Hey there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the CloudBase Mayhem. I have been very inspired lately to get more hang gliders on the show. We have been missing a lot of that content over the years, and I always threaten, and I never do. So I reached out to my good buddy, who my wife and I and Fallon at the time was not even two, worked for the 2019 X-Alps, stayed with him just outside of Milan, and a long-time hang glider and commercial pilot. So I reached out to him recently and just said hi, and hey, throw me a whole slew of names, and I'm going to get them on the show. So we've got Manfred and Jeremy, and we did the one with Christian, but Alex Ploner, and a bunch of others. He gave me some really good recommendations. So we're going to be putting some hang gliding content here in the show over the next few months, and hopefully forever after.
But my first one to drop is today with Erica. Erica used to work with USHPA, and she's been flying for over 15 years, and she's had a very different approach. It's been a nice, slow, easy progression, a lot of fun. She does a ton of kind of, I guess you'd call it hang gliding waga on the dunes, and she's got a huge social media presence. She puts out a ton of content, a lot of videos that are watched by literally millions of eyeballs. So she's done very well. There, but is, you know, not one who has chased the scary and done a ton of competition flying and big long distance. She just recently got into a little bit of topless flying after all these years and recently got into sports class comps.
And but she just had a really nice progression, really loves it, keeps her normal day job Monday through Friday and goes flying whenever she can on the weekends. And her perspective was was really cool. She talked a lot about what reached. Out to me about, you know, progressing at your own pace and the tools we can use, including cameras and video analysis and simulators to learn and books, podcasts and all the resources that are out there. She's also an instructor, so she's got some background and and teaching. We had a lot of fun with misconceptions between hang gliders and paragliders and talked a little about short pack gliders, which we heard about.
Recently on the show and the need for these short pack gliders to be something you can put in the car and put together really quick and so just more accessible to more people. I can fly with hang gliders and that's all pretty cool stuff. So yeah, we had a lot of fun with this and then we closed with her telling me about I didn't even know this was possible, but you can hang glide over the summer. Very specific hours in Yosemite. It's the only national park that allows free flight and it's only hang gliders. You gotta be an H4. You can find out about that by the time this show hits, it'll be open in certain hours of the day. It's Yosemite hg.org. So check that out and check out Erica's many, many awesome videos and enjoy this show.
Cheers,
Erica. Welcome to the mayhem. I really appreciate you reaching out a few months ago about Pete. We're working on that one. And and that's, uh, geared me up for a whole series of talks with hang gliders, which is going to be awesome because I have we we have not done enough and I'm always saying I need to do more need to do more. But just this morning hooked up with Manfred and and Jeremy who's over at the euros. He's got a bad infection going on or something. So we'll do that later. But it's anyway, we'll we'll do a lot more of these which will be I know very fun for our audience. And I've had a really good time watching some of your videos. You're quite the content creator. And so and you were on this list of people that reached out and said, Hey, we, you know, we need to get so and so on the show and these folks and you were on there.
So it's great to talk to you. And it's great to have you on the show. And thanks for thanks for your time.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, you sent me a cool list. Well, where are you asked if we should start with that? Where? Where are you at?
Southern California based Los Angeles area.
Okay. And you're, you're big thing. I mean, you do a lot of things, but your big thing is doing flying. Where do you go to fly dunes?
So our school winsports, we have a site at dock by the beach. That's our training Hill. So it's a 30 foot hill. It's about the usable part of it for flying is about 300 feet long. And we just love just love flying there.
Cool. You know, I did this chat with with Bonnie Hobson who flies up at Muscle Rocks a while back. And, you know, I'm a I really like her. I really like XC. I really like big distance. So it was cool for me to, you know, I when I first cut my teeth when I first got my very first license P2 and that was 2003 2004. You know, I just loved that soaring and peaceful side of things. And now, you know, I fly in Sun Valley. It's I wouldn't say it's very often very peaceful, but it keeps me really engaged. And I was I was kind of fascinated with how she keeps really engaged with. I guess we'll be more mellow flying. Would you would that be doing flying more relaxed, more mellow? How do you stay engaged?
Definitely. It's usually more mellow. You hope it's more mellow. Sometimes it gets not. And that's that can be scary. I've just always loved doing flying. I mean, so I learned at Dockweiler back when I started like 19 years ago, and I've just been flying it ever since when I'm here. It's not so horrible that often people think since I post videos that we get wind all the time. We don't. It's actually a pretty rare experience. I would say on average, it's horrible. Maybe once every two weeks. And then then I have to actually, like, you know, be able to go there and not be a work day and all this stuff. So so we don't actually get to sort that often. It depends on the season, too. Like, sometimes it's better. But I've always just loved it. I think one of the really unique things about Dockweiler and that does keep me engaged is you're not. I mean, if you're just floating 20 feet over the ground and you're just like going back and forth, like, sure, that can get boring.
But what we're doing that's really fun is like I like landing on the windsock. I like. You know, sweeping down, touching the ground, top landing and taking off again. Landing on certain
little challenges.
Yeah. Like like a sequel. And like there's so many things like paragliders see these videos and they're like, we didn't know hang gliders could do this. And I love sharing these videos because it shows like the fun side of hang gliding and that hang gliders are capable of more than just going fast. Like, that's fun, too. XC is fun, too. But doing flying is just a completely different experience that you can get doing literally anything else. I think there's no other.
French call it Wagga, right? Is it? I guess you'd be. I hadn't thought of that. You can kind of do the same type of stuff with the hang glider. That's really cool. Yeah.
And like I said, I don't think there's any other aircraft where you can really do that. You know, just take off, come down again, land over and over and over. Just like a bird. And to me, what I love about flying is being like a bird. And like I said, XC is fun. I like that, too. Flying high is fun. Obviously, love all of that. But to me, just the doing plane is very unique.
How did you get into this? What was the catalyst? What was why? Why did you start? Why hang gliding? I mean, that's an interesting one these days. It's it. You know, there's been a hang gliding has been slowly chipped away just with the ease of packing with paragliders and stuff. But it does make a lot more sense. They're pretty sexy wings. You're prone. You know, it's there's a reason that we started with this.
Yeah. I saw a picture of a hang glider in a book when I was 10. And I just I really want to do it. I made my parents for years. They were like, no, no, no. And then one day my grandpa came to visit and I told him I wanted to hang glide. He was like, I'll take you tomorrow, which you didn't do. But he just reminded my mom that, like, you know, you did all this stuff like skiing, windsurfing. Like, you should let her hang glide. So I started the summer before my senior year of high school. So that was 2007.
Where you are now. Were you in L.A. back then as well? Is that where you're from?
Yeah. I learned at the same place at Dockweather where we still teach.
Okay. And are you an instructor now?
I am. Yeah. I became an instructor in college. I don't teach that much. But so the funny thing is I started and then I went to college on the East Coast. So I didn't really get to fly that much my first like actually many years of flying. But my mom saw how much fun I was having, even though she hadn't let me hang glide. But she was like, I want to start, too. So she started about a year after I did when she was 50. And she still flies. And she's an instructor, too.
