Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Before we get into this show, this amazing show, with Jeremy Soper, who broke the hang gliding out-and-back record this year in Kenya, breaking Owen Morse's record, who we've also had on the show, out in the Sierras quite a few years back. And he went 377, I believe, in Kenya, and great story about all that. But before we get to it, just wanted to, once again, thank you all for getting through this period of switching over to our subscriber channel to get those full-length shows. The difficulties are becoming less and less. Most people have figured it out. But if you're still struggling with any of that, let me know.
Send me an email, just get on the website, and you'll find the contact page there. Send me an email, and I'll get you all set up. But we're putting things up on the website that encodes your username and password. For those of the podcasting apps that require that, for linking to that feed, which not many of them do, but a couple do. But anyway, we're figuring it out. It's getting easier and easier. And we thank you for your patience and your support of the show. It makes it all happen. Thank you, and thanks for listening. So yeah, this one with Jeremy, he's a British pilot, and he's been into hang gliding for a long time. And he really likes pushing limits and going big. And this year, he laid down... After weeks of trying, a big one in Kenya. Had a number of other big ones, but then laid down the big, big one, 377 out and back, which broke the HG out and back record.
And talks about all the kind of trials and tribulations and risks of doing that in Kenya and landing out and doing it with a hang glider. And all the benefits and joy of flying prone. And as I have promised, we're going to be getting more hang gliders on the show. We've needed to do that for years. I've been slacking doing that. But Jeremy's also, he just moved out to California to raise some money. And he's got a pretty positive outlook on the potential for AI. And of course, some of the risks that we're hearing a lot in the news and the media these days. But his angle is really cool. It's using robots to weed organic farms. Which is always tricky with weeding.
But in general, but instead of using Roundup and pesticides, using robots. So we talk a bit about AI and the future of AI and robots and where that's going. And just a fascinating talk with a fascinating individual who just happens to fly hang gliders really, really well. He also laid down a pretty big FAI triangle from the Col de Lazard. Where all the number of PG records have gone down this year. Where I ended my 2021 record. race, I believe is right where I ended that. But, uh, yeah, he laid down a 325 FAI and talks about, you know, just almost a call out to the hang gliding community that, uh, they got to go bigger than paragliders. And right now, the FAI record is, is in the hands of paragliders, so he talks about that.
That's, uh, not a good thing for the future of hang gliding. So we get into a little bit of that future of the hang gliding and also some up and coming potential, really, uh, big changes in flex form and, and how hang glider and what hang gliders can do and, uh, improving on their design, which hasn't seen a real major shift in quite some time. So that was pretty exciting as well. Lots of good things here and whether, what whatever wing you fly, this is, uh, really fun and a really cool talk with a very fascinating individual. You enjoy it, Jeremy.
It's great to have you on the show, and I appreciate you fitting this in, considering it sounds like you've been moving all over the place. I have, indeed. Last I saw your stuff was in the Kario Valley in, in Kenya, and now I think we should start with what you're doing. You're British, but you're in Silicon Valley zone to what with robots come here to
Make my, make my fortune. The streets are paved with gold, haven't you heard? I am here to, be right, um, well, ultimately automate all physical labor and build us the infrastructure of abundance on Earth and in space. But we're starting by deploying tele-operated humanoid avatars to weed organic farms in the Salinas Valley, which is the salad bowl of the world, just an hour out of Silicon Valley. And we'll be basically mounting 16 pairs of humanoid arms on the back of a tractor and tele-operating them remotely from Honduras to pull weeds out of the ground. Wow.
Okay, so I think we got to start with, what's your view of AI? Sounds like yours is, is maybe more optimistic than some, yeah.
I, I am in the business of of AI, so I'd better sound positive, but I think it's, uh, so far it's largely over-promised and under-delivered when it comes to the physical world. And so that's why we're keeping humans in the loop for as long as it takes to automate and work reliably, because lots of people have tried to deploy them and they've failed and they've failed and they've failed and they've failed and they've deployed robots into the real world and they've, they've failed miserably. And and we're not going to make exactly those same mistakes, hopefully.
