Air law aside, we still have huge freedoms that we should appreciate. We can make our own decisions completely; we can fly wherever we want. We have our peace—no radio, no smell, no engine. That is the most beautiful way of flying.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Hans Lang, and I am Lucian Haas.
Be honest, do you still know what cloud separations you have to maintain in airspace G and how they differ from those in airspace E? Or what do you think about the following case? You're out on a meadow with your paraglider for ground handling and a friend who doesn't fly comes by. Would you be allowed to let him take your glider and then also instruct him during his first inflation exercises? In all these cases, aviation law comes into play. And maybe you'll catch yourself thinking, oh, I don't know that exactly, if at all, just by listening to this. You're certainly not the only one. In the paragliding scene, the topic of aviation law is treated rather as an afterthought.
For pilots coming from large-scale, much more regulated aviation, this is surprising. Hans Lang, for example, was a military jet pilot and instructor for many years. When he learned paragliding later in life, he immediately noticed these cultural differences in how aviation law issues are handled. But since opposites also create energy, he made it his mission to somehow bring aviation law closer to other paragliders.
Hans Lang wrote a small textbook. Air law for paraglider pilots. In this episode No. 103 of Podz-Glidz, I talk to him about many of the insights from it. But don't worry, the topic might seem dry, but this episode isn't. If you enjoy Podz-Glidz, why not support my work as a patron? You can find out how it's possible very easily and without any obligation on the website of my paraglider blog Lu-Glidz, specifically on the "Support" page.
Hans, how do you come up with the idea to write a book about aviation law?
That is, I think, a very good question. I believe it all started with the fact that after I finished my paraglider training and people realized what I had done professionally in aviation before, I was approached by the owner of the flight school. He asked, couldn't you do the B-license courses for us? So, things like aviation law, meteorology, navigation, and so on. And then I thought about it, and I started doing it and did these B-license classes for a number of years—I still do now, but I did them for a long time—and then I got the idea that I could also, well, aviation law has become a bit of a hobby of mine,
that I could possibly offer this in seminars as well. So I gave online seminars, I got in touch with the DHV, and yes, I did those too. And then I was approached more and more, asking if I couldn't write it all down so that people could read through it later, yes, consult it again and again. I refused for quite a long time because I said it's way too extensive. So, my wife eventually talked me into it during Corona, when everything was under lockdown, and said, then just write it down, just start. Yes, and so I just started, and yes, over the months it kept getting thicker and more extensive.
Yes, that's how I ended up writing a
to write a book on aviation law. Now you just said that aviation law has become a bit of a hobby. I always imagine hobbies as something—a subject—that is fun in some way and that you want to spend a lot of time on. Is aviation law something like that for you?
Basically, to be honest. I have hobbies, and as you know, I also go paragliding or all that. But even so, aviation law has become a bit of a hobby for me. And mainly because I found out that we paragliders don't have a big lobby, okay? Nobody represents us; we are recreational and hobby pilots. And the big aviation world, everything to do with commerce, we've always been a bit of a thorn in their side. And I've really noticed several times that people have said, "Well, you paragliders don't have a clue about aviation anyway." That keeps coming up whenever someone does something wrong somewhere.
Then they say, "No wonder, you paraglider pilots have no clue." And it sort of grew on my heart to say, that can't be true. They all do training. They have to know that certain things aren't allowed or how to handle something. But then I realized that this training, after it's really, very short at the schools, at least here in Germany, and so it occurred to me, you have to do a bit more. It can't be that they actually want to stop us everywhere. And then I started founding this Facebook group. I found out that quite a few interested people logged in pretty quickly and wanted to know what it's actually all about.
And I think quite a bit has developed in that direction over the last, let's say, two, two and a half, three years. I believe the understanding has grown. And this general comparison with, let's say, driving a car. You know yourself, parking wrongly costs ten euros, driving too fast costs 40 euros. That prompted me to look into why people believe it doesn't matter, that you don't need to know air rights. If something happens, you just have to pay 40 euros. That is far from the case. Flying involves the fact that it's expensive, and the penalties for it are just as expensive.
