253. Ask Me Anything - Karlis Jaunpetrovičs

Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. My guest today is returning guest, Carlos Jean Petrovics, and he's from flyingcarless.com. He's an instructor, former BGD test pilot, and I've been wanting to do an Ask Me Anything show for a long time. Usually those were with me, but we had a whole bunch of questions that came in that I thought, I need to go to a pro on this. So I really enjoyed the talk I had with Carlos, and so did many of you. We got a lot of feedback on that show we did with him a while back. So I asked him to answer all these questions, and we cover a lot. I could grab my notes here, but stepping up and down in glider class. Usually we just talk about advice for stepping up in gliders, but sometimes you definitely want to be stepping the other way.

We talk a lot about harnesses, pod and open, and reserve placements, and comfort.

Lightweight equipment versus heavier equipment, and comp equipment, and fairings, and subs. We took a pretty deep dive there on harnesses. Coming back to paragliding after you've been away from it, and stepping away from paragliding, what's on the other side. Practical discussion on SIV, took a pretty deep dive here. We talked a lot about SIV in his previous one, because Carlos is an SIV instructor. So we dive into a little bit of SIV and where you want to go. What you should be getting there with your SIV courses. How to climb better, how to forecast better. We skipped gliding, because that's a big topic. But we did talk about speed bar use, kind of practical everyday speed bar use. I loved this one, mitigating testosterone in our decision making that is afflicting our sport.

And then we take a real deep dive on reserves. And Carlos does a lot of repacking, has a lot of thoughts about reserves. Should you go for one? It opens fast versus slow. How to throw and different techniques. I got a lot out of this, as I always do from reserve talks. But those are the main subjects we got into. And I really enjoyed this. We talked for about an hour and a half on all these subjects. And I think you're going to enjoy it. Cheers.

Carlos, great to have you back to the show. I appreciate you doing this for me. All these questions have been coming in. In the last few months. And I decided to kind of compile them together. And ask somebody more knowledgeable than I am about some of these topics. So pretty much, we were just talking before we started recording. Most of these topics have been hit in the show. Well, really all of them have at some point. But I thought this is a good opportunity for us to make sure we're being current. And get your potentially very fresh thoughts. Especially on reserve. Reserves, we'll save that for the end. Sounds like you might have some controversial views. But also some exciting developments in that realm.

So I'm excited to hear about that. But thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it. I understand your shoulder has been locked up for the last 90 days. Because my first question was going to be. Have you been participating in all these huge FAIs that have been going down. That Europe's had a really good bunch of weather in the last few weeks. Since I've been serious FOMO with the X contest.

Hi and thank you for having me back. Yeah, I haven't flown. I've been watching them doing big beautiful flights. And some of them are above my house. And my own local site was. The site record was broken by 70 kilometers FAI improved. Wow. So we've had. Overall the weather has been pretty marginal. But the days that were good were exceptionally good. Days that come once in four or five years. Days that I haven't seen in eight years that I've been here. So the weather has been exceptionally good when it was good. And then it's kind of mixed bag of weather in between. And the boys here and girls has really utilized the good days.

And it's been incredible flying here. Sharper. I thought 250 is the limit. The person did 270 FAI from Sharper. And this is southeast facing. It starts around 1130 usually. And he took off at 11. And 1130 is early. It's been incredible flying here. Yeah. I'm jealous. I've had the worst year to choose to have a frozen shoulder that I can't fly myself.

And you didn't do that flying. You did that doing pushups I guess.

Yeah. It's just hitting 40. And doing my irregular pushups that I've done since I was late teens. And I would come on the routine for a week or two. Stop for a week or two. And just restart without thinking about it. Now I'm 40. And I didn't warm up. And I would do sets of 30, 50. And without any worries. Because I've done that all my life. Adult life anyway. And yeah. You can't do that when you're 40. You need to warm up. The pleasures of aging. Oh God. And it started in November. And then by May or late April, May is when I had my last flight. Because I just can't raise my hand up more than 100 degrees anymore. I'm sorry man. What a bummer. Until it recovers.

Well. Yeah. No paragliding related. But

you have plenty of

instructing and events. And I know you've been busy. And I hope you get better quickly. Well let's get into this list. So the first thing we're going to talk about. Is stepping up and stepping down in glider class. And this is for sure a topic we've covered several times. I always like hearing. Russ Ogden had some great thoughts about this. But I'd love to hear your thoughts. Because you do a lot of instructing. You've seen both I'm sure personalities. There are personalities who take it really slow. And want to check all the boxes. And there are personalities that just want to hop on an Enzo right off the bat. And go fast. And compete with everybody. And I think there's some solid advice going both ways. We've covered when to step up a lot.

We haven't covered too much when to step down. So I'd like to get your thoughts on that.

Yeah. I've done both ways. I've gone all the way to the triple C's. And I've gone from triple C back to ENA.

In short. In a nutshell. If you're going to take one thing out of this question. Is it's all about currency. And in paragliding currency is the king. It doesn't matter. I compare it to marathon running. It doesn't matter that you once could. If you don't practice. You're not going to run a marathon tomorrow. And it's the same. Flying higher aspect ratio wings. Doesn't matter even the high aspect C wings. Two liners these days can be a handful. Comparingly to a nice easy B. And it really comes down to currency. For me. The example is that. At the time I was flying. Peak four. A two line D wing. Before COVID. And COVID was my first break. Of paragliding.

As for most of us. We had a lot of layoff. And personally. I had no idea what. Not currency mean before that. Because I was. My longest break was two weeks before. And COVID gave several months. If not more. And I went back on the same D. That I flew before COVID. After several months off. Went in the spring day. First of April. First

of all

days. In French Alps. St. Andre. Flew for 30, 40 minutes. And lost the wing. And I. I could. My mind could tell me. That I'm doing things wrong. But my body wasn't there. Because these higher. More technical wings require more precision. And so my timing was too soon. Too late. Too strong. Too weak. It was just off. And even though I can see. I'm making mistakes. I couldn't catch up. And I couldn't fix it in time. So it ended up in the reserve toss. For myself. And. And physically I was fine. But mentally. That took me three years to recover. And that's something. To consider. If you're stepping up. Is it really worth it? Do you have the currency? And. And you can put numbers. You should have. X amount of hours per year.

For this or that class. Really depends. To me. It's all about active piloting. How current you are. I've done. Thousands of hours. You know. Test piloting. I had a big CV. Before the incident. Doesn't matter. Because. Several months off. And my skills went away. And I couldn't. Handle the wing. And. If I. Lose skills. After several months. After. You know. Decade of dedication. Of. Priority numbered. One. Two. And three. And having no. Other jobs. Or other distractions. Then what about. If you only fly. 50 to 100 hours a year. There's a. The currency. Just isn't there. Maybe for some people. It lasts longer. For some. You know. It's all individual. In the end of the day. But I would say. That. If you have the currency.

You've had. Couple good years. That you're flying a lot. You're putting in the hours. You've. Done a sieve. Or you are able. To do yourself. Back flies. And all the sorting. Out of the bing. Then stepping up. Is no problem. But if you. Just stepping up. To make that extra. 50 kilometer flight. Or whatever. Add to your numbers. That. The. Stepping up. Will only. Slow you down. And then. Mental. Traumas. If you get lucky. And don't get physical. Traumas. Takes often. A lot longer. Than the physical. To recover. And. So. Stepping up. I say. That it's. It depends. It always depends. What. Mentorships. You have. What. What kind of flying. You do. Because. You know. 100 hours. Soaring. Will not help you. In Alps.

In September. Or. April. Is not the same. And. It all depends. Because you can fly. A high aspect wing. In a laminar wind. And there's no issue. With that. You take that. In eight meters. A second. It's a whole. Another ball game. It all. Always depends.

But I. And. Nowadays. Now. The bees. That comes out. The high bees. Or low seas. The incredible wings. Those machines. Are so much better. Than some D wings. From five. Six. Seven years ago. We don't really. I think it's a. Misconception. We have the classes. And people think. That A wing. Is a shit wing. For cross country. Which is not true. Anymore. Low bees. These days. Can do 150. 200 kilometer flights. With no issue. In the right hands. And right conditions. So. That's the stepping up part. Stepping down.

What I say. To my students. A lot. Is that. In. Other. Like kite surfing. You have kite. For this wing. That wing. You have different sizes. And you. Usually have. Five or whatever. Of them. Sitting in your garage. But we tend. To have one or two. Why don't we have. Different wings. For different conditions. You. Have your low bee. For. Really rough. Days. That you're not comfortable with. When it's smoother. Nicer. Take the higher aspect wing out. And see. You know. And you. Switch between. I think.

The. Hospitals. Are way more expensive. Than. Buying another wing. So that's. Kind of. When people talk about. That's like. Well. You're working. Your skill. And you're choosing. The tool. For the conditions. Not all. And then. You can adapt. Because it's a lot. Easier. To handle. Something like. Epic 2. Than the Diva 2. It's a different machine. And it requires. Or the skill. Or conditions. Because you can fly. Diva.

So. I think. What we're missing. In this sport. Is that we. Tend to have. All that one wing. And that's it. We don't switch around. And. We fly it. Throughout the season. From. April. To September. And the season changes. And if. Our skill. Is not adequate. It's not a bad idea. To switch the wing. Like. As an example. Now. When I'm gonna go. Once. My shoulder recovers. I'm not gonna fly the Diva. I'll take my girlfriend's. Epic. 2. Which is a smaller size. And I'll fly that. Just to get the feeling back. Before. I. Consider. Stepping on it. Because. I've learned my lesson. Years ago. When I threw the rescue. I don't want to repeat. The same thing. So. And. I respect. More pilots. Who do that.

