Simple, safe flying for everyone. We actually haven't fulfilled this promise even after 30 years. It's a goal to eventually achieve, where every pedestrian is actually able to fly with an extremely safe, forgiving aircraft.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Hannes Pappisch and Lucian Haas on the mic.
The Tyrolean Hannes Pappisch was 22 years old when he designed his first paraglider. It was still made on his mother's sewing machine. During the first flights, it quickly became clear that the CX model represented a huge leap in the evolution of paragliders. And for Hannes, it was his entry into the then-booming paragliding business. Around 30 years later, Hannes Pappisch is still considered a gifted glider designer. Five years after leaving the manufacturer Nova, which he co-founded, he is now celebrating success with his own brand, Phi. Within a short time, he brought an astonishingly wide range of glider models to market with a small team.
This is also made possible by an approach inspired by biology. Hannes uses self-programmed design software in which all the characteristics of the gliders are stored like genes in a cell's genetic makeup. Paraglider development becomes a kind of evolutionary process in which mutation and selection represent important steps. In this 19th episode of Podz-Glidz, Hannes Pappisch talks about his experiences from 30 years as a paraglider designer. Among other things, he reports on his wild beginnings, explains what important roles the computer, but also manual labor, play in the development of paragliders. He talks about the end at Nova and the restart with Phi, and also addresses the future of paraglider construction.
Hannes, 1989 is the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall for many people in Germany. What breakthrough did that year bring to your life?
1989 was actually already the second year of my development career. The decisive year was actually the year before, 1988. Around a bit later, at Christmas in 1987 in Vienna, I finally decided not to study, but to return to Tyrol and design a paraglider. I rode my motorcycle from Vienna to Innsbruck between Christmas and New Year, just sat down, and made drawings; I started programming a computer cutting program. I saw back then that it wouldn't work on the small desktop computer, so I borrowed a Commodore 128. It worked on that one.
And I borrowed my mother's sewing machine, organized the fabric, and started applying the whole thing, cutting out the templates, and sewing it together. That was the year before, 1988. And the thing flew in May. And then we found out very soon, after the first little problems with the stabilizer—which we then fixed—that the red egg, which still exists, performs very, very well. And then we showed it off a bit in the club and in our circle there in Innsbruck. And André Bucher became very interested in it. He was already a very successful competition pilot back then, second at the 1988 European Championship.
And lo and behold, the red egg glided better than his high-performance competition glider with its smooth profiles. I mean, he really had fiberglass rods in it from front to back. There are photos of him carrying it over his shoulder, like a ski jumper carries skis. And he was, of course, thrilled, and he got Ernst Steger, who ran a flight school near Innsbruck in Seefeld and produced small series of paragliders, to produce a small series of these devices with the Ernst he worked with. And that small series later became a massive series. That was the Comet CX, which was so, so popular, and I can already imagine...
...that changed paragliding somewhat. And then just a year later, in 1989, when it became clear to me that things weren't going so well with Ernst, I received several offers to collaborate with various people, until we finally decided to go all in. To try paragliding ourselves. So, through Wolfi's mediation, I met Hermann, who was based in Linz. And that's how we started the company Nova together. That was in 1989.
That was 1989, the beginning of Nova. But let's jump back briefly, since you said it started before that. You studied biology, but were you already paragliding yourself back then?
Yeah, that was the problem. So, studying in Innsbruck and paragliding is very difficult because paragliding is very present in Innsbruck. So wherever you are in the city, you might know this, you see the rescue chain, you see when a paraglider is flying around. And I wasn't really the disciplined student who could resist going out to fly myself. And as a consequence of that, I said, now you're going to Vienna and doing something in the cultural scene. But as a Tyrolean in this big city, that was very frustrating. And I don't know how well you know Vienna, so it's only limited, maybe better now, but back then it was very limited, just bikeable and a bit of a culture shock, especially in the winter semester, foggy.
And it ended with my friend and I trying very often to reach some hills or high walls from Vienna and so on, just to get a bit of flying in. And yeah, ultimately that failed. And that's how I ended up with the goal of trying to design a paraglider. And that was surprisingly successful, and that's how I stuck with it.
Did you have a role model for your first paraglider? I mean, studying biology and sewing a paraglider are two completely different things. How did you go about it? You have to know what kind of profile you can use and how to do the whole thing.
Yeah, we were... Well, I got into flying through my uncle. The story was that, at the very beginning, you only flew down with the Maxis, the 86s. And you needed someone to drive you back up in the car. He remembered me and hired me as a driver. And then, of course, I wanted to try flying myself. That was in the autumn of '86. And a bit later, we met the Blow-Up guys. That was Jordanis. Back then in... near Rosenheim. A brilliant sailmaker. And Fritz, the great Zahle. A physicist from the Innsbruck area. And they designed and produced the Blow-Up gliders. And I took that as a bit of a model.
Fritz also had the patent back then for the reinforcements in the nose. Maybe you can remember. That was already very visionary at the time. And Fritz basically invented paragliding for himself. I mean, he built his own back then and achieved much better performance with those paragliders than with the very first gliders of '86. And Daniel Düsentrieb. You can... maybe you have the pictures in mind. There's also a post on the THV website about him. He was a brilliant pilot. He still flies. But he's... I think Fritz is 77, 78 now. And yeah, I was naturally inspired by him. I looked at some profiles a bit. Those were parachute profiles. So, very simple. I modified them a bit.
I closed the nose. I wasn't entirely sure back then. Do you open it? At that time, open noses were the standard. Closed noses didn't really exist. And I remember how I finally decided during a walk: No, now I'm closing the nose. I can always cut it open later. And then I actually went into the kitchen. I picked out a plate that seemed reasonable to me in terms of the radius. For the middle one... the middle profile at its original length, 3.72 meters. And I positioned it, drew it out, and took a look. So, this plate was ultimately the specification for the nose radius. And somehow, it worked very well intuitively.
So, a very simple profile, straight at the bottom, straight at the back. And yeah, it was luck, intuition, talent. It just worked, yeah. But in the end, it was still a lot of manual work. Also, the trend back then was not to put holes in the intermediate profiles, but to manufacture them from gas. Which, of course, has the disadvantage of having extreme transverse stretch. That means you have to mark it super accurately. And that's very difficult when sewing. And that certainly delayed the manufacturing to some extent. But I did become relatively good at the craftsmanship. And that's a tip I still give to everyone who has some kind of ideas in the paraglider field.
