That's this "why" or "did I do something wrong" or whatever, and it'll probably be there for the rest of my life, but that's also okay, and I think that's the key point—that you have to accept that "okay" for yourself. Sometimes it's stronger, and sometimes it's almost not there at all, but it doesn't matter if you don't figure it out and know that it's just not clearable and doesn't actually play any role in the defect.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Simon
Von Fischer and
I'm Lucian Haas.
Paragliding can put you in situations that nobody wants to be in, even if they end up being harmless. For example, you take a major collapse while flying in thermals near the ground. The canopy turns exactly toward the rocks. Shortly after, you find yourself dangling freely over the abyss, held only by a few thin lines of your glider, which has become snagged in three tiny trees on a small rocky ledge.
That's exactly what happened to the Swiss Simon von Fischer in August 2021. The fact that the 41-year-old can report on it in this 98th episode of Podz-Glidz shows that, somehow, it ended well and without any lasting physical damage.
That said... nobody will be able to brush off such an incident without a trace. Even in the pilot's soul, scars can remain. Small injuries to the ego or, let's say, potholes in the enthusiasm one feels for flying from then on. That too is part of the residual risk of our beautiful sport. We just like to block it out and talk about it far too rarely. Unless, of course, you do it like Simon and tell the story.
If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting my work as a patron. You can find out how to do this easily and without any obligation on the support page of my blog Lu-Glidz.
Simon, if I'm seeing this correctly, you have a birthday tomorrow. That's right, yeah. Is that actually your second birthday you're celebrating this year? That
I've heard that a lot since the incident. But actually, this is still my normal birthday. The other one is just... something else.
In between. If we call that other thing something in between, let's call it your unofficial second birthday or something. What special thing happened on that day?
Yeah, on that day I just exhausted my maximum luck when I got stuck on that rock face and was able to return to my family, friends, or just life in general, more or less uninjured, yeah.
You were hanging off a cliff face. Let's just leave that as a cliffhanger, like in a soap opera. You were hanging off a cliff face, but before we get to the part where you tell us what actually happened, just tell us a bit about yourself. How long have you been flying and what kind of flyer are you?
So I've been paragliding since 2016. I started because I was very interested in hiking and flying. I come from a bit of a mountain sports background with climbing and high-altitude tours and things like that. And of course, I met many other people who also do paragliding. And the option of hiking up and flying down actually seemed like a very convenient way to descend. And yeah, it would just open up some new possibilities for me.
And in terms of flying, I don't think I'm necessarily the competitive type. I mostly do it for myself, as another tool in mountain sports, so to speak. I'm not really out there to be competitive.
So, in terms of character, does Hike and Fly usually take priority for you?
That was the original goal, exactly. Of course, later on, the thermals, yeah, they just sweep you away, as the name suggests. And yeah, you start to get a bit of a taste for that. But the original idea was actually more about going to some remote launch sites and not necessarily taking the cable car up.
On this August 11th, your, as I said, unofficial second birthday, you also wanted to go for a hike and fly. What was the plan there?
We agreed to do a hike and fly in the Lauterbrunnen Valley. I was out with a friend I often went hike and fly with. And the day before, we had picked out a goal, it's called the Rothalhütte there.
And we didn't actually plan to do too much. We just wanted to head up there. It had actually been an idea of mine for a while that we could take off from there. So, we just set off, even though the weather wasn't that great yet. The forecast wasn't that bad, but it was still quite cloudy and also a bit damp in places. But we didn't stress about it because of that.
And then we basically went to the restaurant first, because the conditions didn't really allow us to start hiking up just yet. We waited there for about an hour or so. And when we came back out, the weather had improved and the sun came out. And we knew we still had at least two, two and a half, three hours of climbing ahead of us. And by then, the weather would be good enough for flying. And so we started walking.
You mentioned the Lauterbrunnen Valley, which maybe not everyone has in mind. It's actually a very imposing valley in terms of its structure. What does it look like there?
