So, planning is actually something I find totally exciting. It often starts when I look down from the plane and see some valleys where I've never flown before. Or I pull out the Skyways map and look at spots where there are no lines running through them yet. And then the first question I ask myself is, why isn't there a line there? And then I start looking at Google Earth and stuff like that to see what else interesting is actually there and why nobody is actually flying through it. And that's usually how the ideas emerge, like how you might be able to package the whole thing into a nice triangle.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Marcel Dürr and Lucian Haas at the microphone. If
Watching the activity at a paraglider launch site, Marcel Dürr's hair might already stand on end. This casual approach of many pilots who just launch themselves into the air without precise planning and pre-flight check routines, as they say so nicely, contradicts everything he learned about flight safety in his profession as a commercial pilot at Condor. It continues with the landing beer, where they proudly report on collapses and other dangerous situations. But it's rarely about identifying, naming, and jointly analyzing the errors leading to the collapses in order to avoid them in the future. The way errors are handled in commercial aviation is also completely different.
In Marcel's view, paraglider pilots could and should learn a lot from commercial aviation in terms of risk management. That and much more is what the 41-year-old shares in this 56th episode of Podz-Glidz. One point that is particularly important to Marcel is proactive flight planning. Knowing what's coming ahead—for example, where you might still have to make an emergency landing in densely wooded or rocky side valleys—isn't that simple. Then you can also venture onto off-route paths into remote regions of the high Alps. With his unusual glacier triangles, Marcel has even already won cross-country flight championships.
Marcel, we're in the Corona era, and you have two daughters. That's true. It's afternoon now, but I heard you were still busy with homeschooling as a teacher this morning. Are you a good home teacher?
Yeah, I might have to ask my daughters about that, but I think it's going pretty well. My wife is an elementary school teacher, so I obviously have a certain hurdle to clear first. But sometimes it's actually an advantage to approach it a bit as a layperson. It doesn't always come across too badly. Where do your professional strengths lie? So you mean, besides handing out gummy bears, I can still keep up? It's all still elementary school stuff.
In that sense, yes, math, German, social studies, the usual stuff. Today we talked about bees and murder. We also talked about houses.
But do you still hear from your daughters sometimes, like, hey Dad, you're annoying, go fly away or something?
Yeah, that actually happens every now and then. But if I do leave, the first thing is, hey, why are you leaving now? So actually, it's better if I'm there. How do you generally manage...
how do you balance flying with your family?
Yeah, that's always a difficult topic, of course, but over the last few years, I've simply learned to be very efficient with it. That means good planning is, of course, an important tool. Yeah, that's always a difficult topic, but over the last few years, I've simply learned to be very efficient with it. Now, or especially when I get back from work and have three days off, I obviously can't say, "Yeah, I'm going away for three days." That doesn't really go down well. So I have to see which of the three days is the best? And where can I go in that time to get the maximum amount of flying for the least amount of effort? So things with long travel times usually fall away. So it's not really a discussion of whether I'm going to Valais or somehow to Carinthia or to the border. So it's not really a discussion of whether I'm going to Valais or somehow to Carinthia or to the border. It's more, let's say, the one and a half to two kilometer or hour radius that I then look at.
And then I look at where the weather is best. Where are the chances highest? Is it worth it? And if I'm ready to accept the minus points I'll rack up for it, then I do it. But if it's critical or I'm not sure if it'll really be worth it, then I might even stay home and hope that it looks better in a few days.
But your family is already letting you do it. They're giving you time off, too. They
they let me do it, yeah. And they support me in that too. But of course, it has to happen within some kind of framework, and that's what I want myself. You can't just say, "Now I'm there for three days, and then I'm away for three days," and then after that I go back to work for four days and then I'm away again. You have to find that healthy middle ground somewhere. But it actually works quite well.
You keep saying "work." You're, how should I put it, a pilot, a pilot, I'd say. So you're not just a hobby paraglider, but it's also your profession. A pilot, you fly for Condor and you're out there with the Airbus, sitting up there in the cockpit. To what extent are you still something of an exotic among your colleagues with your paragliding?
I wouldn't say exotic, but it's well known that I'm the one with the paraglider. There are two or three others who fly, but it's not like there are masses of paragliders hanging around. That's actually the case.
Why not, actually? Why
actually not?
Is that not so interesting for big pilots—in quotes, big, at least those with the big planes? Or is it maybe just that paragliding is still seen as a flying machine. Like, it's just a bit of fabric, it can't actually work properly.
I think to some extent, yes. I think many people are afraid; they feel uncomfortable with it. We're used to being in large airplanes, which is just a completely different level of safety that we move with. You have a rigid surface. You have tons of horsepower hanging underneath. There are just huge power reserves. And just the hurdle of flying in a small plane is already a big one for many. And the step to a wobbly surface, like in a paraglider, is of course another huge step. And I believe that many actually have a lot of respect for that and can't really imagine it in that sense. So if someone does it, it's more likely the younger ones, those in their 20s, who find it exciting and want to give it a try.
But generally, it was rather a bit late. I'd say there was a bit of skepticism and restraint. How did you...
How did you get into paragliding? Did you already do some paragliding and then start with the big aviation stuff, or was it the other way around?
So I started soaring at 14 and spent basically every free weekend during my school years at the airfield. I was already trying to gather experience then and then, after my high school diploma, I basically continued straight into commercial pilot training. And I actually wanted to get back into soaring. But it's not quite that easy in the clubs, and then I was away for two years. And then they didn't really want the finished pilot to just show up and think, "You guys can just fly again." So, the typical club politics that ended up annoying me. And then I just looked around to see what simpler options were out there. Where I could just say on a free Tuesday, "Now I want to go flying," and I don't need five people to push the plane for me and someone sitting at the winch. And then still get told to come down after an hour because someone else wants to fly.