Then it's like. Nah. It's okay. I can do it. There is a bit of a stigma. Right. I'm a C pilot. Or D pilot. And. I don't want to go back down. To the B. I think. That conversation. Should be changed. In our sport. There's nothing. Wrong. Switching up and down. Yeah. I

think we. We need to learn. How to reframe. As a culture. Backing off. That. That should be celebrated. You know. Not. Not. Looked down on. And. We certainly saw that. In this. X-Alps. You know. The. The. The. The. There were people. Like Simone. Who ended up doing. Really well. Who didn't launch. That night. In the storm. Just looked at it. And went. Nope. Not doing it. And walked down. And it didn't penalize him. At all. Did it. I mean. He did really well. In the end. And so. You know. I think. I think. As a culture. We. We. Sometimes celebrate. The wrong things. And. We need to. Applaud. Those decisions. For. You know. Walking down. Stepping down. Because they're not always obvious. Is it?

I mean. When. You had. You experienced. Something that was very obvious. I'm not. Tuned up. I'm not. Current. And then. Boom. But it's not going to always be that obvious. You know. It might just be these little things. Where you're just. Two percent off. Where you need to be. And. That may just be. You know. A week or two. Flying a lower wing. And. Kind of getting back in touch. And you're not looking up so much. And freaked out. And your heart's not racing as much. And. You know. Get back to where things. Feel good.

Yeah. I mean. Even Bruce Goldsmith. Told me a couple. A year or two ago. That nowadays. He. If he doesn't fly for a week or two. He doesn't go to a two liner. He'll take a B wing or C wing. Have a few flights. And then. Go back. Fly the two liner. Once he's refreshed. Wow. Bruce Goldsmith. Yeah. Someone who's won the world. The

rest of

us mortals. Yeah. Yeah. If he does that. Why. Why are. We having this. Like. Oh. You know. I can't step down. That's interesting. I've. I've never actually heard that. I'm sure if you talk with. We should. We

should go to. We should have. You know. Different kit. You know. We should have. A couple more. A couple more pieces of kit. In our garage. That's a great. I hadn't heard that before.

I'm really serious. You know. I had. My whole garage was filled with skis. I mean. I've got a lot of wings. Somehow. But they're all D's or higher. You know. I don't have any B's or C's. So. This is. This is something I'm going to be thinking about. This is great.

I have at home. Good old fashioned epics. XS's. To have fun. Or. You know. Smaller size than I need. Winter hike and flies. I don't take the Diva. I take something fun. Easy to fly. And. To keep my active piloting going. Some. You know. Simple acrobatics. You know. I call it active piloting. Because acrobatics is what Caesar and Theo De Blic does. I'm just playing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not on a. You know. Not at their level. But. It's a nice fun toy to play around. Yeah. And. Yeah. This. The. The. The. I. I don't remember how long ago. But this hits me. Because. All the other sports. We always have multiple toys. You're right. Even for cars. We have different tires. For different traction. And. Yet. In this sport.

We go with the same. Yeah. Most of us. Anyway.

Yeah. I like that. That's a good thought. All right. Harnesses. Open versus pod. Fairing versus no fairing. Seatboard versus hammock. Sub versus non. Non-sub. And we could go real deep here. That's a lot. Just in itself. Right there. But. Let's get your thoughts. On. On harnesses.

I. I guess I'll start with the simplest one. The sub or non-sub.

If you're playing world records. Or. Flying in PWC. Or some high level comps. You don't need it. It. It. It has the performance. And the stability. Stability. Other harnesses. Has the same level of stability. Yes. It has the performance. But. Most of us. We can't utilize it. There's so much more. We need to do. A simple Impreza 4. Will. Be as nice. And stable. For you. Uncore. Uncomparably. Simpler. To operate with. And. And. Visibility issues. And all that. So. For subs.

I think it's a great thing. For the sport. We have. Developing something. You know. We've been focused. On wings so much. And finally. We're now moving. Also in harness. So it's a great thing. But. For most of us. It's not needed. When it comes to. Open. Versus pod. Of course. When you learn. For. Acro. Active piloting. Seated. Is more. Precise. More. Adequate. Let's put it that way. For. Pod. The moment. You want to do some distance. Or. Even if you. Wanna. Fly for three plus hours. It's just more comfortable. The. The position. The way you are. I would recommend. Not to go. For the lightest. Out there. Go for medium. Or heavy. Nicer. More comfortable. The.

The wing will be more calm. The lighter. The harness. The more twitchy. The wing.

It doesn't matter. Which wing you're flying. And if it's your. First pod. Don't get the. XL stuff. That's. Too. Twitchy. Too. Uncomfortable. It will be. Cutting in your ribs. And. It's just. When you have. It serves. Its purpose. And if. Your. Mission. Is. hike and fly. In. Wolbivik. And. That's. Really. What. You. Going. For. Sure. Yeah. Get the lightest stuff. But. If. You. Just. Wanna. Fly. cross country. Get. Something. Medium. Or. Heavy. The. Heavier. It. Is. The. More. Comfortable. It. Is. Not. Only. For. Your. Physical. Thing. But. Also. For. Thermaling. For. Aggressive. Air. It. All. Dampens. Down. And. It's. Really. Comes. Down. To. Simple. Thing. That. The. Less. Material. There. Is. The. Less. Structure. Integrity. You. Can. Build. Not.

Integrity. In. A. Sense. Of. Safety. Because. They. All. Are. Very. Nice. Or. Most. Of. The.

Harnesses. Is. Twitching. And. The. Wing. Is. Talking. Too. Much. You'll. Be. Focused. On. All. Those. Distractions. And. The. More. Comfortable. You. Are. In. A. Harness. The. More. You. Will. Be. Able. To. Make. Better. Decisions. And. That. Will. Make. You. Better. Flights. And. Make. Your. Personal. Goals. And. All. The. Rest. Of. It. Another. Hummel. Conceded. For. Pods. It's. Really.

I. Don't. Remember. When. Was. The. Last. Time. I've. Flown. Seated. Pod. I. Was. A. Minds. Are. Kind. Of. Semi. I. Don't. Personally. See. A. Huge. Difference. Because. The. Lying. Down. Position. Gives. You. Less. Weight. Shift. Authority. Anyway. It. Depends. How. They. Are. Built. This. Is. To. Me. Personally. I. Think. It's. All. About. Comfort. What. You. Prefer. My. Body. Is. Different. From. Yours. And. Everybody. Different. When. It. Comes. To. Weight. Shift. If. You. Set. Up. Your. Pod. Properly. Meaning. That. Your. Eyes. Basically. Is. Over. The. Cockpit. And. Not. Your. Upper. Body. Then. Your. Weight. Shift. Authority. Goes. Very. It's. Not. Limited. It's. A. Less. Than. When. You. Sitting. Up.

Vertically. And. If. You. Gonna. Go. For. Pod. The. Idea. Is. The. Aerodynamics. But. Also. Not. Necessarily. Because. You. Can. Sit. Up. It's. Less. Aerodynamic. But. It's. More. Comfortable. And. Then. You'll. Have. A. Bit. More. Weight. Shift. Authority. Of. Course. Seated. Will. Give. You. More. Authority. If. You're. Sitting. Up. Right. But. If. You're. Leaning. Back. As. It's. Designed. I. Don't. Know. If. There's. A. Huge. Difference. Because. Some. Of. Those. Hummocks. Are. Pretty. Well. Done. With. Weight. Shift. As. Well. So. My. Best. Advice. Is. Go. To. Something. Like. Coupé. Car. Or. Any. Other. Festival. Sit. In. All. Of. Them. And. Find. The. One. That. Fits. Your. Body. Because. The. Flaring. Flaring. Thing. Don't. Go. For. The. Big. Ones. Because. They're. Messy. And. They. Can.

Go. In. Front. Of. Your. Eyes. When. You. Have. Back. Flies. Or. Some. Sort. Of. Mess. In. There. A. Simple. Pod. With. A. Small. Flaring. In. The. Back. Or. No. Flaring. It. Depends. What. You. Wanna. Use. It. For. And. If. It's. Your. First. Don't. Worry. About. It. The. Extra. Performance. Is. Not. Gonna. Change. Your. Life. It's. The. Decision. Making. And. All. That. Is. Way. More. Important. So. It's. Really. Harness. This. Is. All. About. What. Fits. Your. Body. And. Adjusted. To. Your. Body. Which. Is. More. Tricky. Sometimes. Maybe. All. The. Rest. Of. It. Went. To. Step. Up. On. Pod. That's. A. Whole. Another. Topic. But. Again. It's. Highly. Individual. To. Me. I. Don't. Have. A. Hour. Or. Time. It's. More. The.

Purpose. What. Fall. Winter. Flying. Is. A. Lot. Nicer. In. Pod. Than. Seated. It's. Warmer. For. Example. And. If. It's. A. Calm. Winter. Flying. Then. The. Pod. Won't. Be. An. Issue. And. I. Don't. See.

Pod. Being. An.

Issue. In. And. Don't. Go. For. The. Big. Ones. If. If. Need. Answer. To. This. Question. Don't. Go. For. Sub. I.

