Sometimes, when I'm flying and I have the knife between my teeth and I'm gassing it, trying to move forward as fast as possible, I often think I'm safer that way, even if the conditions are pretty harsh or hair-raising or whatever, because I'm really 100% there and fully focused. And for me, I've already thought about how I really want to be fully present when I'm flying, and I have to be.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Sebastian Benz and Lucian Haas on the mic.
If you run a camera and then play the film back at a higher speed, it compresses the time and the events being documented. In English, that's called timelapse.
When the location or the camera's field of view is also changed while filming, it becomes a hyperlapse—a fast jump through time and space.
The Swiss Sebastian Benz uses this hyperlapse technique to document his cross-country flights with the paraglider. In this way, a 10-hour 250er FAI triangle in Ticino – which one would hardly want to watch back in epic length on film – becomes a 20-minute, entertaining masterpiece. So time-compressed, you don't just see clouds growing and passing; the flight route taken also unfolds before your eyes in a way that is almost logical. What makes these films particularly valuable, however, is that Sebastian comments on and explains the events, his decisions regarding route selection, his considerations of thermal triggers and cloud developments, etc., in a very understandable way. This turns the films he has released, even in hyperlapse shots, into great cross-country flight tutorials.
In this episode number 70 of Podz-Glidz, 34-year-old Sebastian doesn't just talk about hyperlapse films and what he learned from them. It's also about, among other things, how he became one of the most successful cross-country flight pilots. After all, he won the 2020 FAI World Online XContest. And in the XContest, he recorded the almost unbelievable figure of more than 65,000 cross-country flight kilometers.
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Sebastian, you're relatively fresh back from Brazil. How was it there?
Yeah, great. Just awesome flying. Unfortunately, we didn't have quite world-record conditions or too little wind for 600 kilometers. But otherwise, it was just awesome. It's just super consistent. I mean, you can fly for ten hours almost every day. And the conditions are actually good almost all the time. From that perspective, it was great, and the organization was already well-oiled too. And yeah, it wasn't my first time either. So I already know the guys, and in that sense, it was a great combo of a lot of flying and, above all, a lot of fun. Was it your goal to fly 600 kilometers? Basically, yes, if possible. But otherwise, it wasn't like, I mean, I'm not devastated that we didn't hit those 600 now.
But if it had been possible, that would have been the goal, of course.
You didn't set a world record, but basically, you set another record. At least if I saw that correctly. You flew a massive triangle of 270 kilometers, which some are saying is probably the largest lowland triangle ever flown anywhere in the world, at least with a paraglider. How did it actually happen that in Brazil, where you usually do one-way flights, you'd say, "Now I'm going to fly a triangle"?
Yeah, well, it was maybe a long-time dream of mine to do a big triangle in flat terrain. And I think they already tried that during the first Brazil expedition and did a relatively large triangle too. And yeah, now the weather was such that we had really little wind towards the end of this expedition. And it felt like the perfect opportunity to give it a try. And basically in Brazil, it flies very well almost every day and you have practically 10 to 11 hours of flight time. And even if you have to fly somewhat against the wind, but you're still in the air for 10 or 11 hours, you can still manage a very large triangle.
And that's what appealed to me. Plus, of course, it's really cool when you come back, land near the hotel, and don't have a 10-hour journey ahead of you. And yeah, generally, in Brazil, or when there isn't much wind, it's not that attractive to try flying one way because you don't really get that far anyway.
Did you plan this triangle exactly like that? I mean, were these turnpoints already set for you beforehand? Or did you say, okay, I'll try a flatland triangle today, and I'll just head out and decide at some point, "now I'm turning back," or "this is my first turnpoint," and so on?
No, well, that's actually the beauty of the lowlands; you don't have to plan it as strictly as in the Alps. So, I basically first—I had already thought about when I should set the first turnpoint, both in terms of time and also in kilometers. But basically, I just took off in the morning with the wind, because in the morning it's still weak, and against the wind when it's still weak, it's very difficult. So first with the wind, and then the goal was to do about 100 kilometers, so that there would be about 300 kilometers in total. And then, based on the time, the kilometers, and also the wind, I set the first turnpoint at some point.
And that's also, yeah, in Brazil you often have quite a bit of wind in the morning and then it dies down around noon, and that naturally helped me with this triangle too. So I turned around just as the wind was starting to die down. And
then, I mean, for the second leg you have to fly relatively crosswind, and then the last one is actually back into the wind, or how is that?
Yeah, so the second leg at first was flying pretty much into a crosswind,
But fortunately, even if you look at the one-way flights in Brazil, you can see that the wind shifts during the day—I mean, it keeps picking up, so at the beginning it's often southeast and then it turns to east-northeast, depending on the wind direction you have at first. So it keeps getting more of a northern component during the day, and that helped me too; by the middle of the second leg or so, it was actually almost a tailwind. Only at the very end was there a lot of headwind again, because you also have the sea breeze slowly pushing in, and then, a little after I landed, quite strong wind from the sea breeze came in.
You didn't close it completely, you landed a bit early. Do you think a triangle like the one you flew there, in that size, can actually be closed, or is it really already at the limit of what's achievable there in terms of time and the average speeds you can fly with those winches?
No, I'm sure it can go even further. The day was actually pretty average, I'd say. Especially at the beginning, we fought quite hard against stalling, so it was pretty tricky, and I also had a relatively big mess in the middle; I was very low, lost a lot of time, and in the end, I didn't optimize it completely either—I flew out of the climb at the very end so I wouldn't fly for too long. That's always an issue in Brazil because when the sun goes down, it gets very, very dark very quickly, and I didn't want to land in the dark because there are many cables and other obstacles that you can't see anymore. So, if it were like that, I might have had maybe 10 or 20 minutes, 10 minutes more at the end.
But I think 300 is definitely possible. If we have a slightly better day, a bit less wind, and a more optimized line, I don't think 300 will be that difficult. To manage a flight like that...
To be able to pull that off, you still need a lot of experience with flat country to be able to read the terrain like that, to always stay up there. How does a Swiss guy like you, who normally flies in high mountains and stuff, how does a guy like you manage to fly so well without mountains?
Lowlands aren't anything new to me in that sense. I mean, I have quite a bit of experience with lowlands. I lived in the US once, on the East Coast. I learned some lowland flying there, and then I also spent several seasons in Australia, where it's really, really flat. So, from that perspective, I actually have pretty good access to lowland flying, and it's nothing super new to me anymore. And yeah, ultimately, it's all flying. It works the same way all over the world, whether it's flat or has mountains or whatever.
Let's look back a bit at your story, because you say you were in the USA and Australia for flying and stuff. When did you actually start paragliding?
