Speed is simply your friend in low-level flying, because if you have speed, you can always gain massive altitude whenever you want. But if you're starved for it—flying low and slow—then you don't have that option to climb. And then it becomes very dangerous very quickly.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Benny
Kaelin and
Lucian Haas at the microphone.
Speedflying is about hurtling down slopes close to the ground with correspondingly small gliders, some with significantly less than ten square meters of surface area. In action videos, you see pilots carving over the grass of ski slopes at high speed just above the height of an ant's knee, flying over narrow gorge heads in so-called barrel rolls, and finally building up even more speed before landing with a spectacular dive to gain the extra speed they need for a long horizontal slide. Anyone who knows these images will hardly doubt the assessment. Speedflying is probably the most dangerous variant of paragliding. The speedflying scene has had to mourn many deaths. However, the same basic rule applies to speedflying as it does to paragliding. The risk is always relative to the style and skill level with which you practice the sport.
One person who can assess this particularly well is the Swiss Benny Kählin. Benny is one of the most experienced speedflyers in the world. Fourteen years ago, the now 34-year-old fell for this flight discipline and has since played a decisive role in shaping this sport. In this 46th episode of Podz-Glidz, Benny talks about his passion. Among other things, it's about what fascinates him so much about low-altitude flying, where the differences to normal paragliding lie, and why he even feels safer under a speedflying glider. He talks about how his willingness to take risks has changed over time, why there are almost no women among the speedflyers, and how one can learn speedflying themselves. Before Benny's appearance, a quick note on my own behalf. Podz-Glidz and the associated blog Luglite are available free of charge online.
They aren't free, though, because I invest a lot of my time as a freelance journalist into this. In other words, the podcast and blog are part of my livelihood. I would be very happy if you would help me, as a supporter, to convey this offer in its independent and ad-free form. This is a good way to maintain and expand it. You can find out how to become a supporter on the Lu-Glidz website, specifically on the "Support" page.
Benny, let's talk about speed for a moment. What is speed to you? Is it an addiction?
No, I wouldn't call it an addiction. For me, speed isn't about absolute velocity, but rather relative to the ground. Nowadays, I actually prefer flying with a slightly larger glider, about 10 or 12 square meters, and just staying very close to the ground, very precisely. I like that better than flying a bit higher with a 6-square-meter one.
Is that, I mean, this proximity to the ground, is that something you'd say intensifies the experience of speed, or why do you like it better? What is it that's more interesting for you about it?
With a slightly larger glider, you simply have a lot more room to play, and it's not quite as dangerous, meaning you can dare to get significantly closer. Because it's not quite as fast as with a 6 square meter, you can actually fly closer; it's more playful, but in terms of speed, it feels exactly the same to me.
You're saying it's playful and all that, but there's still that thrill behind it, right? Or is it not a thrill for you at all, but just really just playing with the terrain?
Yeah, "thrill" might be the wrong word; for me, it's more of a flow. So, for me, adrenaline is more like when you start shaking, right? I really only get adrenaline when I do something I'm actually afraid of. For example, I had that during my first base jumps, or if you do something and something goes wrong and you realize, wow, that was a close call, then you get all shaky. That's adrenaline for me. But with speedflying, I actually try to avoid that. What I want is just this feeling of flow. That means that the experience is completely within the control, in the comfort zone, and not anywhere beyond it, so for me, there isn't really much adrenaline involved.
It's more of this flow that I'm looking for.
What does flow mean to you? I mean, what happens in your head in that situation?
Flow, it's hard to describe. I'd describe it as a situation where you can fulfill the task you're doing with your skills. And through this rush of speed you get, you just enter this flow, like you do when powder skiing, or surfing, or mountain biking.
Yeah, where you don't think much else. Yeah, where you can just think in the moment and really get lost in the thing itself and have to focus on that one thing.
Now, you do all sorts of different types of low-altitude flying. You do speedriding, you do speedflying, you've also done wingsuit flying and stuff like that. Which of these different disciplines gives you the most flow?
Yeah, at the moment, I actually like flying without skis the best. Just flying on foot close to the ground. Because that's where you can fly most precisely, and you have to fly most precisely. Flying close to the ground with skis is less interesting because you always have the option to just ski if you misjudge it in the glide path. And on foot, you don't want to land in the middle of the mountain, so the option is clear. With a wingsuit, you can't—you'd just crash. With a speedflyer you can, but of course, you don't want to. And yeah, I like that best of all. I did that with the wingsuit too. I did about 300 wingsuit base jumps. But I just realized that it's not playful enough for me.
You can never fly as close to the terrain as you can with a Speedflyer over a long period of time. Sure, for a short time you can fly a wingsuit half a meter past a tree or maybe 100 meters over a grassy slope. Or if you have the right terrain, there are also cool variations where you fly 300 meters over a grassy slope. But you can never fly down an entire mountain in total proximity to the ground with a Speedflyer. And that's what I like so much about the Speedflyer—you can just look for lines. And in terms of terrain, it's also possible to fly very close to the ground for a long time very often. And the whole thing is simply because you can also land. If you miscalculate, it's just significantly more playful.
Especially with these larger gliders. With a 6-square-meter glider, you can't land on a slope. That's not possible. It would just result in a hard landing. It has to be flat. But I'd say with a 12-square-meter glider, I can also land on a slope if I misjudge it, and then keep going down until it's steep enough again and I can take off again. And that's what I like best at the moment.
You've given up on wingsuit flying by now. Why?
Too many people have died from it. And I also just realized for myself, regarding this playful field, that I've simply assessed that the risk for me personally is really too high. When I do something, I like to do it properly and intensely. And with wingsuit-based jumping, it just becomes really, really dangerous when you do it intensely.
Does that also have something to do with age? That your own perception of risk has changed with age? That you were perhaps much more risky ten years ago and were looking for the thrill rather than the flow, and that something like that has changed?
I think less so. I stopped doing wingsuit-based jumping about 8 years ago. And I was always very, very careful with speedflying too. I'm just fundamentally an anxious and cautious type. And I don't think my perception of risk or my judgment has changed massively now. I just really wanted to do it, the wingsuit-based jumping. And then I realized, hey, it's not the coolest thing I've ever done. And during the two years that I did it, a few people I knew died. And then I just said, hey, no, I'm done with that.