Like. What. Said. To. About. The. Lightweight. Stuff. And. We've. Hammered. This. On. The. Show. In. Other. Places. But. I. Think. I. Always. Think. That. You. Know. Every. Piece. Of. Equipment. Is. A. Compromise. On. Something. You. Know. When. We. Fly. The. Cadillacs. When. We're. Racing. They're. Also. Really. Heavy. They're. Hard. To. Carry. Around. If. You. Land. Out. They're. Hard. To. Get. Back. I. I. Remember. Baptiste. Was. Here. At. The. World. Cup. Last. Year. And. He. Didn't. Want. To. Hike. His. Gear. 10. Feet. You. Know. Because. He's. Got. 15. Kgs. A. Lead. In. It. You. Know. Ballasting. Up. And. Stuff. So. It's. All. A. Compromise. And. I. Mean. Flying. Eight. Hours. If. That's. Your. Goal. On. Super. Lightweight. X-Alps. Kit. Is. Not. The. Same. As. Flying. You. Know. Medium. Comfortable. Two. Reserves. A. Cadillac. Harness. I.

Just. Had. A. Nice. Flight. A. Couple. Days. Ago. And. Kept. Thinking. Gosh. I'm. Clearly. Glad. I'm. On. This. Rather. Than. My. X-Alps. Kit. Because. It's. Just. More. Physical. It's. More. It's. More. Work. It's. It's. A. Compromise. You're. Always. Compromising. Something.

Yeah. I agree. It's. I mean. I flew. The. X-Alps. Range. Two. For. Two. Seasons. And. I. Switched. To. Impreza. Which. Is. Pretty. Much. The. Two. Extremes. And. Couldn't. Understand. Why. I. Punished. Myself. Because. I. The. Eight. Hour. Flights. In. The. X-Alps. Harness. Which. It's. Not. And. Range. Is. Amazing.

For. Three. But. Just. The. Impreza. Was. So. Much. More. Comfortable. Because. There's. So. Much. More. Material. And. You. Can. Make. It. It's. Easier.

Driving. A. Cadillac. Yeah. It's. Just. Easier. You. Know. Yeah.

Exactly. And. Hiking. Yeah. But. I. Don't. Hike. That. Much. These. Days. Back. Then. I. Was. You. Know. Doing. Some. Hiking. And. Now. I. Get. Picked. Up. And. You. Know. Take. A. Car. Up. The. Mountain. So. Yeah. I. Agree. It's. It's. That's. Why. We. Have. So. Many. Harnesses. You. Can. Choose. What. Purpose. And. Have. A. Few. Same. As. Wings. You. Know. Yeah. Why. Not. Have. A. Few.

Yeah. What. Can. Say. About. That. When. You. Have. A. Few. When. It. Comes. To. Harnesses. You. Just. Gotta. Get. In. A. Really. Good. Habit. Of. As. Soon. As. You. Launch. I. Mean. Think. About. It. Before. You. Launch. As. Always. When. You're. Doing. Your. Checks. But. I. Really. Like. Doing. The. Whole. Familiarize. Yourself. Over. And. Over. And. Over. Again. With. The. Handle. You. Know. Just. Because. Every. Harness. Is. A. Little. You. Know. The. Structure. Is. Different. Just. Because. You. Know. When. It. Goes. Tits. Up. Then. You're. Not. Going. Oh. Yeah. I'm. This. Harness. And. That. You. Know. About.

This. Part. Of. It. Was. Literally. Just. You. Know. When. I. Threw. The. First. Wasn't. Attached. And. Then. I. Forgot. That. I. Had. A. Second. You. Know. I. Watched. It. Kind. Laughing. And. Then. Wait. A. Minute. I. Got. Another. Reserve. And. So. Yeah. It. Just. Making. Sure. When. You. Switch. Out. Your. Gear. You. Can. Your. Mind. Can. Forget. You. Know. If. You've. Been. Spending. A. Of. Time. On. One. And. You. Switch. To. Another. It's. Just. Good. To. Get. Refamiliarized. Okay. We. Both. Talked. About. This. Before. We. Recording. We're. Not. Sure. Either. One. Of. Us. Are. Very. Good. To. Talk. About. This. Subject. But. Stepping. Away. Well. Actually. First. Coming. Back. To. Paragliding. After. Being. Away. From. It. You've. Had. This. Shoulder. Injury. But. You. Haven't. Come. Back. Yet. So. But. Any. Thoughts. On. That.

Well. I. Did. A. Bit. Of. A. Took. A. Break. For. Quite. A. While. After. My. Reserve. Throw. Because. That. Took. Me. A. While. To. Figure. Out. What. To. Do. Next. And. Because. I. Lucky. I. Walked. Away. From. It. But. It. Wasn't. Because. Of. My. Skill. I. Got. Lucky. So. That. I. Like. To. Overthink. Things. Anyway. So. That. Took. Me. A. While. To. Process. And. First. Thing. I. Did. Is. I. Took. A. Yeah. Well. Epic. So. It's. A. Lobby. Basically. An. ENA. Wing. Instead. Of. The. Two. Line. There. And. I. Gone. Under. For. A. While. Before. I. Even. Launched. And. I. Went. On. A. Calm. Day. Instead. Of. A. Full. Blast. Day. And. Short. Flights. And. Gradually. Increasing. And.

So. I. Step. What. Is. That. How. Many. Classes. Is. That. But. It's. Only. The. Class. It's. Also. Small. Aspect. Going. From. The. Two. Line. I. Don't. Remember. What. The. Peak. Fall. Was. But. Epic. Is. Very. Small. So. Comparingly. For. Me. Was.

Coming. Back. Especially. After. Mental. Or. Physical. Trauma. You. Want. At. Least. For. Me. I. Like. To. The. Goal. Was. To. Take. It. Easy. And. Before. Even. Any. Big. cross country. Because. The. First. Season. I. Barely. Flew. And. Every. Time. I. Near. Terra. And. I. Was. Nervous. So. I. Spent. The. Winter. Hiking. Flying. Top. To. Bottoms. To. Do. Active. Piloting. And. For. Me. Simple. Back. Fly. Was. Terrifying. And. Some. Days. I. Couldn't. Do. It. Sometimes. So. I. Went. For. A. Simple. 360s. Or. Wing. Overs. Or. Something. That. I. Was. More. Comfortable. That. Took. Me. Months. And. Months. And. Months. To. Get. Comfortable.

Again. It's. A. Mental. Trauma. I. Didn't. Have. The. Physical. And. So. I. Think. First. Don't. If. It. Is. After. Incident. Or. Accident. Take. Your. Time. There's. And. We. All. Are. Different. We. Have. Different. Ways. How. To. Deal. With. These. Things. And. Don't. Beat. Yourself. Up. If. Feels. Scary. The. First. Time. You. Going. And. You. Don't. Have. To. Take. Off. And. Just. Because. You. Got. To. The. Take. Off. And. It's. A. Process. And. The. Slower. You. Take. It. The. Less. Likely. You. Get. Scared. Again. Because. The. First. I. Don't. Know. Probably. A. Year. Was. Really. Difficult. For. Me. To. Fly. In. Thermic. Air. Close. To. Terrain. Because. I. Was. Just. Noticing. That. My. Heart. Rate. Goes. Up. I'm. Getting. Tense.

All. The. Things. That. Never. Happened. To. Me. Before. I. Didn't. Know. What. It. Means. To. Be. Scared. Of. Flying. Till. I. Threw. My. Reserve. And. The. Whole. Process. Took. Three. Years. Till. I. Got. Back. To. Comfortable. And. Now. We'll. See. Cause. It's. Another. Three. Months. That. I'm. Off. So. And. I. Just. What. Is. It. A. Year. Ago. Got. Good. At. It. Mentally. So. This. Be. Ask. Me. Once. I. Start. Flying. How. That. Went. But. The. Process. And. I. Support. I. Mean. Without. The. People. In. My. Life. That. Help. Me. With. All. The. Process. This. Is. Not. It's. Not. A. Sport. To. Do. Alone. And. We. Fly. Alone. That. We. Should. Not. Love. Definitely. Not. Be. Alone. When. We're.

Recovering. From. Physical. Mental. Traumas. The. More. People. That. Care. For. You. Is. Around. You. And. Support. You. In. That. Whole. Thing. And. Not. Beat. You. Around. The. Head. For. Not. Flying. Again. Because. It's. It's. Easy. Once. You. Get. Properly. Scared. At. Least. Not. For. Me. You. Know. Everybody's. Different. As. Always. So. Yeah. I. Say. Take. Your. Time. Would. Be. The. Best. Advice. Don't. Be. Too. Harsh. On. Yourself. To. Be. The. Best. Advice. I. Got. During. That. Process. I. Think. That. The. Most. Is. That. Talk. To. Yourself. As. You. Would. Talk. To. A. Ten. Year. Old. Kid. So. Imagine. That. You're. Talking. To. Your.

Ten. Year. Old. It. A. Simple. Trick. But. It. Worked.

That's. A. Great. Trick. This. Leads. Us. To. The. Next. One. Which. I. Really. Like. This. Question. Because. It's. Something. I. Have. Thought. About. A. Lot. I. Don't. Know. I'm. Glad. You're. The. One. That. Has. To. Answer. It. Though. Not. Me.

Stepping. Away. From. Paragliding. What's. On. The. Other. Side. And. Like. Said. Neither. One. Of. Us. No. Idea. What. You. Think. About. I. Mean. It's. Interesting. Isn't. That. We. See. People.

Come. And. Go. In.

This. I.

Don't. I'm. Person. To. Answer. I. Don't. Have. A. Plan. B. I. Have. Plans. For. The. Next. Decade. Or. Two. Of. What. To. Do. But. Stepping. In. Away. Stepping. Away. Is. Not. An. Option. So. I. Don't. Have. A. Before. That. I. Don't. Think. There's. Somebody. Better. Than. You. And. I. Answer. This. Question.

