I don't activate the classic speed bar on the paraglider while I'm still on the ground; I only activate it once I'm flying. With the Moustache, it's exactly the opposite. The Moustache is basically fully accelerated when I'm not giving any input. That means if I'm standing on the ground with a lot of wind and I let go of the brake handles, I can obviously handle higher wind speeds on the ground. That's the biggest advantage of the Moustache—that I can already use this deep power, let's call it in kiting, meaning being able to hold the glider over me without much pull, while still on the ground. Because of that, starting becomes much, much easier.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Benni Bölli. And I'm Lucian Haas.
In the spring of 2022, the new brand Flair launched. It is the child of the paraglider manufacturer Skywalk and the associated kite manufacturer Flysurfer.
Flair's first product is called the Moustache and essentially represents a crossover of both worlds. The Moustache is a paraglider whose controls work aerodynamically like those of a kite. This opens up completely new possibilities for flying. The idea behind it comes from Armin Harich. He was already experimenting with initial prototypes more than ten years ago, where he modified the rigging of kites for flying. However, it is the merit of Flysurfer designer Benni Bölli that brought the concept to market maturity. In this 99th episode of Podz-Glidz, the 33-year-old tells the story behind the Moustache. Benni explains, among other things, what is revolutionary about the new glider type, why a Moustache is so much fun for soaring in strong winds, and above all, how it provides more safety.
We're talking about how the paraglider can benefit from the kite world and vice versa. Plus, we're looking a bit into the future. What can we expect from Flair and perhaps other manufacturers in the future? To what extent could the Moustache become the starting point for a new segment in the paragliding world? With gliders that are specialized either for soaring or for thermal flight.
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 website, Lu-Glidz.
Benni, how does it feel to be the architect of a small revolution in the paraglider field?
Yeah, it feels really good.
I've been working on this project for a really long time now, and of course, I've always dreamed that it would be very well received by the market and that the feedback would be good.
The first year is always the most exciting one, seeing how the market receives it.
It's going really well so far. It's of course a great feeling when you're somewhere, usually with Moustache in tow, or over it, and then people come up to you and are totally interested. Or they say, "Yeah, we've already seen all the videos and we really want to try it out," and so on. It's naturally a great feeling when people are enthusiastic about something you've created yourself.
What exactly is the real revolution of the Moustache, if you could describe it briefly?
So, if you break it down to the basics, it's not necessarily a, I'm saying, it's not a new idea. I mean, the system as the Moustache is currently built, has existed for a very, very long time in the competition scene. The glider has a slight reflex profile and is connected via a mixer—which is basically a pulley system—to the flying lines. And through that, you can permanently change the angle of attack of the glider. And also change it differently from left to right. The revolution behind it is actually just bringing the whole thing into the gadget category. The revolution behind it is actually just bringing the whole thing into the gadget category. And the new flight forms and possibilities that the pilot then has, which he doesn't necessarily have with a paraglider.
Specifically, this controlling via the angle of attack—not just controlling symmetrically, like with the speed bar. For example, if I enter a speed bar with the paraglider, I should at least enter it somewhat symmetrically, otherwise I'll fly into the turn. But with the Moustache, it's completely decoupled from left to right. That means I'm essentially flying an accelerated turn permanently. And that's the revolution behind it, and it offers extremely many new exciting flight forms and flight areas; it opens up new flight areas where I might normally not be able to start with the paraglider at all, but where the Moustache works just fine.
What can a Moustache clearly do that a normal paraglider can't? Maybe
The biggest advantage with high-wind soaring or generally high-wind ground handling is that I don't activate the speed bar—the classic speed bar of the paraglider—while I'm still on the ground. I only activate that once I'm flying. With the Moustache, it's exactly the opposite. The Moustache is basically fully accelerated when I give no input. That is, if I let go of the brake toggles, the glider is fully accelerated. This means if I'm standing on the ground in high wind and I let go of the brake toggles, there's still a bit of pull, of course, but it's very, very low. And with that, I can obviously handle higher wind speeds on the ground without being pulled behind the edge or getting lifted off and starting to fly before I even want to.
That's exactly the biggest advantage of the Moustache: that you can already use this deep power—let's call it that in kiting—meaning being able to hold the glider over you without much pull, even on the ground. This simply makes starting much, much easier. And I can also fly more safely in higher winds because I can start safely in that wind too.
Let's break that down a bit again, just so people can visualize it a little better. With a Moustache, you have the classic brake lines at the back, just like on a paraglider. But if you let them go completely, the glider goes up in its profile, in its angle of attack, just like a normal paraglider might in a full acceleration state. However, the Moustache itself doesn't have a speed bar at all; instead, you control everything regarding the angle of attack only at the back via the brakes.
Exactly. Maybe I'll explain the concept again from the beginning, also for the listeners who haven't dealt with this yet. The Moustache has a slight reflex profile. I say slight reflex profile because I spent a lot of time trying to put as little reflex as possible into the glider, because a reflex profile reacts very, very—well, normally very, very heavily to a collapse. And that wasn't the goal anyway. And there are several parameters where you can also set the stability well using other parameters besides reflex. So, that's the canopy. Otherwise, the whole thing is built like a paraglider. It has an upper sail, it has a lower sail, it has ribs, it has horizontal bands, it has diagonal reinforcements inside, and so on.
The lines are just like on a paraglider. It has an A-line, B-line, C-line, and the brake. And then there's the riser. And the riser is the actual heart of the Moustache. Specifically, with a paraglider, the riser is constructed so that—let's take a three-line glider as an example—meaning A, B, C, the C-line is fixed in length. And the A-line is pulled down, practically with the full speed bar travel. And the B-line is then pulled down in a certain proportion to that. That varies from model to model. So, the most common way is that the B-line is pulled down with almost two-thirds of the travel of the A-line.