Today, you're one of the most experienced speedflyers in the world. Let's take a look back for a bit. How did you get into it in the first place? I mean, how did you learn speedflying?
On skis—well, today they'd call it speedriding.
I borrowed a glider and tried it out. And I liked it immediately. But I think the origin... the spark, that jumped over from a military parachuting course. We watched a film there where the paratroopers were flying these small gliders just above the ground. And it looked so good that I said, hey, I want to try that too. And shortly after, Jin released that first Nano Speedflyer on the market. And I tried it out right away and was absolutely stoked.
How old were you back then?
That was in 2006. 2006, I was... good question. That was 14 years ago, I was 20. 19, probably even 19.
Could you already do paragliding back then? Or did you just, because you mentioned the military, basically do some parachute training and then say, "Now I want to try this from a mountain too"?
No, I've also flown a paraglider before. However, I was a beginner back then. So I probably had maybe 100 paragliding flights when I first tried it. And I couldn't ski very well either. I was a hardcore snowboarder back then and actually did it on a snowboard at the time. And I definitely did my first 60 flights with the snowboard until I eventually switched to skis.
Is it actually practical to do speedriding with a snowboard?
No, not really. You can start and land, that goes very well. But riding is rather tedious because you constantly have to twist.
Now help me out, and the listeners too, with a brief definition. So you're talking about speedriding, you're talking about speedflying, and then there's paragliding. What actually mainly distinguishes these disciplines from one another?
It's hard to say. I'd say there's no real boundary. When I started, there were just Speedflyers 10, 12, 13, 14 and gliders larger than 20. But nowadays you can buy a Speedflyer in 17 square meters, but you can also buy a glider in 12 square meters. So for me, the definitions are completely fluid. But Speedriding is flying on skis for me, doing touch and goes over and over again, and trying to ride as well. Speedflying is flying on foot with small gliders for me, just flying as close to the slope as possible. And then Minibing flying is more with slightly larger gliders, small paragliders, so 15 to 20 square meters.
But not necessarily close to the ground, just flying out, doing a few wingovers and some circles and stuff. And I don't have to define paragliding either.
If you say that speedflying is mainly this low-level flying to stay close to the ground, then it's also a lot with small gliders so that you don't have that much lift and can build up a lot of speed accordingly. What skills do you need as a speedflyer, perhaps technically, that you don't need at all as a paraglider?
Good question. Reading the terrain, looking well ahead, and mastering the dive from the glider. So you have to be able to anticipate very well and assess how much the glider dives when you fly a turn. And how exactly the glider reacts, how much I have to pull to get how much lift. It's a bit like dune flying. At the dune, that close-to-the-slope play, you actually learn that quite well.
That means if you're starting out with speedflying, I'd say maybe it's best to first go to the dune with your paraglider and learn that playful handling with a larger glider, and then you can do the same with speedflying on a slope with a speedflyer accordingly. That
That definitely helps with flying in the dune, exactly. What helps even more is flying in the dune with a miniwing. But ultimately, the easiest entry point into speedflying is mostly gathering a lot of flights on the miniwing. That's what's shown over the years now. I've been teaching speedflying for twelve years now, and I've already seen people who have done 50, 100, or more flights on a miniwing; they hook themselves up to a speedflyer and they handle the thing immediately. I even had one who had done several hundred flights on a miniwing, and I handed him the speedflyer and he flew down with it. It looked like he'd been doing it for years.
You just said that a lot depends on being able to read the terrain. Is that actually terrain reading on the fly, meaning while you're flying? Do you just fly a new line and say, "Now I have to be able to recognize this"? Or do you prepare for those kinds of flights differently? Do you walk the terrain first, or look at it on Google Earth and try to mentally map out your lines there? What does reading the terrain mean in that case?
Both. So, when I fly a new line, I first look at it on Google Earth, then check the Swiss topographic map to see the approximate slope of the terrain and what the glide ratio is that's needed. Then I'll fly it out with the paraglider, for example, or just fly over it with the speedflyer to see it a bit from above, or just as low as I am right now. It can be relatively clear, so I can venture quite low there. And if it's confusing, I'll fly out higher first and take a closer look.
How many runs do you need as an experienced pilot to say, "Okay, now I really dare to get close to this terrain"? Is it already by the second time, when you say, "I've flown over it once, now I've memorized the important spots"? Or is it sometimes really like, yeah, some mountain climbers who try a route every day for ten days and say, "Okay, this one specific spot, I have to manage that differently and approach it in a different way" or something like that. So, that you also say, "Okay, I have to approach this spot with a different turn so I can get through it better" or something. Is it really like working through the terrain like that?
Yeah, good question. With my experience now, I need about three or four flights and then I'm actually pretty well settled into a line like that. But as a beginner, it naturally takes much, much more.
Well, you're saying you've worked there for ten years. You're also just starting your own flight school, speedflyingschool.com in Switzerland. There, people can book courses in speedriding and speedflying. How easy would you say it is if I came along as just a paraglider pilot and said I want to learn speedflying now? How fast could you teach me that? Like on foot? On foot, yes. On foot, you want
you fly, right?
I'm not a good skier. I could also just go down somewhere on a snowboard, but then you'd tell me that doesn't work that well. So, better on foot then.
Exactly. Yes, when it comes to foot-launching, it depends extremely on your flight experience. You're certainly a top-tier pilot. You'll learn it relatively quickly, right? You also have experience with thin air, you can fly close to the ground, and you'll get the hang of the Speedflyer very fast. So I think if you join the course for a week, by the end of the course you'll be moving pretty fast with a 13er, you'll dare to fly a bit close to the ground, and you'll find your confidence pretty quickly. How
What does a course like that look like with you, if someone says they're doing it for a week?
You're assuming that someone already has a paragliding license, so they have to know a bit already. But what do you basically learn at the beginning, and what are the steps by which you're introduced to speedflyers? What else comes into it as an additional thing, an additional level of knowledge that I then have to learn?
