Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. And a really fun one today. I've been chatting with Hansa Richmanick, who's been on the show with his son, Martin, at least a couple times. And I think him alone, he was one of the chapters in the book, of course. But Hansa, you all know from his five Red Bull X-Alps campaign from 2009 to 2015, which was my first one. And then right after that, and of course, all of his articles in Cross Country Magazine over the years on meteorology, that's his profession. And for the last eight plus years, he and Martin, his son, his oldest son, have been doing these amazing tandem Vol Bivs across the Alps.
They have now connected from the 2003 route from the Dachstein down to Monaco. So they've flown all over the place, but they have actually connected it all up by foot and by air. And in the last year plus, Martin has started his whole solo flying career. And he started flying a little bit solo back when he was 12, but he's now in five days going to turning 17. And he's done some pretty cool solo flights as well, including from Waltz up over Whitney at almost 18,000 feet last summer. And the Owens, and he and his dad did an almost complete tour to Mont Blanc last summer, both flying solo.
And now Hansa's starting with his youngest son, Tomas, who's now eight. But this is Martin's story. This is just his perspective, all these years flying tandem with his dad and these cool, very, very cool adventures. And then his break into his own solo. His solo flying and what he's been doing, what he sees himself doing, both professionally and in the world of flying and a neat kid, a neat adult really now, it's quite amazing watching him over the years just transform into into this into the adult that he is and heading off into college and his career.
And it's been really fun to watch. So really fun conversation. With really one of my favorites. I love Hansa and I've been very inspired by what he's doing with his kids. And Martin is a result of that parenting, he and his wife. So it's been it's been really fun and a really enjoyable talk and cool adventures. I think you'll enjoy it. Cheers. Thanks
for doing this, man. I'm really excited to talk to you. We've done a couple podcasts in the last whole bunch of years since you've started all these adventures. I believe. When you were eight with your dad doing these cool tandem trips across the Alps, kind of your own version of the ex Alps. You know, your dad did it, of course, five times as a competitor. My first was his last back in 2015. And so it sounds like he just decided to keep the adventures going with you. And I've been following with great interest all these years. It's been amazing to watch. Super inspiring. And those of you listening, I highly recommend going back and listening to those. But. Now you're five days short, I understand, of 17 and the last summer, this last year, you're starting to do all these solo with dad.
Is that right?
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I've been really progressing. And now rather than us flying tandem, we're just flying together as solo pilots, which is really opened many doors and allowed me to kind of grow as more of an independent pilot while still having him there supporting me. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And you, when was your first solo flight? How long ago?
Yeah. It's been a while. So we first started when I was probably 10 or 11 with just kiting with a two liner kite and then with a small glider just in our field right by our house. And then when I was about 12 and a half, I had my first ever sledder down some dooms. It was a fun day. And I think I had five small flights and then the wind picked up by the end of the day. So I was able to have a little five minute soaring session. On the dunes in Monterey, which is a lot of fun.
Was it always obvious to you as you started doing these trips with your dad that you would become a solo pilot? Was this something right away when you were eight, you know, I can't wait to do this myself, or was this something that took a while to gel?
I don't think it's something that I necessarily thought about when I was eight. I just remember having fun with my dad on these solo trips and him letting me steer sometimes. And I really liked that. And then slowly but surely. He just had a very nice natural progression from kiting down to my first solo flights and now having these great solo adventures.
How old's your brother?
He's eight right now. So he's the age when I started, when we, my dad and I went on our first solo adventure in the Alps. And
didn't, didn't you guys do one last summer? You were just talking, we were just talking about before we started recording from the Dachstein to Zell MC, which is now the end of the X-Alps race. And Dachstein used to be the beginning of the X-Alps race. So you were kind of going from start to end in a sense, and you did it and he, they did it as tandem and you did it as solo. Yeah,
exactly. So we're kind of in this transition period where now that I'm flying solo more, my dad is flying tandem with my little brother and I'm flying solo along with them. So we decided to give it a try from Dachstein to Zell MC so that I would have the original 2003 X-Alps route completed, which was Dachstein to Monaco, north of the Mont Blanc over the years. And we, it seemed like a great idea, but unfortunately we had three days to do it, which was to cover 60 kilometers straight line. So it was very much a possible goal, but we had three days of rain. Yeah. So it ended up being about 80 kilometers of hiking, which I, when my dad and I did our first adventure, it was much more of a relaxed kind of less X-Alping more adventure-y attitude.
Yeah. But over the years, it's developed to more of that go, go, go kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. of style, really, yeah. And so I was trying to push my brother, are you on
Board with this, or is this your dad driving this?
No, I'm on board with this. I want to get to the goal. I don't want to have to come back to the footlands of the hills of Monaco and try to hike it again next year, right? But I was trying to push my little brother, like, "Let's hike a little bit more. Let's try to see if we can make it in three days," even if it's just hiking. And we ended up being able to. Did Tommy do it? Yeah, the whole way.