And what is your vision for, you know, if, if, if we can use robots to, to, uh, you know, to, to gather lettuce and we, we, we kill all those jobs, is it? Do you see a vision where, you know, robots are able to radically increase abundance across the planet and if it aligns with, you know, human goals, you know, I think the most optimistic view is it. There's, there's plenty of everything and, and, and most problems are solved, uh, either quickly or sometime in the near future, which gives everybody, everybody, top to bottom, a lot more time if we can figure out how it doesn't go to just the top. But is it a UBI? How do, what do we do with, you know, if we don't need plumbers anymore?
UBI?
Is is that's probably going to be some form of UBI, uh, you know, I think we would say that for illustration, agriculture went from involving 99 percent of the population to involving less than two percent in the space of a few generations, uh, whilst increasing yield 50 to 100 times. So we've, we've already experienced the biggest step change within living memory, and there's no reason that a similar multiplication couldn't happen again, that we can just keep driving down the number of people involved in, in certain physical industries whilst freeing them up to do things that we can't even imagine, uh, as of today. So there will be, there will always be things for people to do, and we just don't know what they are yet.
I, I, one of my favorite podcasters is Sam Harris, you know, philosopher and everything else. I don't know how much you listen to him, but he, people have been asking him a lot, you know, "Hey, I'm going into college, what kind of degree should I get?" and, you know, "Is it going to be eliminated?" and his, his answer lately is really, you know, "We just don't know." And, you know, you know we're still going to need doctors, even though, you know, AI can take over a lot of clinical analysis kind of stuff, but we're still going to need them. We're still going to need nurses, we're still going to need philosophers, we're still going to need, you know, it's too early to, to say, you know, a degree is still important. What would you say to that? Where, where would you, if you had kids? Do you have kids? I do not, but
If I did, I would tell them. Would you?
where would you not necessarily
to to go down the traditional route of getting a degree, for me that was, that was what I thought I had to do. And I went and got as many hard skills as I could, but increasingly we're seeing soft skills being the valuable aspect of what keep us humans from going obsolete. So I would encourage them to to go and just make lots of friends and pursue passions, perhaps with with more emphasis than going down a specific career route, because I'm, if you find something you love, then then you'll become good at it, and then maybe you'll get paid for it further down the line, well
That was a brilliant segue without us planning it. Uh, I assume your... your passion is hang gliding or what? Yeah,
I've never yet worked. I don't know who you
Are what's that? I've never yet
worked out how to get paid for that. I'm not a good example.
I don't think too many people do, but uh, yeah. So, you know, somebody walks up to you in a bar, doesn't know who you are, and ask you, "Guys, get into a conversation," ask you, "Hey, what do you do?" or "Who are you?" How do you, how do you answer that? Are you a robotics engineer? Are you a hang glider? What do you do? How do you answer that question?
In a bar full of hang glider pilots, I'd say I'm a roboticist; and in a in a room full of roboticists, I'd say I'm a hang glider pilot. You always want to be the standout from the crowd, somebody different. Yes,
Yes, excellent, excellent. Uh, give us—give us the short to long, doesn't matter. This is a long-form podcast, but what's your—how'd you get into flying and what's—what's your history? Bring us—go to—go from the beginning to now. Yeah, and—and—and also, and somewhere in there, plug in what happened in January. Well,
From day one, I've always wanted to be an astronaut. You know, growing up, everyone goes through a little astronaut phase; I just never let go of it, because I haven't found anything, anything cooler you and exploring the final frontier. But there was one fairly substantial problem, and that was I was extremely scared of heights. I grew up in a bungalow, and I was terrified just going on to the the first floor of a building. I would, I would get vertigo looking out of a first floor window, and I knew I had to overcome this somehow, um, and where'd
You grow up, yeah, I grew up in
a bungalow in the middle of the the countryside in southwest England, and with more how where there's
big mountains
uh, massive, yeah, 300 feet
We've got more, more sheep than people for neighbors. Uh, had a great time, but yeah, I, I was, I was pretty scared of heights. Um, and I knew I needed to overcome this, and the best way to overcome your fears is to challenge them head-on. So I decided I was going to learn to fly, um, to, to get over that. And the cheapest way I could find to get in the air, well, actually the cheapest way, possibly the cheapest way, I became obsessed with, with wingsuiting videos on YouTube. And I was like, "That's what I need to do." Um, the ultimate thrill, blasting down a mountain, skimming the ground a few feet above certain doom. Um, and then I ran out of videos on YouTube because the guys who are making the videos were dying faster than they could get videos out.