Exactly. So let's look at the differences in taking off, landing, and flying. When taking off, it's mainly the short inflation phase, right? With the short lines, the glider is over your head very quickly. Then there's a very long acceleration phase. You can practice that very well on flat ground. Groundhandling, just practicing taking off forward. During flight, you have to deal with the rolling. That heavy rolling from the speedflyers is quite unusual. Unless people already have minivining experience, then they already know it. And when landing, the main problem is the pulling through, the flaring of the brakes; with a paraglider, I'd say you do that rather quickly. But with a speedfly, if you do that too fast, you just shoot straight back up like a rocket and then come back down even faster and harder, right?
And there you really have to learn to pull the brake with a sense of feeling, right? But it's also important that you do pull them. Because with a small glider, it can't just land without braking, like what's often observed with paragliding for beginners. Students just running out without braking properly—that doesn't work here.
But do you only start with a speedflying practice hill, a practice slope? Does something like that exist? Or does speedflying practice first mean, okay, we fly at a larger distance, now first try out how the gliders react, and then it's not, we're going higher somewhere like in paragliding, but only, we venture closer and closer to the terrain and get closer to this speedflying.
A practice slope would be great. But it would really have to be flat-bottomed, right? Most of the practice slopes we have around here aren't flat-bottomed, they're a bit bumpy too, and then it's simply too dangerous to practice with the speedflyer there if you just come in with a lot of speed, right? That's why I've done it this way until now, where we just did high-altitude flights after ground handling, and that has worked very well so far, because then you have a landing field, you can focus on the wind, you can land nicely into the wind, and then it's absolutely doable. But that depends absolutely on the wing loading, right? So the most important thing is that you give everyone a glider that is really big enough for them and not too small, according to their skill level, right?
Then it gets very difficult very quickly.
And does a classic flight instructor now stand at the landing field with the radio and say during the first flights, I'll show you first how to best do the landing sequence and when you pull the brake and how hard, or how does that work?
Up until now, we've always done it without a radio, but during the last course, I got the impression that it would probably help a bit to use one, especially with the landing sequence, right? For the landing itself, you're always a bit too late with the radio, aren't you? And I think, especially with flares, you're also a bit too late with the radio, but the general sequence can probably help a student a bit. I still have to test that out a bit. We've never done it on skis either.
But we just always do it in a way where mistakes are allowed to happen, but you don't get injured right away, right? And on skis, that works really well. If you land on the speedfly without braking, the glider collapses, but you keep moving and it's not that tragic. Or if you brake too early or too fast, right? The skis really take a lot, a lot out of that.
From that perspective, is it more sensible to start with the Speedrunner? Or with the Riding, to say that maybe the risk of injury is smaller than if you start directly with a foot start on a meadow and then have to land on a meadow again with a run-out, instead of just sliding out with the skis?
Basically, I'd say yes. But if someone like you isn't a good skier, then managing the whole thing with skis is just an additional difficulty. And experience shows that makes a huge difference, right? In that case, it might actually be better to start on foot. You just have to approach it a bit more slowly. Maybe take on a larger size on foot than you would on skis, and just do enough flights there. But that works too.
Where do you see the biggest adjustment problems for these speedflying newbies who can already fly but are now starting to push themselves?
Definitely during the roll in flight. That they can't handle the roll. If they aren't used to it from the mini-wing yet, they don't pace it out. Most of them don't go far enough, right? Because the glide ratio is only half of what it is on a paraglider. And during takeoff too, they might sit down a bit too early or don't run long enough. Those are the classic mistakes.
And are there things, if you do a speedflying course like this, where you'd say you also benefit from it as a paraglider pilot? So, if I'm out there as a speedflyer, are there things that you basically only learn there, because of the demands you have, like terrain-close flying and so on, where you'd say, I can ultimately benefit from that as a paraglider pilot too?
Absolutely, yes. Especially the takeoff, the takeoff phase which lasts longer, that helps with paragliding too, like when taking off in a sink. Landing, that controlled pulling of the brakes, also helps with paragliding to make clean landings. Or especially with the tandem glider too, where that is very, very important. And especially with speedriding itself, when you're riding over ground waves—so when you're skiing with the glider over your head—you actually have to actively pilot the glider. And that's exactly the same as active flying in the air. You basically have to keep the glider open at all times by pulling the brake lines in a controlled way. Because if you rise a bit over a small ground wave, the lines lose tension and become soft.
The glider rises, if you as a pilot go up, then the glider rises again. It's actually exactly the same as when you as a pilot fly into a sink. Whether the air sinks or your glider rises, it's exactly the same. That means you have to actively keep the glider open while riding so that it doesn't collapse. And I think that also helps a bit with active flying, even if it's not exactly the same.
But I thought you always hear that speedflyers can't collapse at all. Now you're saying if your glider collapses, what's the truth here?
Yes, when riding, they can collapse. Any glider can collapse when riding. If you unload the line, then every glider collapses. And in the air, it's already the case that speedriders collapse significantly later than a paraglider does. But they can also collapse in the air. The classic speedriders with the parachute profiles, they snap back open so fast that if you have a collapse, you actually don't see a collapse at the moment you look up. It's already open again.
Is it because there's so little air volume that I have to refill in the glider? Or is it simply because of the speed, since it snaps upward so quickly from an aerodynamic standpoint, or what's going on there?
That's a good question, what exactly it is. I think it's mainly related to the profile. But that's ultimately very physical and technical. I'm not 100% sure what exactly it is either. But we've experienced that some profiles open significantly faster than others.
Do all collapses on the Speedflyer open again? Or does it happen that you stay in a collapsed state? Or are there collapses? Or is it actually because of the small span or stretch that these gliders have, that it doesn't actually happen at all?
Exactly, like you said. Collapses don't happen there, or they do collapse but then immediately pop back open and don't stall because the aspect ratio is so low. When driving there, it can happen because you're driving slowly, so you have like too little pressure and the angle of attack doesn't get high enough. You have to actively reinflate the glider, sometimes while driving, but never while flying.
Are collapses then risky for speedflyers? Or is it actually a non-event? You hear it snap, but because you say when you look up, the glider is already back there. Or can it still be really dangerous?
