I would like to see, for example, the competition scene in Europe become a bit more relaxed, where we can have fun at competitions, and not just that competition is a very serious, high-level competition.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Steff Juncker and Lucian Haas at the microphone. What
what should you do when the president of South Africa suddenly sends his country into a Corona lockdown and you, as a paraglider, are no longer allowed out the door, let alone into the air? The Belgian living in South Africa, Steff Juncker, made the best of his situation and sat down in front of the phone. Then he called his paragliding friends all over the world one by one via Skype, had more or less in-depth conversations with them, and put the recordings online. His English podcast, Staying in the Sky, broke a record, probably not just in the paragliding scene. From 0 to 50 episodes in just 40 days—hardly anyone before Steff could have managed that. It's a true conversation marathon with many greats of the international paragliding scene.
Always filled with funny as well as interesting anecdotes, educational insights, impressions from all over the world of aviation, and also the personal story of Steff Juncker. Steff has been participating in paraglider competitions for over 20 years. He has traveled half the world for it, speaks several languages, including German, and maintains an extremely rich portfolio of acquaintances. In Cape Town, he runs Africa's largest tandem flight company. He usually spends the South African winter, which is our summer, in Europe or traveling elsewhere. Because of Corona, it's different this time, but all the more so does he have time for storytelling. This podcast episode is, like Steff's life, a colorful ride through many topics. Including how he made money with a clown business, how the tandem business and flying in South Africa differ from that in the Alps, why paraglider competitions should have a greater fun factor in the future, and what he himself was still able to learn from his podcast conversation partners.
I hope you can also gain some new insights or ideas from this chat. Maybe you'll even feel like becoming a voluntary supporter of Podz-Glidz and the associated blog Looglights. You can support my work with a small financial contribution. All the necessary information, such as a PayPal link or bank transfer details, can be found on the Looglights website, specifically on the Support page. How much you might want to give is entirely up to you. If you're unsure, I recommend one euro per podcast episode and two euros per reading month on Looglights as a non-binding guideline.
And now, over to South Africa to Steff Juncker.
Okay, Steff. Okay, Steff. You were born in Belgium, but then grew up in South Africa. Where did you learn German so well? I...
I actually started it as an interest at university. My grandfather was a translator between German and French in a company on the right side of Belgium, where the border between Germany and Belgium was shifted during the Second World War and the First World War. In Belgium, there is also a German language. As an official language. 50,000 people speak German there. My grandfather could speak German. And in South Africa, we actually have the youngest language officially. That means Afrikaans. And it was mandatory for us to speak Afrikaans as students. We had to learn it. It was also a reason why apartheid collapsed, because many Black people didn't want to learn Afrikaans at school.
And so, I could speak Afrikaans. I could also speak Flemish. And then suddenly I heard my grandfather speaking German. And I thought to myself, okay, I can try that too. And then I took it as a subject, an extra subject at university. And then in 1999, I got a job offer in Stübeital for paragliding with Moni and Hans-Peter Eller. And suddenly, I was right on track. And then I got hired and became a tandem pilot. And for 20 years, I've been coming to Austria every year to do a bit of tandem flying. I haven't done that for five years now. But it's doable. It goes well. Every year, I'm on a tour in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany.
I have a second base in Munich and in Silian in East Tyrol.
How did you even get into paragliding? Was it already in South Africa? Or were you ever in Europe? Did you see some flying there and then say, "I want to do that too"?
No, it actually started in South Africa. In 1989, I did an introductory course on the weekend as a student. I tried it out in the bush, two and a half hours from Johannesburg, where I grew up. I tried it and it always stayed in my head. The flying, the free flight, that feeling of being a bird. And then, strangely enough, I finished university. And I was a professional clown. For a few years, it became a really, really big business for me as a clown in Johannesburg. You made your money as a clown? Exactly, exactly.
And in the big circus or for children's entertainment? Yes,
Someone recommended that I try being a clown. And I did it privately, like outside of the circus.
Children's birthday parties, shopping centers, promotions, advertising stuff. And it went really well. I had about twelve clowns working for me. And for example, if I needed a mime artist or someone who could do a few magic tricks in a shopping center on a Saturday morning, I'd say, Lucian, please, I need you Saturday. You, just get dressed. And then a hot air balloon is made. You can do a dog and you can also do an elephant. And that's enough. And yeah, then I organized up to 50-plus events per day. And that, of course, paid me very well.
That was per hour.
No one would believe that a clown business would be a success. But it was a real success. And I had a lot of fun with it. And then in '96 I finally told myself, hey, this thing in the back of my head is paragliding. I have to start doing that properly again. And then it was full throttle. In the first year I did 350 flights. Now I have around 10,000 flights, I guess. I don't write down my flights, I'm just estimating. And for 20 years I've also had a tandem business. The oldest tandem business on the entire continent of Africa. I started that in '99 here in Cape Town. That
So Parapax is your tandem business. But did you also learn tandem flying in South Africa? Or because you also mentioned you were with Moniella in Stubaital and stuff like that—did you actually learn it in Europe? Tandem flying and professional tandem flying as well?
So, I first learned tandem flying in South Africa. Even within my first year. I was so diligent with flying. I just wanted to fly, fly, fly. And I also knew you could take friends, you could take family. So within my first year, I was out there doing tandem flying. I also know the funny story that in India, someone back then only had to do a two-day course and they were a tandem pilot, right? So that was obviously done a bit, a bit better here. And then the job was offered by Moni and Hans-Peter to fly at ParaFly. And then suddenly, I was in Stubaital. And then I saw, ah, here there is an opportunity for a business as a tandem.