But that's how I came up with the idea of maybe creating more understanding there.
Based on what you've just worked out regarding aviation law, and seeing that even in the courses you've given, there's a lack of understanding among paragliders and in the paragliding scene—why is this topic of aviation law actually so out of fashion or so often pushed aside by paragliders?
I think there are several reasons for that. First of all, there aren't that many people who go on cross-country flights. Most people fly, or let's say many people, just fly from the home mountain to the landing field. They have relatively little to do with aviation law because they're hardly ever out on the road. That's point one. But the main reason, I believe, lies with our training. It was possible until now to get a paragliding license within 14 days, three weeks. People don't want to spend much money. They want to go paragliding, they want to become pilots, but they don't want to spend anything on it. The schools here have designed the training so that you practically walk out with a minimum.
With a minimum amount of skill and understanding. Obviously, there's hardly any other way to do it. I think it's a bit different in Switzerland. There, a paraglider license is by far more comprehensive. And what I've found out now is that even within the DHV, they are considering whether the training couldn't be made a bit more extensive. Then, for sure, there would be more aviation law on the curriculum. I don't think there's anywhere in the world where you can get a pilot's license with so little training. I believe quite a bit will certainly change in the near future.
If there's so little knowledge about aviation law, it must happen often that people violate it in some way, even unintentionally, because they never learned it or never remembered it—let's say, unintentionally. From your experience, or your perspective, or what you hear from the pilots, which aviation rules are most commonly disregarded, whether unintentionally or intentionally, depending on the case?
I think that 99 percent of it is probably unintentional. I don't believe anyone intentionally violates aviation law, unless they're perhaps imagining things. It wouldn't be that bad if you slightly encroached on some airspace. I believe it's usually a matter of ignorance. The most common violations, if I look at, say, YouTube videos or something, might have to do with distances—with cloud distances, with distances from terrain. I think that's probably the most common by far. Flying into areas where you're not allowed is also quite common, I think. Also, because clubs that have their strongholds relatively close to certain airfields do communicate very clearly what you need to watch out for there.
But when it comes to cloud separation, I'm quite sure that interests very few people. Most people probably know that you have to maintain distances or meet certain visual flight conditions. But you don't get caught. After landing, you pack up and leave. So it's very rare that you're held accountable for it. But I believe that cloud separation is the thing that's disregarded the most.
In that case, it's more about the vertical distance than the horizontal, because of course you want to fly towards the clouds from below and pull out as much altitude as possible.
Yeah, that's probably the biggest one. So the lateral distances might matter less, but the 300 meters below the cloud—I think everyone has already messed with that.
Is there like a penalty catalog somewhere where I could see, if someone were to prove it to me, what I'd actually have to pay if I fly too close to a cloud?
Yes, that's something completely different from the fine catalog in road traffic, where there's a list of how much each offense costs. That doesn't exist in aviation law. There are only, at most, experience values regarding what courts or authorities have decided. That usually starts at a few thousand euros, and if there's a significant risk to human life involved, it can very quickly turn into a prison sentence of at least six months. That's how it's defined in aviation law.
is and fixed. A few thousand euros, you said. Is there not less? I mean, flying up to the cloud would basically just be a minor offense, and while you're not allowed to do it, if someone reports you but you didn't endanger anyone else, would you still believe that someone would say you still have to pay a few thousand euros? Let's say
...like, if you can prove that the person did it intentionally, because they just didn't care, for example, then it's possible they could get hit with a very heavy fine for it, and I think that's definitely in the thousands.
Okay. I'm convinced of that. Do you know of any cases where pilots had to shell out a lot of money because of some legal, I mean aviation law, violations? Yes, I know...
personally, I only know of one case, but I don't know if he got off with a fine or had to go to prison. He definitely had to hand in his license. He violated Zurich airspace and they wanted to make an example out of him, so people from the airfield drove out in cars and caught him while he was packing up. They definitely wanted to make an example of him. And I don't know if he had to go to prison, but he was hit with a few thousand euros. I have good connections at the Federal Aviation Office, and of course, they only want to tell me that there were individual cases where significant penalties were imposed, but naturally not how high they were or who they were. That
That's clear. And if a pilot's license is taken away once, can you get it back, or is it like a lifelong ban from flying that you get? Like, the way I...
from my previous aviation experience, that applies for life. So you most likely wouldn't get it back.