With the vast majority of speedflyers that have a pure parachute profile so far, it's rather unproblematic. It does snap, but it opens again immediately without actually causing much of a drop. But there are gliders that lean a bit more towards paraglider profiles, which then have more performance, more glide; I've already seen videos where people do a full 360 right away and are simply 150 meters lower after the collapse. And that has already caused some serious accidents. And I think that's exactly where the difficulty lies—making the speedflyers even faster now.
and to get even more glide out of them without making them much more dangerous.
Explain briefly for a layperson, as many probably won't know, what is the difference between a classic Speedflyer profile, which you call a parachute profile, and a normal paraglider profile? And where do the two practically converge in terms of construction? In the development of Speedflyers?
Yeah, exactly, that's very interesting. This classic parachute profile—you have to imagine it like cutting a paraglider from the leading edge straight to the trailing edge. And that curvature at the bottom of the paraglider's underside, you just cut that off. So, the pure speedflyer, the parachute profile, is straight at the bottom. It has no curvature. And because of that, you lose a lot of performance, but it also makes the profile more collapse-resistant.
Back in the day, parachutes and paragliders had that too, and then the profiles were changed, and that's when there was this jump in performance.
Now, you're saying there are increasingly more of these speedflyers, or small gliders, that are being used for speedflying and are now out there with these paraglider profiles. Is that a good development?
Yes, I don't think there are any purely paraglider profiles yet. There are these intermediate models where people are still experimenting, and I think the sport needs that because speedflyers simply have too little performance. With them, you can only fly relatively steep terrain, but there are so many forest clearings in ski resorts or other terrain that are relatively flat, where you could do some really great speedflying with gliders that have more glide performance.
But you have to know where the limits are. You shouldn't fly with high-performance speedflyers in very, very turbulent conditions.
So that means as a speedflyer, you don't go out during thermal times, for example, but you only schedule your flights for the morning and evening? Or how is that supposed to work?
Exactly, so real speedflying close to the ground, "ass to grass," let's call it that—it's only fun when it's really, really calm. As soon as it gets a bit thermal, which happens in the summer as early as 9 or 10 a.m., then even if the glider doesn't collapse, you can't fly that close to the ground with a clear conscience and safety anymore, because the thermals just lift you up one moment and push you down the next, and you just can't fly precisely anymore. It really has to be calm. So the speedflying season is actually in the autumn or winter, but as soon as it gets thermal, it's actually not fun anymore, right?
I just want to jump back to the training for a second. How many women actually take part in your speedflying courses? Are there any at all? Because every film I've seen of speedflyers so far is always just men. I haven't seen a single female speedflyer in any YouTube video or anything. I mean, there are already few women who actually make YouTube videos. Maybe it's just a male thing. But I've always wondered if something like that is even done by women. I do know one who took a very basic beginner speedriding course once and went down a slope a bit. I can only imagine. But this classic speedflying, where you say speed and thrill and flow and close to the ground and "ass to grass," as you call it now, or something like that. Are there really women who do that too?
To be honest, I've never seen one either, and I haven't seen any who do it in a wingsuit.
I have the impression that after ten years of intensive paraglider training, that women have a disadvantage in three-dimensional vision, that they see differently than men.
And that it makes it significantly harder specifically with speedflying. For that matter, I don't know of any woman who has been significantly injured while speedflying, I have to say. So I'm not saying women are worse pilots. They just have different qualities than men. But I believe women see differently than we men do. And because of that, it's significantly harder because they simply have less spatial vision than we men do. And that is extremely important in speedflying.
That means there are these theories about Stone Age evolution or Stone Age humans, where it says the man was the hunter and he always had to watch, be able to assess things quickly, orient himself, and all that. And the woman, now I'm putting it bluntly, organized the rest at home. Organized the family and held everything together. But whether that also affects the assessment of today's terrain or the current terrain assessment of speedflyers is, of course, an interesting theory.
I can't really confirm that, can I? No one can really prove it either. Yeah, because you're either a man or a woman, right?
If you go speed flying today, you said you're looking more for that flow along the terrain. And I've just watched a few of your videos over the last few days, also from recently, in preparation for this podcast. You're out there a lot, for example with a Nova Bantam—I think it's about ten or twelve square meters. And you can see yourself really just a meter or even lower; it's always a bit hard to gauge how low it actually is in these YouTube or GoPro recordings. But you're flying very close over the grass, almost underneath it. You're standing, or at least it looks like it, with the speed bar fully in the whole time, and in the end, you're really only controlling the canopy from the back via the C-straps. Is that the typical technique you use out there?
Exactly, right, yeah. It's actually just like with paragliding, too; the longer you fly, the more you use the rear risers.
The advantage of that is simply that you lose much less speed, because you always have to generate lift whenever it gets a bit flatter, and if you generate that lift with the brake, you do get it, but you just lose a lot of speed. And speed is simply your friend when flying near the ground, because if you have speed, you can always climb massively if you want to. But if you're starved for speed, meaning you're flying slowly near the ground, then you don't have that option to climb away. And then it becomes very dangerous very quickly. And it's ideal, of course, to steer with the rear risers if you can generate lift there without pulling the brake and thus losing much less speed.
Well, you stay, at least in this video as far as I've seen, you stay with the speed bar fully pinned and do everything just in the back via the harness straps. Wouldn't it also make sense to work with the speed bar directly, because that also deforms the profile less?
Exactly, yeah. But it's much easier to dose, right? I mean, pressing the speed bar with your foot so that you're actually flying 20 centimeters above the ground, that's significantly, significantly harder.
And it doesn't even need it. I only release the speed bar when it gets really flat so that I just need that last bit of glide. Otherwise, I do everything via the rear harness straps.
In this video, you can also see how you fly under a ski lift, like under the cables. Aren't you afraid that it might accidentally, for some reason, lever you out a bit and you'll get completely wrapped up in those suspension cables?
Yes, you have to be careful. Especially with the chairlift, it's already tricky. You have to know exactly what you're doing, absolutely. Because if there's a bit of thermals, you'll rise away relatively quickly. That chairlift converts those thermals into altitude very fast. And with a speedflyer, if you're flying in the lift, it becomes much less. It converts less into altitude. So, flying through down there is already advanced stuff. And you can only do that when the lift isn't running. Otherwise, it's absolutely forbidden.