And the YouTube algorithm said, "If you, if you like wingsuiting, maybe you would like hang gliding." That was the first time I came across hang gliding. It's thanks to the YouTube algorithm. And I thought, "Actually, that looks like it has a slightly higher survival rate," and it was a bit more accessible, given that there aren't too many massive cliffs in the UK. And so as soon as I got my driving license, I, I drove down to the nearest hang gliding school, which was with Fipsy in Cornwall, Cloud Nine. And the first time I'd ever seen a hang glider in real life was the first time I clipped into it for my first lesson, and then I was hooked.
You're shitting me? Really? You hadn't seen it? So where you lived, you hadn't... people aren't flying.
Wow, crazy. But I, I decided that there was something that captivated me about the prone, face-down position, and and that's what I had to do to really overcome my fear of heights—just fly like a bird in the most natural way possible. And it was very economical, too. So I went down there, and from the the moment I took my first hops, I was hooked, and I I gradually overcame my... you look
You look quite young. How? When was this? You...
flatter me. That was when I was 17, as soon as I got my driving license, and so I, I became the youngest pilot in Britain and, and I held on to that for the best part of a decade. I think I've now been flying 13 years; I just turned 30.
Okay, wow, amazing. And have you ever jumped ship and and and sat and flown those goofy looking things, or you you just stayed probably
hang gliding's been the gateway drug to all the sorts of aviation. I went on to get my fix wing and rotary, uh, licenses and microlight. I've flown, flown a lot of things. I did have a tandem paraglider flight, um, but it, it didn't cut the mustard. It's not prone, it's not, uh, yeah, it's no substitute to hang gliding, so I'm a bit of a puritan where that's concerned.
Excellent! Oh, we just radically increased our hang gliding listeners right now. That's perfect.
Yeah, you, you, you, you quote me in the chat box, and I just thought that, that's that's it for me. Something on your, on your out and back record in January, I know you're getting to that. I'm not trying to force you along, but, uh, what did you say it was? Great. Uh, let's see. Wait a minute, where was it? I've got the, I've got the XC mag thing pulled up here. What did you, I should, I should have, uh, highlighted it, but he said, "Let's go PGS," or something. Oh yeah, your move, PGS, of course.
It's a friendly rivalry, but it's, um, of course, yeah, it's—it's quite worrying, should we say that? Um, despite your ostensibly, um, well, theoretically lower performance, paragliders are inexorably creeping towards, uh, our world records and and I think that really, it's—it's an existential concern to hang gliding if paragliding, you're not able to hang gliding overtakes it in the record. I mean, it has done now for the triangle record by quite a margin and because, well, um, we all know that hang gliding can never compete in terms of portability and convenience, so our USP has to be better performance and and the only way to to
demonstrate better performance is to fly further, and if we're not doing that, then people coming into the sport, when they, when they're faced with a choice, do we go hang gliding or paragliding? I think one of the things, and that you're going to do, is is look up, what are the pros and cons? Um, which one? Okay, paragliding is more convenient, but if hang gliding is more performant and I can fly further, that's a, um, that's an advantage of hang gliding. And if, if we no longer have that, then there really aren't too many reasons for taking it other than it's a more bird-like sensation, and, and I could wax lyrical about that, but if you're new to the sport and you haven't experienced it firsthand, um, you're not going to be able to fly further, and if you're new to the sport and you're, it's hard to justify. So I'm trying to do my bit to keep the paragliders at bay, yeah.