Yes, that was basically it. Yes, that was basically it. I think it was around 2004. I was about 16, maybe 17. I'd earned my first bit of money from my apprenticeship as a chemical laboratory technician, and that's when I started with the introductory course and the training. And yeah, I've always been very, very fascinated by cross-country flying, and that was actually my big goal.
That means I was always fascinated by cross-country flying. That means these XC...
-Was flying was really like that for you from the very beginning too? Yes, I've always wanted to fly cross-country. I just didn't know how. And how did you learn that then? Yes, well, first I just went through the normal training and I learned a bit of thermal flying there, and then at the beginning, I often flew out of Engelberg with my A-glider, cross-country, or I basically always chose an area that was in the wind of the winch and then tried to fly cross-country from there. And
how quickly did you see results? Or when did you have your first hundred, for example? Was that already in the first year or the second?
No, that took longer. I don't know, it took me two or three seasons to get my first hundred. It was pretty much trial and error. I mean, I also looked at a lot of flights in XContest, but I didn't go straight into the heavy-hitting areas like Valais or something, because I thought that was still a bit too intense for me. And I really just didn't have much of a clue how it worked. Like
Looking back, not knowing how it works is one thing. But did everything still go well? Did you have the luck of a beginner? I mean, I...
I've had a lot of luck too, but for example, pretty early on, I once got a compressor...
done, a
I got a compression fracture in one vertebra because, yeah, I wanted to land top-down because I really had to pee. And I forced that top landing a bit, which is something I'd never do again. But yeah, you learn from it.
"Never do it again" means you wouldn't do a top landing anymore, or you wouldn't force a top landing, like you just said? I...
I'd still land safely. I just wouldn't force a top landing anymore. That's a hard rule for me. I don't want to have a top crash or anything of that sort. So I make sure I always have a plan B, and I'm not too proud to fly around 20 times if it's not working and just give up if it's not possible.
Now you said that as an XC pilot, you were sort of self-taught back then and slowly figured it out as you went. What would you advise pilots today? What's the best way to approach XC flying? How can you make the fastest progress?
I learned a lot autodidactically, but I also read a lot on XContest and in paragliding forums. I think that helped me move forward quite a bit as well.
The best way, of course, is always to have someone, like a mentor, who can show you something and with whom you can probably discuss what you've done. But ultimately, I think it's also a bit of a personality thing. Some people learn very well when they have a mentor, while others—maybe someone a bit slower like me—have to make every mistake themselves until they believe it.
I think it's also very individual, but it's certainly good to have someone who is competent and can give you as much information as possible along the way. That's definitely not wrong.
Did you ever have something like a mentor?
No. I've really learned almost everything on my own.
That's really interesting, because you make, how should I put it, amazing explainer videos. That's one of your specialties now. You're basically acting as a mentor yourself, where you suddenly start explaining things to people and so on. But you didn't have any yourself, so you had no role model for it. Where does this urge to say, "I'm going to make videos where I show how I actually do it," come from?
Part of it is also, when I think back. I'm glad I survived without any lasting damage. But I do think that the level of the paraglider license or the Brevet
to become a competent, safe XC pilot, there's a huge gap in between. There is an incredible amount you can learn in that space. I think I've built up a pretty large amount of knowledge and an immense wealth of experience by now. It makes me happy to share that. I want to give other pilots a push or share my knowledge to fill that gap a bit and maybe spare others some of those less-than-pleasant experiences.
You use a very specific technique in your videos, so-called hyperlapse videos. Explain to us, what is that actually?
I usually do it at between 16 and 64 times speed. And the whole thing is...
Accelerated doesn't mean the paraglider is accelerating, but that the video is accelerated. You're showing it's a time-lapse.
Exactly, it's a time-lapse. Up to 64 times faster, so that's already quite a massive increase in speed.
If you fly for 10 hours, for example. I mean, if I play back the whole 10 hours, everyone's face will fall asleep. That's always one of the difficult things about companion glider videos—basically, how to convey the fascination without it feeling very long and sleep-inducing. Yes, and this only became possible through the new 360-degree camera technology, because with that, it's basically filmed in 60 degrees. And that also allows this video to be extremely stabilized. So if you play back a GoPro video or something else 64 times faster, it just wobbles and rumbles.
So you can see that immediately. That means, there...
make you dizzy just watching it. Yeah
Exactly, so that's not a pleasant experience.
When you watch these videos now—I mean, I personally spent a few hours on them just last night—I find it fascinating every time. Because of how fast it moves, you see so much more in these videos than if it were slow. A lot of the changes happening in the air, with clouds and everything else, actually only become truly understandable or visible when you see it that fast. And also, for example, your choice of line—if you're flying along some ridges—it becomes much easier to understand when you see it so quickly. Because then you suddenly see, "Oh yeah, exactly, he's right there," and you can follow it. It's not a "where did he go?" moment in between; you just saw it a few seconds before.
From that perspective, just the acceleration itself is already an enormous learning experience in a way. What I was wondering is, how much of the experience you've built up by now is based on the fact that you basically always go back and watch your own flights in these hyperlapse stories? How much did you perhaps only understand afterwards, when you watched your own flights in fast-forward again?
Yes, that's definitely a good point. For me, it's also a great debriefing. That's very clear.
I mean, now it's hard to say. During the flight
I mean, it's hard to say now. During the flight, you still have to read the clouds, so to speak, in slow motion. Well, not in slow motion, but compared to the video in real-time. Of course, that doesn't help you. But it definitely added a dimension, that
you now
...to be able to see these videos in hyperlapse. And like you said, it's really fascinating to watch the clouds there, especially.
if you've never seen it before, it might be difficult to explain, but you can really see where the cloud comes from, how it builds up. It looks really logical when you see it in fast forward. In real-time, it's often quite difficult to read. So for me, it's definitely great that I can watch it afterwards too. And sometimes the scales fall from my eyes and I think, the thermals actually came from behind or something, and that's why it didn't work or didn't happen. Sometimes I've also watched a few videos from Brazil, and there you can see that the thermals actually would have come up a bit further to the right.
But I was on the left, where the cloud was already completely falling apart and all that, but live, none of that was so obvious. So it's definitely a great tool for me to watch it like that, and I think generally, when you try to convey something or teach someone something, you always learn something yourself too. It's like another level in terms of didactics or skill. So if you basically master it yourself, that's one level. But if you can then also explain it to someone, that's like going up another level from...
understanding. So from that perspective, it's also a bit of a selfish thing, that I can learn something from it or go up another level in terms of knowledge and understanding.