With that, I can basically reduce the angle of attack of the paraglider and increase my flight speed. With the Moustache, it's exactly the opposite. On the Moustache, the A-line is fixed in length, and the B and C-lines are basically connected to my brake handle. That means if I extend my arms, i.e., release the brakes, the B and C-lines are also extended, which opens the trailing edge of the glider and reduces my angle of attack. This also means that if I let go of the brake handles completely, I'm in a fully accelerated state. And exactly, you just have to know that. It's not that bad right now, but if you know it,
then you can deal with it. Yes, there's also the advantage that when I'm on the ground and let go of the brake handles, I have very little pull. We also used to do this with several three-riser variants and experiments—I'd rather call them experiments because that was during my student days, they were really still experiments—where we built various three-riser variants where I also had to push up to accelerate and so on. But the big advantage of the thing having little pull when I let go while on the ground, that was basically gone, so that advantage was gone. And we didn't want to give that up, this advantage, because we saw that in strong winds on the ground, it offers an extreme amount of safety if you let go and the thing simply does nothing or just turns to the side and then lies on the ground sideways.
That can't be avoided, of course, if you're not controlling the glider.
Just from a conceptual standpoint, could you take a riser like the one you developed for the Moustache, cut it a bit, re-tie it or something like that, and could I also mount it on a normal paraglider and would that actually work?
Yes and no. I mean, you'd probably get it to fly relatively easily. It flies quite a bit nowadays and it works to a certain extent, but because the canopy—meaning the glider itself—isn't really designed for that, I wouldn't assume it would feel balanced. Because a normal paraglider is basically developed so that I initiate the turn, for example, via the brake or through weight shift, but not through the angle of attack itself. So, angle of attack, the difference between left and right.
That was also not that easy, especially in terms of profile selection, to manage a balanced turn because the profile simply reacts differently to lift from the angle of attack or lift from the arc. And I do that too. With a paraglider, I generate lift with the arc when I go on the brake, and with the Mustache it also happens, but only later; that is, I increase the angle of attack for a very, very long time and only towards the end does the brake come into play, where I then also increase the arc. In short, it would work, purely theoretically, but if you only take the Mustache strapless harness or build on a normal paraglider, it probably won't work because the B is not pulled enough.
That means the value would become very, very unstable. But in and of itself, it would work in theory.
If I have a proper Mustache that works well and all that, as a pilot, as long as I don't actually want to full-throttle down the slope somewhere with a low glide ratio, I still have to keep the brakes in my hand and always have to pull them, and I probably also have to hold a lot of weight there, right?
Have to, have to. "Have to" is relative. So if I have enough air under my ass, then I don't have to hold the brake in my hand. Then I have a bad glide ratio, but the thing flies. So the Mustache only flies on the A-plane too. So if I now cut away the brake, the C-plane, and the B-plane one by one, then the thing still only flies on the A-plane.
That means you could use it as a single-liner, the way Sol once presented a single-liner. It would probably work the same way. That
works exactly the same way. Of course, the point of doing that is questionable, because the control becomes extremely poor. And yeah, the speed—the Mustache, so the B-plane on the Mustache—never fully collapses. Especially with the larger sizes. But the glider would only fly on the A-plane. I've also done collapse tests without the lines. No chance. You do a pull-up on the A-plane, but nothing collapses. Exactly. So Lucien, I've forgotten your question now.
The question was about the holding forces. So, you have to hold it the whole time. How high are those holding forces actually? And how long can you really hold out?
It depends very, very much on how I use the Mustache, or rather where I use it. If I'm out in strong wind in an area where I also have very strong lift—meaning a strong lift component—then you can fly with it for hours. Because the Mustache only becomes tiring to fly once the brake engages. And that's relatively far down. Because the B and C lines are connected to the brake handle via a pulley system. And your arm weight alone is actually enough to get you into almost the best glide. So it's very, very pleasant to fly. And that was also feedback we heard from many pilots, who had imagined the holding forces to be much, much higher.
But as I said, the Mustache isn't made for trying to stay up for hours in minimal, marginal conditions somewhere on the coast. Because then it just becomes exhausting. In other words, the brake has to engage so that I can get the maximum lift from the glider. And that's when it gets tiring. But as soon as I can fly in the speed range where the brake isn't permanently engaged, it's very, very pleasant to fly.
From the classic sizes you have now, you have very small ones, but the typical Vania ones are an 18 and a 22. What are the ideal wind speeds for those, if you say, I want to go out with this properly so that it's pleasant—what would be a typical wind window where you'd say it works well?
The 18 is actually the best choice for, let's say, an 80-kilo pilot, especially as an auxiliary glider for paragliding. And we're talking about 12 to 14 knots there, so roughly 25 km/h wind. That's when it starts to get really fun. So from 25 km/h up to 25 knots, which is about 45 km/h. That's when the 18 really starts to be a blast. At the top end, of course, you have to know what you're doing. With the Moustache, you're entering wind ranges very quickly where you normally wouldn't tackle a paraglider or would never have considered going paragliding in the first place.
And that happens very, very quickly with the Moustache, because the Moustache provides and offers you so much safety. Especially with high-wind sawing, it's of course the case that as soon as you have the speed bar immediately available, even on the ground, you can of course take off from completely different pressure points where you might not have been able to take off with the paraglider at all, or couldn't take off anymore because it would immediately push you behind into the row of trees. But sawing with the Moustache is simply an indescribable feeling with the additional control option over the seat angle. It offers you extremely many possibilities.
You always say sawing. I know, the small sizes are also partially used by speedflyers who want to glide down very close to the ground and stuff like that. Could this concept also be reasonably applied to other things? Or is it really a case of saying that a Moustache is the ideal sawing glider and for everything else you should stick to normal paragliders?
I'd like to go back a bit on the story of Flair. The project itself has existed for ages. Armin Harich already converted old Flysurfer Speed 2 and Titan models about 15 years ago and basically flew around with them, and he was already convinced by the whole thing back then. In between, the project was put on ice quite often for various reasons. But the main reason was actually that we weren't in agreement internally about who the glider is for. What can the glider do? Who should we market the glider to? That was the main problem because we used to want everything from the glider.
It should be great for sawing, and maybe even great for kiting on the water. They were all still closed-cell, those gliders, meaning they held the internal pressure. Then, of course, for snowkiting, and maybe you could even hook up your grandma, meaning the safest aircraft. But the pro should also have a lot of fun with it, and so on. So we basically wanted...
