So, at the beginning, you don't have to go right into the middle of the podium. You can first try to circle around the outside. It's only half as intense that way.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Ferdinand Vogel and Lucian Haas at the microphone.
Classic paragliding competitions are a world of their own. The participants follow a course defined by waypoints, with the goal of being slightly faster than the others at the end. Sometimes, huge groups of over 100 pilots circle in the same thermals like a swarm of mosquitoes.
One who does this very successfully and even counts among the world's best is Ferdinand Vogel. The 28-year-old today started paragliding at the age of 14. At 19, he took part in a youth competition and immediately finished third. Since then, paragliding races have been his passion. Among his successes are, among others, several task victories in paragliding. Over the last four years, Ferdinand has achieved the Paragliding World Cup, the win at the 2015 German Championship, a fourth place at the 2018 European Championship, and a second place at the renowned Torfeo Monte Grappa 2019. Additionally, Ferdinand also holds the German cross-country flight record. This year, he took part in the World Championship in the Macedonian Crùševo as a member of the German national team. He also won a day victory there, but didn't always reach the finish line on other tasks.
In the end, that meant 23rd place for him. Out of 150 pilots from all over the world. In this 13th episode of Podz-Glidz, Ferdinand Vogel tells us, among other things, how he became a competition pilot and made paragliding his life's work. He gives insights and tips on group and thermals flying. He talks about the methods he used to acquire increasingly nuanced knowledge of flying over time, which he now passes on himself in cross-country flight seminars. And why it can make sense to fly for your own development.
Ferdinand, you've just come back from the World Championships in Cru Chévo. You flew very well there. You even won a task, but then there was another task. That was flight day number 7, where you ended up grounded just before the finish line along with the other top pilots of the German national team. What's it like when you're standing there on the ground realizing, damn, I've blown it. That was it for the possible title dreams, wasn't it?
Yeah, unfortunately, it wasn't just me who messed up. It was the entire team that blew it. And that was actually the worst part. I was standing on the ground, okay. But then shortly after, Uli landed, and then Thorsten too. And then all three of us knew, oh oh, that was it. That was tough because we just knew we had no chance at a title anymore. There's no dropping of scores or anything like that for this national ranking. And accordingly, it was over. So there we were, the three of us, only a kilometer from the finish. And yeah, the mood was a bit down. Thorsten eventually tried to make amends with his easygoing attitude by saying, well, actually, the flight was pretty nice, at least up to this point. But by then, it was already over.
If we had made it into the finish line, we might have even won the world title. Because Thorsten, Uli, and I were all way at the front. And we had even taken the timing. But then we had to turn around again to look for thermals. Because we wouldn't have made it over the finish line. And yeah, we even found something with 20, 30 others. But they were only about 20 meters high. And yeah, there wasn't much left to do. When the first ones among us already landed in circles. Or slid in. It was clear, this isn't going to work out very well. We'll probably be landing pretty soon too.
That was the national ranking that was over with. Did you personally calculate any chances for yourself in the individual ranking before this World Championship?
Yeah, I don't really try to put that much pressure on myself. I mean, I imagined that a top 10 would be quite nice. In between, I eventually hoped to make it into the top 20 again. I was actually pretty sure that would work. When I finished second in the first run and did so well, I just thought, wow, yeah, there's a chance there. But I also noticed that there are one or two other pilots out there who are significantly better and more experienced than I am.
Would you describe yourself as ambitious?
Well, maybe a bit now. Now that I've realized I can compete on a world level. Before, it was always like, well, I'm having my fun. And I learn a lot, a lot from the competitions and I just enjoy it. The other pilots around me are all more or less cut from the same cloth. And you get to know each other. It's like your own flight family among people who just live flying much more intensely.
Was it actually always your wish to become such a successful competition pilot?
Well, actually, it wasn't. If I look back at my early days of paragliding, I remember standing on the practice slope while a competition was happening right above us. So many gliders were flying around in a thermal, and I just thought, wow, that's intense. You have to be able to do so much, learn so much, and be at it for so long just to be able to do that. Back then, I swore to myself I'd never fly competition gliders or even high-performance ones. That was my idea of flying. I just wanted to get into the air safely, comfortably, and enjoy it. And that's why, yeah, I eventually slipped into it bit by bit.
How did you actually get into it? How did you get into paragliding?
Yeah, my father has been paragliding since before I was born. He started in 1985 or 86, so right at the beginning. And accordingly, as a child, I was always taken along, mainly to Andelsbuchen in the Bregenzer Wald. I was jumping around there as a little kid and watched my dad fly, along with many others. And it somehow really gripped me, this flying, everything involving the air in general. When I was still too young for paragliding, I started with model building. But even then, I was only ever interested in gliders. As soon as there was an engine on it, I didn't want the thing. And then at twelve, I finally managed to talk my dad into it.
Or it succeeded. He managed to convince him to let me groundhandle with his old gear. And that's how it started, bit by bit—after school in the afternoon, I'd always cycle straight to our practice slope, which was about two or three kilometers away, no matter which way the wind was blowing. So I already had practice withtailwind starts early on, and I spent a lot, a lot of time there, a really lot. Then at 14, I was finally allowed to get started and was given my license to do it. Right in Andelsbuchen, too. And yeah, that's how it began.
