I had a red glider, yeah, bright red. Flight clearance, yeah, I don't know, we're flying, we have to fly to Iquique, yeah. And then we're passing by there and at that moment two jets take off, turn away and really shoot towards me at my eye level in low flight. And I'm like, my god, my god, now they're going to shoot me down.
And then they basically shoot straight up in front of me with afterburners, shoot straight up and pull away.
Podz-Glidz, the Lugleins podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Daniel
Törgers and
Lucian Haas at the microphone.
There are probably only a few athletes who manage to reach the world's top level in several completely different disciplines in their lives. The German Daniel Türkas is one of them. In 2002, he competed in the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, back then as a snowboarder in the halfpipe. Today, the 46-year-old is part of the German paraglider national team and is currently ranked 15th in the world ranking. Daniel still connects other worlds in his life. In addition to various jobs in the automotive industry, he also worked for three years as sales manager for the paraglider manufacturer Swing. During that time, he gained some interesting insights into the industry. Daniel talks about all of that and more in this 78th.
episode of Podz-Glidz. Among other things, it's about how he got into paragliding alongside snowboarding and why he doesn't see himself at the end of his development here yet. Daniel gives insights into the sometimes difficult relationship between paraglider manufacturers and the pilots as end customers. We talk about the topic of sustainability and why Daniel, for example, pays for CO2 compensation for all his flights, including those to paragliding competitions. Additionally, he gives tips on why you shouldn't close yourself off as a Gleitschirm-Blog to competition flying and which skills are the most important to ensure that safety remains the top priority. Furthermore, he has quite a few memorable flight experiences in store.
If you enjoy Podz-Glidz, why not support my work on this podcast as a patron? You can find out how that's possible, easily and without any obligation, on my podcast's website—specifically on the "Förder" page.
Daniel, should paragliding become an Olympic sport?
That's a good question to start with. There are pros and cons, I'd say. Why not? Especially now, with the Olympics in Beijing, the way it was, yeah, it was controversial.
The publicity for the sport and overall, it will certainly do well. I mean, I might compare it to skateboarding. They never wanted to be in the Olympics either. And the snowboarders didn't either. But then, when the Olympics happen, it's naturally still pretty much the biggest place you can go as an athlete. Yeah, bigger than the World Championships or the European Championships and so on. The construct of the Olympics, as it is currently and where it takes place, etc. And the politics surrounding it can be discussed controversially.
You have Olympic experience yourself. You were in Salt Lake City in 2002, though back then as a snowboarder. Do you still have good memories of that? I
I have mixed memories.
In that sense, it was obviously my big goal. Even back then, I competed in Snowboard Halfpipe. And I also basically did the World Cup tour for four years. During my studies, while I was studying mechanical engineering. Okay, for the first one or two years, I still lived in my car during the winter. That was a bit heavy. But I absolutely wanted to snowboard. And snowboarding was suddenly the ticket for me as a poor student to see the world. And so it developed with sponsors and the association and then paid trips and so on. Of course, in 1998, it was already quite close, it was Nagano, the first time it was Olympic. I was also in Japan twice for Snowboard World Cups. It was of course already cool as a student with wanderlust and the urge to see the world.
And then I actually qualified by a very narrow margin in the very last competition, in the very last possible run. And in that sense, I qualified so late that I was even too late for the official dressing. But then of course it was cool to be allowed to ride and to take part in the Olympics. The whole event and everything around it, and the opening ceremony, that was real goosebumps, I have to say. So I have good memories of that. And the halfpipe was also super well-set up, and it was the first time that a stadium was basically built all around the halfpipe. It was similar to how it is now in China, where thousands of people cheered for you when you did your run.
And I didn't delude myself into thinking I might win. Maybe the finals, maybe the top 10—I wasn't that bad. But I got injured. And in a rather tragic way, too. Not while snowboarding itself, but during a relaxation sport: volleyball.
After that, after training, on the day before the competition. My coach basically jumped on my foot during the blocking. My ankle was dead. And I didn't want to give up and wanted to do the run anyway. Or rather, participate. And with tape and painkillers and everything, nobody knew. I could do anything that involved jumping forward, but I knew landing backward would be critical because a lot of pressure goes on the ankle in the transition. In the halfpipe, I mean. And then I fell. Because I just couldn't put the pressure on the ankle. And I also messed up my shoulder in the process. But I still didn't want to give up. And I thought, okay, you get two runs.
And I thought, yeah, maybe I just landed it slightly off or something. Well, then I did the same run again. And again on the last jump I'd saved for, basically the hardest one, with the backward landing. It was called a Switch Hook Flip back then. A flip, two rotations. And yeah, the same program again. Boom, right back onto the same shoulder. Because the ankle just didn't hold up. Yeah, and so the experience was a bit mixed. Because of course I was wrecked. I can still feel my shoulder to this day. And, well, I couldn't perform as well as I wanted to. And on TV, ah, now he's fallen. No one knew that I'd just destroyed my ankle the day before. Yeah. That's why it was mixed feelings. Everything all at once.
I would do it again. I'd probably do it exactly the same way. I went into rehab and then, six weeks later, I was in Japan to finish off the World Cup tour. And yeah, I basically finished the season and my career as fifth in the world ranking.
Why did you call it a day back then? Was it also because of those experiences at the Olympics, where you say, yeah, my body is so battered now, it can't handle it anymore?
Yeah, my body handled everything relatively well. I was always very well-trained, too. But the reasons were actually different. I was 27 at the time and, purely in terms of age, I was starting to be considered old. And in Halfpipe, Snowboard, or Big Air, you have to take it on the chin if things don't work out. And I thought to myself, yeah, and now I'm doing four more years until the next Olympics. I've been to European Championships, World Championships, I've seen the world. And my studies were also nearing the end. And I knew I had to write my thesis and take my final exams now. And that summer, I probably wouldn't be able to train like I did in other summers. Because that had already become so professionalized over those four years.
From, oh, it's still a bit freestyle and we have our own wax men and our own physios. In the national team. And it was clear to me that if I didn't keep training, even in the summer, I wouldn't be able to maintain my level or get better. And then also finishing my studies. And overall, I said, okay, actually now is a good time to stop. I can finish my studies and basically close that chapter.
Okay. And then paragliding came as a replacement. It
it even started during that time. So I started in '97, at that point.
Okay, so 2002 was the Olympics, '97, so five years before that, you were already doing paragliding as well, parallel to snowboarding.
Yeah, and I actually took it with me often. At least at the European competitions. And I saw all the Alps, from east to west. And I often had my glider with me. And I had some great experiences there. Snowboarding in the mornings or even going powder riding in Darmstadt. Yeah, where it... Then change toys, head out with the glider, go flying. Even then, in the spring, always flying thermals. Or just an evening glider, I can remember. Everyone was waiting to take the lift back down because there was no snow at the bottom. I just flew down and was back again half an hour before everyone else.