Whoa. That is so cool. Yeah.
So we fly a lot together. And it's a lot of fun. And she likes watching my flights. So when I fly and I go on like Willandu and to have like the live track and she watches those. Yeah.
Oh, cool. You've got some cool thoughts about, you know, getting into the sport, but also progression. You know, you really took your time. And this is I remember when I got into the sport about the same time in 2003, 2004, you know, it was you would meet people that were on hot gliders. So I guess in hang gliding, that'd be tough. But it would take a decade. You know, people you meet people in paragliding, you're flying a two three or an end, you know, more of a kind of a two liner, hotter glider. But you wouldn't, you know, as you were learning, it's just like that. That was that was something way off in the distance. That was something that, you know, you might do, you know, competing in a World Cup. It was just, whoa, these are legends. You're you may never get there.
It just seemed it was a big reach. And now, you know, people are getting there. And two years, which is it's a it's a it's a credit to the gear, of course, but also makes you a little nervous that you might be skipping some very important steps there. But I'm a paraglider. I'm not a hang glider. Tell us about that. And how does that why did you choose to do it that way? What's worked for you? What do you teach?
Yeah, I feel like it's really interesting right now watching the progression of paragliding. Because I think and I talked to people about this, how there's kind of a lot of mirroring of how hang gliding progressed. Like for a while, you know, people were on these like much harder wings and then they started making it easier once again. And I think in hang gliding, you know, for a while, too, there was a lot of external pressure to progress quickly and to go to topless and to, you know, no king post. So it's like the top performance, like race gliders. And I think there's less of that now in what I'm seeing. There's still external pressure. Like if you're flying just a single service Falcon, which I flew one for my first like 15 years of flying, which is like much longer than than most people do. But there there isn't I feel quite as much pressure in the community now, but you'll still get that.
There are still people like you should go up and that should really be up to the pilot. I do wish there wasn't any of that pressure because I don't think it it serves the sport. I don't think it really serves anyone. And I think I think when we're looking at progression. It should really be about how you're feeling what your goals are listening to yourself not not feeling pressured by anyone else.
Hmm. How was that just intrinsic in you? Or did you have a mentor or an instructor that helped you guide through that?
Yeah, our instructors here for a while. They're very much focused on just like single service gliders like our main instructor at wind sports. He's still like pretty much exclusively flies a single service glider and he's flying longer than anyone. Like above everyone all the time. So he's showing that it can be done, you know, and you can have a lot of fun with it. I think it's also like I said, like I didn't fly that much my first 10 years because I was in high school college. I lived in Japan for a couple years. I was doing other other things and I couldn't fly that much. And I think it's also safer in that case to be on an easier glider, right? Because if you're not super current then then that's better. But again, yeah, I think it's it's just deciding when when you're ready and making that decision for yourself. Because you're the pilot in command.
Like you should be making those choices not letting anyone else push you into them.
Hmm. Is is hang gliding you you said before we started that you have a another job and tell us what that is. But also is is this your work? I mean, I know you've got unbelievable social media presence. I would make most people in awe, especially for hang gliding. It's awesome. So you've got a lot of people, you know, watching your videos and seeing what you're doing. Yeah. What's your job? How do you how do you? Is it is this recreational or is this your profession?
It is recreational. I mean, it would be fun to do it full time. It's it's really hard even. I mean, I think to make it full time as a content creator, you really need like a lot of views, like constantly and making videos and making videos. It takes a long time. It's it's kind of hard for me. Like I do it, but it does take a while. So I do have a full time job. I work at a medical school as like a writer. I'm in marketing communications. So that's what I'm doing during the week. And then on the weekends, I hang glide.
Okay. Are you bilingual or just hang gliding?
Yeah. I started paragliding a few years ago, but I I don't post about it. And I don't paraglide that much. I'm just I always mean to. But then I'm too busy hang gliding. I'm like, oh, I'll land and then I'll go paragliding. But then I land at sunset. So there's no time to go paragliding.
Tell me what you're doing with Wills. So you're you're you don't work for Wills Wing. But you're you've got something going on with short pack hang gliders, which is interesting. Second time I've heard this term in very little time. We had a guest on recently that was is doing some vol biv in Europe with a short pack hang glider. So what are these and what are you doing?
Yeah. So, okay. So basically, there's a lot of talking about how we can grow hang gliding. And there's a lot of ideas. And so I worked for you for a few years on staff. And then I was chair. Of their hang gliding growth and development committee. So I've heard a lot of these ideas. And a lot of it comes down to, you know, we should make insurance cheaper. We should have more instructors. We should have more sites. And all those things are kind of outside of our control. There's really nothing we can do about them. And so what I want to focus on as far as growing the sports sport is things that we can actually do and meeting the needs of the community. So right now with hang gliders, they're not they're not like the most in community things that you can put them. You know, on your, your car rack, you can drive them around.
I met a paraglider pilot once who was like, how do you transport those? Like, do you need a flatbed truck? And like, no, we don't need a flatbed truck to transport a hang glider. You can just do it on any car. But that is part of the misconceptions part of it, too. But they are still not super convenient. Like, I'll give an example when I, I bought a car, a used car, and then the engine blew up. And really, I should have just trashed the car, but I ended up getting a new engine for it because I didn't want to build a new hang glider rack. Like, I just built the hang glider rack and I'm not building a new hang glider rack for this car. But my point is, we can't be asking people to do this. Like, this is insane. And not that anyone else has to do that, but you get my idea. Sure.
And so I think also, since we want to get younger people into the sport, and maybe some of them don't have cars, or maybe they don't have a garage to keep their glider in, really, what I think we need is a short bike glider. That, like, fits in a car and, you know, is light enough maybe even hike and play at some point. But really, fits in a car, fits in a plane. Because that's the other thing with traveling with hang gliders, is it's a huge pain to either coordinate getting your glider somewhere, or trying to borrow or rent a glider somewhere, and then you don't know the condition of it, or it's hard to find, or people don't want to rent you a glider. So it's just like, this would just make the biggest difference, I think, in retaining people and also bringing new people to the sport, is having the short bike glider. And so this is something that I've been pushing forward. And I know that it's difficult to make one. You know, if it was easy, it would have been done already.
And there is one out there. I know you did that last podcast. There's the Finsterwalder. And the issue with it, though, is I've talked to several people who have them, and they take about 40 minutes to set up. And that is just too long. I know paragliders think that it takes us an hour to set up our hang gliders. It takes 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes. And 40 minutes is just a really long time. Right. So I think what we really need, and this is what I've been talking about. Too
much time. There's
a barrier
to entry there. Exactly.
I mean,
for me, I hear that and go, no, I'm not doing that. I'm
not going to take 40 minutes to set up my gear. Yeah. I'm not doing that either, which is why I don't have one. So I've been talking to Wills Wing about it. And a lot of the manufacturers don't seem super interested. They're just like, it'll be too difficult or whatever. But I think to make the sport grow and continue, this is really what we need. And I really appreciate that Wills Wing agrees. And it's something that they're now working on, is making this kind of short bike glider. So I'm really excited to see how that goes. They don't really have many updates on it yet. But they have kind of announced the idea and that they're working on it. So that's been super awesome.