So you started at 14. Officially, you're only allowed to get the license at 16. So you had it then. When did the desire to maybe fly in competition come up for you? Even though you said that at the beginning, you saw the scythes and thought, "I'm never doing that." But at some point, it must have happened.
Yeah. So I was already following all sorts of things on the internet and soaking up everything available. There wasn't that much back then. And accordingly, there were some names that were interesting, mostly from the competition scene. For example, Oliver Rössel—I tried to motivate my dad to go there and listen to him every time he gave a lecture.
And yeah, at the beginning, I hardly flew at all. For the first three or four years, I'd go for one or two flights every two months on the weekend. And that was it. It wasn't until I was 18 and had my own license that I really took off; I was basically in the air all the time. Then I moved to Kempten specifically for my studies, where Achim Joos had studied back then. And Manuel Nübel was there. He already had a group of young pilots around him. They were all studying there too. So it became this group that developed its own dynamic, and I somehow ended up getting swept into it.
So you were kind of pushing and driving each other, like, okay, let's do this, let's try it together, even regarding this competition flying? Or did you just want to be better than the other person? Or what was it?
No, not at all. I mean, Manuel Nübel was already well-known in the paragliding scene back then, also in competitive sports. And before that, I was already at the Newcomer—nonsense, the Newcomer Challenge didn't exist back then. It was still called the Junior Challenge. And it was always like, I thought, I'd like to go there now. Let's see how well I fly compared to other teenagers. That was it, yeah. But there in Kempten, it was more like, hey, let's go flying together. And so we went to the mountains almost every day as soon as the weather was right, instead of going to the university.
Going back to the competitions. You did your first competitions then. Were you already good at them because you had so much practice from flying so much with your buddies?
So, I participated in my very first competition in Andelsbuch. It was a Staufencup. I still remember, Marc Wensauer won that one. And I was flying with a C-glider back then, it was called a DHV-2. I took three of them. And that was already a pretty hot glider for me. But it was competitive, I'd say. At least among the beginner pilots. And then I just sort of swam along behind them. And I think I finished 60th out of 80 participants or something. So, pretty underground.
At least I flew into the finish line almost every time. And that already teaches you a lot in smaller competitions. And then right after that, I went to the Junior Challenge. And at the Junior Challenge, I finished third right away. To be honest, I can't remember exactly how I did it anymore. Because back then, the young wild ones were already there, some of whom were even already in the national team, like Manuel Nübel and Sebastian Hohn at the time. And those were already the role models. Pascal Purin too. And I somehow managed to get third place back then, yeah.
Was that like a real breakthrough where you're like, wow, I just came in third in a competition like that. I'm actually really good, I should keep going?
Yes, that was it. Especially after that, I immediately got the invitation to the league, to fly along in the Deutsche Gleitschirmliga. And for me, that was like, okay, yeah, I'll give that a try now. Now I'm a league pilot and I'm taking part. And I've already noticed that you learn so incredibly much. Back then, Achim Joos was still leading the Junior Challenge. And they passed on so much know-how to us. And yes, Oliver Rössel was also there as a trainer and gave us many, many cross-country flight tips. Every time at the Junior Challenge, it gave you a leap that allowed you to really move forward.
Hmm. What does a pilot actually need to bring to the table to be able to fly competition successfully? What are the most important skills from your perspective?
Yes, you should be able to fly thermals. You should feel comfortable even when it gets a bit crowded, meaning when there are more paragliders around you. You can avoid that to some extent, at least at the national championships or something, but it does happen that you're circling with ten people at the same altitude in the same thermals. And you should be able to do that. And then you shouldn't spend so much energy on yourself that you have to think, oh, I need to pull more now. So that you can basically fly subconsciously and instead consciously perceive your surroundings. That you keep the other pilots in sight, that you keep the thermal clouds in sight, and that you keep the route ahead of you in sight.
It's important that you can fly freely and with an open mind.
That means the flying itself actually has to work intuitively, and then you have the mental headspace to keep looking out for the external inputs.
Yes, exactly. The words sound a bit better, yeah. It's just that you don't necessarily need any cross-country flight experience yourself. If you just go with the flow and can fly thermals well, then it works. And then you can even stay with the impulses, with the pulk, quite well, yeah.
What did you do to train these skills—thermals, pulk, and so on—and to get better at them? Did you perhaps approach it systematically in some way? Let's start with thermals. Did you ever say, "Wow, I need to get better at this? How can I do that?" and how did you go about doing that?
Well, at the beginning, I was always hovering around Antelsbuch and wasn't allowed to go on cross-country flights back then; I was told I had to stay in Antelsbuch, at the local mountain. So, I set myself tasks accordingly, and that was basically: I'm trying to become the highest and I'm trying to stay the highest. That's also what I always try to convey to my students in my courses—that they can practice the most there. On the days when you only want to fly for one or two hours, you can just try it. I'm trying to become the highest and, above all, to stay the highest. That helps very, very much with thermals, yes.
Is there a trick to being the highest?
stay at the top? Yes, you also have to try to look quite quickly there—where is someone else climbing, where do I see a bird, where is a new cloud forming? And those are exactly the things you constantly need in ridge soaring, and when they jump out at you, so to speak, you can use them immediately. You learn to pay attention to that very quickly there—where is the next person climbing below me, where do I need to get on top of it?
Second point, group flying. How can you learn or practice it so that you can handle it well? So that you can actually use a group for yourself as well?
