I just believe that in this sport, you never hit your own limit. If you're a 100-meter runner, for example, you eventually reach your zenith and you can never get faster. Because of your leg length, your body build, your lung capacity, you can't get faster than the time you're currently running. And then you go backwards. But with paragliding, it's different; I can always understand more, even though I've been flying for 30 years, I'm not finished as a pilot. I've never told myself in these 32 years that I'm a good pilot. I've only ever told myself that I have this level now and I want to improve it.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with... Well, I'm Andreas Malecki. And I'm Lucian Haas at the microphone.
Anyone who wants to fly at the front in classic races... racing competitions with a paraglider has to be able to handle dense thermals and put on some serious gas during long glide distances. However, there's much more to it, including a fine feel for the air. It's often not necessarily the pilot with the, let's say, biggest balls who wins, but the one with the most sensitive backside. That helps in finding the lift and the lifting lines between the ridges. Holding altitude is a real asset in competition flying, something a pilot can boast about the most. One who masters this brilliantly is Andreas Malecki, known generally in the scene as Pepe. The 60-year-old today has been flying in the world elite of paragliders for 20 years. He is a multiple German champion, most recently in 2020.
In 2012, he was ranked number 1 in the world ranking. In 2015, he became world champion in a team with the German national team, and he regularly shines at the Paragliding World Cup and other top competitions with task wins. Pepe is generally known as a master. In my reputation, I am a particularly sensitive pilot. In this 48th episode of Podz-Glidz, he talks about his feel for the air. He describes, among other things, how he increases his sensitivity with special harness and vario settings and how he constantly optimizes his speed during flight. He reports on flying with birds and why, in his eyes, the most successful flights didn't take place at competitions, and he explains how he has maintained his joy of flying over the course of 32 years.
And what you see is the mental tension of the guys. A quick note: Podz-Glidz and the associated blog Lu-Glidz are available for free online, but they are not free of charge. I invest a significant amount of my working time as a freelance journalist into this. That means the podcast and blog are part of my livelihood. I would be very happy if you would help me as a supporter to maintain and expand this offering in its independent and ad-free form. How you can become a supporter is on the Lu-Glidz website, specifically on the Support page.
Andreas or Pepe, which do you actually prefer? Oh, Pepe works very well, I'm perfectly fine with that.
How did the name Pepe come about? That's a very long old story, it was 40 or 35 years ago. I got it once while playing squash. A colleague said to me, sort of as a joke, and later on we're sitting at the bar. Yeah, "little Barokito, donkey driver," he called me, and his name is, of course, Pepe, and somehow I got the name Pepe and that Pepe completely took over the paragliding scene. I had a moment once with my mother, I had taken her up to the Moselle and she was sitting next to me, and then all the people started addressing me as Pepe and she looked at me in total horror, and she didn't know this Pepe at all and she really had to chuckle.
He says, they don't call you Andreas at all, they all call you Pepe. Yeah, I tell them, they don't know me as Andreas. Yeah, but that's not right. I was completely shocked that they all called me Pepe and it
It was a funny situation there. But are you only Pepe in paragliding circles, and somewhere else you're Andreas? No, by now it's, so
It actually came from squash. I was pretty active in squash back in the day, I even played in the Bundesliga, and that's where this "Pepe" thing first took hold somehow. Then it was sort of adopted by some people when it came to paragliding, and eventually, I was just called Pepe.
in all those circles. Let's get to your paragliding story for a bit. You live in Münster. So, how does someone from the German lowlands get into paragliding? And you started relatively early, back when you couldn't see that many paragliders in the sky everywhere, where you'd say, I definitely want to do that now.
The origin actually came from the squash scene. We had a big tournament here in Münster. And I had bought a few tickets for the evening raffle, and somehow, out of 20 tickets, I hadn't won anything up to the grand prize. There were stuffed animals, T-shirts, shorts, and all sorts of things to win, but I hadn't won anything at all with my 20 tickets, and somehow, with the last ticket—the grand prize—I actually went up to the stage beforehand, and they asked me what I wanted. Then I said, I'm getting... I'm getting the grand prize because I'm going to win it. And then she said, okay, let's go to the back, and then they drew the ticket number, and unfortunately, I had my ticket number upside down somehow—one of the numbers—and I didn't register it right away, but then I flipped it and suddenly the 9 was a 6, and I actually won this first prize. I went up to the stage and everyone shouted "rigged!" because I had already been standing there.
So they... Actually, they thought something was wrong with my upbringing, but it was all perfectly legal and the first prize was a week in Mallorca. And since I had been skiing a few weeks before and saw these colorful little gliders in the sky, I asked the organizer if I could exchange this voucher for a week in Mallorca for a certificate for a basic paragliding course in Ruhpolding. And he said, yes, we can exchange it like that. And then, yeah, six weeks later I was in this basic course in Ruhpolding at the Holzner flight school, and yeah, I did my basic course there and I realized pretty quickly, even during the first jumps, that I really like this, I'm sticking with it. And after that, my squash career was pretty much over because I somehow...
completely focused on paragliding. I had focused on paragliding and developed my ambition there, and that's because
That was almost 32 years ago now. What were your early years like? I mean, you lived in Münster—did you constantly drive to the Alps to fly?
So it was actually like that, I drove all the way to the Alps for 10 minutes of flight time, whether it was to Ruhpolding or somehow to Imst or to Austria, but it was actually like that, I took on 8 hours of driving there and 8 hours of driving back for 10 minutes of flight. That was unfortunately how it was in those early days; the paragliders weren't that good yet and you celebrated every minute or every bit of launch site elevation, that was just how it was. Those hours-long flights didn't really exist back then in the same form as today. You were happy about every lift you got and every bit of launch site elevation you could fly out of somewhere. But it was very interesting how the development then happened so quickly
...started, for the first two or three years. You mean the technical development of the... Yes, exactly, so with this beginner glider I still had back in 1989, yes, some hops were possible, but nowhere was it really about launch site elevation or thermals. That only came in the following year, 1990, when I switched gliders pretty quickly and was finally able to fly thermals.