And that's how I ended up with the paraglider, and I quickly came to appreciate the simplicity and the flexibility of it.
Well, you really know both extremes. So, flying these proper large aircraft and then this casual paragliding and stuff. Would you still say there are a lot of similarities where one can even, what do you mean, complement or perhaps somehow fertilize the other? Where you'd say you benefit from one into the other. Or in the other direction, from the experience you have in each of the two disciplines?
I would definitely say yes. I mean, at the end of the day, we're moving through the same medium, the air. And of course, you perceive it completely differently in both cases. That's certainly something.
But the meteorological knowledge, the theoretical background, but also the practical application you have every day in a transport plane, is just different. Like that view from above. Often, these are very mundane things. How do cumulus clouds develop into CBs and what does a thunderstorm look like from above? What is the turbulence like when I fly past it? These are all things that a normal paraglider pilot actually can't see from below at all. And I can't fly through it in a relatively safe environment with a heavy aircraft, but I can fly alongside it and simply better assess these phenomena for myself. Or if you fly for four hours during the day and know it's going to be stormy, then you can just look down and see how they're developing. Are they really shooting upwards like the weather report said?
That's one thing. Or also, what are fronts like? What are the winds, the inversions? So, what I really like to do is, in a climb, if I've looked closely at the weather report, just see how the wind is developing. Is it really like Meteo Parapente said? And then this inversion comes. Is it really stronger over there and does it rotate, or does it not? And I always find that super interesting. When you can experience it like that firsthand. Or the Föhn, is it really over the mountains? Is it turbulent there if it's whistling over at 100 km/h? And where does it start, or not? So that's certainly an interesting aspect of it. That means,
before you go out flying with your big wing, you also check Meteo Parapente to see what it's predicting for finely layered winds, just out of interest.
Well, it's usually the other way around. I actually always check the weather, mainly looking for good flying days. And those usually happen when I have to work. So, in that sense, I've probably already looked into the day in quite some detail. Mostly just out of interest, though. But then, of course, I can easily see whether it actually happened that way or not. And you can do that with a heavy one like that, too.
On a commercial aircraft, like an Airbus, can you still track those small, subtle wind differences of 5 or 10 km/h that a paragliding weather report might show? Or do you just see that on the instruments, and how do you actually track it?
So, it's often quite impressive with inversions, where you have light wind underneath, like 15 km/h, and then above the inversion, maybe actually 30 km/h or something. Those are the kinds of things that I, for example, found very hard to imagine before—how the wind can shift and increase so rapidly within just a few hundred meters. And of course, you notice that. And it's displayed on the instruments accordingly. It doesn't matter to the aircraft, of course, but it's just an interesting detail that you can actually see it happening, that it's like that, and not just something written in the weather report. Are there things,
where you would say, as a major pilot with your knowledge of meteorology, regarding the micrometeorology of paragliding and such, that you also benefit from it or sometimes fly differently than perhaps your colleagues who do paragliding? I actually believe so, yes.
You often see this, especially at sites with rotating winds or strong winds, like in Madeira for example, where the site lies in the lee of the trade winds. And because of two gorges at both ends of the track, really nasty rotors come down. They come down the mountain at basically 50 to 70 km/h and you land right in that rotor. And that leads to things actually happening. And you can actually see various wind indicators from completely different directions in a relatively small area. And I often notice when I'm out with other people, they don't actually see that at all. They just look at the wind indicator in the cockpit, but they don't see the flag standing down at the harbor or the flags from the hotel up on the slope.
Yes, I think those are things that come from paragliding, that you simply have an extra eye out for smoke plumes and those usual indicators. And I think that helps because you just know what's about to happen.
Looking at it the other way around, there are other things besides you saying that from above, I can look at a CB or see how the clouds are developing—I can, of course, see that perfectly from a commercial aircraft from above. But are there other things where you'd say, even in this low-level flying, there are things you take from commercial aviation where you'd say, I benefit from that as a paraglider?
So you mean, what do I benefit from in paragliding from commercial aviation, or vice versa?
Yeah. No, no. Where you'd say, as a paraglider pilot, does the experience from large-scale aviation actually still give you something? Where you then have an edge over the other paraglider pilots?
So, I think the main thing I take away from it is actually the approach to a flight like that. And I believe that in many ways differs from many hobby pilots who just don't have that background. These are things like risk assessment, flight planning, but also error analysis. That you really, let's say, approach a flight in a professional manner and don't just drive up the mountain and take off. And that is, I think, what I've internalized so much through my profession that it's second nature to me—that I approach a paragliding flight as if there were 200 people sitting behind me.
So you never just head up the mountain and just take off? Actually, no. What counts as at least the minimum preparation for a paraglider flight for you? As flight planning or, yeah, what do you definitely do beforehand?
The bare minimum for me is checking the weather, and specifically the winds not just on the ground, but also at the corresponding altitudes. I have to see what the hazards are. When you look at a day's weather, there's almost never a perfect day. Everyone has some little flaw, I'd say. Either some front comes through during the day, or the wind is at the critical threshold, or there could be thunderstorms. Yeah, there are many different things that can happen during the day. And I have to see what the point is regarding thermals today. It's rarely all three, otherwise you'd probably just stay home. But if the wind is my problem today, for example, because it might be at the limit, then I have to see if it makes sense to go today? Or do I maybe go somewhere where the wind is reported as weaker, where it's better protected?
Or do I just call it off in case of doubt? Or can I maybe adjust the time of day a bit? So, if I have strong or stronger east winds and I think I still have to go flying, then I make sure to finish the flight by 2 or 3 p.m. at the latest, and that I don't have to fly any west sides where I'd be in the lee. Or things like that certainly play a part.