So if you... come from Lauterbrunnen, you can actually see this beautiful U-shaped glacial valley, where the rock walls on the right and left go up a few hundred meters and only then start to tilt towards the peaks. You can see so many, many Instagram photos of the Lauterbrunnen Valley because it's a bit like a fairytale land with waterfalls and all that. It really is a special place. That
...is also where a lot of people actually go base jumping and stuff like that. Simply because there are these beautiful jump-off points and you really have this 300, 400-meter vertical drop, so to speak, off the rocks, where you can just jump down into the valley and then still land safely at the bottom.
Exactly. That's usually a bit of a task for paragliders as well, where you have to make sure you don't collide with those people. But there are also special agreements on when they're allowed to jump and when you shouldn't fly in front of the rock face.
But there are probably also specific jump sites that you know of, where you know you definitely have to fly a wide arc around them.
Exactly. And also, there are agreed-upon times when base jumpers aren't allowed to jump. And generally, you shouldn't fly your paraglider too close to the walls there.
So you hiked up there. Was that really high-altitude climbing on the rock in a sense? Or in the back part of the valley, are there also areas where you can just do normal hiking, so to speak?
Yes, well, we climbed up on the opposite side of the famous cliff with the drops. And the cliff there isn't just solid rock all the way through like on the other side. There are actually completely normal white-red-white hiking trails that go up there. It can be hard to imagine from below sometimes, but there is indeed a path up. It was actually really normal mountain hiking, so to speak.
And are there always starting options, like ledges in between where you can just launch off? Or how does that work?
So you have to overcome some higher meters first, because it's rocky and wooded in some parts. But once you're a bit further up, the incline gets better. So there are also some grassy slopes and so on, where you can find good starting spots.
Where did you guys start? At halfway point or did you hike all the way to the top?
That's actually the trail to the Rothalhütte. A bit further down, you'll come across these grassy meadows. That's about three-quarters of the way to the hut, exactly.
And you can start well there?
You can start great there. It's actually quite pleasant, it's well-aligned, there are no obstacles, and so on.
And was your takeoff also completely smooth?
Exactly, we took a break there first because we had a long climb, of course. And we first watched a bit how the others were flying, and I mean the other paragliders, especially those coming from the other side. And yeah, around two. Or so, we then started with actually perfect conditions. A bit of lift, but not too much, and also from the right direction, it was actually quite smooth.
So the air felt completely pleasant, and it was nice just gliding along or being slightly thermically supported while flying around there.
Exactly, yeah, it was actually how you'd want it. At least during the takeoff. Regarding the thermals, we thought there'd probably be a bit more at first.
But we didn't go up there specifically to fly thermals, so it didn't really bother us.
If everything was going so smoothly, did the situation still change for you, let's say, out of the blue, all of a sudden? What exactly happened? How did that come about?
It wasn't actually that sudden. So we started, and as I said, it was very pleasant. And we just went straight in, because sometimes you do that, you think to yourself, I'd like to extend my flight a bit, and then we flew along this rock face.
On your side, where you started, or did you fly over to the other side where it's really steep?
No, on the same side, because if we had flown over, we probably would have been too low already. Okay.
Also a bit more thermally active, from what I understood. In any case, it was already a bit bumpy to fly around. First, we lost some altitude and then it got better. But you couldn't just climb comfortably without much effort. You had to push through a bit and sometimes it was quite bumpy. So there were... it didn't come so suddenly later, but it wasn't basically... Yeah, it wasn't so extreme that I would have thought beforehand, I just want to get out of here or something, not that.
It was thermically active, but in the sense of what you'd call normal thermals, more or less.
Exactly, yeah. You have to factor that in a bit there, exactly.
While continuing to fly, I eventually saw this tandem that had some good lift. And I flew after it, it also had good lift. Then I turned around somewhere and on the way back, at the same spot, it actually rose much stronger than before.
At first, I didn't really realize what was happening until I suddenly fell out of those thermals and my glider surged forward quite strongly. And in that moment, I basically knew... I already knew, oh, something really bad is probably about to happen.
You expected the collapse, more or less.
Yeah, pretty much. But I was expecting more of a front collapse, which unfortunately wasn't the case. It was really the side towards the rock face that collapsed. I don't know exactly what happened next because it all went so fast.