Those were your early years. When and how did you get into competition? How did you get into flying? Yes,
So, through my squash career, I was already very ambitious in sports, and I approached it in a way where I tried to outdo everyone who started somewhere with me in the first one, two, or three years, pushing them pretty quickly to their limits, then spiraling back down, then playing the same game again with other pilots. So it was the ambition of spinning others out as quickly as possible, or maybe doing the first small cross-country flights to the neighboring mountain and getting back as quickly as possible. And I saw that quite ambitiously and implemented it pretty quickly. Of course, I never knew how good I actually was myself. I only realized that in 1998, '99,
where a friend of mine, Rudi Agördes, who is actually well-known in the paragliding scene, met me there and I was standing with him up in Bassano, I think that was '98,
and he said to me, yeah, today is a day, stable, eight-eighths cloud cover, 10 to 15 km wind, nothing's going to happen today. And then I say, yes, something is definitely going to happen. I mean, you can take off from the launch site here and then fly towards the Monument, towards the east, to the chapel, then soar back again, soar up here again, then jump back to the rear launch site, the one back there in the valley. I don't know if he can. You could at your place, that's like a small bump. Then soar forward again to the Oststadtplatz, then over to the Drachenrampe, soar there, and then land perfectly here again. And then he looked at the thermals and said, well, what you're telling me here isn't possible.
I'm currently leading the German Cup, he told me, and what you just told me isn't possible. It's impossible, not on today. Then I say, yes it is. And then I launched, and he sat there at the launch site and said, I saw how you then flew away, how you came back again forty-five minutes later, overflew the launch site and did the flight exactly as I had described it to him before, and then flew forward again to the Drachenrampe, flew up, and then landed top-landing right next to him, and he looked at me in total horror and said, you have to fly competition. What I just saw is actually not possible on today. And that's how he actually gave me the idea to sign up for the German Cup.
And yeah, it started out very, very, very strangely for me. At the German Cup, which was my first competition, I started during the first run. You still had to photograph the mountain peaks and the churches. And I flew out—that was in Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the Hausberg. I took off and at that moment my vario died. The battery was dead and now I had no vario anymore. And I actually wanted to land perfectly up there, but that wasn't possible. So I said, okay, I'll just fly the task anyway. Let's see what's possible without a vario. And then I did a bit of... because I was also a bit late,
the others were already all gone because I had been focusing so much on the vario. And then I kept flying afterwards, overtook a few, and I managed to finish that 35 or 37 kilometer task and reached the finish line. But no one else was there except for me. And then I thought, I went up to the guy standing at the finish line. And he said, "No, you're the first one to reach the finish." And that was actually my entry into competitive flying. I flew without a vario. I came in first. That was a pretty defining result for me. And right then, that ambition to establish myself a bit in competitive flying was immediately there.
That was in 1999, if I remember correctly?
Yeah, exactly. 1999 at the German Cup in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. And I think Peter Hensoldt was there, he was the head of this German Cup. And right after the two rounds, he said, "You have to get into the league with us." I said, "Yeah, but the German Cup is almost over now. I can't qualify anymore." Then he said, "I'll talk to the team manager about you getting a wildcard." Yeah, and then I got a wildcard for the league.
And I made it into the league right away. And a year later, I was in the national team. It all happened pretty fast.
And since then, a year later, that was in 2000, first time with the national team? No. No, in 2000 I started with
the league. And 2001 was the first time with the national team. Back then in Pieterahita with Achim Joos, Oliver Röstl, and Thorsten Siegel. And that was the first year with the national team, in 2001.
What actually appeals to you about this form of flying, I mean, competition flying?
The best thing about this form, well, I actually came from cross-country flying. So, between 1990 and 1995, I actually flew an extreme amount of cross-country and came from that background. And I still enjoy doing it. So, if I have the time now, I really love doing cross-country flights. Whether it's FAI triangles or return flights to a goal. That still appeals to me. But this competitive form is actually the great thing because we all start on the same day at the same minute or minutes. And the start is the same for everyone. The conditions are the same for everyone. And you can actually already fly a very good ranking of the pilots based on their skill.
And that's actually the great thing about competition flying: everyone starts at, let's say, 12:30, and then they all take off together. All 100 or 120 or 130 pilots take off together and have the same task. And now the question is, who is the most skilled on that day? Who makes the fewest? And who comes out on top in the end? And that is, of course, a form of competition, which I like. Because with the other one, cross-country flying, people who have the most time naturally win. People who can adjust very flexibly to good days. There, it's not necessarily the best pilot who wins, but the one who has the most time. And with competition flying, it's different.
In that case, it's actually the people who are really good who win. Is that the first one for you? Or is that a more dangerous comparison, basically? Definitely. In cross-country flying, I mean, I like good cross-country flying. For example, Armin Harig or someone like that. I think it's totally great how he sometimes does really amazing cross-country flights with a B-glider. But he has the time to free himself up on these good days, to go to the launch site early. Which maybe some people don't have on that day. They can't pick these good days. They are dependent on weekends. Or on their vacation or public holidays. And many pilots who are successful in cross-country flying, they simply have the time to head to the mountain on good days and then just get those good flights in.
And some other good pilots don't have that time. And that's why the ones who have the most free time usually win there, not the ones who fly the best. And in competition flying, that's a
...a bit different. Now, you've had quite a few successes in your competitive career. You've had several first-place finishes at PWCs. I believe you were German champion four times and other things. Out of all these 20 years, what would you personally call your greatest successes? The
biggest successes—those aren't actually the competition results, like being German Champion or us being World Champions in the team event, or me in 2015. That
It was 2015. At the World Championships. 2015. 2015 was this World Championship in Colombia, where the German team—well, not team flying, but as a team—became World Champions.
Yeah, exactly. And in 2011, I came in third at a World Championship and I've also won World Cups. But those aren't the highlights. I actually think the highlights are really these short flights. And I remember one special flight. That was in 1991 at Gründen. I hiked up, had a test glider with me from Nova, a Nova Phantom. Back then, it was a beautifully stretched glider. And I took off after a hike and then actually just soared, soaring around rocks and trees, and it was only a 35-minute flight. But it was so beautiful because the conditions were so gentle. They were such gentle conditions for staying up, and these situations stay in my head much more.