So that's how it's done. I only worked one season at ParaFly and was at a competition in Selamsee, Schmittenhöhe, where I saw Major Tom and discovered Fly2. They are in Wiltschönau. And that is a very large tandem business that is still running. Wolfgang Dörfler is the new owner. Rainer Kistl was the first owner. A real Austrian mountain farmer with his lederhosen. I thought he hated me because he was always so stubborn and serious, you know. But it was very funny. And I said, maybe you had me for a job, because at ParaFly that's a bit crazy for me.
I'm already crazy. You can't go "crazy with crazy" very well. And he said, "Yeah, you're coming tomorrow." So Rainer Kistl offered me a job like that. And I thought, "Yeah, I'm not getting a job. That's not happening." But he did. His heart is always warm. And that was the start of seven years there. And then another six or seven years at Blue Sky in Siljan in East Tyrol.
That means you've always been jumping back and forth. You were in the Alps during the European summer, and in the South African summer, you were in South Africa doing your tandem business. Right. Right. Is that tandem business in South Africa only flown in the summer, or do you do that all year now?
Now it happens all year round. Now many Germans come as tourists, not particularly paragliding tourists, but tourists in general come throughout the year. Our winter isn't that pleasant. It can have frontal systems with storms and such. Like here in the Cape of Good Hope in Cape Town. But even in August, it's only holiday time for Germans. That's when they have to come. So tourism in general has become more of a year-round thing. Of course, summer is more pleasant, longer days, nice weather, and much warmer. And that's winter for you. So my recommendation is to visit South Africa from October to April.
But if you can only come in August, it's also beautiful. It's just that the days are a bit shorter.
Are the customers you fly with as a tandem mainly tourists, or do you also take a lot of Africans with you?
70-30. So 70% are foreigners and 30% are already many wealthy people in South Africa, and it's not that expensive. So there are also, our price is around 100 euros for—oh, now it is, our Rand has fallen again. So it has to be 80 euros now, including photos and videos, for our offer. But in December it was still 100 euros including photos and videos. And unfortunately, it's often a short flight of five or seven minutes. We only have one glide flight of 350 meters from Signal Hill. But the people are all happy because, of course, it's a first flight from the start. We have 28 people in our business, for example. In Europe, that would be unbelievable to hear, because 10 tandem pilots means 12 people work in the business.
We have a lot of people here, mostly from Zimbabwe, because they are hardworking, very good workers. My entire business is run by my manager, Witness, that's his name. And we happen to have many funny names from Zimbabwe. Witness, Innocent, Gift, Friday, No Money, No Pay, No Job, No Happiness, etc.
I heard somewhere that you have 15 competitors by now. Exactly. Don't you all end up stepping on each other's toes as tandem pilots on Table Mountain?
Unfortunately, for me, it's a bit disappointing because I started this as my first business and I'm very proud of where we are, how it's developing, and that there are so many businesses there. But unfortunately, there's a lot of politics. And people don't talk to each other. And I always want people to come together and cut the crap, speak the truth. We could just put our politics aside. But unfortunately, with 15 businesses, as everyone can understand, it's way too many. It doesn't work. Everyone has their own impression and their own idea of this and that.
Do you still work together a bit, or is it real competition, like, full-on competition?
Yeah, listen. So, there are 15 interests. 15 want to set a price. 15 feel the price should be a bit more or a bit less or something. You have many opinions. And the biggest problem in my opinion in paragliding is egos. You have one with his ego, one with another, one with such a feeling. One who wants to give beautiful flights for people or only wants to do longer flights. And then he gets little work. One who is simply happy with every glider. He lands immediately. Tells the passenger okay, bye, you go in that direction and we'll see each other and doesn't even give his name. And he's already off for a cigarette, for example. That's not my way. I want to give really good service. Parapax is still seen as the big mama of all businesses.
There are. Yes, it was great for me every year and I still do it. This is the twenty-first year that I would come to Europe for the summer, like, how do you say, like a migratory bird, back and forth for summer, summer, summer. But this year it's not happening, of course, with Covid, and I'm looking into it. It's starting a price war after Covid, where many tandem pilots are coming back and are happy to take any kind of work for 20 or 30 euros for a flight. And then, of course, it's ruined. So I don't know. We're still checking that out.
Now you fly tandem in South Africa, and you fly tandem in the Alps. Those are completely different things, whether you're starting out on the coast or actually in the high mountains. Which one do you personally enjoy more and why?
Now I do much less tandem because I have such a great team. People arrive and you see these beaming, big, white smiles from witnesses from Zimbabwe. Hello. Welcome to Barabax. You must be Lucian. You and your wife and your four children are flying with us today. That's right. Yeah, great. Welcome. Come this way. This is going to be your pilot. This is your pilot. This is your pilot. How are you, little girl? Are you ready? So he animates. He does a little clown show and small gifts are given right away. So all the fun is there. To then answer a question. Of course. The Alps are great to fly in if you can really take off. But there's also an advantage to having two men on the passenger to hold them every takeoff.
There are tandem pilots in Cape Town who can't take off alone at all. The conditions at the launch site could be perfect, and we have a big carpet, very easy takeoff conditions. But they stand there and say, "Hey, I need my helpers. Where are you guys?" Two men have to come over immediately to hold the passenger. And I think to myself, "Hey, you can try it once. Without taking off, you know, because they don't know that." And in Europe, you have tandem pilots who take off alone at 3,000 meters. Zero wind or a slight tailwind and they go for it. So that's the difference. The fun here in Cape Town. Have you all been to South Africa, Lucian?