Well, you've got some characters in your sport, you know. The last time we had an out and back record, it was Owen who you beat, Owen Morse, and you know, one of the best chugglers in the world. So that's, you guys got to just, you know, keep being really cool and and you'll, you'll do, you'll be just fine. But yeah, you know, Antoine Girard just laid down the 400 FAI, and in Pakistan, well, it sounds like we got to get you to Texas because, you know, I don't know if you heard, but Dustin, who has the current, right one-way, right? It's still, it's still his, isn't it? And hang gliding, yes, it is. Yeah, and it's, it's 700 and something, but he's, he was gonna go down with Jeff Shapiro this summer and try to break it on a paraglider, not it, but break, you know, that's where the our current world record is, is down in Texas and, uh, and he, but I don't know, it's, I think they're doing more instructing.
I haven't seen him head down that way, and they're also having a hell of a heat wave down there. It would be miserable, but yeah, we got to get you to Texas. I'd be pretty close to that getting
closer, yeah. Also, within the spitting distance of the Owens, for yeah.
If you've flown there? Not yet, I
Went up to Lake Tahoe, you're gonna dig that. A few weeks ago, and that was—that was awesome. So there's some cracking sites around here, yeah.
It doesn't get any good, doesn't get any bigger than in the Owens. That's, uh, it's some strong stuff. Great stories back, all the way back, the hang gliding days. But, well, cool. Uh, tell me about Kenya. Well,
I, I'd looked at the records, I figured the open distance is, is pretty insane. Um, and you probably have to be in, in Texas to have a shot at that. And the, the triangle, I've been trying a few triangles off the Col de Zoard in France, where the paragliders have been making a name for themselves. Um, but the, the
the out and return looked like the most feasible for me to, so I looked, uh, all over Google Earth for the longest continual ridges and came across the Rift Valley, and then realized the paragliders had already discovered it and made some inquiries, established that no one had flown a hang glider there since the Judy Leaden and co. went down in the 90s, and that was with an aerotow expedition. So no one had foot-launched the Rift and shipped a hang glider out fairly speculatively, um, several months in advance on a, on board a ship, um, with no real expectation that it would turn up in one piece or even, uh, in the same decade. But, uh, I thought it's worth a shot, and then quite surprised, really, to receive a call that it had indeed turned up.
So then I booked a flight out there, um, and found a willing driver with a safari wagon, and, um, we went to see what was what. No, um, well, no idea whether it was even flyable or what it was, and I was like, "Oh my god, it's a hang glider! It's a hang glider!" It's a whether we'd find anywhere suitable to launch, um, but we, we just went for it, and as it turned out, it was, uh, it was a fantastic place for hang gliding, just
you or just just myself?
and also had, well, Team Sopa and my father as well as, uh, well
Um, the the identity of, uh, of my observer must remain, um, under wraps because he or she was, uh, meant to be working from home that week, and so we, we don't let can't
write her out in
trouble with their employer, right?
So, so you, we, we went through that, and we went down in Texas and tried to break it a few years ago with the observer thing and all that. Do you have to have somebody present? Yep, I can't remember. Okay, so somebody has to actually be there, and it can't be somebody flying with you.
Um, if they are flying, it's possible that if they're still on the ground and they watch you take off, uh, then it's okay. But if they're already up in the air, well, they could technically witness you, um, but it's, yeah, a bit tricky, yeah.