The honest... egg-laying white cow... No, it's "egg-laying white cow," I think it's called.
Exactly, that's what we always wanted. I realized relatively quickly, I mean, it doesn't exist in the paragliding field either—there isn't one perfect glider. In kiting, there isn't one perfect glider that works for everything or can do everything perfectly.
And I then decided for myself, I'm going to finish the thing now, and specifically during my vacation in Denmark. We go to Denmark every year for two to three weeks. And before that, I've been diligently designing computers, ordered two or three protos, which of course have already been paid for by the company, but I spent the entire testing time in my free time, basically on vacation there in Denmark. I said, we have to specialize in that. We have to specialize in soaring, because that's where the system has the biggest advantages. And then, when we see speedflying, cross-country flight, motor, whatever, we'll make a separate glider for that. We will never manage to make one glider for all disciplines.
The Moustache is now made for soaring, and the smaller sizes also work great for speedflying. That's the essence of it all. Where things are headed is still a bit up in the air, or rather, we know that we will be doing something in the speedflying direction, at least. That will happen relatively soon as well. We already have a product that works very well. And then, where it probably makes the most sense next is in the motor area.
Maybe we can talk about what else is possible later. What I'm interested in is, you just said you basically kept developing this during your vacation. Or maybe you also did some of the designs in your free time and stuff. Did Skywalk or Flysurfer—those two brands—not really believe in this project at first, like there wasn't any drive behind it? And were you the only one who believed in it for a while, or how was that?
I felt like that, at least partially. Looking back, it definitely wasn't the case, but other projects were always more important. So, the priority of this project was simply never at the top of the list. For me, back then, it was already the aircraft that hooked me the most out of all the things I fly. I mean, I fly biplanes. Not as much now, not as actively, but in the past, many people also tested biplanes with Skywalk and kiting, hydrofoils, whatever. But flying with Mustache on the coast in strong winds was just the ultimate thrill for me.
And in Denmark, it was always like that too; you're rarely alone somewhere when it comes to flying. And you just can't really hide that a different form of flight is possible with this thing. So, of course, there was always a lot of interest from pilots, and every now and then I'd let someone fly it if I saw that they were a good pilot and had the skills. And Denmark is also great, because of the small dunes, the good wind—from that perspective, there's not much else to it. And then I noticed that everyone who tried the thing wanted to have one and asked when it was coming to market. I passed this drive from potential customers on to Skywalk and said, hey guys, we have to finish this somehow now, because if we don't do it now, someone else will, because we've been working on this somewhere for ten years and the idea already exists.
And if we don't do it, someone else will. That was actually the deciding point for why we said, okay, this project gets a higher priority. We'll get this thing finished to the point where we're happy with it. And then we'll look for a person who will basically take care of making sure the whole thing gets a clean market entry. And then it came down to the question: will it be its own brand? Will it be a product under Skywalk? Will it be a product under Flysurfer? That was also up for discussion. But we then said we see very, very much potential in there, also for the future and for different disciplines. In other words, we already knew back then that we wouldn't be a one-product brand.
That is, we're going to have several product lines in the future as well. So it was just very, very obvious that we should start our own brand. And the name Flair, I don't even know how we came up with that, actually. We had tens of thousands of name suggestions in several Excel lists. And Flair was just like, yeah, that fits. It also fits with the
the glider's flight behavior. Exactly,
Exactly. What can this thing do? Flare forever. And yeah, that... Yeah.
So that's the product. How did the name Mustache come about? That's actually quite unusual too. Did you have endless Excel lists for that as well, or is that a different story?
No, that's a slightly different story, but also very funny. We said that before we throw the product onto the market, we obviously need some kind of reasonably usable long-term test. So we built a few gliders for pilots we've been working with for a while. So kiters, snowkiters, who do a bit of paragliding. We at least tried to capture a bit of the market's range. Also in terms of the pilots' skill levels. And then we thought, yeah, something funny has to go on the gliders so that people talk about it. And I was joking around with Daniel Gassner back then, and somehow we ended up on the...
...came up with the thermal and I said, yeah, let's just put a moustache on there. Then we built three sizes with three different nose shapes, moustache shapes. And yeah, it was not planned at all back then for the design to go into series production. It was just kind of a joke behind it. And yeah, we got really good feedback. And everyone... Well, what does everyone mean? Everyone, but everyone who saw the glider immediately recognized, okay, this is something different. That design doesn't exist in the glider sector yet. And yeah, then we also decided that we'd be crazy if we didn't, since we basically have a design that appeals to everyone, that everyone can remember, that everyone talks about.
And then we'll put something else on it for the series. And yeah, right now it's a Moustache on there.
Well, your brand is called Flair. The glider is called Moustache. You just said, though, that you don't want to do a one-product show, but that more are to come. How do you handle that when you basically have a design that works wonderfully as a design, but is at the same time so linked to the product name? And if you say, I'm introducing something else now, then it's basically Moustache Mini or what comes after that?
Well, there are already different moustache shapes. They all have a certain name somehow. And you could decorate a few product lines with those. Purely theoretically. I don't want to reveal too much right now. And it's also not clear at all yet whether we're really staying on the thermal track. That's why we—this was already discussed—whether we call the brand Moustache. And then we said, okay, if the brand is called Moustache, then the design is set for the next 15 to 20 years. And we didn't want that. We wanted to keep the door open so that we could put something other than a moustache on it from a design perspective.
But Skywalk will have its own spices and drinks, and then you'll have the various thermal shapes at some point, maybe. Yeah,
So there's of course a Tartagnon, then there's a Magnum, whatever. You can get a bit creative with that. What's definitely going to happen is that we'll stay somewhat on the irony track, in the funny lane. So we're not going to just slap some run-of-the-mill design onto the next product lines. It's going to be something fun. Whether it's really a thermal or stays in the thermal vein, we'll see. But there will definitely be a successor to the Moustache. And that will stay the Moustache for quite a while too. That's going to be our Soaring weapon. Exactly.
Let's do a little change of subject. How did you actually get into flying or kiting, and what came first?