No, not yet.
I'll introduce you. You have to come visit me sometime. It's already very fine. That's crazy. So many people from Germany come here and they say, "This is so cool. The people are all so friendly." Because everyone talks to each other. That's the biggest difference. I have to slap myself when I arrive at Munich airport and say, "Hey, Steph, here you are in Germany. There's no more funny. Here the funny." The way you address people. We're not in Turkey. We're not in the Caribbean. We're in Munich. You know, so you have to be very polite with people right at the beginning. And that's different. So people arrive at the airport in Cape Town. You can imagine. You land there. And suddenly someone is there. "Hello, can I help you?" And you think, "Is this a robbery or does he want to mess with me?" or something like that.
No, he's really honest in his heart. He genuinely wants to help you. For example, yeah, I travel a lot alone on my motorcycle in Lesotho and the Retief Pass in South Africa. And it's so great to just see people waving from far away, because they see you arriving and they're like, "Oh wow." And you just pull over to say hi and they look at your motorcycle. I have photos of little kids and I say, "Would you like to sit on my motorcycle for a bit?" "Wow, that's incredible." You show a little magic trick to the side of the road and the kids are like, "Yeah, wow." It's really beautiful.
Yeah, then you'll probably very soon have not just one child, but 20 again, and you'll do your clown act from your motorcycle. Exactly.
Right. Right. And then, you take a look at a can of fish, for example, or beans, and you say goodbye and you're off. And you know, at least they had something to eat there. So, of course, we have big problems here with Corona; today we have 400,000 people with Corona in South Africa. The, the number is rising very, very strongly with us, at 15,000 per day. And of course, yeah, okay, I don't want to talk politics, but I think your podcasts are also such that you can just say that. But the respect and the understanding is a bit lost with us.
Now, with Corona, your tandem business probably isn't running at all. No. Instead, you just have free time right now. You're living your life and enjoying your days. Exactly.
And I support my whole team. Like, I make sure the phone is on. They can just get in touch. It's strange. In African culture, begging isn't very sexy. Like, they don't really want to ask. But when they do ask, you have to know they really need it. Okay, I'm speaking in general there. That's general.
Of course, others can discuss these topics with me. But the thing is, people aren't that proud of begging. They are more proud of showing that everything is going well for them. And then you have the people who check in and say, okay, listen, I need 100 euros. I really need it for my sister. So in Africa, people might go to each other and say, do you have 2 euros for me? And that's right. A question that they... they have to ask properly. Not just some casual question. So, it's already very hard to know that people have been, let's say, unemployed from March 20th until now.
Many people have shopping centers here, many shops are closed. People who have to sell vegetables on the side of the road couldn't do that for 2 or 3 months. That is very, very hard. So, they take a big hit, going from poverty to real poverty. Sorry, the topic isn't very pleasant. But
It just belongs in this time. You also used the lockdown, this Corona lockdown, to start your own new project. You started your own podcast. You call it Staying Alive in Paragliding. You produced 50 episodes in a very short time. Exactly. So, I know what it means to produce a podcast episode. And you probably had long conversations every day, and kept putting things out there and all that. But you had conversation partners from the paraglider world and really from all over the world. Do you have all of them in your contacts? How do you get in touch with people?
Exactly. So, because I traveled a lot around Europe during that 20-year period, that's how it happened. I had the idea for the Staying Alive in Paragliding podcast because as soon as our president said, okay, that was a Monday evening, our president said on TV that from Thursday it's lockdown. I thought, oh, and the rule was clear, you're not allowed outside, not outside at all. And I thought, that's a horror for me, because I'm not a bird in a cage. I can't do that. So, I thought, three weeks, cool. I'll rent... I'll rent a few houses in the countryside. Actually, that was behind the launch site of Porterville, our very, very well-known launch site in South Africa.
I thought to myself, maybe I could do a few flights. Exactly. That was still March. And after a few flights in Schwarz, I naturally realized that the farmer and they weren't so happy that someone was flying alone. Because I didn't see the problem. But they said, okay, so we have 100 people working here on the farm. And we have to tell them, of course, they aren't allowed to go out on the street at all. And you're there paragliding. That's such a sign, it's not so nice, you know. So I thought, okay, then I'll accept that. And I saw very beautiful weather every day. Then there was an extension of our lockdown. Then I thought to myself, I have to do something else, because I'm someone who always has to stay busy.
So. Then I thought to myself, what do I do? And then it was Uli Prinz, a friend of mine, who spoke with me and said, Steve, why don't you do a few podcasts? Then I thought, okay, let's check that out. And I watched your podcast, of course, and Gavin's in America. And there was another lady, Judy Ledden or something, checked it out and thought, yeah, that's very nice. And I thought, out of so many competitions. I've flown before, I know everyone from Krigel to Ogden, to Jimmy Pacher. I call them all and I find them. And I have a secretary and I asked her, please send a few.
I'm not good at Facebook or social media. So I told her, please, can you find that guy and see what he likes. Or Louise Crandall, for example, I did a podcast a few days ago. And such lovely people. And such lovely experiences.
Out of those 50 podcast episodes you've done, was there one in particular that you personally liked the best, where you thought, wow, this is my highlight episode or something? Like, one that's an absolute must-listen?
Of course, I heard that Robbie Whittle had completely fallen off the radar. And he was a world-class hang glider and paragliding pilot, of course. And then I also heard from Russell Ogden, and from Bruce Goldsmith and Jocky Sanderson, that he's now riding motorcycles on the race track, on the Isle of Man. That crazy race, the Isle of Man TT. I thought to myself, I have to find him. And for a long time I had to ask him, please, will you do a podcast with me? And finally he said, yeah, sure. That's the last of them. But many of those podcasts, all 50, I have to say, had something special and were great.