That's not very pleasant. But it's one more reason to maybe really dive deeper into aviation law. What did you learn that was new or surprising about aviation law for yourself while writing the book or otherwise dealing with it?
Yeah, that's very funny. I remember an episode where a good friend of mine came over and said, "Show me how it's done with the paraglider." So we went out to the meadow and practiced. I'm not supposed to say any of this, but it's probably forbidden. So we practiced and we set it up, and the guy turns around, gives it gas, and runs. And then he just jumped a few meters, maybe. That's something I thought would be completely fine. And only through my work on the book did I see that it's simply a criminal offense. Because you're presuming to be a flight school or a flight instructor. And that's not allowed. I think that's also something that only comes up in my book.
That hardly ever happens in any kind of instruction. Especially with "let me show my buddy how this works." That's really where the real trouble lies. Because if he gets hurt and the whole thing takes on an official form, then it could quite possibly...
behave sensitively. So you would then be wrongly acting as a flight instructor, which you aren't. He would have flown a paraglider that was essentially uninsured for him, because then the insurance company says, we're no longer assuming this liability, because that wasn't a correct and proper instruction.
If you even know, what happens if the other person, whom I'm somehow helping with ground handling, asks for a bit of instruction—say he already has an A-license and says, "Can you teach me a bit of ground handling?" I'm not a flight instructor, though. What's the legal situation? If he already...
has a license and I'm just providing some assistance as a friend. He makes all the decisions himself, and then it's not a problem at all. An insurance company would also pay in such a case, even if the terrain isn't approved for any kind of take-offs
...is authorized or something. As long as he hasn't actually flown. If he takes off from a non-authorized site in Germany, the insurance will probably say that was a flight, and that you weren't allowed to do that.
It would at least be an administrative offense. That's clear. A court would have to decide whether the defendant or the perpetrator could be assumed to have had the intent to fly. You can always assume that if he's standing at the very top of a hill; then you could claim he definitely wanted to fly. But if it's a meadow down in the valley, like here at my place, you can't attribute any intent to fly to me at all. Consequently, the case might be easier to settle.
That means if a gust of wind lifts you up, whether it's ten meters or whatever, and it was essentially an act of God that you had to yield to, and then there was an emergency landing afterwards. I'm quite sure a judge
...could understand that, because he can't assume that the person absolutely wanted to take off. It just ripped him off the ground. I think that can happen with paragliding if you're not careful.
While flipping through your book this morning while I was doing a bit of preparation, I noticed one sentence or section. You write so nicely, or quote so nicely, in the legal text it says—let me read that out. In the preparation of the flight, the aircraft pilot shall familiarize himself with all documents and information that are important for the safe conduct of the flight. Isn't that actually almost always disregarded by every paraglider pilot, because, I mean, you know people who don't familiarize themselves with all the documents and information that are important for the safe conduct of the flight?
That is quite
It's funny that you say that. That's the first thing I always tell the students. In this aviation law, there are an insane number of good documents, "rubber paragraphs." You might not be able to fulfill everything. But you should strive to check off as many as possible. That involves a whole battery of things. Nevertheless, a clever lawyer will probably manage to find something that the person didn't do. We find very, very many of such formulations in the legal texts. It's incredibly difficult. In principle, you can really only do your best to fulfill everything. That should be relatively easy in this one case or that one, if someone didn't check the weather or maybe didn't look at a landing field beforehand or didn't check the NOTAMs.
Then it's relatively easy to prove. If he committed minor violations because he maybe didn't write down the radio frequency or something, then that would certainly benefit him in court. But in aviation in general, there are many, many texts that require interpretation. And that is the big difficulty. You can only interpret them if you have experience with judgments that have already taken place. But I know that, as far as paraglider pilots are concerned, there are very few judgments. And that's a good thing. It should stay that way.
But you can't really rely on experience values there. That's just how it is.