And you really think all of that through beforehand and tell yourself, "This is my flight plan; if there's a strong east wind, I'll land by 3 p.m. at the latest."
Then I plan the flight so that I don't have to deal with those west sides at all. Of course, that's difficult to implement in that specific example. But maybe we have a north wind relatively often, then I make sure I don't have a route where I have to fly along some south sides the whole time. And stuff like that can actually be estimated quite well in advance.
High-altitude flying is generally very regulated, and even the procedures are all pretty precisely laid out. And you have, I don't know how many checklists you have to go through before every flight and stuff like that. And as you've already said yourself, paragliders—most of them approach this whole thing in a much, much more casual way. To what extent does it make your hair stand on end sometimes when you see other people swinging themselves into the air?
Yeah, quite a bit. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But I think the main problem is that many people just aren't aware that flying is fun and great, but it's also potentially dangerous. And that's something that's rarely spoken about in the sport, of course. But if you look at it soberly, it's certainly among the most dangerous things we actually do in our lives. And I don't think many people are aware of that. You can certainly minimize this risk, but you have to do something about it. And that depends heavily on how I personally view the whole project of flying. What I do to identify these risks and what I do to mitigate them. That I set clear limits and, above all, that I stick to them. So if I say I'm not flying over four hectopascals because it's too föhn-y for me, then I have to actually do that.
And don't say, "Okay, it's at six, but I'm going anyway, it's fine." And ultimately, we have to be aware that we all make mistakes. And we have to leave room for those. So that a small mistake doesn't lead to a total loss. And I think those are the basic pillars I try to stick to. And I often observe that many people just deal with the whole thing very loosely. For them, it's like going for a bike ride. In
the expectation that you can always get off if it's no longer working. You just can't do that in the air as easily. There is the concept of landing, but sometimes it's not that simple. You mentioned a nice term just before that: errors and error analysis. In commercial aviation, that would be standard. Is that missing in paragliding? Not that errors are missing, but rather that people don't talk about them and don't deal with them openly. And that people don't look at how they can do things better and so on.
So I think... that's just a topic where we still have so much room for improvement. And I also believe all pilots could really benefit if we were more open about it. But I'm already aware that this is a topic that I think is handled very, very differently in the professional aviation world. So, a few years ago, I gave a lecture on this topic at an automotive supplier. There were 40 executives who listened to it. They all looked at me with wide eyes when I told them that for us, it's a matter of course. And that as a captain, that's what I want too. And that the employee, who has only been with us for three weeks, tells me if I've made any mistakes or forgotten something. Because in the end, it benefits all of us. But these are things that I think are still so underdeveloped in many areas, including the professional field, that it shouldn't be expected that it would suddenly be different for paragliding.
But maybe that would just be an approach for once. I can add two or three more sentences about how it's done in professional aviation. Yeah, do that. So, we all make mistakes. We're all aware of that. And that's why there's also a very open way of dealing with this topic. That means we sit in the cockpit as a pair. We know exactly when who has to do what, where, and how. If that's not the case, the other person says something. And I actually get angry if the person next to me doesn't say anything when I've made a mistake. Because the earlier such a mistake is caught, the smaller it usually is. If it's swept under the rug, there are often follow-up mistakes that end up being much worse than if it had been said right away. And when something like that happens, we write a report about it. It doesn't have any disciplinary consequences or anything; it's simply there so that others can learn from it.
And if I read that Pilot XY experienced this and that, I have an "Aha!" moment—that might have happened to me too. But then I can react accordingly when I'm in such a situation and maybe avoid that mistake. Ultimately, it actually serves flight safety for everyone. And this is done across airlines as well. So it's not like anything is being kept to oneself. Or this way of dealing with mistakes—unfortunately, you hardly see that in paragliding anymore. Everyone is so concerned about not breaking a piece off the crown. And that's actually a shame, because it's going in exactly the wrong direction.
How could you get something like that more into the heads of paragliders?
If I knew that, I would have done it by now. But maybe the realization that you can learn from other people's mistakes is already the first step. Or creating a medium where you can maybe share something like that anonymously and it gets published in some way. But you see it very often in certain Facebook groups where these topics come up. If someone comes forward, then people jump on them for being stupid and for how one can even make such mistakes. That's exactly the wrong approach, because it naturally leads to everyone who thought about sharing something similar thinking twice about whether they'll end up getting attacked in some way. How are you doing?
then at the launch site, if you see mistakes by others, or at the landing field? Do you go over to them and say, I'm a pilot, I have a culture of learning from mistakes. Let me explain to you what might have just happened. I hope you can take that. Or do you bite your tongue and say, that's not my way of flying. I hope he survives.
No, I'm not the type of person who would approach others like that. As I said, I'm confident in myself. I make enough mistakes of my own, and this whole topic of mistakes isn't about conforming. It's not about pointing out other people's mistakes, although of course that would be the second step, which is also part of it. But basically, it's about recognizing your own mistakes and making them accessible to others. So it's more about doing a critical analysis after the flight. What did I do today? What happened today? What went well? Were there situations where things maybe didn't go the way I imagined? And why did they go that way? Is there anything I can do so that doesn't happen again next time? And I think doing something like that after every flight gets you significantly further.
And the next step, of course, would be if you could make this knowledge accessible to others in some way, so that they could benefit from it too.
The Frenchman Maxime Belmain, who is a competition pilot in France as well, wrote a book called Performance Paragliding. And in it, he recommends that every pilot should ideally have a small notebook in their harness or cockpit. And then, after every flight, write down exactly what went well, what went poorly, and what could I have done better. And he says that specifically when you write it down, it actually goes much deeper into your consciousness. You learn at the moment you write it. Do you do something like that or have you ever done something like that?