Yeah, well, at the beginning you don't have to go into the middle of the flock. You can first try circling around the outside. It's half as wild there and you can escape at any time because you have the airspace to yourself. You can't really practice it properly. I don't think I was, I didn't find it that wild, because in Adelsbuch it's sometimes more intense, or also in Kössen if you're flying around there. I recently went out again, just did some free flight, without competition or anything in Kössen, and I was really scared because of the chaos people sometimes create there. They always think, "I've got a thermal here, I'm turning right now," and only 100 meters further someone turns left, even though it's a lift band, and they're turning back and forth, and that is much, much more exhausting than in competition, where everyone is turning in the same direction and everyone wants to center the strongest lift.
So, the weak thermals on the outside, the competition pilots don't use those at all; they all just want the strongest one, and that's why it becomes compact and tight, but everyone has the same goal and the same plan, and that's why what the others do becomes predictable again.
If you're in such a dense pack now and you have the goal you mentioned earlier—yeah, I want to be the highest possible and stay there—how can you become the highest when flying in a pack?
Yes, even there you have to clear some capacity and not just keep the pilots at your own altitude in sight, so to speak, because that's what you do constantly. You have to look up, down, right, left, front, and back, to keep everyone in view and also remember, oh, there was someone there, where did they go now? If I don't see them anymore, then it gets dangerous, and then you have to concentrate downwards and see what the paraglider below me is doing. Is the thermals shifting there? Then I have to shift with it. So, always orient yourself downwards, because if they climb away above me, I have no chance of catching up anyway, but if I orient myself downwards, I have a chance; if the thermals have passed them, they'll still reach me. They don't just disappear.
So I have the best chance of observing what the lower pilots are doing.
But now there's a huge pack, and you can't just say, "I'm moving my circle to wherever I think the thermals might be strongest." There might be 20 other pilots at your altitude somewhere around you. And they'd have to move with you. How do you nudge each other in the right direction then?
So you don't really push each other, because everyone is looking for the strongest lift.
The ones on the outside, if, for example, a stronger thermal actually develops nearby, the person on the outside will usually see that eventually because they still have more capacity left, don't have to monitor as many pilots, and then head in that direction and just fly straight ahead in that direction as soon as they can. And more and more people see that, and then the entire group shifts over like that and repositions itself. It's actually very relaxed when that happens. If both thermal cores are close to each other and equally good, then it becomes complicated again. And if the neighbor thermal even has the opposite rotation, then it gets really complicated at some point. And usually, the thermals push together towards the top and become one.
And accordingly, it eventually becomes really complicated. If
If you were to compare, you could fly the same thermals with a pulk or you could fly the thermals solo. So you can choose to center closely or do it however you like. With which shape would you probably climb faster?
That depends again on whether I'm in the mountains or in the lowlands. So right now in Macedonia, where we had both, it was very impressive again. Because in the mountains, I can read the terrain well; I see immediately where the strongest thermals are actually breaking off. And then, by re-centering and feeling where the thermals are sucking you in, you actually find the strongest lift very well. In the lowlands, however, it's often the case that where there's one bubble, there are several others right around it. And if I'm all alone there—which did happen to me in Macedonia—then you just fly into the thermals somewhere and start spinning, thinking, "Oh, this is only one meter per second. There has to be something stronger over here." All day long, you're getting four meters per second.
And when you're alone, it's difficult because if you leave the lift and can't find anything else except a heavy sink, it might be the case that one small thermal is gone, and searching accordingly becomes risky. But with the thermals, if 50 pilots fly in at the same time, that group always finds the strongest lift and the strongest tube going up immediately, and it's significantly more relaxed. Flying with the group.
That means, even in competitions, when flying solo, you almost never have the right way, at least in the lowlands, or you'll actually always get passed behind eventually.
Yeah, unless you also have some nice clouds that show you that clearly.
The terrain now, at least in Macedonia, was such that you couldn't really read from the ground below where the next thermal was. So it was more like, pop, there was another one. And there should be one now, but it's only dropping at five meters per second. So it was pretty much a gamble there.
Well, there was also a task at this WM where Marco Busetta, that was task number nine, had a 13-minute lead at the end. He somehow just broke away alone. How can something like that happen, where a group loses sight of a single pilot who flies so much better?
Yeah, well, I wasn't in the main pack, in the lead pack, so I can't give you a hundred percent accurate account of that. But he flew significantly further north, so more towards the airside, and there's probably a point where there's a slight convergence—they caught it perfectly and then, pop, he was gone, and the pack didn't notice him anymore. Otherwise, the pack would have been annoyed afterward. That's how it usually goes, and they'd catch up to him pretty quickly. But at that moment, the pack had also drifted further south, missed the convergence, was already significantly further back, and had a different ideal route. That means their focus wasn't set in his direction at all. That's probably how he managed to stay undetected.
And it's quite possible that the pack slows down towards the end, because towards the end you're no longer trying to fly fast and ahead, but you're trying to get up high so that you have the perfect starting position relative to the others. It's not necessarily about flying the tars as fast as possible in a competition, but just faster than the others. And accordingly, good positioning in the final approach makes a huge difference.
Is a success like Marco's in that case also largely a matter of luck, that he just happened to hit that one good spot?
Yeah, I think so.