He's a little trooper, yeah? You guys, that's awesome. That's awesome. So he's psyched. He's just like, you were back then, he's psyched to do these connections. I
think so. I think he's happy to be able to do it with my dad, and he sees what I've done with my dad, and he's happy to be able to follow in our footsteps and see what kind of adventures they can go on, your
Dad's always so good. I mean, you both are so good at documenting these things. You know, our last couple talks, we've put up a bunch of pictures and videos, and we will for through this one again. Your dad sent me a bunch of stuff that this kind of around Mont Blanc that you did solo, and all the stuff from Annecy, and then you had this incredible flight, which we'll talk to at the Whitney Portal, and taking off from Waltz and flying up the Sierras, and I think you got pretty tall on that one. So, those of you listening, make sure you go to the show notes and check all that out. But that's got to be really fun for you to look back at these last eight plus years and see. I mean, I can't believe I'm looking at. right now you're an adult now but to go back and see all these such cool adventures with dad yeah
I remember when I was little, I was always annoying me how I was always taking photos and wanting me to hold the GoPro and record the video of us flying. I felt like his in-flight secretary, always trying to document everything. But now, as I get older, I'm the one, and my friend group was always taking photos, and I'm really happy that he did take these photos. So now I can do it again, and I'm look back on these adventures and memories how
How was the learning process as a solo pilot? Was that quite natural because you'd spent so much time with Dad, you know, riding shotgun? Or I would imagine, you know, your your your father has been flying his whole life and he's legendary in his skills. I did some takeoffs with him back in 2015 that I still kind of blow my mind, and for him, it was just natural. It was nothing but, uh, I would imagine there's some fear on his part, you know, teaching his son to do something that we all acknowledge is pretty risky. Yeah,
Well, he's definitely taken the approach of having me kite a lot first. We try to go out maybe once a week, especially when there's enough wind, or even if there isn't enough wind on our field right by our house to do either solo like forward launches or just kiting practice. His philosophy is always so that I don't make an embarrassment of myself on launch. I don't have to try it two or three times, but even still, just to have that ability to control your wing in the air is also very important, and also being able to ride, as you said, shotgun with him throughout all these flights and all these tandem hours where he's constantly talking to me through his thoughts. He's explaining to me what his thought process is, especially in the cross country mindset where he's going to find the thermal, what winds he's being aware of, and how he's assessing situation.
It's been a very natural progression to me from just the normal solo flights to the kind of longer distance cross-country flights where I feel like I already have a lot of his knowledge in my head and what to be aware of, what value wins am I looking for, where I think I'm going to be able to find the thermals and
You've done some SIV, right? Yeah.
So I had this amazing opportunity to go up with Dylan through Let Fly over above Lake Barriessa, and I did his SIV program, and that taught me a lot about wing authority, and I felt that it was a little bit better of a way to learn about how to do spin stalls and all the other stuff rather than my dad just telling me, "Above look like NSC, you can try spiral if you want to." So, right, I'm happy to be able to do that and to have that theoretical and that practical knowledge of all the glider authority, so that I've never had to do a stall or a cravat recovery and in the air, probably in part because I'm flying the UP Makalu 5 right now. And it's been a very steady glider and I'm really happy with how it's flying.
So I haven't had to deal with any of these auto rotations and situations like that, but I'm happy to be able to have that knowledge in my back pocket if I need it.
You were saying before we started recording that it really kind of started gelling on this trip. Would you say 13 days or something in Annecy? And talk us through that. When was that and what was the approach there?
Yeah. So this summer we had an incredible 13 days in Annecy where we had, it was a great weather window. Last summer when we went, I think I got maybe five days of flying in across two weeks, but this year we flew every single day for 13 days and I got over 37 hours of flying in. And I was really able to expand my horizons. Before I was just flying right around the lake between Forclaz and Blanfair, right between the two launches. And now I was, I remember my first flight, I thought, well, what if I just left? What if I went over to Grand Bruneau or the Arabis and what if I kept on jumping? And I would, and I was really able to get far and then hitchhike my way back.
And it was just an incredible. So you were
doing this totally solo,
not
even with your dad
Well, it depended on the day. Some days it was my dad, my grandma, and my little brother. They would fly random along with me and
they would, we would all land in one time we landed by Grand Bruneau, for example, and we realized there wasn't a very convenient bus back. So we all had a little hitchhiking race to see, we split up into two groups of two and to see which one of us could get back faster to our Airbnb.
We ended
up getting to the bus stop where the bus would take us to our Airbnb within 30 seconds of each other. And they took four rides. I think we took three. And it was a lot of fun. We all ended up getting ice cream after.
Ah, that sounds awesome. Yeah. What kind of skills has your dad pushed on you to develop? Your father around here still in Sun Valley, I mean, all these years later, his top landing skills are so notorious. He would just take off at two, which we don't do here. Yeah. He fly around in the super, super rough air and then top land and have a stake. But he, notorious for these kind of top landing skills and in really strong conditions. What has been your, I don't know, arc, your trajectory for XC? What has he pushed on you?
Well, one thing he's really drilled into me is to respect terrain and to not fly too close to terrain and the mountainous. mindset that if there's a strong thermal, it's popping off away from the terrain, right? You're not going to find your best lift skimming right close to the trees, and you don't want to really be doing that. And through cross country flying, he's put in the mindset of always knowing where your landings are and being aware of what your landings are, and also to be paying attention to the clouds, see if there is a thunderstorm developing somewhere, and just this awareness of the situation that you're in and how you want to assess and what you want to be your next steps forward. I remember when we were—we had one flight where it was the two of us flying solo over
the Shindesaravi, the Arabis, and I was able to maintain, yeah, beautiful set of mountains. It's so amazing, yeah, yeah. And there were quite a few pilots in the air, and we were approaching in, and I remember him telling me, "Fly straight along the tops and don't, and try to be like, look at the valleys on either side, and if you can't find the thermal along the crest lines, be aware of what side you want to dip into to see where you think you're going to have the best chance of getting a thermal, and to already be planning ahead what your next move is going to be as you're on glide to try to catch another thermal."
