Hi there, everybody. Happy New Year, 2026. Here we go. My guest today is Michael Maurer, Chrigel's younger brother by eight years. Long time test pilot for Advance. Lives there in Fruitigan, and he and I ran into each other, spent a bunch of time together and had an awesome chat during the Red Bull X-Alps this year at the Neeson, at the bottom of Neeson. Flew down, I think the second day I was there, and took a swim in the river. And then saw him and went over and said hello. I hadn't seen him since the Grindelwald PWC, and he and I just had an awesome conversation about his brother and risk, and I can fly racing, and we went all over the place.
And so I've been dying to get him on the show and kind of recreate a bunch of the things we talked about and get his thoughts on family. He's got three young boys, and his thoughts on getting them into flying. And approaching risk, and training, and mindset, and all kinds of wonderful things. So it's a great one to kick off the new year. Enjoy this conversation with Michael Maurer. Cheers.
Michael, happy holidays. We're a couple days before Christmas, and you've got a house full of folks, and so do I. You've got three boys, so I appreciate you carving out some time in probably a busy time of year for you and having a chat. How are you?
Hi, Gavin. Nice to meet you here. I'm good. As you said, it's a full house, and almost every evening, a good dinner. Yeah.
It's my heavy time of the year.
You put on some weight. Yeah, exactly. So I enjoy it, even though it's like this Christmas stress kind of. Sure. But it's also a nice time of the year. But this year, it's not much snow outside, so it's not the same feeling, but still, it's time for holidays and enjoying the snow, what we have, and go skiing and flying, whatever I like in the winter.
Yeah, I know Europe is having a similar, we don't have any snow over here. We've just this week gotten our first series. We've got a lot of storms, and this isn't Fahrenheit, but it's 40 degrees outside right now. I mean, this is a very cold, typically cold part of the country, and it's just been so warm. This storm, half of it was rain. It's been very bizarre. It's been a weird one so far. Hopefully, it'll chill up and get white.
Yeah, it's kind of similar here. It's warm, and it's like this south wind, fern, which is… It was actually quite good flying conditions the last few days or weeks, but it's actually not what we're looking for in winter, but we take it. Yeah, but it's way too warm, so it's one layer less in general than normally we need it.
The weather's getting scary, isn't it? It's getting more and more bizarre. Yeah, it is.
What does the winter typically look like for you? Is it more testing than in the summer? You're a test pilot for Advance. How long have you been doing that?
No.
I started testing at Advance in 2013.
Oh, wow.
So, it's 13 years this next summer, actually, 12 and a half years.
Normally, I was flying the whole year, and in winter, it was… It was kind of the busiest time to finish wings, to be ready for next spring, sails in next spring.
And now, the last two years, I changed a little bit also to the office. And, yeah, with the family, I don't like to travel for weeks to test in, like, Teneriffa to finish wings in the good thermals. So, I changed a bit to the office, do more harnessing. And, yeah, fly as much as possible in winter here, which can be also very nice, more soaring conditions or, like, weak thermals and quite short thermal windows. So, it's interesting to make the best out of the day.
Does the Nissan stay open all winter? Do they run that?
No, they close. They are open till… Mid of November. And they will open again approximately end of April.
Ah, okay.
Something like that, yeah.
Michael, if someone that doesn't know you at all runs into you in Fruitigan, you're at the grocery store or something, and you start up a conversation, kind of like you and I had at the bottom of the Nissan during the race, during the X-OPS this summer, but assuming that person doesn't know you like I did, and we're not necessarily going to talk about paragliding, and they ask you… What you do. How would you answer that?
It almost never happens. I don't talk much, actually, with people I don't know, unless they talk to me, so I answer back.
Yeah, but I would say I'm a test pilot for paragliders, and normally that gives a good base for a conversation that they ask about. Mostly… The first question is, oh, isn't it dangerous? Yeah. And I can explain, or I will explain how it works, and yeah, basically, that's the way it goes, yeah.
How would you answer that? Is it dangerous?
Yes, it is. Paragliding in general is dangerous.