These great flights, sometimes just short hops, are sometimes much more beautiful than competition successes because of that playful side or the lighting conditions, which can be so great sometimes. So for me, it's not necessarily the most beautiful flights, the successful ones, but the ones where I have such beautiful "aha" moments. I've flown with eagles in Australia. I've flown with pelicans in South Africa, or with griffon vultures in Spain, or with condors. And I had a huge experience with a condor in Argentina. It accompanied me for half an hour and didn't come at my glider, but right up to my harness.
So if I had double my arm's length right now, I could have touched him. I mean, he was really about two and a half to three meters away from my harness and flew along with me for half an hour. And he was an old condor, his feathers were already a bit ruffled and a bit grayish. But his body was huge. And since then, I also know how sublime these birds are. They have a head that was as big as mine used to be. And those claws they showed somewhere, they were twice as big as my hand. And all I could say was, that's actually an experience you never forget, where you feel so sublime, somehow flying there with them.
And those are the moments. Those are the moments that stay in your head. I mean, those competition successes, they're not really present in your head anymore. You might have the trophy standing somewhere here in the house, but those great experiences, I actually had those during...
other flights. Is this flight with the condor something where you also feel in flight that it's just accompanying you, like it's just curious about what you're doing? Or did it take it as a competition, like saying who's going to out-spiral whom? So do you have a feeling that it's like a dialogue in flight, with flight skills with such a giant bird? Yeah, funnily enough
As an outsider, you always think these birds are so incredibly good. Sometimes they aren't. Sure, they fly the way we walk, and they can obviously center the thermals better. That's clear. But the actual glide performance is maybe only at 10 or 11. A competition glider isn't that bad compared to that. So, in terms of my own glide performance, we aren't that far apart. The huge advantage the birds obviously have is that they can reduce their surface area in more headwind, tuck in the wing, and still have extremely good glide. We obviously can't do that. We always have the same surface area, and if we have headwind, then we obviously...
significantly less forward speed than a bird that can reduce its surface area and then just... still manages to move forward really well. And when it comes to thermals, they are of course at a bit of an advantage too, because they do nothing else but fly and find a lift band much better. We always have these five outer feathers there, and they have small sensors in them. And if, for example, the outer feather on their right wingtip bends slightly upwards, then they know on the right side, in my opinion, that's where the better lift is than on the left. And that's why they are much more sensitive in their motor skills to center this lift. They can do that better than we can, of course, but in terms of actual sinking or gliding, they aren't that much better.
And that's why you can actually harmonize very well with birds, especially large birds of prey. With this condor, it was like we actually complemented each other quite a bit in flight. Sometimes we'd drift apart and then center ourselves differently. He might go left, I'd go right. And whoever had the better lift... from our side, the other would join in. So if the bird climbed better than I did, I'd fly over quickly and climb with him again. And if I did a right circle and he did a left one and saw that I was climbing better, he'd come over to me immediately. So it was this nice interaction, somehow, for over half an hour.
And it was such a sublime feeling to fly with him. It was a great...
experience. Yeah, I can imagine that well. Now, you're someone who, in the competition scene, is particularly good at thermals and also at finding lines. You're kind of a specialist there. Where does that come from? I mean, did you train for that in any way? Or are there things you do where you say, "I'm more sensitive than others"? So I'm dealing with...
I'm extremely into this hobby, flying. And if I take skiing as an example... if I have a new glider, I often adjust my harness to that glider. For example, if I have a competition harness, I'll adjust it differently for a Zenu than for an Enzo 3. And for an Alpina or an M7 or M6 or something like that, I'd adjust the harness differently again. The less stretched out the glider is, the more sensitively I can adjust my harness. I'll open the chest strap a bit more or adjust... the harness a bit higher. For example, with the Zenu, it's a bit stubborn when it comes to good, harmonious turning.
And then I adjust my harness to be a bit more sensitive. And then I have a glider that reacts a bit more sensitively. Or at least I do with my harness. And then I manage to find very good lift very well. Because I'm not just dealing with the glider, but also with the harness. And you can also adjust a harness to the glider. And if I have a glider like the LM5, for example, which was a very twitchy glider for me, then I had to adjust my harness a bit tighter, so that it wasn't quite so mobile. Otherwise, this harness or the glider would make me very nervous. So with the LM5, I often thought, my god, how turbulent that is. Whereas it was actually the glider that was very twitchy.
And then I adjusted my harness to be a bit more stable, and then it worked again. And I often think... harnesses are adjusted to fit the glider. And I do the exact same thing when I'm flying and gliding. Because I adjust the harness so sensitively, I can feel it very well... I mean, I'm a very sensitive person. I always notice that at the dentist.
It's often the case that if you're very sensitive, it applies to all areas. For example, I can feel it very clearly in my butt, as they say, when the right half of the wing is in a thermal. So when it's... lifted a bit and so on. Yeah, exactly, I'm very sensitive to that. Then I immediately shift the circle to the right to translate that into better lift, just like the bird does. And I fly lines like that, for example, when I'm flying between thermals or between turnpoints during a competition; I fly very intuitively with my body, just following the movement of the glider and then doing a small loop... I fly to the right if the air tells me, like, there might be better air there. I've somehow developed this fine methodology in my body,
where I sometimes catch better lines than others. It doesn't always work out. So sometimes, because I'm often a bit of a lone wolf, I also end up in worse air, clearly. You don't always hit only the best lines. But in the sum of the good lines, when I fly alone, I often have the better line than others because of this fine motor skills in my body. And I'm also very, very open in terms of my field of vision. I register tiny birds at a distance, I see them. And if I see a flock of birds or maybe even some pollen dust...
