I remember that on the first day, the video only had a few views, and then it increased a little bit every day, and somehow after two weeks, there was suddenly a day where it just went through the roof and I had no idea how that happened.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Marlon Jonath and Lucian Haas at the microphone.
The joy of paragliding isn't just found in the air today, but often also in front of a screen. On platforms like YouTube, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of videos that some pilots have captured with their helmet cams, edited together, set to more or less appropriate music, and then made available to the general public on the internet. Some of it is artistic, funny, simply beautiful, or even hair-raising—in some way attractive enough for a few real moments of longing in front of the monitor. And yet, many of these videos seem somewhat interchangeable in the masses. One who has managed to stand out from the crowd to build a real fan base with a completely unique style is Marlon Jonath.
The 30-year-old has been paragliding for six years and has almost always had a camera with him from the start. Nowadays, he takes off with three or four cameras at once. That's how he documents his routes and agro-adventures—not just visually, but with good audio too. Because he comments on all the experiences live during the flight. Eloquent, unfiltered, and cheeky. It's so authentic and likable that Marlon's YouTube channel skyrocketed to almost 20,000 subscribers this year. Some of the films in it have already been viewed more than 200,000 times. As a video blogger, Marlon conveys the fascination of paragliding to many people far beyond the classic paragliding scene. In this 17th episode of Podz-Glidz, Marlon Jonath reports on how he rose to become a small scene YouTube star and what enormous effort actually goes into his films.
Besides that, he also gives insights into other aspects of his life, such as how his first flight attempts on his own almost ended in disaster and how the hobby of paragliding now also influences his actual jobs as a social worker and yoga teacher.
Marlon, what's it like to suddenly become a kind of YouTube star within the paragliding community in such a short time, with some videos getting over 100,000 views and your YouTube channel reaching nearly 20,000 subscribers?
Yeah, I don't think I can fully describe what it feels like yet. It also varies a lot depending on the context of where I am. Every now and then, when I'm just going about my usual daily routine, I don't really notice it at all. It's only when I actually sit down at the PC or look at my phone and see that there are a lot of messages coming in or many comments under the videos again. But for example, during my last vacation where I was in Bassano, Italy, with a few friends, that is really unusual. You're standing at the launch site and suddenly other people pull out their phones and film you taking off, even though I'm actually just one of many pilots there. And then you get approached at the landing field, and someone asked if they could take a photo with me. That is very, very unusual. But so far, I've been very positively surprised.
So everyone reacts in a super friendly and positive way and is always interested in what I do. And because of that, I have to say, it's a great feeling. It's exciting, unusual, but I'm happy to embrace it.
How did that actually happen in the first place? You don't exactly plan to become a YouTube celebrity, at least not in paragliding circles. What did you actually plan or think for this YouTube channel at the beginning?
I don't think I had a real plan at all. I'd just been filming for a long time already. Then I thought it was actually a waste to just let all that data sit on my PC. So I started processing it a bit more nicely, and at the beginning, I just edited the videos together without any commentary. And yeah, that was, let's say, just okay. They were such insignificant videos on YouTube that they just got lost in the crowd. And then at some point—I think it was only in April of this year—I started actually preparing a cross-country flight as a video, as a vlog. Where I commentate and share my thoughts with people. And those were the videos that really, yeah, took off.
on YouTube. Yeah, it just went through the roof in a short amount of time. So, what was going on with you when you saw, hey, suddenly you don't just have six viewers, but maybe 6,000 or something?
Yeah, that was totally exciting. I remember it very well too. Especially because it wasn't like I uploaded the video and suddenly the click counts went through the roof, but it happened slowly. I already had two other cross-country flight videos online, but they were recorded with miserable audio. And that wasn't very pleasant to watch. Anyway, the video that really took off was this video where I flew to Detmold in three hours. From Detmold to Münster. Anyway, I remember that the video only had a few views on the first day, and then every day it increased a little bit. And somehow after two weeks, a day was reached where it just went through the roof. And on that one day, I think there were 34,000 views on the video. And I had no idea what was happening. The phone was ringing non-stop and I was getting messages, another subscriber.
Another comment, another like. And oh, I really didn't know what was going on. It was like being in a bubble. You could hardly believe it.
Now, you make very special videos. One special thing is that you always film with three cameras. So, it's very elaborate. But above all, you constantly commentate on your actions live. And in doing so, you come across very unfiltered, and it all feels very authentic. How did you come up with this format, where you actually say, "I'm playing the live commentator in my films"? That's usually not the case at all with other YouTube paragliding videos. There's just nice music in the background. But for someone to be chatting the whole time, that's... Yeah, how did you come up with that?
I can't really judge from my current perspective why it turned out that way. I just told myself I wanted to capture the feeling of paragliding from every angle. And I wanted to give a holistic view of it. Like what it's really like to sit in the harness, to steer with the control toggles, but also the view I have. And I quickly realized I need multiple cameras. And then I found this chase perspective so nice because it also captures that feeling of gliding along. And then I thought, I need a perspective that somehow captures my emotions and my gestures. So, a selfie camera filming me. Once, what I'm seeing and perceiving right at that moment. My view, like a POV perspective. And then I thought, I definitely also need this selfie camera, this chase camera, at the back as well.