A paraglider is actually quite interestingly a high-tech product that you can more or less manufacture at home by yourself. I mean, you don't need any complicated machinery. A sewing machine does the trick.
How long did it take you to sew this first glider?
Yeah, at first it was computer programming. So, calculating the sail cut. That took a while. Then, creating the templates. I thought to myself, maybe I'll make more than just one. So I made templates out of Meiler. Then cutting and sewing—all in all, from January to May.
And then the adjustment work. And then we already noticed it performs very well. And then it just took its course.
What do you mean by sail cut calculation? Did you basically scale the profiles onto the individual ribs in the computer and then print them out with a needle printer to say, "I have this long strip and this is my profile," or something like that?
No, no, that was still, yeah, pretty basic. So the unfolding and all that worked well. The software probably still has that in its core now. And you just specified the profiles as coordinates. The spacing, the radius, this wing. This wing sector is at this location. And that spat out coordinates. And back then, I still measured the coordinates manually for the templates. So, I actually plotted the XY and had a lot of marking points too. Reference coordinates. Marking points were necessary, especially in the spar, in the inter-ribs, so that it wouldn't warp too much. And it was quite a bit of work. Back then, it was still absolutely manual.
Later on, I was able to use the plotter at the data center through a colleague from the club. He was a geographer. And they printed maps there. So I printed all the profiles on top of each other. It almost looked like the contour lines of a mountain. No one wondered what it was. You still had to add some things by hand. But at least there was something on the paper automatically. And a bit later, well, from Urs—the circle closes a bit—the one you just heard about in the previous podcast, I bought a used needle printer from Urs Harri that was capable of printing A3 endlessly. So I glued two or three of those widths together and then produced the templates at home.
Although the needle printer was so loud that I had to muffle it a bit with padding so the people in the neighboring apartments wouldn't get annoyed. Because it took forever. It ran overnight. And yeah, that was a nice time with a lot of manual work. And that's the tip I still give to many people who want to try something in paragliding now. Sew it yourself. Try it out yourself. You learn a lot through the craft. And you get a feel for the material. In the end, it's similar to wood, fabric. It's a bit alive. It has its imperfections. And by making it yourself, you gain a feel for it and get to know the whole thing.
The classic mechanical engineer tends to solve problems on the computer because he thinks, "I have a large CNC mill, I'll machine this component out of aluminum." But usually, in our field, the problems are solved at the sewing machine. Often, the errors are in the processing area—in the fabric's deformation, due to the inherent imperfections we have, like fabric shrinkage and so on. So, it's important that you know that.
Well, you've been designing paragliders for 30 years now and you say, okay, the craftsmanship that I learned right at the very beginning is just as important today. But in which areas would you say the work for you as a designer has changed significantly over these 30 years? Or where has it changed? Or what has changed the most?
Yes, of course. I definitely try not to lose touch with that manual work. One of the things I always tell people who are learning is that designing or developing a paraglider is a craft. It helps a lot if you're used to handling a tape measure and working precisely. It's not just done on the computer; you definitely need that link to manual work. And that's what I'm still trying to maintain. I'm often in the warehouse sewing a few lines or this and that. It's important to keep that balance.
That means sitting at the computer, being in the workshop outside, being there during testing, and flying yourself. So my standard job is always taking air-to-air photos, photographing with the camera when there are thermals or when Benni is testing. And all sorts of flight maneuvers or accelerated flybys and so on.
And not a crazy amount has changed since then. I mean, sure, we have better technology now. GoPro footage hasn't been around that long. Or the cameras—digital photography makes it much easier. You can judge the photos immediately. You can look at them on the computer and so on. It was more complicated back then.
Programming is still a challenge. It takes a lot of time. Nowadays, computers are obviously much faster. But back then, we were already running flow simulations pretty soon, but only in 2D using the Apple code. I had someone from the US send me something. And yeah, that back then... I mean, now... the simulation runs in fractions of a second. Back then, you had to wait much longer for it. But it was already to the point where you could perform systematic analyses to select profiles that were perhaps outside of what we thought was good. For example, the Sphinx profile in '92.
Even before, if you look at it now, it was very daring. And for the large dimensions, it worked in terms of quality standards. For the small ones, it was too extreme. And yes, it was already interesting. I relied heavily on computers back then. And the program has been constantly evolving from before, so from 1988 until now. And it's in a completely different league now, of course. But the distribution of time—how much time at the computer, how much time outside, how much time in the workshop—is similar.
You're one of the few designers now who works a lot with a computer program. And especially one that you developed yourself. Where did you get these programming skills? Especially fluid dynamics simulations and things like that aren't exactly the easiest things one could probably program.
Yes, I programmed the flow simulation myself. Well, actually, it just has these modules or it links these modules together. Yes, well, by now I know that it runs in the family. From my son to my nephew, we're all programmers or have just finished our studies. And I've always been into it. And because my father was an absolute aviation fanatic, but didn't live very long.
He was an engineer for lifts, so ski lifts. And he lost his life during surveying work in the Stubertal. I was seven years old then. That was perhaps the reason for my mother to steer me more toward the non-technical side. Even though they already noticed, of course, that I have my technical talents. But as it goes, technology caught up with me and I ended up with flying anyway, as I probably would have, had he survived. And yes, sadly, I keep saying that I'm actually only half of a dream team. I would have really liked to do everything I do now with him. But that wasn't meant to be.
Well, today is the end. And nowadays, with all the calculations you do, everything happens in advance, before a glider is even designed, sewn, and all that. That means you can actually do flow simulations, see how different tension situations in the fabric and so on affect things.
How well do those gliders fly in the configuration they come out of the computer as, basically as your first prototype today? Is it already possible nowadays to say, "Actually, everything is correct"?
Yeah, that's how it is. It's a building block. You need the computer simulation, you need the experience, you need the gut feeling. And when all of that clicks, the success rate is surprisingly high. I just explained that yesterday. We also have luck—you always need a bit of luck. Because if you think about it, if you're unlucky, you just won't succeed at anything. Being unlucky is bad, so you need a bit of luck. We knew the palette that is now very, very successful on the market, and we created it with extremely few prototypes. For example, the Symfonia was prototypes 5 and 6. Tenor was prototype 8. Maestro was prototype 14.