The next thing I was conscious of... what I perceived was that I was somehow swinging sideways backwards against this rock wall. And then it actually already crashed and then it was basically over. Then I was hanging there.
In front of the rock face?
In front of the rock face, exactly. And I somehow looked up and saw that my glider had gotten caught in some small trees. Because this rock face keeps...
...is actually threaded with things as small as slopes. And then maybe another 20, 30 meters of rock. And then again into a ledge, the probability was just high that I'd eventually land on some ground like that somewhere. But I was lucky that I actually got caught in the lowest trees of such a ledge with the glider.
Now, just to clarify the picture. Your glider is hanging up in the trees. You're basically hanging vertically down, still in your harness, but you're not sitting—meaning you're not directly near the ground, you're hanging in mid-air. The rock face is right next to you, but it just goes straight down to the valley floor, or would there have been a few other ledges in between? So if your glider, for whatever reason, were to tear or something and you fell further, would you... would you have slammed into the next ledge after 20 meters or what would that have looked like?
Yeah, it would have looked pretty much the same. There were more ledges. I think the distance to the next one would have been maybe 50 meters or so. But I wasn't hanging a kilometer above the valley floor in mid-air. I was dangling... I'd say I could reach the rock face with my arm. It would have been... it would have been pretty steep downwards afterwards too, and it probably wouldn't have been great if I'd fallen those remaining meters before hitting the ground.
Yeah, so 50 meters already sounds like a pretty heavy impact would have followed. Can you still—I'd find it interesting—can you still remember your first thoughts in that situation? You've slammed against the rock face. You're hanging there, realizing, I'm hanging here. What comes to you, what flashes through your head?
So my first thought was, damn, was that really necessary? And right after that, actually, it was also like, what do I tell my wife at home? Those were actually the first two thoughts I had, exactly.
Actually crazy. You're basically still in mortal danger and your first thought isn't, shit, how can I maybe secure myself or something, but oh, what do I tell my wife? This wasn't necessary.
Exactly, that was that moment where you can't control what you think. The thought of securing myself, of course, came to me later. I also tried to pull myself toward the rock face. Since I enjoy climbing, I also thought for a brief moment that I could maybe go up two or three meters. Climb up and sit there, but I quickly dismissed that because I knew, no, you're not in a state where you have responsible ideas and you'd better just leave that alone. I then somehow pulled my speed bar up and hung it over a small rock ledge so that I was a bit more secured.
Ironically, my phone actually rang right then, and it was my wife on the other end. But I thought, okay, we'll probably have this phone call later, when I'm actually back safely on the ground.
So you didn't pick up?
No, I think that would have been too much for her.
Did she have any inkling that something was up? Like, do you have that kind of connection where she's like, "Hey, I need to give him a call"?
No. No, I think it was more like, normally when I'm out like that, I used to check in earlier to say I'd landed or something, and on that day it just took a bit longer than usual and she thought she might give me a call to ask. Now, not necessarily in the sense of "did something happen to you," but just to check in and see what I was up to, so to speak.
You mentioned you were out with a pilot buddy, that you hiked up there with him. Did he actually see everything? Was he close enough to you to see exactly what happened to you?
Well, I think because he was also there on the ridge, he probably caught it a bit out of the corner of his eye, and then he actually flew out quickly into the middle of the valley and probably only saw that I was hanging there on the tree. And we were also in radio contact because we were connected. He asked me if there was anything he could do, like if he should alert someone or something. And I said, yeah, I can actually do that pretty well myself, because I could reach my phone easily and then just alerted the rescue flight service myself from there.
Exactly.
And that's what saved you from your predicament?
Exactly. So, from where I was, you could actually see the Lauterbrunnen heliport. That's why they were there pretty quickly. They first flew to me by helicopter to see what the situation was. Then they left and came back later with the longline. Two rescuers then...rappelled down to that ledge above me. One secured himself to a tree and lowered the other down to me. And he secured me too. Once we were all basically fastened somewhere, the helicopter came back and took me and the rescuer who was with me away with the longline.
And later on, they went back to pick up the other one from that ledge.