That's how it started. And I think I'm naturally a pretty communicative person, so I just started chatting away. I tried to share my thoughts a bit with the people who eventually watch the videos. And yeah, somehow it just developed that way.
How much effort does the video production actually take for you in the end? You say you fly with these three cameras. That means you've somehow filmed the entire flight three times. If you say you fly for five hours, then you have at least 15 hours of footage alone. Do you watch it all again afterwards? How do you go about that?
The surrounding stuff is really the bulk of the work. I have to admit, I've had hardly any complications, if any, during the flight itself. Sure, the tracking camera once got caught somewhere between the lines. So far, it's all been very unspectacular. But what's really annoying is that I need at least 20 minutes more preparation at the start because I have to attach all the cameras first so they don't get snagged. Every now and then I have aborted starts because the tracking camera gets caught during takeoff. Because the takeoff just causes difficulties. I have to make sure the power bank is charged, all the batteries are charged. I'm also recording the audio externally during the flight now. And that's already a lot of extra stuff, which is also annoying. But when I finish the video at home afterwards, I know what it was worth for.
How long do you spend editing a film like that? Let's take the one where you flew from Detmold to Münster, for example. That's almost 30 minutes of video in the end. How many hours of work does that mean for 30 minutes of video? Is that about 30 hours of editing time? Because people often say that one minute of finished video means one hour of work.
I'm afraid that would be a very positive outcome. Unfortunately, I'm not getting down to 30 hours yet. I think for that specific video, which was one of the first ones I really put my heart and soul into, I have to say, I didn't really have any footage from that scene and had to piece everything together from scratch. And even now, I'd say I need a lot of time. For things that might come very, very quickly to others, I still take much longer. I think I invested around 80 hours of work for that video. So it was really, really a lot of work.
Are you faster now, then? Because you said that was at the beginning and it took a really long time. Are you saying, well, instead of 80, I only need 60 hours now for a 30-minute video? Is progress visible then?
Yeah, pretty much as you described. The progress is visible, but it's still a huge amount of effort. That's why I unfortunately can't manage to finish more than about one video a month. Because I still have two other jobs and other areas of my life that I want to attend to as well. And if it's supposed to be fun, then it's just that I only sit down to work on it for a few hours every day. And then I only manage about one a month. If things go well, maybe two a month. And I have to admit, the biggest time sink is really my own perfectionism. I probably could have uploaded the video after 40 hours of work. But I was still missing that last little bit of polishing.
What's noticeable in your videos, especially when you compare them to other classic paraglider videos, is this special, particularly good audio, especially the spoken audio. You can always layer music underneath cleanly, but you don't sound muffled in the air, not ruffled by the wind or anything like that, but you're just clear. Your speech is simply super clear to recognize or understand. Do you have special equipment for that or a specific way of editing it afterwards?
So I use a video program, Adobe Premiere Pro. And I have a few options there for what to do. I didn't know that at first, either. I could have optimized the first videos significantly. Basically, the fundamental thing I do is just turn the bass down a bit in the equalizer. And then the wind noise, especially if you have a good sound system, is already a bit lower. And then I play around with the equalizer a bit. But what really made the biggest difference is an external microphone. Using an external recording device. So at first, I only used the GoPro, especially the helmet cam, in combination with a wind muff. That already produced pretty good audio tracks. But now I have a shotgun microphone, which is basically in my cockpit and pointed at me.
And that was a custom-built DIY thing. I took a soda bottle and cut it. The microphone sits inside it, and there are two wind muffs over it. It's basically in a wind-protected area in the cockpit, which is facing me. And with that, I have to say, at least the audio recording during the flight is already very...
Right. Let's jump around the subject a bit. So, if you watch your YouTube videos and then read all the comments, you can see that these films aren't just watched by paragliders, but also by completely normal people who just happened to stumble upon them and then somehow stayed fascinated. When you make your films now, do you also have those kinds of viewers in the back of your mind and say, I need to explain something extra for the average Joe or something like that? Or do you just say, I just film, I edit, I talk however I feel like, and that's just how it turns out?
Yes, they are both conscious and unconscious decisions. I mean, in the situation itself, I'm just a human being, the pilot Marlon, who is flying and speaking his mind. And then it's during the editing that I really select, okay, what story do I want to tell, where do I go into more detail, or where do I maybe cut things short for the sake of the narrative arc? At any rate, I really like to address the non-flyers as well, and it's important to me to portray paragliding in a way that people can understand the story happening there, perhaps without needing to know all the technical terms.
When you have such a wide reach, even among non-flyers, that actually implies a responsibility, because you're showing how paragliding works, but you could also show the negative sides of paragliding. So, things that somehow go wrong and can really have a negative impact on public perception. In your big cross-country flight video—and that was a big cross-country flight, you flew from Detmold almost to the Belgian border, over 200 kilometers—there's a scene where you got pretty close to the clouds. And that... that also triggered some rather critical comments on YouTube, but as far as I know, the DHV even reached out because of it and said, well, no, no, no, you shouldn't really show something like that, or especially not do it.