...somewhere says something might be going on, then I'll take a detour to maybe find it, or to catch that better air. And because of that, I often reach much higher altitudes than others just by gliding. And that gives me a...
huge advantage. I once heard that in South America, there are some pilots who even developed or coined a word for your flight style. They say, that's Malikeando. Yes, exactly. Those were
the Venezuelans. They watched me once, how I always arrived pretty high. Always arrived at the next thermal, at the next turnpoint. And somehow, I was always the highest when I arrived. And then the Venezuelans gave me this name, Malikeando. And then they actually always formed a circle at the World Cups, like, let's say, 10 to 20 pilots. The Spaniards often joined in too. And then they'd make a circle. And then, like in rugby or a volleyball game or I don't know, they'd take me. And then they'd put their arms up and think, Malikeando. And then I say, what are you doing? I said, we're currently worshipping our god.
And specifically Malikeando, who leads us to good lines. And I really had to chuckle. And they actually did that a few times. And they... Did it have something
brought? They
...always worshipped the god of good lines before. I don't know if it did anything, but I thought it was really nice. And with the Venezuelans... well, that was definitely proof for the guys that I somehow already had a special choice of lines. And there was one guy I kept meeting for years. And he often flew after me because I always find good lines. He flew next to me. He flew behind me, but always very close to me. Always only 10, 20 meters away. And yet, I still out-climbed him again and again. Even though we had the same gliders, the same harnesses. And I once came over a pass with 5 meters. And he was standing on this pass. And he was so angry at me.
Because I made it over and he didn't. Because of my better line. And then we met a year later in Bir, India. And then something similar happened where I kept flying on. And he was trailing behind me, at least. And then I hit the thermals again at 50 to 70 meters and kept going. And he, on the other hand, ended up 10 meters lower. And he missed the thermals again. And was standing there in the wilderness. And he was so angry at me. He did give me the nickname Malek Jando. But he was so mad at me because I always managed to get away. And he would always just end up standing somewhere there. And then he said, I'm never flying behind you again.
And those are such great experiences you sometimes have with other athletes. And yeah, those are really...
...great things you experience. Do you actually fly mainly by feel? Or do you still listen to the vario a lot? And do you have any very specific vario settings as well?
Actually, I might use the vario even more than others. For example, I always have a sink tone set on my vario. A sink tone that, depending on the sink strength, always gets duller for me. Where I then really... I don't need to look at my vario. I can already hear from the sink tone that it's getting more and more. And I actually... I've spent a lot of time looking into cruise speed and McRady. And gliders always say, well, you can't really use that with your small speed ranges. That's not true. So if you spend a little time on it and pay a bit of attention to cruise speed and McRady, you can actually maybe get a bit more out of your paraglider and yourself.
I do that consistently. If I have good air now, I often fly with a bit of drag. I'm not accelerating. Many people, let's say, fly at a constant speed during an eight-kilometer valley crossing. And then, let's say, at twelve o'clock and one, they are on the other side. I'm there at the same time, but I'm flying in the lift or in good air—if I only have half a meter of sink, maybe slightly with drag or maybe just at trim speed—and I'm taking that good air with me. And the next moment, when I have maybe 1.8 or two meters of sink, I fly with significant acceleration. I'm there at the same time as the pilot who flew at a constant speed.
Only I took more good air in that good air, and in the bad air, I accelerated the glider more and got through the bad air faster. Because of that, I sometimes arrive significantly higher because I didn't actually fly through it as fast. Just with more gradient and ground speed, and maybe also my inner feeling, I'm usually a bit higher. Nevertheless, we both get there in the same amount of time. Those are just the differences. Some pilots always fly at a constant speed during a valley crossing
and I don't do that at all. Does your sink rate alarm kick in right at 10 centimeters of sink, or from one meter, or how did you set it? I
I have a silent zone on one device. It's very clear: I have a silent zone at zero, and up to 1.5 meters per second, I have a silent zone, and then the sink tone kicks in. So, for me, it clearly means that at 1.5 meters per second, I have more sink than my device actually has, and I have to fly accelerated. It doesn't matter where, even in my free time when I'm not doing anything, I definitely fly accelerated if the sink is significantly higher than my own sink from the paraglider. And because of that, I obviously get through this bad air faster and automatically reach a higher altitude. Then, on the other vario, on my XC Tracer, I set up an approach alarm.
So, when I get closer to the thermals and have better air than 1 meter of sink, it makes... like an interval with a sink tone that is interrupted and gets higher and higher. Because of that, I already know that although I have sink, it's better than my own sink. I then take that air with me and fly with a slight brake again, taking it in. And often it develops very quickly, too; when I hear this approach alarm, if I'm coming out of the speed bar, for example, I usually already have weak lift. And I'm maybe a bit more sensitive with this approach alarm then, and perhaps more Fein-sensitive as well. I notice then when I have better air than when it just...
If I didn't hear this proximity alarm, I would only react very sensitively to thermals, to actual lift. But for me, this sets in even before that. So for me, air that's better than 1 meter of sink, air masses that are rising—I can already maybe use that by flying slowly or maybe by raising my antennas, so I'm already orienting myself, like, where could it go up now, left, right, in front of me. I'm just already... the antennas are up. I'm on high alert at that moment.
Gregel Maurer always says that during the flight, he switches between thermals flying and actual gliding. And those are two different flight states. But you would say that this "sniffing out" of thermals is like switching into a sort of pre-thermal mode, where you already try to put your antennas out and pay much closer attention to the air. And you say you really take the speed out then, and it becomes more tactile.
Yeah exactly, so while gliding you also experience different layers of air. Whether it's worse air, which is significantly worse than the glide rate, or better air, which is better than the glide rate. And I always try to pick up that better air by maybe flying slowly, taking the power off, trying to catch that better air. And because of that, I automatically glide better again and reach a higher altitude if I manage to catch that slightly better air. It's still sinking, of course, but I'm maybe at 0.7 or 0.6, which is already significantly better than my glide rate. I have a glide ratio of 1.1 or 1.2, which I might have at that moment. And of course, I pick that up by flying slowly.
But the important thing is that in the moment you perceive you're actually sinking less than the theoretical glide rate, you become much more alert. In that moment, it's like your antennas go up and you start looking left or right—are there birds, or do you notice anything? Because you can always see something. So, I think these are just things where you simply become a bit more alert and maybe notice some things again, noticing more than others.