Tell me about this. He sent track logs a couple days ago, and he said he's going to try to catch another thermal. And I was checking it out, and I wasn't sure. I didn't open each one independently; I looked at the pictures that he sent, but it looked like you did almost a tour to Mont Blanc, yeah.
That was an incredible day. So we were based in... honestly, that was one day, one day. That was one day, yeah. So, wow, we... this, it was this incredible weather period where it was just hot and dry, but that let top of lift be really high, especially for the Alps. So as the day developed, especially in these higher uplifts, was getting to around 3,800 meters and nice day, yeah. And so we saw from... honestly, that they're... because honestly, though, because of the stable air coming in from the flat parts of France, was turning on super late, maybe like three or four was when you could really start to get a thermal flight in. But Chamonix, every day would turn on at 11 like clockwork. So we decided to drive that hour and a half into Chamonix and to give it a shot and we
decided to get up and just start making our way around the Tour de Mont Blanc. It was very light winds aloft as well, so it was just the perfect weather day. There are a few other pilots around us who are also attempting it, and then the reason that we couldn't make it a full Tour de Mont Blanc is because there was, there's a section where they cut through along the Tete Rousse and this big kind of glacial valley where we would have had enough altitude to cut through and over where other pilots did, but we thought that that wasn't the end of the Mont Blanc massif and we tried to go around a little bit more, and then we got hit with a combination of west and valley winds that just flushed us back down into the Courmayeur area, but we made it almost three quarters of the way around Mont Blanc, and it was just such a scenic and incredible flight, probably one of my favorites.
I
saw that you threw, you flew through Courmayeur and around the south side of the Matterhorn and all the way around the
Mont Blanc, and it was just such a scenic and incredible flight.
on the massif, and oh my gosh, I mean that's just—that's the, that's the bee's knees, flying that zone, it is amazing. We
Were waving at the people on the skyway to Monte Bianco on the of the Italian side, who were amazing. What are they doing up here? Wow, yeah, so it was
just you and
Dad, it was just me and Dad, and then a few other pilots around us, of course, but that was our group. Yeah, we're on radio the whole time, and him just giving me advice like, "Don't fly." It was because it was walls on the Italian side; it's so steep, whereas you could catch a thermal, and then you're following it up along a cliff side for maybe 200 meters before you ever able to peel away from the mountain, and
All those lakes and rocks, exactly. It's just incredible.
How I pack high alpine exactly was
that july i
think so? Yeah, that was July, okay.
So yeah, so stable down low, really good up high. You just got to get to it. It can be pretty frustrating starting those kind of days in Annecy, where it just takes hours to get out. The inversions can be pretty strong by then, yeah.
There were a few moments as well on this flight above Golda Baum. We got in and we saw, we knew that this would be the most difficult crossing to cross from kind of the Brevon side over the Chamonix valley over to Golda Baum and try to catch on to the northeast faces, which isn't ideal over there. But there we saw a few pilots that were below the level of the goal trying to catch lift again, and we were able to get up maybe 250 meters above the goal and I thought, okay, let's go for it. I mean, clearly this thermal is not going any higher and to just try to keep it moving to get to a spot that might work better. And I remember my dad saying, "No, let's stick around for a little bit longer," and we ended up losing the thermal, sinking back down maybe 100, 150 meters, but then it ended up recycling itself and we were able to
way higher, and that ended up being able to let us make the crossing before we were able to catch another thermal in the higher mountains. Your
Dad is good at patience, exactly. Yeah, I would, I would have moved on and he would have been patient, and that's where he would have gotten me, yeah.
That's another skill, as you were saying that. Yeah, that's another skill as you were saying that. He's drilled into me as patience and to trust that you can always recycle and get back up and hold on in the air. There was one time where we were crossing from the avis over meshev and I remember I got to this face and it was clearly sinking, if not maybe like lift that would allow you to maintain, and I just ended up sinking out. And I remember watching him as I was packing my glider for maybe 40 minutes, just recycling, doing like just flying along this ridge trying to make it work, and he ended up getting up and
um, through the mountains all the way to... I don't remember exactly where, but he ended up having an amazing fight after that, where I ended up sunk out in meshev. Found a great bakery, though, so...
Yeah, there's some bonuses, exactly, isn't it? Yeah, in that part of the world, it's—it's not in the Sierras where you're—you're gonna get nothing. Yeah, uh, have you ever asked him, did that kind of patience come from his ex-alps campaigns? I've
I've never directly asked him that, but that's a good question. I think it's partially from his ex-Salop's campaigns and partially as well, just from It's Always Better. be in the air not moving hoping for an opportunity than on the ground knowing that an opportunity has flown by you and you weren't able to take it yeah
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's just, you know, you're—you're so much faster in the air, even going really slow, than you are on the ground. It was—that was a hard one to gel for me. I would—I'd get too impatient and try to keep moving, and and then there, you know, Hanzo would be. I remember in the 2015 race, there was a place, um, we were in Italy heading towards, uh, Bellinzona, and oh my god, he soared this little nipple thing for a couple hours when you and I were soaring it together, and this is crazy, we're just wasting time, we got to move on. And then, of course, he—you know, he flew over my head a couple hours ago as I was walking up this thing, but it was impressive. Oh,
I remember all the stories that whenever we used to hike in our early adventures on these long roads, we would go to these long roads and hikes between launches or landings or whatever. I would always ask him to tell me the xalp stories and try to recount every race for me day by day, and at the end he was struggling to remember as well what exactly happened, but yeah, it
It fades, unfortunately. Is this something what do you see in your future with flying? When I mean, I know you're wrapped up in school and you're junior and thinking about colleges, and it sounds like nursing, which we should talk about in a bit here, but what do you see in your future with flying? I mean, I know you're wrapped up in school and what's—what do you see in in the next five, ten years with flying? Yeah.