That sounds to me a bit like, well, we paraglider pilots always fly with at least one closed eye when it comes to aviation law. And then there's still the saying, where there's no plaintiff, there's no judge. And fortunately, there are so few plaintiffs in that area when we're swinging through the air that we rarely run into a judge who could somehow hold something against us, like something we forgot, omitted, disregarded, or anything else.
I think that's the case too. At least it has been until now. However, in the future, we're simply going to have to change. You're certainly familiar with the discussion, or everyone is, currently taking place regarding drones. A lot of laws are being revised there, or rather, drone flight is being incorporated into the legislation. I think we paragliders, who are at the very bottom of this food chain, will be the first to suffer losses. So it will definitely affect us. And commercial aviation won't have any sympathy for us.
And if more and more violations are committed, then they will certainly be penalized. On a larger scale than perhaps was the case until now. I am firmly convinced of that.
That's the future. Let's wait and see what actually comes our way. In some way, we will definitely have to identify ourselves electronically in the air. And that will also make it much easier for basically anyone or any authority to see where we were in the airspace, when, and how. And where some things can then perhaps be checked more easily. Let's stick to the situation that exists right now. If you take a typical B-license pilot who says, "I want to do a cross-country flight." If he wanted to do that in compliance with aviation law, what would he have to gather as a minimum preparation on the morning of a flight day? Well, that is
a lot. It starts with him basically checking the weather at home. He would have to be sure that the weather remains flyable throughout the day. Or at least know which areas he has to avoid. So he should have checked thoroughly, ideally on a few different platforms, how the weather is developing. Then he would take an ICAO chart—that is, a map with aviation safety information. Whether in paper form or online, there's a lot to be found there. He would check his planned flight path for airspaces he needs to avoid. Ideally also to the left and right of his route, because he can't guarantee that he can stay exactly on his line.
Next, he would have to check the NOTAMs. NOTAMs are, let's say, short-term changes to the airspace that couldn't be shown on the map because they only apply for a few weeks or a few days. He would have to check those as well. Furthermore, he must ensure that he plans to land at an authorized landing field. That's a bit of a myth, and I think many paraglider pilots might not know this. But the route planning must always end at an authorized landing field. If he then can't reach it there because the thermals are missing or the wind situation develops differently and he has to land outside, then he's allowed to do that.
But the
The planning must lead to a landing field. Do I have to document this planning in any way? Or do I say I had it in my head, that I wanted to fly from A to B and B was my official landing field and you just define that. If, for example, the police came and said, we're taking a crash or an emergency landing with damage here, and what were you actually planning? Tell me, where were you even trying to go? I think at least in the
Ideally, you should have this planning in your head. There was a time, or let's say with other pilots, they must have had a written plan in the form of paper. For years now, it's been completely accepted that this can also take place in electronic form. So, if a route is programmed on a flight navigator with waypoints and a landing field, then that is one hundred percent sufficient. If someone now says, "For these 50 kilometers I don't need waypoints, I know them by heart," then he should at least be able to argue well to someone that he knows them and so on. That would certainly be accepted by a court, for example, if he says, "I know the route by heart."
Do I have to have an ICAO chart with me during the flight, for example, in any form? Because...
there are no rulings on that. There are different opinions about it, but there is no ruling. There are people who claim, yes, the map must always be with you as a backup in case my flight nav suddenly loses power. But there isn't a single ruling on that.
So, if you were to ask me personally, I would assume that having it in electronic form is sufficient, and a paper map is not mandatory.
And in electronic form, that would be, for example, it has to be an official or a very closely derived ICAO airspace map, which I might have on my phone. Or is a very simplified airspace map, like the one shown to me as a vario in a Skytrax, where the corresponding airspaces are included, already a valid airspace map from an aviation law perspective, approximately?
I think that is definitely a valid aviation map. So, as long as it's guaranteed that the airspace data comes from a reliable source, then it is definitely a map. I am a firm believer in telling my students to get airspace data from reliable sources and not from weather apps, for example. There are tons of weather apps that offer that. I would use those, let's say, for a rough overview. But for the actual tracking, for tracking the route, I would still rely on data that is actually provided officially. There's plenty of that available, whether it's from Deutsche Flugsicherung,
Terminology check, XContest does that, DHV provides it. The relevant manufacturers of navigation devices for paragliding guarantee that they have official sources. That must be completely sufficient. That's enough, I think.