If you could rub your crystal ball, the Europeans are going on right now. And your big names that everybody knows. It looks like they're leading Alex Ploner and Christian Cech. So it's not dead by any means, hang gliding. Especially when you're in the Alps, you see hang gliders. But it's been dwindling now for decades, right? The statistics show. But you're attracting a lot of eyeballs to what you're doing. If you could kind of look out five years, what do you see for hang gliding? Are you optimistic?
I think depending on how I feel. It depends on the day, what I'm seeing or what people are saying to me. Or how a video is doing. I think there's definitely room for growth. And it's interesting because I talked to paraglider pilots who say that they want to hang glide. I did a whole article for YouTube Pilot Magazine about paraglider pilots who started hang gliding. Like after paragliding, why they wanted to do that. And I do think there's room for that. Especially if we can make this kind of short-pipe glider that makes it more convenient for everyone to do this. And I've kind of started videoing paraglider pilots too. Who tell me that they would. Do hang gliding if there was this kind of glider. So I really think it depends on how it goes with those kind of innovations. And drawing people to the sport.
I also think the kind of videos I make are unique because not everyone has a ridgestorm site where they can make the kind of videos that I do. Of course. But I think that making more videos like that, that show how accessible hang gliding can be. That it doesn't have to be fast or scary or whatever. Unless you want it to be. But it doesn't have to. It's not going to attract everyone. I think hang gliding has kind of had this marketing issue where everyone's so focused on just the XC and the top gliders. And that attracts some people, but it doesn't attract everyone. So if we can have more different types of videos showing what it is, I think there might be more growth. And hopefully that can help, you know, five years down the line to be growing the sport.
It seems like, you know, again, I'm not a hang glider, so I can't speak with any authority here. But what we always hear is that, you know, ozone came out with this submarine harness and everybody's on the submarine and now Navy has one. But there was a lot of resistance to this in the community because we just, this is what hang gliding did. We can't do this. Everybody, you know, where you've got it, that's the gear you got to have. And you got to spend 3,500 bucks. And then, you know, as I understand with hang gliding, it was just, you had to have the latest and greatest. They're very expensive. You know, the topless carbon every, you know, with all the whistles and bells. And it just becomes less and less accessible to more people. You know, it becomes a very elite, difficult, high barrier to entry.
You got to have a ton of hours to fly these kind of gliders safely. And it discouraged people, right? I mean, it's pretty easy to understand. You're not buying a pair of shoes. You know, you're buying a $15,000 aircraft. And so, you know, I love where you're going where, hey, you don't need this. You can have a blast on the dune with a Falcon. Is that what I'm kind of hearing? I don't know. In some ways, paragliding is moving in that direction as well. But it's nice because we've got this roadmap that we've seen happen. And wait a minute. If you make this exclusive and expensive and only available to a smaller portion of the pilot, the potential pilots out there, it just becomes diminishing returns.
Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And that's interesting about the manufacturing, too, because I feel like they're often catering to like the top competition pilots, which is great. But not many people are doing that, honestly. And it's not that everyone can fly the dunes either. Like I said, there's not really that many sites for it. And it also helps to be, you know, unless you're kind of a lighter weight, you do need a lot of wind and you don't always get those conditions. But I think just showing that these kinds of flying are available, that you can do it. If you want to, that can help. And then I also try to make a lot of landing videos in the mountains that like I never post crash videos. I mean, I pretty much never crash, but I wouldn't do if I did, because I think that there are just too many of those out there and they kind of give the wrong idea.
I mean, I'm a little torn on that because I think you can learn from crash videos, but there are a lot of crash videos out there. So to me, it's more about showing how easy hang gliding can be. And no matter where you're doing it, the landing doesn't have to be scary. You can do it. It'll be fine.
What are the misconceptions? You wrote this to me in the email. So you fly both, obviously more of a hang glider, but some of this can be pretty funny, I think. What are the misconceptions for hang gliders looking at paragliders and vice versa?
Yeah. There's definitely misconceptions on both sides. And it's been really interesting learning to paraglide and kind of learning more about paragliding that things like I definitely didn't know. But on the hang gliding side first. It is amazing to me the number of paraglider pilots you tell me or who are surprised when I tell them like hang gliders don't collapse.
That's ridiculous. I hope these are pretty new pilots. That just seems silly.
Honestly, no, Gavin. Like, I just I really don't. I mean, it's true. Like hang gliders can very occasionally break like extremely rarely. Or if you have, you know, if you don't maintain them or you put it together wrong. Like there was a fatality recently where they just didn't put the glider together correctly, unfortunately. But if you maintain it and you do your proper pre-flight, it is extremely unlikely that your hang glider is going to break. And I still don't even call that a collapse or deflation because it's like if your paraglider broke, like if a line just snapped or something like you wouldn't call that deflation. That would be like your wing broke. So it's the same thing. Either way, I would say, you know, hang gliders don't collapse. So that's a first one. I would really love if all the paragliders knew that.
The second one is a lot of paragliders think that hang gliders take an hour to set up. They don't. They take about 10 to 15 minutes. I think I mentioned. Sure, if you're, you know, talking to your friends and just like leaving your glider there and then coming back to it, like, sure, that can take an hour. But if you're just setting it up like 10 minutes. Other thing, I think you mentioned cost. A lot of paragliders think that I've talked to seem to think that hang gliders cost way more than paragliders do. And I think that's not true. I mean, sure, if you're going for like the top of the line carbon fiber, whatever it yeah, it'll be expensive. But there's also a lot of used hang gliders and hang gliders last a really long time. So when I started 19 years ago, I bought a used glider and I it was already used at the time I flew it for 19 years.
I just sold it to another new pilot who's still flying it. It's still fine.
That's awesome.
Yeah. And so you can find used hang gliders that are perfectly fine. Yeah. I mean, they're pretty airworthy for, you know, $1,000, $1,500, sometimes even less. Even the new ones are I think they're like five to 6,000 for a like a beginner wing, which I think is pretty comparable to paragliders or not a lot more.
And wouldn't you wouldn't you be able to just resale a hang glider? I mean, you don't need the whole I mean, can't you just put a new canopy on it?
Yeah, you can do that, too. It is probably about like half the cost. Okay. So it's not still. But yeah, you can do that. People do do that. Especially if they tear the sail or something.
I mean, paragliders just that that's not a thing. You can reline them, but you can't you can't just replace the fabric. You know, you're just you're in for a new wing, you know, so you can you can burn through a wing easily in a year. You know, if you're if you're flying 300 hours or 200 hours, you can you can go through pretty quick. So, yeah, that's it sounds cheaper, actually.