I don't know, and I'd like to turn the microphone around now and ask you, Lucian. Why do you do it?
One of the reasons I do this is that I've been running my blog Lu-Glidz for 14 years now. The blog, in the way I do it, isn't really a personal blog, but rather more of an online magazine. And because of the way it's written, there are many stories that are very beautiful, which happen constantly in the paragliding world, but can't just appear so easily. Because there are some stories that you just have to tell. Or you have to have them told to you, but you can't write them down so beautifully that you convey the feeling of these stories. Or there are people who you'd say are so interesting as human beings, who have experienced so many different things,
I can't really cover that in a single post on Lu-Glidz or anything like that. Instead, I find it interesting in the podcast format that you can address so many different topics and still get such a personal picture of someone. And that's what I meant when I said, okay, I have the subtitle in my podcast where it says "Stories from the cosmos of paragliding," where I say, okay, so much happens in paragliding, or in connection with paragliding, and you can meet so many different people, discover landscapes, hear stories and stuff like that. Then I want to have those kinds of stories told to me. And I've also noticed from the reactions of the people who listen to it, they all say, wow, great, yeah, that's a different approach, you get to hear completely different things.
And you learn an incredible amount from it too. And that's actually what I want to convey with the podcast. And I think it's exactly the same for you.
Yes, you put it in one word: learning. I've learned a damn lot with the podcast.
What I've gotten from people, of course, is that if we're good at paragliding and are at a high enough competition standard, we have a bit of an idea, oh, there's so little left for me to learn. It's just very fine-tuning. But that's not the case. I've picked up something from everyone from the 50. And like you're asking, 50 podcasts in 40 days, how do you do that? You just have to dive in really deep. And when I was a clown, I did up to nine children's birthday parties a day. All one hour each, all full throttle, full energy, clown show. Can I ask you something else? You've been doing your podcast or your blog and everything since 2006.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
It's actually mainly, I also work as a journalist. And I think one of the reasons why I became a journalist is because I realized at some point that one of my strengths is that I can explain things well to people. In a simple way or show connections. And that's also something that carries over into this blog, where I say I want to show as much as possible. So everything, I mean, the blog is very diverse. It goes from meteo to technology to human stories and current stories and stuff like that. So I really want to try to represent a lot of what is all around paragliding, what belongs to it.
And then, yeah, maybe bringing things together or promoting understanding. I think I can promote understanding the most where I might have the biggest advantage over others, which is that I've delved very deeply into meteorology—the same meteorology. And I constantly notice that I can explain so much to people so that they just say, "Ah, now I get it." Because many things, if you express them a bit differently than they are presented in classic meteorology books and just choose a different language and say, "Look, I'll show you a picture of how it can work," suddenly people have an image in their head and say, "Ah, now I know why the wind is pushing over the mountain like that," when I imagine it as a wave or something.
And then it falls down and pushes it back up. So, evoking those kinds of images in people's heads—that's what interests me. And I'm also learning an enormous amount from it myself. Yes, so writing the blog, for me, is always about diving a bit deeper into every topic. There's always something for me to learn. Or, in the same way, for the blog itself, I've already done many, many paraglider tests and have become much better because of that. I've flown many, many completely different paragliders, and not just for five minutes of gliding, but actually flown them for a few hours to constantly adjust myself to the different technical skills you might need for the gliders, different inflation behaviors, different turning behaviors, and things like that.
That has helped me immensely, having such a wide range of different paraglider control techniques and options in my portfolio, that I now notice much faster—oh, this glider is a typical one, you always have to brake it with the outside brake, otherwise it won't work. And with the other one, you notice, oh no, this is a typical one, you always have to keep the outside brake open, otherwise it won't make the turn. But if you do that, it's beautiful to fly. And those are things I only learned by flying so many, many different gliders. And that is what personally keeps me moving forward. And what's also nice about the blog is, I also work as a journalist otherwise, but now mainly as a radio journalist, but you rarely get feedback from
the people. And when someone gives feedback, it's usually some nitpickers saying they mispronounced a word or, no, physically it's not like that, but like this. So, I work as a science journalist and then some senior physicist will get in touch and say they misrepresented something a bit, that it doesn't work quite like that. But in the blog, a lot of the time, also through the comment section that's there, I get a lot back from people. On positive things, sometimes also negative ones, but there's direct feedback and I notice that what I'm doing actually reaches someone, helps people move forward, or at least makes them think, gets them into discussions, and all that. And that's something that just, yeah, gives me energy myself. Yeah, nice. Yeah,
I think that to do our sort-work, what we're doing now, this thing, this topic, I think it also—I find it hard to say the same thing, but I think it has to do with our personality, a sort of generosity. You like to teach people things and we have that in common. I also like to teach people something or give something positive back, or simply put a big question mark in front of their eyes and say, hey, think about that. What do you say about that?
Yeah, that's actually exactly how I see it too. How do you get people to think further or try something out? And also, people always want to know with glider tests, for example, whether it's good or bad. And I say, no, it's not about good or bad, but rather that in some points this glider is like this, and in other points the other glider is like that. One person might find one better, or the other. But if you read through what I have, and you say, "What Lucian describes might interest me, that's maybe the style I want to fly in," then go test that glider. Or if you think, "I'm reading this, that's definitely not my glider, because I know I want very light brake pressures. And if he writes it has really heavy brake pressures," then you can already say, I might not even need to test this glider.