How do you deal with that kind of criticism?
Yeah, you're touching on something that's a really sensitive issue. And especially when you're, let's say, in the spotlight a bit more and have that kind of reach with the videos, it's really quite a lot. I actually had some correspondence just a few days ago regarding that one cloud flight incident. It's still bothering me. So, I'm definitely trying to reflect on my behavior and rethink my rule-breaking in that case, and I haven't done any cloud flights since then. It's difficult, of course. In that situation, I know I was very euphoric and I just let myself—as I wrote it too—get carried away by the thermals and my own euphoria. And yeah, I maybe didn't think as far ahead as I should have. I thought that the positive side, this experience of knowing what it's like to dive into a cloud and fly out of it, I thought that was what took center stage.
But of course, when I reach so many people, I come across as a role model. And if I show that kind of behavior, I'm acting as if I approve of it. And if everyone did that, it would definitely lead to accidents sooner or later. Especially collisions with gliders or other traffic behavior. Or also with the road users who are allowed to fly through the clouds. That's where it gets difficult. So I'm trying to control myself as much as possible and to have a better grip on it in the future so that no further violations of the rules occur.
So in the future, will you be flying with the scissors in mind and saying, oh, this scene, I definitely have to leave that out, that was some shit again?
Actually, I go one step further and say, not only do I have to cut the scene, but I try to avoid the area altogether. I mean, of course, I don't want to fly into the cloud anymore. I'm also involved in that. I tested a flight device from a colleague that uses Fanet and Flam. Just in case you're accidentally pulled into the cloud, which can certainly happen, even if it's one of those rare occurrences. But I feel better having a safety system with me that might inform other traffic participants up there where I am. That there might be someone on a collision course in the cloud who can't be seen. But I'm actually trying to leave that situation out completely.
Do you have the camera with you on every one of your flights now? Or the camera, so to speak?
Well, in the beginning, back before the YouTube era, I had a camera with me almost every single time. Just to maybe review the flight again in the evening, to see what went well or what didn't. I still usually have a camera with me. But mostly just one, maybe a second camera just in case something happens. And when you're flying, unexpected things happen quite often. But it's like, if I say the day looks promising or I have some special event, then I specifically say, yeah, now I'm really taking all three cameras with me. Maybe even a 360-degree camera is added to the mix every now and then. So maybe even a fourth camera. But I prepare for that. And it's also important to me because I notice how much work goes into it, so that it doesn't feel overwhelming, that it doesn't become too much.
And sometimes I go out very deliberately and say, "No, today I'm doing my thing completely without a camera. I just want to let my hair down without having that commentator in my head speaking for the camera."
Have you personally noticed that you fly differently when you have these cameras on and you know you have to say something or something else? I mean, what do the cameras do to you?
No, I don't think I fly differently. I think that's just my normal flying style. And what I'm saying are actually the thoughts going through my head. It's really, I mean, it's one-to-one me.
Every now and then, it just takes some effort to put these thoughts into words, to process them for the viewer, and to actually say them into the camera. And on longer cross-country flights, I notice that even during the editing time, I probably say just as much in the first hour as I do in the next three hours. At the beginning, my own euphoria, strength, and motivation are still very, very high. But when I land after a five, six, sometimes seven-hour flight—happy but also exhausted—there isn't as much documented at the end. I just notice how I, as a pilot, become calmer and put in less motivation to speak into the camera. And if I want to commentate on a video well, I always have to push myself a bit to say, no, come on, I have to share my thoughts now. I have to say where I am right now, what's happening, and what the next steps are during the flight.
Well, you don't just document cross-country flights; sometimes you also take off with an agro glider and then do your first, second, or third agro moves. Among others, there's a film where you can see how you—I think it was Annecy or something—how you start training for helicopters there as well.
What you'd normally expect, but somewhere further back in the terrain—at least that's how I saw it—you're more over the forest. Isn't that too risky?
Well, I did the first attempts over water at the beginning. The problem with agro-flying is that if you want to practice frequently or spend a lot of time practicing, it's very, very difficult to do it over water. Doing it over water assumes that I have to hike or drive back up the mountain specifically to do a glider run. In Annecy, I only had maybe two, two or three heli-runs, and then the altitude is depleted to the point where I have to land again. That means if I lived for the whole day just doing agro-flights safely over water, I'd maybe get three, four, or five flights and then the day would be over. And if I really want to spend a lot of time agro-flying, I just have to do it somewhere where I can also recharge with thermals. Like the cracks probably do in Norgania, soaring up in the ridge lift or in the thermals, and then practicing over ground, not over water.
But of course, it's best to have two rescuers with you. But clearly, the ground isn't as forgiving as a lake, where rescue teams might pull me out with a boat. The thought is already in the back of my mind. I try to pay attention to a certain minimum altitude so that I can get the glider out of extreme flight maneuvers properly, even if it collapses at some point. And if all else fails, I just trust the rescue and the fact that a forested area, which I had under me there, is still safer than, say, a densely built-up residential area.
or if the landing isn't pretty, it's still, well, compared to the other landing options, one of the safer variants.