So one thing I've noticed is that I definitely want to keep on flying, and I appreciate flying more for the nature side of it and the technical side of it rather than the competition side of it. So while I don't see myself ruling out competition entirely, it's not something that I'm trying to rush into, and if I'm going to be breaking any sort of barriers with flying, I see it as being more in the adventure side of it and in the mountains and like bivy, yeah, and exactly in the bulb of kind of cross country flying, yeah.
Cool, why you were saying again before you started recording, nursing? Why nursing? What's the... what do you see, not from the flying side, but from professional and, uh, just your own future side of things? Yeah,
I've kind of combined it all into just my future side of things, and I think that's what I'm trying to do—my whole future self with flying, with skiing, and with everything. So, what I really like about nursing is that it's the kind of job where you're able to leave your work at work; you're not dragging papers home with you, and you're always on your feet, you're moving around, and you're also helping people. You're not a lawyer for big oil; you're making an impact in people's day-to-day lives. And another part of it as well is that it's something that I can't replace, and there's just so much variety in what nursing can do, and I think that's something that I'm trying to do, and what you can do with a nursing degree, smart
Did you... was this just something you've gravitated towards naturally? Something that seemed interesting? Yeah,
I'd say so. I mean, it combined all of the factors that I wanted for my future and for a job, and it—the idea popped in my head when Jesse—I don't know if you know him, but he was also an ex-ex-helps pilot who spent some time with my dad.
And he's able to choose when he works, and then fly the other four days of the week when he's not working his 312s, and that's an idea that I really like. It's kind
of like being a fireman or something, isn't it? It's a pretty good schedule.
Exactly, and you can do it all over the country and explore new places with it.
And you like taking care of people, yeah?
I was, I got my CNA, certified nurse assistant, over the summer, which was something that I and my parents wanted me to do to see if I actually am able to handle and like, taking care of and dealing with people for hours on end. And rather than turning me away from it, it actually made me embrace it and love it even more, really.
Yeah, I kind of get squirmy at the messiness side of things. I always think, oh, I don't know if I like—I mean, I could never be a doctor because I mean, even I get nauseous at a bloody nose. I'm just not good at that stuff. Maybe you can train it, I don't know. Maybe that stuff just comes, but it's not something I naturally gravitate towards. Yeah,
I've always been the kind of kid where I don't squirm at the messiness of it. I remember when we would go and... Still do, when we go to Chile, we have a neighbor there and they'd have like a sheep kind of barbecue where they'd butcher a lamb and then they'd grill it up, and it was just this amazing meat. And I remember I was always the kid wanting to see how they're doing it and what they're doing, and then later helping them out with it as well. Exactly recap.
For me, I'm jumping around here a little bit. Recap for me and for everybody, the the eight years of doing these trips in the Alps with your dad, there was always kind of a mission. There was always a a start point, a hopeful end point. Sometimes I know you didn't make it, sometimes you went beyond it, but was it to was it to connect a certain start and end over the eight years, or did that change each year?
Yeah, so it started with my dad just coming up with the idea, and I assume it was him also just wanting to get back into the Alps and do something with me, but we would... it developed into a setting, a start point and end point, right? So it was starting launch always and a goal, let's say, and we would have three tries to get there self-supported off of launch where we could restock on food, but we couldn't take any sort of motorized transportation. And over the years, it developed into a much... it started out as an adventure, right? We'd stop and we'd carve boats out of sticks, and we wouldn't hike unless we really needed to. And over the years, I assume I kind of also brought this mentality with me of, let's try to push a little bit harder, let's walk down the valley for a little bit longer so that we can try to get to our goal.
And I think that really culminated in this last one where we realized that we're connecting the old 2003 X-Alps route from Dechstein to Monica. And so summer of 24, we went from... after spending two weeks flying around Annecy, we started in Annecy and we said our goal is Monaco, which was our largest, longest one we'd ever attempted. It was 240 kilometers straight line, so across seven days, that was it. was a long distance to get to every single day, and that was straight line where we knew that it was a goal that we couldn't get just hiking because it was just an unrealistic amount to hike every day, right?
And there was a lot of hiking couldn't though, we had some great, few lucky breaks every few days when we needed it with some great flights, but it was an interesting realization where the first day we flew for over three hours, made it all the way past Aberville, and we realized that we'd covered maybe 45 kilometers straight line that day, and that felt like a great day, but we realized that was just the bare minimum of what needed to happen
Right, yeah, you're looking at it going, "Wow, that's a little tiny, tiny piece of this pie," exactly.
But that was probably one of my favorite adventures in just how hard we pushed, but we ended up being able to make it with some incredible flights. Just those national parks down there are also really beautiful in the French Alps, but another thing that my dad was telling me about is that also was that July, I believe that was end of July, early August.
What about the wind?
Well, how was the valley wind? The valley winds were pretty strong, and that was him always explaining to me how what his thought process is in this stronger flying on a tandem glider. And I remember there were times when we were landing against stronger valley wind, but we were also trying to land later in the day when the valley wind would hopefully get weaker, or up top if we had to. And so it was definitely a lot stronger flying, and we were able to navigate pretty well, keeping our distance from the terrain and all the other things that he's drilled into me, and me being able to see that in practice as he's flying and
Some of that zone is pretty windy, yeah, like Lake Abram and Brienne Zone, and there's some—there's some some channels that come off the main, you know, Grenoble Valley system. I don't know if that's what they call it, they don't call it that, but you know, Albertville, Grenoble, that whole area that just can honk up into the big terrain.