I don't want heavy brake pressures or other things like that. So, I want people to take something away from it, but they still have to think for themselves and take the next step. That's basically what I like to do.
Yeah, super interesting, hey, wow.
From what you said earlier, you've also learned a lot from your own podcasts. Is there anything you'd say was like an "aha" moment for you regarding your flying, maybe something concerning flight technique or something like that? Yes, of course.
A few things that really, really struck me are observation. Like, a tip I tell many people, starting with flying, is to look at the moment when, for example, you've set yourself up as a specialist in meteorology or weather, and you're looking at what's predicted today to become strong wind, and then suddenly—notice it, okay? Notice it, like, open your eyes wide and check what's happening. When you go outside, or for example, I was out at half past six this morning, while it was still dark here in South Africa, hiking and looking and checking, even just five minutes outside, right before you leave,
check what the weather is doing until you get to the gondola, check if there's a lot of wind in this valley? Don't just look at the road, look at the trees too, the weather, the clouds. Is anyone flying when you arrive at the gondola? When you're in the gondola, don't just look at your phone and keep checking Facebook. No, that's for flying at night. In the gondola, check and look and see what the weather is doing here and there. When you go up, even in the air, what are the pilots doing? What's the weather doing? What's my health doing? What's my GPS doing? How fast am I going left, right, up and down? Suddenly there's a seven-meter climb where there were only two meters a quarter of an hour ago.
Big question. And you have to ask it, of course. And it's a kind of alarm that you notice. Observation was a word that came up a lot. And that is really the word that I noticed a lot. Of course, many other small topics are also, ah, I didn't think about that as much. Fast flying, of course.
Flying more efficiently than before. That was also the case before. I'm either full throttle on my So-3 or I'm climbing and climbing very well. I'm often very good in the thermals. But everything in between, my tactics were maybe lacking a bit. I noticed something about that too.
You're just mentioning tactics and stuff. You've also been doing paraglider competitions for many years. How many years has that been now? Yeah, 20.
too. Since my first year of flying, yeah. Like the first or second year, yeah.
Have you ever won anything bigger?
Yes, I have several championships. I was just about to say, I'm not a big fan, and nothing against Goran or the organizers, Laura, and the PWC clubs. But I find the PWC format isn't ideal. I don't think the scoring is ideal, and I don't think it's a perfect solution for competition for us. Bruce Goldsmith and Gin and Ozone, the Chabret Open, all these more relaxed competitions, I think that's the new thing now. I suggest competitions to a lot of people for flying.
And then they say, "Ah, I'm not a competition person. I don't need competition. I don't need to compete." But I say, "But you learn a damn lot if you do a competition. So, do it, try it." No, no, no, that's not my thing, because competitions are actually seen by most pilots who don't fly competition as a sort of, you arrive, it's aggressive, it's full throttle, and that's my problem with PWC, for example. I don't want to fly casually into the thermals, but why should I cut someone out of a thermal or have them cut me out? That's not so sexy. Let the people climb well together and fly nicely together. And a just-for-fun competition, I believe that's the future of our sport.
For those who just want to have a beer with their friends and say, "Wow, you got here ten minutes ahead of me. Wow, funny. I'll buy you one."
Have you already participated in PWC competitions yourself? Yes, I have, yes.
And I hold my own. For example, our South African Championship last year was,
Pepe Maleki did a course with me in December last year, one week before our championship. And our championship was a PWC in 2013, but now every year it's a Pre-PWC. So, we don't get the PWC anymore because I think the gap is too wide and they want to keep it all in Europe or something. But Pepe was first, I was second, 13 points behind him. That means a few seconds at a time to third and fourth. And Stefan Dröhn was there, he was, yeah, and his glider was much, much better. It performed much better than my old one by about three, so. Yeah, I do very well in the competitions.
But I'm very muddy, I'm not one whose focus is always on what happens after the competition or the dog that played along just before the competition. And yeah, I'm not that focused.
That means for you, the value of these competitions also lies in the overall context—so not just in the competition at that moment, but the whole thing around it, the happening, that 100 pilots from all over the world come together. And that is what mainly fascinates you about it. I
...competitions, because 100 pilots come together. We can talk in the evenings. That's how it is. I know few other gatherings of pilots. Okay, outside of Saint-Hilaire-du-Touvel, Kubikar, and we have a few events, for example, the Stubai Cup and the big fair here and there. But otherwise, there are few organized gatherings. So, I'm there for my second project now for the lockdown, because I realized, okay, there are still no official flights from South Africa. And I don't want to try to have to take a repatriation flight, that I come to Europe urgently because I have to.
No, that's nonsense. I'm waiting for, let's say, normal tourism to return. Then I'll travel to Europe. Hopefully, in September or October, I'll still have a few months in Europe for the end of the summer. But I realized, oh, I'm here in South Africa. So, what do I do? I'm doing a sort of gathering, a sort of paragliding festival. First, it's very important to know that I take this Corona very seriously. I've decided we're keeping this social distancing. We're not doing the protocol right. Just that everyone comes together. And the gathering, the festival, is a film festival, like at St.
Hilaire.