I actually don't write it down. But I do take time after every flight. When I drive home, it's usually an hour or an hour and a half. I go through it really meticulously, more or less, and think about the five or so points I want to work on next time or make sure don't pop up again.
That's after a flight. Now let's just flip the topic. Before a flight, there's also the flight planning, where you already say what you actually want to do, and at the end you can say, did I achieve that or not, and what mistakes did I make because of it? There's a video of you on Wien.com. It's a video titled "Why I Love Paragliding." And there, you mention planning as one of the points. And if you say "Why I Love Paragliding," someone will come up with, "Yeah, I love flight planning." So now you have to tell me, why do you love flight planning and what does all that involve for you?
Yeah, so planning is actually something I find totally fascinating. It often starts when I look down from the plane and see some valleys I've never flown in before. Or I pull out the Skyways map and look at spots where no lines go through. And then the first question I ask myself is, why is there no line there? And then I start looking at Google Earth and stuff like that to see what else interesting is there and why nobody actually flies through there. And that's usually how the ideas emerge, like how you could maybe package the whole thing into a nice triangle. And I just have a blast thinking about that, nice and comfortably. On the sofa, like, how could you fly there at what time of day? Where are the difficult spots?
What can you do with that? And that is, yeah, especially in the winter, a great hobby where you also learn a lot. If you then also examine the tracks of others who were at least out in the area, you find the spots where it really—or yeah, where it could get interesting—pretty quickly.
How much time do you estimate you spend on flight planning compared to the time you're actually up in the air with the paraglider?
Yeah, it depends a bit. For some flights, I've just played them out in my head and finished the planning. For bigger ones, it's possible I spent 10 to 15 hours per flight working on them until they were exactly how I might do them one day. That's the basic framework of what I do. And if I'm analyzing the weather in advance and see that a good day is coming, then I pull the plans out of the drawer and, of course, I have to adjust them a bit because the wind might be slightly different than I imagined or there are other things that still need to be changed. But in the end, I'd say I definitely come out with them one-to-one, at least.
You say you pull out the plans. What's actually in one of those plans? Have you set 37 points for every leg based on some XT planning data, or are they just the corners of the triangle and you remember the rest in your head, or how does that work?
So basically, it's the corner points, maybe five or six others on the intermediate legs, just so you can see where the route would roughly go. But of course, more comes into play than that. When I do a flight like that, a big one, I've probably already flown it a hundred times in my head, mentally. That starts with Google Earth. I have to make that very clear. When you look at the terrain and then actually fly there, it honestly feels like we've already been there. And of course, that perspective from the plane above helps again. Every time I fly over there, I take another look at it. And in that sense, navigation isn't really something that concerns me during the flight anymore. Even though I've never been there, I can actually tell you where I am at any given moment.
I could probably draw every single valley in the areas where I fly for you. Without a map. It's just that when you spend a lot of time on it, it really burns into your brain.
That's just how it is with planning—you're like, all the maps that exist out there are stored somewhere in my visual memory. I can just pull that up for myself.
Exactly. And that's obviously something that frees up capacity during the flight because you don't have to worry about it anymore. But if you haven't planned anything and don't really know anymore whether it's the Ötztal or the Pitztal, or what's next—do I go in there or the next one on the left? That ends up weighing on you. All of that drains you and prevents you from making decisions that are actually more important in the situation, or from taking care of other things you could have actually dealt with. If
When you look at the planning in a slightly more specific way, not just saying, okay, how can I fit the largest possible triangle into some story, into the landscape, and where do I have to place the corner points? What kind of subtleties do you also pay attention to along the legs and along the route? What are the things you look at particularly during such a planning process?
So, once I have the rough plan, you can usually see that there are maybe two or three things, or three spots, that have some difficulties. These could be long valley jumps or low flight altitudes at the beginning, which involve certain risks. But then, of course, I also look at which weather conditions are suitable for that at all. Especially when wind is a factor, there are many sides where I would have to fly around in the lee of a potentially suitable wind direction. There are alternatives where I can say, "That's actually okay for a northwest wind, and I could fly the whole flight so that I don't have to fly along any south-facing sides." So, I also look at where one could land. Are there areas, especially in Meran, that corner, where landing outside the designated zones isn't quite so easy?
I actually take a very close look at the satellite imagery to see where there are any possibilities to land relatively safely, without having to squeeze onto some road between the apple trees.
Do you save stuff like that too? Like, do you save it as a waypoint or a location in your instrument somehow, or do you really just keep it in your head and say, oh, that's village so-and-so, they have the soccer field just around the corner?
So in areas like that, I actually do save it, especially where there are so few. Usually, it's still the case that you find something just by looking. But in really extreme areas like the Meran region or something, I think it's actually a risk, because if I have to land, I'm probably stressed because something went wrong, and I don't want to be looking at whether it's village A, B, or C and then not finding this field; I just want to know, "A, it's down there on the right" while I'm already flying past, so if something happens, I have the option to fly straight there immediately.
Since we're on the subject, what instrument do you use to display something like that?
I fly with XC-Track on my tablet or phone.
And you just have these points saved and say, okay, show me the landing sites now or whatever. The
it's just in there as a waypoint. It says Landing 1 or Landing 10 or something like that. And then I see it's to the right of my line and, of course, I look visually to see if I can find it somewhere, so I don't have to worry about it anymore. So I generally fly like that all the time. There's actually almost no moment during the flight where I don't know where I would land if something were to happen.
