It depends who you are. Yeah, right, if you're Okada from Japan, you'll do probably 30 percent more than the rest of us. He's just—we call him Okada Kikai, it means "the machine," yeah, Japanese, right? And, uh, but um, I'll do, you know, seven or eight usually. Okada might do 10, 11, 12. You know, most of us are all the, you know, Blake Pelton, he's out there a lot. Oh, cool. He comes there a lot with us. Um, we've got a core. How long do you typically go out for? Just a few weeks? Oh, the—the festival's like three, four days. Oh, okay. You know, starts on the Friday before Easter, so that's a half day Friday because I have the opening ceremony and stuff.
Then Saturday's a full day, Sun Easter Sunday's a full day, and then usually a half day on Monday, on Easter Monday, but I'll stay there for a while. Yeah, and Ed and I've been working on establishing some sort of instructional program there. I was gonna say, are there any
of their local pilots, or local
people, yep, they're some locals now flying, um, and well, we, they need more. We're going to get it. It's typical government, you know, bureaucrats and red tape. Yeah, we're really trying to get them to make a serious effort to get a more of a school established there, and, uh, but their first pilot was Jonathan, Jonathan Quay, and I took him tandem on the first time I was there in Ghana in 2006. So I still have the picture from our flight, and I always remembered it because I forgot how old he was. He looked like he was 12, but I think he was like 20-something, and we got up, I don't know, cloud bay, a couple thousand over launch, and he turned to me, he goes, "It's cold.
You're the first person ever to say those words in Ghana ever." And, uh, so yeah, so we started teaching him a bit ground handling and so on, and then he, but we could only do so much with him because our time there is finite, and, uh, so then he finished his master's degree, and he, um, so he's got some, you know, some income coming into him, and he took it upon himself, and he went to India and got his, uh, his, his pilot rating there, certification, and so he was gone, his first, very first certified paraglider pilot, and then Now he's their very first tandem pilot, so he's doing tandems with us, so it's so cool.
Though that's really cool, yeah. And there's some other—I think there's maybe four other pilots, Ghana solo pilots. One lives in Switzerland, one lives here in, uh, in California, so but yeah, but there's a few that still live in Ghana locally, but they all show up usually for the festival, so
That's just, it's such a cool, just the whole energy of the event. I don't know, any festival like it, you know? It sounds amazing. Yeah, they've got live music and dancers and just, and it's just the respect that they show for, for paragliding. There's really, that's very, really fun.
Yeah, you don't feel like the dirt bag that we use? Yeah, we're still dirt bags. We're still dirtbags. Yeah, I mean, that's a good thing. That's a Yvonne Chouinard being a dirtbag is a good thing, but that's cool to have the respect for. That's pretty neat. Most people are like, "Oh, yeah, I've done that." Cozumel? No, no, it's not. It's not parasailing. That's not what I do exactly.
Yeah, and it's amazing because they do, they know exactly. When you say paragliding, they don't, they understand people all over the country. They know what it is. Yeah, they don't mistake it with parasailing, and that's not the case here. Yeah, exactly case. You know, to this day, people don't know what the hell you're talking about. To this day, it's still our parasailing. No, no, right? And the other thing, I think it's kind of subtle that I think it's pretty cool. In most places, they say, "Well, a paraglider did this, a paraglider did that." And well, no, the paraglider is the right, the object, the inanimate object in that bag over there, right? Like kangas says, the cold air balloon. Yeah, right? But there, they, they call you pilots, like, "Oh, yeah, here are the pilots," you know, or the paraglider pilots.
Oh, cool. It's, yeah, it's pretty cool that they recognize the difference, right? Yeah, there's some expertise here, there's some, you know, some knowledge, there's the correct lexicon, right? Oh, very
Cool, yeah, Chuck. I haven't asked this in maybe a couple years. I used to ask this question all the time with all my guests because I just liked it, but anyway, don't do it much anymore. But with you, it's totally appropriate, uh, because there's so much time. I don't know the meaning of life. Ah, exactly. Yeah, Will Wills was the best. His answer was, "I, you get to do it all over again." But you know what
I'm saying I'm not going to do it all over again. I'm going to
here, but if you could rewind the clock to your 50-hour self, so somewhere in that '86, '87, uh, somewhere in there, you know, you're, you're back in Cape Cod and you're, you're launching off stuff for six minutes, that kind of thing, somewhere early on. Uh, now, you know, today you could go back and talk to that Chuck, what would you tell him?
that's a
hard one, you know? Don't, don't not recognize the important moments, you know, in your flying career. I think, you know, there's times when I look back, I'm like, "Yeah, I could have, should have done something a little different there," you know? Because I always wondered, all right, you know, if I would have stayed with certain things, would I been designing gliders, you know, working more manufacturing some things like that? I don't know, but um, yeah, I'd say just don't ignore the important moments. That sometimes the important moments in your life, you don't recognize them, you know? So yeah, but uh...
You know, and similar to that, sometimes I look back, you know, had I, if I stayed in school, had I taken a different path, you know, I don't know. You know, I mean, it would have been aviation involved, I think, for sure, right? I look back, you know, and nothing to get. I mean, it's been an incredible ride in paragliding. Paragliding has been a, uh, it's been a vehicle to see the world. I mean, for you, I don't need to tell you that. You know, it's been just a phenomenal ride, an incredible journey. And then I'm like, what would I, would I trade it in? Would I, for something else? You know, what is the grass greener somewhere else? I don't know, but sometimes I look back, I'm like, well,
Naval Academy maybe would have been cool, and eventually become an astronaut. I think about that. Would I do it? And I, I'd love to walk on the moon, and I'd, I don't know if I would, seriously. But if it involves trading my 30, almost 40 years of paragliding just to walk on the moon, I think I'd do it. I don't know, it's, it's hard to say because it's like I said, it's been an incredible venture, but I think like, walking on the moon would just be life-altering. I think it would. Who knows? Yeah, yeah, anyway.
Well, we've got a group of people coming over here in a few minutes to celebrate what you've done here, and we're going to tap more into this beautiful bottle of Glenlivet. Yeah, 18-year-old. Oh, God. From the highlands. It's been gorgeous. I'm trying to stay away from it now. But, Chuck, you're a legend. We really appreciate you. What you've done here over the decades is amazing. You have led the way and held a lot of people's hands, and appreciate it, man. Appreciate your stories. I appreciate you, man. I
mean, what you're doing here, you know, you and Nate and Farmer and Hans and all those credible flights that have been done here, and even sleepers like Carell, you know, out there just busting it. Yeah. I mean, it's special. It's been really special. It'll be beautiful. It'll be part of everybody. It has been. It's a special place. Yeah.
It's a really unique place. You know, I get to see a little bit of it through the eyes of the World Cup pilots that came down. You know, my first big event here was the World Cup here in 2012, but, you know, running one this time down in Utah and seeing these Europeans who we just hold in such regard. Yeah. Them seeing this terrain. Utah is just like Idaho, and, you know, they're just going. I'm like, wait, what? Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's special. It's unique. It's special. Chuck, thank you, man. I appreciate you. Thank you for everything you've done. Thanks for having me here, man. What a great bunch of stories, and what a list of people. I mean, look at this. Look at all these people out here.
Well, I've been, like I said.
You're a lucky man. I've been so fortunate just to walk with giants, fly with giants. So, yeah.
Love you, dude. Awesome. Thank you, man. Thanks,
you. If
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