As far as I know, he put it that way too when they asked him, because several pilots tried it. I tried it once or twice as well. And if you fly into a larger sink once, you're just about to hit the ground, and then it only slowly moves back up with very weak lift, and the thermals settle on you, catch you better because of that, and then you're gone.
How much luck is actually involved in competition flying when you see results like that, even from a World Championship? What would you say? What portion is truly the pilots' absolute skill and what portion is still luck?
Yeah, it's hard to say. Well, in Macedonia, it was down to a lot of luck, because even when two pulks formed, it was simply a matter of which pulk caught another thermal before the finish. I think you could actually see that in the results list if you look further down, around 100th place; there were top pilots there who usually win a task or something, who were down there because they either tried something that didn't work out and then they were suddenly at the back, or, as it happened to me twice, you lose the pulk at some point and then catching up is almost impossible alone, and if you then come down again and there's no more thermal, then bam, you're on the ground.
I think that has a lot to do with the fact that there was a lot of flat country involved. What's often done in the World Cup—the World Cup pilots often prefer flying in flat country rather than in the mountains, simply because the conditions in the mountains are harsher, more turbulent, and accordingly, the whole thing becomes more dangerous and things just happen more often. So, in a World Cup in Switzerland, there are normally more accidents than in a flat country flying area. Now, at the World Championships in Macedonia, I think we had three rescue descents, two collisions where everything was fine, and yeah, that was it.
Would you then say that in such classic competitions, if you distinguish between flatland and mountain competitions, the ones in the mountains are basically harder, or rather, they show who is actually the better pilot?
Well, that's just a matter of taste. I mean, if you talk to a flatland pilot, they'll say, "Well, only good pilots can fly flatland," and the Swiss would say, "Well, in flatland, no, in flatland, that's just luck." I'd personally define myself more as a mountain pilot, but you have to be able to fly flatland too, because it's just as much a part of it in the World Cup and now also in the World Championships. So, both.
If a young pilot comes along and says, "Wow, Ferdinand has had so many successes and he's still a young guy," and decides to take him as a role model, what would you recommend to him? What can he do to maybe not be just as successful, but still take a good step forward? How can he become a better pilot? What should he do? Which skills should he work on, and perhaps in what order? What's the most important thing to tackle first, and how can he build on that?
Yeah, where do we start? I think, for one thing, you have to be extremely motivated and curious. You have to soak up everything you can get your hands on. Back then, I attended one lecture after another and read through the technical articles. And all that knowledge, you just have to try to apply it. I mean, you also constantly give great weather lectures or write articles about it. And I always try to pull out the pieces that fit well for me and then try to apply them in practice and find parallels. Does that match up? How can you actually apply that in practice?
Yes, how can you train for that? Well, you have to train for competition flying in competitions. Unfortunately. There's no other way. So you need a lot of competitions to get good at it. Although, at the beginning, at least for me, it felt like you had to be at a competition every other weekend to be able to fly that well. But that's not it. I think I had about six or seven competitions a year on average. That's already a lot, but it's also... a fair amount of
time, what goes into that already.
Yeah, well, not every competition lasts two weeks; there are also many weekend competitions. But cross-country flight is definitely part of that too. You have to train and practice it as well. There are many competition pilots who really only go to competitions. But nowadays you notice that's no longer enough. I mean, the people flying right at the front—what we noticed now, for example, with Jael, the Swiss woman, she flew super well at the World Championships, and in the spring, they flew a record together in France. And you could tell that she's quite experienced in terms of cross-country flight.
If you're saying that cross-country flying is the other thing you need to be good at, what are the basic things you'd say someone should work on first? Thermals. How can you work on thermal flying for yourself? Or does that only work if you have some kind of external correction? Should you get some support? Someone who flies with you and then says, "No, you need to turn tighter" or "you're waving the outside brake way too much" or whatever?
Yes, well, most people mainly use only the inside brake, and thermals flying and active flying are mainly done with the outside brake. For example, the cranking technique itself. So it's definitely the case that if you say, "Yeah, every now and then I lose the thermal or the thermal is gone," then you're not really a good thermals flyer yet, because at least now, referring to the mountains, it's like this: you actually lose thermals very, very rarely, because you keep climbing within the thermal yourself and you can actually almost never lose them.
That works at least if it's a standing thermal, so not just a single bubble passing through, but you just say, that's the home thermal or the real thermal that pulls through, and it pulls from the terrain where it detaches all the way up to the cloud base as a thermal column, and you basically can't lose that, you say.
Yeah, no, I mean, I'm actually almost certain now that even if you have a bubble, so even if they're no longer rising beneath you, it still works that you can stay in the bubble. I assume that there's another small rotor within the bubble itself, so to speak, that provides the additional lift. I think you actually told me that in one of your lectures.
And I've tried to sense that now, and that's how I feel it too—when I know I'm super low in this bubble and they're already sinking away below me while still climbing above me, I really have to work to stay inside it. It can happen that you lose your way when you're at the very bottom, but when you're at the very top, you always notice that you catch up from below much faster. So you can really feel that and notice it too.
You also offer cross-country flight seminars, and you probably get all kinds of pilots—some who have a bit of cross-country flight experience, others who might have a bit more, and so on. Nevertheless, you're probably there for the ones who are the overachievers, the ones who are always sitting somewhere above it all, positioning themselves at the very top of the thermals, while I look at my chicks flying around down there somehow, trying to keep them together. Is there anything like, how should I put it, the biggest common mistake—not the lowest common denominator, but the biggest common mistake that everyone still somehow makes, where you could say if they stopped doing that, a lot would already be gained?