Testing itself is for sure more dangerous than just flying around. With the wing, you know, you fly every day, and it's mostly dangerous because you're out, even if it's rainy or windy, and conditions can challenge yourself quite a lot. And for sure, you want to test the wing on its limit, and this is something you have to learn to find your… You have to know where your limit is and where… You start to feel the limit of the wing to not… Or there are also different limits of the wing, so it's more dangerous limits and less dangerous limits, let's say.
And over the years, you can learn this, and for sure, as always, you do some mistakes, and you don't do them again, hopefully. So you learn like that.
I'm just imagining, I've never been a test pilot, but does overconfidence… Does overconfidence play kind of a role in what you do, or maybe early… I mean, is there… I would… If it was me, you and I talked about this during the X-Alps, you get this kind of boost in confidence, which is good. You want that. But it can also be a little bit risky that you're in this kind of nothing-can-get-me mode. Does that play a role in being a test pilot? I'm not going to screw this up. I'm a test pilot. I do this all the time.
Yeah, it can be. But mostly, it happens in competitions where you have, let's say, one chance. You have to follow the leaders. You have to push somewhere where it is not confident to fly. And in testing, you can go step by step, or that's what I learned from Hegel. He taught me to go step by step. And the good thing is… To test the wing, we have time. We can actually take us time to go step by step. And that means if we are not comfy, we don't have to do it that day, let's say.
In the competition, if you don't do it that day, you may be out of the comp, final wrestle. And this is a good point about testing.
How did you get into flying? Was it because of your brother?
Yeah, basically. Yeah. I was, I don't know exactly, I was 12, 13 years old when I was, let's say, I was bored. I didn't know what to do and watching TV a lot. And he first bought me an RC sailplane. So, he enabled me to fly with the RC gliders. And I did it for a few years. And then… When I was 15, he was talking to my mom that I should do this school or I could do this school. And he was also paying me the equipment, everything. He basically, how do you call this, paved my path to flying.
He was your sponsor. Yes, exactly. Yeah. I paid back everything. I hope so. It was like 6,000 Swiss francs. Yeah. Yeah. He was paying for me. And it was before I was, or I was in school still. I had no money. I had no chance to do that. And he was working for Advan. And so, he had some like a harness, a used harness to use to rescue and everything. But yeah, like that, I got into flying. And before, he took me for tandem flights. A couple of times. And for sure, he knew it will be something I like.
And so, it was. And it's still something I really like or I like the most about what I do.
For sure, without Riegel, I would not be here or where I am now in paragliding and also as a human.
How much has he… You know, your brother is…
What shall we say? I mean, he's… He's won everything. I mean, he's the most famous pilot in our sport. You know, he's… I always say when people, most people, especially over here, don't know anything about paragliding. And so, when I describe the X-Alps or something and that I start talking about your brother, I'll say, you know, he's the Kelly Slater of our sport. He's won everything. How much has his… You're nine years different. Is that right?
Eight years. Eight years.
Okay. How much has his own flying trajectory impacted yours? And what I mean by that is what you've done with your career. Has it been competitions, XC flying? You guys had this amazing video. I don't remember. It was a few years ago where you flew all day together. You know, what… How has that impacted what you have pursued in flying?
It's hard to say. I think… I think the fact that I fly paraglider because of him. Yeah, I don't know if I would have done it by myself with like 18 years old when I would have had the money.
Probably not. But after the flying school and… Yeah, we flew or I could join him at his work as a test pilot as well. So, I could always…
Collect some… Some information about how they fly, what they do and about conditions and whatever. And so, it was not really like some…
It was not like I was learning from him.
He did not teach me like some one-to-one lesson. It was more like… We flew together. I was always flying with the best Swiss pilots. Made most… Quite often. Not always. But I grew up in an environment which is… Which was like the top of the sport. So, this shaped me as a pilot, I think, quite a lot. So, the style I fly, I think, while flying. I think that's because he took me with him to work or to…
I was joining him also on some competitions later. And then, for sure, also like the steps to go higher in the categories until competition wing. And he always… He found a good way to push me. But not to push too much. So, that's… I cannot explain exactly why or how, but it has an impact, yeah.
Is there a sense of big… I mean, with nine years… Or, sorry, eight years, that's quite a difference. Is there kind of a big brother, you know, want to keep you safe, keep you under my wing kind of thing? Is there a, you know, hey, push, but not too much? Or maybe, don't be like me in a sense, I don't know. Is there kind of a be careful, or…?