Yeah, what I think also helped was that we're able to take more of a high-speed flight and higher mountain route, where we weren't that far over by Grenoble and those other areas like Chambéry, where we were cutting more along the French-Italian border, the spine through the higher mountains, exactly tell
us about the the the kit that you had, the glider, the harnesses, the stuff that you guys would would carry. I mean, are you carrying stoves and all that kind of thing? Yeah,
So our goal was to make the kit as light as possible for the hiking days, which we had a lot of in this trip, because at the end, when you get into Monaco, it becomes like the California hills. I noticed where it's just a lot of trees where you can't really launch or land anywhere, and at the end of our very last, we had a very lucky, I think, 60, 70 almost kilometers straight line flight, and there we were assessing whether we would be landing in a riverbed or in an orchard to try, because there were just not that many landing zones that deep into the valleys because it just goes force it all the way down, and then after that we had 50 kilometers of hiking to get into Monaco.
and then we had a lot of activities to do, and then we had a lot of
ago over a day and a half, and so that was just a long road hiking in the heat as well, in the mid-July, August heat, yeah. And so our goal there was to make our kit as light as possible for days like those. So we have the Zpacks two-person tent, which we just set up with our hiking poles, and then in now we use our glider as our blanket, and we have two of the three-quarter length ultra light thermo rests that we put underneath us, and then that encompasses a sleeping kit. For food, we don't carry a stove or anything; it's all dry food or whatever we can get along the way. I remember there were many stops we would stop at, like a carpool or spa or something, and just get like a four-pack of Magnum ice creams and just down both of those there.
And then, um, how much water? Water, we never have an exact amount, but we'd always have enough bottles where we could decide how much we want to carry and how much we think that we would need. But in the Alps, there's almost always either a stream or a fountain in the middle of a town or a hut where you can fill up your bottles, so water was never really an issue, just making sure that we have enough of it before we head off into the woods to camp in
All these years, you know, you guys have inspired me so much. My daughter's eight now, and I really, I have the kit now, and I've been thinking about, but I don't have your dad's tandem backpacks, so it still makes me really quite nervous, you know, just not having that bar authority and the speed and all these, and just his again, his top landing skills and everything are exceptional. And so, the in all those years of doing this, uh, all over the Alps and connecting these things, were there some tense moments? I imagine there must have been hard hits, hard landings, I...
Think there were a few maybe rougher landings, but nothing where I ever felt like this was out of control. It could also be because I trust him fully. I mean, there were times when I would fall asleep while flying and you have to wake me up to ask me the altitude, and because it's interesting on our adventures, the flying parts where I get to relax the most, right? I'm tired after hiking all day and carrying all this stuff and trying to figure out where we're going, and then I get in there and I'm like, finally, we're flying, right? I don't have to move my legs, any motion sickness, luckily, not. Yeah, I don't get motion sick on pretty much anything, so I'm really lucky. Is your brother? I don't think so either, not that we've noticed. Yeah, so we've gotten really lucky there when
You were flying tandem with your dad. Are you on the controls a lot, or is it mostly always him? So...
Our controls are a Garmin eTrex from 2011, I believe. That no, no, I mean
the brakes
Is he handing you the brakes?
Are you, are you, are you the pilot in command sometimes, or sometimes it's
me steer, and especially I remember when I was younger, I'd like that, I'd want that, just to be able to steer, to be able to experience it. And on our adventures when we're on tandem now, I don't, I'm not really sure if I want it as much, just because I want to let him do the flying and I can sit back and enjoy the view. But definitely when I was little, I was thermaling in the Italian Dolomites one time, I remember that, and I really enjoyed that, and just being able to get that feel for the thermaling, you
Were saying about instruments? Your dad's also notoriously not very good at tech, so I remember he had that Garmin eTrex device way longer than he should have. We all do really fancy, oh my god.
That's still really, and it's interesting because he's, he's that's something that he's passed on to me. So now I'm using his old Etrex, and he took out an even older one from, from a bin somewhere. And so we still just have to have those four data points: we have compass, time of day, altitude, glide ratio, and speed. That's that. And then a vario that gives us audio feedback for whether we're climbing or sinking. That is awesome.
That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, so when—when you were—when you're connecting these things, were you frequently lost, or did you always know where you guys were going between
The two of us, we were able to make it work. I don't ever remember us purely lost and figuring out like, which way do we need to go to go like north, south, east, or west, right? Where sometimes one time, when we were flying into Modico, he had me pull up Gaia on my phone to check which kind of branch of the mountains that were diverging we needed to be following. But if it's always with just landmarks and being able to study it from a flying angle, which line we think is best, that's worked for us, yeah.
Okay, yeah, awesome. Yeah, because I mean, there were, there were times in the race where I would just be, you know, I'd have the route in my phone and still get confused. Just, you know, you're tired and you're, you're not thinking very clearly and, oh wait, at this pass, do I go left or I go right? And, you know, then he's—I mean, I had my phone with all kinds of maps and stuff on, he's got his e-treks, just that it didn't have any terrain. There's no maps, it's just a point.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not—there's probably a better way to do it, but this is what's worked for us so far. And I think it's better because it keeps it simpler, exactly, and allows us to really just experience the nature and assess the flying step by step and move by move, so
What are your dad in and you're in Tommy, and you going to do now? I mean, you've, you've connected, you've kind of done the X-Alps route. You've, you've, you've covered the six, seven countries across and and done from the start, although you know you've linked it all up. What do you do now? Do you do it again?