Yeah. I. Mean. It. I. Guess. What. Can. Talk. About. A. Bit. Is. Just. The. Concept. Of. It. Because. It's. I. Think. In. Any. Professional. Sport. Or. Just. Recreational. Sport. You're. At. Some. Point. You. Could. Age. Out. Not. Every. You. Know. We. See. We. See. People. Participate. In. This. Well. Into. Their. Eighties. You. Know. Which. Is. Awesome. But. You. Know. Knowing. That. You're. Getting. More. Fragile. For. Sure. You. Know. Being. A. More. Careful. I. Guess. With. The. Whole. Physical. Side. Of. Things. Is. Smart. But. You. Know. It. I. Think. It's. To. Have. Something. That. Kind. Of. Defines. Who. You. Are.

Yeah. And. As. Bruce. Had. A.

Cross Country Magazine. Article. Some. Years. Ago. Bruce. Turning. Sixty. Saying. That. By. Time. We're. 80. We're. All. Going. To. Fly. Enas. Which. Is. Based. On. Research. That. Timing. Reaction. Timing. Goes. Away. For. All. Of. Us. And. For. Me. That's. Another. 40. Years. To. Go. So. That. Feels. Really. Far. In. The. Future. But. Yeah. I.

Will. Be. Flying. Enas. In. My. 80s. That's. The. Goal. But. I. Still. I. Don't. See. Myself. Fully. Going. Away. From. The. Sport. Even. If. I. Can't. Fly. I'll. Still. Be. Involved. In. Organizing. Things. Or. Helping. With. Some. Research. To. Build. Better. Safer. Equipment. In. Some. Shape. Of. Form. Which. Will. Get. To. The. Rescue. Parts. Then. So. I. Have. Of. Ideas. There. And. We. Have. I. Now. Organizing. Competitions. I. Have. So. Many. New. Ideas. How. To. Improve. Safety. From. Our. Last. Talk. To. This. One. I. Have. A. Of. News. On. That. Topic. Which. Is. The. Whole. Think. Another. Podcast. We. Need. Just. On. That. My. Mind. Is. Fully.

That's. All. I. About. Basically. And. So. Even. If. I. Can't. Fly. There. Will. Be. Still. Things. That. I'll. Be. And. This. Sport. Is. So. Diverse. And. There's. So. Many. Things. To. Still. Learn. That. I. There's. Nothing. Quite. As. Intriguing. For. Me. Life. Or. As. Complex. That. I. Would. Like. To. Keep. On. Learning. And. Improving. Yeah. For.

Me. That's. This. Is. It. Basically.

So. The. Answer. Is. Don't. Step. Away. Folks.

Exactly. Okay. Well. That. That. Does. That. Does. Lead. Us. To. The.

Next. One. But. The. Question. Was. A. More. Practical. Discussion. About. S. I. V. So. I'd. To. Even. What. That. Means. To. You. But. Also. Practicing. Maneuvers. Outside. Of. S. I. V. I'm. Really. Curious. To. Hear. Your. Thoughts. On. This. Because. That. Is. Something. I've. Always. Struggled. With. You. Know. I. Can. Get. In. An.

S. I.

S.

I. Have. To. Do. This. In. My. My. Of. My. Of. My. Life. Of.

My. Life. Which is not good for my business, but you should do as many sieves as you need to a point you don't need them. And that is related to the question that you have to practice yourself.

So what I recommend if you are not comfortable going yourself, you do a refresher course. You do like a three-day thing. You stay, I do it in Lake Garda, so you stay in Lake Garda for another week. And you knock it out or a couple of days, whatever you can logistically do. And do the same, because you're now fresh off the course. Then you can practice without the instructor in your year, because that's a very different sensation. By yourself, see what you can do. Then ideally come back to the same course and polish things to the next level. And then after that, you can do some more things over water in a safe environment. But as soon as you can. Then after the course, while it's all fresh in your head, go knock out a few stalls over ground.

If they went well over water. If you feel like you're in, like you said, you know, you've done 25 and you're feeling in control over water. The sooner the better. Because the uncomfortable thing you're talking about, that's just mental. And the longer you wait and wait and wait, the skill goes away, physical as well. But if you do it straight after, then you still have the physical skill. You just did it. A couple of days.

A couple of days

ago. So there's no reason you can't do it over ground. And I wouldn't also recommend doing your first on the high aspect wing. Do it on the lower aspect. That's of course helps. And the reason going, if you, because this is for pilots who don't have their own active piloting yet. So the first is just to have a nice instruction. So you're in good, safe environment to get everything going and whatever. Doesn't matter if that's the stalls or it's rotations or asymmetrics, frontals, other rotations. Whatever level you got through the course, you practice that without the instructor and then come back, move forward or otherwise, and then go on your own. That would be in my head, the ideal thing. Cause you have instructor, no instructor, instructor, and then you go off for yourself.

And I think with good instructions and with a B wing classes, C's depends on the pilot because it's more, the higher aspect wings is more technical, a bit more precise where the A's and B's are. Less precise precision needed, and they have more forgiving. So on the B wing, if you do save a couple of days off on a sieve, you, I'm pretty comfortable that at most pilots, I will be able to get that. You can do it comfortably over ground. Uh, if in that schedule, cause you can knock out a lot of repetition, uh, in those courses and doing it yourself is the key. And to me that once a year sieve course or once in a new wing and all that. If anything, that is a self, um, false confidence builder, because we have to practice it.

We can't just do one sieve and then hope that several months down the road, when the asymmetric happens in a while, that that actually going to help you there. And so, yes, as much as the moment you have a height, those three sixties, just to have, you know, rapid exits with the raw control work on that, that you can do and don't need that much out. I mean,

I do them every flight, but if I guide, if I wait at the cloud base for a student, I'll do a heli or backflow or something to come down instead of spiraling or heli down. If I do a long cross country, I usually try to climb high before landing. So I can do some maneuvers tired because more likely than not, I'll lose my wing tired. So I want to practice tired. So I build muscle memory and that it's constantly, there's not a flight that I haven't done some misty or spinny thingy, something playful doesn't have to be backfly because most things starts with spinning the wing or it doesn't have to be negative, like fully negative backfly, but something that you, once you get comfortable at it, you, you need to practice it to keep being comfortable about it.

If does that answer the question?

Excellent. It does. Yeah. And it makes me realize I'm pretty rough right now because I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be very comfortable with any of those things right now on a regular basis. Uh, okay. Next one. I mean, there's books dedicated to this. There's a whole chapter in my book dedicated to this, but how to climb better.

Right. I have a personal story too. Maybe that helps pilots is I learned all the cross country flying with Bruce Goldsmith being part of the company and Bruce, there's also YouTube videos about it nowadays is, is he likes that you fly hands up as much as possible. You use the brakes as little as needed to achieve what you need. And then before it stops, when I support, before I supported Theo, we went to fly together and he, he flew with the brakes on like both brakes on and a lot of brakes and inner thermal. And I flew no brakes on in the thermal and we climbed the same. I was like, how does that work? When I asked Theo, he's like, well, it, that's how we, he flies.

And then, um, during the X-Alps, I asked Tony Bender cause it's, uh, uh, what does he thinks about these different techniques? Cause it didn't make sense to me that one can go hands up and the other one is deep in and we climb at the same speed. Um, and Tony likes to fly opposite. He likes to fly deep breaks in and the core real tight and slow down the wing. And Bruce and Tony are two legends in this sport. And I can't just ignore one and listen to the other. So that really made a difference. It's

a mess

in my mind because I know that both of them are right in. So it took me years and I'm still working on it. And I think it's just matter of using the right technique for the right conditions. And there might be something to do with wing designs as well. Cause Bruce designed his wings in certain way. Tony has been test pilot for Novot. So I assume that there's a preference each designer or test pilots, how they like their wings. That, uh, but then again, and I'm sure you fly with little bit of breaks and a lot of breaks, depending on the conditions. The, uh, what I'm trying to say is don't be afraid to experiment. There's a, uh, to me, there's no right or wrong way.

Really how the thermal, what I've learned, listening to a lot of different pilots, as long as when you do climb, everybody else is not out climbing you. That's a good way to climb. It's the kind of, and how exactly everybody has. They're on a little bit of style. It depends on the wings and the weight, the loadage. There's a lot of things been no wind term. So to me, there's no right or wrong way. You have to find the balance between the two of the worlds.

For windy light, bubbly stuff. Yes. Hands up C or B control. Most cases will be better than a lot of breaks on. If you, especially if you're going into in, if it's a screamer. Yep. Both breaks on and co. Bank it in and grab it. Yeah. That most likely than not, that's going to be better than hands up or little breaks. And then there's everything in between the two worlds.

It's, it's not the easy thermal wing. And that's what I love about it. It's every day is different. Every thermal is different than you have to adapt to it.

There's the, there's a real. Art that I'm noticing, uh, at the world cup level with the, the, the, the folks that are very frequently in the top. 10, they have a move at the top of every climb that I really am. Puzzled. Sometimes I get it. Sometimes I don't, but they'll, they'll come out 10 meters above everybody else. You know, they'll just, they'll just do a little bit of a turn, a spin. I've, I've been told that sometimes, you know, and again, it's, it's very pilot specific. There are pilots who won't use their inside break, especially at the top of the climb. They'll go. Back and they'll just do a little tweak with their bees. Um, you know, so it's, but it, what I will say is there's a very, there's a very fine and quite sexy art to exiting the thermal that spills you out above, you know, if you're, if you're in a big gaggle, that extra 10, 15 meters, uh, really adds up over the course of the race, you know, and they're there then in the most dominant commanding position.