I think in the beginning, he was not telling me to, like, be careful here, but don't do that. He was more like, yeah, try. You will see. And if I did or would have done something really dangerous, let's say flying in strong winds, anyway, he would have told me, yeah, try. He would have told me, but I think he was not telling me too much to not think by myself anymore, I would say. And I am, my personal, like, I am not the person which is pushing too much by my natural.
I think I am more like, I need some time to… To get to a certain level, let's say, or it took me some time, I would say, and I think he knows that, and he was never afraid I will push over my limits, or too far over my limits. Yeah. We never spoke about that. Maybe it's different. Yeah. I just remember once we packed my rescue, my Rogallo. Yeah. And then I had to throw the reserve while flying Acro, training the Infinite, and one
week later I was calling him again.
We should pack it, if he can show me again. After that I did it myself, but I never use it anymore since then. And, yeah, I don't know if I, maybe he was thinking his things, but we don't talk too much about, like, direct stuff. We are, I think, when we are flying, we are both more like communicating without words, kind of.
Is there any kind of brotherly competition between the two of you? Is there enough gap, or there's just enough difference, or, you know, Chrigel is Chrigel? Yeah. Not everybody can be Chrigel. I mean, okay, I don't need to touch that, but is there any of that between the two of you?
Not like this. It's more like, I was very happy when I met him, but it was more like, yeah, he had a bad day, or somehow I was very lucky. But he was always, or he is still, for me, he's still a pilot, which is way ahead of my skills, let's say, or of my... I mean, he can... Maybe technically we can do the same, but he can put it on point. And that's what I miss. I can't be as constant as he is.
And for me, I'm a competition. Like, how do you say that? I like competitions. Yeah. But I can also say, like, it's good it's done. Yeah. I don't push more.
And even before I go to my limits, let's say. So I'm not as...
I don't know the English word. Like strict. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. So I'm really looking up to his constant motivation to really push. At the high level. Mm-hmm. Because even though we are kind of the same skill level, it's... Still, he is way more experienced and still my hero. Yeah.
Yeah. He's many people's hero. Yeah. He's my hero, too. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to make this all about your brother, but I do... That's
fine. We
had a really cool conversation. Yeah. When you and I talked during the race, at the bottom of the Nissan there, I think the question I phrased was, does it make you nervous?
Does what he does... All these X-Alps, it's just... In some ways, it's kind of a numbers game, right? You had a nice answer for that. Does knowing the risks that he's taking, does it make you nervous? Yeah.
I don't know the answer anymore, but I think it was kind of... It doesn't... In a way, it makes me nervous, but it's not that I am afraid. He goes over his limits. I know he knows his limits very well, and his abilities to push in certain conditions, so it's not that I am nervous about that. Mm-hmm. But more often, I'm nervous because, like this year, at the last day, it was nail-biting for myself. I was always thinking like, yeah, Aron will struggle somewhere, and they will overpass him.
And I was like, no, it doesn't look like that. And I was nervous he will lose, yeah, but I'm not nervous that he will hurt himself. Yeah. For sure, it can happen, but it can also happen while training, and it's like even a higher risk, actually, and no one talks about this, but he is out every day, and he knows his limits exactly, and yeah, that's something maybe I also... Since I remember, like, what about flying, he... Or... Since I remember about flying, he was always on a high level and pushing hard, and it's kind of normal how we fly, let's say.
It would be remiss of me to not ask you, when he didn't win this time, I think all of us were a little nervous. I'm on the media side of things to, what do we say? Of course, such a gentleman, I mean, he's such a sports person, he was a true gentleman about it, but you've kind of got the inside track, so I have to ask, how is he approaching now? What did that do to his psyche? Does it just motivate him more, or what are we going to see the next time?
I think he knows why, so that's one big point, and maybe he didn't knew it exactly during the race, but I think so, and I was... By that, you mean the gear? Yeah, gear and, like, conditions were not, like, difficult enough to show his skills, let's say. Yeah, true. Yeah. Yeah. And also, like, I was listening to his speech a few weeks ago, and he told, like, he was trying some different moves, and everyone was waiting for his magic move, and he never got into this flow, like, where he could do whatever he wants, and it works.