That's a good question. I think we're still trying to figure it out. I know that I'm not going back to Europe this summer because I have a lot of stuff that I need to get through with college applications. I'm taking a chemistry class through a college by us this summer to make up some credits that I need to get, um, but I know they're definitely going to Europe, and I hope that they can get up to some adventure over in the Annecy Chamonix area and see where they're they can make work over there, hopefully go on a sky camp somewhere and start connect their they're connecting their own goals because it was such an incredible experience for me that I hope that Tommy can have the same
Yeah, I mean, what an extraordinary way to spend time with your pops. You know, that you hope he gets that whole same kind of collective awesomeness as well, right? An amazing way to spend time together, exactly.
And even when we're not flying together, if he even, if he's just doing ground support or something for me, or I am for him, just to be able to be on the radio and talk about flying and what each of us is doing, it's great. I know that we took a few Owens Valley trips this last summer, and those were incredible flying experiences as well, whether it's me flying or whether I'm driving, trying to do chase for him and hearing what he's telling me about the air, yeah.
Yeah. We got to talk about Whitney. So, uh, you're out in the Owens. Describe it to you because a lot of people listening are not familiar with this part of the world, but you're, you're sent a whole group of us texts one day, just over the moon stoked because you had flown, I don't know, something like 40k and gotten over the top of Whitney, and I didn't—you get close to 18 grand or something, yeah
It was an incredible adventure, so we went out—one, I think it was a three-day weekend—my dad, little brother, and I, so the Owens Valley. It's this valley with a base of around a thousand meters, but then you have mountains going up to four thousand meters on both sides, and it's just huge in size. And it's also in the desert, so it gets pretty strong there, and we had this window where it was super light southeast at altitude, so there wasn't any air at altitude to worry about, and we launched off of this launch called Waltz at the south end of the valley at around 10:30, or I launched, and I was able to get up and just start heading north, whereas my—where my dad and little brother were driving chase, monitoring valley winds for me, and at
That point, I was pretty much on my own. I mean, I knew that they were down there, but I had to make my moves and figure out what I wanted to do on my own. And I saw that I was able to get up and stay high. And then there's Whitney just picking up from back behind, behind the mountains, and I see that there's a—that there's another pilot above Whitney catching a thermal there. So I slowly approach, making sure to max out every thermal along the way and always keep my bailouts open into the valley so that I can get out if necessary. And then I was able to get to about almost 17,000 feet above Mount Whitney and catch a thermal right from the top and wave to the hikers at the summit, which was incredible.
Wow, yeah, that
Is not an experience many pilots have had, exactly. You got to kind of dive pretty deep into there, and it's—it's, ah, it's magnificent, but it's also big. It's a—it's pretty intimidating terrain. I mean, you know, you say it's strong. It's—it's maybe the strongest on earth. You know, there's not many places that match the strength of flying in the Owens, yeah.
And we're very aware of that, and it was still earlier in the day, I think I got to Whitney at around 11:30, and the whole flight ended up landing at 1:30 before the valley winds got too strong, so that I could land in the valley and not have to top land somewhere. And that's why I was really happy that my dad was able to tell me what the valley winds were doing in the valley at all times, because he was down where'd you
land. Did you make it up to Bishop I?
Don't think all the way up to Bishop. I think it was somewhere by Independence, but okay, it was. I ended up making it around 45 miles straight line from Waltz north, just kind of keeping along the high mountains. I had one scare where I thought there was this incredible cliff face that I thought was just going to be pumping, and then it wasn't. So I ended up hitting some sink, but luckily I was a... I had enough of margin to where I was able to make it back into the foothills of those huge mountains with enough of a gap. And then from there, I had to figure out like, do I want to take it all the way out to the valley to land? Do I want to try to find something along the front range to see if I can get back up and over? And I ended up being able to get up, but I was never able to get up to quite as high as I was before because just the jump from the front range to the back range wasn't really
as high as I was before, so I was able to get up to
Really working from, and I wasn't probably committing enough because I knew that even if I was able to commit, that I'll have to probably cut over the valley because the sun angle was changing, and it was time to fly the west faces more than the east faces. And at that point, we just decided that if I wasn't able to catch anything over the valley, then it was better to just land before the valley wind got too strong, because a three-hour flight was already incredible, and it wasn't worth making it into a six-hour adventure all the way up north, especially on my first time having a proper cross country flight in Owens. And so I ended up landing amazing.
45 miles. It's a pretty... that's, yeah, it was a long distance waltz flight. That's a long distance, yeah, especially
was this
Your PBE was this, your was this, your best, I think that
was, yeah, my personal best straight line. I don't know if I beat that later in the Alps, but I don't think straight line I did. That's
Yeah, yeah, that's remarkable. Uh, did any of anything surprise you during the flight? Anything that, or anything you just didn't understand? Nothing.
Really, that I would say I didn't understand. I mean, there's always those tense moments where the... you fly into the thermal, it's stronger than you expect, and you have to make it work trying to circle up, or you fly out of it and your glider surges ahead of you a little bit. But I was able to manage all that pretty well. Um, reason... oh, two? Say again, did you use oh two? No, I did not. That was something that we're very aware of with altitude. So my first higher altitude flight was a little bit more of a... was a few months before that over in Lake Tahoe off of Slide Mountain, and there it was, looked like a high altitude day. I mean, there were pilots getting ready on launch with O2, and my dad gave me a cap of 4,500 meters, and I ended up blowing a bit past that. But just the thermals were so nice.