For this flight with the heli, did you get out of your harness or did you fly with the harness on?
They actually hooked the carabiners directly onto my aircraft carabiners. So I was basically just hooked right onto them, exactly.
And for the glider, did they cut all the lines or what did you guys do there?
Yeah, at first the plan was that you could maybe take the glider with you a bit while going up. But it was so badly tangled that only... a canopy did anything. So much for the idea that the glider would tear later or something. While I was hanging there on the glider, I actually knew, okay, it's holding. And I didn't have some kind of panic that the situation could somehow change, because I think it's more like in the movies where it slowly tears thread by thread and in the end...
Yeah, then you fall down. I think the biggest stress is basically during the impact. And if it holds up then, it'll continue to hold up. That was my reasoning.
What happened to the glider? Is it still hanging up in the tree?
No, they were able to give me one piece in the hangar downstairs. And they got the rest later and probably just threw it away. And the piece I still had at home, I actually donated to a local outdoor shop because they can use it to repair other jackets and stuff like that.
They take the fabric for that. Exactly. Okay, then your glider gets a second life in a way. More or less. Just as you were given a second life, your glider got one too. From that impact, you slammed so hard against that rock wall, did you suffer any physical damage that you maybe didn't even notice at first?
Yeah, well, at first I thought I was completely uninjured and had just taken a heavy hit. It turned out that I was examined by the emergency doctor down there and as the adrenaline slowly started to wear off, I already had pretty severe pain in my chest. I then ended up going to the hospital in a normal car, and they did X-rays and other little tests to see if I had any internal injuries and such.
And they couldn't find any fractures or anything like that there. The ribs were broken, more or less, but they weren't that painful. They weren't displaced or anything, so there wasn't really anything that could be done anyway. Whether they were just crushed or broken doesn't really matter at that point.
They just sort of grow back together properly.
Yeah, there's not really much you can do. In the past, you'd sometimes get a kind of corset so that you wouldn't move your rib cage so much when breathing. But actually, you don't really need that either. You just have quite a bit of pain when breathing for about five weeks. After
Was it over for you after five weeks too?
Yeah, more or less. I mean, physically I think I was okay again after four weeks; I could actually go on small hikes and stuff like that. The problem was more like sneezing sometimes, for example, it's always intense. But physically at least, it was actually over pretty soon, exactly.
So, no physical illnesses? Yeah, no lasting physical damage. What about psychological damage? What kind of mental imagery did the incident trigger for you?
Yeah, well, at first it was kind of weird for me because, as you'd expect, I was supposed to have some kind of horror scenario or nightmares or something. But it didn't actually seem that bad to me. It wasn't really tangible for me. And also, somehow... I mean, I never had panic or anything while on the rock face. Or I never had that moment where I knew, "Okay, I'm dying now" or something like that. I didn't have any of that. That's why I was a bit skeptical at first about whether it could even be happening.
I think it happened gradually, realizing how lucky I actually was. And also how it influenced me later on. And back then, in the first phase, I didn't even know how to fly yet.
Are the questions that come up then ones where you question yourself? Or are they also things where it's a lot about how others see you?
So it's about, maybe also a feeling of shame, where you say something happened to me, maybe I'm not a good pilot. The others are thinking now, yeah, he flew like an idiot, hanging onto the rock face like that.
So I knew that I wasn't, yeah,
how should I put it, I'm not the type to take full risks, for example.
And that's why I actually never had a problem speaking out about what happened. For me, it didn't actually devalue my skills as a pilot that this happened to me. I just realized later that I probably hadn't done the maximum to handle such a situation, and I don't know if that played a role. Because you just don't know, it could have just been residual risk. Whether I could have prevented this exact situation with more SIV training and so on, you can't really know. But for me personally, it was just that I,
at some point I knew that if I want to fly thermals and if I want to fly cross-country, then I have to have more time for it and do more for it, so that I can take responsibility for it myself. Because then I would have done the maximum that is feasible from my side. And at the time the accident happened, I hadn't. So I basically had a training backlog.
Did you get any criticism from other pilots or anything like that? Or did you perhaps hear any critical voices indirectly?