Even if you're in very remote areas, have you already loaded possible landing options somewhere beforehand? Or have you already saved that or thought it through?
Planned, yes, well, if it's a factor as mentioned. But usually, when you're high enough, you have the corresponding options to see them. Or you fly into a narrow valley. If I can't see in, I've generally already looked into whether I can land back there beforehand; otherwise, I won't fly in at all.
Over the past few years, you've occasionally stood out with some, how should I put it, unusual cross-country flights—simply on routes that the majority of pilots don't necessarily choose, either because of the demands or the geographical elements you have to navigate, like glaciers and other things. Where does this desire for adventure, for the individuality of the flight route selection, and all that come from?
Yeah, there are actually several reasons for that. Curiosity is certainly one. A second reason, I think, comes a bit from my history. I never had a mentor or anything like many others, someone I could latch onto or follow around, but I basically taught myself almost everything. It actually started with me picking out certain mountains I wanted to hike up, because I wasn't a good cross-country pilot, and then I basically tested out one spot after another. You climb up a mountain, take off, and then see where you can fly to. And it was maybe 20, 30 kilometers, then you land somewhere, hike back up, and fly back to the car. That's sort of how it developed. And that's where I found my fun in it. And when I then tried flying those standard routes, I somehow noticed that something was missing.
You know it has to work, hundreds of people have already proven that, but something was missing for me. And even if I forced myself and said, "Today I'm going to fly this Hochfellendreieck," it usually didn't last an hour before I veered off somewhere again and got annoyed that I couldn't just fly like everyone else. But something inside me said, "It doesn't work. I have to try something of my own." So, you need a challenge somehow, right? That's almost it, yeah. Yeah, maybe it's also that urge to test what's possible. So if it says somewhere that it's not possible, or that you can't fly from that mountain to there, that's something that makes my ears perk up. It just appeals to me. And then I can dig my heels in and try it until I either come to the realization, "Okay, it really doesn't work," or it actually works.
How many flights does it take to realize it's not possible? There could always be a tenth attempt after the ninth one where it finally works, just because at one point you realize you might have to fly somewhere you didn't even think was possible, but for whatever reason the flow conditions are such that the thermals push you up back there or something.
I'd say it depends on the project. If it's something I don't really care about, then after three tries it's probably enough. But for example, this Braunegg and Lenkrieser Gletscher triangle, that 200-kilometer FAI route—I've actually been working on that for six years now and it still hasn't worked. I've probably made, I don't know how many attempts, maybe 15 to 20 by now. But the return leg over the Inntal is still so difficult that it just hasn't worked yet. And yet, I believe it has to work. In that sense, it's a case where I'll keep at it because I simply believe it has to work. I just haven't found the right variation yet.
In 2017, you also won the German online XC cross-country flight championship in the sport class. In 2018, you came in second. You managed that with some rather extraordinary flights as well. How important are the XC points to you anyway? Does this championship give you something, or are the flights themselves actually what's important to you?
So in 2016 I came in third. That was somehow a bit... by chance, or what does chance mean, it was sort of unintentionally, let's say, created. And that got my blood pumping a bit, which is why in 2017 and 2018 I already started focusing on it. I still had my personal problem with not being able to fly standard routes, in parentheses, I wanted to. And from that perspective, I thought, yeah, I'm not going to bend over backwards for that now. Of course, it's a draw to stand somewhere up front, but I also knew that in principle, due to the family situation, I'm already at a disadvantage compared to a single person who can just say, the weather is good, I'm going to the Krente. From Brauneck, you per se already have worse cards on a good day because you can only start later. You have low departure altitudes and, and, and.
And because of that, I thought, yeah, if there are points, that's good, but I'm not going to bend over backwards for them. I'm doing my own thing. If the points are there at the end, all the better. But it helped me to say, or to accept, that you're never the first on these lists; usually, someone comes along in the evening who flew three kilometers more. And once you've accepted that, it's actually quite relaxed. That means if you're in front
And from that perspective, I thought, yeah, if there are points, that's good, but I'm not going to bend over backwards for them. I'm doing my own thing. If the points are there at the end, all the better. But it helped me to say or to accept that you're never the first one on these lists, but usually, someone comes along in the evening who flew three kilometers more. And once you've accepted that, it's actually quite relaxed. That means, if you're facing a good flight day and then maybe afterwards you could decide, do I take the flight route that might give me more points, or do I take the flight route that could offer me the more exciting flight, the more beautiful flight, or whatever, then would you choose that? Every single
case, yes.
Let's talk about... you just mentioned it a bit, let's talk about some of your special flights.
One, which you've basically already mentioned as a term and also coined in the paraglider scene, at least in the German paraglider scene, is this so-called glacier triangle. What actually is that?
My friend Markus Kunz did a long flight from Braunegg in 2011 or 2012 that basically went around the Innsbruck control zone once. He landed after 198 kilometers. And that was the proof for us that we wanted to do a 200-kilometer FAI triangle, because there's also the theory that it's impossible from Braunegg. That was, of course, something that appealed to me as well. And then we tried forever to see if you could fly around the front, north of the control zone. And in the end, all the variants we tried led to the fact that it actually didn't work like that. And then at some point we came to the conclusion that you have to go through south of the control zone. The problem there is that there are no valleys you can conveniently follow or land in if anything should happen, but you just have to go straight across the entire Ötztal,
Stubaier, Pitztaler Glacier, basically across. And that's a very spectacular and exposed route, but it's also beautiful, I have to say. I've flown that section about eight times now, I'd guess. And of the whole triangle, that's actually the most beautiful part, especially since you usually have a tailwind there. Of course, you have to be aware that if you have to land for any reason, you might be quite a distance from any roads or transport options. But for me, that's actually what makes this flight special. The adventure is basically always there. And even if I had to land somewhere, sometimes it's almost tempting, and I think, if I had to land now, I wouldn't be in such a bad spot.