When you watch your videos, you can see that you like to try a lot of things and also try different things. You also do tandem, for example. You also do powered glider. You also do tandem powered glider, so to speak. There's a video where you can see you also do a lot of proximity flying, flying close over some small fields, but also as a pair under the powered glider, which you don't see that often.
How did you end up getting into paragliding then? What drove you to do it?
So I'd love to tell you the story of how I actually stumbled into the sport, because it was a very, very defining experience, going from having absolutely no contact with paragliding to really getting into it. I had one of those real boring evenings where I was sitting at home in front of the computer and just clicking through YouTube a bit. And I came across a video by Jean-Baptiste Chandelier—or I don't know how to pronounce it correctly—but Jean-Baptiste makes these wonderful paragliding videos. And I got stuck on one of his videos. I think it was the "Touch" video, where he—it's breathtaking—where he really flies totally close to the buildings, dives through a swimming pool with his foot, and keeps flying. And he managed, in his style of videos, to inspire me so much that I said, hey, why am I not doing that? That looks so cool. And for the first time in my life, I had a different perspective on paragliding.
Until then, I have to admit, up to that point I didn't even know that you could...
paragliding. There's only the possibility of soaring down. And, well, I had no connection to the sport and thought it was maybe a bit of a... I really thought it would be a boring retirement sport with a nice view, but that it would be rather boring. And when I then saw in that video what's possible—that you can do cross-country flights, acrobatic maneuvers, crazy G-forces, and basically limitless possibilities in the hobby—I was so hooked that the very next click on the computer was to eBay Kleinanzeigen, and I wanted to know first, where can I find such equipment? And that evening, I got my first paraglider. There was a paraglider from 1989 for 60 euros. I bought it immediately and thought to myself, well, it is old, maybe it's not in the best condition anymore, but at least for practicing, for the first experiences, to get a feel for what it's like, that should be enough.
The paraglider was from 1989. What year are we talking about here? When did you buy it? So, when was your first contact with the paraglider? That must
It must have been 2013.
That was pretty old. Yeah, it was pretty old. Luckily, it arrived in really good condition. There was still about half a kilo of dune sand in it. The lines were completely frayed, and the previous owner I bought it from said he hadn't flown it himself in years and had hung up paragliding after just a few days of practice. And you could also see that it had been packed so clumsily; he had no idea how he actually had to pack this paraglider. And at that point, I had no idea how I had to unpack it either.
So, we were at the lines, and on the first day when I actually wanted to fly, I drove to a colleague's farm—he's a farmer—and he has many areas where I could have ground-handled the glider. But the first day was spent entirely just untying knots. What I didn't know—I'd say from my current perspective it might have been about 20 minutes of work just to fumble through it—back then I thought it was a knot that couldn't be untied, and I opened all the line locks and took photos of them beforehand so I could remember which line level belonged where. By the time I had put it back together, the first flight day was basically already over.
And on the second flight day, you first tipped all the sand out of the back of the glider. What happened next?
Exactly, that was right on the second day. I was so eager and had the time to go back to the farm. And there was a very, very small hill. But back then, I couldn't yet estimate how much slope it needs. And that hill was so low that I could never have taken off there with that old glider. I mean, I think even with the best high-performers, even with the Enzo now, I wouldn't have stood a chance there. It was too flat. But I kept holding the glider into the wind over and over. I didn't have a proper harness back then, but I had a climbing harness, like an industrial climbing harness, and I just somehow attached the glider to my hip with two hardware store carabiners that aren't even suitable for climbing. And because I couldn't manage to pull it up crosswise or ground handle it normally, I hooked myself in backwards. So, in a way that I'm looking at the glider. And that worked out quite well.
And then the wind kept getting stronger and stronger, to the point where I eventually worried that the glider would soon pull me across the field—or rather, in my ignorance, I thought, oh no, I hope I don't take off and fly away. Which, of course, as long as you're not attached, can't happen at all. Then I came up with the glorious idea to secure myself, and I had the anchor point on the climbing harness on my back, right between the shoulder blades, where I actually couldn't reach it myself. So, that dead point where you can't reach your back to scratch it. Then a colleague secured me to my car at the trailer hitch with a carabiner and a 20-meter long rope. The wind got stronger and stronger, and at first it was funny because I suddenly hovered in the air for a short moment due to the strong gusts. But it wasn't so funny anymore when eventually that really dark storm front that hit that day started roaring closer, and the gusts became so strong that I hung in the air permanently, and eventually, the 20-meter rope was completely taut.