How did you get into paragliding? Was it just because you were already in the mountains for snowboarding and then thought, "that could be something too"? Or did you see someone flying again? Tell me about it.
Flying has always been fun for me somehow. That's why, even in snowboarding, I didn't care about the rails; I wanted to fly. So I did halfpipe and big air, and I was already a windsurfer and a skateboarder. Even then, jumping and the ramps were always what I enjoyed the most. And before that, I went skiing with my parents from a young age. Before I started snowboarding. And we always drove past Kössen. To our caravan, which we always had on the Steinplatte. On the Austrian side in Weidring. And I've always seen them flying there. And I thought, yeah, that actually looks interesting, but I was still a bit too young or something. And through windsurfing, it was actually... I was always in Denmark, and then there was once a vacation with very little wind.
And we were bored. And then we—I helped out a bit too, as an assistant windsurfing instructor at the school there. And then they—well, we also cleared out a bit. And they had this round canopy that you typically tow behind the boat. And I said, Yay, that's a great thing now for fun in the lulls. Let's try it. And they were like, no, no, we've done that before. And the boat is too weak. And the guy dragged it through the mussel beds. And he didn't look good afterwards. Yeah, well. Then we need something with more power. Let's just hang it on the car here. We have VW buses and stuff. Well. And that was basically the project of the day, that we took this one, which was already repaired a bit with tape.
Well, there was no gear for it. So, as an engineer, I built one out of a seat trapezoid. And then we hung that on there. Then we said, this is basically a towing track, which was the access road for the surf spot. It went through the dunes. Nothing public. Just a road. A gravel path. Yeah, let's give it a try. We'll do it very carefully. One person drives. One hangs out of the door as the communicator and watches what happens. And then everyone was like, yeah, let's do it. The head of the school said, you guys can do it. I have nothing to do with it. Yeah, and then we tried it. I had to be the guinea pig, because of course it was my idea and my construction. And it actually worked out well.
So we started off slow and ran behind it. Didn't take off. A bit faster, a bit faster. We did it step by step. And in the end, everyone was like, you know, it was maybe 500 meters long. Went up a bit and then back down gently. There were others there too, waiting for the wind. Sometimes landed right next to the coffee table from one of those old windsurfers. Ah, that was the highlight. And at the end of the day, even the head of the flight school wanted to do it too. Yeah.
From the, sorry, from the surf school. Yeah. And then I came home and told my buddy back then, who's still my buddy today, about it. I was like, "Hey, we did this and that," and I told him about the experiences. Two weeks later he called and said, "Hey, I bought a glider. I don't know, maybe on eBay or something back then. I don't remember what model it was, but it was pink. I don't even know if it...
Ebay already existed back then, it gave 97. Exactly.
That was like the early days of the internet. Wherever that was. Wherever that was. I have a glider. Yeah. Come on, let's do that here too. Yeah. And back then, there were three of us motorcycle buddies. And the three of us said, okay, then we took the father's Benz because it had a roof hatch. So you could have the communicator, the driver, and the pilot again. And back then, I was still living in Erlangen, we drove into Franconia and looked for a farm track. And we had no clue. And it wasn't a canopy, it was a glider. We already knew enough to know that you have to pull on it somehow. We managed to set it up. We drove off carefully. We knew we had to watch out a bit. That was in November. And the field was hard and slightly frozen.
And then we did it with some caution, but of course without any plan or clue. Long story short: we all took off. We all flew a bit. One buddy ended up heading towards the field in some kind of lockdown. But because we never did it with really crazy height and a lot of speed, but rather cautiously, because we already... nobody is hurt, except for a bit of scraping and bruising. But we then buried the project and said, well, it doesn't really make sense like this. Let's go flying for real in the mountains. Then the three of us drove to Kössen, because that's where we'd seen the gliders. We marched into the shop. Said, look, we have a glider here and all that gear.
We want to go flying here now. And what are we supposed to do here?
He looked at us, three young guys. Then he looked at the glider. He said, "With that thing, the others are flying. Now, of course, no one can see each other. So it's basically even better gliding and we're one-on-one with your bag there. And that's not allowed. And if you go flying with that thing here in Kössen, I'll personally report you. And we were like, oh." Then there was a brief silence. But then he scanned us roughly again. "If you want to learn this properly, then go to Westendorf and sign up at the school there."
So you did that too?
And we did that as a trio. Exactly, I did that too. Then we learned how to fly properly and started flying for real.
How quickly was it clear to you—even as a snowboarder, you were already a real athlete and all that—that you also wanted to do paragliding in competition mode?
Not at all. It actually developed that way. I have to say, I was lucky back then with Otto in Westendorf. He noticed I was an athlete and didn't have much money, so he supported us. He always supported the people he liked. And then the development happened relatively quickly. I mean, I did the basic course and I must have had some talent. During the last high-altitude flight of the basic training, someone forgot their radio. They said, "Well, Daniel, you can fly without a radio too. You can do it. Go ahead." So I flew out there, started soaring, and just flew around for about an hour and a half until they started waving at me frantically.
I should go now, everyone's finished, I should come in and land too.
And then I did 50 flights under it and did my Sopi and at the same time SIV training. And even there it was like, okay, last flight, do your program, do the DRV safety program, whatever you want. I think you don't need radio supervision anymore. And then like, okay. And then flight 50, why? My old Diskus back then, a Diskus 1000 or something. Yeah, well, I think you can fly something better now. And then he basically sold me his Hochleister. And since then I've been flying the Hochleister. It was an Xyon from Nova back then, he said, yeah, that's what you're going to learn to fly on now. And I was like, yeah, alright.
Really? Yeah, well, I'll go up here in Westendorf and pull a full stall, you watch it, okay. And if you think that's good and I feel safe stalling. That was basically the week after the SIV training. Then I stalled the Xyon, already with my heart pounding, but it went well. Then I did another one right away. He said, yeah, that's fine, looks good. And that's pretty much how my high-performance career started.
That means it was pretty early.
Yeah.
Just after the training
plus a bit of SIV training and then I fly the high-performance one. Although, at that time, I think the high-performance ones were actually the gliders that could really fly. The others were more like real parachutes. And people were much more willing back then to probably take that step and say, okay, I need one of those.
Yeah, I had confidence, you know. I thought to myself, if my flight instructor says I can do it, then why not? And then I said, okay, I'll check if I can do the reset button, the full stall, do I feel comfortable with it? Yeah, I did that over ground. And then I thought, yeah, okay, so I've got that for myself. Well, I have to say, I already had extreme sports experience. I knew what extreme situations were, how to stay cool in them. I knew exactly how to coordinate my body, upside down and in spirals and rotations, and where my arms were at any given moment. That helps with those kinds of sports, of course. And then it developed like that, where we caught them and then spirals and seats and wing-overs.