When I've finished a cross-country flight like this and landed, there's also this small interesting story in your book, namely the distinction of what happens if someone comes up and asks, "What did you do here? You've landed here now." There's the distinction between whether I made a safe landing or you could say, yeah, it was an emergency landing. From the perspective of the thermals being gone. Which term should I best use then?
That
In general aviation law, an emergency landing is always spoken of when something has broken on my aircraft and it can no longer fly safely, and I have to come down quickly because of that. Then it's an emergency landing, so I don't know, if lines have snapped, assuming I might have a big hang-up or whatever. It generally speaks of something being broken on the aircraft. All other decisions, based on weather, on the time of day, on me feeling uncomfortable or or or, could be titled an emergency landing. In aviation law, it says an emergency landing must be reported, an emergency landing does not. And I also tell the A-students, as long as they don't have a B-license yet, they can decide at any time,
to land somewhere other than the designated landing field, i.e., the one belonging to the launch site. If the wind situation at the landing field doesn't allow for a safe landing there, but maybe two kilometers further away everything is fine, then he is allowed to make a safety landing. No one can blame him for that.
take away from him. Let me construct a specific case. I'm planning a cross-country flight, I take off from a launch site, I know I have a west wind or something, and I let myself get blown east by that west wind. But the next official landing field on my route might not be for another 200 kilometers. Hm?
The probability of me reaching it is pretty low. I'd have to fly really well that day to get there. That means the probability of me actually landing outside is, let's say, 100 percent. Am I even allowed to take off then? That's a
That's a great question.
I guess, ultimately, it will be hard for them to prove to you that you wouldn't have been able to fly those 200 kilometers anyway, at least if you claim you could. If you say, I'm a good pilot, I can do this, my landing field should be there, I wanted to fly those 200 kilometers, then they'll have to take your word for it. However, if you respond with a grin, saying it was already clear that you'd never make it, that's how I always do it, and now I'm just landing 10 kilometers away, then they could hold that against you. So a lot of it there is based on clever
...argumentation, let's put it that way. That means I probably shouldn't have taken off at 5 p.m. and claimed I wanted to go another 200 kilometers, because by then civil twilight is well underway, and I'd have to somehow manage to land.
That would be extremely clumsy. It's also about, for example, many people always tell me, "Yeah, I don't have a license yet, but my god, you can always fly a few kilometers around out there," and if there's a bit of wind, you'll get blown off course by a few kilometers right away. My answer to that is: point one, just as you told me, it's illegal. Point two, how could you get out of that? By actually saying, "Hey, I got blown off course." If it's a few kilometers, someone will have to buy that. However, if you're blown off course by 50 kilometers, it would be very easy for a lawyer to prove that it's actually impossible. And besides, there was supposed to be wind that day.
And besides, there shouldn't have been any wind that day. Definitely. So, aviation fundamentally involves a lot of brains. It's less
...delicate skill or something like that. It has an incredible amount to do with brains. It's exactly the same when you're actively flying. It's just the same as dealing with aviation law or with weather. That involves brains. The decisions are made there...
made. Now, hand on heart or hand on your head. Do you really check all that stuff you told me earlier about what needs to be checked before every flight day? Or let's just say, before every flight day you do, do you also check which NOTAMs there are? Are there any new ones? Do you go to a site and check? So, NOTAMs and...
in cases like that, if I've planned to fly between a launch site and a landing field, I actually check them. I can also do that in the car when I'm out with my buddies. Weather-wise, I sometimes rely on them saying, "we've checked the weather, it's great today."