From your perspective, what is the best way to learn and then train this sensitive way of flying thermals? I think it actually starts with
the training. I've been with Flugschule Freiraum for a year now, helping Achim Joos out. And Achim, back when he was a successful competition pilot, was also a very sensitive pilot. And I noticed that this sensitivity actually brings a lot into the training as well. It actually surprised me how he always made sure to use the brake less, and to enter and exit curves more smoothly. I observed that at one point and immediately internalized it in my own training. And it's actually true. I'm a very sensitive person and I fly very, very sensitively myself.
And if a student is doing their training somewhere, they're initially very rough with their brakes. But the more sensitively I handle them during basic training or the "arse-separation" training, and the more sensitively I teach them, the fewer movements occur in the canopy. And a maneuver, a start, or a landing approach becomes calmer. For example, I once observed a landing while we were training with 17 people in Greifenburg. And then outsiders said, we can tell that's the Freiraum flight school. There were two other flight schools there, and they said they could tell exactly from the flying style that those were from the Freiraum flight school and the others were from—I don't want to name names or anything—they could see how the students were being trained.
Because I believe that through Achim Joos, there is already a very sensitive style of training there. That they already try to teach them to handle the glider very delicately. We don't need much control input when starting or in a turn. But it has to be a harmonious process. And the more harmonious it is, the way you enter the turn with your hands and your body weight, and the more harmoniously you do it, the calmer the glider is, and the calmer it enters the thermals, and the nicer it converts that calm flying into lift. If you're fidgeting and then also yanking on your brakes, that translates to the canopy.
The flight simply becomes more turbulent. The glider might not pick up weak lift as directly as it would if the pilot worked with it sensitively. And I just believe that a sensitive pilot climbs better and can perhaps utilize even the smallest lift much better than someone who handles their brakes roughly.
That probably also has to do with the fact that if you handle the brakes more roughly, it creates so much self-induced movement in the glider—movement induced by yourself into the glider—that you can't filter out the movements of the air anymore. You're always overlaying them yourself. Exactly,
that's added to it anyway. So, the rougher you actually handle your glider, the less you might actually notice this lift.
But that's actually something else. I think if you already have that sensitivity with the brakes, then you're simply flying in a range where the glider might work better, where it operates better, where it shows the thermals more calmly, and where it also functions much better in some places. You always notice it when they do one of those landing flares and enter the final approach. If the pilot makes a turn that he then quickly levels out of somewhere, then he's still swinging back and forth. And the actual touchdown, the actual sinking at the end, is much, much faster. He's a bit higher and has much more dynamics in his flight.
The person who initiates the turn very gently during the final approach and then glides out beautifully, flares the glider nicely and executes that perfectly, lands much more gently, much softer. And you can do the exact same thing in the thermals. You're gentler in the thermals and you use that lift much better if you initiate that turn gently. So, I generally think that pilots who handle their glider more gently climb better. And you see that quite often. We always say that women have a better feel for the thermals. Maybe it's because they handle the glider more gently.
There are women, or also men, who clearly handle their gliders more gently and climb better. And with women, it's generally said that they climb better. Why? Maybe because they handle their glider more gently. That's my theory.
Can you actually feel that thermals sensation and that precise sensitivity, letting yourself be carried along like that—maybe that doesn't quite fit with actual competition flying sometimes. There, you're in a dense group and of course you have to fly with that group much more. Is that also why you sometimes look for your own lines, saying, I want to get away from this mass event where I can't do my own thing?
Yeah, group flying is one thing and finding your own lines is another. I mean, you have to handle your glider well anyway to climb well within a group. But even the more sensitive pilot in the group might have the chance to overfly the others faster and then be a level higher than the rest, allowing them to fly more freely again. They're unconstrained there if they're a level higher. But the person who handles the brakes more roughly, maybe doesn't catch that one lift, or loses altitude because they're jerking their glider around, they might be a level lower. And this sensitivity as a whole, I need it for thermal flying, but also for group thermal flying, then I can maybe overfly the others faster.
And the more sensitive pilots, I think, are also the better turners, so they might be higher in the thermals, which might then give them more height gain faster and allow them to fly away earlier. And that reflects over and over again: the people who turn better are able to fly to the next thermal or the next turn sooner. And at some point, they are higher and fly towards the goal more directly, which puts them in good positions at the finish. So that doesn't contradict itself anywhere. If you climb well in the thermals, then you are also able to reach the goal sooner.
Let's talk about another aspect of competition flying. This competition flying at the highest level is almost like a way of life, because you orient so much of your life around it. You have to travel an incredible amount, you have to somehow set your yearly planning based on these competitions. How many weeks do you actually spend traveling alone for competitions in a normal year, putting Corona aside for a moment, in normal years, how many weeks a year are you out there just for competitions?
Yes, that's how it's always been, I've been self-employed the whole time. And when I work, I consistently work six days a week. Also with many hours, sometimes 14 or 16 hours a day. Out at five in the morning and at 11 p.m. in the evening, I was often still at work. So I worked pretty intensively, but I also took time off for competition. And there, I was already on the road for between nine to 13 weeks at times, when the competition season was quite big and there were many World Cups or maybe even a World Championship again, which consists of two weeks. So it's quite demanding. I just think someone who normally only has six weeks of vacation a year will find it harder to fly at this level, which is how I managed it afterwards.
So I just think a normal employee who only has five or six weeks of vacation and maybe has a partner who wants to go on vacation with them, it just doesn't work somehow. You can't fly at the highest level. It always strikes me how the pilots who make the jump all the way to the top—national teams or maybe even becoming world champions, European champions—those are all people, it's not a product of chance. They dedicate themselves more to it. For example, at the moment, I believe Honorin Hamar is the best pilot in the world. And if you talk to him, you know there's hardly anyone in the world who has more hours than he does. He flies 600 to 700 hours a year.