Sats were just coming up, so you basically had fun under the glider. But at the same time, there was always this ambition, like, oh yeah, have you already done the Pinzgau from Westendorf or something and back again? No, and where do you have to fly through there and bam. And so it developed a bit with cross-country flying.
Well, you're still in Berlin today. You're a competition pilot for a German national team, doing these big cross-country flights. At the same time, you just said that from snowboarding, you also had that body awareness for rotations and everything else. Why didn't you become an agro pilot?
In a sense, I am also an agro pilot, though nowadays you'd call that a freestyle pilot. And my next glider was an Argon. With that one, what was important to me at the time was that the glider was suitable for cross-country flying, but that you could also fly maneuvers with it, like loops and wing-overs, yeah. And stalls and stuff. That always seemed to go together for me somehow. But I also always found it attractive to play bird, yeah. To be a bird and move through the skies. There wasn't really an agro scene back then or anything. Pilots would do a few agro maneuvers, but it only really developed like that later on.
Yeah. And so it was like parallel paths, I'd say. I flew maneuvers with all the gliders. And if it was thermal and a good cross-country flight day, I'd go out for a cross-country flight too. Because that's what you do with a paraglider, yeah. And then it became clear, yeah, I'm not so bad at what I do.
And I thought, yeah, maybe I could go to a competition. That was in Berchtesgaden. A long time ago. I can't even tell you anymore. I think a Bavarian one or something. I thought, okay, I'll take a look at this competition flying thing. I'd been flying for maybe four or five years, I guess. At that time, I already had the Trango Race.
And then I learned the hard way that I have to take time off to actually... it was a disaster. We only had rain there. And I had a tent back then. I sat in that tent in the rain for four days. I'd taken time off and thought, great. And then on the fifth day they said, okay, we're sorry, it makes no sense. It was just a classic north-side blockage that wouldn't clear up.
The competition was cancelled and called off. And I was like, well, that's not it. I knew that sometimes you have to wait out a storm. But even with snowboarding, sometimes it just wasn't possible if there was a storm or a blizzard. But that wasn't as critical weather-wise. Paragliding is already quite demanding. What you need for paragliding. And I had, maybe I should mention this too, after the summer, so after I stopped, I decided, my studies are over, I'm going to make up for my summer deficit now. Because I had a summer deficit from summer training on the glaciers. And then I was in Chile for three months and was in Australia and New Zealand and did everything with a surfboard and a glider.
So in Chile, just glider. Australia, New Zealand, surfboard and glider. Like, I travel, but my sports gear is always with me. And that's actually stayed that way until today. I don't travel without sports gear. And then we also did that classic 180 kilometers from Iquique—so from, what's it called, Antofagasta there, Hornitos, to Iquique—we flew that. We wanted to set a record there. Which we actually managed to do. But that's a story in itself, actually, also pretty wild with the airspace. Maybe
We'll get back to that story later. I'll come back to it. I'll leave that for later. Before we drift off completely, let's stay with this competition story for a bit. Now, your first competition—literally or not just literally, but actually—really fell through, as you just told me. Yeah. I've experienced something similar before. Yeah. Where you really say, I have to stick to these dates with competitions to say, I want to go flying, and then you're stuck somewhere and it doesn't happen. And you say, I'm basically rooted here now. Yeah. Why did you still, despite that bad experience, get to the point where you say, it still appeals to me so much? I do these competition flights, competition stories, and I really set these dates and then align my year accordingly, because you probably also have to align your vacation around it.
And a bit of that feeling of saying, I can really do this, today you're flying with PWC circus and all that. So that you really say, then I'll take those weeks off and have to fly to Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, or wherever.
So, it's like this. I have one, and back then, the first GPS units, like that blue MLR, were coming out. I still have one of those too.
in the drawer. In case you need another one. Yeah, thanks.
And that was around that time. And that's when this thing with the online XContest also came up, if I remember correctly. Plus, minus, don't ask me, it was a long time ago. And then I thought, well, that's also a type of competition. And I'm good at flying routes. So I pick out the nice days and just submit a few routes. And then I have a kind of comparison with others, yeah. And that little bit of a competitive feeling with it. Yeah, and it developed in such a way that I suddenly, I think three times or so, four times. Well, I had a phase where I did it very intensively and was German champion multiple times.
I did some research. Yes. And you won this XC championship three times and came in second once.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I have a few trophies standing behind me here, but there are also some from snowboarding, and that's just, yeah, that was a while ago. And I did that, and I was basically, some people called me the German course guru. I opened up a few triangles from Garmisch that suddenly apparently bore my name. The Türkast Triangle. Triangle, exactly. Yeah. And that was like triangle flying, that was my thing. At the beginning, one-way, I realized, one-way. I absolutely wanted to fly to Lake Como in Italy from Braunegg, which I almost managed. But I had to turn around at the Amaloya Pass and then I had to trek all the way back and stay overnight in between, and then fly back the rest the next day.
I didn't really do that, no, I preferred triangles. Yes, triangles, or you land at home and get most of the points. Or at least in the... in the vicinity of where you took off. Because that's always the second part of the adventure, it was always coming home. Coming home then. Yes. Where I was sometimes more afraid than in the air during the separation. And then came,
Swing was already a sponsor of mine back then. And then I was like, okay, now I'm supposed to become German champion for the eighth time. How much longer am I going to keep doing this? Yeah, I mean, back at Speikboden again. The same thing. Back then, Speikboden was more current than Grente. Now I could take another look at that. And that was pretty much exactly ten years ago. We said, come on, we could also go to my wife's, I said. You know, she flies too. And we could go on another paragliding holiday. Instead of a kite holiday, let's do a paragliding holiday. And we went to Valle de Bravo in Mexico. And that's where I flew my first competition. So, you know, suddenly I'm not the only Lonesome Eagle. But with 100, 150 pilots.
And there's a predefined task. And you have to fly that, the turning point. You can't say, oh, I'll do it longer or shorter now. And I realized that's really fun, yeah, with them. Cool community, racing. And I wasn't that bad either. I think I flew into the top ten. And then I thought, okay, that's totally awesome. It's really fun. And at the same time, then the kids came along. And then it got difficult with the flexibility. Because it's already evaluated in the online XContest, how flexible you are regarding work. Can you move the good days, the big days? Can you go there? Are you willing to go there? Wherever the big routes are being flown.
I thought, well, at least that's easy to plan. The dates are fixed. You can plan for that. It's easier to arrange with family and work. Why don't I give it a try? Yeah, and ten years later—or a few years later, well, now it's ten years later—national team, World Cups, and World Championships, and currently 14th in the ranking.