Gotcha. Uh, and yeah, take us through it. So, you—you had, how long were you there? How long did it take to to figure it out? Because you had a—you had a big one on the 20th of January, and then two days later you had the big, big one and broke the record. Was it—did it just happen, or was—you know, were you going for it every day three—
weeks out there and thought that that would give me a decent shot of the record and, uh, we turned up the first evening, went to the first place that I then decided to scout as a potential takeoff and found there were five trees in the way and thought, well, that's that's that then, um, but our driver ever resourceful and spoke to one of the tenant owners there, um, who said, "Yeah, we could probably get those trees cut down." So inquiries were made and I was thinking, well, it would be, it might be a week or so before anything happens, um, and within half an hour a dude with a chainsaw turned up and, and they lopped the five trees down for us. So we, we had a brand spanking new takeoff, just had to, um, drop a few of the fences so that we could drive down to the front, um...
had to pay off the uh, the landowner and, and that was all tickety-boo for the first few days. How
Is this how? Is that in relation to that typical takeoff that I've seen at the hotel, the
The takeoff of the hotel is a great takeoff; however, it's not ideal for trying to break the out and return record because it's 40 kilometers along the ridge, and you need to start at one end for the FAI criteria, so I had to find somewhere closer to one end or the other, ah.
okay gotcha and
This was basically, so this...
one worked. They lopped some trees down, and it was, it was good to go.
That, that was until the the third or fourth day. Um, and then, well, they have big families out there, uh, in Kenya. And um, the the landowner's brother soon got wind of it that the the landowner had been um paid for for our access; however, he had not been, so he felt aggrieved and and returned one morning to put all the fences back up, um, and insisted that we pay him. And then it turned out this family had eight siblings who all wanted a slice of the actions. There were some some logistical challenges, of course, as to be expected, um, but in terms of the the takeoff itself, it was perfect. It's straight into a a nice shoot that the wind always funnels up, and then you're you're right onto the the ridge, only a kilometer from the southern turn point.
And as soon as the sun comes up, you start getting a bit of a breeze coming onto the face, um, and by the time
You're, you're ready to go. Then you can use most of the the available daylight, run it in dynamic ridge for the first hour and a bit, and then the thermals start around 8:30 and you fly it more conventionally after that. Um, yeah, you were saying no...
Is it, is it pretty much a beam reach out and back, or is there an up, kind of a more of an upwindish leg and then a downwindish leg, or how? What's the, what's the logistics there for going for
the prevailing wind. You know, the signal is a bit of a much shallow SN gum at this point, which doesn't go anywhere. So you're—we've got a major channel technology there. There's lots of legitimately reduzable wind facilities, and it's precisely a huge allowable situation. And we just drove across the whole course in the over the edge and see the next bit. It's really nice to do this when the wind comes. Your path is about 5 20 5 years. However, another thing I observed over the last at least five years that people have to give me some advice as were severe weather and stuff weather forecasting in the region, because the nearest um actual weather probes are spaced several hundred kilometers apart. Um, so I just had to turn up and and try each day, not knowing whether it would be a sensible day to try for the record or not.
Um, and it's only when you get down the far end that you know whether you've got a reasonable chance of making it back. But by then, it's too late to bail. And because the quickest way to get back is is to fly back, so every time you're taking off, you're essentially committing to a an eight, nine, ten hour day in the saddle. You also don't want to be landing out in the middle of the valley in the heat of the day because There were some dust devils that you'd probably call tornadoes back home, and there's lions and elephants if you land out in the middle of the valley. Sounds
Awesome, the the is it the kind of thing like in Brazil where you're not, if you're not on a certain pace by hour two, you just turn around and go back home and take a nap.
No, um, I mean, I hadn't been there long enough to know what that pace would be, but you, I found that the outbound leg is slower, um, and then on the way back, if you're lucky, you get some clouds marking the lift and you can run it home much quicker. So you should never give up hope too early. And on the record day itself, I thought I was way behind the pace in terms of, um, if getting to the far end was, was halfway through the day, then I was way behind that. But I just had a, a quicker run home, uh,
My math is probably not on here. I don't have my stuff pulled up in front of me, but you went 377 out and back, and it was a 10 and a half hour flight. That grabs me, is quite slow. Is that, uh, I'm not that? What was, I'm not the fastest, 37, 37k an hour. Yeah, yeah, I'm not the
fastest pilot on the block, and I have not placed top 10 or anything in a in a cat one comp, um, so no doubt there are people that could could do it faster, um, but the my
USB, if you like, is is just hanging in there for 10 and a half hours; that's a skill in itself, yeah.