If I saw that correctly, you've been making these hyperlapse videos for about two years now. Is that right? Yes,
A year now, really. Or a year. Would you
Would you say that in this past year, through all these hyperlapse stories where you've also watched so much yourself and then put it into words and explained it, is there something where you say, I really only understood something in this last year that you didn't know before, or as a model of how the weather works or something, that you couldn't recognize in slow motion or at normal speed?
Basically not so directly, but what has become more conscious to me is that it's really about flying very precisely. So, it became more clear to me that thermals really flow through a very specific spot and then go exactly where the cloud is building up, and I think I'm putting more focus on this extremely precise flying now. I try to be exactly where you need to be, when that makes sense. And I think, I mean, I've noticed this more now too, when you observe good or very experienced pilots, they are exactly where they need to be.
and less experienced pilots, they just drift around a bit, and I'm noticing that much more now. So I can see right away, oh, he's experienced, or he's less experienced, based on where he's flying toward, exactly.
That just means you look at where the other person is heading on the opposite slope, or if they're immediately drifting into the weak thermals up front where you're actually thinking, no, the real one is actually 300 meters behind, you should have been able to see that if you could visualize it faster or something.
And you
you just fly the 300 meters further because you know the actual thermal has to be behind you.
And that makes an extreme difference. I mean, on one hand, you can fly really fast during the shoot, but on the other hand, if you have a ridge or something that provides lift, it plays a huge role when you're really in those slope soarings and hitting all those points where it really goes up—you can gain an incredible amount there.
Your videos aren't just great because of the time-lapse shots that show everything so beautifully; you're also explaining everything the whole time. It's like a live commentary where you take this flight, reduced to a short duration, and then say live what you actually did or what decision was behind it—and you can learn an incredible amount from that alone. What I'm wondering is, did you script all those explanations beforehand? Do you have a manuscript that you're basically reading from, or do you watch the film in that moment and really tell it like a live commentator who's commenting on a paraglider flight in time-lapse instead of a football match?
Yeah, I definitely don't script it out in that much detail or anything. So, I'll export the whole thing, reframe it, and then watch it. And of course, I've already experienced the flight, so I know maybe where the critical points were, where it was tricky, and I might also spot one or two "aha" moments in the video, or something about the clouds, or something more specific that I hadn't noticed yet. Then I have a rough idea of what I want to cover, and I more or less speak over it live as I let the video run and narrate it.
Out of the more than 20 videos you've uploaded so far, is there one where you say you're particularly proud of it, or something where you'd say it's really special because it shows an effect that you might never see demonstrated in other videos? Like,
Personally, I like that Ticino video from 200... I think it was 260 something FAI - Triangle from this season, and I actually have almost the entire flight as a hyperlapse, and that's already... those are also three
parts, I think, for the whole thing.
No, I think that was only one part. I have several from Ticino, but the last one was basically a single take, and it was special because there was very strong murder wind, and with the clouds, it's quite educational—what you can see in this video. It's quite fascinating for me. Do you get a lot of feedback on these videos? Yes, I do. A huge number of people watch them, and I get very positive feedback very often, which of course makes me incredibly happy and motivates me to maybe make even more videos, because, well, I really enjoy doing it, but it's also incredibly time-consuming. So I always say, it takes at least
at least as long as I flew, if I'm fast, but otherwise it can take twice as long.
Okay, so that means you fly for 10 hours, but a film edit and the entire production can then take 20 hours.
Yeah, exactly.
How do you actually do that? I mean, if you say you're filming 10 hours of FAI triangle flying in Ticino, do you actually watch through those 10 hours again, or do you format it right away so you can watch it as a hyperlapse yourself and say, I'm only doing it in this fast-forward mode, or how does that work?
No, well, I download the whole thing onto my PC, and with a 360-degree camera, you have to select where you're looking because you have 360 degrees to choose from. So, for this hyperlapse, I do a rough reframing—that's what it's called—where you select which direction you're looking, and I select that direction first. Then I basically jump, I mean, I just click, and since I'm always flying in the same direction during the glide phase, I select one frame at the beginning and maybe one at the end of the glide phase or something if I change the direction slightly. I basically set the rough direction there, and I don't watch the whole thing; sometimes I even watch it while it's already sped up, but the computer can't do it entirely in real-time.
it renders that much faster, like 64 times faster, and I just click through it and then export everything. Depending on the situation, I might do another pass if I've made some kind of rough mistake or something, but then I put it all together and watch the whole thing back at high speed right away. And then
You also basically speak your commentary over it then and it's almost finished. Yes,
So first, I take all the clips that come out of the 360° software, then I put them together in DaVinci Resolve, and for the newer videos, I've sometimes also added landscape markers. That's also relatively time-consuming; you can also do it with tracking of the locations and stuff, I do that in DaVinci Resolve too, and then I basically cut the video, all finished, so that it's really correct, and then I record the audio over it because if it's not quite finished yet and you're still tweaking something regarding the length, then the audio won't fit anymore, and that's sometimes really tricky.
What kind of 360° camera do you have?
I have the Insta360 One R.
It doesn't actually have the biggest battery, so I can't say I can record for 10 hours. How do you do that?
Yeah, I have it connected to a large power bank. I fly with a large power bank anyway, at least 27,000 mAh, and I actually always have the camera plugged into it. That means it's on
on the stick, there's a long cable attached to it.
and that goes into the power bank. Exactly, it's really wrapped around it, so, I have the camera on a selfie stick, and I slide it into the side like this, and yeah, then I film with it.
from this stick and the cable really around the selfie stick, so that it doesn't appear in the image because of course, there is like a
With a 360° camera, there's a blind spot in the camera's field of view where you can't see anything, and the cable is then in that blind spot. And
if you're recording a 10-hour flight, how many gigabytes does that add up to, just for a flight like that recorded in 360°?
Yeah, a lot. I have a 512 gigabyte card in there, and it might hold about 14 hours of flight footage, so yeah, if I do a very long flight, it's gone immediately and
If you document all your flights—I don't know if you do all of them, but most of your long-haul flights—you'd have hundreds of hard drives lying around, pumping you full of flight footage, or do you just say, "No, I've edited the film now, so I'll just forget about this 512 gigabyte card, I don't need it anymore"? That is,
You're bringing up a good point. I still need to decide what to do. So, I have, like, X memory cards now—maybe 512s, about 5 to 10 of them—and they're all more or less full. And I have a 4-terabyte external hard drive, and that's full too. I slowly need to think about whether I should get more hard drives or just delete some of the material again. I'm leaning towards just deleting some of the material again.
If you...
Since you fly so much, I saw on XContest that you have 65,000 flight kilometers alone since you started XC flying. I think that's a number that very few people will probably ever reach. How do you actually manage that, just in terms of time?