It would be a really exciting day. For me, the overall experience is what matters more. And the way back can also be quite an adventure. It doesn't have to be limited to the flight itself. If you don't pin everything down to specific points, then I think the whole package is actually perfect.
If you're talking about glacier zones and stuff like that, you're really flying through exposed high mountains and all that. Do you have any special equipment with you in case you were to get dropped off in a completely remote area?
So, usually on the route, yes. I have bivy gear with me, as well as food for the day, so in principle, I could easily spend a night somewhere out there.
But it hasn't happened to you yet, where you've ended up stuck in some stupid spot. What do I mean by stupid? In a completely remote location.
Unfortunately, no. When I went down, it was usually in some developed areas. I haven't been lucky enough to have that happen yet. But there are some very beautiful spots where I'd definitely like to land sometime. That means,
In the end, you'd probably rather land a bit earlier in a slightly more secluded spot than have the Bavarian wind push you down at the very last stretch. I can't quite put my finger on it. Like, you might get more annoyed there than in another spot where at least you'd still have the landscape as part of the adventure.
Yeah, well, I have to say, I've had a lot of flights. That's actually the beauty of cross-country paragliding—you never know where the flight will end. And I've landed in places so many times where I wouldn't have actually thought of going there on my own. But when I notice, for example, that I don't feel like it anymore or the day isn't as good as it first seemed and I'm in some corner, it's no longer any fun. Then I see some side valley that looks pretty lonely. I'll happily let myself get blown in there if I know I can land somewhere back there, in the riverbed or something, and then I reshape the day and say, "Okay, the adventure project is my goal today." Then I land back there. And then I hike back out for a few hours. And that's something that can definitely be fulfilling.
One
A buddy of yours—I don't know if he wants to be named, so I won't say his name—but he told me once, Marcel, he's the kind of guy who actually flies into some valleys at the back. I'd never fly into those because you might not even be able to land or something. And he just dives in there as if there's nothing there at all. Are you very risk-taking?
To be honest, I'd say the opposite. I think I'm very cautious and very safety-oriented. If I'm flying into a valley, I've either looked at it 20 times already and know there's a meadow at the end that I can reach, or I probably wouldn't fly into it at all.
A fallback solution, or at least a landing option, has to be there somehow, no matter what. That's always there, yeah. Is there some basic equipment you always have with you on every flight as safety gear, where you say, I definitely want to have this? I always fly with Spot, I always have an emergency blanket with me, or other things like that.
So I always have a Spot with me, and my phone of course, but otherwise no major emergency equipment.
With the experience you have now, how do you actually feel about classic competition flying? Would that be something for you?
Actually, it doesn't really appeal to me that much. Well, every now and then. I do like the flight itself, though. I've also flown in a few competitions. The basic problem, which is always there, is the long-term predictability. That means you say you're there from June 27th to the 31st, and then the weather isn't good. Then you just sit around the whole time and can't really do anything. And because of family and so on, there are basically, in quotation marks, some minus points. It's the same for my family if I were flying, if I'm just sitting in Kobarit looking at the sky. In that sense, that's already one reason why it's actually uninteresting for me, because ultimately I want to fly if I'm already away. And the second thing is that the tasks are usually a bit,
Yeah, until the whole group is eventually in the air and you're flying, then you only fly for two or three hours, even though you might be able to fly for seven or eight that day. Those are the side effects that I didn't really like. People always say you learn so much from it. I actually believe that's true. But then my other problem comes into play again, which is that I really struggle with flying behind other people. Yeah, just like that was the problem with the standard triangles. And it's usually like that, at the latest within an hour, the fuse blows and I think I'm smarter than everyone else, which of course I'm not. That's why competition flying ended up being rather frustrating in the end.
That means you usually go up alone. In that video I mentioned earlier, "Why I Love Paragliding," I think it also mentions that you love being alone with your shadow. Is this solitude in aviation, specifically with paragliding, something special for you?
I have to say, I really enjoy it. I'm actually out there alone 90 percent of the time. It has several advantages, of course also disadvantages. But as for the advantages, I find that you have this peace. You don't have anyone setting the pace. You can linger in beautiful spots sometimes. You can change the route however suits you. You're not tied to, say, some fixed project that you might have agreed on with the other person and then have to push through. Yeah, and I also find it very meditative when you're just flying along like that and are only with yourself. I can completely switch off.
What else is it about paragliding that actually fascinates you so much?
The experience of nature, the simplicity of just this aircraft—that I can land anywhere, just pack it up again, and transition into a hike without carrying too much weight. Like I said, there have been so many days that weren't that great, where six hours of flying turned into six hours of hiking. But that's simply not possible with any other aircraft. And yeah, where else can you say you flew 100 kilometers, pack the thing in the trunk, and be back home by car three hours later without needing someone to pick you up. That
That means this is also the part where you say flying is freedom, but it's lived out particularly well. Absolutely, yes. Now you just said that this simplicity is what fascinates you. I just saw on your Facebook that you recently posted some pictures of a new project of yours. There you have a—how should I put it—a kind of liege harness, either self-built or assembled, with a motor on the back, so that you can now go on cross-country and thermals flights with a motor. How does that fit together? I mean, the search for simplicity and then a rather more complicated project with such a heavy thing on your back.