Since we're talking about those kinds of risks, let's discuss the downsides of speedflying. How accident-prone is it, actually?
Yes, there have been many accidents. Especially in the early years, there were many fatalities. And there are still accidents time and again. But I'd say it's a bit less deadly than spacejumping, because there are already many speedflyers out there. But the risk of injury is quite high. The problem is that you just... It's really very easy to fly a speedflyer on the ground and you feel great. Because collapses are no longer an issue. The glider reacts significantly more directly and better than a paraglider. And I've experienced that myself, but also seen it with many students, that—let me put it this way—a pilot who has 200 paragliding flights and then 200 speedflyer flights will feel much more comfortable on the speedflyer after the same amount of high-altitude flights on both pieces of equipment.
Because the speedflyer does exactly what it wants. It doesn't collapse. And it reacts instantly. And because of that, you get relatively quickly overconfident and then maybe do something you're not quite ready for yet. And that's actually the main danger with speedflying. That it becomes normal, that you forget how fast you're actually moving, how close you are to the ground. You have no protection or sometimes no reserve parachute. Or at least it doesn't help you in a ground impact. And you like to forget that you're actually doing something that can become very dangerous very quickly, simply because you have such a good feeling, because you have the thing under such good control. So you have the speedflyer under much more control than the paraglider.
And that's how you easily become overconfident. Everyone just has to take themselves to task and constantly remind themselves: Hey, I'm flying close to the ground. This can go very wrong very quickly. I have a lot of speed. You just can't underestimate that over time. I think that's one thing that causes many accidents. And the other thing is, in Switzerland, there is training. You do, let's say, a speedflyer course that lasts four or seven days. But it's relatively little compared to paraglider training. But otherwise, in France, there's a bit more. But the vast majority of pilots all over the world just teach themselves.
And there's a lot of misinformation involved as well, coming from base jumping. And I just see a huge danger there. A lot of unnecessary accidents happen because people are simply doing it wrong because they were explained it incorrectly. Like
how dangerous do you consider speedflying to be in comparison to paragliding?
I see it relatively similarly. Both are as dangerous as you make them. The difference is that with paragliding, you sometimes get a warning in the form of a collapse. And with speedflying, you basically get no warnings. So you just have to be careful not to get overconfident. But you can do it safely, and you don't have to do it as extremely as the videos you always see.
But just as a follow-up question from me, isn't the danger of speedflying actually also the line choice you have? I mean, the main risk is probably that you somehow collide with the terrain. And at high speed, which probably doesn't always end well for yourself. And if you say you don't get any warning, how much of that is actually the air's fault? Or is it ultimately just your own line choice, with which you expose yourself to that high risk accordingly?
Yes, the line choice certainly has an influence. But ultimately, you can fly any line straight ahead or slide out. So you make it more dangerous by trying to fly close, right? And everyone just has to be careful about how close they can fly, which simply depends on their own skill level, right? But most accidents happen during takeoff and landing. And the serious accidents are clearly during cliff starts and things like barrels. So I always tell the students, if you don't do cliff starts and no low-level barrels, you've already eliminated 50% of the risk.
If you say that's gone, how much is that? How much more dangerous would you estimate speedflying to be compared to paragliding? Is it five times as dangerous, or in the end, maybe not even more dangerous if you just do it properly?
Statistically speaking, it's probably some factor x more dangerous, but ultimately, it's as dangerous as you make it. You have full control and you're completely in charge of the situation, so you can make it as dangerous or as safe as you want it to be. So you can do speedflying safely if you want to, no problem.
How often have you actually gotten injured while speedflying, despite all your experience?
Yes, in speedflying itself, I once broke a finger during a hand landing—the middle finger, or the metacarpal, as it's called. And with a mini-wing, I once sustained a foot injury.
And I once broke a leg while speedriding.
But that was actually more of a skiing accident. But otherwise, I'd say I've never had a classic speedflying accident so far, and of course, I try to avoid that completely. Because, you know, with that speed, it can just turn fatal very quickly.
Now there's also a very sad chapter in your life. In 2009, your brother Nicolas died while speedflying in Mürren. What happened there?
That was a hard blow and, in hindsight, made me a bit more cautious. Not massively, though, as I said, I've always been careful, haven't I?
But exactly, of course you start to question everything, and I also paused for a moment before deciding to keep going anyway. You don't know exactly what happened because no one saw it directly. I suspect that he pulled the glider to one side, so he pulled a frille, meaning he wanted to fly into a barrel. And this small glider, he had a 7 square meter glider, they shoot forward like that, it can twist, as I said, it opens back up, it doesn't tangle. In the end, he just came down in a spiral turn with the open glider and laid across that high-voltage line, and ultimately died of cardiac arrest.
That
So, no matter what flight position he was in, he actually flew straight into a high-voltage line? Exactly. Like he got caught on it?
Exactly. It was just a small high-voltage line where the wires are very close together, and he had one on his leg and the other on his upper body, with the 16,000 volts going right through him.
Despite something like that, which is certainly very formative for one's own life, why did you get back into it? Why is... what was it that pulled you back, that made you say, okay, I did lose a very loved one, but I want to keep doing this?
Because flying is simply what I enjoy most, and I feel like I can do it in a way where that doesn't happen to me. So sure, there's a risk involved. I could get injured, for sure. But I try to do it in a way where the risk of actually dying is extremely small.
How was it during the first flights after that? In terms of feeling? Did you fly differently?
Yeah, that was a very specific feeling. Of course, I was flying very, very carefully.
How long did it take before you could say, basically, I'm back to going full throttle?
I haven't been going full throttle since then. So like I said, back then I was flying really small gliders and that was my passion, flying with very small gliders, but as I said, yeah, I still like it, but by now I actually prefer low-level flying with larger gliders over flying somewhere in a rocky couloir with a small glider, with, yeah, with no margin, right? Yeah. You
you still developed or co-developed some, yeah, interesting, but also very risky maneuvers with small gliders and were sometimes the first to fly them. On the one hand, the barrel roll, and on the other, I think it was 2016, the so-called ground loop. What is that all about and what is the difficulty here?