Every evening there are beautiful movies, very good food,
beef and, how do you say,
...the bio is. Yes. Yesterday, a bull was shot for us. Very good lentil curries in the evening by the fire. And we're doing a small competition with it. Like spot landing, accuracy, point landing, and also a small task. But just for fun. So, it's not taken so seriously. You know? Those who want to have a competition and we say, okay, you have it. And the points aren't that, it's not that important. It's just how you flew. We're going to a very beautiful spot called Hogsback. And that's in the Eastern Cape,
province of South Africa. 1,000 km from Cape Town towards the east. And it's beautiful, a wonderful natural spot. And everyone can just come. They can bring their used gear. And people from all over South Africa—we have 700 pilots flying in South Africa. And maybe 100 more will join. And we organize groups so that not everyone is together at the same time. But of course, we have a boat with a winch tow. People can do SIV training. We have three other tow lines so people can come up and then fly away. We have mountains, of course, where you can do a bit of hike and fly and fly away. Everything is there. And many people are very, very excited.
I'd like to see the competition scene in Europe, for example, become a bit more relaxed, where we can have fun at competitions. Not just that the competition is a very serious, high-level competition. That people can do a touch and go on the side of the mountain. They can then do a precision landing. I landed in a small creek with a Cure glider in a fun competition two years ago. Ah, that's funny. Ah, so good. So, where the tent is at the landing field. It's more that the people, the locals, can also enjoy it, where people try the precision landing with a nice atmosphere, nice music to go along with it, for example.
So it's also about the fun of flying. You've also traveled an insane amount all over the world in connection with competitions and stuff like that. How many countries, in how many countries have you been?
Yeah, down to 100. I don't count exactly, but yeah. You
You don't count your flights, but roughly speaking, you say 10,000 hours and now you've been to about 100 countries. That's great. You've probably also gotten to know the most diverse paraglider communities. Exactly. In the most diverse countries. Are there actually any recognizable and maybe even major differences, or are the pilots actually the same all over the world?
You can't say a Greek pilot or a Turkish pilot and a German pilot are the same. That's not true. It's very different, you know? For example, a German pilot would go flying. I was once at Kössen with very, very good friends. I met George Thomas, who lives in Munich, because he flew straight into a tree, not far from the launch site in Kössen. It was really scratchy right at the beginning of the day. Very light thermals. And I was standing there talking to a stranger about the weather and I told him, I notice it's very light and I hear a guy flying into a tree. And I walk over quickly, but I look around to see if another guy is coming, and the guy turned around and walked away.
...like nothing happened. But a guy is hanging in a tree. It doesn't work, you know? In Greece or Turkey, all the pilots would suddenly run over, for example. That's just one example. Last year I was in Iceland and Albania as a newcomer. Before that, in Iran and Norway. New landscapes, new people, a new style of flying. Yeah, that's my dream. That's great.
Let's do a little flying world tour. I'll just name a few countries that I think you've been to as well. And there are these paragliding communities and stuff like that there. And then you just tell me what comes to mind spontaneously regarding paragliding in those countries. Yes, first
I have to ask you, are you a stalker? Because you know so much about me. I think you've checked out a lot beforehand.
I've listened to quite a bit of your podcast. When you listen to it, you get to know a lot about you as well. Thanks so much. Okay, Stef, let's start. Iceland.
Yes, great scenery. An incredible country to visit. You can also travel cheaply and check it out. And yeah, it was more pilot-friendly than I thought. In Iceland, if you enjoy hike and fly, you can fly everywhere. You don't get any issues with construction, mining or construction there. You can fly everywhere. You can take off anywhere. And like I said, I expected a lot of stormy weather. That wasn't the case. It was pretty friendly.
Maybe you just got lucky. Now let's continue the flight. Once around half the world, maybe seen from Iceland. Now we're landing in Iran.
Yes, definitely not to be missed. Cheap to travel. Very friendly. All that nonsense with the media is absolute nonsense. It's completely safe. Iran is like Turkey was 30 years ago. With friendliness. So you get there, you arrive, you're a stranger, but you're immediately like a family member. And the flying is, of course, very, very good. I also expected the thermals to be 10, 15 meters per second. But they were also three to eight, for example. So much friendlier than I thought. I thought, wow, that's half desert. Sort of conditions. And no, no, it was good.
Very, very good to fly.
Now let's jump to the
Alps. You land in Austria. Easy. The infrastructure is there.
Who then? I wouldn't say it's boring, but it's less of an adventure, let's say. Okay, so flying in the Alps, for example, or in the Himalayas. There's the best flying because you have really beautiful large mountains with lift systems. It's super easy everywhere to get up and glide. You don't have to be a fully talented pilot to get to Greifenburg. You go up with the shuttle. You see 100 pilots starting in front of you. You can also start and fly back and forth. So that's actually great.
Now let's hop across the Atlantic. We're landing in the USA.
Yes, the USA has very, very many places to visit and fly to. The Southwest of the USA is one of my favorite places to visit by car, for example, renting a car and stuff like that. But the landowners in America are very tough. And just flying in black is difficult. Hike and Fly is not like in Iceland or Norway. You have real problems there. If someone comes, they come with their shotgun or the police are there when you land. That's not funny anymore.
That means there isn't that much freedom in the USA.
...to talk about. No, no. Maybe you can go to the Rockies where there are miners. But if you're in a somewhat Bavarian village or town, you can forget it. You can ask the American pilots. They don't have any fun with the landowners. And unfortunately, that comes with litigation. So the world is becoming more and more like, "Ah, you looked at me funny. Now you're getting a letter from my lawyer." We've become a bit crazy in my opinion. And unfortunately, that's what's at the forefront of America.
Then let's leave America, because we don't want to get into that. Let's jump back to Europe and land in Macedonia.