Yeah. Yeah, I think it can be. I mean, I guess top pilots will want a new wing every year or whatever. But if if you're not that, then you can have that. You can apply your wing for for a while. Yeah. A couple more on the misconceptions. Paragliders think hang gliders weigh a lot. I don't know how much they think they weigh, but the beginner ones weigh around 50 pounds. The really high performance ones weigh about 75, you know, still more than a paraglider. But it's not like it's not super hard to pick up. And
that's not that much different. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
And then and they're balanced. And also, if you're standing there and the wind is blowing, they don't weigh anything because they're flying.
Touche. Yeah,
exactly. Cool. And then I guess the last big one is paragliders. Since stalling is like such a big deal for you guys, they I guess they think the same is true for hang gliders. We'll have new students stall their glider on like their first few flights on purpose. If you have ground clearance, it's not a big deal. They will, you know, the nose will drop. It'll recover on its own. That's all built in. So obviously stalling at the ground, you know, stalling near an obstacle, that can be bad. But if you're up in the air, it's really not a problem. Hmm.
What about the landing? You know what I see? I see really hot pilots down in Valle do the whole ground effect where they're coming in at a zillion miles an hour. Man, it looks cool. It looks so fun. And they'll just go and go and go and go and go. But I think that's one of the things, you know, seeing that whole, you know, kind of pitch up at the end. And man, if you screw that up, you're 10 feet off the ground. You're hanging underneath this big heavy thing. Is that just something you just figure that out? And it's no, that's always for me kind of, whoa, God, man, that looks, I mean, I'm 54. I don't, I don't want to hit the ground from 10 feet off. It's going to hurt.
For sure. I mean, one thing about that is speed is safety. And in hang gliding, you know, we have this pitch control. We can get a lot of speed. And I think that's a little off putting maybe for paragliders, but having, having that speed, that's actually a really good thing. It's when the pilots, when hang glider pilots come in slow and like mushing to the ground. That's when things are really going to go wrong. If they're getting that long ground effect, like ground skin, that's, that's really safe. Yeah.
Yeah. They got a pressurized canopy. I mean, that's for us, that would be, obviously you're not pressurizing your canopy, but it's, it's a same thing. You know, we talk about that all the time. People get, especially coastal pilots who are used to ridge soaring and not moving very fast because there's quite a bit of wind. And then you put them in the mountains and they relate. It hasn't hit the synapses quite. You know that. Yeah. And so they, they're not traveling as fast and they're very close to collapse because they don't have the airspeed, you know, so they don't, they don't have a very pressurized glider. And that's, you know, like you're talking about, you can just spin in or stall in and you think you're fine because you've been flying at the coast and you're barely moving. So you've got to make that adaption when you go somewhere else where you're not, you're not ridge soaring anymore. You're just flying in thin air.
For sure. And then with what you mentioned with the like. Flaring too early or whatever ballooning 10 feet up. That can happen. That's that can be scary. I think a lot of that is just learning to feel the glider and you can really feel it. You do practice. And that's not really an issue. Like the only time I've ballooned ballooned up like that recently has been on purpose because I wanted to land on the spot, which is stupid. Like, don't do that. But in general, it doesn't, it doesn't really happen if you are really in tune with your glider and feeling it. But something I like to tell people. Is if that's something they're worried about is often maybe not so much in Valle because it's higher altitude. So it's a little bit harder. But if, if you, especially if you have wind or if you're at a lower altitude, you can run out your landing.
And a lot of people don't like this. Like I'll post run out landings on the internet and people will be like, why didn't you flare and all this stuff? And this is another thing that I would love if the culture could just shift away from this a little bit. But run out landings are completely valid way to land and they can be safer. So when I transitioned up to like a U2, which is a kind of high intermediate glider, and then I've also started flying topless gliders a little bit. All my first landings, I did run out landings because I wasn't sure about the flare timing. And it's a safe way to land. If you're, and also if like your wings aren't level, you should be doing run out landing. Like you can't really flare if your wings aren't level. So I feel that doing that lets you kind of start to feel the flare timing. And after I did that a few times, I felt confident and then I was able to flare it just fine.
Yeah. So that's the way to kind of work towards it.
What about misconceptions from the other side of the fence?
Yeah, I think on the hang glider side, I think hang gliders think that paragliders are just collapsing all the time, every day. And you guys are just throwing reserves all over the place. And that's not the case. It does happen sometimes, but I think it's not as much as we think. And honestly, I'll be flying in crazy conditions and I'll be getting thrown around on the hang glider. And then I'll see a paraglider and they're actually doing just fine. And it's actually pretty amazing. I think how much that's progressed. So definitely a lot better than hang gliders often think it is. I think another thing is before I started paragliding, I thought kiting was just super safe, like nothing can go wrong. Because when you're ground handling a hang glider, that's pretty much the case. I think the worst thing that can really happen, ground handling a hang glider, if you're not on launch, if you're just, you know, somewhere on flat ground, is maybe you'll get flipped over.
Which isn't even very likely, but maybe that'll happen. And that's not bad. You just flip the glider back over. Usually it's fine. And then you just, you know, go on with your day. But with kiting, I've learned, you know, you can get plucked, you can get dragged. All this stuff can happen, especially in higher winds. So you do kind of need more, I think, knowledge than hang gliders might assume.
Hang gliders often think that, you know, paragliders are still all very slow, very low performance. When now there's been so much growth in that area. The paraclites are amazing. Watching them fly in like these really high winds. It's incredible, honestly. I know some of the records being set on paragliders too is just, it's amazing. So that's an outdated assumption.
I don't know if you saw this, but Antoine Girard just put up a 400K FAI in Pakistan recently. That's crazy. In the big stuff. That is crazy. Yeah, that's amazing. That's a big flight. Yeah.
Yeah. Any hang glider who's like, oh, paragliders are just low and they can't go anywhere is like completely wrong at this point. Yeah. I think the last one is before I started paragliding and when I talked to other hang glider pilots too. I think a lot of us have no idea that paragliders use weight shift. Like we think they just pull the brakes. So that was kind of an interesting thing to learn. And it also is helpful for when we're flying together because if you see someone kind of like lean to the side before their hands even move, like you know which way they're going to turn.
They're signaling what they're doing. Yeah. Exactly.
So I think that's an important one for flying together.
Yeah. Yeah. Because we don't like to get waked by you guys. I don't like to get behind a hang glider. There's quite a bit of air moving back there. Yeah. You know, like a tandem paraglider, same thing. I'm always a little more wary when I'm behind a tandem paraglider or a round of tandem paraglider. They can really upset the airflow quite a bit more than a solo wing.
Yeah. I was on a low day at Torrey and there was this tandem paraglider doing wing overs. And it was so annoying and like just difficult because the wake from that and I'm already like really close to the cliff on my hang glider. And that was not fun. So yeah, wake from it's not fun. But that's one of the things about flying together is paragliders can turn left and right much faster. But hang gliders can go up or down. I would say mainly down much faster. Yeah.
They can really speed up.