And looking at those hours, my record was 350 hours a year. That's already insane and you have to have an extreme amount of time. But to get to 600 to 700 flight hours, you can only do that if you live for this sport, maybe even have your job in this sport.
and tests and only deals with that. And you can see that right away in good competition results. Someone like Honorin Hamar is the world's best pilot for me because he works on himself so much, trains so much. And Kriegel Maurer, he only deals with this flying. He doesn't do anything else. He goes out in 50 km/h winds just to train. These are simply things where they are so incredibly occupied with this sport that they naturally have an advantage over other pilots who work a normal job; it's crystal clear. It actually relates to flight time. Whoever trains more,
is eventually better too. Spending so much time on competition and then also flying to Brazil, to South Africa, and all that, it costs a fortune. Have you ever estimated what your competition hobby—I'll call it that for now, or it's almost professional competition if you're out there that much—has actually cost you over the years? Is it a compact car? A big VW bus? Or is it already a small house? I mean, I do
I've been doing competition flying for 20 years now. I started in 2000. Now it's 2021. And I don't want to know how much I've spent. But in hindsight, I have to say, it was worth every euro. The joy I've had over these last 21 years of competing, of competition flying, it's been such a huge, wonderful area. I mean, first of all, a stamp collection can be really expensive, one that just sits in a cabinet. But the beauty of it is that you're spending money on trips and adventures that are great, that stay in your memory, where you're actually enriching yourself.
So when I come home from a great competition, I'm in a good mood. I'm balanced. I enjoy my life, even the work I do then. And if I have to deal with some stupid work, I might do it with a smile because I'm just coming from a country where I gathered so many great impressions. And that competition pilot I have behind me was really worth every euro.
Do you still smile even when there was a competition where you maybe finished 80th because you landed outside three times due to poor line choice? Yes.
For example, we had one last year—well, we only had one World Cup last year in Switzerland—and I think I finished 93rd. So one of my worst competition results ever. If not even the worst. But I went up to the organizer afterwards and told him, "That was a great competition. I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot again." And it just maybe didn't go so smoothly. You have those times where you make one or two decisions that then backfire somewhere, and you're standing on the ground with a bad result. But even so, I enjoyed flying there. And enjoyed sharing the air with others. And had great experiences again somewhere in a beautiful landscape.
And that's not necessarily dependent on the result, but rather on the impressions one had during that competition.
Well, you're generally considered a cheerful person, and when you're at the launch site and you're somewhere nearby, you always hear Pepe laughing. It carries over. Where does this very positive basic attitude of yours come from?
Yeah, I'm very joyful. I mean, I can laugh at myself. If I have a mishap, I sit down and laugh at myself because I've just done something completely silly. Like, I knocked over a bowl of soup with my elbow or I don't know what. I have to laugh at myself. So I'm not angry with myself, I just laugh at myself. And I believe that if you can laugh at yourself, that's worth a lot. I've always, always had a very positive attitude. And if I'm reading a weather report and someone else across from me is reading it too, they read the bad parts out of it, the strong winds, and I only read the good stuff. So, how you can get two different results from one weather report...
different results can be achieved through positive and negative thinking. I'm a good example of that, in that I tend to pull out more of the positive.
And then you also get to fly more often because you say you can still give it a try and fly in Bassano even with 8-8 clouds.
Yes, so in my first competition year, there was also a competition in Greifenburg and I won that one too, it was a German Open in 2001, I won that. And I flew then, and for me it was clear: we have 8-8 cloud cover and this 65-kilometer task we've set is utopian. And I thought, what kind of task are you guys setting here? We have 8-8 cloud cover and it was a really thick soup up there, it's impossible to fly the route here. And then we flew, and Stefan Stiegler was pretty far ahead with me.
and I flew 47 kilometers out of those 65, came in second in that flight, and I think Stefan Stiegler flew 55 kilometers and came in first in that flight. And that was such a defining result for me because I didn't think at all that we could manage the 15 kilometers. And on that day, it was clear to me, okay, stop, I have to rethink. If we can fly 47 kilometers in 8-8 clouds on a very stable day, then maybe we can manage the 65 as well. And actually finish the task. And I just think that we are way too
...negative sometimes are, regarding what the flight yield could be, because we simply see, oh, it rained heavily the day before or this morning and the clouds are still hanging quite low. Nevertheless, through competition flying, I've noticed that on some days, even though it doesn't look very good at all, sometimes insane distances can be flown if you just give it a try. It's just usually not tried by normal pilots. And we competition pilots sometimes have a really gloomy outlook on the weather situation. And yet, we tackle some routes, and it actually surprises me sometimes how far we still get. Even in bad weather. You can also see that positively, and if you have a more positive attitude, you might fly a route that others might not even attempt because they just head straight down.
to land. Is that maybe something that's emphasized too little in training or in normal conversations in the paragliding scene? People always love to talk about "hammer days" and stuff like that, and it gets stuck in people's heads that you need a hammer day to fly these long distances. But we should actually be teaching much more about how to make the most out of what's available?
So for me, it's not really about the hammer days themselves. Because when we talk about hammer days like sailplane pilots do—those sailplane pilots fly really long distances on hammer days. Because they have climb rates of six or seven meters on those days, but the sink rates on those days are also extremely high. That means you might have two to three meters of sink. But since we move very slowly, we don't get out of that sink as strongly. So I prefer average days where I have two to three meters of climb, but also only two or two fifty meters of sink between those thermals. Because of that, I can maybe overcome a stretch of eight kilometers with zero thermals.
Whereas if I have hammer days and I hit a sink over an area of three or four kilometers, I'm stuck on the ground. And on mediocre days, I don't get stuck on the ground. It does take me longer to climb, but I don't think we paragliders are that well served by hammer days.
For record flights, of course, we need these good days, but for these mediocre routes of about 100 to 200 kilometers, we don't need hammer days. We just need normal weather conditions because we don't have such high sink values. And I just think the average cross-country pilot might not go full throttle as much as we competition pilots do. So we competition pilots, when we have a glider that can fly over 60, we fly at full throttle between these thermals to maybe minimize sink, so to cross this large sink area faster. The average cross-country pilot often has a bit of respect for full throttle. He flies his, let's say, Swift or his Mentor, and he doesn't fly at full throttle or maybe only half throttle, and he stays longer in this larger sink.
And that's why he needs the thermals on the other end again and has to center them longer, because he's simply in that sink for way too long. And that's why, for me, the hammer days actually
not really the good days. That means the Hammer day needs the Hammer pilot and ideally the Hammer glider in this combination so that you can really take full advantage of it.