And I think I can exactly... I know it for myself. I know him for myself. And I think that's a good thing to be able to do, sometimes, if you're not in the flow. Sometimes, even though you have good material or you have your best conditions you can wish for, it's somehow hard, or it's that point you have to learn how you get into this flow. And for sure, this year, the material was quite the big point, and somehow,
he said it was one of his best moves. race and I think he can handle it very good because he knows exactly he had a very good preparation, he was ready and it was just not the material, the conditions were not fitting the puzzle was not all together so he is very motivated for the next edition and we are motivated to improve our material
Yeah, sure, I mean there's other lessons there, isn't there? I was blown away that he was the oldest this year usually I'm that guy Was
he? Yeah Yeah, he
was the oldest this year which is, you know that's a little, that's crazy because he's not old No Yeah
How about you in competition? You were the 2019 Swiss champion you live in a country with many many good pilots so that's a huge achievement but I remember you and I talking about that it's not something you're pursuing as much, is that right? Do I have that right? You're not pursuing that as much You
mean the Swiss champion title? Well,
just maybe international competitions
Yeah, it's it's something I I I really like to do but it was never like
I'm not like that's not my my everything I do everything for it so it's it's something I as I just mentioned here it's something I when I am in the flow I really like it and some quite often I I just enjoy not being in the flow but but flying with with friends and and good friends so we we are some pilots from like let's say the older generation we we have this kind of same flying style and this this is the best fun and if if it matches everything it's the result is for sure something which is valuable but it's not the the main point Tell
me more about flow how do you find your flow? How do you do you have kind of secrets? Do you have any secrets to get there? to get into it? stay in it?
Yeah it has to be in the mailbox in the morning otherwise I don't find it no
it's hard to say for me it was interesting I was flying for a long time with the gin competition wings boomerang 9, 10, 11 and the style of the 11 didn't fit my my how do you say likes I didn't like the wing that much it was good performing but quite a bit difficult to fly and then for 2019 I changed to to the Nivux
Icepeak Evox Evox yeah
that was a little and
yeah I I really liked this wing and it was easier to fly a lot easier to fly than all the other wings but it was also a bit slower and a little performance wise it was maybe the same but it was a little bit more difficult to follow and funny was that it was kind of the easiest year for me so it was I really enjoyed the material flying with these wings with the harness the setup was all right and then flying was was just going so I was I was in the flow and it was the same for like the last few years with the with the
I can fly material if if I if I if the material the mindset everything works together the flow is there and if if not it's I find it in not like other ways I I search for like small goals during a competition um where I set yeah let's let's say I I want to have a good start I want to be at the start line on point and I want to be the first at the first turn point so that's a bit easier to achieve than to be the first in goal so this small steps I try to take the focus out of of like the main comp or the main
ranking is like yeah enjoy little things during the race that's that's how I I or also like during the year I mean it can be that I have a year where I am not in in the flow uh in at work or wherever and um yeah try to break down to to small steps and and like some sometimes it's even working from Monday to Friday to enjoy Saturday Sunday
can be can be even if if I work as a paragliding pilot which I really enjoy it can be it can be weeks where I don't like flying so it's uh it's not for me now it's kind of a normal job and it's it's hard to stay in the flow all the time and I have to search the flow as well in in the work so it's a little bit the same in every uh aspect yeah when
you're struggling with it it work it sounds like if you make little goals that's what helps kind of setting little achievements you know like you said okay i'm gonna i'm gonna have a good start okay i'm gonna have a good uh i'll be with the gaggle to the first turn point that kind of thing just having you know step by step does that work that works at work as well yeah
it's uh it's something it's something it works for me personally works in kind of every situation um it's it's just hard to find the right goals
this is this is sometimes almost similar hard to to to let's say win a competition um because if you if you think you want to you want to achieve a certain goal but this goal is maybe not what you
maybe it's it's a goal for someone else and you want to achieve the same maybe this is this does not fit the the situation and then it's um you have to you have to find out what what motivates you so that's can help um also for testing let's say if i if i have a goal that i'm not not happy with but i'm not satisfied i'm doing some practice a bad day if i wake up in the morning and i'm like oh today i don't want to do maneuvers i don't like to do sometimes easy wing can be quite nasty so