Well, it was definitely that—actually, that's not quite right at all. Okay, it was flying first. I was born in South Tyrol, in Brixen. And we lived in the Ahrental for a very long time, for five years, near Speikboden. That's also a well-known flying area. People were already flying paragliders around like crazy back then. And of course, that always fascinated me as a child. And I always knew I wouldn't become a professional skier. I wanted to have something to do with flying. My family on my mother's side basically consists of pilots. Whether they're sport pilots, airline pilots, glider pilots, whatever. So it was already clear that I'd do something with flying.
Then we moved to Vienna. That's where kite flying came in. We lived near this big meadow where there were always some kind of kite festivals and where kites were basically flying 24/7.
Did you build any yourself?
Yeah, yeah, so I built some. They didn't fly that great, though. But at the kite festival, there was always this small stand, or at least in Vienna back then, there was always a small stand where there was a kite festival. Where you, as a kid, could build your own kite. They actually weren't that bad. They flew quite well. But yeah, the fascination with kites was always there. Then at ten, I was a kiter on that aforementioned kite field with an inflatable tubekite. I had never seen that before. And it was jumping around the field. And that somehow fascinated me back then. I went up to the guy and said, hey, I really want to try that. Then they explained it to me a bit. There wasn't that much wind then, either.
So it was relatively safe. And then of course I went home to my mother. He gave me a map right away. He was also selling a few gliders. Back then, there weren't any kite shops yet. So it was 2000. And I went to my mother and said I have to start this. And then my mother thought, well okay, a board, a bar, a glider, a harness. Fine, it's not that expensive. I'll get it for Christmas. Well, no such luck. You obviously need several gliders for different winches and different boards and so on. Accordingly, it was a relatively expensive hobby for my mother. But there was no thought of me ever stopping. And I was then in the Vienna area, meaning Neusiedler See.
That was the kitespot back then. We were also there for the World Championships. And yeah, I was doing pretty well. I also went along with the Austrian Championships. And training camps in the summer. Until eventually my knees said, "Hey, slow down a bit." Not like that. I had several patellar luxations back then. And at 15, I decided that if I kept going like this, my knees wouldn't thank me. So I started paragliding. And for five years, I only flew paragliders.
So you just quit kitesurfing completely?
I didn't touch a kite for five years. I spent even more time on my paraglider. And in the summer, I also flew a lot of thermals. My summer holidays were a nice side job. And then I studied sports equipment technology in Vienna. I did an internship for my bachelor's degree. It was... Ah. Maybe I should have even started a bit earlier. After my high school graduation, I started kitesurfing again in Austria. And I just wanted any glider that had a lot of hangtime. And wasn't so aggressive. That's when I came across Leiser.
Just for the normal paraglider who doesn't kite. Hangtime means hanging in the air. You fly with your kite too. You take off from the water and are somehow in the air for a few seconds.
Exactly, right. What's normal for the paraglider. That is, simply being in the air. For the kiter, I'd say now, it's the exception. Or rather, the goal. When kiting, of course, you also want to jump a bit. And hangtime is basically the time you spend in the air from takeoff until you land again. And yeah, back then I ran into Leiser. With the full kites. And then I bought myself a full kite. A Speed 3 at the time. Then I went along with them again at the Austrian championships. And then Leiser noticed me a bit. They needed a team rider for Austria. So I was a Flysurfer team rider. And then I did my internship from my studies at Flysurfer. And back then I already wrote my bachelor's thesis about the Moustache riser, in that sense, the riser.
And that's how my career at Skywalk began. I then got a job offer from Arne, which I unfortunately—or fortunately—couldn't turn down. And I've been there for almost 10 years now, yeah, for 10 years I've been with them. Pretty much exactly. I think my internship started on January 3rd, 2013.
That means you were also at Skywalk. You worked in the design department at Skywalk for a while too. And then you only switched to Flysurfer later, basically internally. And now you're the lead designer at Flysurfer. Exactly,
Exactly. So I started right after my internship at Skywalk. I worked there for two years as, well, mainly a test pilot. I did, of course, also dip my toes into the design software. And I also learned a lot from Alex back then. Yeah, it was like this: at Flysurfer, a developer switched from full-time to part-time. Kiting had always very, very interested me back then too. And I wanted to, yeah. I wanted to build the best race glider for hydrofoil racing back then. For myself personally. Because that was my passion in my free time, alongside paragliding. I even went along for the commercials. And that aligned with Flysurfer's wishes.
So, Flysurfer wanted to get into the racing scene a bit as well. For a while, I was basically half at Skywalk and half at Flysurfer. That was for about half a year. But then I basically switched fully to Flysurfer. And Alex got some support from Stefan in the paraglider department. And then the whole thing actually came together quite well. The whole constellation. And yeah, I've actually been responsible for the entire full-kite range at Flysurfer since 2016. And on the side, of course, for Flair as well now.
You have
a lot to do. Let's take a quick look. You have a good overview now since you have both under the same roof. From which side would you say there's more potential for innovation, where the other side can benefit? I mean, are you guys at Flysurfer taking on more from Skywalk, or is Skywalk taking on more of the insights you've gained at Flysurfer?
Tough question. We could both learn more from each other.
So we could definitely just do it more often—I don't want to say we never work together or never do testing together, but we sit very close to each other. But for how close we sit, we don't actually work that closely together, because everyone is also involved in their own projects to some extent. And of course, you exchange ideas sometimes. I have this problem now, have you ever had that? Or also from a software perspective, we obviously work with the same software. You can certainly help each other out a lot there. But really tackling and solving major problems together, that's just not really part of the daily business because everyone is also under some time pressure and so on.
From that perspective, it's a relatively hard question to answer whether FlySafe takes over more from Skywalk or vice versa. I'd say we don't really take over much, except maybe some of the production processes. Like, how is the rigid foil inserted into the pocket? Some sewing techniques get passed back and forth like that, but large constructions aren't really taken over.
Looking at your work, from what you've already designed for kites and now Moustache and stuff like that, is Moustache the project you're perhaps most proud of?