And everybody is working for them. You know, you're, you're not the tool of everybody else. Then you're on top of the, you know, the, it's a very easy place to be in competition. You know, when you're in that position, you don't have to think you don't have to do much. So, uh, I would say, you know, as you're getting better at climbing, the beginning is just. Try to climb with the others, but as you're really getting better, especially if you start getting into racing, work on these little bits here and there that can make. Yeah,

there was a research done a couple of years back. I think, um, and the, the, they put all the sensors and all that, and the difference between the top 10 and the rest of the pack, there was, it's just basically precision that the fine tune detail was the difference. If you just look at it or film, it doesn't look much different, but there's really tiny details for the exiting. I it's been a while, but I looked into sailplanes. They have strategies. For this. So that is something, you know, look into sailplane piloting. It's a bit different, but there's strategies for me. I don't feel like I'm there yet. So that's sort of, I'll leave it for later to, for myself to figure that out. Cause I, you know, I'm not really competing myself.

I actually organize these days more than I compete. So it's, uh, but yeah, I've noticed that as well. It's, it's incredible what they are doing and the fine detail is, yeah, I'm not there yet.

Yeah. That's, that's, that's down in that, you know, half a 1 % kind of thing. Uh, you said you had some good thoughts on this, how to forecast better. Uh, you know, our sport is so dependent on this, you know, we've seen these big triangles going down the last few days and in the Alps, you know, the, a huge one is just what launch to be on what time, uh, you know, so how to, how to forecast better. What are your thoughts on that?

Really? The easiest is hire somebody. It's like, I mean, I'm, I'm serious. I have a mentor for eight years. That's been obsessed about Matthew for, since he was 10 years old. So he's now mid fifties. So 45 years, every single day checking Matthew since he was 10 year old kid. I can't beat that. And I, so for all the events or courses, everything I do, he does the forecasting for me because it's there's levels and I'm three and a half decades behind him. Yeah. In experience and knowledge and all these big days, uh, there's a bunch of highly experienced people in the area and in the material that as a pack, they come together and figure out the days.

Most of the, most of the big days are done in a gag, not gaggle necessarily, but there's a whole group of people behind the scenes making all chatting with each other. And it's not one guy. And, uh, I think that's what maybe it should be talked more about because it's, you know, you see a track log of one guy winning or getting the flight. There's a, usually another four or five track logs following him and they fly together. They plan together. Very close. Find somebody that is better than you and ask a lot of questions. And really cause Matthew, I used to give some simple rules of thumb, but it's just Matthew is micro meteorology, which we use for flying is incredibly detailed. And there's so many things that affect it.

That, um, there's no simple rule, really, especially for these days. Like, yeah, we had heat, we had dry, we had mistral before. So there are some things that affects mistral brings dry, cold air, heat is helps high base. So there, there are no wind or less, like the meteor wind wasn't much. So there are some bullet points for that. Uh, and we have more and more apps that work and don't, depending on the place and time. Um, Yeah. So for forecasting is incredibly difficult to be super accurate, I think personally. Um, but maybe I, my reference is too, too high because then my mentor is incredibly good at what he does.

And so I'm comparing myself to him and I don't think I'm very good comparing to him.

Um, yeah, it's easy to offload that too. I mean, I have the same, my, my supporter in the last couple of races, Revis is he, he, he's, he just really tweaks out on weather. Yeah. And so it's easier for me to just get my kit ready and do what he sells me to do. You know, I'm never going to understand it at his level. I don't have 50 tabs open to every possible thing that you're looking at. What I would say about forecasting that I has taken me quite a long time to learn and continue to learn is that models are models and they're all doing a better and better job. All the time. And they have incredible, you know, these apps have incredible, you know, sky site and XCSkies and medio blue.

They're, they're all getting better all the time. They're always adding layers that really help us. What I would say though, is, you know, the more we get tied to the forecast, the less, in some cases, the less well we fly, we get, we get totally sorted in on, this is what I'm doing with this. Day. And we forget to be pilots and follow the sky. I mean, again, that what the models do a very poor job of, of accounting for is that micro side of things, you know, this slope getting a little more heat at this time of the day. This is not something that the models can resolve. And so, or not very well anyway. And so, you know, we, we, I think we have to be re remain flexible.

You know, this could be a day that you're, you're going to go to cold, it was art and do a 300 K FAI. And maybe that works out, but maybe six hours into the day, something has changed something you hadn't anticipated. And you just keep beating your head against the wall, trying to do what you planned on doing rather than what the day is giving you.

Yeah. Fly the day, not the forecast.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, it just, that, that can be hard to switch. I find that that, you know, in racing, we always talk about how important it is to shift gears, you know, and, and fly the day, but it's, you know, if, if you don't, you're on the deck. And, and you lose. Uh, but yeah, I think we have to re remember that with forecasting as well. It's, it's, you know, another thing

about forecasting is, uh, what I've noticed is people don't necessarily pay attention. What's going on now, like when you leave the house, drive to the mountain, there's a lot of information in clouds above you. And I think to us, forecasting is nice to plan the big flights and to your point about adapting to the day. Now that I'm running Evans and when I, you know, we have a briefing, let's say 12 o 'clock or whatever, 1130, and then we have another half an hour later, people often don't notice the changes in, in the air around them from the moment we arrived on takeoff to the, you know, it usually takes a couple hours for people to start flying. And it's the same in the courses that, uh, that's even longer period, you know, from the morning briefing till, till the actual takeoff.

Yeah. I think there's an art to it. And cause we're not pilots only on takeoff. So we can observe it from the, from the office window and whatever driving on the highway. Cause that's the, the next hour or two is quite predictable just from what you see. If you know what you're looking at and how to read it. And there's quite a lot of books for that, how to read the actual cloud and what they tell you and the winds and all that. And I think that would be something. Really valuable to pay more attention to, because then when you fly, you see something you can, okay, that doesn't look good. Cause maybe in two hours we're going to have a shower there. Maybe I should, you know, go other direction and try other route.

Yeah. Yeah. Carlos, I'm, I'm, I'm mindful of our time here and I really want to hear what you have to say about reserve. So let's skip gliding. Cause that is an incredibly complicated topic. Uh, I'd like to hear briefly your thoughts on everything. Everyday speed bar use, and then let's get into this interesting one, mitigating the testosterone driven decision-making afflicting our sport that I can't wait to hear your thoughts on that. So speed bar and testosterone. Uh,

for me, the moment I leave thermal, I'm on bar first, first for sure. So 50, 60%, uh, that's where I fly it at. And, uh, I rarely go over 80 cause I'm not racing. I'm not doing competition flying. And even in cross country, I only go over. If I'm in a really bad sink or Lisa had somewhere pinned down, then I'll use the a hundred percent of the wing. Otherwise 50 to 80 is my, where I play. And then the controls goes on the bees or Cs, depending on which wing you fly as much as possible.

And you're supposed to these days, especially with the loop through bees and C connections. So you have a better control of the wing or the two liners that you just lock in the, whichever step you want. You're on and keep your feet there and just control with bees. Um, the wings fly well these days, the two liners, especially that you can have a lot of control. You can slow down your true speed by changing angle of tag, chest and the bees. And there's a lot you can do with it. I'm still nervous with that technique, especially when I go 80%. I often step down to 50 to do the same. I don't, but that's me. I don't like to push limits. I don't like to. You know, I enjoy flying, but I'm not, I don't care about racing.

Um, so, but yeah, for me, speed bar, the moment you're not thermaling it's on bars on at least 50, 60%, uh, especially into wind, uh, downwind, uh, still most wings will fly better up to 30 % for glide efficiency. And, uh, the, if you put the pole polar curve and then trim speed is more efficient, but that's in perfectly. Calm air that we don't fly in and the speed bar helps cutting out through any kind of bubbles and things. So you don't slow down, pitch back, go forward. That's where the inefficiency come. That's where the speed bar helps you cut through there better. So yes, you have theoretically more sink because you're accelerated the wing, but you cut through there better.

So you gain more glide that way. So for me out of the thermal first step, second step, if I'm pushing it. Or, um, and yeah, so I have a ratchet police that lock it in, so I don't have to hold it because I'm on the bar nonstop. And to me, this is not even racing 50 to 80 % of bar is not racing. It's just normal flying.

Okay. And then how do we mitigate that? We're dudes. Well, I, I, I think that, uh, and again, this is something we, maybe we haven't tackled it exactly like that question, but we've talked about quite a bit on the show. Um,

I'll use the X ops as an example, you know, and this was supposed to be a show that not that specifically does not talk about the X ops cause I cover it so much, but, you know, there was a lot of chatter this year about the risks and that these are gladiators and not adventure race and the whole thing. And, you know, I, I saw comments, uh, on Instagram one day where I was doing something and, and you know, that what I hate, this was the comment. What I hate is that, you know, these exceptional pilots are setting an example, uh, and, you know, the showing what the. What, what normal people shouldn't do. And that to me is not giving a lot of credit to people. You know, if you can, if you think you can watch Chrigel taking off in 50 kilometers an hour wind and think, yeah, I've got that move, then you're not long for this world.

Anyway, you know, that you're Darwin's going to come and get you. And so, uh, I mean, to me, it's just, we cannot be lemmings in this sport and we're different one day to the next. And how high. And how rested and the whole thing and how current and all the things you talked about. And so, um, you know, that's just. In a sense, I find that kind of ridiculous, you know, that there's, there's just a huge range of ability here and, uh, and, and there always will be. And, you know, you can't watch somebody in the ex-Alps in a really strong Fern day and go, yeah, yeah, that, that seems reasonable. I mean, it's not, but it is for them.