Yeah, the ground loop is actually a barrel roll within a swoop, so,
That
are now triple terms at once, maybe you could explain that.
Let's start with
Let's start with the barrel roll. What is a barrel roll? Then you can explain the swoop and then the combination.
So, a barrel roll is actually a rotation around the longitudinal axis, I think that's what it's called, right? Like the way you see it with fighter jets.
That's become the standard maneuver in speed flying by now; everyone wants to do it immediately and a lot of people do. By the way, it's not difficult either; you can actually just try it out in open airspace as a beginner, because a speed flyer can't unload—meaning, you can even intentionally fly a half barrel roll and then just stop off to the side, and you won't just fall down into the wing; there's no collapse, as people always think. And that's the cool thing about speed flying: you can also fly wing overs, the thing just doesn't collapse even if the timing isn't right; the lines are so short and the wing loading is so high, you can do it however you want.
Exactly, that's the barrel roll, and a swoop is this fast landing out of a rotation where you destroy a lot of altitude and thus maintain as much speed as possible just above the ground for as long as possible. And a ground loop is when you incorporate a barrel roll into a swoop like that—meaning you build up so much speed that you then
during this swoop, so, where you're basically already climbing again at the Gnas Narbe in one move, you fly a barrel roll and then still land safely.
Just to clarify the concept, Barrel Roll means I'm basically flying straight ahead and then I do a...
a screw-like rotation in the direction of flight. Exactly, right. You could also fly 5 barrel rolls in a row, is that possible? So, that you really do it like a screw thread, like how you do a steep spiral downwards, you're basically doing a steep spiral forwards, more or less.
Exactly, if you do them all in a row, you lose more and more altitude, so it won't be in the horizontal anymore, but it'll start going vertically down.
That means it ends up in a steep spiral, so you should know well when you're going to get out of it again.
Exactly, exactly. You can still manage two without it getting too steep, but after that, it gets steep.
And with your groundloop, you just take so much speed that you say, okay, out of this swoop, now I'll climb away a bit and use this distance from the ground to just manage to pull off a barrel roll with this momentum; I can still get that somewhat straight and then flare for the landing.
Exactly, right. Yeah,
Absolutely. How many people in the world can do something like that?
Yeah, a few people can do that by now. But honestly, when you really do it at a flat landing field close to the ground, it's, how should I put it, it really has to be perfect, right? You can't afford many mistakes, and it's not something I do every day. I mean, I did it once and I'm glad I pulled it off—it was always a dream of mine when I flew those barrels for the first time.
and I'd done, let's say, 100 barrels, I thought, hey, one day you should actually be able to incorporate it into a swoop, and that was a goal of mine, just to manage to do it, and of course I was even prouder when I pulled it off, but it's like, yeah, you have so little margin, it's not something I do all the time. So I did it once and I'm glad I did it, but it doesn't have to be right away again. I think if the gliders get better and can climb even more, then at some point it won't be so difficult anymore and will get easier and easier, but it doesn't have to be every day.
But for that, you actually need a specific type of glider with certain characteristics for it to work at all, or can you do that with any speedfly glider?
No, it doesn't work with every one. I mean, I'm on the Swing development team and I would have loved to do that with a glider I helped develop, meaning with a Mirage. But doing that with a Mirage was just too risky for me, which is why I took this Gin, because it was just a tick faster and could convert that energy into altitude even better. But in the meantime, an Austrian has also proven it's possible with the Mirage. Chapeau! He actually pulled it off and even stood the landing. I don't think I would have had the courage. Did he do that over water or actually over land? No, over land in the Stubaital in the snow. Yeah, he really pulled that off perfectly. I was honestly amazed myself that he managed to do it. So I don't think I would have done it.
When did you fly your last groundloop?
Yeah, I think that was back in 2015. Oh, that's really such a project, I mean,
I want to pull this off, I want to show that it's possible, but I still know how risky it is, and I don't have to keep going.
Yeah, exactly, right, exactly. I mean, if you really train for it over and over, you can do it every now and then, but it's too risky for me. I don't feel like doing that.
Let's change the subject a bit and look at—I'll just call it the more relaxed style of flying—classic paragliding, which you also do and have worked as a flight instructor and so on for years. What does this form of flying mean to you?
I like the variety from one sport to another, and I also like cross-country flying; I like thermals flying when it has a really high base and you can fly over the high Alps—I like both, but honestly, during the quiet season, I've done so many flights, I much prefer being out with the Speedflyer. That's way more fun for me than just doing cozy paragliding flights.
Setting aside the leisurely glides for a moment, are you also a big cross-country flyer at times?
Yeah, I'd say I was, but at the moment I'm not that hooked anymore and honestly, that's also a bit related to the fact that I once had to pull the Nordschirm, and since then I just haven't been quite as relaxed in the air as I used to be and I don't have as much fun with it anymore, so I used to be, I wouldn't say
careless, but just significantly more relaxed and I had much less fear than I do now after that Nordschirm incident, and I still haven't quite been able to process it somehow,
Yeah, even though I've actually done my longest flights since then and have already done many long flights and had many positive experiences again, and haven't had a single collapse while cross-country flying, and I actually know that I can do it, I still haven't managed to fully process it somehow.
What happened back then? Did you get injured as well?
Fortunately, I wasn't injured. I was out with a Sigma 10 prototype, which folded quite aggressively, but it was absolutely my fault. I had flown it a lot already and was just a bit overconfident, I'd say, because I had just flown a D-wing for a few flights, some cross-country flights, and then switched back to this Sigma. And I remember, during the launch, I had the impression, oh wow, this is just so much easier compared to the Omega, like almost like a beginner wing. Because of that, I was just a bit careless and didn't fly as actively as I should have, and then in the thermals—it wasn't even extreme conditions,
I got an 80% asymmetric collapse, completely unexpected, and out of fear I didn't let it take me with me in the harness, but instead got hung on the open side, which immediately twisted it. And because I was also trying to recenter so much, I pulled as much as I could on the inside brake without it ripping off, and then I let go, and because of that, the glider naturally ripped off—or if I fly with 20% of the brake travel I had there, it would have ripped off immediately. I was twisted, basically in a full stall, and yeah, I was no longer in control; I put my hands up and this proto just surged forward, collapsed again, surged forward, collapsed again, like three times in a row, and I was still twisted and just
completely out of control and then I had to pull into the reserve, yeah. And it ended luckily, yeah, I came down clean on the reserve, but just in the high mountains, it was really steep terrain there and I couldn't even get out, so I had to face the helicopter and hope they'd fly me out of there.