Now you said, okay, these XC pilots, the rankings are also oriented a bit towards who has the time and who can take the time and stuff. But if you fly such an international competition circus with PWC and things like that, it might also be sorted a bit by who can actually afford it? You always fly far away, so mostly somewhere international, and then in the end, you also always have to have a lot of vacation because a PWC always lasts at least a week. And with travel and everything else, you're probably on the road for a competition circus for at least four weeks a year, if not more.
Yeah, well, I did it that way; especially when the kids were small, I didn't do any PVCs for about four or five years. And I didn't go anywhere. I just did the German league competitions around here, where it wasn't so much of a hassle. They don't last that long either; they aren't a whole week or even two, like the FAI Class 1 competitions—so the European and World Championships or the Superfinal, which are ten days. I just scaled it back a bit. But you can still get, let's say, very good points at the German Open or somewhere else. Sometimes, or at pre-PVCs. Sometimes even better than if you go to an extremely high-level, high-entry World Cup. Flying into the top ten there is already very, very difficult.
It's easier to maybe fly into the top five in something like a European or Alpine Cup or those kinds of competitions.
Do you choose competitions based on how many points you might be able to collect for the ranking in the end?
By now, yes. Because if you're 100th, 200th, or 300th in the ranking, then of course you can collect points even in competitions that aren't as high-profile. I mean, it's like, at least three tasks and a certain minimum number of pilots. And the better the pilots are in the ranking, the more points the competition gives. For the winner and, accordingly, for the other places. Now, four results count toward the ranking. And now I have four top ten results in high-profile ones. Just like the Trofeo. That's also basically like a World Cup or sometimes even like a Superfinal in terms of field.
And that's why, for the last two or three years now, while I've been in the top 20 in the world,
I'm being a bit selective. So, now the kids are a bit bigger. My wife is tolerant—thanks for that—and understanding. So I can say, okay, I might do a PWC a bit further away, but then somewhere where you can fly directly. You know, like Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, or even Macedonia. Those are among the top destinations for me in terms of flight accessibility.
Because the weather there is stable enough at certain times.
Exactly. And I do the rest here. And it's a bit of a lucky break. And luckily, I also have an arrangement with my boss that if it rains, I open up my laptop. And then my home office is in Dicentes or my home office is at some campsite in Tolmin or something. And then, when it rains, I just work and don't lose any vacation time.
That's a good arrangement, of course. What is it—I have to be honest, I'm not really a ranking-oriented athlete or anything like that. I have an incredible amount of fun flying, but I don't really care about that part. So, what is interesting for someone like you about flying for a world ranking? To somehow say, oh, I'm now 15th or 19th, and ah, I've improved to 14th. What does that give you?
It's actually a side effect, I have to say, the results for me now. I just have a blast racing with my friends. It's like a family. And when you've been in that circus for a while, you get to know the Spaniards, the Slovenians, and the Colombians. And I can speak a few languages, so I can use my languages here and there. I talk Czech with the Czechs, Spanish with the Spanish speakers, and English with the others. A bit of French with the French, and well, there's German too. I like this community. We're all, like, flying—guided flying with friends, you could say.
At an extremely high level. And this game we play is already a very complex, demanding game. As far as tactics go, line choice, efficient flying. What are the others doing? Many people don't even—I mean, paragliders understand, but also others who ask me, "Yeah, what are you actually doing there?" I always say, look, it's like a sailing competition. First, it's about positioning before the start. And then it's like three-dimensional chess with the elements of nature. And 100 other things.
And I think that's awesome. It's fun. It's exciting.
And you also learn to fly quickly and efficiently. And I mean, I'm still a cross-country pilot. And I also do the Lonesome Eagle sometimes. It's just maybe not about the longest distance anymore. But rather how fast, at what pace can I fly the 200 or 250 triangle and get back home again.
And somehow, there's this drive for further optimization and improving efficiency. To fly more beautifully and be a better pilot, and so on. That's what actually drives me. And that's probably also because I'm an engineer. You just want to improve and optimize everything a bit. And get better yourself. I just enjoy getting better.
Well, in this competition circus, there are all sorts of different types of pilots. Even in terms of their flying style. There are some who always race ahead at high speed. And they say, okay, if I'm lucky, I'll make it through. Then I'm really the king of the task. Even if they usually don't end up very far forward in the final ranking. Because they often end up at the bottom because of that. Then there are the others who always control everything very safely from behind. Hovering and watching. And then trying to figure out the best line at the end. And they might win something that never shows up in the tasks. But then they still end up relatively far forward in the final ranking in terms of points. What kind of flyer are you in that whole swarm out there?
So at the beginning, I was also the type who preferred to push forward and thought, I'm a cross-country pilot. I have experience and I'm doing something different now.
But you shouldn't underestimate the swarm intelligence of a lead gaggle of top pilots. That's why the mantra is actually more about staying with the group. And especially when? And how? And at the beginning? Or when do you attack? Actually, the best pilots understand the game best because they can judge best when it's time for control and a bit of restraint, and when it's time for an attack. And finding that balance between control and attack. And of course, you have to be a top-top-top pilot. And be able to climb ultra well.
Actually, it's mostly won by climbing and flying in lines and efficiently. Because under good conditions, we all fly full throttle at a high level. And then, with these really good pilots, you're circling tight, working together, fanning out, and stuff like that. And that's just fun. I'd say I want to be the pilot who has the ideal, depending on the conditions. Oh, it's shading off. I have to... Oh, I've spotted something the others don't see. That's a lot of observation—observation, as Russ Ogden says. The game. Who's doing what where? Someone's breaking away. Yeah, why is he doing that now? Did he see something I didn't see? What do I do if I'm now the highest and topmost of the lead group?
How much task is left to fly? When do I break away and when?
As I said, it's a very complex, but also highly interesting and very exciting game. It's more of a mind game, actually.
So, are you more of a head player than a gut player?
Man, I don't know.
Gut feeling is intuition, and intuition comes from experience and knowledge.
So, the more experience and knowledge you have, the more intuition you might have. But originally, that also comes from the head, from analytical thinking, which then solidifies into a gut feeling. That's how I'd probably want to describe it. I don't know which category I fall into. Something in between is probably the optimum.
If you had to give, let's say, the most important tip you could give someone, how do you become a good competition pilot at a very high level? What is the most important skill for you there?
The glider's handling, to start with. You have to know your craft. Right? You have to feel comfortable with the glider you're flying, be able to push it to its limits, stall it, do flybacks, so that you have your reset buttons and pitch control. Ultimately, flying is nothing more than permanent pitch control and keeping the angle of attack in the correct range. That's the basis, so that you have the capacity in your brain to take care of the rest. Tactics, the line. What are the others doing?