Yeah, so the biggest mistake is that people make circles that are too large, that they're too far away from the slope, and those are both points where you notice that there's still a bit of flying routine missing. That you don't feel comfortable under the glider yet, because if I don't dare to make tight circles or, in case of doubt, even say I don't dare to spiral, I don't dare—so not referring to I can't, because then the load on the controls would be too great, but I don't dare—then there's simply a lack of practice and exercise, because a spiral is something that's fun, something you can certainly learn in SIV training, and which then isn't dangerous, and that is definitely a maneuver that you should be able to do when cross-country flying, I think, because if you're ever surprised somewhere or just have to get down, then it's absolutely necessary that you can spiral.
Flying closer to the slope—well, you have to know your gear and have confidence in it, because if you're thinking, "What if there's a small collapse and I can't manage it," then of course you have to keep your distance from the slope. But that's one of the mistakes many pilots make, and they only manage to get up on very, very good days, because there are definitely days where you might occasionally end up below the collapse line, and in those cases, you just have to get close to the slope.
You just said to fly tighter circles, so most people circle too wide. What would be an ideal thermal circle for you? Can you put a number on that somehow?
Yeah, so if I were watching someone circling, I'd say tighter, bigger, but defining it like that in general terms is probably difficult. Even with the radius, I don't think it helps much; it's just that if you have a climb of about three meters per second, even with a Low-B, in terms of glide ratio, the Stabilo is already pretty much on the horizon. So it's almost always a spiral entry, I'd say, almost.
which you then fly, and there are very, very many pilots who fly very large position circles and try to climb in the thermals with them. That works well if you're flying in the evening, because in the evening the thermals usually get bigger and a bit smoother, so that works quite well, but when it comes to cross-country flying, if you want to be out there around noon, you sometimes have to circle a bit tighter. Also, for lee riding, for example, if you want to fly into the lee, you should have flown a saddle once or stalled a glider, ideally maybe even be able to fly a deep stall. That's like the ultimate discipline; then you don't accidentally tear the glider off anymore, and it's also more fun in the lee, you feel more comfortable because you think, well, if something happens now, I can get it back under control.
Not every lee is the same, and at the beginning, as long as you're saying, "Oh no, I'm not flying into the lee," you haven't lost anything in terms of cross-country flying. That's especially true on the north side of the Alps—you just can't get around it. There are so few opportunities to do cross-country flights there without flying into the lee. It's significantly easier on the south side of the Alps. Yes.
That means cross-country flying automatically means I have to be prepared to fly into the lee.
On the north side of the Alps, yes. Well, unless it's like in the height of summer, it sometimes works where you're not actually supported by thermals at all, but more so by the lift, by just, yeah, basically just soaring, hopping from mountain to mountain, then it works. But otherwise, on the north side of the Alps, you have to fly into lee quite soon. And accordingly, the flight skills have to be there.
You just mentioned hopping from peak to peak, so that also involves flying relatively low, maybe even close to the slope or the terrain. That's something you see a lot with cross-country flight pilots who fly very efficiently and cover long distances at high average speeds—they sometimes don't do much at all, like not doing much turning, but rather saying, "okay, a quick turn and now we're moving on," and they just keep going. How can you train something like that? Or do you offer something like that as training in your cross-country flight seminars and say, "Let me show you how to do this"?
Yes, so in my cross-country flight seminars, I do it this way: I always try to keep the group together, and if someone drops lower, I spiral down. When I can't spiral anymore because that takes a toll on the body pretty quickly, I'll stall down and try to fly underneath the pilot who is lowest. Then I fly purposefully straight into the next thermal, and that person has to follow. Once I'm in the thermal, I sometimes—or mostly—cheat by having a glider that's way too big, so I climb very, very well and can quickly get back to the higher group. The pilot underneath then has the thermal, and you should already know how to fly thermals if you want to do cross-country flight, so they'll eventually climb back up on their own. Then, once the group is together again, I fly again, and I also just fly ahead, flying as efficiently and quickly as possible.
into the next thermals to show, hey, this is how it works, and you don't just fly straight ahead; it's about line choice, and that's what you have to learn, how to fly lines, because if I just fly straight ahead and wait there for 3 meters of sink, it's significantly worse than if I fly a small detour but maybe don't lose much altitude at all, perhaps even with a zero-slider, then I'm moving more effectively, and I learned that from the sailplane pilots, because the sailplane pilots also mainly fly straight ahead on hammer days, and you can watch this straight-ahead flying; there are YouTube videos where they have a cockpit camera installed and a time-lapse, you can watch a 1,000-kilometer flight just like that, and then you can see quite well which lines they actually fly, which clouds they fly around, and where they fly around the clouds; you learn an incredible amount from that.
I also have a flight simulator for that, it's called Condor Flight Simulator, where we sometimes fly tasks against each other in the winter; you can fly together online in multiplayer in real landscapes. For example, to prepare for the X-Alps, we flew along the X-Alps route and got to know it well because of that. It's a very, very realistic flight simulator with cloud formation and dissipation. The only thing the thing can't do is simulate valley winds, but we learned an incredible amount from that too—this flying straight ahead. So, when we had our first winter, I flew along the Lechthal in the spring in this computer game, let's say, and tried it out immediately. I set myself the task of flying the entire Lechthal without a single turn, and I managed to do it there and back, which is just incredible.