We had the same conversations, of course, everybody. They talked about this year's ex-Alps, all the wins and all the rest of it. Well, we have the motorbike race, the man of ales or aisles, um, where they go 300 Ks an hour on, uh. Yeah. Isle of Man, that one. Isle of Man. What are you going to think that you can do the same on your motorbike? It's like, they're not setting an example. They're showing what the motorbike can do and what the incredibly skilled racer can do. And in that race, there's pretty much every year somebody wipes out. And it's accepted. And we have no issue with that. Um, so for me, it's you go there, you've been in the race. It's your choice. What should, what risk levels you're going to take? It's up to you.

It's none of my business to tell you, Gavin. Yeah, no, don't go in that. It's like, if you, if you're comfortable, you want to do that, it's up to you. And to me, the races, yeah, they're tough. And one of the reasons, cause I've been thinking about competing years ago, not anymore. Like I saw what, what you guys do. It was like, yeah, that's way out of my comfort level. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with people taking off with that if they choose to. And I, you know, as long as you don't put anybody else in danger, which they don't, you know, follow pilots flying themselves. I have this argument is, I mean, we have plenty of things that people do in this world and we let them, why should it be any different? And just because they doing it.

Yeah. As you said, it doesn't mean that. Uh, somebody who just learned that you can do the same. It's also decades and decades of, you know, and thousands of hours of practice. It's not something, these are not beginner pilots by any means.

There you go. All right. Uh, well said, okay. Reserves, uh, you are a reserve expert. So that was the first part of this all about reserves from reserve experts. So the round versus square versus Regalo lightweight versus regular weight, how to decide the actual right size, actual lifespan reserves, blah, blah, blah. This is a long question. You know it all, uh, some thoughts.

Let's start with simplest between round squared or Regalo. Uh, most round rescues, uh, has a pendulum instability built into the system, right? So you, if you are at the weight range, they certify that it should be quite pendulum stable, but the way the system is with a bit of fair moving, the, the, the rescue will start penduling in you. And so that's, uh, not a good thing. So if you close to the ground with a swing that adds to your speed, uh, where the squared diamonds or Regalos don't have that, they are very pendulum stable. So for, for that simple reason, for me, it's squared or Regalo. If you're over water, not a big deal. You can take a small round for quick opening.

But, uh, if you're flying over terrain, it's a square diamond or triangle because it's just the pendulum alone. It's a big difference. And I've gotten lucky a few times because of a pendulum. I have a YouTube video talking about the pendulum thing and how to deal with it. Uh, then for sizes, cause the, the test is, uh, accepted up to minus 5.5 meters a second, which is fast. And the difference is between, I mean, you'll survive and you'll be all right, but you might break an ankle or leg. So the, I recommend pilots to go take a, uh, reverse. Uh, I mean, Theo De Blic recommends up to 40%, so I usually say 20 to 30, 40 as well, depending on, and that you can do with squared or Regalo, but you can't do with round is the big, the lighter you are in the round, the bigger the pendulum issue.

So that's why squares and rounds and, uh, so that's, yeah, take a bigger size than you need for Regalos, the triangle ones. It's a quite a question. It's a complex thing to get it flying and get your wing and you most likely, they're not going to be twisted when you throw it. So that's something people, yes, you, you can steer it once you get to the steering bit, but there's a lot of things to do before to get to the state. Cause you have your main canopy. You're probably twisted on Regalo because as you throw, no matter how nicely you pack it and put it in your harness, as you throw it, it will rotate and more often than not, it will just twist itself. Up just the risers, not the whole thing is it will open nicely.

Regalo, Regalos, the beamers, they really nicely packed double opening the quick openings. So they are factory designed really nicely for that, but they will come out twisted more often than not. So you have to deal with your main canopy and twist the Regalo before you can start steering. So it's a bit advanced for if it's your only reserve, I wouldn't recommend the Regalo as a secondary. Amazing. Go for it. So for a single rescue, a diamond or squared is a better option in my opinion, because you throw it, it's simpler to open and some of them are semi-steerable as well. Where a Regalos is great for acrobatics or as a secondary, if you're high, you throw it, you have time, but most of our flying in the cross country is in the red zone, sort of right close to the terrain that we have short time to react and we need to throw quick and fast too.

And we want them to open fast. As far as lifespan, well, the manufacturer recommended is 10 years.

Rescue doesn't really, I mean, there's also insurance issue for that. You shouldn't have older because insurance companies won't cover you there. I mean, my first reserve was 25 or 30 years old, still worked. I'm not recommending that. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that. I changed mine. I think all this reserve I had. Recently was eight years and was changed this season. So I keep them fresh just because if I need to use it, it's better works. And so for me, I don't leave anything to the chance and, you know, reserves are not that expensive. If you keep them for eight years, you might as well switch it out. So I like to switch them out before the deadline, sort of. So I have a margin. That doesn't mean they won't work.

It depends also if you have a lot of sand and things depend where you're flying. How what environment the risk rescue has lived. I live in France and Alps. We don't have those issues.

There's different philosophies about how many times the reserve can go in the water before it's deemed not airworthy. I think it was if memory serves, you can look that up. But I think it was 25 times in water before you should switch your reserve, for example. So there's a lot of different ideas. I don't know. How many of them are based in research. Also, what I'm going to talk about packing reserves itself. It's not done in the research. It's currently anecdotal evidence that's based on what I've seen and experimented myself and what I've seen in SIVs and YouTube videos and my own experience with the reserve throws, which I have about 13 at the moment, rescue throws.

Yeah. So the biggest really consideration for. So the square, the regalo, that's clear. The next big thing which I would recommend pilots to look at before you decide to buy a rescue, look at the manual, what the manual say, how to pack the reserve. We have a reserve test. The endurance test is a vertical drop at 40 meters a second. If I'm not mistaking exactly the numbers, shock opening. So the rescue has to withstand 40 meters a second. Free fall-ish before it opens. And the calculation is that if you lose both carabiners at the same time, or you lose the whole line set and you have a bit of a free fall by the time you react, pull, throw.

So the calculation was something like 36, 38 meters a second from memory. This is all EN certification is written down. And so the test has put in with a margin, which is normal procedure for testing things. And because of that, especially lighter reserve. They are packed slower to withstand the test so they can come to the market. And we want light stuff. As we talked about harnesses, there are trade-offs and in reserves as well. A lot of light reserves are packed for slower open. The canopy itself is packed to open slower.

And something like regalo, for example, there's quite a few reserves that are packed for quick opening, quicker opening. I don't know them all. I know that the regalos are packed that way and they open really fast because of it.

So that's really important before you buy one to see what the manual say, how you're supposed to pack by the manufacturer.

And that will show you if it's fast or slow. And the way you want to see it is that basically the rescue should have as many opening options from any side. So if you. If you make this sort of square when you pack the rescue, when it's fully open and the cells are on both sides, ideally you want to make an S horizontally. And then you have the long SC or W thing stretched out. That should be S as well. Kind of snakey thingy. That way you have been catching it from any direction. And then you can and you want to have the air intake as messy as possible where the lines come out. Because if you imagine a rescue packed like with a nice iron shirt, it's nice and neat.

The air can get in there and it flows around and that doesn't open. But if you have a messy air opening, it will help it open. And there's a lot of reserves these days that are packed on itself. So when you open it square, sort of square, when you have cells separated 50 % of each side, the first folds go on itself. Sort of goes in and then a couple of times even sometimes. And the leading edge or the place where the air is going to take the rescue first, near the lines coming out, is even folded inside in a triangle shape, making it very nicely aerodynamic shape on one side of the reserve where the other side will open if the wind comes from that side.

But the folded on itself side has no way for wind to grab anything. It will fly like any wing sort of. And you can have a look at some of the videos, YouTube, you see the rescues kind of floating and not opening. You have the sausage, the white sausage, and it's floating till it hits something. And then it starts untangling, but it's usually already in the lines. So that's, it's done, you know, there's a market wants lighter things and the certification tests are done in a way because to protect pilots in case we have a catastrophic failure of our gear. So there's a, it's a tricky, and currently this is just an opinion.

There's no research done. So I'm not trying to bash anybody here. It's just something to consider when you choose your gear and the manuals, you can find them online. They are all available before you buy and have a look how it's packed and if that suits your flying style.

Explain further what, what it should, what if, what, what you would like it to look like. So this

is just the canopy part. There's also how we put the lines in, but the canopy part itself,

the first, before you actually start folding the rescue, you go through the cells. You count the cells, make sure they neatly made, and then you put them equally on both sides. You have 50 % one side, 50 % other side, and that's kind of a sort of a rectangle thing, depending on the rescue. Regalos are packed a bit differently than the square. Red ones are round ones with variations, of course. And then from that rectangle thingy, you want to have basically an S or W. So it follows through. So nothing is folded on itself, but it's, you kind of bend one under then all the way over halfway back over.

So then you have a S or W and that way you have sort of those dips on both sides. So for the long vertical sausage, so the wind comes from both sides and then the rescue can be opened by the wind, no matter which direction it's thrown. And it's the folding, when it's a sausage, it's usually an S in most packing these days. Some of them have the air intake or where the lines connect, they fold it inside and then fold the rest of it on top, which slows it down even more. Which basically for me, you want that rescue to grab the air as easy as possible, as fast as possible, because mostly you're going to throw it near terrain.