I was hanging vertically over the car and there was this lockout where the glider broke out to the side. Shit. Yeah, luckily it ended so mildly. The glider let me down relatively gently and then dragged me a bit across the field, and yeah, the colleague—there's even a video of it, I have to dig that out from the depths of my hard drive somewhere. Anyway, the colleague completely underestimated the seriousness of the situation and only realized, okay, I need his help, when I actually got louder. Because I couldn't even let down the line on my own. So I was trapped in the situation and completely dependent on him, and I was having trouble just keeping the glider on the ground myself. I didn't know yet that I could have also coiled the brake to hold the glider even more firmly, better, on the ground. That
That means it was basically your first flight. Your first flight was a direct fixed-rope tow, but without the car moving, the wind just got so strong. It then lifted you up like a classic kite. Then you were hanging there in the air and it tilted off at an angle during the lockout. But you got out of there without any broken bones or anything.
Yeah, so if you ever see the video, it was really unspectacular. But exactly as you say, yeah, I was hanging there like a kite and then at some point it just went to the side and I couldn't stop this sideways movement of the glider. And luckily, it still held up surprisingly well even in that sideways movement. So I landed really, really gently. I didn't even have any bruises or anything. I was so... it ended so smoothly that I dared to go back to the farm the very next day and wanted to fly out there on the meadow again. And then again
hung it on the car and then you guys drove again, or what?
The third day was the day we had better wind conditions, so significantly less wind. It was just enough for ground handling. And we said, yeah, I want to take off again somehow. How do we do that? The thing with the car worked, but since we have too little wind this time, we'll probably have to drive with the car to get more headwind to actually get into the air. So the whole thing was turned around, I was then attached to the front attachment point on my hip with a fixed line, without a pulley, without the possibility of releasing myself, with a rope that had an 8 mm diameter. It has a breaking load of over 800 kg. So anyone who flies a paraglider knows, you normally use a deliberate breaking point of about 150 kg or 200 kg that you install in case something goes wrong, so that there's a weakest link somewhere.
Anyway, they hooked me up to the car and my colleague sat in the driver's seat, rolled the window down, and I just said, "Yeah, give it some gas, faster, faster, faster." And when I finally got into the air—which, I should add, worked relatively soon after a few ugly attempts, I have to go back a bit, I had zero clue about the starting techniques at that point. When I watch the videos, it's all on video, I'm not even running the risers over my arm, which means I'm pushing forward with my arm, pushing the brake forward and the glider is basically braked while I accelerate, and I'm hoping the glider goes up, which it often didn't do, it just dragged along the ground behind me and every now and then it would actually get up. And yeah, with those few lucky attempts, it somehow worked. I was incredibly lucky that I bought this old glider, because I have to say to this day, I probably wouldn't have survived on any other, more modern glider.
It was so sluggish, it had such stable canopy damping; it was so docile that it took a lot of abuse from me.
So, those were your attempts—you had a colleague with you, did he say, "let me try too," or did he say, "wow, you just keep getting thrown sideways into the field, maybe you should just leave it"?
Yeah, at some point we really had it so that I had two or three good, reliable flights in a row where we went down the whole street until we hit the forest again, where we couldn't fly any further. Anyway, he also put in the effort, and it has to be said, the colleague had always been enthusiastic about flying, but at the same time, he also had extreme fear of heights and, yeah, so we finished him off, also with just a brief instruction, and he actually hadn't had any experience with a glider before, he had only seen me doing it the whole time and I had no idea how I was supposed to tow him, I only learned that by hanging on the back of the glider and then we buckled him in, hooked him up, and he already had his first objections and said, ah, somehow the trailer hitch, I'm somehow worried, the rope is so close to the ground and somehow closer to the tires, I don't know what he was thinking, but he preferred to have it on the roof rack and we said, yeah, well, he'll probably hold the roof rack, we fastened it on top, yeah, and then it starts and I still remember him telling me, yeah, you have to start off quickly at the beginning and then, yeah,
I stepped on the gas relatively hard, the only problem is that my colleague in the back was so overwhelmed by his emotions and the situation that he couldn't give me any feedback at all that I was already way too fast. He was just overwhelmed, you can see it too, there's a video of it, how he shoots high into the air and in the next second, his girlfriend films it, she just says, oh man or oh crap or something, and in the next second the rope is so taut that the entire roof rack rips off the roof and flies past him like a projectile at a crazy speed, and you can see the girlfriend pans the phone further and you see how he's drifted sideways with the wind and then lands in a field with a tailwind without pulling the brake properly, and you just see him hit the ground in a running position in a cloud of dust in the field, luckily nothing happened to him, except that he probably had a mental shock.
carried away by that, but it was such a dramatic experience for him, for the colleague. Now
Did you eventually get your pilot's license and now fly completely officially and everything's good? Did your colleague continue flying, or was that the crushing experience where he said, never again?
Yeah, unfortunately, it didn't happen quite that fast for my decision to get the license. I also did a few flights on the same day, and for my colleague, that was enough for now. I—that was actually the decisive day when I got the first book on glider flying and read up more, and then I already knew, okay, I need a thinner rope, a longer rope, I need a tow release and things like that, but the logical step of doing the training properly unfortunately didn't come yet. But there were still a few flight days where my colleague was there again, and he had another stupid experience; nothing happened and everything was okay, but he got into such a state of anxiety. And then there was a third incident where my colleague was actually at a flight school and inquired, and he did a few—yeah, the first days of the basic training—but then he dropped out and told himself, no, that's it, full stop, flying is unfortunately dead for me. And I find that very, very sad, because I believe to this day that fulfilling this would have been a lifelong dream for him, and I feel really sorry to this day that with my perhaps very unconventional way of teaching myself to fly, I stoked such a fear in him that he
...he wouldn't even agree to a tandem flight today, and I still ask him from time to time because I hope to reignite that enthusiasm in him, just a little bit. How
Do you see these—I'll call them your "youthful sins" from today's perspective—if you look at them with all the flying experience you have now, would you say you can only put your hands over your head in disbelief, or would you say that it was somehow an important experience?