then i i sometimes say let's let's focus on like one specific maneuver to get used to it or to to get away from another bad maneuver and um focus a bit more on that what what is working and um yeah that can can be a way to to find motivation and the flow and sometimes it it's even like a few flights you you automatically going to the hard maneuvers again and you start to enjoy them the challenge is then different there it
sounds like maybe by just staying focused on the process rather than the results
yeah that yeah that's the topic i think yeah what
what do you mean by that that easy wings can be nasty yeah
for like beginners wing they always should fly so they can shoot well depends on on the position over the head they can they want to fly again and um sometimes or yeah they they also have to be kind of stable kind of stable rigid to not collapse and if the balance is not right they can be board like and they can really shoot far forward and sometimes you're not ready for that because you are like yeah it's an easy wing let's do some maneuvers then you get called by a surprise it's
normally that's where I am going step by step and not full on full bar collapses I more speak about let's say B category wings because B category is huge it's
almost can be everything and you expect bad behaviors of D wing let's say but you don't expect bad behaviors of the B wing and there you mostly or it's about to find out
the right technique to do the right size of collapse and to have the right
reaction or to find out about the reaction but somehow it's hard to find this point when a wing is board like so it's what makes the job interesting as well but some days are not mentally I'm not ready for for that the good point is working with the team there is always one with the good day and one with the bad day and you can motivate each other to do it either way or to do it different or to go a little further or push here or there as
well as slowing down I mean we are working two minimum two or like three pilots together so it's it's quite fun so it's never boring and sometimes also small competitions inside the team about doing a maneuver more sporty than the other one or climbing up quicker than the other one top landing for the other one so it's always challenging yeah
yeah in recent years most of the manufacturers if not all I don't pay attention much to the manufacturing side of things but have come out with these two liner ENC wings or kind of modified two liner wings
so better performance people seem to really love them I haven't actually flown any myself but things to be aware of there is there been a for folks that are listening that are you know they've been flying the high B or maybe they're flying a C is this is this an obvious jump is this a jump to take with some caution
yeah it's it's hard to say it's it depends quite a lot on the on the product actually there are some products which are kind of easy to fly with good reaction when they collapse but maybe they collapse let's say a bit too early so they they really how
do you say that the energy has gone easily and other products they stay a bit more solid you can fly a bit faster you can you can fly fast through stronger turbulences and the energy gets more and more and you have to pilot them when they collapse and there there are some models they are a bit less predictable when they collapse others are better and more easier to fly in extreme situations and that's always a bit hard to for me I struggle a bit to really judge a
sea wing proper because it's quite new we have not much reference wings it's anyway they are quite solid so it happens not that often that you see big collapses yeah it depends a bit so it's it's hard to say in what direction or where to go so it's also like on the B categories it's spreading more and more and where is it C or let's say a difficult C wing or an ECD wing this border is not clear similar to where is it the B wing or where is it the C wing and it can be challenging and there I think we will learn more and more in the future what works what not and as always I think um we will have some products which are amazing and really
prove to be good and others they will be challenging to fly and for sure we will learn faster because we have more and more pilots and it's it's it's a category where a lot of pilots feel home I would say it's D wings sometimes are a bit too too much demanding for some pilots and they really like to step back to a C wing but still it's a two-liner and still good performance good speed and the feeling of a two-liner flying is different than a three-liner with the kind of similar steering characteristic but yeah
you know it exactly it's kind of unique this two-line flying I would say yeah
interesting what's going on is
paragliding growing in Switzerland I
don't know exactly if growing but yeah I think for sure it's it was quite popular during COVID quite a lot after COVID it's that time if it's still growing or if it's steady I don't exactly know but we have quite a lot of pilots in our area yeah.
Yeah, you have a lot of pilots in your area. Yeah. It's very visible there.
Do any of your kids fly?
Not yet.
How old are they? The one
is eight, six, and four.
Ah, okay. A bit too young.