I completely agree with you. In the end, it's also due to the overall situation. For one thing, it came about last year during the lockdown, when the clubs closed their sites and everything became concentrated on the few accessible areas. I thought to myself, I have to have some way of getting into the air right here in my own area, instead of always having to drive 150 kilometers somewhere. And after not finding even a remote possibility to start somewhere where something like this could work, the topic of a motor came back to my mind. I'd been tossing that idea back and forth for a while. And yeah, I eventually went for it, bought myself an all-round motor—a lightweight, as they call it in this scene—but it still weighs almost 18 kilos.
But what you ultimately get is actually a pretty simple 90-degree folding chair with a motor strapped onto the back. It's kept pretty simple aerodynamically. In this scene, you have a motor, so you don't need aerodynamics. The tank just hangs out 40 centimeters in front of your feet, even though you could have hidden it somewhere elegantly or things like that. And there was accordingly a lot of DIY work just to get it into a decent shape. And yeah, that's basically how I spent last winter.
What do you mean by a lot of DIY work? Did you really have to rebuild this existing motor, harness, and so on, to make it suitable for your purposes? What all did you have to do for that?
Yeah, in principle, a leg bag was what I wanted to have to first... or to put it the other way around, you're ultimately attached to this metal frame where the motor hangs, because it's stabilized by that. And that's the starting point. Then it was about how to fair it and convert it into a kind of prone harness so that you can fly with it reasonably aerodynamically, because the idea was already to turn the motor off after it's started and then just continue purely thermally. And I might have approached that a bit naively, but I also ran into some problems that, if I had known about them all beforehand, I don't know if I would have actually done it.
But at some point, I finally bit the bullet and said, this has to work somehow. And now it has finally worked out the way I imagined it. But just to mention a few problems, in a normal harness, you set it once at the swing and then it fits more or less. You can do that too, but you already have two different scenarios. One is the full throttle scenario, for example during takeoff - or climbing. And because of this thrust vector, since the motor is at the back of the swing, hanging on your back, your nose basically already tilts up by 20 to 25 degrees, or the legs, depending on it. So your tilt isn't right at all anymore. And the second scenario is gliding. It's obviously different there. And you notice then that you have to find some kind of middle ground so that the whole thing can work at all.
Because the motor should hang almost, or ideally, vertically so that the thrust vector goes in the right direction. That's also important during takeoff. There are some really scary videos where people have too much back-pressure. Then the thrust vector goes more or less upwards and the paraglider stalls immediately after lifting off. So that's the extreme you don't want. But of course, sitting completely upright doesn't work properly for thermal flying either. You have to find some middle ground. Then there's the torque compensation, which you have to take into account in some form. Because the propeller rotates in one direction, especially at full throttle, it creates this turning moment that would, in principle, always pull the glider to one side. And to compensate for that structurally, these harnesses have an asymmetrical suspension.
So you don't sit in the middle, but you're offset by about 20 centimeters to the side so that you still fly straight even at full throttle, and this turning moment is basically prevented automatically through weight shift. But that interferes again when you're flying at idle, because then it pulls in the other direction. So one problem actually always leads to the next. Or very mundane things like what do I do with the leg bag during takeoff? I just had it hanging off the back in the classic way we do it in mountain flying. But if you give it gas now, the engine or the propeller creates such a suction that it pulled the bag toward it, and it's shredded my carbon plate twice now. So I had to think of something else—how can I tie it up or attach it in some way so I can do the takeoff run without the bag getting sucked in.
And along with many other small problems, it turned into quite a time-consuming project.
But now it's at the point where you can actually take off with the thing. You can fly with it. And it doesn't shred anything anymore.
Exactly, nothing gets shredded anymore. I can take off with it, I think I've found a few good solutions now, and I've been able to do the first thermal flights, and it actually seems to work wonderfully.
Then, once you've reached your cruising altitude or thermal height or whatever, you turn off your motor and say, now I really want to keep flying with the thermals.
So that's the plan. The ideal day hasn't happened yet. But one or two thermals where you really had it out and flew two or three thermals in a row, that worked quite well. Of course, you always have the option, and that's also a very relaxed feature, if you're only two or three meters above the ground now, you just pull the starter and the thing starts searching again on your back.
Even an intermediate landing is basically possible now, so you can eat your lunch
...to eat your lunch somewhere on a nice meadow and then take off again. So, I don't think it's a replacement for mountain flying, but it's just such an interesting variation that opens up new possibilities.
You just said that during the Corona times, paraglider launch sites in many places are really overcrowded. People can't travel to Austria and such, so everything gets packed in there. Do you think that a combination of motor and thermals flying, with that kind of lift assistance and all that, could actually be interesting for many people and perhaps in some way become a new, promising way of our flying?
In principle, yes, but in practice I don't actually think so either, because ultimately it's like with everything: if individuals do it, it's not a problem, but if everyone wants to do it now, I think you'll quickly hit the limits where it starts getting regulated again. It's just that you often move in some kind of legal gray areas. So, I take off at an airfield and there are these legal gray areas where you're allowed to land if, for example, the motor sounded weird or something, then you're allowed to take off again afterwards. That's pretty much the only way at all to land and take off on a wild meadow somewhere.
That means if you want to eat your sandwich there and take a quick lunch break, you always have to say, my engine made some really weird noises. Yeah, in the...
In principle, you have to come up with something, and then no one can stop you from the resistance, but that all comes from the history because the aircraft is classified as an ultralight aircraft, and with that, you're tied to airfield requirements and so on. So even if you say it's an ascent aid, it's still an aircraft, and strictly speaking, even a landing after a flight in thermals on a meadow is actually already illegal because it would require a flight plan ensuring that you land at an airfield again. As long as that isn't brought into a reasonable legal framework, I think it's hard to establish it as a mainstream sport in any form.