Yeah, well, I just take the time. So, yeah, I definitely—it was cool, I always, let's say, did some training or something, and then I'd often take like half a year off to fly a lot. But lately, I have a full-time job as a chemist, and sometimes I don't have that much time. I try to take the good days off sometimes, but that's not always possible, so yeah, I just try to fly as much as I possibly can.
What do you look for when deciding which days to take off to go flying?
Yeah, well, I just want it to have good cross-country potential when I take a day off specifically, or some area or a flight I already have in mind where thermals might be appealing, and then I take the day off.
What makes a good cross-country flight day for you?
Yes, for sure, that you can stay in the air all day, so that's important, especially in the Alps, that you don't have too much wind, except for one way, um yeah, so, and some area where I already have a cool idea for a flight, that's also definitely important.
So that means you plan every flight you do down to the last detail, because you say you already have a flight idea—do you also have the turn points set already, basically?
No, I treat it more like scripting the videos—so of course I look at the weather very clearly and in great detail, and I have a few dream routes in my head that I look at, but I still keep the whole thing a bit freestyle. I look at certain things, but then in the air I might change my mind or something if it's not possible or doesn't look good, and I'm quite flexible. So I don't plan everything down to the last detail; I look at it more like...
basically, what's possible, where are the key points, what needs to be there for it to be possible, but otherwise I don't look at it down to the last detail because I don't think that helps all that much, since every day is a bit different and you can't plan everything. But
do you have something like a set of flight ideas stored in your head or on your hard drive where you'd say, as soon as I see that the weather conditions are right for it, I'd pull that out of a hat, or rather, put it on my...
...pull the flight instrument to say, "Okay, I can follow that now?"
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I already have basic ideas for certain flights—some are, of course, standard flights, like the big triangles that have already been done, but I also have many more creative triangles that I dream about in my head. Sometimes I even visualize them a bit, like when I go for a jog or something; I like to think about what an ideal flight day could look like or what conditions I want, and then I just dream or daydream about the flight, like how it would be, where I can turn up, where I can get into the leg, and just like that.
I dream about the flight like that, imagining what it would be like if I could actually do it. That's...
Do you do that when you're jogging? Exactly, yes, so often, yeah. That means you go jogging and then you basically play out a hyperlapse video in advance—so a hyperlapse dream would be that, in that case, you play out this flight in advance. Exactly, yes.
Do you, for example, look at things like that in your preparation, like checking Google Earth or other stuff more closely, so you can say, "Ah, I already have an idea of what the terrain looks like," and then you translate that into your dream accordingly? Or do you say, "I've seen so much in the Alps by now, especially in the Swiss Alps, I've flown around there so much that I actually know the terrain, I know what the valleys look like," and you can just put that together in your dream?
Yeah, well...
I definitely look at the whole thing on XC-Planer or something, especially when I'm designing a new route to get the idea down, but it's clear that in the Swiss Alps, there's pretty much no place left that I haven't flown before. So it would maybe be something like Altheimers or something where I forget what it looks like—that happens to me more often than you'd think—but yeah, I know pretty much everything about the big ones in terms of what they should look like. I don't look at it closely on Google Earth or anything; I might just look at key points or...
Yeah, I already think about difficult spots or something, I try to prepare a bit on the XC-Planer or just think about how exactly you can take that key section, or what's needed to be able to take that key section—like some kind of base, wind direction, or what has to be given for you to get through. I already do that like...
Does it often happen in reality that the flight you dreamed about beforehand doesn't turn out the way you experienced it in the dream?
Yeah, well, I'd say almost never, so it almost never works out. Of course, I also consciously dream quite big because they're dreams, you can do whatever you want, so I don't let myself be held back; I don't want to dream too realistically. But yeah, sometimes it also goes really, really well and goes even better than the dream. I mean, for example, this summer, I dreamed of this triangle from Bruni to Engelberg because that was so close to my heart, you could say, because that's where I basically learned to fly routes, and there wasn't a 200er before. And I always dreamed of this rather technically difficult...
I dreamed of a 200-plus triangle, but I didn't look at it in detail, and this summer there was a very good spot where I was actually able to do 260
flying, and I think in my dream I wasn't quite as bold as I actually flew in reality, so that's one example where it was the other way around, but otherwise I do dream pretty big, but that doesn't really matter because I can pre-visualize several key points or something, they don't all have to be in one flight.
If a flight turns out to be better than your dream, how does that feel for you afterwards?
Yeah, I'm really happy about that, and it made me quite happy to do such a cool flight and to actually pull off a flight that's new territory, something I'd had in my head for a long time—that's pretty cool.
Do you ever call off flights when you notice that the conditions aren't great for covering a long distance, like what you might have dreamed of beforehand? Or do you just stick with it on weak days because you say, "I'll just make the best of what I can do here and I'm still learning," or "I just want to be in the air anyway, so I don't care if I don't hit the mileage at the end, but I've gained an incredible amount of experience again"?
I actually never cancel for
Basically, that sounds a bit harsh now, but the mileage doesn't really matter to me. Of course, I'm happy when there are a lot of kilometers and so on, and it's also motivating to set a goal like a big triangle, but ultimately, I just love flying incredibly much. And that's actually the big thing that motivates me—really being in the air. So yeah, I never call it off if I don't have the average right now or something; I just sometimes resize the flight or think of something else or something like that. That clearly happens sometimes when it becomes truly utopian to fly the original plan, but I would never actually go land or something like that.
Even a shorter flight is incredibly beautiful for me, and as I said, I have a 100% job and I can't just fly an infinite amount, so I'm just happy if I can stay in the air for a whole day.
What makes the great fascination of flying for you?
Yeah, I think for me it's a combination of many things, it's like the perfect game somehow, because it's very complex to understand and I like complex systems that have a strict logic but are too complex to truly grasp, and for me it's also like a game with the weather, you have incredibly beautiful views, you get to places you'd never see, it's a bit of a thrill too, you're outside, you're experiencing something, it's a real combination of everything that I find extremely
appeals to me. If
You're saying that you're constantly faced with these situations that are so complex you can't fully grasp them, but you probably still learn something from every flight. Or you have a situation that you didn't understand before, but in hindsight, you might understand why it happened—maybe only when you watch your videos later. Was there any particularly surprising insight from aviation that you've had this year?
I
I don't know, this year, for example, you still have to see what you can do with a lot of north wind in the south and how the game with the lee and the wind works, and what it can still handle, even if you're basically flying in the protected lee and so on. I think I've made quite a bit of progress in that lately. Have you become more risk-tolerant over the years with this knowledge? I hope not, because I think the knowledge is also a major factor in minimizing the risk. So, if you...
if you don't understand it, it's already very difficult to assess how much risk you're actually taking, and the more you understand, the more calculated the risk becomes. So I think so, I mean, I basically hope that I don't go into such situations overconfidently and that I actually take the risk in a much more calculated way. When
Did that happen to you last time, where you said, "I don't understand this at all right now"?