They join me for flying. The oldest one really likes flying tandem. He's enjoying thermals and being high. Until he gets cold. Right. But he's saying he wants to fly once. Yeah. But for now they go on the flat to do ground handling to be ready for the school.
Yeah. Would you want them to be pilots?
I don't know. It's hard to say. I I want to show them like every possibility. Yeah. Or they should they should choose whatever they like and they will I don't want to to restrict them in any point because I think if they do what they like they they can do it safe. The only thing I don't want to have them doing is everything a little bit. If they do if they want to fly they they they don't play hockey or whatever. At the same time which is or which can be time consuming as well. So I
want to have them choosing kind of a hobby. It sounds a bit hard but they should know that if they want to fly it takes time and they have to do it proper. That's that's the main point. I mean yeah flying is dangerous and or can be dangerous but it's beautiful in the same time and they they have to know about the risks and in Frutigen we have the cloud seven the school which is well known for its ground handling education and yeah they they they they're practicing a lot of ground handling I think that's that's one good step to be a safe pilot already and like that they know how much time it takes to to really practice and you have to do it again and again and if
they like it they can continue if they don't like it they better stop I would say but we in I don't know it's it will be in seven years and maybe it's it's looking different when he can actually start the school yeah kids
who know what they'll be into yeah
exactly part
of the fun when you look back at your own career and flight would you
would you change anything if you if you could go back to maybe even that first year would you could would you go back now with the knowledge you have and tell that Michael something different I
would take a mustache back to that time
it's quite fun to fly no
actually
like one very important thing was was the school for myself with with Schmatz the teacher he's he's doing it well with this ground handling lessons and
yeah I'm with I had like a user manual for paragliding which which is still like growing and I can still ask questions that was extremely helpful so no I actually your
brother's user manual that's great
living living user manual so it's it's no point I would do different because yeah I have like some small points maybe where I would say like let's say it was a bit stupid to do a ground spiral in high grass
but when I go back I don't know it so I would do it again to know it right cheap
mistake exactly
so mistake to learn let's say and for sure I was lucky a few times but I think it was also in other things I did and no I would do it again like that
this is always something that I struggle with how to articulate or tell mentor I feel that if you don't have these cheap mistakes it's pretty hard to learn but we've all been at this game long enough where you know for example if my daughter decides to get into paragliding as your sons might how do you how do you help them navigate that road because I mean you know a collapse on the wrong side near the terrain there's not much you can do you know that that really does come down to luck versus
training ground handling I mean there's all these things we know you have to do you can't take shortcuts there's all the cliches right but how do you gain this knowledge without ground spiraling and too tall grass you know
yeah what I can see now like a good example it never happened like that but the good example is always when a kid is in the kitchen and you tell them the kitchen where you cook is hot the plate and they still touch it until they know they feel it's hot or with the fire somewhere you can't tell them something but they still do it to you because if you tell something it's not the same learning let's say and if you tell too much I would say
you stop
you stop how do you say it you take them the opportunity to learn yeah if you I see it the same way as did it with me when I ask him how do you fly a helicopter he said yeah just try like for sure he explained me or I knew it already from from talking with other pilots but like you have to break and then one side it has to fly again so but yeah how exactly so yeah you have to try you have to experience yourself the feeling you have to get yourself you can't get it from spoken words it's I would say the
only thing they have to know is that paragliding can really seriously hurt them if they do it wrong they should know like some fundamental things which are also valid in other in living in general let's say and if they know that and something where I still stick on it was what Chrigel told me is this step by step strategy strategy this is the only thing they have to know actually I don't know exactly maybe when when they get older and maybe more specific to some something maybe it will change or I will find out other
teaching what do you say how to teach yeah
yeah that's a tricky one it's hard yeah you do quite a bit of hike and fly and if I can fly racing and competing when you're kind of as we turn over the new year here and go into 2026 what what keeps you excited about flying is it objectives is it what is it what are the things that you really look forward to as we skip into the new year
yeah in winter it's almost a bit like I don't think too much for now about my goals for next season the only thing which which was changing quite a lot now is that I want to keep my training my physical training endurance training during the winter a little bit even though it's off season now I do gym and like a little bit of running and skiing which is not really training but still moving around and then