And now the Allegro is prototype 19. So we've developed four devices within 19 prototypes. And that's quite a statement. Normally, you'd need a lot more. So that's sort of the basic philosophy we have. It's not as easy for us to have prototypes built anymore as it used to be when we had the factory nearby. So you have to think about it a bit better. And yeah, so these components—simulation, experience, intuition, skill, luck—you get that now. We've had a run going for some time now. So we're succeeding in pretty much everything.
But if you're working on a prototype like that, first on the computer. You say, I'm going to start on this, I'm planning a new B or something like that. And then you work on it.
How do you decide, like, I want this many cells and it should have a two-liner layout and other things? How do you go about that? You have to make a few basic decisions first in order to basically set your programming based on that.
Yes, sure. So often you have a model to look at. Basically, the entire development system is a parametric CAD system. That means, I've had that, you've probably seen it on YouTube, the lectures I gave in England, what it looks like. So you have a data file, a parameter file, which I have open right now, it has 2,219 lines. Just ASCII parameters. There are parameter assignments. You can edit those in an ASCII editor. And the program reads this file and then builds the glider, which is exactly the advantage I linked back to my original biology orientation at the time. These are like the genes of the device.
And you can do with this technique something that is difficult with manual techniques. Namely, you can recombine. You can switch things on. You can transfer the settings very easily from one device to another. You usually have the gene—the genes of the previous model—and then you implement them; the gene scissors are essentially the ASCII editor, technical parameters, and solutions from other devices. And through this recombination, you can create something that already serves as a good basis pretty quickly. And once you have that basic design, you move into simulation.
And there you see, for example, because you just said that the cell count, that you have a static problem. You either need a thicker profile, more ballooning, or more cells. And then you try to engineer it cleanly. More cells always means a different suspension system, more line resistance; more ballooning means less efficiency because the effective profile thickness is higher and so on. And then you're in an optimization—an optimization loop that, depending on how much pressure you have, can last two or three weeks. And then you enter a funnel where you finally know what the whole thing is supposed to look like. And then you build the prototype. Another option, if you're in a hurry, is to send out the prototype with a slightly coarser simulation, a bit of gut feeling, and just have it built.
And then you simulate it afterwards to perhaps verify the practical experience in the simulation. And yes, I did compare that to this Mastermind game. That means if you work systematically and implement the findings—in the sense that for the next step you only clearly change a few parameters that you can keep separate—then you only need very few steps and you'll get to where you want to be.
To stick with the biology analogy, where you say this is basically this ASCII code where all your parameters are contained—that's like the DNA, the genetic material in which you can change something. In biology, evolution happens in the form of genes randomly mutating and changing as a result. Do you also sometimes let chance flow into your work in some way, to say, I'm playing with that? I'm letting the software really flow into an evolutionary design, or do you say, no, based on my experience, I know exactly which gene I want to turn first?
Yes, that would all still be possible.
Ultimately, it resulted from a very simple color scheme. That was from the new Fantasia glider, where the color assignment was still from the previous generation. It was a really funny, mixed-up color design. And we liked it so much that we're now putting it into the series. But apart from that, not really. But we've wanted to do that for a long time. So it's actually about genetic algorithms finding completely different optima than you might find manually. That's possible, but not implemented yet. But maybe that's where we are with the future. So maybe you can do the whole workflow, because it's not that simple. I mean, you also have to have this randomly generated individual evaluated.
So it needs scoring. Often the optimum depends crucially on the scoring. So the scoring has to be chosen very cleverly. And there, you have to automate the entire design process so that, for example, the correct line strengths are chosen and then not just the aerodynamic quality, but also the structural stiffness and everything fits. And then, in the end, the scoring turns out crucially somehow. So, I don't know, performance, handling, safety—that gets difficult. And there you can, because genetic algorithms are actually one—it should be a direct path to an optimum. And alternatively, it would simply be, for example, generating and analyzing and selecting an incredible number of designs.
But that naturally takes an incredible amount of time, and with the tools of genetic algorithms, you'd have fewer simulation loops to reach a very good individual. But there, you can actually use the basic tools of biology. So not just mutation, but then selection—the scoring where the better ones move forward—but also isolation. That means you also give the second-best or, I don't know, third or fourth-best a chance, just like in biology. So you have an island where you can continue to reproduce, and then we'll see how far you get, and later you can match back up with the species.
that has now reproduced on the main continent and so on, and is certainly a possibility for the future.
With these simulations you're doing, you can also simulate that at the end, yeah, the glider has about this and the glide performance and should be able to perform this and that well and so on. Are there gliders that actually fly better in the end? Or have you ever had it where the gliders actually flew better than your simulations originally suggested?
Hardly ever. I mean, it works pretty well. You still have a few screws to turn manually, like the finish factor and such, because while the simulation model is very high-resolution, it doesn't resolve, for example, very small wrinkles. So that was a key point. Now, for instance, the 3D shaping, the rods in the nose, the tensioning of the seam shrinkage, and so on. The simulation doesn't go into that level of minimal detail. So there, you could already see, "Aha, this proto flies better than that one," even though they might have been supposed to fly equally well according to the simulation, because the finish is cleaner. What happens more often is that the prototype flies worse because there's still some kind of distortion or a mistake somewhere.
But it's not really any better outside of taking these correction factors into account. So, it's already very, very good. I mean, we're always refining it a bit, but it works well. We're absolutely happy with it right now anyway; we're extremely efficient.
Well, a paraglider is a fabric thing, soft, floppy, and it can deform and all that. How exactly can you actually simulate all of that? And I once read a term from you, Fluid Structure Interaction. You're applying that now too. What is that supposed to mean?
Well, the basis is, we're moving from pure flow simulation, meaning the two-dimensional flow simulation since the beginning of the 90s. That was also simply capped by the computing power of the computers available at the time. Euler code, panel code, two-dimensional. And in early 2001, 2002, we then had three-dimensional CFD code, so Computerized Fluid Dynamics. This means the space around the paraglider is divided into volumetric bodies, and very complex calculations are used to compute the flow around the paraglider, which was still closed back then.
It was to the point where a computer back then couldn't handle it—I mean, a normally available desktop computer. That's why I had to set up a cluster in the basement. So, four computers were then able to calculate the model. And later, it became easier. I mean, nowadays, right there to my right hand, you already have 16-core computers under the desk. And the next step was, because this pure flow simulation leads to unrealistic models—thin profiles, hardly any ballooning, a lot of projected stretch, very flat canopies. And they don't work in practice. That means you somehow need a verification of the static conditions. And that was in 2009, where we managed to map the aerodynamic forces onto a structural model.