Yeah. We can dive. We can dive underneath. But we won't be able to turn left and right quite as fast because there's more
of a delay. Right. So when you're thermaling together, these are good things to be aware of. I don't know. What is your sense? I think in the beginning from, you know, the stories I hear, it was a little bit snowboarding, skiing in the beginning. You know, those guys, those guys. I feel like that's not really a thing anymore. What do you feel? I mean, I feel like in general when we see hang gliders, we're just stoked. We're really impressed. And we just think they look cool and they fly great and they're amazing aircraft. And, you know, unfortunately, you know, looking at you, you're young in the air sport. And, you know, I think unfortunately there's just, you know, a lot of the really good hang gliders are getting up there.
But it seems pretty friendly. Would you agree with that?
It really depends. It really depends on who it is. I think there's a lot of hang glider pilots now who fly both and they tend to be a lot more friendly. But the hang glider pilots who don't still tend to be kind of annoyed. I think a lot of the reason for that is just that paragliders have so many misconceptions about hang gliders and hearing that all the time and hearing paragliders be like, why would you do that? Like, it must take an hour to set up. Like, why are you flying old gliders? Yeah,
that gets old, doesn't it? Yeah, I hear you.
And so I think it's not entirely, you know, unfair that a lot of hang glider pilots feel that way. So,
yeah, no, I'm with you. I think that makes sense. I do think
if I tell hang glider pilots I was paragliding, sometimes they're kind of annoyed. But it was cool when I was learning. And I think I'd just gone on like a week long hang gliding trip or something or I went to a competition. And then I came back and they're like, oh, like, were you paragliding? I was like, no. But they're like, oh, at least you're in the air. And that was it was really nice to have that. Paragliders don't seem to really care what you're flying as long as you're flying. So that was on the hang gliding side. It's not quite as accepting all the time, which I understand. But, you know, it's it could be a little friendlier for sure.
Interesting. You mentioned in your email to me that one of the really cool tools for education. And instructing and learning our cameras. I hadn't thought about that. I don't know why I hadn't thought about that. We use video a lot in SIV training, of course. So you can really see often things are happening so fast. A lot of students just can't catch up to what's just what is happening or has just happened. And so video can be a really good tool for that. But I think you're talking about using it for it just in training in general. Correct?
Yeah. I use video a lot to analyze launches and landings. And like I said, that's a really important thing for me. I think on the hang glider, it's kind of easier because you can just mount it on the glider and then just have that.
Yeah, super cool.
So a lot of people use Insta360 now, which are super cool for making videos for social media. But they're actually not very good from what I've seen for analyzing your flights. Like I'll have a landing where I did a lot of things wrong and I'm annoyed about it. But then I'll look at the Insta360. And it looks great. Oh. That's cool. Just too wide angle? I guess. I don't know. But I'm like, that's cool. I'm going to post that one. And then no one's going to complain about whatever I did wrong, which is awesome. But it doesn't actually help you analyze your own flight. So I think what I recommend for that for hang gliders is a GoPro or similar camera on the keel. And that can really help you with launching, with landing, seeing your nose angle, seeing what your hands are doing, seeing what your body is doing.
And I will do that on most of my flights. Actually, every flight, I'll look at my launch and my landing and be like, how could I improve this? Is there anything I did wrong? What can I do next time to make it better? And a lot of people, you'll see someone have a not great landing. And a lot of the times, they'll blame it on the conditions. And the camera can really show, was it actually that or was it something I did? And I think it's really important to recognize that. And then if it was you, take responsibility for that. And then figure out how to fix it. Yeah.
I imagine hang gliding is maybe easier in some ways for launching in more cross. I don't know. Maybe not. But in paragliding, if you see somebody blow a launch, it's, oh, the conditions are right. No, you're crap at ground handling. It's an easy one. And we've tried to really correct that culturally.
It's the conditions. No, it's not. You're not doing it right. Absolutely. If you pulled it out of the bag, you should be able to launch in whatever you're looking at. And do it nicely with style and nail it. The camera thing is interesting because I think there's a big difference here, I'm guessing, because you could mount the camera like that and just press go. We think, anecdotally, here we go again, but we think that GoPros are causing a lot more mayhem in our sport, especially with those kind of sub-100-hour programs. The pilots are the pilots because it's adding a level of complication and a thing you've got to fiddle with. You got to mount it. It's in the way. It potentially could get caught if you had a big collapse, if you've got it on your head.
But it's mostly just that to fly well, you've got to observe. You've got to be aware of other people, especially if you're thermaling with them, but also just the terrain and your glide and the whole thing. And then, you know. when you're new, that's a lot that, you know, your, your, your brain is processing a lot and it's not necessarily intuitive yet. You know, that's, that's coming hopefully, but it's not when you're new at all, there's just so much going on. And then to add a camera because you want to show your friends what you've done, you know, it's something we've really kind of gone, Hey, be careful with this. You know, you don't say no to anybody, but you're just, uh, you know, if I had a student, I, yeah, let's keep that in the bag for a while.
I think what I love is somebody videoing that person. But like you said, with the hang glider, I think that could be, it's not an issue, is it? You mount it, you turn it on and do your flight. It's not something you're really, and you're, and you're looking, you're having it look at you and you're not, you know, I think a lot of paragliders are getting in trouble because they're filming what's out there. Look at how beautiful this is. And they're not paying attention.
Yeah. I mean, I think if, if you're not having them film themselves, then having someone film them is not necessarily better because they're still on the camera. They're still like doing something for the camera. Yeah. I will say having them, the thing mountain on their head, that is so scary to me on a paraglider. I've seen the lines get wrapped around that and people kind of being dragged and stuff. And I will, I will never do that on a paraglider. I hope, uh, if I do like someone to tell me to stop, please. Yeah. On the hang glider. Yeah. Like you said, you just put on the key, you say, go, you don't have to. I think when you get a little bit more advanced, I have a remote so I can just turn it on and off. Cause it's not going to last like the entire flight, but for a new pilot, who's just going to do a short flight, it'll easily last. So I think.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
If someone is distracted by it or something like shirt for that person don't have it, but I think it could be a case by case basis even.
What keeps you jazzed about flying after all this time? What's is, you know, do you, if you did it as a profession, you're doing it every day, same kind of passion? Is it, is it, is it that you've, you've got to work and you dream about it Monday through Friday and then you get to go flying or what keeps you excited about it?
Yeah. I, I'm sure if I did it every day, I would still love it just as much. Um, I don't. So, I mean, it's hard to say, you know, how I would feel in that situation, but I think for me recently, like I said, my first like 10 years or so, I didn't really get to fly that much. And then the past five years, I would say I've just grown so much as a pilot. I started competitions a few years ago. I moved up to a sport class glider last year, I guess it was, I started flying topless gliders. And so I've really been working on kind of getting some of the basics. I've started cross country flying with competitions and there's just been so much to learn and so much to do. And it's just been, it's been a lot of fun.
When I got the list of people that I've, you know, to interview a good friends with a guy named Gary Wordham and, in Italy, and he flies commercial jets, but he's also a very talented hang glider. And he gave me the list and you were on it. And he said that he's just, this, it's just great to have a female in a sport. Cause there's not many of them, which is the same in paragliding. Talk about that dynamic for a bit. You know, what is there been, I don't know, barriers to entry awkwardness on launch, you know, the whole male thing, you know, you do it this way. Uh, I don't know. What's, what is that kind of journey been like for you? Has it been, supportive? Has it been frustrating? What do you see?