let's say in January February I start to think about which competitions I want to do what I know now is that I want to do some competitions and I think it will be
next year mainly or only hike and flight competitions because this is
easier to do for me besides the family and it's like one two or like the four day competition so it's just a weekend you have to stay away from the family and
also what I think is we have like the Swiss Cup where we know the competitions and I think I want to mix now with some competitions I already joined and some new competitions to see new terrain and maybe new style of competitions but the final planning will happen in the new year but the motivation is now the endurance training combining with flying so yeah exactly so I would say four years ago I always told like no it's that's not not something I want to do but somehow I get got into it and I quite enjoy it and that's where I
see somehow now and getting older I can if I would do it a bit more serious I could could maybe catch up somewhere at least for short races not for five days or six days but yeah I
hope he listens to this that'll motivate him even more
yeah maybe he's not listening 50 minutes we lost
him a few minutes ago
yeah exactly no it's it will be interesting in
the Swiss Cup in competitions are you now flying you're on the X1 yeah
yes exactly yeah this is a good wing a bit challenging as well if you don't fly it too too much or good enough I don't do many hours in the comp wing in these years so it takes me always like one day to get into it properly but
nice to fly in general how
do you approach your SIV with your X1 or just with the really high end two liners your brother and I had a pretty interesting conversation you know around this whole civil debate that's going on a couple months ago he was saying the same thing you know we just not many of us I mean very very very very few do much with these wings outside of competitions you know we leave them in the bag we pull them out go to a comp get done come back put it back in the bag we're not doing a lot of training typically I'm sure there are some but there's not many that's I'm guilty as charged I don't either you know I haven't had my X1 out since my last comp in August
yeah
last year it was like I was flying the World Cup in Grindelwald yeah and then I had it in the bag until August last this year for the Swiss Championship so it was quite tough to it was over one year I did not fly it and definitely this is not enough I mean I fly every day so it was it was okay I mean don't want to say it was safe I don't like to say that anyway
but I think it was safe enough to to fly this wing or it's still safe enough to fly this wing because I fly quite often with the D wing with my Omega and I do stalls and rough conditions with this wing so for sure I have to adapt with the X1 but to be honest I never did a proper full stall with the X1 so it's all my training I do is with D wings or while testing
I think it for myself like when I fly from Monday to Friday with I do stalls I do collapses everything
I don't see the point to do stalls with the X1
it's it's it's let's say somehow too similar to a D wing and in real conditions you you don't use like I think so you don't use like a proper full stall where you where you fly symmetrically and everything like in the lab like in the
test environment like
yeah exactly and I I think for for the most people an SIV course is important to feel the stall point of the wing to feel to feel what happens when I go low with the brake when I go one side when I spin this practice I have every day with all the wings and this point yeah again I don't want to say I I am 100 % confident with that but um to to fly different wings uh each day or uh yeah to to to play around with with different behaviors of wings is something it creates a feeling of of uh or not not the feeling well yeah a feeling in the stomach how to react to a certain behavior so it's quite often it's not like oh I have to stall it other it's more like I do something to stop a reaction of the wing and then never let it get there
exactly yeah it's it's not I I plan to do it or I want to do it it's more something happen in the in the feeling in the back head of uh
you do it automatically
yeah you're never you're never having to get that far really with
the with the X1 my main goal is to really keep it open to to for now I I go out of the of the bar too early to not have any limit situation let's say right when I don't have this this much flying on the wing and and also when I have like an unloading or any situations I I have to react before it actually happen um just want to don't want to be too lazy as well and um this is this is my SIV let's say it's my training it's it's building up the feeling to to react blind to any situation
that's that's what I try to yeah but I in the same time I don't say I can't do it in every situation because it's quite complex what
do you say to the maybe maybe this is also a question cliche but what what do you say to the I hear this all the time that advance Nivea gin by them playing in the CCC field you know by creating making uh CCC wings competition wings then that technology filters down through the rest of the line as far as I know advance has never uh played in the competition end of the scale is that valid invalid
no I think it's this is something
let's say CCC wings they they are not worth to to do to get money for the company but the experience you gain with CCC wings you can scale down to get money yeah it's simply spoken and for us it is we did some prototypes where we could learn some some things but it was never it was back in I don't remember exactly 2016 2015 where we we had um Patrick von candle flying a competition prototype in in in a world cup in I think it was Australia