Observe and process all the parameters, I'd say. You have to process so many parameters all the time and make very quick decisions based on them. Especially at the highest level, it's about split-second decisions. Do I bank left or do I bank right? It could be that with that, you'll bomb out or not. We just had a case like that in Colombia. I thought I'd fly with Honorar, which is a safe bank, but I should have preferred flying with Baptist. Because he made it to the goal and we didn't. We were standing just a kilometer away. Everything was calculated very narrowly.
So, glider mastery. No matter the category. It's good. And then, I think it makes sense—and I'd recommend this to every pilot, even just for fun. Nowadays, there are so many beginner competitions, like some Ozone Open or BGD Weightless or you name it, and Newcomer Challenge and Junior League or whatever. Just take a look at them, because you learn from good pilots and you have faster progress. Like I said, you have a recovery and all sorts of things, and often even tasks like briefing, debriefing, and yeah, you just learn to fly better, to fly faster and faster on a competition like that. Also through the exchange with the other pilots, and then just give it a go.
Of course, you should also have a bit of cross-country flight experience. And the rest then follows. Yes,
you just have to invest time to gain experience in order to become a good competition pilot, I think.
You've just put glider control first. How often has it actually happened that the thing went haywire, even with good glider control?
Rarely.
Very rarely.
Of course, especially in the early days. I've flown a lot of prototypes too.
So the two-liners we have now. I don't want to say children's birthdays, but compared to some three-liner competition protos, they're very relaxing. And of course, I've had a few close calls, I'd say. But in almost 3,000 hours and 25 years of flying, I'm actually a bit proud that I've never needed the rescue. Even though I've always pushed my limits. But you have to push your limit, but slowly. Don't overdo it.
Did you never get injured either? No.
Yeah, well, I sprained my ankle once when I was running across the landing field.
I've already landed, you know, with the glider up I stepped into a hole. And once in Australia while soaring, I overdid it a bit and had a collapse, close to the ground. And that led to a few bruises. But none now that would have landed me in the hospital or that I would have had to labor over for a long time. Snowboarding was already worse. Or motorcycling.
Do you fly then? Would you say, compared to other competition pilots, you're particularly safety-conscious?
It's important to me to be safety-conscious, let's put it that way. There are certainly competition pilots who are willing to take a bit more risk. But what is risk? Risk always depends on what you're trained for. And that's how you minimize your risk. That's why it's important, as I said, to train those maneuvers. And I do. I've done hundreds of full stalls. Or dynamic stall to dynamic stall to dynamic stall. Nice and steady on the axis. You know, I know what I need, where I want to develop further, and what skill set I need to keep being safe. That also includes the weather, of course. Where is the wind coming from? Am I in the lee? And how strong is the lee?
And can I handle it? And how much ground clearance do I have? Yes. But I'm not ready to risk my life or an injury at any point. Because you have to hold yourself back a bit when you're in competition mode. Oh, watch out. Yes. Here. Now it's critical. Now you really have to be fully present. And then you might have a phase where you're close to the rock, where the thermals are just starting. With many other pilots. That's naturally stressful. You really have to be 100 percent there to minimize the risk. If necessary, I'll fly away then and look for something else.
Do you also regularly go to SIV training over water with your competition gliders? Or do you say, no, I basically incorporate that into my normal flights as a training program and just pull into a full stall every now and then to keep the feeling?
I mainly do full stalls in the winter with my freestyle glider. So, during our no-thermals time. Because the skills are the same. Of course, I've already reached my end position. I'm so stalled. I know exactly where it collapses. And I know, sometimes I do it on purpose and for fun. More on the negative side, maybe. Pulling negative is also great for releasing hangs. Actually better than stalling. Forget the stable line. It makes no sense at all to reel them in like a fishing rod. And I do practice that, yeah. But I'm also like this. I tend to spare my competition glider. And I mean, it's mega fun to fly loops with them because they have so much energy and long lines.
But it puts a strain on the glider's structure. And that's why I hold back a bit and prefer to deploy the anti-G if necessary. If you're too high in the target, which you actually shouldn't be. Because with that, you've lost time.
Sure. Daniel, let's do a little change of subject. You work in the industry today. And there, as far as I've read, you sell—let's just say you sell—bio-based chemicals for the automotive industry. To put it simply. But in the meantime, you also worked for three years for a paraglider manufacturer. That was in 2011. Until 2014, you were at Swing. And there, as sales manager. What appealed to you about that role? You had already worked in the industry before that. But what was it that made you say, I'm really switching fields now. And I'll try my luck in the paraglider industry.
Actually, Günther—the managing director of Swing and my sponsor at the time—was sort of the driving force behind it. He said, "Yeah, we need someone like you. You bring sales and marketing experience from the industry. Don't you want to come join us?" And it went back and forth like that for a bit. And I was like, I don't know.
And of course, you can make better money in the industry. And at that point, I was still on that trip—thinking, I'm going to have another career in the industry. But then I thought, okay, why not? I have the opportunity to turn my greatest passion into a career.
And now I have the chance to do that. In five years, I might regret not having tried. And I think you have to be brave in life sometimes. And then I said, okay. And at that time, I was working for GE Plastics. That's also from Saabik. Saudi took it over. And it was kind of... I wasn't 100 percent into it anymore. I had already been thinking a bit about switching. And then I thought, okay, why don't we try this.
And I reached an agreement with Günther. Okay, sales, marketing, but also competition gliders and competition development. I said, okay, for me that makes sense. I'll come if I can fly more than before. And
did the plan work out?
Pretty good. At that time, we had the Core 1 and Core 2. And I was involved in the development there and was able to contribute as an engineer. Especially the harness, the Swing Connect Race. I wanted a harness that worked really well. And I optimized and contributed a lot to that. And that harness was really successful. And that was already fun. And I had the opportunity to fly with the prototypes and do photo shoots. And because of that, you automatically fly more, even if it's work, like photo shoots and so on. And that was already fun. It was a good time. I don't regret doing it either. And I was able to push the competition flying a bit again. Because it was basically also part of the marketing job.
To promote and push the competition material we had at the start. And it was a good time. But we also intentionally said on both sides, okay, three years, let's do three years. And then we'll see. Also, I wanted to leave the back door open so that I could go back again. I thought three years is sellable, even on a CV. And so it was a good time. Actually, I have to say. I'm also grateful to Günther.
But after the three years, did you say, no, that's enough experience in that field? Or why did you actually go back into the industry?
My two children were also born during that time.
When I started. That's why my wife was heavily pregnant with my son. And then my daughter came along two years later. That was all right during this period. And then I said, yeah, what's next? I also thought about maybe getting involved and such. Or not.
Back then, the Ukraine crisis was also happening—it's relevant again now. And we had production going on. Overall, it wasn't such a simple situation, strictly from a business perspective. And for myself, I also thought, maybe we should take some parental leave now. And now is actually the right time. To gain some distance. And to see, on both sides, in which direction and how things should proceed. And then I'm there for three years. I said, okay, now it's autumn. The contract is over. Now is a good time. Now it's quiet in the industry. I'd like to take parental leave. And then my wife and I looked at where the best wind is, globally, from October to January.