But yeah, and I've always... whenever we hike up to altitude, I was acclimatized pretty well, and I'm to keep logical thought going at altitude. And I was very aware of, like, seeing how I feel and to make sure that I am feeling good and I'm not pushing myself beyond the limits while flying, and very aware if you ever
experienced hypoxia in these higher flights, I've
Not noticed, yeah. I've always been able to keep a very level head and react to what my dad's telling me on the radio, and I think he's also in the back of his mind thinking, "How does my son sound on the radio? Is he answering accordingly?" You know what? So, what I'm saying exactly, and I hope that between that one of us would be able to notice, and I should also be very aware of how I'm doing to just be able to call it and land how
Do you guys communicate when he's chasing you? Yeah,
We have these two radios and, um, they, they're pretty long distance ones, so they work really well. Yeah, yeah.
You got a little push to talk, or how are you? I
Just hold it, have it sitting kind of on my chest, and then I grab it and talk into it. We don't have a microphone or anything, but that, now that you mentioned that, probably would be good to invest in, so that I don't have to take my hand off the controls to talk to him.
It's just, yeah, exactly, to just have something that you don't have. You know, you have a little push button on your helmet or something, but yeah, it's just one more bit of tech there.
Are moments when I'm like, when I'm trying to thermal up, I'm like, "Don't talk to me right now, I'm, I'm busy." Yeah, but yeah, right.
and then uh any and you're And you're doing some flying down in Chile as well, right? You guys have a place down there?
Yeah, so we have a place down there, and we try to go down every winter or over Thanksgiving break. And that's really where I developed my launch and landing skills. When I was about 14 and a half, we went down there, and that was the first time I had what we classified as my glider, whereas before that I was flying on my mom's old glider from the early 2000s. And so we got a UP Dena for me that's now my mom's new glider because we were still in the same weight range. And there we had two weeks, and I flew almost every single day just a sledder from our terrain up there down to our neighbor's field because he had a big open field, but it was kind of fenced off at a different section. So it was that landing practice of like, I want to land here now, but I have an overshoot just in case I don't make it.
And knowing how low I can get and how to flare and all of that.
And are you guys always on radio in these situations too? Is your dad talking you through it, or at this point you're on your own?
Yeah, exactly. He's always talking me through it. I don't think there have really been many flights when I'm not on radio with him or launches and landings. I think I had one launch where I was solo this year in Annecy, and that was off of Forklot towards the evening where I wanted to get up and just enjoy the glass. But always he's been talking me through it on the radio. And there was only one time where we ever lost radio communication in the air, and that was in Chile where it was just a ridge-soaring flight. And he was able to climb back up to me, and we were able to fix it.
You're kind of launching into adulthood here and nursing and career. And your brother, Tommy, is starting to kind of get into that zone. You did all those years ago. Is there any of you that's nostalgic? I don't know. Is there any of you that's, oh, man, I almost wish we could do it again, go back to those years? I don't know. There's no regrets, obviously, but is there any envy towards your brother?
I don't think there is, as you said, definitely no regrets. And I'm just excited and happy at the time that I had. And stoked at the adventure that I had. I know is to come. I mean, I'm set up in a great place where I've now been able to combine flying and skiing. So actually this last weekend, my dad and I went up to kind of the Virginia Lakes area over in the eastern Sierra. And we had a whole bunch of flights where we were doing some kite skiing. Then when the wind got lighter, I was able to launch and just skim around on skis with the paraglider. So those are my two probably favorite sports. And I want to try to see how. Much I can marry them and what kind of adventures I can get up to with that. And then what everything my dad and I can get up to and the amazing places that we can find and the amazing flights that are still to come.
Martin, when you this is a tough one, you might not be able to answer this right away. But, you know, at night when you're falling asleep or when you think back on these last eight plus years of adventures with your dad, is there a highlight? Is there a flight that just always stands out? And if so, why?
The one that still stands out to me, even though it was more recent, was our attempt at the Tour de Mont Blanc. And that stands out just by the amount, the high altitude of those mountains and how big those mountains are and how close you are able to get to them. I think it's different to the high Sierras, the high Alps, because it just feels more mountainous. You have so many more glaciers around you. And you're just. You can just see those cracks below you and those crevasses. Whereas in the high. You're in them. And you're in them. Exactly.
You're in the terrain. Yeah, that's that's the special thing about the Alps. We just we don't really do that here in the West. Or if you do, it's nerve wracking. You know, you don't you don't want to be in the terrain. Yeah. You know, I like to have plenty of margin.
And I just like all the stories that I'm able to tell. I mean, this summer as well. One day where we flew from Annecy to Chamonix with my dad. Then we ended up just spending. The nights in our gliders at the base of Brevon. Then we hiked back up and then we flew back to Annecy the next day. Just made it a little adventure. It's a fully spontaneous one. I didn't even have like a sleeping pad or pillow or anything, which now it's always a good reminder to fly with some stuff in case we do need to sleep somewhere in our gliders.
I have done that flight a few times and I remember all of them perfectly. It's it's such a good trip. I mean, it's 50K and it's just mind blowing. I mean, going up and over the air V and that final glide into Chamonix and, and the other way too, is just wicked, wicked, spectacular.
Exactly. They both have their challenges and it depends the time of day that you're able to do it too. And whether it's always the approach from the, I have ease back into Annecy. That's difficult. Yeah. Yeah.