No, not really at all. I think because I was the one who actually spoke up and approached people, I mostly got positive feedback—like, "it's cool that you're telling this" and "it's good that someone is finally saying something," and so on. And, no one ever actually said, "yeah, you shouldn't have flown" or "you weren't in a state to fly" or anything like that. I never really heard anything like that.
You also sought out a conversation with a mental coach relatively soon. Benz Erbt, who was also here on the podcast—why?
I don't know. I knew you shouldn't take these things lightly, even if it might feel that way to you. And what I hoped for—or at least hoped for beforehand—is that I might find out whether it was responsible or if I was somehow to blame or not. Something like that. I actually wanted to back up my assessment of the situation a bit, based on the opinion of a flight instructor, because Benz Erbt is a flight instructor too. And yeah, I was hoping to get my assessment confirmed, so to speak.
What insights did you gain from that? Did you do something wrong, or was it really just the so-called residual risk that simply caught you out?
Yeah, funnily enough, it's not really definable at all. And that's why it was good that I went to the mental coach, because he was able to show me, first of all, that he can't give me the solution to this question or the answer to this question. And that he probably will never give me that answer in my entire life. And that this "why" or "did I do something wrong" or whatever, that will probably remain. That will probably be there for the rest of my life. But that's also okay. And I think that's the key point, that you have to accept this "okay" for yourself.
And sometimes it's stronger, and sometimes it's almost not there at all. But it doesn't matter if you don't figure it out and know that it's just not something that can be clarified and, in the end, it doesn't really matter anyway.
Okay, that also means you have to be okay with this residual risk that's always there in aviation. You have to accept that.
Definitely. And the way I've been traveling lately, I felt like I always knew there was a residual risk. But in hindsight, I'd say it's almost impossible to know or accept it like that, because it's something else entirely. Because if you actually have an accident, well, that's not so bad. You just have to be really aware of that and, more or less, be at peace with yourself regarding what you did and what you got out of it.
Did you ever seriously think about quitting flying after that incident?
Not at all, at first. First, it was important to me that this accident flight wasn't my last flight. Yeah, because I didn't do anything wrong during the takeoff that somehow got me sidelined or anything like that. I was simply more or less in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe with a bit too few skills, but let's put that aside for now. But it wasn't flying itself that was dangerous for me, so to speak, it was this—I always compared it to swimming in a river; it's just more dangerous than going into the water from a pier at a calm lake.
And that's why the option of hike-flying was still there for me, because I knew that I've never had any problems in calm air. And I also have enough skills to do it in a way that's actually responsible for me. And that's why I really wanted to go flying again.
And you are too. When was your first flight again?
My first flight was in January. I went along with my former flight school for a day and at the same time tested a new glider that I could imagine being something for the future. So, a light A-glider. And as expected, that day actually felt very good. I mean, I wasn't afraid while flying. Sure, at the launch site it was a bit more exciting than usual for a short moment. But I think you get that feeling too when you haven't flown for several months and then stand at the launch site again; you're more excited than usual when you fly a lot, a lot.
It was actually a really nice experience to realize that I had assessed the situation correctly—that it wouldn't bother me and that I wouldn't somehow be afraid in the air or anything like that.
And have you been flying regularly again since then?
Since then, I've had maybe about five days where I went flying. Once I tested another glider later in March. I did about four or five flights in one day then.
Later on, I tested another glider, later in March. And later I also did one or two hike-flights. And for the last few months, it's been a bit less again. More or less, because I just don't have that much time with a small child. And when the weather is nice, I want to do all the things at the same time. And lately, I've also sometimes prioritized climbing.
But I definitely plan on going flying again.
You have a young son. Exactly. I know a few people who, when they had small children, said they'd rather not fly for a while or something like that. But that wouldn't be a reason for you.
Yeah, maybe after the accident it would be more of a reason. But also, above all, because I can't spend as much time as I'd like to tell myself, "Okay, I'm capable. I'm traveling responsibly." And not necessarily because I suddenly think flying has become much more dangerous because of the child. Sure, you have an extra responsibility as a father. But there's also the person you are. And if you're constantly unhappy that you can't go flying, then you're not really bringing much to the child either.