Probably both. Still, I wouldn't advise anyone to do that, because I have to say, so many lucky factors contributed to me sitting here healthy today. I don't think you can be that lucky a second time, having all these attempts one after another again. So, showing every single one of these cases would probably break the scope here, but at times, I had little money back then as a student and kept getting into the air using makeshift means. Very often I flew low to the ground, without a rescue, without solid knowledge, and I had so many line breaks behind the car where I—I had once, that was the first time I had a better glider and then I said, yeah great, with the better glider behind the car, we had a longer line, we got some straw binding rope from the farmer, there were two-kilometer rolls, that was great, we always cut off 500-meter pieces and then had 500 meters of tow line.
We had a one-way road in the field that was two kilometers long, where we reached full release altitudes, so up to 500 meters, and then that first flight with this better glider was really like, suddenly a gust of wind hits. I also had a driver who was doing this for the first time, so of course with a cell phone connection so I could tell him over the radio, "you stop," or if the connection dropped, it was agreed that he would stop. We already thought we were approaching the thing more safely, but it was still far from safe. Then I had a line break with this rope and I reacted absolutely wrong or far too timidly to the much more dynamic glider. With the old glider from 1989, I hardly needed to brake, the canopy stood back up over my head and I had hardly any risk of a front collapse. Yes, and with the newer glider, which was then a Low Level B glider, it completely overshot me, flew forward, collapsed over a large area, and that was the first real front collapse I experienced at that point.
I braked, and probably over-braked out of fear, and then basically stalled the glider in a spinning and tumbling motion until it hit the ground, and I only made it out again with more luck than sense. I was stuck ankle-deep in a muddy field, but luckily I landed on my feet. I don't know how I survived all these situations, but if there's one thing I can take away from it, or one experience I can share, it's really the recommendation: go to a flight school. It might not be quite as exciting, maybe not always as thrilling as teaching yourself, but you get much more out of it, and you're pointed directly to the important things you should avoid.
You could also say it was more luck than sense. By now, you've actually switched your brain on somewhere.
If you look at youthful sins in a different way—today you work as a social worker in a youth welfare facility, so you deal with teenagers who might sometimes go overboard or have some weird ideas or whatever. As far as I know, you also go flying with the boys sometimes. To what extent does paragliding help you somehow to get in contact with them, or to teach them something, or whatever?
Yes, that is a really special highlight of my work. I am also very, very grateful to my employer for giving me this opportunity. Yes, I actually go flying with the boys relatively regularly, when the weather and time and other appointments allow, and then we take off in a tandem in Sauerland or somewhere else. And in the pedagogical work, that helps in a really significant way sometimes. There are also boys who are quite unimpressed by it or some just live in the moment, but for some, it has more depth. And it's just like this: anyone who has ever gone tandem flying or sat on the back of a motorcycle, for example, knows that you are completely at the other person's mercy, or rather, you have to trust someone completely and give up all responsibility and control. And that's just how it is with paragliding too. And if the boys let you into that, to go into the air with me, and the topic of height—even if you don't have a panic-inducing fear of heights—is a topic that I think touches everyone somewhere.
Up there, it's maybe comparable to the feeling of swimming way out into the sea alone. Suddenly, you're far away from other people. You're in a situation where you can't just get back to solid ground quickly. And I do believe that does something for the boys. That's a level of depth in social work. We also have conversations up there. So, interpersonal small talk, which sometimes has an unimaginable depth that leads to changes. And I have real highlight moments—I can't recount them so specifically right now. But really beautiful situations have emerged, and I notice that the boys might have a certain different approach to me as a result, where I notice they trust me or confide in me in a way I haven't experienced before in our normal pedagogical interaction.
Now you also have another job, which I think is your main job. You're a yoga teacher. Are there things where, from your perspective, you benefit from yoga in some way while flying, or perhaps vice versa?
Definitely. I think that's one of the things I've taken away from yoga in particular. I believe a practiced yogi is able to bring a certain sense of calm and composure even in very tense situations, whether it's mental or physical tension. And I think that's a skill that is essentially important for paragliding. I notice time and again that there are some pilots who might fly well, but in situations where it really comes down to it—when the turbulence is so strong that you no longer feel comfortable and you're pushed out of your comfort zone—some of them tense up. They react too little, are rigid, or overreact. And I think yoga has helped me a lot to remain calm, composed, and equally capable of taking action in those situations, and to approach them very deliberately.