And personally for me, I'll take the chance that, because the likelihood of carabiners, both of them failing and all of my lines going is really slim. As long as you check your gear, you change your carabiners sooner than needed, because aluminium carabiners, I would change every season or two, still is longer. But if you change your carabiners, there's, I mean, gear doesn't fail that often anymore. We don't have, except if you overuse your carabiners or you never check your lines and different story. But if you regularly check your gear, the line set and you change the carabiners, that likelihood is really, really slim. But the likelihood of us having an asymmetric and going for auto rotation, close to terrain is a lot higher.

So for me, it's a simple, simple thing of math. Yes, it's not as certified. And I repack my own rescues to make them fast opening and cause then they open quick. I can't recommend this cause that's, there's reasons for that, but it's a, you can buy rescues that are packed for fast opening. And if you're informed, you can see what you're buying before you buy and not always the lightest is the best. For that cause lighter material is weaker than strong. And on top of that, what I like to do is that once it's packed, you close three, if it's imagine a simple four leaf reserve container, you put the packed reserve in, you close three leaves and you close the first loop, rubbery bungee with the lines that comes out of the reserve first.

So you have your canopy closed. And then you put all the rest of the lines in, in a normal S shape as, and with the, with the lines that you leave about the lines you leave out is roughly from your hip, your hand and another 40 ish centimeters. And that's different from the hip, from the harness, for the, from the first contact of the harness. Every harness is different where the first contact will be right. And our arm lengths are different each of us. So, so what I like to leave is your arm length plus a little bit. It's about 40, 50 centimeters. So you have time to throw release and the rescue starts opening a bit away from you. So it doesn't come tangling in, into your harness. And so it gives, and it gives you place to throw, to, to have the strength, to, to inertia.

And by doing that, what I call double opening is that you close the canopy. Then you put all the lines in, you leave out as much needed for your body and close the, the loop with a sec, sort of a second loop from the lines, if that makes sense. Right? So when you throw, what happens is that you throw it out. The first will open the lines, the canopy, whatever rate it is, you give it inertia and it will fly away from you as much as the lines allow you to go and gravity will take over or whatever dynamic maneuvering you're doing or auto rotation or whatever that will give some momentum to the reserve. And once the line stretches out, it will have a sort of a little shock back and that helps it pop and that gives it less likely to go in the lines

because the reserve will fall down more, you know, it will. And if you're in auto rotation, auto rotation, you're not losing that much height. You're just rotating. And if you throw the reserve, it will go more down away from the lines. And because it has inertia, it will pop. And before it comes to the wing, it will be half inflated or more. And then it's not. And the bigger the likelihood of going into lines is a lot less where if you have a slow opening or especially the only so self folded one where one side is aerodynamic, it can just hang as a sausage down there and not open and then eventually kind of float up to the lines and go in, which YouTube is quite full of those video examples.

Right. That it's a bit.

Yeah, now I'm now I'm getting it. So, you know, I. I can maybe be a little bit ruder than than you are than you want to be. What I'm gathering is that you're being very PC about this, but there's the the manufacturers who have decided to cheat in a sense the the certification process, and that's probably a strong word, but are are going for a slow opening. And it's in most cases for what we're what we are using them for combat situations low to the ground where there's not a lot of margin. Right. It's not probably ideal. We want a fast opening reserve. You don't need to throw anybody under the bus here, but it's we should do our research. Right. Yeah. And in a nutshell, I wouldn't say they cheat because the

rules are they follow the rules and they follow the market and we want light reserves. The test is that they have to withstand the force. And it's something just to consider for pilots because in skydiving, they pack fast or slow depending. How long they're going to free fall. They they they choose to do so. So yeah, they're doing. Yeah, I choose to as a pilot myself. I wanted as fast as possible because the likelihood that I'm going to lose my lines or carabiners is very slim. I look after my gear and so yeah, it's a core. I should add that this is currently anecdotal evidence.

I haven't done the research properly on that. I have limited data on this, of course. It's just my own SIV courses and from acro community what I've seen what we, you know, when we train acro.

But I'm planning to gather a team to do research, proper research, because I think this is a really important thing. And I see the difference in CIVs, the opening. I have my footage from that from the courses, but it's not enough to have a proper research. It's not scientific. I there should be research done and I'm looking into, you know, finding time for it, resources and team to to create a proper research to see what we can do about it to improve if there's improvement needed because I might be wrong.

But it's a good thing to be thinking about. I have one for you and this is part of the question, but this is actually happened to me. And so you may have heard the story. But before the twenty one race, I think it was the twenty one race. I mean, literally two and a half weeks before I was doing a full biv here and I was I was quite heavy. I was I believe I was on my peak four and I had O2 and I had camping gear and the whole thing. And I was basically just training for a few days and the last planned day of it took off, broke a brake line in the taking off. It was kind of a rocky, not a great launch, and I didn't have a lot of time to make it, work. My plan was to fly away from this little spine.

It was quite treed in front of me and there was a little treed canyon off to my left. And if I didn't get a climb right away, it felt like I would. But if I didn't, I'd fly across this little canyon top land. Wait for it to turn on more, you know, kind of an exops move and didn't get the climb, started flying across the little canyon less than 100 meters, maybe just slightly over 100 meters. When I looked at the track log, I was very, very low and got hit with some very weird air that I, you know, I wasn't seeing. I didn't have access to weather. You know, I was, I was quite deep. There's no cell service or anything. And there was some pretty latent Northwest wind. So I was down in the lee, didn't notice that on the launch, you know, it was, I was kind of hidden from all that.

So anyway, something hit me, lost the wing quite violently and instantly went into an auto rotation. And I did not have the time to deal, you know what I mean? I had done enough SIV that this is a reserve throw. It was instant. But as I went for it, actually lost the wing, went for the reserve. And I, it was a front mount. I was in, you know, exops gear.

As I reached for it, went into an auto rotation, probably in the reach, right. And it kind of lost what control, what little control I had. And my SIV brain instantly went, you got to solve this, this auto rotation. First, cause you've only got the one reserve. If you throw it and it goes into the wing, you're going to hit the deck and die. This was, this all happened obviously very, very, very fast. I was really low. So sorted instead of pulling sorted the, the auto rotation and then through, because when I sorted it, my wing was still a mess, but I stopped the auto rotation through and it was, I mean, I was looking at, oh my God, this is, this is, I'm going to break my back for sure. I mean, it literally.

Popped and I hit the ground. I mean, so this was all really quick, but my very long question to you is this is something we learn in SIV all the time that, that normally this is how you throw reach down, huck it back, except in an auto rotation situation. You really want to be mindful of throwing it at your feet, right? And you want to throw it down, you know, get it away from the lines in reality. What should we be more worried about? What should we do? Should we just throw? Don't worry about the auto rotation. If we have the time to sort the auto rotation, then throw, if it's still a mess, what are you seeing in your SIV courses? What are you seeing in real time?

Um, the correct answer is what you did. Stop the auto rotation, throw them, uh, cause the auto rotation will take the rescue nine times out of 10. Uh, okay. Roughly. Yeah. That, uh, I mean, uh, slow opening, uh, it, cause it's. Really? It floats before it opens cause auto rotation, you don't have energy. They're like the, you're, you're not really like in the spiral, you throw any packing and it will just pop because you have a lot of force coming to it. Auto rotation. But it's, when it comes to this, the, all of the it's good and well sitting here in front of a screen and chatting, it's a whole nother ball game too. And you were at your story, you were already very high level pilot before to have that awareness.

To have the controls like, ah, yeah, now I need to fix this before I do that. Most people that you're in a panic state and, uh, the mind is not the same as we're sitting here and talking about it. So it's really tricky to say, yeah, fix it. Uh, at the same time, people might sieve themselves to the ground is the expression, right? The other extreme. So it's what I say, if in doubt, throw it. Yeah. It's a, it's a simpler thing. It doesn't matter if you 3000 meters above or. Or a hundred it, if in doubt, throw it. Cause it's, I'm considering the mental state of the person. Cause it's not you and me chatting about it. You and I, we've, you know, there's experience and we can, you know, our mind is a lot calmer than a couple of hundred hour pilot going through the same thing.

It's not the same person we're considering. So any throwing down, throwing left or right or up or all that it's, you need to be aware where the down is. And that's not. So what I say is throw as hard, as strong as you can, like your life depends on it, all the directional bit. If you can, you, you want to throw it away from the wing, away from the lines, wherever that is, because if you have the awareness.

That's a better way to think about that. So not, not necessarily at your feet because in auto rotation, you can go away from the wing. Yeah. Away from it. Yeah. And in

auto rotation, it's rotating to one side. So you want to ideally throw it right behind the wing. So the wing takes the most time to do a 360, but that's, it's a big ask for somebody that doesn't have regular training or thrown bunch of reserves or trial, you know, been in those situations. This is where it brings us back to the earlier topic about civs. You should train it yourself. You shouldn't rely on civs, but I mean, you do as many as you need till you do to a point. So you don't need them anymore. It's really bad for. SIV instructors and myself who teaches civs, but really for me, that's the goal. I don't want you to come to my courses for the next decade for SIV courses specifically.

I want you not need me anymore. That's the goal is that that's how I made the sport safer. Let's be.

Yeah. But let's be honest. How many people get to that level? You're talking a tiny fraction are really going to do over and over again, what you're talking about. You know, it's just, that's a. That's a special, that's a special pilot.

Yeah. But that's, um, that's not, I mean, if, if you can't do that, that is the goal. And you, if you, if you don't fly enough, then it's, it's all about adjusting to where you fly, what conditions, and then a SIV don't get me wrong. SIV is still very valuable. It's just, uh, yeah, it shouldn't be thought of as, ah, I did a SIV I'm good. Yeah. Then, uh, I'm off to my merry merry way. Yeah. It's just the beginning of a new adventure.