If you're a sad person, then maybe you have to do more to make sure it's okay for you to go flying, exactly.
Then you said you go climbing. And lately, you've been going climbing more often than paragliding and stuff like that. How do you assess the risks? Which is basically riskier, climbing or paragliding?
Yes, I think paragliding is probably more dangerous in terms of residual risk. Above all, I think there's a difference between just being... somewhere in the air or still being connected to the rocks somehow. Sure, in the mountains, a rock can always fall down or something like that. I accept that residual risk as well. But where I go climbing—I'm not some mega-strong adventure climber or anything. I might do a few very well-known sport routes. And there, I think the residual risk is higher when flying.
You also described your incident in a longer report on the Chillout Paragliding website. So you can read all of that there. It shows that you're also... well, you're just completely ready to go public with this story. In the paragliding scene, there are still many people—I know them too—who would rather sweep something under the rug if something happens to them and don't want to talk about it much or anything like that. What drives you to say, no, I want... for things like this to be talked about?
I can't say exactly what drives me to do that, but I'll admit that I sometimes developed a bit of an anti-attitude at the landing sites before. If people I didn't even know came up to me and said things like, "Did you notice it carries a bit over there by that hill?" and then I'd fly off anyway because I realized that wasn't the case. If I noticed there was too much wind or something, I'd think, "Well, if I fly along there, I'll check it out," and I have no idea, I'd just try to find a connection somehow, and if it didn't work and it became too much, I'd just fly away.
I don't need any kind of arguments that make me look good, you know, and I've often wished that maybe one or another of them would have just said, yeah, I had no idea, I just got lucky, or I just left because it became too much for me or something like that. That bothered me sometimes and I found it a bit uncomfortable when you'd be pulled into these conversations as if you totally understood what was going on and stuff, and I never had a problem saying, yeah, I'm a beginner, I have no idea.
If you look at the scene, at the people you go flying with, who you also notice at the landing field, what would you say, how many of them actually check what's going on?
Yeah, it's very difficult to assess because you don't know what the individual pilot's goal is, so to speak. I think it's a bit similar to the risk group, with the risk assessment in paragliding. It depends so much on what you decide for yourself, when you start or don't, and where you fly long or don't. That's why it's quite difficult to assess, but I can well imagine that many people, like me, were also out there before the accident,
...do things they might not do if they had this knowledge. But, yeah, I would never blame anyone for that, because you just don't have that knowledge and it's not necessarily required that you do. So, I've also just had a lot of bad luck. There are people who have been flying longer than I have, who claim to be more risk-taking than I am, and they haven't had any accidents yet. And if you sit at a launch site sometimes and watch a bit, you can see that a lot of people are just lucky sometimes.
Yeah, not just sometimes. I'd say in very many cases you'd say there's always a large portion of luck involved in how some people manage to pull themselves out of certain situations, or where the glider simply does something friendly for them, where it opens up again or something. As a pilot, you actually mostly prevented the glider from being able to save you there. Nice that it still managed to do it in the end, though. If you've spent more time thinking about and analyzing your incident, what conclusions have you drawn for yourself and your flying?
Yes, primarily that I'm not doing cross-country flying for the time being. And that's precisely because I simply don't have enough time to train for it properly, as I should.
And that I'm definitely more conservative with starts and weather conditions and so on, where I might say even more, "Hey, today's not happening." And maybe what's changed in the last few months is this feeling that I'm always going to fly. That could change. I think it wouldn't be that tragic for me anymore to maybe give up flying for a while, at least.
What's the reason for that?
Yeah, simply because I don't have that time, or maybe I don't want to take that time for it, because I like doing other things too, and because that's also where the environment gets a bit skeptical when they know I'm going flying again. Or something. There are some parents, in-laws, and so on, who aren't particularly happy because they maybe haven't analyzed it as thoroughly as I have.
So you've analyzed this for yourself and drawn your own conclusions. What would you say if other people hear this or read your report or something like that? What could or should they take away from it for themselves? What can perhaps be taken as a general lesson from your incident?