I have this happen over and over again now, I probably think about it in almost every flight, that I don't—well, not fully understand something. I mean, I can explain it afterwards, but I can't really foresee it or anything. It happens in almost every flight, and maybe like...
From a safety perspective, this season I had one big front...
got a collapse and that was actually quite surprising, I have to say, because I was actually ready to search for thermals and yet I got a pretty big front collapse, that was a situation where I said, yeah, that wasn't it, I wasn't 100% in control. Do you have role models? Yeah, I mean we're all fans of Kriegel Maurer for sure, so it's incredible what he can fly.
Yeah, so I obviously keep watching flights from pilots who do very creative flights, like Marcel Schmid or someone in Switzerland does some great flights again and again. There's a pretty cool community here, I think, that really does innovative flights, and I find that kind of stuff pretty cool too, but purely from a technical standpoint, like Kriegel or Maurer, it's already fascinating what they can still get out of a paraglider. Do you
Do you yourself use any special techniques when you fly? Like, where you'd say, "That's a certain flight style" or something else that's typically Sebastian Benz? Phew, I...
I don't know, I don't think so actually. I mean, I'm maybe not the kind of technical guy. I'd say I master my paraglider, but I'm not some super-technician or anything. I just get used to the gear and then I fly it. So all that ultra-technical stuff or refining everything, like a harness or something, I don't really do that. For me, the flying itself is mainly what matters. I don't think I have a special, special technique. What
are you flying for a glider today?
For Brazil, I had an Enzo 3 with me, and in the Alps last season, I flew a Zeolite GT. Why? Why not the Enzo there too? Well, the problem with the Enzo is that I'm relatively light—I weigh about 65, 67 kilos naked—and for the Enzo, the size that works is at least the S, which is 105 kilos. That's an incredible amount of ballast, and in the mountains, it's often too much for me. Plus, the Zeolite is just... I find it very, very nice to fly and
I go up to 85, and I can fly that with the heavy harness, which is somewhat contradictory—a light glider with X-rated 7—but I can fly it right at the limit without ballast, and I think I still value that, plus I think in the mountains, it doesn't come down to the last bit of performance of the glider. So if you dare to fly with a lower-classified glider and gas it the whole time, you almost gain more than if you're traveling a bit more conservatively with the higher-classified glider.
There are some examples, really, of pilots who basically fly cross-country routes with a B-glider that other people fly with an Enzo—so just looking at the route, and sometimes even in terms of speed, they can almost keep up, where you always see that on certain long glide passages and fast glide passages, an Enzo would still fall behind a B-glider, of course. Would it be interesting for you to say, also as a challenge, to say I'll do without my 2-liner for once and try to fly such routes with a lower-classified glider? Maybe also as a teaching example for such videos where you can say, people, I've done this now, you want to learn, and I'm not going to fly it for you with a 2-liner where you say I can't reach that anyway, my glider doesn't glide that well, but I'll do it with a B-glider.
I'd rather not. Why not? I think I'd be scared. Scared?
I've gotten quite used to flying the 2-liner by now, and I find it just so incredibly relaxed, especially with the CO-Lighter. I think I'd be much more afraid under a 3-liner B-glider than under the CO-Lighter because it gives so much less feedback and is also much harder to control in a stall than a 2-liner. So it's just incredibly cool that you can influence the pitch directly via this B-control. I think that's also a huge plus for safety because the glider remains fully maneuverable even in a stall. I've flown deeper gliders before, but that's... yeah, it takes some getting used to.
I could certainly get used to it, that wouldn't be a problem, but basically, I prefer flying with the 2-liner. Do you ever get scared with the 2-liner too? I mean, sure, you can end up in a shitty situation with any glider, which...
at least extreme concentration is required. When was the last time you were scared? While flying?
maybe not fear at the moment or maybe a bit later, but definitely this Flonk collapse or something, that gave me something to chew on later.
Do you notice that during the flight too? I mean, you're saying "later"—was that later during the flight or after the flight? Or are you just like, okay, you put it aside and keep going, just racking up more kilometers, or do you become so cautious that you're like, no, somehow flying just isn't any fun today anymore? I...
I definitely notice it during the flight too, but I probably just put it aside. But maybe it still occupies your mind during the next flights or something, like that's happened to me often.
I have a technical question, regarding flight technique. I noticed it yesterday while watching your videos. You can always see how beautifully you carve; the camera is always facing one direction, and you're always darting through the frame like a whirlwind. I noticed that not in every one, but in quite a few, you eventually change your direction of rotation. Why is that?
so
I'm already cranking pretty hard, and at some point, when you're cranking hard like that near the CO leader, the brake pressure also gets quite heavy, and especially when I then really have a
when I'm circling out of the thermals for a long time, it's simply a way to prevent fatigue to change the direction of my turns, and I often do that when I've fallen out of the thermals a bit and it's convenient to change direction anyway, I
I've got 300 meters left to the cloud; for the next 300 meters, I'll just spiral left if I was doing it right before.
Exactly, yeah. I mean, I prefer turning left, but I also constantly force myself to turn a bit to the right because, especially on such long flights, I notice that you tense up much more easily or get tired much faster if you always turn to the same side.
Do you do any specific training for cross-country flying? Like physical training? You mentioned jogging earlier, but anything else, like for your shoulder girdle or something?
I don't do anything really specific, but I do try to stay very fit. I think that helps too. I just enjoy climbing and I do it quite often, and I also do some strength training and try to go jogging or do winter ski touring. Mostly just because I really enjoy it, but I think it does help me personally to be fit so I can fly for really long periods when...
So you fly well and are also fit otherwise, and you like hiking in the mountains—would something like an X-Alps be something for you?
Yeah, I don't think so. I've thought about it a bit, and it would definitely be a cool combo, but I have to say, physically, I'm not that robust. I mean, with my knee and my foot, I've already had surgery, so I don't think walking for really long days would be for me in the end. And I know something about myself—when I'm over-tired, I eventually lose track of the situation. So yeah, I think ultimately X-Alps is very extreme, and you have to have a special character to really push through that or want to do that. Basically, I fly for enjoyment, and it has to be fun for me, and I think that's...
It's also very, very important to me that I really have this feeling of wanting to fly, and if I don't have that, then I don't go flying. So that's very, very important to me.
how often does it happen to you, especially on long flights, when you're hauling it for 10 hours over Brazil or something like that, that you have moments where you say, "this isn't enjoyable anymore," and why is that?