Yeah, it's pretty much on par with the FlySurfer VMG. That's our race kite for hydrofoil racing, which will be in the Olympics for the first time in 2024. And we're one of four brands that registered a glider for the 2020 Olympics.
And yeah, it already showed last season, meaning the 2022 season, that if you don't have VMG, you don't really have much of a chance of making it onto the podium anymore.
That means there are four registered brands, but you're actually the leaders in this area. Exactly, right.
And now, of course, all this demand is shifting to us. And we're getting an extreme amount of demand. We
we just had some at the
VMG, and the probability of the VMG taking a podium spot at the 2024 Olympics is almost certain. Because, well, I'd say 90 percent of the fleet is now riding on the VMG. And I'm, of course, very, very proud of that.
So you've basically set the standard for such competitions?
Yes, set the standard. I tried to think outside the box. To be creative. And I knew back then that if we didn't have the best or the fastest glider, we wouldn't sell much of it either. It's quite logical. People look at it and go, okay, what's the best material? Okay, I need that glider so I have some kind of chance at the Olympics. Yes, the VMG has very, very few lines. It only has an A-level and a B-level. No brake. That means it's also a two-liner.
as far as I'm concerned.
It's a pure two-liner. Yes, exactly. So there's only an A-plane and a B-plane. It doesn't split at the glider into an A and AB or whatever. Instead, there's only an A and a B plane. And the whole thing basically has fiberglass rods built into the profiles so that the whole thing works. And the goal behind that was simply to reduce line drag to a minimum and thereby increase performance. And we succeeded in that.
Did this idea basically come from the paragliding world, where you saw that these two-liners already exist? You also mentioned earlier that you've flown two-liners a lot yourself. That you said you're just transferring that to the kite area. Or did this idea come from other sources or was it already there beforehand?
Yes, so the VMG is my third race glider. And my first race glider, the Sonic Race, also already had two levels. But with a brake, meaning A and B. So A, B, and brake. Just like how the classic two-liner paraglider looks today. Then the second model was built very similarly. But there was no talk of the Olympics yet. And then the pressure was just a bit higher to basically build the glider for the Olympics. And I got a bit more creative there. And I always asked myself, the brake, do we really need it in kiting, because we don't have to fly around the curve quickly in some way.
Or the thing doesn't have to turn quickly. We just need to be fast on the straight line. And over time, it became clear that the brake might make things a bit easier in some parts, but you aren't faster overall. And when the sport heads towards the Olympics, the drivers' skills naturally change extremely as well. That is, the training hours naturally go up. The drivers' skills become significantly better. And that has just shown now. Back then, the fleet maybe wasn't quite ready for the concept. But by now, thanks to all the training, they can get the performance out of the glider. And that was our great stroke of luck.
And in that regard, we are definitely at the forefront.
Would it be conceivable and would it make sense to implement a two-liner concept in the paraglider field as well?
I've thought about that quite a few times. I think the whole thing would be pretty dangerous. There were already quite a few attempts with rigid elements in the past. And unfortunately, several test pilots died during those trials back then. And I don't think it's that sensible either. Because, of course, you still have to fly a paraglider or do paragliding competition. You obviously have to climb. That is, you have to circle in thermals. And now, if you have a relatively tight thermal, but you can't turn the glider as tightly because you don't have a brake, then you're basically losing out on the best lift. Because the best lift is simply in the middle of the thermal. I don't think that makes much sense.
Maybe during a glide. But I think you lose more in lift than you gain in power, so to speak, in terms of line drag during a glide. From that perspective, the classic competition two-liner, as it's currently built, is already pretty much the optimum in that regard, I think. We probably won't see much new stuff regarding the basic structure in the coming years. That is, the A-plane, B-plane, or brake. I think that's already pretty much the optimum for the field of application. These
The fiberglass rods you have in there are mainly to properly bridge those large distances between the A and B surfaces, so that the profile remains sufficiently stiff and still functions. Let's go back to the Moustache. Can it actually collapse?
Any glider can work.
Yes, the Moustache can collapse. I've already had the Moustache collapse and started differently. The Moustache... isn't designed to have very simple extreme flight behavior. In other words, it was never the goal to get the Moustache certified or to somehow get a B-class or C-class classification on it. That is, you approach the construction completely differently. Because if you look at a paraglider construction now, or the process of constructing a paraglider, you always have in the back of your mind, okay, if I design this and that parameter this way, then the spiral will probably become stable. And I won't pass certification, for example.
That means you have to keep in mind from the very beginning: what will the maneuvers look like? How could the maneuvers look? I didn't have to do that at all with the Moustache, because the goal was never to get the Moustache certified. Because the standard, as it's currently designed, basically doesn't allow for us to get through certification with the 3-harness system. But that shouldn't mean that the glider is dangerous because it doesn't have certification, because the certification itself is just a snapshot of, let's say, which test pilot is flying the maneuver. How does the test pilot pull? Does he maybe already lean slightly to the other side when he does an asymmetric collapse?
And, and, and. A lot comes together. Then, of course, with C-gliders, or D- and CCC-gliders, you now have with the fold lines, you naturally have, I'd say, a simulation tool so that you can simulate a collapse at all, which in total doesn't have that much to do with reality, as to how the collapse would simply look without the fold lines. Accordingly, it would be great, of course, if we had certification on the glider and you could say, here this C-glider is certified, everything's fine, but the Moustache simply doesn't fit the norm. We've already been in touch with the DRV, or the DRV came to us, they also tested the Moustache and so on.
They are extremely pro-Moustache, I have to say. I don't want to say they want to see the thing certified, that's not quite right, but they are definitely open to looking at the standard again and maybe changing the standard slightly to somehow get such systems through certification or to certify them meaningfully, let's put it that way. It was like that back then with the Starflügel, with the kite; I think they were flown around illegally for over five years because the certification standard simply, yeah, they just weren't, exactly. There just wasn't one for them. And now the DRV has said they don't want to make that mistake again.
They also just don't want to look the other way. And we're in talks and will be doing some test flights again this summer to see how the whole thing could pass through certification in a sensible way, so that it obviously has something to do with reality. It doesn't help if you only have an A-wing in the certification and then, in reality, people don't fall out of the sky. That doesn't help either.