Yeah, it's been interesting for me since I think, since I entered it at kind of a younger age, I was just used to it. Like there were very few women and that's just kind of how it was. I think there's a lot more now, which is great. And also when I paraglide, there's a lot more, which is super, super cool. And I went to like one of the women's fly-ins for paragliding, which was really fun. I think like occasionally I do encounter sexism and things. I thought on launch, I went to Tori one time with, with a, with a guy friend and people, or there was a few people who came up to us. They only introduced themselves to him. They completely ignored that I was there. No way. Yeah. Even when we went out and like, we're setting up the gliders, they just like completely ignored me. I walked him up to launch.
He was flying a Falcon, which is like, you know, a small glider. And people were like, Oh, are you guys going tandem? And I'm like, do you see the size of this glider? And why would you even make that assumption? So definitely things like that happen. And that's frustrating. I think I get even more of it online and that can be very frustrating as well, but that's not from pilots so much. That's just from people. On the whole, you know, there's definitely instances like that, but there's also been a lot of support. So, you know, it's, I kind of put it out of my mind. So it's actually hard for me to think of examples. Like it definitely happens, but I try not to think about it. So that might not be the best way to do it, but you know, it, it helps keep you going and not just like dwell on these, these negative things.
You mentioned you're getting a little bit in a topless and competitions and that kind of thing. I mean, if you, do you have kind of a goal sheet, something you're working on? What is the, what are the next year, maybe five years look like for you? What are you excited about getting into doing if anything differently or change?
Yeah. My, so my fiance, he's also a pilot and we talk about this a lot and he's really, he's really goal motivated. Like he wants to do loops. Like he has like very specific things he wants to do. I don't really have that. I just want to like, not, I just want to be better than I am. Like I'm always really focused on just improving whether that's launches or landings, or I've been working a lot on thermaling because thermaling has always been something that's been not like I'm, I'm okay at it, but I'm not, I want to be better. You know, I want to be really good at it. I want to be better. So it's really just about that for me, like just seeing the improvements going to more competitions is fun. I went to VA in February and that was my best competition I've done. I made goal on four of six days in sport class, which is like by far my best competition.
And so it was really cool to see that improvement. Um, but I just really like to keep improving and then keep working on topless gliders. Maybe I'm a little torn on flying topless because I don't, I don't
think that most people need to be flying topless gliders. It's like, if you're not doing aerobatics or not competing or trying to go like set distance records, there's not necessarily a good reason. You know, if your reason is I want to look cool, like that's not a good reason, right?
No, that's a terrible
reason. A more dangerous glider. So I don't necessarily want to be flying topless because I don't have a good reason to be flying topless. I think my reason right now is, is knowing I can do it, being able to do it. And then having that confidence actually gives me more confidence to fly other gliders, like not topless gliders. So gliders that might be too big for me or just other, like borrowing other people's gliders since I'm, since I was able to fly the topless basically, I had more confidence doing
that. Are you just taking a huge jump in risk going to topless? Is that because of the speed? Is that, what, what is it? Is it higher aspect?
Yeah, it's, it's that. Shiffer, it's heavier. So it has more inertia. So it's harder to launch, harder to land in the air. It will respond a lot more slowly than a sport class glider or a falcon. So you just kind of have to be prepared for that. Like putting your turn input and then wait a while and then it'll turn. That's, that goes up with like every glider, but with the topless, it's just, it's just the biggest effect.
I know you, you worked with, on the board with USHPA for a long time and, uh, that's with the audiences being from all over the world. I don't want to get into USHPA, but I would be curious about, you know, there's been this massive safety debate, uh, especially at the higher end of the paragliding sport after there was a death at the world's last fall in Brazil. And it got, you know, as things do these days because of social media, it just really kind of blew up. And, you know, uh, what, what the behind the scenes, what people were, really grappling with is, you know, there was this immediate attempt to, okay, here's all the things we've got to tackle. Here's the things we should change. Here's the things we should implement, but there's no data.
A lot of these things are just opinions. You know, what will we need a conical end of speed? Is that where we have accidents? I mean, I I've been racing for a very long time. I've never seen an accident and goal. And so, uh, you know, it's most of the time it's on launch or, you know, over bad terrain. It's that we, people come in racing low on bar. But it seems to work out anyway. I mean, obviously not always, but we don't have data. We're not collecting it very well. We don't know. Uh, and so these are just opinions often of people who are just really passionate about sharing it, you know? And so it's, it's hard to just cut through the noise on a lot of this stuff. And I mean, I don't think anybody goes, no, we don't want to make it safer. I mean, I think it's, it's all good intentions, but I'm curious if you know, or if, if there are even statistics and of course we got to look at per capita, but which, what is more dangerous?
Is it hang gliding? Is it paragliding? Is it speed flying? Well, we know speed flying is more dangerous than both, but, uh, but I'm just curious. Do you, did you look, did you have any, did you have access to that kind of data? Is that data out there? I don't even know.
I'm so glad you said there's no data because there is no data. Um, maybe the insurance company has it. But I was on USP staff, not, not the board and I never saw, no, it's okay. I never saw that. And it's, yeah. I mean, I have a lot of my own opinions about which is safer and whatever, but it's anecdotal, right?
Everything's anecdotal.
Yeah. There's no data. And it's interesting too, because when I wrote, I wrote an article for pilot magazine about the misconceptions between the two sports. And I did say like, there's no data. We don't know which is safer. And they took that out. They're like, you can't include this. And they didn't give me a reason, but they're like, we don't want to say this. And I don't know why, but, um, but it's true.
There's no data. It's amazing because, you know, when you talk to airline pilots and several of them have reached out to me as a result of all this social media noise going on about this, you know, the safety debate and they just can't believe it. I mean, they're pilots, so they know, but it's, it's, it's pretty hard to understand how there isn't data. You know, when I, I run comps, I'm an event organizer and civil collects them in one way and USHPA collects them in another way for the first few years. I didn't even know anybody did collect them. And I, that I had to, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of mind blowing that we don't have, we should have this stuff down. You know, there should be just a template, you know, what were the conditions?
How did it happen? Was it gear? Was it personal? Was it what happened? You know, what, what did they throw? Reserve? Was the reserve successful? What kind of reserve? 20 things collected around the world. And we would, then it wouldn't be anecdotal. We would know it. It's again, it's kind of frustrating. I wasn't planning on getting off on this thing. I was just curious if, because I think people getting into the sport that don't know anything, that's going to be one of the things on their mind. You know, I think a lot of people get into speed flying, don't even know it's dangerous. And you know, you're flying really low to the ground. It's kind of obvious that wingsuiting and speed. Flying would be statistically more dangerous. Well, I think we know that, but beyond that, it is pretty anecdotal. And it, I mean, it'd be curious for, I just don't even know if paragliding is, there are more paragliding accidents for sure, but there's more paragliders.