Hmm, I actually enjoy it almost all the time. It's more that when I maybe...
when I have situations where I maybe don't have a plan anymore, I might not enjoy it as much. Like, if I somehow—I don't know—had a plan to do an FAI in Brazil or something, but then I notice, "Uh, the wind is too strong," and I have to cancel again, and then I keep flying in the other direction, but then it just takes the edge off and everything becomes so tedious. In those moments, I might lose my spark a bit, but otherwise, I always love flying, no matter the circumstances. And what's also interesting is that I've analyzed a lot of these tricky situations for myself and...
It was often interesting when I didn't have a plan anymore or was just, yeah, in quotation marks, drifting around like that; I often had the most tricky situations in terms of safety, and yet those weren't necessarily the worst conditions. Often, the conditions were actually relatively easy, and sometimes when I'm flying and I have the knife between my teeth and I'm powering up, trying to move forward as quickly as possible, I often think I'm safer even when the conditions are quite harsh or quite
...hair-raising or something, because I'm really 100% there and fully focused, and for me, I've already thought about how I really want to be fully present while flying, and I have to be.
So when you talk about this knife between your teeth, but being very present—is that also a flow experience that you sometimes have?
Yeah, definitely. You're really in your element then, really into it, and that automatically creates a flow. It definitely is.
Has that ever happened to you too, where you've basically been flying and then suddenly you wake up and go, "What did I actually do for the last hour?" I did it all by instinct, perfectly, but you're saying that in that moment, you didn't even notice that time had passed.
I think I do that less because I try—or I think I still think quite a bit—actively while flying. I try to rationalize so much: why was it like that, why is it happening this way, or how will it be next? What should I change? How is the day? I try to think about it logically too, like, really full autopilot. I mean, sometimes when turning in thermals or something, I actually zone out mentally and I wonder if I turned off the stove at home or something. That does happen to me because it's so intense.
automated, but afterwards, when I'm actually flying, I still think about it a lot. I mean, I remember it sometimes from back in the day, like in the US, when I was...
I've driven cars where that happened to me sometimes—that I'd wake up at some point in heavy traffic and think, "Everything's been running on autopilot until now"—but I do that less when I'm flying because I'm actually thinking about it more actively.
So you're more of a rational, head-driven pilot, not the type who flies so much by gut feeling?
No, I don't think you can put it like that. It's a combination. I certainly think about a lot, but then a lot happens instinctively as well, because I think that's where this complex system comes in. It's like, I try to think about a lot, but it's fundamentally too complex to understand everything, and then that gut feeling is very important.
Have you also dealt with things like mental training for long flights, the concentration required, and the motivation for it? Or do you use specific techniques, or are you just naturally so motivated and concentrated that you'd say you don't need any of that?
I looked into it and read through it a bit, and for most of the points, I just had to say, "Yeah, I already do that anyway." Like visualizing or things like that, or daydreaming while jogging—that's just something I naturally do. Or you can read about that in certain mental training books or something. And yeah, I don't do it per se as mental training. I'm just... I'm very motivated to fly. I love flying incredibly much, and that's pretty much the most important mental training for me. And otherwise, I have this rule in the air: Pilot First. So, I always try to... when I'm hungry...
I eat something if I'm hungry, I drink something if I'm thirsty, and if I take a moment's break or something, I'll let out some gas and let it fly or something, if I just need a quick moment to relax. So I always try to put the pilot above everything else. For me, the most important thing is that I'm well-nourished and mentally ready in the air for 10 hours. So that's kind of a rule I have, "Pilot First." What do you use to nourish yourself in the air? I mostly eat bars because it's bars or Biberli.
so they're relatively sweet
Nut-filled sweets that we have, and they're relatively easy because they're packed in small portions and you can eat them pretty well in the air.
and you do that continuously, basically during every pass, you say, I have time for a Biberli again, so
It depends on how hungry I am, but I definitely eat about 3 to 4 of these Biberli or larger bars during a flight. And I also drink quite a bit at the same time with the food, because I always think you can hydrate better if you take it in with some sugar.
Looking back at all the flights you've already done in your career, which rods stood out the most and why?
Yeah.
That's a tough question. I have to admit, I've also forgotten an extreme number of flights. Sometimes I do some research on XContest and I look at what you've actually flown before and think, "Oh, I was there too." No, it usually goes differently. I look at certain regions and think, "Yeah, that would be interesting, who else has flown through there?" and then I see a flight and think, "Ah, that's actually still cool, how did he do that?" and then I look at the name and it says Sebastian Benz, and then I grab my head and usually the memory comes back: "Ah yes, there was something there." But off the top of my head, I wouldn't have been able to tell you right now that I've flown through there. So I've forgotten many flights again, but they are definitely flights.
I've experienced an incredible number of beautiful flights. It's probably because almost every flight is actually great. They are definitely flights that—I mean, I always enjoy it incredibly when I can explore some new territory, like a big, beautiful flight that tackles a new, difficult route, or even with buddies. Those are also very special experiences.
You're always talking about the big flights, the long distances, exploring new territory, and stuff like that. Does that mean that even after all these years, XC flying is still what fascinates you about flying?
Yeah, yeah, so I live for XC flying, clearly. I also enjoy doing a lot of thermalling because I just like climbing up quickly and flying down, I enjoy that, but for me, the ultimate thing is definitely XC flying, clearly. Yeah, if
If you could meet your younger self, like in your very early years, and you could, say, meet the older Sebastian Benz of your youth—or in your flying youth—what would you have liked to hear from the older, well, you're 34 now, from the older 34-year-old Sebastian Benz, who already has so much, so much flying experience, what kind of tip would you have liked to get from him?
I don't know, I would have loved to have his brain abstracted.
abstracted, what do you mean by that?
squeezing out his experience just like that as a simple tip
Yeah, maybe that she should just pay even more attention to safety, especially right now.
At the beginning, that's a tip you'd give generally if you see today's flight students, saying, "Hey, some people just push themselves too much at the start."
Personally, I was also a bit overmotivated at the beginning and, well, I mean, it's always difficult—so a tip would definitely be that safety is extremely important. You shouldn't let safety ruin the fun, but safety is extremely important. I also always tell myself that paragliding is quite special in that you can do it for a very long time. It's not like another elite sport where you're considered old at 30 and basically have to quit or something. You can really do it, like with us, over 50—in the Swiss XContest, we have an over-50 class and it's still extremely prominent, and they still do really great flights. I always tell myself it's a sport you can do for an incredibly long time as long as you stay healthy, and for me, that's already...