How could you even do something like that? I mean, if I imagine it, I have this Moustache constantly on the brakes. If I say I want to trigger a collapse, then I basically have to let go of a brake. That side is already accelerating completely forward. Then I pull my completely pre-accelerated side collapse and maybe grab the brake again. So a really proper, let's say, normal collapse test or something. In that case, you can't fly with it at all in the end. Or would there be ways, not just to use folding lines for example, but you say I also do a brake fixation to a normal position and say, from this normal position, I then test such collapses. So are there thoughts like that?
Yes, there are. So, during my test flights, I've done it this way. I actually only worked with fold lines because you just can't get the thing to collapse via the A-risers. Unless you pull only the brake and only the A, then it works. But then you really have to let go of basically everything. And I wasn't really pushing for that, so I did a lot with fold lines as well. Not with the background of getting through certification, but just to see how the thing reacts in reality or simply to a collapse. The thing is, we almost never got a collapse with it because the Moustache is just very, very stable. And I was thinking with Armin about how we could test the whole thing or simulate a collapse.
And then we thought of the tandem glider. If you fly behind a tandem at full throttle and the tandem is maybe quite overloaded and well on the brake, there's a lot of wingtip vortex, so you might be able to get the wing to collapse somehow. And it's somewhat reproducible. And? Yeah, nothing. We've flown behind tandems quite often. Even with tandems that didn't know anything about it, just flying around, we just flew behind them. Yeah, it shakes for a bit, but that's far from a collapse. And that already showed us that it really needs a lot of turbulence. Because if you fly the paraglider just behind the tandem, it usually rustles already.
Or if you fly through your own wingtip vortices after a spiral. When unrolling a spiral, it can definitely happen that the side catches you.
What is so different about the Moustache canopy? You say it's basically built like a paraglider, and sure, it has a different riser down there now. But if you say I'm flying through the wingtip vortices behind a tandem at full acceleration and it doesn't collapse—what is so much better or different about the Moustache that it doesn't collapse there? What's the trick?
Yeah, the Moustache has a slight S-shape profile. That is, with a line release, the Moustache always wants to fly the canopy away from you. In very strong turbulence, this lift moment is too low and the thing will still collapse. But the trick behind it is actually that with a line release—meaning I'm flying normally and suddenly I hit sinking air and every single line to the glider sags. How does the glider change then without line relaxation? What does the glider do? What does the canopy do? How does the canopy deform? The Moustache deforms in a direction that makes the glider even more stable without line relaxation.
That is, as soon as I have a line release—it can also be a localized release—then the glider deforms in a way that makes it stable again. That's also a bit of the trick behind it, which I don't want to go into too much or in too much detail right now, but it simply cost me an extreme amount of work to make the thing very, very stable during line releases with a very weakly defined reflex profile. And what's also added to that, which I want to touch on a bit again today, is what happens during a collapse with the glider. That is, a collapse only happens when the profile is hit with zero angle of attack, or even a negative angle of attack, at the leading edge.
And if I don't do anything about it, the glider will collapse. In the best-case scenario, it opens up on its own and I continue flying straight ahead. If I'm flying actively and have a slight amount of brake pressure—let me explain this using a normal paraglider—then my brake pressure drops when the glider enters a lower angle of attack range. What do I do then? I increase the angle of attack again by pulling more brake, countering the fact that the glider isn't stalling, but rather increasing the angle of attack again. But with a paraglider, I only increase the angle of attack at the trailing edge.
Setting aside the two-liner. If I'm on full throttle in the two-liner and steering with the B, and I pull on the B, then of course I also change the angle of attack at the front again. But if I only steer with the brake, I'm increasing it at the leading edge, I'm not changing the angle of attack at all, I'm just pulling the trailing edge down. And with the Moustache, it's such that I also pull the B down via the brake and also increase the angle of attack at the leading edge. That is, if I have a relief valve and I'm basically going full throttle, I still have tension on the B-plane with the Moustache, then I feel on my brake handle that the pressure on the B-plane is decreasing.
That means I pick up on the turbulence earlier, because the turbulence starts affecting the glider from the leading edge. In other words, I notice sooner that something is happening and can react earlier, even before I feel the lower brake pressure at the rear brake. That makes it extremely efficient to counteract a collapse. I always feel what the leading edge of my glider is doing, whether I'm flying into rising or sinking air masses, and I can prevent a collapse early on before it even occurs. And that makes the Moustache—I don't want to say it's safer than a paraglider—but it makes it easier,
to recognize a collapse early and react to it early. And we've also received quite a lot of, well, consistently positive feedback from the market about the Moustache, and from some pilots too, who even feel more comfortable in turbulent air with the Moustache than with a classic paraglider. I explain that by exactly what I just described: that in turbulent air, you notice a possible collapse earlier and can perhaps react to it sooner. And of course, especially with Starkman Soaring, you have a huge speed range. That is, you never really have in the back of your mind, oh, I'd better not fly too close to the edge, otherwise it might blow me back.
Well, I've had that thought a few times with the Moustache, but at that point, there was already about 60 km/h wind.
I was already well at my limit there. But as I said, the collapse detection—how the glider reacts to a collapse, or rather how the glider indicates the collapse to me—is also an issue. That is, of course, you can have a glider that, let me put it this way, if you fly into turbulent air, tends to collapse more from the center, meaning it has a very soft center, which from my point of view is pretty much the worst-case scenario because then, before the ear even rolls in, you get a front collapse. And with the Moustache, it's exactly the opposite. That is, the center is very, very stable, even more stable than the tips. So, if I fly into very turbulent air now, the tips will roll first and tell me, okay, a bit slow, and it can just go a bit out of gas, and I know, okay, now I have to watch out.
That means as a pilot—if I'm an experienced pilot, so to speak, and can fly actively well and all that—then the Moustache becomes accessible to me relatively quickly, and I can probably fly it quite safely. When you first introduced the Moustache to the market, you always really emphasized or pointed out that it's primarily for experienced pilots. And that they should fly with it first, and that people should get advice in special Flair sales centers and then hear how it works there. So, how is it now after a year of experience on the market? Is it still sensible to maintain that, or would you say today, based on what we've experienced, that the Moustache is actually almost beginner-friendly too?