Was that in the program, then? In the game? No,
in real life, I managed to do that with the paraglider in the spring. Just turn it once and then only straight ahead. Finding the right line, that works. And can you learn that by watching soaring videos? Yes, you can. It sounds so fancy right now, but no, that's really how it is, and if you then also understand the use of the speed system well and can use it well, then it works. That's how it is. I always like to quote Gregel Maurer, who said that in every thermal circle, you fly in the wrong direction 50% of the time.
Now, using the speed system is also one of those things where you have to learn and dare to use it, but also use it efficiently. What's the best way to acquire that systematically? Sure, you can say learning by doing, but then I still don't know if I'm actually doing it well or not.
Yeah, well, unfortunately, I only really learned that after I'd been flying competitions for a long time and then started flying two-liners. With two-liners, you have so much more control during accelerated flight because you can achieve so much quickly through the rear plane. That doesn't work as well with three-liners, unfortunately. And a two-liner doesn't collapse quickly either; first, the whole wing comes down, and then you still have time to do something. That's at least usually the case with the three-liner in competition, which is why there are many competition pilots who say, "No, I don't want to fly a three-liner anymore," because sometimes it just goes "Bam, it's gone," and then you have to reopen it and let it fly again—it's all fine, but it's just an uneasy feeling, and accordingly, it's harder to learn that with the three-liner, but there are still possibilities.
For example, you can try to nod with the speed bar. You have to think about what happens if I push in faster? What happens if I push in slower? When do I have to push at all? When do I have to release the speed bar? You learn that quite well with nodding. It doesn't work quite as well with Low B gliders. Above all, you have to hit the right timing to even get it back up. What you can do there, though, but with caution, is to initiate the nod via the brake first and then continue with the speed bar, and then you can feel your way through it bit by bit. You don't have to go full throttle right away; you can start with about a third of the gas, and that helps a lot.
And how quickly can you brake a pitch again? Just with the speed bar, or do you still have to work with the brake?
Yes, well, you actually can quite well. One way is to convert the whole thing into forward energy, or just snap out of the acceleration the moment the glider goes behind you or moves backward; you go into acceleration to compensate for that. The moment the glider starts coming over you again, you have to get out of the acceleration pretty quickly, and by doing that, you can even manage to get that pitch out in one quick motion. Because the pitch in accelerated flight isn't that large, and if it ever gets as big as you can handle with the brake, I usually get out of the acceleration and work with the brake.
Do you have a tip on what kind of speed bar one should best use on their harness to do this most effectively? One that allows for well-graduated speed bar flying and is also easy to react to?
Yeah, well, I'd say there isn't an ideal speed bar at the moment. So, the harness manufacturers still have a lot of work to do. In the paraglider scene, people always just set up their speed bar so they can give it full throttle at some point. That's just how they have it set. But actually, you have to be able to adjust every single stage individually. You'd have to be able to adjust the position of the pulley on the harness to change the speed bar travel. So there's still a lot to learn there. With a seat harness, it's much, much harder to learn to accelerate. In a liegegurt, it's easier because you have the speed bar stages ready to be pressed at all times.
That means anyone who wants to learn this properly should look into a decent speed bar, see how to get it adjusted correctly, and maybe even switch to a pod harness. Would you actually recommend that? You probably only fly with a pod harness now. For your normal flying, would you recommend that to regular pilots, or would you say that a seat harness is actually the better choice for normal flyers?
Yes, well, with a seat harness, you often have the problem that the paraglider manufacturers or the harness manufacturers don't put much effort into things, for example regarding the choice of materials. So, a large pulley is important so that the whole thing slides better and is easier to operate. When you try it out on the simulator, you should be able to move the speed bar without much effort, I mean really almost no effort at all. And there are many seat harnesses that just aren't very good at that. To get back to your question. No, I don't just recommend a liegegurt to everyone across the board. Not at all. You should feel completely comfortable under your glider. You shouldn't have any launch stress, not even at the launch site itself. Because if I go into the flight with stress, it doesn't do me any good.
For the first ten minutes, you have to calm down from the stress of the launch. And a liege harness simply has, again, additional points to consider that can go wrong during the launch. That's extra stress. That's why it's not an option for me if I'm stressed at the launch. Exactly the same thing applies to the landing. If I say, oh yeah, I have hard landings every now and then, then I haven't internalized flying well enough yet. Then I shouldn't be flying with a liege harness. Especially getting out of the leg bag. There are many who say, yeah, I just do that much earlier. But it's simply an additional step that has to be executed, which requires extra capacity. Launching and landing have to be second nature. And the basic understanding of active flying should definitely be fully there as well.
Only then can I start working with the liegegurt.
You're talking about stress and stuff like that. Stress is a big deal when you're not very experienced yet, at the start of your career or something, where you can get stressed more quickly because you might be overwhelmed by certain situations or don't know them at all yet, haven't experienced them before. Looking back at your experience today, is there anything from your early pilot career where you'd say, hey, I made a mistake there that I'd like to undo today?
Yeah, not really. I learned very, very slowly. I took my time. I tolerated my fear and my respect for flying and said, no, that's part of it. And as long as I'm facing it, I still have too much respect, or rather, I know that if I go any further right now, I'll just be scared. I don't even try to test that out. I accepted that and learned very slowly. So I really, I think after four or five years, I did my first long-distance flights and only then did I start flying with HB gliders or something. So I was really moving slowly.