So what does it come down to? Which one is, it seems that, I mean, again, completely anecdotally. Yeah. Well, you said I've got opinions about this. What is your opinion about it? It seems to me, hang gliding is less dangerous. These days, but I don't know. Maybe that's just because much less people are doing it. I don't know.
Yeah. Well, anecdotally what I tell people when they ask me, which is safer. I just say anecdotally, again, the injury rate is on or not rate, but the most common injury on a hang glider is broken arm, which sucks, but you know, it heals the most common. That's because
landing, you have a hard landing.
That's because if you hold on to the down tubes, which is, usually where your hands are when you're landing, you can swing through because you're not, you know, your, your body's just not connected. Yeah. Basically you swing through and that twists your arm in a way that breaks it.
Okay. Yeah.
It's a spiral humerus fracture. It's super common. And, and there are ways like people say to let go, which I don't necessarily agree with either, but that's kind of a different topic. But then anecdotally on a paraglider, the most common injury is broken back neck pelvis, right? So much worse.
Right. So I
say that to people and I'm like, which would you rather have? Honestly?
Yeah. Ah, interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, this, this is in my emergency notes with the inReach, you know, Gavin McClurg has crashed it likely from paragliding is likely spinal. It's not unlikely going to be an arm. Exactly. I'd rather have an arm.
You can break other things hang gliding too. And actually I've heard recently about more, um, broken necks. So then I expected not recent accidents, but just like in general. And I think that's from when people do, if people do let go to avoid breaking an arm, then you're risking your head hitting the keel and then you're risking a broken neck. So to me, I'm like, you know, I'd rather again, break my arm than break my neck. It was, it was super funny, actually not, not funny, but I posted because I did break my arm, um, in 2019, uh, flying at Monroe. And basically I just was landing cross. Wind and I tried to run, but I fell on my wheels and then I hit a bush and then I swung through. So it was like super, you know, it was very preventable, but super kind of common accident kind of thing that can happen.
And I posted about it, you know, later and someone, and I was like, I don't want to hear about how you should let go. Cause I don't really think that's the best idea. And this guy messaged me and he was like, you totally should have let go. I had an accident like that. I let go. All that happened was I dented my helmet. And I was like, wait, you dented your helmet. Like, were you okay? And he's like, Oh, I was in a coma for three days, but I didn't break my arm.
I'm like, I think you're proving my point here, dude.
Oh my God. You definitely proving your point. Oh my gosh. That's ridiculous. There
are ways to do it. I think if you let go, if you try to kind of twist to the side, I've heard can maybe kind of protect your neck from hitting the keel or the thing I like that. Um, I mean, I haven't done it, but I like the idea is if you kind of hug the high side, um, like the high down tube, theoretically your body would spin around that tube instead of you swinging through and breaking your arm. And that also is that gives you the added benefit of like, then the glider absorbs the impact instead of you theoretically
use that as the pad in a sense. Um,
just another thing about hanging there is like, we do have that big metal, like crash frame that paralyzed. So in some sense it can hurt you with like the broken arm, but in other senses, like it can really, it's
going to absorb. Yeah, sure. We're, we're getting into an interesting area here. I just recorded a podcast yesterday with an instructor who's up in Oregon and been instructing for a very long time. And we started talking about you just aviating and aviation has inherent risks, right? Whether you're airplane or paraglider, hang glider, balloon, whatever, you know, you're, you're off the ground. Gravity's gravity's, harsh. Uh, you were, we're talking about some things. I think the audience probably going, man, this sounds scary. It isn't broken arms and no big deal. But, uh, as an instructor, when you're teaching people who come, I I've run into a lot of folks who are, you know, they're, they're in that intermediate syndrome phase, you know, they're in the kind of the middle and they'll say, you know, yeah, no one told me this was dangerous in the beginning.
I mean, obviously you figure that out as you go along. And, but, I mean, in a sense, if you're an instructor and it's a business and you're trying to attract people to the sport and we're all trying, I'm totally with you. And if I get hurt, I'm not going to post it on Instagram. There's plenty of that out there, but at the same time, I mean, it's kind of two ways, isn't it? On the, on the one hand you go, yeah, we don't need that for the sport. Uh, on the other hand, I don't know that this is a sport we want to have huge growth in, you know, it, it just is dangerous. We can't remove the danger from it necessarily. Um, there's all kinds of things we can do to mitigate it, which is fantastic. You know, there's not a lot you can mitigate if you're, if you're wingsuiting, for example, but you can mitigate a lot training, ground handling, margin, uh, uh, complacency, you know, being wary of complacency, uh, hours, you know, being current, there's all kinds of things we can do.
That's what this podcast is all about. But, uh, my, my question is, I mean, do we, how much do we want to hammer this home when you get a brand new student that comes to your hill to learn? What's your approach there? Cause you, you've had quite a conservative approach to hang gliding and that's, I think very wise.
Yeah. We, we try to be very honest. I think it's, it's tough, right? Because I think, especially with all the misconceptions about hang gliding, like everyone seems to think that hang gliding is super dangerous. And I think that's because, I think that's because, I think that's because, I think that's because, I think hang gliding was the most popular when it was the most dangerous. So I'll have people commenting on my videos who are like, Oh yeah, I saw someone who stalled and crashed. And then I'll be like, okay, when was that? And they're like, Oh, 1976. Like it's completely different sport now than it used to be, but people still have this idea because hang gliding was the first thing. And it was, you know, really big for a long time. And so I think people already come into it with this idea that it's dangerous often.
Which maybe is not so much the case with paragliding. I wonder actually, especially since paragliding is so easy to get started in. And I feel like the risks, like you don't really see them until later all the time. Maybe we do try to be honest with people and it depends on the instructor. Like when I started the instructor here on the school, like he actively tried to talk me out of it and my parents out of it. He was like, this is really dangerous. Like you shouldn't do it. Yeah. So we don't take that approach quite that much anymore, but I mean, we'll still tell people, you know, you can crash, you can watch crash videos online and like, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't post the crash video online, I think, but I would say I crashed. Like I would like, if I crashed, I would post about it. Just not the video.
Yeah. Uh, that's an interesting one. How, okay. Gavin McClurg hasn't flown. Either thing comes to your hill and wants to. Aviate has no idea if he should paraglide or hang glide. Which one, which one takes less time to walk away and do your own thing. You know, do you guys have the same ratings as a P2? I'm sorry. Uh, H2 is that you have the same system more or less, right?
Yep. Same system. Yeah, definitely. Which one's faster? Paragliding is way faster. Paragliding is way faster to learn. You can take, uh, someone off the street. That's what they do, right? Many schools, like they, they get their wing up and they just send them off the top. And then they're like, Oh, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And it's very intuitive and you figure it out and they can do that first thing. We can't really do that with hang gliding. Hang gliding is a lot less intuitive learning to feel the glider. I wouldn't say it takes longer. I would just say that it's necessary to feel the glider properly to fly it properly. Whereas with paragliding, you, you don't really need to, there's so much that a first day student, like they're not feeling any of it, but they can still like pull the brakes and like get it down safely. I would say. Yeah.