So I wouldn't call it beginner-friendly right now. Although, that is very, very site-dependent. I mean, if I think about Denmark, for example, I've already had my 8-year-old niece on a Moustache, a 15, in 15 km/h wind, and she even flew down the dune with it. If I assume I'm standing somewhere at a cliff launch site and I were to give the Moustache to a beginner, I'd have a significantly worse gut feeling about that than on the coast. From that perspective, I wouldn't generalize and say it's beginner-friendly. But it's definitely true that on the coast, I don't have to be a great paraglider pilot to fly the Moustache safely.
I should probably have some paraglider experience, a bit of ground handling experience, but I don't have to be a two-liner pilot to fly the Moustache safely. And we deliberately pushed the Moustache a bit into the extreme corner. It is also extreme in the small sizes. In the large sizes, it's not that extreme. And that's maybe very important to understand. You choose the glider based on your skill level, on your piloting ability. If I'm not the experienced speedflyer, then with, I don't know, 85 kilos of takeoff weight, I've lost nothing by choosing a 13er.
Similarly, if I'm an experienced Akropilot and can still fly some Akrofigur or whatever, then I'll also be able to handle a 13er Moustache safely, for example. So that's very, very different. The sizes of the Moustache are very, very different in terms of pilot requirements. And we've just seen after a year that no major, major accident has happened with it. At least nothing we would have noticed. And if something had happened, we definitely would have noticed. And as I said, the feedback is even that many pilots feel more comfortable with the Moustache in turbulent air than with their classic paraglider.
Now I've lost my train of thought.
It's not bad to lose the thread. As long as you always put the lines in the right place on your constructions, that's great. I think it's definitely become clear from your experiences that, at least the larger sizes of the Moustache are actually suitable for almost all pilot levels. If you fly them at least at normal coastal sites with relatively laminar wind and stuff like that, you actually understand such a wing very well. Speaking of laminar wind and not laminar, and through turbulence and stuff like that. Can you fly the Moustache in the thermals too? Have you done that already?
I've already done it. You can. It's just very, very exhausting over the long term. Because what do I want from the thermals? I want to get maximum climb rate or altitude gain, so to speak, out of a thermal. Of course, with the Moustache, I have to pull quite hard and fly into the range where the brake engages. Where we already said before that it gets exhausting over time if the brake is rising. If the brake is activated. That's why the glider simply isn't made for thermal flying. Of course, I don't have to be extremely fit right now, but I have already flown thermals for three and a half hours with the Moustache. It's possible. It's just exhausting.
And we also deliberately didn't market the Moustache for thermals, because thermals also mean turbulence immediately. And we just wanted to slowly introduce people or the customers to the new style of flying, or still do.
Our approach was that the glider simply wasn't meant for thermals, because first of all, it doesn't make much sense as it's just exhausting, and second, because thermal air is simply turbulent air, which makes a collapse practically more likely than in laminar air.
You also mentioned earlier that the Moustache concept might be interesting for speedflyers, since you're working on something there, but maybe also for powered glider pilots. What's the interesting thing about that? I could also imagine that if a normal powered glider pilot says they're starting in zero wind or something, that might actually be quite difficult with the Moustache, right?
Yes, it's also difficult to start with the normal Moustache in zero wind, but it depends a bit on the size. I mean, you can start a 18er or a 22er relatively well in zero wind, but a 13er in zero wind—for example, on rails, that's no problem, since your climb speed isn't that important there, you just go a bit faster on the rails, but for foot launching, it's recommended to have long legs with the small Moustaches. That's why we also want to build a new glider for that, a real, truly specialized power wing where you can maybe deactivate this flare system for starting or landing, meaning you're in normal paraglider mode, and then only activate the whole thing once you're in the air.
and so you can also keep the effort for longer flights a bit lower, meaning you can deactivate the flare system, rest for a bit, save some fuel with the motor, and then basically activate it again and have fun, exactly.
But that would mainly be to have a very fun motorized glider and fly figures, maybe fly some great slaloms, because those things come around the corner so well because you have this different angle of attack control in the turns, where you can say, I'm pulling inside, letting the outside go free, and because of that, it just practically spins 180 degrees around me in one go.
Yeah, I have to admit, I'm not a motor pilot. I've flown the motor, but I'm not that good at flying it, though I have been spending some time on it over the last few months, of course. I think where the flare system has the biggest advantage for the motor pilot is, first of all, in slalom—I really see it as a huge advantage there—but also, when I watch videos, like flying really low to the ground in riverbeds in calm wind, that's not ultra difficult with the motor, but it does require concentration and skill to fly very low over long distances. The flare system just makes that ultra easy.
Because you can bail out at any time if you need to. You just have the speed and notice, oh, I'm getting too close to the water or something, you only see a little bit and you've already gained two meters again.
Exactly, right. That just makes it ultra easy and it's also a huge fun factor when you can just give up a bit behind a row of trees somewhere, pull onto the meadow for a second, carve your way there, hit the brake again, and go past the next row of trees, for example. So there are just infinite possibilities and also new areas that you might be able to fly. That will show, but the motor definitely has potential in the flare system.
What is the competition doing? You mentioned earlier that at some point you said, "Come on, let's get out there before someone beats us to it" or something like that. Have you seen—I mean, many brands have probably already had their eyes on you and noticed, "Oh, that actually seems to be a working system that works on the market," because you've been getting such good feedback. Do you or have you seen any developments from others yet?
Yeah, yeah.
So, we've already
pure riser developments that were then built into various gliders. Everything has, at least as far as I could tell, not worked out so great. But I know of two brands, which I don't want to name here, that are working on that concept. One of the brands contacted us directly back then, but of course, we also know each other a bit in the industry. And they said, yeah, no, no, that's too dangerous for them, they won't do it, and so on. Now a photo has surfaced showing that they are indeed doing something in that direction.