It's just important that you stay safe, and then you can always do the next flight. So if you have to land somehow, or it doesn't take off, or you can't make the top landing, or whatever, it's not that tragic. You can always do another flight, and there will be many more flights to come.
By now, at 34, you've already seen an incredible amount from the air, all over the world. You've been to Australia, you've flown in the Himalayas, you've been to the USA, Brazil, and so on. If you say, well, I actually still have maybe many, many years ahead of me in my flying career, does it ever scare you to think that maybe it could get boring for you at some point?
Actually, no. I mean, if it ever got boring for me, I'd just find something else to do, but I don't think flying has ever gotten boring for me, especially not right now.
What else would you like to achieve while flying?
I would, for sure—I still have a few dream projects from the three big corners. I recently moved to Valais and, yeah, I think there are still some exciting things I'd like to tackle. What I also always find great is flying a new region, both as an adventure or a trip, because it always opens up incredibly many doors when you fly in like that, and you can experience a country or a new region in a completely different way when you're out there with a paraglider.
see new things, but also fly some cool routes, and I think there's still a lot there if
If you were to get told right now, like, watch out, there's going to be a massive new Corona wave or something and we won't be allowed to travel or fly at all anymore, but right now there's still a window where it would be good to fly just about anywhere. If you had one flight left, where would you want to go on that flight? I...
I think, just spontaneously, I'd probably go to the Himalayas. Why? Because it's quite special to fly in that really high-alpine terrain and it's just incredibly beautiful to be out there among those huge mountains. Have you ever been there before?
to fly there in the near future
So, I don't have it fixed in my plans or my calendar yet, but I would really like to go there again. The only thing that sometimes puts me off is the safety, or if you have an incident there, it would probably be quite a hassle.
Isn't that also a problem in Brazil?
less, so what I mean is, basically Brazil has a relatively good healthcare system. There are also helicopters, so it's at least quite populated. You're rarely going to crash really alone; someone usually sees it. But in the Himalayas, well, what puts me off a bit is if you were to actually land somewhere in the mountains—even if you're uninjured, but somehow in a bad spot, like hanging on a rock face—it's very difficult to rescue someone there because they do have helicopters too, but it's very bureaucratic, plus they aren't equipped with rope winches and such, and sometimes a helicopter won't be able to reach you at all.
Let's go back to the very beginning with Brazil, where we started here. One risk with Brazil is probably not even the flying itself, but these very long return trips that you then have to do at night. Because you fly for 10 hours, but then you're picked up by someone who's been tracking you on the ground the whole time, who's been driving the whole time, and then probably also spends half the night driving you those 500 kilometers back to the starting point, in this case Kaiko. How dangerous do you estimate something like that to be?
That is definitely very dangerous, which is why in Brazil, whenever we fly a long distance, we don't drive back on the same day. The next day is a return day. So, around noon, you have to decide whether to fly further or land, because you still have to get back. If we do fly further, we sleep in a hotel nearby where we landed, and then we drive back the next day. Otherwise, it's really too dangerous because driving for that long at night, and the roads in Brazil aren't always top-notch, and that's...
sometimes there's even a cow or something on the road, so it's quite dangerous. Have you
have you had a stupid experience like that before?
two years ago, there was once someone who was drunk—so he was somehow drunk and riding his bike on the road—and then he somehow fell flat on his face onto the road, and we were coming along relatively fast. We were still able to brake, but that was already quite tricky. He was just lying there, and yeah, if the driver had been over-tired or something, he could have easily run him over. And this year, there was also once—we had a completely dead cow, right in the middle, so really on the roadway, just after a curve. Luckily, an oncoming truck warned us with its hazard lights that there was something there, and we slowed down. We also had that.
avoid, but those are some pretty sketchy moments, but otherwise it's fine.
Full speed over the track all the time
Yeah, the drivers actually ride quite pleasantly and pretty safely, I have to say, but obviously, you do ride relatively fast, and the road isn't always well-paved. Are you going to go on the world record hunt in Brazil again next year? To be honest, I don't know yet. It depends—we're also discussing in the league maybe doing a new format because I think the world record is really very, very difficult to get in Brazil now because there's simply almost never enough wind for 600 kilometers, and we're now also discussing doing a different format or something, maybe more of a
something more like an adventure, checking out a new area and doing a bit of exploring or something like that, but I'm letting myself
surprise, at some point probably every record will eventually be impossible to beat or, especially with the paraglider, you say the flight time eventually ends and at some point, at least regarding the launch, the wind strength is also such that you say you can't do it safely anymore and accordingly you can't really fly any further.
Yeah, yeah, but I think—I mean, it just comes down to it, I think it's going to depend more and more on the absolutely perfect day. So, I mean, even there in Texas or something, along that Texas Dry Line, there are extremely many of these convergence lines, and I think if you really catch the perfect day where there's just this enormous convergence with strong wind, then probably significantly more is still possible than what's been flown now. But then it's really just that one day, and you have to be ready on that day and in the right place, and I think the longer it goes, the more it becomes a game or a...
yeah, chasing it is a game of luck
Yeah, basically just that, right?
Yeah, luck is also a lot of preparation, so I think Sebastian, who did that flight in Texas, he already... I think he even approached it extremely scientifically, so he looked at some papers about this dry line and the flights, and I think he was basically looking at the forecast the whole time to really pick the perfect day now.
Briefly explain what a dry line is again, because some listeners probably won't be able to understand that.
Yeah, so I might not be the best person to explain this, but the dry line—basically, it's a collision of two air masses. In Texas, for example, you have this moist air mass from the Gulf of Mexico on the right, in the east, because the water there is very warm and all the hurricanes come from there. So you have this moist air mass, and then from the left, from the west, comes the very dry air mass, which comes more from the Rocky Mountains—the continental one.
air mass that
then exactly that, and these two air masses basically collide, and that's what you call a dry line. The dry line itself can form a convergence, but there are also convergences to the left and right of this dry line that are triggered by it, at least that's how it works, but it's a pretty complex phenomenon and some jet streams and other phenomena are also involved. But basically, it's just an air mass boundary, and I think there's then like a perfect band—or rather, to the east of this dry line, it's way too moist, there are thunderstorms, and to the west, it's way too stable, too hot, there are no cumulus clouds, and then in this mix zone where the moist air mixes with the dry air, there's a convergence and, B, just that really beautiful cumulus sky you need for a long flight.