Yes, Macedonia is a dream. The ones who aren't out yet, I assume your main group listening to these podcasts are from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And many from Switzerland, for example, Peter Neunschwan, who is in Interlaken—I told him, hey, let's do a rappelling course in Macedonia this summer, if it's allowed, I said to him in my podcast. He said, wow, that's so far away. But Macedonia is only 1,000 kilometers, you can drive there in 10 hours. Yes, but you have to drive through six countries to get there. Yes, but all the borders are open. You don't necessarily have to, you just have to show your passport at most and you're through, you know.
And the highways, you just give your credit card and you're through, like that. I want to share a very interesting quote from Thor Heydahl. He was the man who did the Kon-Tiki voyage. He's a Norwegian who took a bamboo raft in '49, or '47 even, from South America to the Fiji Islands. And he said, "Borders, yes, I have heard of them. They exist in the imagination of some people." Okay, so borders are only there if you believe in them. If you don't think there are borders, then there aren't really many borders. That's my opinion.
Jump in a car, German. Drive to Macedonia. Don't be afraid. You'll get your number right from Martin Jovanowski. And you call him right away. And you say, Martin, Stef gave me your number. Can you please show me the launch site? And you get to do some wonderful, fine flying. And you grab two or three friends. You get in your car. You drive there. And you go for a weekend. And you come back. And one drives, one drives, one drives and the others sleep or listen to music or talk. And that would be the most beautiful road trip you would ever do. So. That is Macedonia. That is Albania. Montenegro. Dumitor is the mountain in Montenegro.
The mountain, that's it. And a Peter. Peter, he would fly every continent. He's there. And it's really recommended. Few people. Still an old-style chairlift where you can sit and you're up. You come out to a perfect launch site, perfect maintenance of the lines, and you're alone to maintain the lines on that day. So, go with a few friends and do it.
Okay. Last stop of our little world tour. We're coming to your home. South Africa.
Yeah, yeah. What do you want to know about paradise?
You can do a quick ad for your South Africa trip and say why people need to come to the country to fly there.
Okay. So first, I want to clear up the bad reputation of Porterville, our main—or most well-known—cross-country flight base. Porterville has a bad reputation. Porterville has no reason to have a bad reputation. It's just that pilots arrive and create bad reputation problems there because they aren't trained or don't ask the right questions or they make mistakes. But for me, South Africa is much, much bigger. We have hundreds and hundreds of take-off sites and you should definitely do a cross-country flight or an organized trip. I also offer such trips, which are very personal. I've done several for Blue Sky and privately. People can also go to one or two
arrive here. They can get in touch with me themselves and say, "Hi, I'm a pilot alone. My first time in South Africa." Then I say, "Cool, you and Innocent, my husband from Zimbabwe, we'll travel together and you'll meet someone who would hike barefoot for three days to school when he was six years old, and you'll hear his story and you'll tell about South Africa, and you can actually only pay the man 20 euros a day for it, you know. Wow." So, the great adventure happens here, or there are also very organized trips organized here. You shouldn't be afraid to come to South Africa.
That nonsense with crime problems—there is crime in our country, but you have to be careful, for example at the ATM, where a lot of people get ripped off, but other than that, you travel here and everything is fun. If you get desperate and see a man hanging off the back of a truck, you won't be surprised, you just get a lift for a few kilometers. You see that kind of fun very easily and often, and the more adventurous you are in South Africa, the more fun and good memories you'll have of it, that's for sure.
Let's do a little change of subject towards the end. Before you started your paraglider tandem business, you also worked as a clown for a while, but then you also worked as a hypnotist and made your money with a hypnosis show. How did that happen? How did you become a hypnotist?
Okay, so, if you're doing nine children's birthdays a day and you think, I'm 22 years old and I'm about to get clown burnout, I got it, I thought to myself, okay, I have to do something else. So, some of my magician friends suggested, hey, there's a hypnosis course. And when you say the word hypnosis, then of course, very, very many people are interested. For example, someone sent me something this morning and said Joe Rogan, surely the most-listened-to podcaster, an American, released a podcast about hypnosis this morning. And hypnosis is a very interesting subject and topic.
I thought to myself, wow, a hypnosis show would be fun. And as a student, I saw a hypnotist as an actor. And I thought, that would be great for doing a show like that. And within just a few weeks, I could do a hypnosis show. Actually, everyone could do a hypnosis show, everyone can hypnotize. But of course, if you have a good personality with people, if people can trust you, it's much, much easier. And I've done a lot of therapy there. And I can really help people if they have any problems or want to or forget or change things in their brain or change their thinking a bit.
It's like a magic trick. It's like a click. You can basically flip a switch and say, "This is different now." And it really works. It works.
You just said therapy. Have you ever actually done therapy with pilots? For example, if they had a block because of a fear of flying or something like that, where you say, okay, I'll do one or more hypnosis sessions with you and then we'll see what we can do?
Yes, good question, and thanks for asking. That's happened to me several times. Pilots have found out that I'm a hypnotist and then said, hey Stef, would you like to do a session with me to help me with my flying? I'm a competition pilot, but I'm mega nervous, for example during takeoff or some other issues, and I've actually done that with competitors or over the phone, and it works, it goes well, and it's very successful. Many professional golfers, for example, it's not just that—it's, come on, golf is such a thing, you hit a ball and what happens in your head is actually all right.
You have a switch—ah, today I'm having a bad day, you play a bad round of golf, or wow, today I'm feeling good, or ah, today I'm hungover, I drank too much beer. On the day itself, you win the task in a paragliding competition because you don't have to think about it that much. Hypnosis for therapy is very, very good and I'd also like to welcome people if they want to do a professional session with me; we can also do that via Skype or something live, that would be an option, and maybe it's a topic that you'll...
the mindset, what happens in our heads, in my opinion has very, very much to do with paragliding and flying in general.