And I've said that quite often in other interviews as well. When it comes to paragliding, especially when things get a bit sketchy—I've had flights in stronger thermals where I felt like I was no longer in control, or in strong winds where it suddenly happened—it helps me to keep my cool and everything seems a bit slower. It's almost as if I have more time for my decisions and my actions. I think that has helped me several times to safely get back down to the ground.
Well, yoga is your profession, the one you make money from. To what extent is your YouTube fame also bringing you anything financially by now?
I've always actually tried to keep paragliding as a hobby; I learned that back when I was doing yoga, or noticed that it also started out as a hobby. It eventually took on a slightly different character, though, because yoga also became a job somewhere. And that's what I actually wanted to avoid with paragliding. I don't think it's entirely possible to avoid it anymore now. On the one hand, I naturally get tiny amounts of income from YouTube ads. However, if I calculate that against the hours of work I spend on video production, I'd be better off pursuing other options as a 1-euro jobber. So, I'm really in the cents range there. Otherwise, it's true that I'm getting more requests for tandem flights now. Until now, I've only done that for friends and family, and it's only in the last year that I've had a handful of tandem flights.
The inquiries are piling up, but I don't want to turn this into a job where I say, okay, I have to crank out 10 tandem flights next week. That wouldn't be my thing. But it does happen more often now that I do the odd tandem flight here and there, especially when there are special issues—like, they're life wishes and dreams for someone who feels particularly spoken to by my videos. I don't see myself as a commercial tandem pilot who's just billing hours. Nor do I intend to become a flight instructor, even though I think that would be a nice fulfillment. I think I'd get spread too thin with all the different topics I have in my life. Besides my other jobs, it's very, very important to me that I can still properly enjoy my own flying time. Also just on a solo glider, or a power glider, or on whatever glider.
In the future, you'll only be able to perceive Marlon Jonath in the paraglider sector mainly as the vlogger. At this point, I want to play a little game with you, specifically regarding your vlogger work. You are a person who can speak well.
You're saying, let's see.
Yeah, but do you also remember all the stuff you're saying? I'm just going to give you a few short quotes from some of your films now, and you can tell me which movie it is. I...
I'm curious, because I've definitely watched those films dozens of times myself during production. I'd like to hope and guess that I have a good feel for them.
I'm curious. Let's just get started. Quote 1: This is paragliding porn, but of the highest quality.
Launch at 30, so a thermal launch at the 30-meter hill. I remember that very clearly. It was a breathtaking moment. It was really great. The hill was so difficult, really just to soar there, and we had a relatively gentle wind. And I know exactly what the situation was. I gained a bit of altitude and was then able to execute my plan and fly further forward. I could fly to a field that I otherwise wouldn't have reached. And suddenly I reached a real thermal, just as I had estimated the day with, I think, 6 meters per second and it's going up. And yes, that's exactly where the quote came from in that scene. Very cool.
Another quote from that. Maybe you can describe the scene there too. It says, "I still think playing dead and keeping quiet is better." Oh man, that one's tricky. "I still think playing dead is better." It's still the same movie. It's a scene where you're watching two deer. Ah
So, yeah, exactly. Right, I remember. Yeah, that was probably because it wasn't directly about the flying itself, but the stuff around it. That was incredible. So apparently, that was an area that was heavily frequented by wildlife. And I saw several deer down there that day. And yeah, suddenly they—probably they thought I was a bird of prey or something and they definitely screamed really loudly. And I had never heard a fawn scream until that point. It really sounds almost like a human scream. And I kept looking down and could hardly spot them in the tall grass until I finally saw it. And yeah, I have to say, I thought that was a very bad strategy, that little fawn screaming around there. And that's when I just said, I think the strategy of keeping quiet or whatever it is you just said is even better.
Staying still and keeping your mouth shut is much better in that case. Exactly. Now let's move on to another film and another quote from it. You can say which film it is. The quote is "72 km/h without a speed bar." Well, then let's get started.
I think that's the movie where I flew from Detmold to Münster in 3 hours, or something over 3 hours. We had a strong tailwind. Yes, exactly. Exactly, we had a strong tailwind and I already know that without the speed bar, on the Enzo—which is a hot glider—I already had 72 km/h, and I think that was definitely consciously perceived as my fastest flight until then. And then I stepped on the speed bar and could hardly believe it. I don't remember exactly what the top km/h was, but probably around 90 km/h, maybe even slightly over. That went really well.
Another quote from this film says that we men, I think, aren't made to do multiple things at once. Now you're filming, talking, flying—all at the same time. Are you not a man?
Yeah, well said, I am a man. I think my thermal also confirms that. No, but I think maybe it's not necessarily sensible to do so many things at once. I have to be completely honest, that's a compromise; if you try to combine so many things while flying, you make certain sacrifices. If I try to make high-quality statements and comments at the same time, and I want to center the thermals, and I want to fly safely, and I want to watch the airspaces and everything else, that really becomes a lot, and that's why unfortunately not everything can happen at the same time. And at that point, it was just too much. I had to, I was still focused on my colleague who was standing on the ground, I wasn't at such an altitude myself yet that I could say, yeah, I can take off now.