No, and I wasn't, I wasn't picking on it. I was thinking more of the conditions, or is it that, is it, is it the kind of thing where you're having to spend a lot of time? Because I thought it was just ridge running, but it sounds like it's not. No, it's only ridge running for the first
hour, and when you've got enough dynamic lifts and you're close to the ridge
and it's southerly section where it's quite sheer. It gets left steep, so it's more 45 degrees, and there isn't enough of a meteo wind to to run it like a a coastal site, so you are relying on... okay, so
You're, you're turning, yep. Okay, um, what I've heard from the PGs that have been there, that have flown there quite a bit, it's—it has always sounded quite spicy, you know, because you don't have a ton of margin, you're quite close to the terrain, and it can be quite strong. Is that something that's not as big a deal, or is that something that's not as big of a deal, or is that a hang glider? I mean, would you—how would you rate this place in terms of, you know, difficulty and and, uh, sketchiness? The
The lift can be off the charts. I had a sustained 10 meter per second, um, but it was surprisingly smooth. The the days that the PGs said they were feeling well, they were butt-clenching, were actually not that bad on a hang glider, and we can fly in stronger winds. And actually, I needed the stronger wind for the record day, as I said, that it was only on the strong day that it was enough to reverse the katabatic to get me home on the last stretch in the evening. And I would say that I gave the the fingers, as we call them, um, where you've got to do a bit of tacking up, when I gave them a wide berth because I was wary about being trapped behind any of the ridges that, um, where the ridge breaks and steps back a bit.
So I, I did on on most of the flights take a line across the river and I was able to the flats there to cut the corner off. And although that relies on finding or on the cloud streets appearing when you're ready to come back, so another reason it's, it might be quite slow on the way out, is there's no, no clouds marking the lift, and you have to hope that by the time you get to the far end, the cumulus start appearing, and then you can make up some time.
Is the... I've only... I haven't been there. I've only read that there's kind of the lower shelf and a higher shelf. Is there is the possibility of getting blown back like the dumps, you know? It, uh, is it... is it really... is that no man's land is that bad, or can you just, if you get blown, if you're... if you get too far back, you've given your... you know, you cut the corner too much and you're not able to get back up to the ridge? Is it a big deal? The
higher shelf, lower shelf
other than inconvenience
Most of the time, if you're as long as you're level with the higher shelf, you could glide off the lower one. But there are a few times where I was thinking, "If, if there isn't good lift here, then I will struggle to clear the lower lip," and I don't really want to be landing on that plateau because you're talking 2600 meters up and hot and high. So a hang glider would be coming in very fast. Um, and yeah, um, a few occasions I, I was also in butt-clenching mode, uh, just gingerly hoping that the lift would sustain me until I got to a point where I could easily glide clear of the lower lip. I would say the, the spiciest bits of it from a hang glider perspective are the outlandings. Um, I'd looked on Google Earth before I got there and, and found them, okay.
Hope you're enjoying this show with Jeremy, and as we have done with the last couple shows, we're cutting this one off on the normal channel about halfway through. And if you want to listen to the rest of it, it's over on the subscriber channel. Most of you have already, hopefully, made that switch, but if you haven't, just get on the website cloudbasedmayhem.com, go to podcast under that subscriber content, get all signed up, and you can listen to those shows on whatever platform you listen to other than a couple. Unfortunately, Spotify and YouTube Music don't do not support, uh, private feeds, but most of them do. And if you have any trouble, let me know; we'll get you all set up. Enjoy the rest of this show over on the subscriber feed. Thanks for listening. Cheers.