And then we wanted to go on another trip. And so we went to Western Australia. With our bags packed. The motto was basically "with kits and kites."
For four months then?
Yes, three. Because that was the maximum visa we were able to get. And then we were in Western Australia from October to January. It sort of happened like that. A headhunter called me and offered me the job that I started with. And it developed from there. But it dragged on and took a long time. And I was basically officially unemployed.
And then I came back. We had some back-and-forth conversations with Günther, and then I thought, okay, let's leave it. With my skillset as an engineer in the industry, I can simply provide for my family better. I have better opportunities. And so it just happened that I'm back in the industry now, in the automotive industry.
Now you've spent these three years looking into the paraglider industry. You've probably seen a lot of how it works. But you also have this management experience and other things from, let's say, big industry. What is it like, when you look at such a small paraglider industry from the outside with that big industry experience and the processes, quality standards, and other things that prevail there? How do you see it?
Well, I believe that the large manufacturers—and I don't have insight into all of them, but I have to assume that—there is already a very high demand to work professionally, to have high-quality products, and for the quality to really be right, because safety is a major factor. I'd say there's a very high standard there for professionalism. How it is in a real company. And it's also a very complex environment because you also...
sell and produce globally, and source globally. That's no easy task to manage properly and to communicate, and to ensure you also have the right products. However
Towards the customer, by that I mean those,
you have a very complex B2B, so business-to-business relationship with the flight schools and importers and everything, but you also do a lot of B2C, business-to-consumer marketing, because you have to address the pilots. It's actually a very complex environment when you take it all in. But it's also a very fiercely contested displacement market. Actually, there are too many manufacturers and it's too easy to become a manufacturer, including many small ones. And it's already fiercely contested. And I don't want to generalize now, but some flight schools are a catastrophe, so your customers, they just do it out of hobby and passion or because they didn't learn anything else or however the flight schools came into being.
There's also a very wide spectrum, I have to say, from very professional to very haphazard and "what, we made an agreement, oh what?" I haven't encountered anything like that on the customer side. It's also fought with hard balls in the automotive industry, even on the customer side. It's already a tough industry, but there was also a pretty high level of unprofessionalism and unreliability at times. Plus, very volatile. You also had a lot of influencing factors that you couldn't really manage. The weather is constantly bad, of course no one buys a glider then. Or even worse,
these forums are a disaster. I always stayed away from them, then I had to join briefly, and now I'm categorically staying away again because they only spread nonsense. And then you might actually have a good glider, but if there's an accident with it, it immediately becomes, of course, the glider's fault and never the pilot's, but safety always depends on the glider's decision, which ones I make, etc., and boom, you're not selling anything anymore. But you have no control over it at all. I'd say this industry as a whole is quite challenging.
Especially because you also say, because you're so close to the end customer in the end. As a manufacturer.
And the end customer, but unfortunately, you have to say, the majority simply have no idea what they're talking about. They're looking at it with half-knowledge and it's not well-founded, and there's no way you can argue with that.
How does it feel when you—I mean, you did marketing back then too—when you notice something like that, like saying, "Hey, I have to sell things to someone who actually has no clue about what they're buying."
I mean, ultimately, the sales partners have to develop that understanding too. But some are very opportunistic and can or have to—look, they're looking at their wallets too. As I said, it's not simple. And I don't want to generalize now. There's a very wide spectrum, even among the pilots, as we know. Some really make an effort, know their stuff, and learn it. I mean, that's a lot of knowledge you need as a good pilot. And I'd also like to give you a compliment here—both your blog and your podcast. It's well-founded. You can tell you're a science journalist and that you question things thoroughly, and I think it's a good source of information.
Well-founded, fact-based, unemotional—which is actually what you need for a discussion like this.
Yes, thank you very much.
Knowledge. We all need better training, more knowledge, more commitment. Paragliding might be a sport like any other, but actually, it's not. Because you already have to know a lot.
From your perspective, is it perhaps too simple to fly a paraglider or to learn it and get to the point of saying, "Now you're allowed to fly free"?
I think it's good that it's easy. That's also the beauty of it. However,
the awareness,
that it's easy to fly and anyone can do it—and I mean, if the conditions are right, in the morning, in the evening, on gliders, no thermal air, no wind, no danger really, right? But if people who have no clue and also no awareness think they have to fly into hard thermals on a strong day, and even into the lee, because they might not even know it, and they have no skills with their glider. The skillset doesn't match the conditions, which are invisible and can only be inferred indirectly through knowledge. Yeah, then it gets critical, of course, often. Right? And if I compare that to surfing, when the waves are monster-sized and I don't have the skills, yeah, then I see the waves are monster-sized and only idiots dare to go in there, and if they do, they don't get very far because the sea spits them right back out immediately.
When flying, you don't see how big the waves are, so to speak, or how demanding the conditions are. You have to know your way around the weather. And you need to have a realistic self-assessment of what your skillset is. Do I have my glider under such control that I can full-gas collapse, do flybacks, turn negative 180 degrees—those are the basic maneuvers for me that everyone should be able to do. I would also make SIV training mandatory as part of the training, modularly. There's basic training, there's cross-country training, there's SIV training, or maybe flight proficiency training, similar to how there are modules in professional aviation that you complete, or more modules in diving—better training for better awareness.
what people just
takes you to a higher pilot level. And of course, that takes time, which I have to invest. And if I don't have that, then I also have to accept for myself that I won't be going out to fly in every kind of weather and condition where others are having the greatest flights and experiences.
I had a podcast episode with a diving instructor who is also a diving instructor trainer, and he compared the training of paragliders and divers a bit. He described how divers have these much more tightly scheduled, or much smaller training packages, where you get a certificate and then a small one, and you gradually build on that. In paragliding, it would be like, you do a soaring training, then you do a thermals training, then maybe you add a freestyle component and other things, to emphasize the educational character of it even more, just to say, yes, paragliding is simply constant learning, and that should also be communicated accordingly, that it might be in the
...heads in there.
Yeah, I liked the approaches. I know, I can remember the podcast you're referring to right now. Yeah, I see it similarly. I often nodded along and thought, yeah, what he's saying makes sense.
In terms of your job, you also deal a lot with sustainability, with your bio-based chemicals, where it's about getting a climate-friendly industry going and things like that. How sustainable do you actually rank paragliding?
Our motor is the sun. That's already a good start.
Of course, like any sport, traveling somewhere emits CO2. I'm also involved in this—I personally think we have to look at what everyone can do themselves to make their own lives a bit more resource-friendly.