Have you ever been afraid of flying yourself?
Of course. Good God, I've prayed a lot before and during a flight. Of course, I've had many horror experiences in my paragliding life, but thank God I've never had to visit a hospital for paragliding. So I'm very grateful that everything is always okay. I haven't broken anything in all my experiences of flying and so on. So I am. Yes, but I also believe, for example, you asked before what you've learned from listening to other people's podcasts, and one thing that occurred to me is, when you're standing at the launch site and you haven't taken off, you're not in the air, so if you're there and, for example, Reine Kistl from Fly2 also taught me this, if you suddenly feel a cold air coming,
absolutely don't start. It's not 100% certain, but it's highly likely there's a chance something will happen. So, before we're in the air, and when we get into the air and you've underestimated the weather or that weird monster is there, because sometimes it's inexplicable why the weather is so strange, and that is very uncomfortable in the air. Stay relaxed, fly out, and go land. Don't try to be a hero. Dead heroes, there are none. We have to stay alive and healthy. I also have to say on these topics, I am very, very grateful that our sport has become so safe.
When you think about how many thousands of flights happen every day around the world and so few accidents occur. I also want to congratulate you on your last podcast, where you did the Krente record and then the 16 flights of over 300 kilometers in Spain in one day. Can you imagine, ten years ago, that would have been unbelievable—16 flights of 300 kilometers in one country in one day and nothing happened. So I am very grateful that our sport is so safe, and I think many pilots who are just getting into this sport—sorry, I'm on the run again with another topic—but that this danger...
Danger-free isn't as soon as you've got your ass in, when you have 60 flights. That's a bit further. That's at 100, 150 flights. When you think I'm starting to become a real pro. Now I can take more and more and more chances. Watch out during this time. So my recommendation for low-airtime pilots is watch out. Always keep yourself in very good mental control and watch out where you are with your experience, never think that you're more of a pro than you actually are. So don't jump too quickly to the next glider. Bruce Goldsmith always says fly 100 km with your ass-glider first, before you allow yourself to have a B-glider and so on.
Okay, so everyone wants to have the hottest glider, that they can for performance, if they're a bit too self-confident. And that brings me to the topic of respect versus self-confidence. There's a very fine line between the two. The boundary is very narrow between being too self-confident and being too fearful. Don't have too much fear, but also don't be too self-confident.
You just have to try some things out sometimes to know what the air actually does. Or that you're at launch sites and say, okay, we always fly this launch site in these and those wind conditions, but maybe it works in slightly different ones too. And then you just have to try it out, or when someone says there's only this one home thermal up ahead, but everyone always flies there, but nobody looks 300 meters further left or something in other wind conditions to see if there might be something there. So there are many things you have to try out first and then notice for yourself whether it works or it doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, you can say, I still learned something, and I'm just better prepared for my next flight. Steff, let's slowly get to the end.
I have one last question for you. Steff, imagine you had a wish from a fairy godmother. It's about paragliding again. You could wish for a very special paragliding flight that somehow meets your ideal vision of flying and of a flight and of where you fly and stuff like that. What and where would this special flight be?
Right now? Wow! Lucian, I'm not often at a loss for words, but you've asked me a question that makes me have to think for a bit longer. I have to say, when I did a podcast with John and Charles, and he said he could never imagine flying for ten hours...
and fly 400 kilometers. My record is like yours, our interest in flying is similar, although I love competition flying. I want to go up, chat a bit with the pilots, and then racing. Let's go. That's enough more. I'm also happy to go up to a mountain in some part of Serbia and then fly and I land and that fits well, that's fine. But ten hours in the air, 400 kilometers, wow, that sounds, if you ask me, like such a long flight, to see how I feel after ten or eleven hours and after flying 400 kilometers, maybe that would be my choice for a long flight.
Yeah,
Okay. Ten hours of flying would be like listening to this podcast ten times over.
one after another. Who knows what else you'll come up with. Steph, thank you for your wonderful stories about everything around the world, from South Africa to Iceland and Iran. You've experienced a lot, and you surely have much, much more to tell, but you can share even more of that with some pilots you organize, for sure. Great. Thank you, and I wish you a smooth way through the Corona period, and then maybe, who knows, maybe we'll see each other sometime in Europe or in South Africa. Maybe I'll take you up on your invitation.
Yes, that's a very good idea. I hope so. And I have another invitation for you, please, Lucian. And that would be, if I continue with the next series, would you perhaps try to step out of your German once and do a podcast with me on my side
do, if I don't have to speak Afrikaans.
No, you won't have to speak Afrikaans. That's fine. Bye now. Thank you, thank you so much.
That was Steff Juncker in conversation with Lucian Haas. In the show notes for this podcast episode on Fluglites, you'll find some additional links, such as Steff's podcast Staying Alive in Paragliding. The 50 episodes there so far offer an enormous amount of listening material and also knowledge for hungry flying ears. If Podz-Glidz satisfies your hunger for information and entertainment, then go get even more of it. You can find over 30 more episodes of the podcast on Soundcloud, Spotify, iTunes, and many other audio catalogs. You can also simply subscribe to Podz-Glidz in your podcatcher of choice. But allow me to give that reminder once more. These many stories don't produce themselves. I put a lot of time into this and appreciate everyone who supports my work as a patron. All the necessary information for that can be found on the Loglites website on the Support page.
That's all for today. Now, just go fly again. But keep Steff's words in mind. Constant observation—observation takes you further. Ciao.