Back then, we were still using commercial software. Now, it's programmed ourselves. In the flow simulation field, there is open-source software that delivers very good results. And that was already a huge step forward. That was something like Mentor 2. Back then, it was the first device that really implemented that. So, a lot of insights were gained through these computer results. And that then evolved. And it has been improved. So, the forces from the flow simulation are transferred to a structural model. The structural model simulates the behavior of the fabric and the lines. And you can imagine it like this: in this mathematical space, the entire paraglider model is now suspended.
Without forces, suspended. And then the forces slowly kick in. And then the glider lifts upwards. Then the lines, the lines tension up. And you can see mathematically at the bottom on the main carabiners how the forces increase upwards. Sometimes it overshoots a bit. You can work with the damping factors until the whole thing is in balance. And then you see, does the paraglider have the shape it's supposed to have? Or how does it deform through the aerodynamic forces? And that was already the key to crucial insights. And that is still being used consistently today to improve the models.
To understand this a bit better, for example, if you have a diagonal in a cell, you can see what kind of tension is currently on that diagonal.
is prevailing? Yes, yes. There are anecdotes where we calculated the glider. And the result was, for example, it was a two-seater, the diagonal there on the outside, towards the outer wing, it has no tension, it's sagging. And then we actually analyzed the photos and saw, yes, it really is sagging. You can cut it out. So, of course, you can examine a computer model very comfortably.
And photo analysis is ultimately indispensable as well. You photograph the flying craft in as much detail as possible to then compare it with the computer models. And there, the computer model was sharper or easier to analyze. It was easier to see that this diagonal was actually good for nothing. The downside of the situation back then was that the device was already certified. So we couldn't cut the diagonal out anymore. But it was useless.
How far does that go? I mean, there are fabrics with different qualities, even regarding stretch or something like that. Are such parameters already taken into account in a program like that today? For example, if you say, "I'm building a paraglider out of Porsche fabric," do you have to enter different values than if you say, "I'm using Dominico"?
Yes, there's a factor you can't neglect there. And that's the extreme: the fabric changes its properties drastically based on humidity. For example, we have nylon fabrics, and when they dry out, they shrink. We're talking about almost one percent. So, the fabrics become harder and have less cross-stretch when they're dry, and on the other hand, they become much softer with much more cross-stretch when they get damp. You have such a large range even with one and the same fabric that the differences from fabric to fabric don't weigh as heavily now. Even between profile cloth and normal upper and lower sail cloth.
But of course, you can feed all these physical properties of the base material into these simulations. There are also some standardized tests for how to actually measure what kind of transverse stretch, or warp and weft stretch, the fabric has. You just input these parameters, and based on that, the computer calculates the behavior. Naturally, you tend to make the model more sensitive. That is, you'd rather see a crease already during the design stage than later in the prototype. So for a long time, the model was too insensitive, but now it's very sensitive. So you see pretty quickly, "Aha, yeah, that won't work." You can't make these suspension distances so large because then it buckles.
Or you need another crossband there. So that was the first key. In the beginning, it was more about ballooning optimization—loss of tension. Now, you can play around very well with where you need to have the suspension points and how you have to lay out the lines.
Now, you're probably the computer nerd among paraglider designers. But how many other paraglider companies are actually working as heavily with computer orientation or computer optimization as you are today?
Yeah, so the standard software that many people use from Down Under normally can't do that. It's just one way. So you shouldn't overestimate the whole thing. It's a tool. And you can still build paragliders very well just with experience, gut feeling, and other methods. So as soon as the simulation is more complex than building a prototype, you'd better just build the prototype. Because there are still some properties you can only recognize in practice. Starting behavior, safety behavior, and so on. Damping, turbulence, handling, and stuff like that. That's not possible in the simulation yet. That means the prototype is indispensable and sometimes maybe even the better choice. So go ahead and build the prototype.
So before you spend two months calculating, build the prototype. However, you can gain a lot of insights through the calculations. For example, you see what happens if the ballooning is too little. Or how do I recognize it if something... Or I see some ripples in practice, and interestingly, I see them in the simulation too. And what could that be due to? You can play around in a simulation relatively quickly to get rid of the ripples, whereas in practice, the whole thing becomes more complex. So it's also possible without it. And we had... Yes, the story was that in 2013, the collaboration with Nova Advance was a big step for me. I had to prepare the software, which previously only I used, so that it could be operated by others.
That wasn't so easy. And then other people also learned the whole system, the entire workflow. And at that time, both companies were working with this software, which was very demanding for me. I mean, always having to cover all the requirements, training everyone, making all the adjustments, and so on. But that has since been reduced because the companies wanted to go their own ways. And right now, I'm the only one left using this software. But I certainly provided some impulses, also through the publications back then. By now, it's... so this technology, as you called it before, computer, fluid-structure interaction, FSI, others are slowly doing that now too.
After ten years, it's slowly becoming the status quo.
Although, even when calculating the flow simulation at the beginning... you get colorful images right away, but you have to optimize the whole system so that the statements actually have a basis in reality, and even with the more complicated workflow, it's like, you have to set it up so that it's actually meaningful. And the others are slowly getting there more and more. But as I said, that's not the only way. You can also build good gliders without all these technically demanding tools.
Well, I sometimes imagine one thing as being a bit difficult. If you've calculated it so nicely with your computer model, then you order the prototype. By now... you have a production, I believe... in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka. And the prototype comes back from there, and you fly it and say, yeah, somehow the prototype is now worse than my simulation or something. How well can you actually tell if something is really wrong with the design or if maybe they just sewed something stupid somewhere. And you... Yeah, for sure. That you say, okay, I have to scrap this prototype and basically all my calculations, but in the end, it might have just been a sewing error that you completely overlooked.
Sure. I mean, you have to measure it. There's no way around that. You have to measure the prototype—lines, canopies, everything. And you have to analyze it. That's always the case. So it's possible—though we're extremely happy with this factory right now because they use some techniques that others just don't—that it's already very accurate. But it can happen. We've experienced it before: you get a prototype, you maybe fly it, and you see, yeah, something doesn't fit. You measure it, see the deviations, and they're so large that you can't fix them, and then you have to redo it. But that does happen.
If you look back now at your 30 or slightly over 30 years as a designer, you've probably built or designed well over 60, likely well over 70 different glider models by now.
Yeah, so including prototypes, I don't know, almost 600.