Follow along on the radio and, and do what they say. Yeah.
Definitely paragliding is easier to get started in, but I think that paragliding is much more difficult to master or to like get through like the intermediate part safely.
Yeah. Russ Augustine always says it's so easy to learn and so easy to get good at or so hard to get good at, you know, it takes a long time to get even really very proficient. You know, like you said, anybody can lob off a hill and not the training hill. You have thoughts about that training hills. Uh, talk about that. I
love training hills. I wish more people went back to them. I think anytime there's an opportunity to go to a training hill, I am at the training hill. I don't know why I like it so much, but I think it's, it's what I said before about really wanting to perfect everything about my technique. A lot of that is launches and landings. Like that's where you're going to get hurt on a hang glider. I suppose on a, I suppose on a paraglider too, but if you can do your launches and landings like very safely and confidently, then that's like the main thing you have to worry about. So yeah. Training hills are a lot of fun for me. And then also, you know, if they're windy, then you can try to store them or try to top land them depending on the hill. And there's a lot of things you can do on a training hill or, you know, do spot landing contests. We just went a couple of months ago, or actually I guess it was last month.
So Kitty Hawk Kites in North Carolina, they have a dune competition every year called the spectacular. And so literally you're just running down the training hill, like doing a course and trying to spot land and it's a competition. So we just did that, you know, for a weekend. That was super fun.
So for those listening who either have never hang glided or have never flown, you know, they're just, they're just interested in maybe getting into the sport. They've seen your videos and that kind of thing. Where would you tell them to go? As I get this one a lot from people that, Hey, I'm either coming to the United States or, Hey, I've listened to some of your shows, or I saw this on YouTube, whatever. Where should I go learn? And I I've got my favorite places to send people. And that's always a little bit inscribed by where I learned myself and where I was growing up on. But, you know, we, we know the instructors are out there. We know the good training kills. Where's a good place to go to learn how to hang glide? And if you, I mean, if you can reach, but I don't know if you know those spots in Europe as well, but just you know, our audience is all over the place, but the, where, where's a good, where is a good place to go figure this out in a safe manner?
Yeah, I don't know the spots in Europe. I normally when people message me about this online i just say you know look online for a school in your area i mean there are places like you know our school wind sports in los angeles um there's a school at the point of the mountain and point the mountain is an amazing place to learn i think um either sport i would you know top uh top place but um especially with hang gliding it's not i know with paragliding you can do like a two-week course and like get your p2 and then you walk away and you're a pilot that's not really the same with hang gliding a lot of the time it just takes a while to learn and you have to have different conditions and do all these different things so i think traveling to learn to hang gliding um can be more difficult so that's why i tell people you know look for a school in your area because that'll just be kind of the most consistent um way to learn i
recently we were a friend of mine and i were coaching this hike and fly clinic before a little hike fly race that i i have out here in the lost rivers in idaho a couple weekends ago and one of the students a good friend of mine actually he's been flying for about 10 years he's a good pilot and and he's and i said what when in the initial thing what do you all want to get out of this course i mean you know make sure we teach you what you want what you came here for and he said you know i i haven't flown really anywhere where there wasn't i didn't get a site briefing you know that i i didn't i'm not used to just going to a place and rocking up and flying off which in hike and fly that's all you're doing you're very rarely flying an established site you're just well this looks good and i can get my wing out of here uh and it's the right aspect and i say so that just blew me away i i mean i haven't been to a place and gotten a site briefing in 15 plus years i mean this was the first couple weeks of my flying career and then after that this looks nice uh so but you know my focus has been a lot on hike and fly that kind of thing i mean you know you're not going to get any site briefings in the excel you're not going to get kind of deal but i was surprised with that but it was he left the course really jazzed about just looking at something and going yeah i can make that work and for me that's just the best way to learn is to fly new places i think you've got some thoughts on that just uh you know reach going beyond your comfort zone a little bit yeah
i feel like it's a little different in that sense because you are usually getting briefings i mean you're driving
up the hill so you aren't really going more to establish sites sure yeah
yeah we are doing that i would say i think for going beyond your comfort zone though one of the tools that i really like to recommend is there's a hang gliding simulator called free flight experience and with that you can it has like a ton of sites and you can go fly them it's in vr and kind of get you know this is the opposite of hiking fly up it's it's all you know like i said it's it's all defined sites but you can get your free flight experience and you can get comfortable with the site and i've also used it though for landing weird places so cross country in socal especially for hang gliding is kind of sketchy there's just like not many places to land and it's so developed and there's one spot at crest line where if you get low there like you basically can't get out and so halfway down the mountain it was pointed out to me that there's like a field that people have used for back
by that road yeah sorry that it's back by that road down and to the right i think oh
um it's it's a ranger station oh
okay yeah yeah
there's a ranger station that's like by the highway and it's like halfway down yeah
down the
mountain and so i hope to never land there in my entire life but i landed there in the simulator a few times and that was super helpful because there's really only one way to approach it on a hang glider because there's all these road signs and you have to like go between them and they go up this hill and again i hope to never do this for real but doing it on the simulator is pretty fun and it really gives you the feeling that you're actually doing it so there's a lot you can do with the simulator you can practice thermaling you can go to new sites you can land at places that you hope to never land but i really recommend that as a way to kind of even for advanced pilots like progress safely and for beginner pilots to go to the site and not do those things but at least you feel more confident that you could i
don't know if we even have anything i mean i know uh uh somebody reached out recently that they're working on that for paragliding but i don't know that we have that but i've flown simulators for sailplanes and i know they that's a big part of their training and they can and they're amazing they're i mean they're very accurate and it's it's great because you crash and it doesn't mean anything yeah
there's condor for uh sail yes i use that i use that for thermal practice to kind of try to visualize the thermals and things like that i crash the sailplanes all the time i don't know how to uh my experience with condor yeah i blow a sailplane up like every time
yeah and they're pretty expensive i'm told so i'm not sure we should we should probably keep it to condor yeah
exactly yeah no i actually uh actually went in the sailplane with a friend and i was like just having blown it up so many times i was just it just actually psyched me out a little bit
correct yeah
it was good it was fun erica
thanks for coming on the show i really appreciate it and this is uh some good fun information and i i'm sure this will inspire people to come out and do some dune flying and and get into the sport every time i talk to a hang glider i say why am i not doing this i need to do this i can't remember who it was but somebody just made it really obvious well you know what's better and they said well how do eagles fly we're prone and i thought yeah okay you got it what
people say is like everything's better about paragliding except for the flying and the flying is why we do it so well
said
well erica thank you very much i appreciate it and uh it's good to see you and hope i get to fly with you out there soon in california or yeah that'd
be awesome thanks so much we
used to have hang gliders here we haven't seen anybody hang gliding in an awful long time so yeah put together a crew and come out maybe
we'll come up that'd be awesome that'd be really fun
that would be fun cheers if
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