I think that's important and everyone should do it. And you can do a relatively lot without restricting yourself too much, I'd say. If you want to. I've also installed a massive solar system now. My whole roof is covered. As an example. That's why I live where you can fly. I don't have to drive far. I could theoretically walk to fly. And then walk up the mountain, here at Sulzberg. Or ride there by bike and walk up. For the competitions, of course, I do drive here and there sometimes. But I mainly drive to places that are relatively close to me in the area now. And luckily, many competitions are, let's say, less than two hours away by car. That's why I also fly very little in the French Alps. Not at all, actually, because it's a very long drive for me.
I choose them that way. My credo has always been—even back then when I was at Swing in Garmisch, so Ammersee, Garmisch was the closest—so I just drove to my triangles there. Now it's more like here, Kössen up to Ries. Now I do my flights here. I'd rather fly far than drive far.
Now, of course, I also get on planes sometimes. And I have to say, that's the thermal that's hardest for me. I've always liked traveling. And it opens up horizons. And it definitely has positive aspects. People should travel more. It would be good for society in general, for tolerance in society, if you also see where it's different, how it's different. I mean, we live here in the promised land compared to the rest of the world.
I try to find a balance there. Okay, maybe I haven't done any long-haul travel for a while. And now, for the national team matches or something, I'll do one. But I try to make sure it's maybe only one per season. And I actually—and I've been doing this for a while now—I compensate for my flights with quite a bit of money, even with Atmosfair or something like that.
That means so that the CO2 emissions are somehow offset. So Atmosfair does projects where, for example, forests are planted somewhere? Yes,
They do even more interesting projects. I actually saw a documentary about them on Arte and then switched from one compensation provider to Atmosfair, thinking, "I'd rather donate my money to them." And yeah, then I just transfer a few hundred euros on top of the flight cost.
Now, if you look at the PWC, the Paragliding World Cup scene, which really jets around the world and holds its competitions in all sorts of different places, where 100 or 150 pilots always come together plus luggage and everything else. Is that a topic within that framework? I mean, is it talked about, or is it actually a topic where we say they do it, but we paraglider pilots in general probably think about it way too little?
No, I think so. Depending on who you're talking to. I know more pilots who offset their flights, and when I said I do that, many also said that's a good idea and they'll look into it too.
For many, it's also their vacation. I mean, other people just fly somewhere for a holiday, and for me, it's also my vacation that I'm basically spending there now. Sure, it's a bit controversial. There are many other World Cup circuits, and on a large... well, it's also part of our system, let me put it that way, regardless of the level or the sport I mean, at the top level. The skiers, they also travel here and there, and yeah, it's hard to say, when you look at the rest of your life, you know, what my overall balance is like.
But there are also approaches, for example at the competitions, where they don't have daily [bottled water] anymore; there are lunch packages and in the past there was a water bottle every day. That doesn't exist anymore. Now you get a bottle or none at all and they say, okay, fill yours up, we provide drinking water, fill up your Camelbak. Some competitions are also already partially compensating through the entry fee. I don't know exactly how much. But it's definitely a topic that they are already considering.
Another topic of sustainability, also with your experience in chemistry, with bio-based materials. Would it be possible to build a paraglider more sustainably by using fabrics or other things—are there bio-based alternatives for that?
Yes. That's nylon. We don't primarily have nylon in our program right now, but there are also approaches in the industry for polyamide. Nylon is a trademark. It's polyamide. There are actually approaches to replace the petroleum-based raw materials with renewable raw materials. A lot is happening right now in our industry in general, but especially in the automotive industry. What do you have in terms of more sustainable materials? Sustainability conferences, LCA—so Life Cycle Analysis—are being asked for. The main drivers in automotive currently are, of course, steel and aluminum, the metallic materials.
But there is also already quasi CO2-neutral steel, where regenerative energy is used for steel smelting. A lot is happening there. And yes, we and the paraglider industry can also do something, especially regarding recycling. I mean, there are a few projects now. Not just wind bags, but there's also that French one, I think it's called Paracyclage. They sew jackets or backpacks or something from it again. You should really think about that. Yes, what am I doing? And end of life? And how often do I replace my equipment? And what happens afterwards? Yes, what else you think about. I mean, I already put a lot of effort into my children's things too. I repair a lot. I also enjoy repairing things.
To extend the lifespan as much as possible. The 3Rs: Reuse, Recycle, Reduce. And I also make an effort to list things on eBay Kleinanzeigen for very little money, so they can have another life. Purely from an economic or business perspective, it's not worth the effort to do that.
What do you do with your old glider?
Up until now, I've always been able to find a buyer for it. I've never had an old glider that was, let's say, ready for the bin. I've got my reserve now; I had two 9-year-old reserves that I donated to Cuba. They have that—I don't know what it's called right now—but they're always looking for material that's still okay. A reserve can last 15 years, or even 20. The main thing is a reserve; better a reserve, better an old reserve than no reserve. And they still had a year and a half left, and I didn't make use of that, so I donated them.
Let's slowly head towards the conclusion, but I said earlier that there's one story I still want to hear from you. Now let's jump back to Chile, because you said in 2003 you were in Chile for three months, just flying there, and you did this 180-kilometer cross-country flight from
...to Iquique, either from Antofagasta or nearby. And that was somehow something quite special. Tell me about it.
Yeah, so those three months, which were relatively early in my flying career, gave me a huge amount of benefit because I put in so many hours, and of course, we did full stalls and everything at the dune. I'd say we were pushing it pretty wild. It's great there in Iquique, you have 1,000 meters and you can go 1,000 meters up. And I'd been there before because I had a buddy in Santiago from flying, and I first flew in Santiago and then moved by overland bus to Antofagasta, and then I basically met the rest of the travel group there, and two friends of mine were also with them; they were all from Westendorf, and then the word was, we're moving now, basically from
Hornitos, I think it was called, the place where you can do dunes. That's all in the Antofagasta area, and then we drive from this launch site—I can't remember the name right now—we drive up there and everyone can fly towards Iquique for as long as they want, and the rest of us drive with the two pickups, or we'll pick you up. So we drove up there, but then the wind wasn't coming from the right direction at all. It always blows from diagonally behind, towards Iquique. The wind always comes in at a 45-degree angle. Then we had to go out in a pretty adventurous way on the other side, over a gravel path into a stone desert. Only three or four of us started alone, and we didn't expect to fly far. In that sense, I was also poorly prepared. My GPS battery was dead,
I had almost no drinking water and no radio either, because we thought, okay, we'll just fly a bit to Punta Arena, which is such a critical point because you always have to fly around those points and then through the lee.
So, the "Puntas" are these things that reach out into the sea. Yeah, exactly.