Okay. I have no idea. Well, of course, we had times when we said—well, as I said, it depends a bit on the manufacturer's philosophy. Now, at Advans, we churned out an incredible number of prototypes. That was the time when the new generation of paraglider designers were somehow learning the ropes and playing around. So almost, well, over 50 prototypes a year or 100, it's insane. And now, for our purposes, we've reduced that extremely. But I have to see, I've numbered them, so I think I'm listed at NOVA, we had diagonal rib prototype number 285. And they continued from there. I think they're at 400 now. And I have, in parallel, well, it could eventually reach 1,000 at some point.
Especially factoring in the different sizes as well, yeah.
Yeah, that's clear. But if you take them all now, let's say 600, that's already a huge number. Is there anything where you'd say, looking back, these are the highlights of my glider concept? I mean, of course, you have much better technical possibilities today with your computer simulations, but where do you say, from that history, the things you're personally particularly proud of, for whatever reason?
Yes, the very first one, that one was obviously just sort of off the cuff with a lot of luck, but it already worked very well. I mean, it was already extremely dominant back then. So if you remember, the old pilots had to ask other pilots, the Comet CX had an extremely, well, a significant performance advantage back then. So it was like, the high-end competition devices fly at 4.8, and this one flies at 7 in the stretched version at the same time. So that's an incredible step. It wasn't possible later to achieve that same dominance again, which of course was just easy back then. So now, when such subtleties decide and people fly them and compare and evaluate them.
And oh, how does this or that behave? Back then, it was simple. You'd just glide out and someone would sink next to you, and it was crystal clear. And that pulls you back to the times when it was so obvious. Sure, the very first one. And then there are always those lucky strikes where you have some idea and you implement it in the computer. For example, I once wrote that every 20 years you get a glider. So how many protos does it take to create the perfect production model? Well, actually just one. If everything fits, then that one prototype is the first and the last. And there was
it, well we had that with the Factor 1, that was in 2007 or so, where we always thought, let's combine the 1 to 2 with the 2 to 3 and see, a 2 should actually come out, and it worked instantly and the thing was great. Did you then not have any
not built any further prototypes of that?
Nothing, exactly. You build it, tweak it, test it, wow, done, Güttesiegel. And that only happens every 20 years. And we had later, yeah, you know, it always becomes—the typical process is that in the summer, you have long daylight and can do everything, water's warm and so on, and towards autumn it gets tight, so you have to get the thing right then and the pressure gets bigger. That was exactly the case last year, for example, where we already saw, yeah, so Maestro, HIB, my specialty discipline, very high expectations, high demands, we saw, yeah, performance-wise we're great, but it's still not fitting here and there, and then you know, okay, if you want to start production, production in January, the next prototype has to be it.
And yeah, then you're already under pressure and it worked, like, absolutely perfectly. Prototype built, tested, tweaked a bit, did the Güttesiegel in Monaco, started production in January as promised, and the whole season was great. So it's often not the lucky strike you pull out of your sleeve, but rather when you know it has to work now, and it does.
Was was there anything in your whole career where you would say, at least in retrospect, that you brought to market, but in the end it was a total failure, where you would say, being self-critical, well, if I had to kick one model out of my entire range, that would be it.
Yeah, I don't want to call anyone out, I mean I can't talk about my former company, but especially when you have the pressure—it's always the question of why you didn't see it through to the end. And we already had projects where we thought we could create a new class with a very simple construction, and we had no pressure. So it would have been a new class, and in the end, we released it before it was quite finished. That was stupid. That was the Susi, right? Yeah, exactly. Looking back, you think, ah, we could have actually done that more cleanly.
And what about the wheel, for example?
Yeah, that was... but that was more of a problem with that one model; we learned from that that you have to go broader in development. Because you have certain uncertainties—the devices aren't all identical. You have the fabric behavior, which is all handmade, and you have a certain range of geometric variation. And if you only have one prototype and it's great, then you don't know...
how fault-tolerant this concept is. That means you have to look during development at working on several sizes and with multiple prototypes at the same time. And as soon as something isn't completely transparent—meaning if any prototype is now better or worse, it should actually all be within expectations. And that was a classic peak. So we had, the prototype was great. And then we certified it and put it into series, that thing. And then we saw in the series, yeah, this is sensitive. The trim has to be exactly right. And there and over there, it's maybe not as problematic. That's a broad concept, the way we'd like it. And yeah, it was difficult, especially to get the smaller size done yet. But we learned from that. And above all, maybe not to want too much.
So we thought we had to reach for the stars again. And often, it's better to approach the whole thing a bit more conservatively.
Let's switch topics a bit. You split from NOVA in 2014, which was actually the year of the 25th anniversary. So, normally, it's a time for celebrations. And then the co-founder and the main designer leave the company. How much did that departure actually hurt you at the time?
Yes, very much. It wasn't planned. And I lived for the company for 25 years. I gave it my all and contributed in almost every area. Looking back, not enough in the business management side. I should have demanded more control, had to be more involved there. Now that I'm actually doing it myself, I see that a paraglider company is manageable. You can definitely keep all the business parameters in sight at all times. And back then, I was so focused on the technology that I somehow didn't pay attention to that. And that wasn't good. I should have started dealing with that much earlier, or rather, had to check more closely who I could rely on and who I couldn't.
And yeah, so it was really tough for me. It was also very difficult for me personally. I mean, with the divorce in the same year, it was a dark time. But it's just now...
Time for the comeback. It's not that I'm sitting in my house again, but I'm back on the market with my own brand. And yeah, it was hard, but we made it.
Would you say today, five years later with your own brand FEE—which you actually managed to establish in the market in such a short time, which is admirable—would you say that the crisis back then was actually the personal opportunity you were given?
Absolutely. They already thanked me. I think I thanked everyone who pushed me to take that step last year. I should have done that much sooner. I never saw myself as someone who was competent in business management, but in the end, it's just numbers, and numbers are my friends. And maybe, I mean, I found it quite difficult at the very beginning—we talked about this before, I'm 54 now, so when we started, I was 22. And establishing your own company at 22 without any help is difficult. But it probably would have been smarter. Or it's just so hard to actually meet the right people who work with you for years.
And we had some changes in the team. And then it just kept getting harder. And ultimately, I wanted a change. And that change turned out, against my expectations, to be that I had to leave. But looking back, it was the right move. We're much freer now, much more independent, and also much more financially solid. Because we've restructured the company with much lower costs. And we're having a huge amount of fun. We're actually everything
...former employees from that time. And we already knew how the thing worked. After the detour to Switzerland, we found each other again. And yeah, it's going great. That's just the problem. These large corporate structures that just naturally grow so big—shrinking them back down is almost impossible. So often, the easier step is to start over.