I had a day, I think in the 2015 race where I flew from the Brevon actually, you know, it was cold to bomb. So, you know, all this zone and kind of. I went over and slow plan and near the Brevon and hiked up and relaunched and, and I was chasing Ferdy, I think at the time and got to the air V and as I was approaching Annecy, there was, I mean, it was a beautiful day. There was 300 pilots in the air and I managed to bomb out on the backside from, from the turn point. And I got attacked by a couple of Rottweilers and, oh my God, it went South so quick and, you know, relaunched. And then flew down and top landed at the, at that lake, the, which one, what's the little one, the lower one, not the little one where they always take off in the afternoon.
But anyway, the, the, the top landing was sketchy, but I mean, it was, it's incredible how you can have these little mini adventures and such cool terrain and blow it when, I mean, I'm an ex-Alps pilot. I completely blew it and there's 300 people in the air just flying around on B gliders.
Exactly. The amount of times I've blown it. As well. I mean, you talk about all these incredible highlights, but there are times when you fully blow it and you have to turn a low light into a story itself. There was once where we were trying to get back over the tournette into Annecy and my dad was able to make it stick and I just wasn't. So I landed in, I forget what the town. Dune or something. In Dune, exactly. Just down there on the backside of the tournette. And my tradition anywhere in France is just go get pastries and go wait. For my ride or the bus or whatever, and enjoy it and then get back and have some ice cream at the Airbnb.
Yeah. I'm sensing a common theme with ice cream.
Yeah. Love ice cream and pastries.
Yeah. How can you not? Martin, what a pleasure, man. I really appreciate it. Thanks for sharing all this. I just celebrate all these years you've had with your dad. It's been incredibly inspiring to me. I actually went out last year and got all the gear so I can start dealing with my daughter this year. I really look forward to it, but I look forward to seeing what you do in the next few years. Good luck with your nursing degree and this next chapter of life. We go through these fun phases, don't we?
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me and I am really excited for everything that's to come and I hope it goes well with you and your daughter. I'm sure that you guys are going to be able to have some incredible adventures. Just make sure to always start it slow and have her develop. The love for it before trying to force her onto it is what I think I've found.
Yeah, that's great advice that I very much appreciate. I'm trying to kind of thread that needle and figure out how to do it. I think like you guys did it in the Alps is really – it makes me nervous to do it here. It just seems – there's not really too many times of the year where it's just mellow and nice. Yeah. It seems like – I think the pastries and the ice cream and the grassy launches and the millions. Millions and zillions of places to land, just that sounds lovely. That sounds perfect. Yeah. It's a nice start.
And so how has she been handling tandem flights? Have you been taking her up at all?
Yeah, a few. We did a little bit down in Costa Rica and a couple here and the last time we went, she was pretty disappointed that we didn't thermal and get up and go somewhere. That's good. That's the right mindset. It is the right mindset but it left her kind of disappointed and so she hasn't been – I don't want to take her. I don't want to take her unless she wants to go. And so it's been – she hasn't asked to go since then. So I think she was kind of disappointed in dad. We had the dog with us too. It was maybe a little bit too much. Yeah. It was starting a little bit slower. So yeah, she had this dream that she really wanted to taste the clouds. That was a big deal. She wanted to get up in a cloud because I had all these cloud stories. And so when we were down in Costa Rica, the first time I couldn't quite get into them.
And then the second time I did, I was able to punch up just a little. I punched up a little bit and she had the controls and she was really disappointed because clouds don't taste like anything. She thought I was going to be a cotton kid. I told her that it's just water vapor. You're not going to taste anything. And so she was pretty disappointed in that and then she was pretty disappointed in this most recent flight here that we didn't get up and go anywhere. So yeah, I've got to just let her decide.
Yeah. Though I will say that I find that whenever – there are times when I really don't want to go. I'm not hiding or flying or something, for example, but it just takes my dad to push me over the edge. And then once we do it, I'm really happy that we went and did it and I didn't just sit at home doing nothing for the weekend. So
you've got to kind of find that right balance between not pushing too much and pushing a little bit and going and having a good time, just making sure it's fun. Your dad's pretty good at having fun.
Exactly. And then slowly but surely I realized, oh, even if I don't want to do it now, I'll have fun and then I will be happy that I did it after. And then I end up pushing more and more as well I found these past few years. Yeah. Where it goes from kind of an external push to an internal motivation.
Right, right. Well, yeah, I just – I don't want to push too much, but I certainly want to do it. And I think that what you guys have done has been really inspiring to the community. I don't – there's not too many dad-son or daughter duos that have done what you guys have accomplished. So it's – yeah, well done. And give your dad a hug from all of us. And I can't wait to see what you do, man.
Yeah, I will. It's been such an incredible experience, and I hope that it does push people in the community to try to follow in our footsteps and just give kids these incredible experiences in hopes that they can become pilots as well. It's a great way to approach flying where you approach it from the nature side and from the adventure side rather than from the competition side.
Yeah, that too. I mean, I think the – you guys have. crush the aesthetic and the real reason that we fly, and I think if you can keep things focused on that side of things, it's, uh, it's a lifelong yumminess; it's a lifelong wonderful journey.
Yeah, I'm definitely tasting it. I'm really enjoying it.
Martin, thanks man. I appreciate you, and uh, say hi to your dad for me. And yeah, can't wait to see what you guys do. We'll
Do, thank you. I hope your daughter's race goes well tomorrow. Thanks, bud. Cheers, bye. If
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