How long did it take before you dared to go up and do your first normal paragliding flight again?
I got back into the air as soon as possible. The first thing I did was go back to the shop and have a larger power wing installed, because the small one was just too sporty.
So I got back up in the air as quickly as possible, I think the next day or so. But like I said, the confidence I had back then hasn't really come back yet, yeah.
How does that affect your flying now, even though you say you've done your biggest flights since then? If I saw that correctly, that crash you had was I think in 2017, and I believe in 2018 you flew from Switzerland to Slovenia within three days and did several 200s in a row and stuff like that. That
That was before. That was before the Nordschirm, yeah exactly. I also did a few 200s afterwards, I was still in India, in Birbilling, and I did long flights there, but it was just never as relaxed as before.
That means you're sitting up there and you're always thinking, the glider is rustling and all that classic stuff, and your abs tense up or whatever—how are you supposed to imagine that? Someone as experienced and, basically, as risk-seeking as he is—at least some paragliders would say—what's wrong with him? He's diving down the slope at full speed, maybe 30 centimeters or so over the grass, and now he says that with such a nice big glider under normal conditions, it's a bit eerie for him. What makes the difference? What is it?
Yes, it depends extremely on what kind of terrain I'm flying over. If I'm flying over trees, I'm relatively relaxed, but if I get into that same situation again, the same pattern as back then—high mountains and turbulence—then I get scared again. And the thing is, I'm actually afraid of the collapse, but I know that I can handle a collapse well. I even dare to fly T-gliders and C-gliders, to intentionally trigger real collapses and test them out completely, but I'm still afraid of taking a collapse. Doing it yourself is one thing, no problem, but actually taking a collapse is something else entirely.
How does that affect your flying? Do you notice it in certain situations where you say, "Normally I'd keep flying here, but I don't dare anymore"? Or do you keep flying anyway, but just with this uneasy feeling, saying, "Oh, I think I'd rather go speedflying"?
Yeah, both. I mean, if I have to, I can push myself and pull it together and keep going. But there were also moments where I just went down to land because I didn't have it anymore, simply because the fear was greater than the fun left in it. And I told myself, hey, what's the point? I don't have to prove anything to anyone. If I'm not enjoying it, then I go down to land, right?
Did that experience you had change your attitude a bit regarding how you teach paragliding to other paragliders, especially when you experience them having fear or something like that?
or? I think a bit, yes. I've always made a point of trying to prevent these negative experiences, because they just set you back so much. Some a bit more, others a bit less. It always depends, of course, on the experience you have. And I do think I place even more emphasis now on making sure that students don't have such a bad experience too quickly. I think we all have them sooner or later, it doesn't have to be a reserve parachute deployment, but I'll say, one big collapse is enough for some,
that they completely lose the joy of flying thermals, right? And I think it's important that these bad experiences happen as late as possible and are as minor as possible, right? Because I've met so many people by now who have experienced something like that and simply give up on cross-country flying entirely, they don't have any joy in it anymore, right? Because of one experience.
Have you tried any psychological help, like mental coaching or hypnosis or stuff like that, or do you say, no, I want to get over this on my own through flying?
No, not actually yet. I really tried to just compensate with a lot of flying, racking up a lot of kilometers and hours, and having good experiences—basically, no more collapses—and I managed to do that. I mean, I've done a lot of flights and haven't had a single collapse, but it didn't work. The fear is still there, and yeah, I think that will be my next step, to try something like that to really overcome this fear. I've also already gotten some tips on what ski racers do, the downhill racers—if they ever have a crash, they sometimes need that too, just to ever dare to go down somewhere at 140 kilometers again.
In your new paragliding school, you also offer paragliding courses, but in a format that is, I'd say, perhaps a bit unusual for Swiss standards, because you say you want to do a three-week intensive course straight through and then for people to be finished and have their brevet. What do you hope to achieve with these intensive compact courses?
I expect a lot from it. For one thing, it's a cool group because people get to know each other really well. I might have to explain this a bit, but in the Swiss system, we normally do a basic course that lasts four or five days, and after that, we do this license course—so you have to collect at least 50 flights, 50 solo flights, before you're allowed to take the exam. On average, people do maybe 70 or 80 flights. You can just split those up however you want. Usually, you have a year in the flight school to collect the flights before you go for the exam. Many people do about nine months on average. That means they spread their 70 flights over nine months, which means they have relatively long breaks all the time.
That can easily be two months without flying after 15 high-altitude flights, and then they come back to the flight school with those 15 flights and a two-month break and they're just scared again, right? So of course they have that uneasy feeling again, just like on the first high-altitude flight, because they've almost completely lost the confidence they once gained. And I'm firmly convinced that if you just fly intensively every day, that confidence becomes much, much greater after 70 flights than it is if you just spread it out over a year or half a year.
Do you really see sticking with it as an advantage? Because there are always people who say, yeah, if you stretch it out a bit, it gives your brain more time to process it or whatever. But do you really mean that this intensive three weeks straight actually solidifies that trust in the brain much more?
Absolutely, yes. I'm firmly convinced of that. I've done a lot of training for ten years. For four days at a time a year, I stood there on the mat as a flight instructor and simply saw that people who had little talent, but kept at it and took few breaks, mastered it much better after 50 flights than the super-talents who took longer breaks. And that actually confirms that it's important to keep at it. I think this "setting" you mention is good in theory. If you learn for a theory exam in one day and pass it, you've forgotten everything after a year. I'm firmly convinced of that. But if you study for the theory exam over three months and then finish it, you know much more after a year.
But I believe that muscle memory—the practical side, the feeling, those reflexes you have to learn when paragliding—it's an advantage if you do it all at once. That
to really internalize that. Where do you want to keep pushing yourself in the future? I mean, where do you want to go from here?