So you started completely from scratch and put a new name out there. Phi—how did you come up with that weird name?
Yeah, I've always had names with my initials. So Sphinx, Pharaon, Phorus, whatever. Ph, Papi, Shanis. And then, right at the very beginning—well, the decision or how we saw it, yeah, the consequence has to be that I leave the company. I was just in Tenerife and on the flight back, I came up with it. Yeah, that would be elegant. You'd have these three letters, this Greek symbol. And I immediately secured the domain and yeah, I liked it. And then we designed the logo ourselves; it was an endless discussion. I'm very happy with it, it's being well-received. So it's actually my initials with an I.
And the I can stand for anything, right? Innovation or whatever.
And it was easy. The problem now is that many people don't know how to pronounce it. We pronounce it Phi, some say Phi, and whatever. But people remember it. And yeah, I mean, we're taking a different path than others. We're basically just the technical team now. We've somehow freed ourselves from the salespeople and all that. And we hardly run any ads. We're very, very, very frugal there and try to do it through product quality. We just try to develop the best possible devices. That takes a bit more time until people can try them and until the good reputation spreads—word of mouth. But that's perhaps more sustainable, more long-lasting, than maybe a hyped-up expectation through elaborate marketing.
And then the product has to live up to the expectations. Sometimes it doesn't, and after a certain peak of euphoria, you get a steep drop. But with us, it's different. It takes a bit longer, but if the product is good—and we're in the lucky situation that our products are very well received—then you get good sales over the long term. So the challenge wasn't actually that unrealistic; it's just that more and more people are starting to understand that we have a different name now. We're basically taking over the old regular customers, and it's working better and better. We've more than doubled from last year to this year.
And if things keep going like this, by the course of next year, we'll be as big as we used to be with the old company. So, wow. But with much, much lower costs. I mean, the story was already going around that by May—at that size, we were in an incredible luxury situation, having already exceeded our break-even point.
So it's insane. Despite all the startup costs at the beginning. Everything was included. Yeah, that was this year. So you have everything included. You have the prototypes, the development costs, the certification costs, everything factored in. And because we're set up so sparsely, we were able to reach break-even already in May thanks to the very, very good sales at the beginning of this year. And the rest was just pure luxury. And a normal, established, large paraglider company struggles immensely at the end just to barely reach break-even. And because of that, they are economically very fragile. And we're in a situation now where nothing can really kill us. Except maybe a material problem. But not economically. Unless we become megalomaniacal again and want to become market-dominant now, and hire a ton of people and make some expensive image films again and just throw the money away.
Then of course. Then we just take the path we've often seen before. The companies start small and modest, but then they want to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until they're huge and have problems getting the costs back down.
The big companies are actually all like full—I'll call them full—service providers, who also say, you get the glider from us, you get the harness from us, and everything else. Do you have similar considerations over there, like saying you actually have to diversify? Or do you say, no, we are paraglider manufacturers and that's simply our profession and it stays that way?
Yeah, now I have to be careful with what I say. So, we've already... yeah, I'm radical about this. I'm telling you, we are specialists. In the paraglider field, we are great. No one can tell us otherwise. But we aren't specialists for harnesses. So we would have to get expertise from the outside for that. That could happen, but it doesn't have to. And ultimately, the core business in our industry is building and selling wings. Developing and selling harnesses is far less lucrative. Rescue equipment even less so. So we do very well being specialists. It was the same in my previous company, too. We were actually specialists for years and that was good. So today we saw again that it's difficult with fashion because tastes are different.
The girls, of course, are jumping on it with joy, but it leads to a lot of discussion and is difficult. So, if it's up to me, no harnesses. Nothing, just paragliders.
Did ADVANCE actually complain to you when you left them and founded FEE, saying that you stole that Greek letter FEE from them? Not stole, but from the alphabet they normally work with, where they have their Alpha, Epsilon, and all that, like they were saying, okay, FEE is already dead to us?
No, no, they already had other things by that time. But the Greeks, if anything, they could have been upset, but that was less of an issue back then. It wasn't that simple, even this separation. I mean, I believed in this collaboration and really invested everything into it. And it just didn't work, didn't want to; it wasn't that simple to balance such a large, broad team in the end. And that wasn't the problem. But yeah, at the end of the day, I'm not dissatisfied. I mean, we were very, very successful. We managed to almost double ADVANCE during my time in the paraglider sector and still lead it right back to the top. I trained new people there and we learned a lot in this collaboration.
Now, about your brand FEE. You no longer have Greek letters as glider names, but rather a lot of musically inspired names. What meaning does music have in your life?
Yes, we're a team. So, I'm more of a less musical person, but my current partner—well, future partner, I'm going to risk it again. So, you're married now after 20 years of probation. I've already had experiences that weren't so positive, but I'm going to risk it again. So, she's a musician and has a classical background as a singer, and so it felt like a natural fit for us to combine that. And we're having a lot of fun with it.
Out of these musical names you chose, is there one that you like best as a name? For a glider?
Yes, feedback from the outside. Maestro was already very elegant because, through the M, it also recalls the class that preceded it. So, it was the Mentor who paved the way before, and the Maestro is now continuing that path. And yes, they were actually happy decisions all around. We were provocative with the Symfonia's color design and that worked for us; it was noticeable. People took notice of us. It was provocative, and we could be provocative because the device was simply so extremely good and still is, selling brilliantly. So, everything worked out for us, from the names to the color design, all around. We were very lucky to get to know this factory.
So Benni conveyed that to us in Sri Lanka. Great quality, very good conditions. So, we can only be grateful for everything.
Now let's look a bit towards the end, a bit into the future. To what extent do you think the technical development of paragliders has slowly reached a plateau? Or what else could come out of that?
Yeah, that brings us back to your approach of random selection—the mutations and the genetic algorithms. We keep catching ourselves thinking too conventionally. It's really difficult to act outside of conventions, and when you try something unconventional, you're a bit insecure because it's not the most-traveled path, and as soon as it doesn't turn green right away, you tend to revert back to convention. And in some cases, you have to... I linked it to this image: you're sitting on an island, you see nothing but sea on the horizon, and you wonder, is there still land out there? And there's no easy way to get there. You have to believe in it.