I recently saw a video, I think it was from Flow, where a prototype could be seen. It was a paraglider, but the riser already looked very moustache-like, and it simply demonstrated how, if you just pull down on the A—so, the reflex profile—how cleanly the glider just floats back up and then just stays there. Now I don't know to what extent that was just a small test or if something is actually coming. But given your success, it's actually only to be expected that eventually competitors will also want to follow suit.
Exactly, yeah, so that's always a bit of a confirmation too, when other brands jump on a trend like that, it shows that you're not completely in the dark with the idea, because otherwise there wouldn't be any reason for other brands to do it. But yeah, because you just mentioned Flow, that's the second brand involved. I know that something is coming there. That's basically their motor glider, where the riser is now on it. I've already received a few videos of that. But I don't want to comment on that much right now. Everyone is doing their job, of course. We probably wouldn't do it any differently.
If a major global revolution comes out somewhere, we'd obviously take a look at it too. And if we feel like, hey, that makes sense, we'd naturally do something in that direction as well, provided we have the capacity. So from that perspective, there's nothing wrong with it.
What would also interest me looking ahead is whether single-skin could be interesting in the Moustache area as well? You have it with the kites, for snow-kites and stuff like that, where you also have the single-skins or the hybrid stories now. Would that also be something that would work with Moustache constructions? Yes,
Definitely. I already built a big peak. I had it with me this summer in Denmark. Absolute catastrophe. It doesn't fly at all. It's nowhere near flyable. That was just an experiment. There are also way too few lines on it. I actually almost realized earlier that it wouldn't work like that. But I wanted to try it. But I'd put new attachment points on it now and then see if it actually works. But yeah, there is already a hybrid concept that we might actually want to use for training, and maybe only for our pro partners, for our schools, to basically simplify the first contact with the system for new pilots.
The thing is impossible to collapse. You can't get it to fold. No chance. It also has an incredible amount of power. It doesn't accelerate in some way. It doesn't do any tricks. It has a pretty hard release point. So, letting go is also relatively difficult. It makes a lot of sense on the full line, though. But I'm not happy yet with how the part feels when flying. I'd like to make it a bit more homogeneous, more balanced in terms of the flight feel. Because until now, it's more of an on-off pull, no pull and no transition in between. That's proving to be a bit difficult. But I can still manage that.
Exactly. Something will come out in 2024 at the earliest. Spring 2024.
But just from a perspective point of view, if you imagine it that way, it could eventually be the case that you say, "You can even train with these kinds of things." At least on the coast or something, and say, "Look, you're doing a soaring license now." Maybe at those points it could even be split so that you say you can do a soaring license and a mountain flight license or something, so that there are corresponding schools. And then at the end, you have a light hybrid Moustache, whatever it's called then. And you can say, "This is how you learn it." And then, if you want more power and more speed, you upgrade to the proper Moustache, and so on.
That's the idea behind it. And of course, there's a bit of math involved there too. If you think about it, there are quite a few soaring areas. And to soar, you simply need wind. And wind is also just plain dangerous at the beginning if you don't know how to handle a glider. And from my point of view, the classic paraglider just isn't the right concept for that. The single skin, for example, is easy to keep up in low wind because nothing weighs it down and it flies early. But as soon as you have 20 km/h wind, you're flying backwards. So nothing works there either. You don't get much forward motion either. And I believe if you somehow combine all the pros and cons of the different concepts, you end up with a hybrid concept with a mixer three-harness, which you can basically just lay completely flat on the ground and maybe even limit for the practice slope so that you just can't fly at full throttle.
Because you don't want to fly at full throttle. If a student takes off on the practice slope, you want to make sure they come down slowly and safely. It ultimately succeeds or fails with the three-point harness. The concept itself, that is going to happen.
Benni, let's slowly come to an end. And my last question, from a bit of a perspective point of view. Do you think the paraglider market will split in the future? On one side, let's say, thermals gliders and soaring gliders. Thermals gliders in the form they are currently known as classic paragliders. And then the soaring gliders with Moustache-like risers and such a mixer riser to then get the corresponding possibilities out of them?
So I believe that the Flair system has the potential to replace the classic mini-wings, soaring gliders, or the classic paraglider for soaring. I don't think that's going to happen very, very quickly right now. And I'm also fairly certain that it won't be achieved by just one brand. But I believe that if several brands come around the corner with a similar system, the acceptance in the market will be significantly, significantly greater. And it will also show, hey, this system can't be that bad, if several brands jump on it, then maybe several pilots will want to try it out.
It's a difficult question, but I hope so. That's my, yeah, my dream—to see the coasts, the flyable coasts of our world, full of Moustaches or Flair products, future Flair products. But that remains to be seen. But I hope so. I really hope so.
And what about away from the coast? I live near Bonn, and if you fly around here, you often do some soaring on the small hills that are around. With classic paragliders, but where you're soaring at more like 15 to 20 km/h. Would it also make sense to build a Moustache not with 22, but 24 or something, where you'd say you can soar very nicely with it even at those wind speeds, and then also have those advantages of the Moustache? So would that also be a future market approach or market potential?
Yeah, I'm just sharing a bit of behind-the-scenes info now. We're also going to see a larger Moustache. We can bring that to market very soon, Summer 2023. That makes sense, whether it's for the heavier pilot or for pilots who simply want to use a Moustache for their paraglider while soaring. Because until now, it's naturally been the case that with a normal-sized paraglider for your weight range, you can fly earlier. You can hold it earlier. And the Moustache only really comes into play when there's simply more wind. And as I said, the feedback is that we have some pilots who really want to completely replace their paraglider at the coast with a Moustache and would like to have more surface area.
And something from us is coming soon.
Benni, I'll leave that as an outlook. Thanks to you for the many series. Very in-depth narratives, descriptions of all sorts of things, comparisons between paraglider and kite construction. Yes, congratulations to you as well, for being essentially the architect or co-architect alongside Armin Harig, but perhaps the driving force in the end, to have set this concept in motion in such a way that the paraglider market might still have a niche-sized future in that area.
Yes, thank you very much. And yeah, I'm curious to see what the future holds. What the future brings.
That's what we all are. Thanks, Benni. The
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