Yeah, I don't really have any goals in speedflying. I've actually already achieved everything I want there. I just want to keep having fun, with the terrain being so close to the flying. But I need...
I don't need to set myself any high goals or anything like that. On the contrary, I'd rather just be able to teach others safely and show them the sport. On one hand through training, and on the other hand through tandem glider. Which is more of a new thing, this tandem speedflying, but it actually works quite well.
Do you see any technical development potential in speedflying where you'd say that if something happens, whole new worlds will open up, or is the technical development in that area actually so far along that you'd say what's possible in speedflying is now possible? That there probably won't be much more.
No, with speedflying, we're where paragliders were in 1990. So there's still a huge amount of catching up to do. Development there is moving very, very slowly because the scene is just way too small, right? And the sport is also relatively new, isn't it? I already see huge potential for the speedflyers. It's currently the case that if you fly a normal speedflyer, a Mirage, a 9 square meter, you have to run extremely fast on foot just to get it into the air. Then you have a glide ratio of maybe 4.5 if you tuck in really small. And you can maybe fly down with a glide ratio of 2 or 2.5.
But we've actually been working on this range from steep flying to gliding for a long time now, and it's getting progressively better.
But there's still a lot of potential there, and I think in the future we'll be flying significantly larger gliders that go just as fast and fly just as steeply, or even just as steeply. And because of that, it'll simply be much more relaxed to launch and land. You don't have to run like a world champion with a 9 square meter if you can fly at the same speed but with a 12 or 13 square meter glider. Because of that, it'll simply become interesting for a wider audience, I'm firmly convinced of that.
What will those gliders look like then? Are these developments actually coming from the kite area? Because they say that in the kite area, you can work with the angle of attack much more and do real deep power and other things?
It's very possible, yes, that this reflex technology used in these mat kites or also in paramotors will revolutionize speedflying development. I do think it has the potential. I've also flown with kites, and they already have an incredible range in terms of glide angle—so you can fly with a glide ratio of 8, but you can also fly with 3, so that's already a completely different story compared to today's speedflyers.
But were you only flying over water with that, or were you actually speedflying down from the mountain with the kite?
No, I've done many flights on the mountain too, but at first only on the thin line, 1 meter above the ground, just to gain confidence in these things. But ultimately, I've flown in the mountains with skis, without skis, and flying with something like that is a completely different league. It's simply three-dimensional flying. You can't just steer left or right, you can just dive into a freefall, just like a bird can. There is no paraglider or no speedfly that can do that. It's just indescribable what kind of possibilities you have there.
But that also makes everything a bit more complex at the same time, and probably makes it more accident-prone as well?
Yeah, probably. These reflex gliders are already very controversial in the paramotor scene too. I don't fly paramotor myself, but I've picked up on the fact that some people swear by them and think they're great, while others won't touch them.
I think if you use it correctly, it works, but it probably just has its limits, and you have to respect those and figure out where they are. But I think this whole thing with these reflex profiles is still very new in kite development; if you look at what's happened in the last six or seven years with matte kites, where they are today compared to where they were seven years ago, an extreme amount of development has happened and a lot of knowledge has been gained, and I hope that one day it also flows into the development of paragliders or miniwings or speedflying.
Is there actually a Swiss brand or a Swiss designer of speedflying gliders?
No, there isn't. No. The number of speedflying manufacturers is getting smaller and smaller. In the beginning, it was just Jin, then JN, a kite brand that also built a second one.
Many paraglider brands built one and then eventually pulled back, and Jin has also pulled back now. In the meantime, Swing is still the market leader.
Levelwings, and François Bo, who's also a speedflying legend, he has his own brand with Levelwings. Ozone also still makes speedflyers, and who else? There are two or three others still doing it, but they're the three biggest ones involved. So it's already relatively small, how should I put it, it's gotten small, yeah, unfortunately.
Would that be a task for you at some point, to shake up the speedflying market with your own brand? Yes,
Who knows, maybe.
I once read a status update of yours on WhatsApp. I mean, it said "Don't grow up, it's a trap." Yeah, exactly. Is that your life motto?
Yeah, a bit, yeah.
So I just try to do what I enjoy. I mean, I lost my brother and I've been thinking a bit about what I'm doing, what the goal is. And I eventually came to the conclusion that I just want to do it because I have fun with it. And if I go speedflying, I do it for myself and not for others.
Yeah, and I just think there are so many people who feel like, I'm an adult now, this isn't appropriate, I'm not allowed to do that.
Yeah, I do what I enjoy, what I like, and as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, I do it.
Do you think there's an age limit for speedflying?
No, I don't think there is.
How long do you think you'll still be going speedflying?
Good question.
As long as I still enjoy it. So the moment I don't enjoy it anymore, I won't do it anymore, I think. I've had phases where I flew a lot and phases where I flew relatively little, and that's fine. I do it whenever I feel like it.
Alright, Beni, then I wish you to keep enjoying speedflying for a long time and to experience many flow moments—maybe not successes, but many flow moments—and to come out of them all in one piece. And to teach many more people how to do it so they can experience that fun too. Thanks for the conversation and all the best to you.
You're welcome. Many thanks to you, Lucian, and to you too. Have some good flights.
Yes, thanks.
That was Beni Kählin in conversation with Lucian Haas. In the show notes for this episode, I've put together some links on the topic of speedflying, along with videos of various flight projects by Beni. If you might be interested in attending a speedflying course with Beni, his flight school can be found at www.speedflying-school.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please recommend Podz-Glidz. All previous podcast episodes are available on Fluglites and Soundcloud, as well as well-known audio catalogs like Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, etc. To make sure you don't miss a new episode, you can also subscribe to Podz-Glidz right now in your podcatcher. And if you aren't already, please consider becoming a supporter of Podz-Glidz and Blueglides.
That way you're helping me to continue presenting you with many more interesting stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Every episode then becomes your episode in a way. By the way, the donation amount is completely up to you. If you're unsure how much to give, I'd suggest a non-binding 1 Euro per podcast episode and 2 Euro per reading month on Fluglites. Even when calculated annually, that's significantly less than what a subscription to a classic paragliding magazine costs. Stay healthy! Ciao!