But I think it's quite possible that a completely different land exists. For example, I've also presented a trend that has emerged and is spreading more and more. Take single skins, for instance. I already see an interesting future for them. They're moving out of the niche more and more, and you know, it's possible that paragliding might end up looking different than we imagine it now. Looking back in 20 years, yeah, it has already developed quite, quite nicely. So, since when have you been involved? Let me ask you a counter-question.
Me, I've only been involved since 2000—well, that's 15 years now—but only since 2004. That means I was only able to read about your whole starting story in retrospect.
Yes, it's probably, we're at the beginning with 1 to 3, so it was difficult to find mountains that are steep enough that you can fly down. And the kite flyers with a glide ratio of 1 to 10 were our gods. And now we're at over 1 to 10. And it's incredible what kind of performance we actually have available now. And that won't triple again. So we won't be flying with a glide ratio of 1 to 30, but with a glide ratio of 2 to 30. But it would be interesting to make the performance we have now in the high-performance range more flyable and safer for the normal pilots further down. To increase safety even further, a lot has been done. And we will try to continue on that path. And I'm still such a fan of the idea of the Volksschirm.
So we have to build gliders that are so safe and so simple that anyone can operate them. And there is still a lot to do there. So we're trying it. We're releasing another ultra-low-level glider from us soon. As a matter of vision. And that would be linking back to the very first promise of this sport to the people. Simple, safe flying for everyone. And we actually haven't fulfilled that promise even after 30 years. It's a goal to achieve at some point. That every pedestrian is actually capable of flying. With an extremely safe, forgiving piece of equipment.
When it comes to progress, many pilots still don't really think, "Ah, I have the safety progress." Instead, it's always measured by, "Does the glider glide better, does it turn better, or something else?" Do you think we can still make big leaps with competition gliders? Or is it actually no longer the case that you say, "Well, there's not much more to do with line reduction." Like with 2-liners, the limit has been reached somewhere. Or also regarding, for example, the shape retention of lines. We've reached limits there too. They twist quickly, the gliders somehow get to a point where you'd say they're no longer in the optimum state. That is, even if you were to build a super-flying glider, it might not be quite so super after 10, 15, or 20 hours of flying. Can we still do something more there?
Yeah, sure. So you just mentioned the change in materials. Right now, the competition scene in the PWC category is more or less asleep. If you compare that to skiing at the highest level—I don't know how much of an observer you are there—it's all about pushing the material to the extreme. Like, really adjusting it to the current conditions on that specific slope. Tweaking everything on the boot, the binding, every single setting—you don't really do that anymore. Instead, a large group flies the same glider across all conditions. There's definitely still a lot of room for improvement there. And in terms of performance too, there's certainly still a lot of room.
Right now, there isn't that much pressure. In the early days, when so many manufacturers were getting involved in this competition circus, the development cycles were much shorter. You weren't flying at the top with one piece of gear for three years. You'd be ahead for a few months, and then there was the next one. You had to constantly react to new developments. The open class was also appealing. You didn't quite know what the others would show up with before every competition. It's actually become relatively boring now. On the other hand, the pilots now have similar chances. It's possible for any super good or pretty good pilot to buy a top-tier piece of gear now and fly with it, making them competitive.
Back then, having top-tier equipment was actually reserved for the factory pilots. But looking back as a developer, the open class era was actually a more interesting time.
Could you imagine building a CCC glider with Vieh as well?
Absolutely. So we're getting there. That was our plan. We're working our way up from Class A to Class D. Currently, we're at Low C. So we have a range of 6 in the certification. That's the Allegro. Exactly. So musical and masculine again.
And yes, we're not stopping there now. I mean, we're continuing. We stopped back then. I mean, not everyone will know this now. In the 90s, we were very successful, we actually won everything in the competition field. And then, with the realization that not so much energy should go into this scene, but rather into developing equipment for normal pilots, we stopped in 2000. And maybe now, after 20 or 22 years, it's time to get involved in that again. It has changed somewhat. You can also sell competition equipment now. Back then, we sponsored a pretty large team. Not just with equipment, but also with expenses and so on.
It was way more expensive than it is today. I mean, nowadays, if you have a good competition wing, you can actually make money with it. Back then, it was purely a cost item. Yeah, pure sponsorship.
Some companies, like Ozone or something like that, say that they have their whole competition glider thing because they can learn an enormous amount from it that they can then bring down to the lower classes. Now, there's still a big difference between competition gliders and the lower classes, for example with the competition glider. These are all two-liners today or something like that. Do you see chances that something like that would also be possible in the ENB range, for example?
Yes, sure. Or is it even sensible? We could fill three podcasts with the topic of Falkleinern. The introduction of this tool, Falkleinern, wasn't without its problems. That's why we pushed them out into the D-class just to be safe. They'll probably move down into the C-class now. So, Falkleinern are more or less prerequisites for two-liner certification. But we didn't find them only for this use at the beginning. The topic is a bit tricky. But it's possible that it will happen. Yes, it might happen. Let's take a look at that. We see time and again that when there's a call for new technology, we also see that a lot is possible with the technology that is currently established. There is no gain without loss.
So every advantage has a disadvantage. So if you only use two lines, you need a profile that's more statically stable, which is thicker, not as aerodynamically efficient, and so on and so forth. So it's not like reducing from three to two lines immediately gives you the big advantage. In certain cases it does, with high aspect ratios, but in certain configurations less so. So you can run all of that through on the computer with these models.
And yeah, so let's look at where that's heading. So, what you said before, that the competition fanatics of course defend it and say they learn a lot, maybe so, but we're more on the other side of the spectrum, very committed to the low-level area, know a lot about basic safety, and are involved with more heart in building these low-levels where others might have less fun because they prefer building competition gear. And yeah, everyone has their preferences. Although I believe it's absolutely important for the base to present super-good gear on the market and to really strive for the base. Because if you imagine all manufacturers only building competition gear with commitment and enthusiasm, the sport would die.
Because only under 5% of pilots can fly these wings. So we need commitment and effort for low-levels. Haven't you also built Maestro prototypes as a two-liner? Yes, yes, it works. It's difficult for certification, but it's possible. So, less, meaning less stretch. We've already had simple, low-stretch thin-speed wings as two-liners. There are videos of Michael tearing around in Denmark. So we've already tried that. It works. You can implement two-liner technology with much less stretch. And yes,
it's fun. Do you have to build in a lot of reinforcements into a glider yourself then? Like, lots of long ribs that reach from back to front? No,
not necessarily. No, it depends on how thick the profile is. So you can already calculate and test all of that quite well now. And it worked surprisingly well from the start. So we had that right away.