Did you experience anything at any point, especially at the beginning, that you'd say was a really shitty experience? Did you ever have an accident or something?
Yeah, well, I've had an accident too, and hopefully no one else will. I'd say that at the beginning, when paragliding, you unfortunately have to be aware—especially if you're flying during more thermal-active times—that something can happen to you. That's part of flying. That's why flying always has to be fun. And it happened to me back when I was 18, when I started flying more and realized, wow, I'm learning much faster now and I'm grasping everything much quicker. It's suddenly clicking. I was out with a new glider that I didn't know that well yet. I went to Switzerland with a few buddies who actually had nothing to do with flying. A new flight area, I had no idea. It was a hike-and-fly launch site that I had picked out.
And that was unfortunately in a lee. I didn't understand that back then. I took off, and unfortunately, I also had a line knot—so when it happens, it happens properly. And I decided to land perfectly. It was a huge grassy slope, no problem at all. But at the moment I wanted to touch down, it just suddenly dropped so hard. Like you know when you're soaring along a slope and suddenly you sink right through and you just have to quickly make sure you get away from the slope. And at that moment, I actually wanted to land and I thought to myself, now, on my feet, that could hurt and I could break something. So better on the protector, I thought. And there are very, very many people in the paragliding scene who think like that. And I always tell those people, from my own experience,
so, you stand up there on the garage roof, like one or two meters up, and now you jump down and do a backflip. Or you'd rather land on your feet. And in the moment I tell people that, they suddenly realize, well, they don't trust that little cushion called the protector that much after all. And I should have extended the landing gear back then too, but I used the protector and unfortunately ended up with a back injury. Luckily I didn't need surgery and a month later, I was allowed to fly again.
You also had another accident once. That wasn't a flight accident; you were returning from your relatively successful PWC in France by car and had a car accident. You weren't driving, you were just a passenger, and then your foot was pretty messed up. And if I remember correctly, I think you were out of commission for several months, or even more than half a year or something, you basically couldn't fly. During that time when you were really away from flying, did that inevitably change your attitude towards flying in any way because you had time to reflect, or did it influence the way you fly today in any way?
Yes, I don't know if it influenced how I fly today. What happened back then, well, yeah, it was over half a year because I didn't fly anymore, I just gave my foot time to get back to a point where I could even walk. And during that time, I started to basically distance myself completely from the paragliding scene; I didn't browse the internet anymore or talk much with my buddies about flying. Sure, I caught a bit of stuff on the sidelines, but for the first time, I no longer had paragliding as my main leisure activity.
Was that also self-protection?
Maybe, yeah. I hadn't really processed what was happening with me back then. I just focused more on my studies again, used that time for that, and basically threw myself into my work.
What was it like coming back after all that time? Was it like, wow, I flew once and then I was hooked, like you'd suddenly found your spark again or something?
Yeah, so it went straight back into the spring and yeah, I was back at it full throttle right away and flew a lot, really well.
At first, it was a bit weird being back up in the air, but I felt right at home again immediately. So, just before the accident happened, I had 160 flight hours within two months. I felt like I spent much more time in the air than on the ground. And accordingly, I felt much, much more comfortable in the air, yeah, than when driving a car. And yeah,
I felt right at home again immediately.
After that period, you also made the decision, hey, okay, you finished your studies and then you said, no, I'm basically aiming for a career in the paraglider field now and I'm dedicating my life entirely to paragliding. Did that have something to do with the accident too? Was that decision made during that time as well?
Yeah, so after the accident, where, you know, it could have ended completely differently, I basically matured and realized, wow, no, you have to enjoy life, it can be over in a flash. And I didn't finish my studies because I just knew, well, I'm being too ambitious if I finish it now, like in the sense of "what you have, you have" or that you should finish what you started. I knew that if I finished it, I'd end up working in that profession, because that would make sense then. So I dropped out and flew tandem for a year at Tegelberg, and in the process, I learned a lot of new things, and especially the human side—how other people, not pilots, but other people, perceive flying.
And that was a very interesting year. But then I realized that doing the same small talk five or six times a day, day in and day out, just isn't really my thing. So I looked for a solution—what else can I do in the paragliding scene? I had already done a bit of test piloting for Swing before, so I applied there. Unfortunately, Swing couldn't take me on as a test pilot at that time, so I asked the other companies and ended up landing at Nova.
Was this decision to say, I'm dropping out of my studies and I'm going to become a professional paraglider and do everything to do with paragliders—would you say that was a good decision? Or do you ever regret it?
No, I don't really regret it, because I was studying electrical engineering. Before that, I already did a vocational training. So I already have something in my pocket, not like now with an unfinished degree. But I've realized for myself now, well, I still need a plan B if somehow, for whatever reason, for example, the weather becomes too extreme or something actually happens to me or I can't do paragliding anymore, I still need some kind of plan B.
And I have, or will now, start studying again, but I've decided on something where, even if I don't practice it for five years after my studies, I can hopefully still use it. Because with electrical engineering, it was clear to me: well, if I really just want to fly for three or five years, then the degree won't be worth anything at some point. And that was actually clear to me from the start when I said, no, I'm dropping it. And that was also one of the reasons why I quit.