That's more my point. Some,

something that has got, I I'd like to hear your thoughts on, on this just briefly because we now we are against the clock, but, uh, there are two things that do get people one. Well, first reserves work. I've almost never seen something very bad come out of a reserve situation, but two things that do, that can get people to an extent, uh, down planing and then with Regalo's going downwind, uh, these are a couple of things, you know, my experience is exactly what you've had. The one time I threw a Regalo low, I didn't get even close to being able to, you know, I didn't even have my, my main in my lap, you know what I mean? I was still dealing with my main when I hit the ground. So, I mean, it wasn't, there was no chance to get to the controls that, you know, that this takes time.

So I, I do exactly what you said. I've got one hand is I've got plenty of height. The other hand is I'm low. You know, my low is my square. My high is my Regalo. Uh, but let's be honest, that's not always going to happen in combat. It's not always so clean like that, but what are, what's the first thing you're thinking about when you throw, you've had 13, you said, what, what, what, what have you learned from those 13? What are the most important kind of sequence things? Again, if you've got time, if you're low, you don't have any time, you just hope for the best, but.

Uh, you throwing is, uh, throwing a reserve is beginning of an adventure, not the end of. You're all problems is so when you throw, you follow it, you do not let it out of your eyes and you be ready to pull on the lines because if it opens and pops great, if it wants to float, you yank on that thing again, like your life depends on it. And as strong as hard, as vicious as you can to get that thing open before it gets in your lines, because getting, if you have one, you, you don't have a second option. You have to get it open. And once the. No matter what the packing is, uh, as long as the it's stretched out and it's still not opening, you yank on that thing as, and as fast as you can, you'll be full of adrenaline.

You'll have power. No worries about that, but don't just throw it and forget about it. You want to follow it. That's first and most important, really. The 12 out of 13 was in acro. So that's you prepared for it in cross country. I've had one in a, in a sort of where you're chilled, relaxed. Doing well. I had a nine meter a second thermal. I wasn't quite relaxed. Uh, then woke me up. The, uh, altitude is the number one thing. And, but that's also when I fly distance is I, my biggest number on the instrument is AGL. I want to know exactly how high I am above what's under me. So I know what time I had got.

So for me, AGL is the most important thing in paragliding. That's translates in seconds that I, or minutes, depending how high I am. And the moment I'm under 400 meters AGL, what is that? 1,200 feet ish. I'm very cautious of my altitude. What if I lose the wing now? So, sort of, so this is, doesn't

really. Just constantly asking yourself. Yeah. I'm

very aware once I'm too close to the terrain, how much time I got.

And then I do that nonstop. It doesn't matter if it's calm. It's just a habit I've trained over the years, especially after. And the throw was, I was very aware of where I was because that habit was before the rescue throw in cross country that I did. And it's saved because it's in acro. Also, what I learned is that, yeah, you're through, you know, you're messing with the being the, the, to avoid sitting yourself in the ground, uh, you know, you have a mess of your wing and you're playing with it. You're trying to fix because your box, you started, you know, a thousand meters above the ground and you constantly have a look. Yeah. Playing with it. Look altitude, altitude, altitude, uh, before you throw it. So, you know, so that habit also comes from macro that you constantly check your height because you can even have nice helis and whatever, and you're just burning altitude without realizing that you're too close, too close to exit clean or so altitude is something I check all the time.

And for the rescue throw, I mean, I've just, I've had really bad ones where I just dropped them. I've had the full power throws. It's. I prefer full force and, uh, follow it, yank on it. And even if, especially if it goes in your line, yank as much as you can till it opens or you hit the ground, whichever comes first, don't stop because there's no other option. You have to keep going for that. Um, for the down plane, that's a bit harder, uh, depending, um, we had, uh, recently an event, uh, that. Yeah. I went through a reserve and visually on the video, it looks like 40 twists on the wing, like the lines.

So there's no, it was a row of, yeah, just a big rope, but, uh, to, I didn't see the incident. So I'm speculating. It's, uh, the sooner, the better. So once your rescue is open, your next first thing to do is collect the wing and no matter how big or strong you are or not, or the wing, the system between reserve and paraglider is pulsating. It's never static. Air is moving. The wing is flapping. The rescue is moving in there. One or the other is taking power. You need to pay attention. Which one is which once you're, you feel your reserve taking the load. That's when you pull in the wing as much as you can. The moment the wing wants to load, you'll lock your hands.

Ideally. Elbows near your body friction, uh, sort of shoulder elbow, 90 degrees, lock it as close to your body as you can. Physically. It's easier for human to lock at the 90 degree close to body then stretched out. So we're stronger, closer to our core. Lock it. Don't let the wing pull your hands out as much as you can. Once the rescue takes is again, pulling more and repeat the process till you get the whole wing. In this case, the reason I mentioned the rope is because. It's one long thing. So you can't just grab a symmetric and a symmetric is easier. If you grab one riser, you kind of deflate and you give a place for air to move out. So if you pull one side break, you'll spin it or hilly or whatever, but it will, it's easier to spin a wing than a stall wing.

If that makes sense, because the air air mass has somewhere to go. So you're not just symmetrically pushing it out. You are symmetrically moving it on the other side. And so, yeah, one side riser or the C's or B's or whatever you have on your wing, uh, brakes work, but that's a lot of wrap and brakes work to a point because you can reach a point where the line, uh, brake line splits up and, uh, might not be enough depending on the configuration. I recommend risers or the lines itself. If you know, if you can, it's all of this is if you can, but there's a lot of grub about the risers, this and that, like sometimes you can't. I mean, the twist might be a meter above your head and you just can't reach it.

It depends. But yeah, so to summarize, throw, keep your eyes on it. If it doesn't open, help it open and keep helping it open till you run out of time or it opens. Once it's open, your first priority is collect your wing. And I would even say if you managed and you got the wing in your lap. Just about, let's say five, three meters above impact, release it. It gives a bit more drag and it won't have enough time to downplane. And it just, I mean, the altitude is very, that's complete guess. I've done it a few times and it seemed to help again.

This is my own personal experience. It's there's no research in this, but, uh, logically thinking the more mess you have, the more drag you have, and you need some time. For it to take effect. Uh, so I'm estimating about three to five meters is somewhere there.

No, the bigger the mess above your head, the more drag that's how my simple mind figures that out.

Um, yeah, I think that.

That's what's your, then we'll wrap this up. But what, what are your thoughts on throwing both reserves? Uh, this is something I've seen in competition quite a bit is, uh, because we all fly with two reserves. now in comps we've all got these big heavy harnesses and we've got two and i've seen that happen a lot uh and i i you know what i've never actually asked the pilot what you know why they did it but you know it's usually one of these from from the my most of the time i'm just seeing them come down under two reserves i haven't seen what caused it or why but i'm assuming it they throw one don't like it in the lines boom just throw another one but i've never seen a bad outcome from two the only thing i would think would be uh is that if you're on the ground and it's really windy you know that you've got two things that you're you're dealing with trying to cut away or disable or something i could see that being bad but is there is there a bad side to it

i've actually never thought about it much about it i mean my one of my first reserve throws in organia i threw one and i had a massive pendulum and the first thing the regalo brothers said why didn't you throw the second one second i was like well i was concerned about down plane that was my first reaction and i landed with that one reserve i never did throw the second uh i need to have a look i haven't looked into i assume that the down plane is not as big of an issue because the shape of and the way they yeah i don't think it is just a different shape no uh where the wing has yeah i mean i've thrown two when the first malfunctioned then i throw i've never thrown two at the same time personally but i think from the shape of it it's a good one i think i need to look into it and i'm sure there's some videos because this is an interesting one to look into because uh i think because of the shape of them they they're not gonna go down playing just like you know completely

i

don't think they can travel fast enough i think they're a performant enough wing yeah because once it goes

to a certain angle the airfoil will start pushing it back uh so i don't think it's that big like wing can go you know we have those beautiful videos where the wings fly horizontally or vertically you know legs locked together and the pilots are opposite directions so the wing can do that but reserve can't do that it will it wants to stabilize as much as possible sort of so i don't top of my head i don't think it's uh besides what you said that yeah on the ground that's going to be a handful if there's some wind but in trees i think that's even softer you have more view to catch you yeah um yeah

and more time maybe to disable your your main wing i i don't see too many drawbacks uh yeah

i mean at top of my head i can't but that doesn't mean there isn't at top of my head i can't figure out uh but uh definitely something to look into that's a that's a new one for me so i'll look i'll think about it i mean you gotta

you gotta pack that's all

right i'll take that over a broken ankle that's not a big deal that's just good practice

yeah i i guess the other thing we want to just finish on here for those of you listening who haven't thrown your reserve you know that the test is like you said i think it's 5.5 meters um that's really fast uh really fast and so you know this whole thing of saving weight this is not where you want to save weight in your kit you know you want to come down slow and you would be surprised i mean think about all the places that you fly where you look down and you go what would happen if i threw my reserve here i mean around here where i fly in the rockies i do not want to throw my reserve i don't want to land in this stuff at all but if i did throw my reserve the last thing i want to be doing is coming down at 5.5 meters a second it would be really painful um and so yeah just have have that in mind that this this is this is i mean the 5.5 weight yeah the 5.5 will

uh save your life but you you will break your bones probably yes depending where you land of course but rockies yeah yeah yeah depending

where you land how you land if you do a good plf all those kind of things but all this stuff carlos you're a treasure man i really appreciate that you've uh given us all your time on these really good topics and those of you listening thanks for thanks for the questions i appreciate it but i appreciate you i hope your shoulder gets better soon here and we get you back in the air but thanks man my pleasure happy

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