One more question about what we just discussed. You mentioned that you see a future for single-skins. When will there be the first single-skin from Vieh?
Yes, we've already started working on that a bit. It wasn't entirely clear whether we would release the low-level model that was on our agenda as a tandem or as a single. That's just speculation. But then the tandem was so good that we're going to offer the tandem now. Maybe the single as well, but we'll see. And I believe that it will branch out. The single-skin concept will establish itself in many areas. Not just in the ultralight mountain category. It's already coming into the training sector. There are already training devices, A-class ratings with single-skin technology. And it's even coming into the motorized flight sector. Brilliant in terms of takeoff behavior. Brilliant in terms of roll damping. And it's possible that we'll see that at the end
...at Sunhill Air 2020. So, next year is actually already pretty well planned.
And there will probably be one more market launch. But not the Single-Skin. So, after Fantasia and the Lega, there's one more. But the Single-Skin, if everything goes well, in the autumn.
Then there's another question I noticed with Nova. Nova also brags a lot about their Nova Trim Tuning, which allows them to constantly check the trim of the glider. And they also say that the lines go out of trim quickly and that it would be sensible to do something like that. And you introduced the Nova Trim Tuning back then too. However, Fi doesn't have that. Why? Yes,
That's of course a question of experience and the materials you use. So, at the beginning, the thing is that you're more inclined to be a material euphoric. That means whenever a new material appears, you use it because you believe the sellers' promises. And it was just like that back then, where people used the new, very, very thin Dynema lines, PPSL lines, and only then realized—it's always a question of aging simulation. I mean, if you get a roll now, you can't just easily determine how it behaves after several months of flying. And then you have to say, oh boy, it's warping.
Then we have to react to that. That means we have to find a way for people to come in and have their gliders readjusted. But we've learned continuously from this. We saw that if we implement this hybrid rigging—meaning we only use Dynema lines where they are under high load and don't tend to shrink, and use Technora lines in other places so the whole thing has the right balance—then the trim doesn't actually change much. And we've now succeeded in implementing such line configurations, and we're seeing it now—the Symfonia has been out for two years, the first two-year checks are coming in now, they're being measured. Ralf is giving us the sheets with the very good analysis again, and we can see now, yes, it works.
So we're getting very good feedback now regarding the trim consistency, and we were right in telling people that they don't need to come in to have it re-trimmed after just a few months, because the material selection was so well-balanced, or is.
But after two years, shouldn't you have it properly trimmed again?
No, you don't need to. It's only necessary in the rarest of cases. The trim is constant.
And that also applies if you look at a line set from the Symfonia; it's obviously different from the Maestro, which works with much, much thinner lines, for example.
No, no, not really. We were lucky to have a prototype of the Symfonia back in May, and then we flew it through thick and thin all summer, including seven weeks in Denmark with ground handling and jumping around up there, which is pretty demanding. And then we saw, oh, it's stable. And then we actually used this configuration for all the other devices. So, with the Maestro, we used PPSL, PPSLS, but otherwise pretty much the same. So, based on the good experience with this line setup, all the other devices have the same. We have four three-way forks everywhere, twelve attachments on the canopy. Down to two main lines. Only the Allegro and the Fantasia are the first devices to deviate from that.
All the others basically have more or less the same.
That means the Allegro has three again
main lines in the direction of the span, and the Fantasia also as a basic training device. It was
that with the Allegro didn't
to realize with the two lines? Yes, we had that too, but it was based on practical experience, computer simulation results, available materials, and so we decided to do it that way.
Now you always talk a lot about the experience you bring to the table, which you obviously have from 30 years. How many years would you say someone needs today if they're starting out as a designer? How many years of experience do you need to be able to deliver your first really good glider nowadays as a designer?
I don't know, it depends. It could be total talent and the gods are with him, and he pulls it off immediately. That's possible. I was in a similar situation. At that time, for example, LDK was the dominant player on the market—a Western Swiss manufacturer with incredibly brilliant marketing that was still the benchmark—and hardly anyone thought that the dominant manufacturer could be toppled so quickly by technical advancement, which was a significant part of it. That can happen again. It's possible that some student gets frustrated, maybe because of his academic progress, sits down with his mom's sewing machine and sews something that revolutionizes paraglider technology, and we old established players then actually end up looking old-fashioned.
That's possible. Because, as I said before, we cling too much to convention. And someone from the outside looks at it neutrally, sees it completely differently, tries other ways, and succeeds with them. It's not ruled out.
Do you see yourself today as one of the greatest architects of paragliding history?
Well, I don't know if I'd say "great." That's very ego-driven again.
considered. I'm actually more of a team player. Although, unfortunately, I've experienced how difficult it can be within teams.
Especially those I'm training, having to go their own way. It's not that easy. But I'm certainly not the only one with these experiences. My dream scenario would actually be to become successful in a team. The times I was able to work in a team, I found that very pleasant and very inspiring. Maybe it will happen again. And I believe that in the future, as in all other areas, it will be about teams being successful. Not individuals, but teams.
Bottom line, I think I've always done my part to advance paragliding. But I'm not at the end yet. You'd probably have to wait 20 years to see the final summary.
Okay, you're not at the end yet, and that's a good thing. You've done this now. Hannes, thank you for this narrative from your 30 years of experience, 30 years of history. From the first sitting at your mother's sewing machine to Fluid Structure Interaction and everything that comes with it. And I wish you much success with VIE and all the other projects that are still to come.
That was
Hannes Papisch in conversation with Lucian Haas. If you want to learn a bit more about Hannes Papisch's history, his gliders, and his unique construction method, I've put together some links in the show notes for this podcast on the Lu-Glidz blog.
If you want to keep hearing interesting stories from the world of paragliding in the future, then please become a supporter of Podz-Glidz and Lu-Glidz. Because the professional production of a podcast and blog involves a lot of effort. With your contribution, you help me continue these projects. You can, by the way, choose the amount of your contribution freely. As a guideline, I recommend 1 Euro per podcast episode and 2 Euro per reading month on Lu-Glidz. Payments are very easy via PayPal or bank transfer. You can find the relevant details on the Lu-Glidz website. I already thank you for the support and look forward to chatting with you soon in further episodes of Podz-Glidz. See you then.
Hi.