That's just not the case. I mean, the differences are really very small. So, if I see us flying in a competition and the photographer next to me has a C-glider, an Alpiner, and after 80 kilometers he's still next to me and taking photos, then I always see, yeah, fortailwind tasks, a C-glider is just as good as my competition glider. A competition glider might be a bit better for headwind tasks, because I can fly significantly better or faster there.
but intailwind tasks, like most cross-country pilots fly, an Enzo, a competition glider, isn't much better at all. It doesn't make much of a difference there. I can fly just as fast as the others with a C-glider. I don't need this fancy glider.
Looking at those 20 years of competition flying, specifically regarding the gear—the material has obviously kept evolving, the 2-liners came along and so on—but has competition flying itself clearly changed with the material? Does a competition today have a different character for you than it did 15 years ago?
Yes, definitely. For example, in the early days when I was out flying, there were already some gliders that were also
more prone to collapse and they also moved away much more dynamically. So if I had a disturbance now, my piloting skills were much more important than they might be nowadays. Today, a glider, like a competition wing, is much easier to handle. That has something to do with the twist. In the past, the gliders were pretty uniformly twisted, but now the twist is different. We have a larger angle of attack on the outer wing, and if I have a collapse on the right side, for example, and the right side collapses away, then the left surface has a larger angle of attack on the outer wing than I have on the right side where the wing has collapsed here. That's why the glider doesn't turn away as massively as it used to.
In the past, gliders would turn away much, much faster, and today they don't turn away nearly as much. So sometimes a little brake, a little counter-brake, and it's flying straight again, and that's become much nicer. This collapsing behavior or also the stability of the gliders. Today's gliders are much, much more stable in all areas. An A-glider, B-glider, C-glider, D-glider. Significantly more stable, and also significantly better for using the speed range. So even if there's more turbulent air, you can often give it half throttle or three-quarters throttle, and you couldn't do that back then. Because it was a bit turbulent, you had to watch out so the thing didn't collapse somewhere, and you just couldn't use that speed at all.
Nowadays, gliders are much more collapse-resistant and you can use the speed range much better even in turbulent air, which means you can achieve better glide speeds today too. Because the gliders are simply a bit more stable
Does flying with, let's say, a larger safety margin or something like that make it more fun for you? Of course! Everyone
pilot, even Kriegel Maurer, wants a stable glider that gives him confidence. And the more confidence I have under my glider—it doesn't matter which glider it is, whether it's a C-glider, B-glider, D-glider, or our competition wing—the more confidence I have under my glider, the more comfortable I feel, the more I can focus on the flying and not, for example, on
collapse or I'm just freer mentally. I can concentrate on many more other things, on birds, on lift, on clouds as they're currently forming, on colleagues flying with me. So I have a much larger range, thermals somewhere in
Let's take a breath. Have you ever had any bad experiences in your flying career? Have you ever crashed or something?
I once deployed a rescue glider in 2011. Those were the first two-liners. But I was in very, very turbulent air at the Wallberg. I wasn't high up, I was maybe only 70 or 100 meters above the trees, and I had a huge collapse. But the air was also really turbulent. We had a 30 km/h wind from somewhere that wasn't very pleasant. And after my collapse and my rescue glider, they cancelled the day because it was so turbulent. That's why I don't necessarily blame the glider now, but rather the weather conditions. So we maybe shouldn't have flown a competition run there. But that was ten years ago and we've all evolved since then.
Today, we don't necessarily go out on really turbulent days. So we also call it off earlier and don't necessarily have to spend that day
fly. And otherwise, in your flying career, have you ever had an accident or something?
The hardest thing that happened to me was once, during takeoff, I grabbed a line without a glove and it pulled right through my finger, and I ended up with a laceration. That was actually the worst thing I had. It hurt.
But only because the line ran slightly over the hand.
That means you can really say you've had 32 years of accident-free flying.
Yeah, maybe. I mean, I've twisted my foot before.
when turning. But for me, that's not a real flight accident, it's more like a clumsy moment because I went from facing backward to forward and then stepped into a hole, like a rabbit hole. But for me, that's not a flight accident.
I had some kind of small... I don't know if it was a ligament tear or something. Apparently, my foot was a bit swollen. But for me, that's not a flight accident. That's something that could happen to me while cycling or grocery shopping or something. I didn't actually have a flight accident, except for the rescue glider opening. And I was hanging in the tree and, yeah, nothing happened. So overall, I have to say, I've never really hurt myself while flying and knock on wood here. I've actually been in this sport for 32 years without any major injuries. And I think that's a great achievement. But I'm also a cautious person. So, when it's demanding during the launch, I make sure to catch the right moment to start.
When I notice there's strong wind in the valley, I look for spots that aren't so turbulent. You can recognize those, you can see them. So, if I have a lot of wind in the valley now, I try not to land behind obstacles. I'll specifically pick out the end of the meadow. If there are trees or houses at the beginning of the meadow or something, I'll try to land sideways or far enough back so that the turbulence I see doesn't catch me. And if you see wind going over a pass where a cloud is just forming, you can also see how far the turbulence goes, how far it reaches somewhere.
to pull you in. And for these 32 years, I've always tried to observe the weather, watch the wind wheels, or if there were clouds or fog, try to recognize how far the turbulence reaches, how far a lift develops, or how far this sink develops as turbulence. For example, at the Tafelberg in South Africa, when that tablecloth forms up there, I try to read what's happening right then. And I try to understand how far the sink reaches. And you can always recognize it better over time, and then maybe bypass or rule out that danger for yourself while flying. Were you a wild dog in your early days?
While perhaps inexperienced pilots might fly into a sink or a rotor, experienced pilots avoid these spots. And now, with the experience I have, I try to pass that on to others. That you can simply see these things, try to recognize them, and avoid them. That is important to me. Were you a wild dog in your early days?