So, it's the foothills of the Andes, just like ridges that you fly along, and it winds along there, just like the road. You basically always have the sea in view, and then you have the road—I don't know, something between a few hundred meters to, let's say, no more than ten kilometers—and it winds along there and meanders, and the altitude varies too, let's say between a few hundred meters above the lower plateau, which is towards the sea, up to a thousand meters. And above that is the high plateau, which leads to the high Andes. Of course, you can't let yourself get blown away there.
And then back then, that was the Argon era, my buddy Wolfgang was there, he had the same glider as me and we, then there was also the flight instructor and there were three of us, and then he went down to land and the two of us were basically left. I think we started with four people and then they said we're flying a bit further and he had a radio and I didn't. And I kept saying, the GPS was empty, I had the passport too, everything in the car, money, everything in the car, my suitcase. And then, okay, so we just fly a bit more and at the beginning there were still those cars driving with us, you always saw them, okay, they were always within sight, the two white pickups with the gliders on them. And at some point I saw them driving away. I called out to Wolf, Wolf, what's going on, what's going on?
Yeah, yeah, we're flying, we're flying to Iquique. I told them we're flying, yeah. And I was like, oh, yeah good, then we fly. Then it was clear, we have to fly to Iquique. And I hadn't been to Iquique, I didn't know what was coming my way. I just knew there's a military airfield with jets where you need a flight clearance, and that can sometimes take a while to get, and then there's also this checkpoint, yeah, for this duty-free zone, it's like, I don't know, 50 kilometers before Iquique there's another checkpoint.
I didn't know any of that, though. Okay, so we're flying. Then we made sure to stay together, a bit ahead, a bit behind, and stuff like that. And I'm like, alright, so now I just have to fly. Then, of course, we got grouped up. I was like, yeah, when is this Punta Arena coming, Punta Arena? I had to keep shouting over to him. And at some point, it was like, yeah, we're past it. And I was like, ah, okay, that was the tricky part back there where it tossed us around, yeah. Because, basically, the wind is always cross and you have to, you can take a shortcut over this nose, but sometimes that's not possible or you have to fly way around it, but then you get too low to get back up. Already a bit tricky. Yeah. And so we just kept working our way along and working our way along, and there's nothing there, nothing grows, just a few withered cacti, but all the colors of stones you can imagine, from beige to dark green to red, very impressive.
And the sea was always on the left. And then I saw, oh, now we're getting to the jet floor. That was another one of those more demanding spots with a bigger jump, and then it got flat and low. I was like, ah, now I'm flying nice and low, maybe they won't see me, but that's total nonsense because, I mean, I had a red glider. Yeah, bright red. But I didn't dare go really high, yeah, because if anything, I'd rather stay low so I don't get in their way.
Flight clearance, yeah, I don't know, we're flying, we have to fly to Iquique, yeah. And then we're passing by there and at the moment we fly past, two jets take off, turn away and actually shoot directly at me at eye level in low flight. And I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, now they're going to shoot me down. And then they basically shoot vertically in front of me with afterburners, so it felt way too close, fucking loud noise, they shoot off vertically and turn away. Oh my god, I almost landed there. From pure shock. But what was good was that I found out later that we also flew over areas where you're not supposed to land.
Or if you land, you have to stay put and wait for the military to arrive, because the whole area is mined.
But you didn't know that, thankfully. That
I didn't know that, though, thankfully. That... With the mines, I didn't know, yeah. But I knew I couldn't go down to land, because otherwise we'd have to hitchhike or something, okay, the road was always there, somehow we would have made it, but the others were gone. Then we saw them at this customs post, that was pretty cool, they saw us and then I was like, Wolf, when is this Ikike coming? It's just desert, there's nothing there, yeah. When is Ikike coming? I, I, I was basically on edge, a bit at my limit already. Yeah, when is it coming? How many more dunes do I have to go around? And then we actually turned around and could see over these dunes and wham, huge city. Yeah, with palms and the sea and all, and I was like, Ikike! We made it, yeah.
And then I think to myself, why isn't anyone flying here? This is the Mecca of Ikike, we're the only two gliders in the air, yeah. Then we fly over Ikike and that road goes up on the right, I don't know if you've ever been there, yeah. At the moment we fly past it, Kaboom! A massive explosion, the slope slides off to the right, another Kaboom, yeah. And then we realized there was a flight ban because they were carrying out blasting for a new road. But for us, it was like welcoming firecrackers, so for me, I thought, yeah, we're there, at a huge altitude and boom, yeah. So I first wondered why no one was flying and then it was clear. And luckily we were far enough away and high enough, so no danger at all, but again like that
a quick adrenaline rush at the end, wondering why the mountain next to you is exploding. We said, "Yeah, and Wolf, where do we live? Where do we live?" They had already organized something, yeah, look, the Cabañas down there with the pool.
Then we basically flew in together, spiraled down, and landed on the green meadow next to the pool, one of the Pool Basic Cabañas, yeah, with
Welcome committee, yay, you're here, beer shoved into our hands, jumped into the pool, my bag was already waiting on my bed, and we basically just moved in. It was a very impressive experience and we actually set a new speed record for this route. We flew it in about six hours with an average of 30, which was very good at the time, I just hadn't documented it because I didn't have a GPS after half an hour since the battery was dead. But it was a great experience.
That means you can't look up this flight on XContest or anything like that. But things like that, I mean, always come down to the memory; that's what's important, what you count in life and all that. A story like that definitely burns deep into your brain, and those are the kinds of stories you'd probably like to tell your grandchildren someday later, about the exciting stories you had in your life.
Yeah, that was pretty much exactly 20 years ago now. 19 years, to be precise. Yeah, it was really impressive and it burned into my memory. I've had many other flights that were impressive and many great experiences, high-alpine, whatever. Flying really brings you great experiences, and the best thing about flying—and why I'm still as addicted as on the first day, if not even worse, I wonder sometimes—I think it's because you never stop learning and you can always get better, and more and more...
more aesthetic, bird-like, and safe. I also enjoy cross-country flying and landing somewhere like a bird; I do all of that with my Enzo. Top landings here, top landings there. With the goal of being a better, more aesthetic, more beautiful, more bird-like pilot.
A nice way to wrap up. Daniel, I'd suggest we talk again in maybe five years, and then I'll ask you what you've actually learned in those five years. Maybe that could be a nice podcast topic too. At least thank you for this episode; I found it very exciting, and yes, it's a broad field we've been exploring a bit, but I hope the listeners were able to take something away from it, learned something, or got some food for thought. Thanks for that. I wish you success, lots of success climbing the world ranking or whatever, and above all, success in the sense of having fun flying and getting those boosts where you just become more addicted to it, in a positive sense, so that you continue to have many beautiful experiences from it.
Thank you very much. I think you can learn something in every flight house, and even if it's just a short flight and a glide, you should approach it with that mindset. It was an honor. Thank you, I had a lot of fun, and keep it up.
See you next time.
Until next time.
See you next time.
Bye.