So I was still searching for thermals. There was so much wind that I sometimes needed the speed bar to move forward. It was still quite turbulent. Yeah, and my girlfriend called, and that's also often criticized in my videos—that just like with other things, like driving a car, you shouldn't be on the phone. You just shouldn't do that in the air either. And I'm torn. I think it's a nice way to communicate and maybe up there, differently than over the radio—to somehow send messages—you should just choose carefully which situations you go to your phone for and which ones you maybe don't. Yeah, but maybe I do have certain multitasking skills as a man.
Okay. Another example from a film. Maybe you'll get a slightly different perspective on your multitasking skills there. It says, I'm fed up, I have to concentrate on flying.
Oh, that's tough, yeah. I'm fed up.
No, I need your help. Tell me where that was.
Yes, that's the long flight where you flew almost to the Belgian border. There was apparently a situation where you got pretty low and had to work your way out of it. And you apparently didn't want to comment anymore, but really wanted to focus on the thermal to manage to get back up at all.
Yeah, that's right. A super exciting low-safe, I remember. It was really great. The tension was very, very high because I had a day where I really had a lot of time behind me. And then after 40, 50 km/h it went down so rapidly that I, I didn't want to face it. And I was so tense, I still remember that. I wanted to fight out of this thermal at all costs and get back up and keep flying, so I even said, no, come on, I'll put the commentary aside now just to dial down a bit that multitasking we just discussed and to say, no, now only the thermals count and then it's more important for me to keep the flight going than to express my thoughts and comments here right now. Next quote. 40 km/h,
but backwards.
Yeah well, that was the flight where I took an absolute risk in a flight area—uh, what was it called again? Saint-Hilaire? Saint-Hilaire, exactly, where I flew in Saint-Hilaire. It was a borderline announced day. There was a certain Föhn forecast and it was also totally stupid because that huge valley in Saint-Hilaire specifically makes it so that the Föhn penetration is practically offered. Anyway, we had great conditions at the launch site, and even though you can't see it in the video, there were still pilots flying ahead of us and we really thought maybe it was still manageable. We also spoke with others down at the launch site; they expressed their concerns too, but said, yeah, if it doesn't get too high, it'll probably still be doable. But you could already notice a lot of "ifs" there, and maybe, as a sensible pilot, you actually should have left the glider in the harness, in the backpack, and stayed on the ground.
We didn't do that, we took off. The others eventually got sorted and washed out in very, very gentle wind, and then at some point I dug out a very weak thermal that kept getting stronger, and then it hit hard on hard. I was then pushed into an altitude by the thermals where the Föhn wind was totally penetrating, and that was a very, very sharp and frightening experience with the Enzo. I didn't dare to hit the speed bar, but if you know the Enzo probably already flies at a trim speed of 40, 45 km/h on its own, then I had 34 km/h of backward travel, which means I had wind gusts well over 70 km/h up there, and that was really very frightening. Above all, at that point I didn't know if the wind was penetrating at the full altitude, and I had hoped that there would be less wind further down and I could fly ahead, which did work out, but until the point where I finally managed to get down, I have to say, I was probably more tense than in any of the other flights.
What did you learn from that for yourself? Did you say, okay, I need to look at the high-altitude wind forecasts a bit more closely? Yes, that saying...
preferring to stand on the ground and want to be in the air, rather than being in the air and wanting to be on the ground—that became very clear to me again that day, and it's still an issue that concerns me and probably many other pilots, especially if you've taken a certain amount of time for the ascent, if you've put in a certain amount of effort to get to the launch site, and then it doesn't look flyable at the launch site. To really say, no, come on, it might be possible, but it might not be the safest or most comfortable flight, and then really saying, no, come on, I'll skip the flight today in favor of many more flights in the future—that's an important decision, and every now and then I manage to do that quite well, to really say, no, come on, that's it. But I still catch myself on flight days at least trying it out, and then after a short, really
...a very frightening moment, then somehow aborting the flight and saying, no, come on, it's nothing, but I'd like to develop myself further so that I can say, no, come on, it's not flyable, even while still on the ground. I shouldn't always have to be the one to go out and test it myself; I don't think that's good in the long run.
Let's get to the last example of this game, quote, "Shit guys, I have to call it."
Shit, no, that doesn't ring a bell for me.
Well, to be honest, I've led you into a bit of a trap there; that's not an original quote from you, but we're reaching the end of our podcast now, so you can go ahead and say that as a quote—it's your call. Okay, yeah, shit guys, I have to wrap this up. Great, thank you, and yeah, I wish you many more good flights in the near future and I'm looking forward to the next videos that will probably appear on your channel mainly next year, when it's thermal again.
Luckily, I've done some prep work, so you can look forward to new videos over the winter too, but thanks a lot for the invitation, Lucian, I really enjoyed it, and I'll say see you soon.
That was Marlon Jonath in conversation with Lucian Haas. If you want to watch Marlon's videos now, you can easily find his channel by searching for the name Marlon Jonath on YouTube. The corresponding link can also be found in the show notes of this episode of Podz-Glidz on the Blueglides blog.
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