If you want to fly real cross-country routes with this combination, and then really far away somewhere, it could be that there's a lot of wind and you say, I'll do a one-way trip with a normal paraglider, I'll pack it in my small backpack, which means small, but into a backpack that has about 90 liters or something, and I can get on any train and then drive back home. How do you do that with the motor? You have the big propeller and the whole cage on the back and all that, how do you do that with it?
So, it actually is detachable; the cage and the propeller can be taken down, and then it's basically still a bit bulky, but I've modified an XXL paraglider bag so that you can basically fit everything inside, including the paraglider, helmet, and whatever else you have with you. If you fly out all the fuel, you're still at about 26 kilos, though you usually still have 2-3 liters left, so it is heavy, but it actually works quite well. Fortunately, there are plenty of train stations here in the rural areas where you can basically land on the tracks, and then you just have to get those 100 or 200 meters up to the platform—you can manage that somehow—and then you're actually back home relatively relaxed and quickly. So that's actually a big advantage with the motor, because even if the thermals die out, you can fly the last 10 kilometers with the motor to the station, so in that sense, you're actually relatively independent.
It
but it's an internal combustion engine you have there now, it's not an electric motor. Exactly, it's a two-stroke. If you have this as a project for yourself, even this year, to expand it further, there are also—if you say, the normal flying, where you're always planning your special routes—there are also things where you say, I've already thought of some very special flight routes that I could do with this combination of thermals and motor flying.
would like to realize? So there are certainly a few projects. I definitely want to fly with a tailwind, because the glider is relatively slow and the glide angle, of course, isn't that ideal due to the drag. So, with zero or a headwind, it's actually no fun, thermally. That's why a one-way trip with a tailwind is definitely the goal. And since we're already in eastern Bavaria here near Munich, easterly weather patterns are certainly something very interesting. I've already printed out a map and looked at various stations in the nearby area, between 50 and 100 kilometers, to see what one could try out there. But a big dream would be to fly back to my parents' house in the Black Forest again. That's about 270 kilometers.
I've wanted to land on the meadow in front of the house since I started gliding. But of course, that never worked back then. They would have had my head if I'd done that. It's always a huge deal with motor planes, too. Landing an Airbus there would be pretty bad as well. And that's why this might be the way it could actually work. If it's about, I think, eight hours of flight time.
That would be the big project for that. What else do you have? Or do you have any other long routes planned? Besides your glacier triangle, which you probably haven't actually completed yet—meaning you haven't really flown all the way back. Do you still want to do that, or how does it look?
I definitely still want to do that. So that's the top priority. After thinking about it for a long time, I've come up with a few other ideas on how I can shift the turning points so that it might actually work. I definitely want to try that out. Then, of course, there are two or three other things that have been sitting in the drawer for a while. But ultimately, it depends heavily on how the Corona situation develops. Whether there will be any major opportunities this year to actually carry out longer flights heading south.
You mentioned the Grente as an example earlier. Have you ever actually flown there, or are you really just a local mountain flyer who says, "No, I don't want to drive that far"?
So I actually have been there. I was there in 2016. Two days in a row. I think those were the most extreme flying days I've had so far. Within, what was it, 35 hours, I think I was in the air for about 22 hours or something. I actually liked it there. I really enjoyed it. Also the atmosphere with the hiking up and all that. But ultimately, the travel is just something that puts me off so much that I simply prefer the nearby mountains.
You did say yourself that you mostly taught yourself cross-country flying. Based on that experience you have, are there any mistakes or anything else—methodological errors in learning cross-country flying, for instance—that you would say, from your current knowledge, you wouldn't want to do again and could pass on as tips to others? How can they continue to educate themselves in their own cross-country flying accordingly?
So, on one hand, I think back then I...
I think it was in 2009, I did a cross-country flight seminar. That's something that really helped me progress. Looking back, I actually should have done that sooner, just learning the basics with flight planning. Where does the sun need to shine, on which slopes, and when is it better to fly east or west slopes, or what was it again? All those basics, learning them. I think that would have moved me forward if I'd done it earlier. If you have someone who flies well, of course, that's a huge privilege. I just didn't have that. But it certainly gets you ahead quickly. Competitions, sure, depending on who it suits, I do think that's also something that helps you progress.
Otherwise, I often notice when you talk to people, especially those who are just starting out, they want to fly higher-classified gear as quickly as possible. Then you see, have you actually read a few books or anything? And they look at you with wide eyes. I think a lot of it just happens by trial and error. I could really only urge people to use the winter, for example. There are so many good books nowadays where you can acquire that background knowledge, which doesn't just make you better, but also makes flying safer and saves you from many mistakes that you would otherwise inevitably make.
If there's anything else you still have to learn in paragliding, what would that be?
Well, in the end, a certain form you have isn't there forever. There are highs and lows, just like there are with everything else. And I think there's always something you can work on. For example, in terms of flight technique, I'd describe myself as not really that good right now. I can fly thermals and I know where I need to fly to. But when it comes to things like SIV training or similar, I've had rather bad experiences. That's something I actually tend to avoid. I had the mishaps I had, and I've got those under control for the most part. But that would certainly be something I should actually do a bit more of.
Marcel, thanks for the chat. I wish you many great flights this year. Whether with a motor, heading to your parents' place to land in the garden, or just finishing off the Lenggrisa glacier triangle without having to land outside somewhere. May it all work out.
If you add the SIV training on top of that, you'll have a great program for the year. As far as the Corona times allow for it, anyway. All the best to you.
Yes, thank you very much. And thanks for the interview as well. Yes, I'd love to.
That was Marcel Dürr in conversation with Lucian Haas. If you're interested in learning more about Marcel's exciting flight adventures and projects, check out the show notes for this podcast episode on my blog Lu-Glidz. I've put together some additional links there.
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