um
back at this time we had a few prototypes where we tried to uh really increase performance and speed uh for to to have something um for us to fly competitions but beside of of all other projects it was not worth to to really push hard like other brands doing and still we could learn a lot for for let's say the omega and um and most
research we do now is with the omega and we take it from there to to the sigma or from the omega to the c and b wing and um this is something we we always speak like or we always say like we should do competition wings or maybe don't call them competition wing but higher spectrate higher spect ratio wings um also for cross country flying this would this would be more interesting um for us like for me because um it gives you more performance and and uh in the morning and evening you can you can have better better or weaker climbs you take everything with you and also as a training i mean it's not only to to have research for the company it's also if if uh if i fly a competition wing uh my ox feels very easy after where i where i feel like a d-wing is already quite demanding in certain conditions when you fly dx1 the d-wing is like yeah it's
less energy less or more compact so it's easier to fly even though it's it was hard one week before right and uh this aspect is something we yeah we we should work on something it helps it helps the pilots the company everywhere just not the money the budget yeah right this is this is something but i mean we always should have every company has like it's um field for research and playing around also for like single skin wings it's acro wings it's all the same category actually um
okay take your time with this one this is a hard one uh but last question when you think back on your entire field career of flying all this time just what comes to mind your most special flight and why i
would say i i don't have one specific flight uh it's it's sometimes quite small flights or not not really it's a bit of standard answer i think um but
i i think for for now the first thing popping out is this like 200k flight um we got this escorted by a helicopter which was filming around the one the one you spoke before yeah
yeah uh
we took off in zermatt and we flew along the valleys uh
the helicopter with us i i think it was first it was not planned to join us all the way to the landing but then they they decided somehow it was swiss tv was it was uh that was a swiss tv production and they somehow decided to spend a bit more money because the project was interesting and i don't know the circumstances and uh
that was that was fun and um it's always kind of everything what i do together with regal for me is is um isn't is interesting and special because uh we we we have the same same flying style so it's it's uh we don't have to talk much and to prepare much to to do something nice maybe it's not like perfect like some very or one of the memory how do you say memory memory able flights uh
is is the is the the acro show in in atlbota for the ski workup uh it first it's four times did
the synchro stuff exactly
yeah so it's we fly once a year synchro together and that's there we and i'm always surprised how synchronized we are without practice ever let's yeah very little very very little practice and he he is commenting on the on the radio to the goal of
the skiers
and so they can just
so it's live it's live exactly all the spectators can hear him okay yeah exactly
and and i am um um commenting the commanders when to exit the spiral or whatever and this works extremely nice together we can again we we don't have to speak much quite often we we walk to the helicopter and we speak what we want to do for what maneuvers we want to do and the good or the best thing but also extremely or the most challenging thing for mentally for myself is is the landing um in front of like uh 20,000 people uh
in this stadium you swoop the fans yeah yeah stadium yeah yeah and then you we we land we we fly like two meters over the heads of the of the spectators and land into this um stadium this is when it's done it's one one of the best things ever but doing this is is quite um yeah that's nerve-wracking
you don't want to screw that up yeah
yeah you have you have quite a lot of uh possibilities possibilities to to mess up and uh a lot of media guys around a lot of cameras around and uh yeah so these two things um is always something very special and also i could not do it without he is uh he is organizing everything because he he is he can do stuff like that and um um yeah this is very special because no no one i mean someone else could do an outro show with the ski workout but but it's uh quite a few points where i where i have possibilities to
do special things uh because of him
um
i'd say you you two have a from what i can tell at least you have a really nice relationship that's a lot of fun i i but i really enjoyed talking to you for all those hours at the bottom of the nissan i know your your wife really wanted you to get home but we had a nice chat during a nice time uh of the race that was that was quite special but uh michael thanks thanks for thanks for sharing all this uh you're quite articulate about all this how you fly and your thoughts on everything i appreciate it and uh yeah bud merry christmas thank
you very much kevin it was a pleasure to talk with you again and i hope to see you soon life me too
yes me too live that would be good awesome
i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm like a
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