If I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying, okay, maybe that should still hold true in about five years. That means, first of all, you're saying you want to continue paragliding intensively for a bit. What other plans do you have for the near future?
Yeah, well, last—no, two years ago, I was there as a supporter for the X-Alps and I was pretty focused on doing it myself. I even applied for the X-Alps. I've also taken part in many Hike-and-Fly competitions.
Did you win at Border Race and stuff like that too, right?
Exactly, Border Race worked really well once, exactly. At the Dolomiti Superfly, which was my last hike-and-fly competition, it didn't go so well because I stepped into a hole and then had back problems, and then I was a bit too ambitious and wanted to keep going and thought, okay, it's still working. I ran back up the mountain, but then I noticed, well, it worked for a short bit downhill and then I realized, running downhill is no longer possible, then it hit my back completely and I was at the launch site at the top and the wind wasn't right. It was coming totally from the side.
and it was very, very strong, still north-facing in the Dolomites, and it was clear to me: either I let myself get picked up here or I launch anyway. And I'd already had one or the other experience before where I knew,
when I'm standing at the launch site before making the decision and I know the weather isn't ideal for flying and I have the option to either fly anyway or hike back down, I tend to lean towards saying, ah, I'm a good pilot, I'll fly anyway. And I've noticed that I unfortunately don't have my risk management under control during Hike &Fly competitions. In normal competition flying, I know that if it gets too turbulent for me, I just get out, I let the others fly past me, but with the Hike &Fly competitions, I knew I didn't have it under control. Not because I won't come in first or because the others are faster and I have to chase them, but simply because I'm lazy when it comes to hiking. And I then decided to withdraw my application for the X-Alps and that's why I wasn't there now.
Is that still an option for you? Or do you say, no, I've decided for myself that Hike & Fly, at least in this longer format like an X-Alps or something, is just too risky for me?
Yeah, well, every now and then I do get a bit of an itch again, because what I find so fascinating is that you can fly over areas that you'd otherwise never get to see. And that's a really beautiful experience. You also fly at times of day when you normally wouldn't. You fly in weather conditions where you normally wouldn't. So not the extremes that are dangerous, but also just, for example, when it's completely overcast. And even then, you can still manage to crawl from peak to peak, bit by bit. And that's a really great flying experience. And I do miss that. Right now, I'm definitely not fit enough to participate in a Hike &Fly competition, because it was just so simple. It was so abrupt when I made the decision back then and completely stopped training. My body is already starting to show it.
So, flying instead of running? Definitely, yes. So for the future, I'm going to focus more on XC competitions, so to speak, and want to do more of that again, yeah.
Especially when it comes to flying, you even have the bird in your name. You call yourself that too. I guess you also show up on social media with something like that. Are you proud that people can make that connection?
Yeah, so it does fit. It's pretty cool, yeah.
Since I grew up with aviation and my dad was always like that...
I'm not obviously just talking out of my hat about it now, but it was always so present and I didn't know it any other way. So for a long time, I wasn't really aware of what it actually means or what you can do with it. I don't think I'm doing anything super extreme now, like saying I'm the Vogel or something. Yeah.
Do you still have any pilots or others as role models?
Yeah, so Honorar, for example, who finished third but flew incredibly well, is a role model. Tillin from Slovenia is a role model. That
It's called Honorar, Armag, and Tillin Seglar. Yeah, exactly. Just based on the names.
Those two are on a different level altogether. And what I've set as a role model for myself, you can see with the French, especially the young ones coming up. I experienced that last year, or also now at the World Cup in France. When I'm in the final approach and going full throttle, I'm very tense because I definitely don't want a full-throttle collapse. And I'm just happy when I fly past the timing and can finally take my foot off the gas. And it was like, I'd done that, taken my foot off the gas, and was happy to finally relax. And then I see someone in front of me start to fly a Misty Flip with a competition glider, followed by another Misty Flip, and then a Misty to Heli. And I just think to myself, okay, so I was basically just scared under the glider, more or less.
And I found that to be pretty borderline already. And then he follows it up with a nice agro program. So there's still a lot to learn. And that's definitely something I'm working on, where I know I can still get better.
Is there anything where you would say you'd like to be a role model yourself?
Yeah, the question is, do you really want to be a role model? Because then you have a bit of responsibility. I'm not hoping to be that kind of role model. I don't know.
I would be happy if more people enjoyed this slow path into the paraglider scene. Because what I keep noticing with younger pilots is that they want so much very quickly, and then at some point they have a bad experience and lose the desire to fly. And that's a shame. You really have to invest time and be patient and gather a lot of experience, and do it really, really properly, without having any bad experiences. Otherwise, you lose the fun of flying.
That was Ferdinand Vogel in conversation with Lucian Haas. If you want to learn more about Ferdi, his pilot tips, and also his cross-country flight seminars, it's worth taking a look at the website www.ferdinand-vogel.de. If you were alerted by the mention of Lu-Glidz's Meteo seminars during the podcast, that mention was not agreed upon with Ferdi. However, if you are interested in such seminars, feel free to contact me. Perhaps you are simply grateful for this podcast and the many pieces of information on the Lu-Glidz blog. In that case, you can support my work. I deliberately do not finance Podz-Glidz and Lu-Glidz through advertising in order to maintain independence. However, contributions from my readers and listeners are welcome and even necessary in order to be able to offer professional reporting.
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