Sure, somehow, I came from squash, and I was also very successful in squash. And of course, when you're younger, you're somehow indestructible and a bit of a daredevil, more aggressive. And I naturally did some things in my early days, I did ground spirals, I did full stalls over land and collapsed the glider. I pulled in the A-line, the middle A-line, and pulled a front rosette so that the stabilizers met and kissed. And I did all sorts of things with the glider. Those times are over now. So I've become calmer, and because I've also mostly spent the last 20 years
I had competition gliders, which are a bit more sensitive, against
Settings, I'd say, I didn't want to push it too much or take it too hard. So I handle the competition glider differently. I try not to do full stalls or tear it around or do steep spirals with it. I do do steep spirals if I want to go down, but not as hard as I used to. Back then, I'd go down with the glider at 20, 25 meters per second. I don't do that as much today because it's not good for the glider. It gets distorted. If you pull a spiral and fly it for over 500 or 800 meters, the glider gets bent and it actually needs to be trimmed afterwards.
And Acro pilots, they notice it when they fly their competition glider again and handle it roughly; the glider flies differently after those hard maneuvers than it did before. And that's what I try to avoid with my competition glider. But for the last few years, I've always had a parallel glider. With that one, I played around with it a bit more. Did maneuvers. But I don't do that with my competition glider. Less, at least.
I once heard a story that you also had to pull a Manretta and then landed right at the feet of a group of grandmas and they clapped. What happened there? Yes,
that was my hot phase. I had a competition proto from Juppie back then. That was honestly the most demanding glider I've ever had. And of course, I took it on during my wild period and pulled a collapse. I pulled a collapse on the right side and in a fraction of a second—I don't know how many milliseconds it was—I went into a spiral dive. Then out again, counter-collapse, opened up. I thought, oh boy, this thing is really going. Then I did that collapse again. And then I did the collapse again on the left. And when I pulled the left collapse and it opened up pretty suddenly, I got a counter-collapse.
And it was so incredibly strong that I
couldn't get that stall out of it anymore. And then I deployed the rescue. I landed in a forest clearing, in the snow, in Westendorf. And three nice older ladies were sitting on a bench, and I landed about 20 meters in front of them with the rescue glider. And they applauded. I bowed and thanked them for the applause. And ten seconds later, the rescue container landed right next to me. I packed everything up, packed the rescue again, and then back up. But that was back when I was having my hot phase, in the 90s. I have to say, it wasn't quite so
I'm not that hot anymore. If you take your entire flying experience into account, what would you say, maybe as a final question, what can you recommend to other pilots? How can you best keep the joy of flying alive over so many years?
Yes, I think it's quite simple.
Smiling,
be friendly, enjoy nature and really, well, I don't know, I just think about enjoying these moments that come our way every day. It doesn't necessarily have to be related to flying. It could be a boat trip or a bike tour or I don't know what. So I see the whole of life so positively and I laugh, and I manage to do that in my sport too. And Ferdi Vogel once told me 5, 6, 7 years ago, I know now why you fly so well. I said, why? You have so much joy in it.
You have so much joy in this sport, you laugh so much, and you're out on the mountain with such joy, and that's why you fly so well and also have such great endurance. And he's actually completely right: the more willingly you do something, the more joy you get from a sport, the longer you maintain that positive feeling in that sport. And if something didn't make me have fun, I don't think I'd do it either. But because I have so much fun, I've managed to keep that joy completely, and I just think that in this sport...
you never hit your own limit. If you're a 100-meter runner, for example, you eventually reach your zenith and you can never get faster. Because of your leg length, your body build, your lung capacity, you simply can't get faster than the time you're running right now. And then you start going backwards. And I find that's quite negative, when you actually can't improve anymore. But with paragliding, it's like this: I sit by a river and watch the turbulence the rocks create when a river makes a bend, and I can understand more and more—even though I've been flying for 30 years, I'm not finished as a pilot.
I never told myself I was a good pilot in those 32 years. I always just told myself that I have this level now and I want to improve it. And by maintaining this learning impulse or effect, by wanting to keep educating myself,
...this curiosity for this sport doesn't stop. I can understand more and more, even in difficult weather conditions; I understand much, much more complex connections. If I go somewhere to Australia or South America now and I only see the map of the area, I already know how the jet streams flow. These are simply physical laws, they are fixed, and I get a better overview of them the longer I fly because I'm open to learning them. And as long as I'm open to letting new things in, this learning effect doesn't stop. And that's why I've kept this joy, I think. How long will you keep flying? As long as I can still walk.
Of course, you can have bad experiences.
Accidents can happen when cycling, driving, or flying; something can always happen. But as long as
As I see it now, I'm going to fly until the very end. And I'm also going to keep flying in competition for longer because I enjoy it. I keep seeing colleagues I haven't seen in a year, and then I fly some task with them. It's associated with so much fun that I can really enjoy that. Of course, you have to concentrate to get good competition results, but
competitive flying is just really great.
Alright, Pepe. Then I wish you to stay mobile for a long time, because that way you'll stay flight-capable for a long time too, and maybe you can keep flying along in competition for as long as possible. Thank you for this super
insightful and very interesting conversation. And yes, I definitely wish you many more great flights and also much success in the competitions that are still to come. Thank you very much.
That was Pepe Malecki in conversation with Lucian Haas. In the show notes for this podcast episode on the Lu-Glidz blog, I have also put together a series of further links. Pepe recently completed his flight instructor exam. In the future, he wants to share his knowledge and experience as a freelance trainer as well. Pilot groups can book him for cross-country flight seminars. Personal coaching is also possible. If you are interested in that, you can find the contact details on Pepe's homepage www.pepemalecki.de www.pepemalecki.de If you enjoyed this episode, please recommend Podz-Glidz. All previous podcast episodes are available on Lu-Glidz and Soundcloud as well as well-known audio catalogs like Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, etc.
To make sure you don't miss any new episodes, 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 Lu-Glidz. I hope that I can present you with many more interesting stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Every episode then becomes your episode in a way. The support contribution is, by the way, completely up to you. If you're unsure how much you'd like to give, I suggest a non-binding 1 Euro per podcast episode and 2 Euro per reading month on Lu-Glidz. Even when calculated for the year, that's significantly less than what a subscription to a classic paragliding magazine costs. Stay healthy! Ciao!