Flight. Have you ever flown in conditions like these? Probably not in Texas, but maybe there's something similar in Australia? Yes.
so real convergence convergence not but I mean in Australia and also in Brazil you often have these conditions where you have really beautiful sky with perfect cumulus and I think there too, now in Brazil there isn't such a dry line but or what all these good lowland areas have in common is a moist wind blowing from the sea over a hot surface and in Brazil that's given every day because this trade wind is always
blowing from the sea, and in the northeast of Brazil, it's almost like Brazil is shaped like a horn, meaning the east wind blows the moist air mass from the sea over the land, and I think that's one of the reasons why it flies so extremely well because it's already insane how early you can start in Brazil—you can start almost an hour after sunrise, or sometimes even earlier—and sure, it's near the tropics, the sun goes up fast, but it actually doesn't make sense for it to start so early if you compare it to our
compared to our reference points, because here in the mountains we sometimes have perfect rock faces that catch the sun very early, and yeah, you can sometimes really start early—I've even taken off around half past seven or something here on a perfect east face—but even then, in the summer, the sun rises at five in the morning, and it's still three and a half hours later, and most of the time it doesn't really start until nine or so, so it's four hours after sunrise when it kicks off. In Brazil, as I said, it really starts just an hour after sunrise, and I think that has a lot to do with this humidity and the hot surface.
I actually wanted to stop earlier, but there's one topic about Brazil that I'm still interested in regarding your experience. I've read from others who said that flying in the Brazilian lowlands is a special case, where a lot of things basically work the opposite of how they do in the Alps. In the Alps, you're always flying the hills, but in Brazil, it's often the case that the hills themselves aren't very good as thermal triggers, but rather the flatter areas. How have you experienced that, and how do you manage to switch that in your head?
I mean, it also depends on the day in Brazil, which is very interesting. So, it's certainly true that if you have wind, I'd rather avoid the hills, or there's often a rotor coming from the lee—you can see that really well on the time-lapse. For example, the Brazilians made a film called Ziclo, which is "cycles" in Portuguese, and they have some time-lapses at the beginning where you can see that from the lee of the hill, it actually comes out like a static thermal. That's quite interesting. But for example, during my triangle flight, I noticed that around noon, or because it's very close to the equator, the sun really...
directly from above, and around noon you could see that the cloud shadows were actually always over a hill, and because there was little wind that day, they still worked as triggers, just like we're used to. So, it was definitely worth it to always fly toward the highest point. Otherwise, yeah, switching over isn't that difficult for me; it's just different to fly, and what I personally look at is basically how the terrain goes up and down.
in relation to the wind direction, so if the terrain drops off in the direction of the wind, there's often very, very little thermals. For example, there's a plateau in Brazil that rises very sharply and then slopes off slowly and flatly at the back, and on this plateau, there are often very, very few thermals, precisely because the terrain goes down at the back and the entire wind just flows down over a large area. On the other hand, the opposite situation, when the terrain rises slowly in the direction of the wind...
then it's often very lifty, so it carries you very well, you have lots of thermals all around, and it's often very good for finding thermals. I look at or analyze the flat terrain when there's wind based on these points, and before a stretch comes where the terrain goes down for a long time, I often try to turn up as high as possible because a dry spell often follows. So I analyze it more like that.
Well, it's not always that easy to see in the flatlands whether the terrain is rising or falling again. The steeper sections, of course, but if it's a gradual incline, especially when you're at a high altitude, it all looks pretty flat from above. Do you use any special maps for that, or are you prepared enough to know, "Okay, in this section, I know the terrain rises, so I can better calculate rising lines," and then it falls off again, and I know exactly there I'd better get over it quickly with high altitude and lots of speed so that I can find the next thermals a bit later? Or can you really still recognize anything like that from the air?
You're right, it's often difficult to really spot those smaller differences. So, yeah, if you look closely, you can often imagine where it has to go down and back up again because, for example, you often see riverbeds or things like that; they're in a valley, and then of course it has to go down towards the riverbed and back up on the other side. I definitely look at things like that. What I also have is XZ Track—I often fly with XZ Track as an instrument, and I also have a topo map loaded. That would also help me in case of doubt, and yeah, in Brazil or somewhere like that, I know the terrain well enough that I can actually estimate, or more or less already know, where it goes up and down. There are
Are there any techniques from lowland flying that you learned there which help you today when flying in Switzerland? That is...
I don't know, maybe also looking at the clouds more. I think that... yeah, I've already done that a bit more. I think when I started flying in the lowlands, I was already looking at the clouds more intensely than I had before in the mountains. That helped me there.
Looking at it the other way around, there are things where you'd say, "Now that I'm a mountain pilot with Alpine experience, I bring something that typical lowland pilots don't have." Puh, I don't know, maybe something like tight turns, where you'd say it's perhaps more meaningful in the mountains than in large lowland thermals, which often get wider as they go up, yeah.
I don't know if that's specifically mountain-related. I think if you're a classic lowland pilot, you're always pretty conservative, and I think sometimes it doesn't hurt to fly a bit more aggressively in the lowlands too. Maybe people coming from the mountains are more aggressive because they might not have had as many "downhill" flights in the lowlands, and so, especially in Brazil, when things are going well, you really have to...
be picky and really choose the best lift. I think you can already see that; I only flew with the Brazilians for a short time and we already saw that they don't optimize the lift quite as intensely as I do now, or as we Alpine pilots do. Did you film in Brazil again too? Yes, I recorded a few flights too. Yeah, that
Does that mean there will be a video of that too, maybe from your 270km record triangle? I don't have the whole...
But I probably recorded about two-thirds, or maybe the last two-thirds, of it, and I'm currently reframing the whole thing—selecting the clips and picking out some interesting points. And if I find the time, I'll put a video together.
Then I'll see if it's already finished by the time I've edited this podcast myself and put it online. Once it's done, I'll definitely include a link in the show notes, or maybe I'll add it later so that many people can hear it. People often listen to podcasts like these much later, so they can still look it up then. Sebastian, thank you for your great stories about everything from Brazil to the Alps, from movies to the great tech tips you gave. Thanks so much for everything, and I wish you as much long-lasting fun as possible, and maybe also always some moments where you say, "Oh, I haven't been here yet," even though you've already been to so many different corners, so that you can experience things anew again and again, and with that, always again...
so that you can really keep having great flying experiences there for a long time to come.
Yeah, thanks for the interview, it was a pleasure. And thanks for your commitment to paragliding—it's great how you always pick up the latest news and prepare it like this, I really appreciate that.
was episode number 70 of Podz-Glidz featuring a conversation with Sebastian Benz and Lucian Haas. In the show notes for this episode on Lu-Glidz, you will find a number of additional links, including of course to Sebastian's YouTube channel with the absolutely stunning hyperlapse videos. You can find the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz online at www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com. Lu-Glidz is spelled l u minus g l i d z.
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See you next time, ciao.