So, I would definitely say that you have to ask yourself: if something happens to me and I'm lucky enough to survive, can I say I did my best, as much as I could, to be as safe as possible? Like, was I experienced enough, did I take some safety courses, and did I analyze everything in terms of the weather? I also might have refreshed my knowledge every now and then with some courses or something.
Just so you can say to yourself, hey, we always have some risk in everything we do, but I did my best to keep it as small as possible. That's what stresses me out a bit sometimes when I think back on that accident—that I didn't do enough to be, like, sure that it was only residual risk, and that I wasn't able to resolve that situation. And then I'd also certainly say,
this pursuit of these higher-rated gliders—I see that as a major risk factor too, even if they theoretically become safer. But actually, it's not really necessary unless you want to fly in some kind of competitions. But from what I've gathered, it's already very common to start flying higher classes pretty quickly. And the more you fly and nothing happens, the faster you might want to go even higher. I find that a bit of a shame sometimes, because today's gliders actually fly quite well.
That's true. You're a very thoughtful man. Where does that come from?
I don't know. You'd have to, I don't know, maybe ask my parents.
I don't know. I sometimes have a tendency to develop these counter-positions, as I've hinted at before. If someone says a thousand times that they love listening to this one radio station, then I want to listen to the other one specifically. Or somehow, I don't know, I always want to decide for myself what I like and what I don't.
Swimming against the tide a bit?
Yeah, also.
But not in an extreme way right now.
So, is it also that you're saying, because so little is talked about, that's exactly why I want to talk about it, to set an example?
Yes, definitely. I've certainly had that thought before too. If I can give something up, then I want to do it all the more.
If your example was a school and a lot of people started talking about their small and large incidents, what mistakes they made, or looked at them analytically and all that, would you say—since you say you're always swimming against the current, not always, but you like swimming against the current—then you wouldn't do it anymore? Or would you be someone who says, no, that's a great development?
Yeah, well, it's not at all about everyone shouting out every single tiny incident to the world.
It's more about the fact that you don't necessarily have to have this competitive edge in the incidents you have now, and that you can also just be lucky sometimes without having to be ashamed of it or feeling like you're a bad pilot because of it or something. This actually goes beyond paragliding too. You have similar discussions, for example, if a man works part-time, that he's somehow not providing for the family and so on. Just this whole thing of
deviating from the norm is always seen as somehow bad, and because of that, no, everyone is just who they are, and most people aren't actually the same as the societal norm dictates everyone should be. And that's why I think it's good when you can talk about it, and if many people do, then you know that you can fit in everywhere, in any case, without having to pretend to be someone you're not.
Do you still have a pilot's dream?
I haven't really set anything out for myself in that regard. I'd actually just like to be able to keep enjoying things like those sunset flights after work; I'd definitely want to save that for the future, but otherwise, I don't really have any specific flight or anything that I still want to fulfill.
After-work flights into sunsets—that's probably actually what most pilots can enjoy the most in the end, once they have it and allow themselves to, and don't say it has to be the massive cross-country flight, but it's often these small flights that actually soothe the soul and from which you can simply take away something great for yourself.
Simon, thank you for your story, for your honesty, and for your openness. It's great that you were lucky enough to be able to tell it like this today, and I hope that some people might take something from it and start thinking for themselves: okay, what residual risk am I willing to accept, or what can I perhaps do so that I can say at the end, regarding this part, it definitely wasn't my fault because I either trained further or I selected my flights in a way that I could rule out that part of the risk accordingly.
Yes, thank you very much for the opportunity to explain myself here, or perhaps to give one or another a little food for thought for the future, and I certainly don't want to be portrayed as some kind of pope of knowledge here. This is simply an experience where I hope many will benefit, and I hope that people can enjoy flying, and that is actually the most important thing, exactly.
Podz-Glidz is the podcast of the paraglider blog Lu-Glidz. I am the producer of both offerings. My name is Lucian Haas. Lu-Glidz can be found online at www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com. Lu-Glidz is spelled L -U -G -L -I -D -Z. On Lu-Glidz, you will also find the show notes for this podcast episode, along with some additional links.
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See you next time. Ciao.