But I can now quickly pull up NOTAMs on my phone with one click for a specific area. It's no trouble at all, just takes a few minutes. Do you do that too? I do it regularly, it's no big deal. It does happen sometimes that you forget. Personally, I feel uneasy then and try to somehow compensate by relying on other people. You feel uneasy. But in
I check them briefly right after. Do you have a tip on where one can check that quickly, even on a phone, when you say, "I just did that on the way to the launch site" or "I'll just do that real quick"? I can
Just to say, for iOS, but I'm sure there's one for Android too. If you type "Notams" into the App Store, you'll be offered various apps and you can download them. I know one that I use. The icon is somehow white and red striped with "Fat Notams" in the middle. It works great for me. I can be sure it's always up to date.
Well, Notams are incredibly cryptic in the way they are issued. They're full of acronyms and stuff like that. Are there websites where this cryptic notation is translated into understandable German or English in some way? Yes, there are.
You can find a guide on how to read NOTAMs under "Airspace" or "Air Law" on the DHV website. I believe there's also a booklet there with abbreviations and how to read them. Unfortunately, NOTAMs are published in English and consist of a ton of abbreviations. That's just how it is—let's just say, after 45 years of flying, it becomes second nature. I know it's not that easy for beginners in that regard, but it is possible to download guides, specifically from the DHV as well, to be able to translate them.
You just mentioned 45 years of flying. I want to come back to that right away. One more thing regarding the legal side. Airspace boundaries. You're not allowed to fly into restricted airspace. How close can I get to them? Is there an airspace law definition for that? Or is it really just that you can get within a meter and it's still allowed? Like you...
what you said is absolutely correct. So, regarding the lateral boundaries, the usual limits for all these prohibited airspaces—or for us, prohibited airspaces—is actually one centimeter. I could fly right up to the boundary, but I'm not allowed to scrape it or go inside. There is only one note from air traffic control when we think about altitude. Generally over Germany, unless otherwise restricted, there's a ceiling at flight area 100, which is 3,048 meters. In the Alps, it's flight area 130, where I could theoretically get as close as one foot. So, if we say flight area 100 is 10,000 feet, then I could go up to 9,999 feet.
What makes little sense, which is why the air traffic control has something called a separation surface. All private pilots are asked to maintain a distance of at least 500 feet. This is an urgent recommendation from air traffic control, but not a regulation. It would make sense because Flight Level 100 is no longer ours; theoretically, an Airbus A380 can already fly at Flight Level 100.
...fly. But does this separation surface always go down, or is there also this recommendation from DFS to tell A380 pilots to maintain, say, 500 feet above this FL100, i.e., flight level 100? The separation surface...
goes down, so we aren't supposed to climb higher than flight level 95. What air traffic control does regarding that, they won't say publicly, but my experience in aviation, or rather my connection to air traffic control, is that as long as air traffic allows it, they won't use flight level 100, 110, or 120 for such large aircraft. They wouldn't do that. So they think along while working and they also know that not everyone might know this separation boundary. Accordingly, large aircraft are parked at higher altitudes, so not at flight level 100. If it's possible, as long as it
Now, to your 45 years of flying experience. You're 62 now, if I've calculated it correctly? Correct. But you've only been paragliding for about 8 years. Why were you such a late starter with paragliding? I've been wondering about that for a long time. Not longer than 8 years either, right?
Well, maybe 15 or 20 years ago I went on a trip with my wife—she's from Lenkeries—and we were with some paragliders and I thought, you should do that. But then I lost that thought again and had a few years of model aviation in between, and one day, funny story, we're standing at the model airfield and, yeah, model flying is a bit, I always say, a bit like reading Playboy. You get a good idea of it, but you're not actually there.
I was standing down there and a paraglider flew over, and I looked at him and in that moment I knew, you're doing this now. And in the same hour I packed up my models, drove home, and booked a course. On the same day? The same day. My wife said, you're crazy, what are you doing? You don't even know yet if you like it. Then I looked her deep in the eyes and said, are you telling me I don't know if I like flying or what do you mean? Then the subject was practically settled and yeah, and after that, I went to my paraglider course.
And you've been paragliding for 8 years now. What fascinates you about it? Specifically about paragliding? What fascinates me about it is,
the incredible freedom to do what you want. Air law aside, we still have huge freedoms that we should appreciate. We can make completely our own decisions. We can fly wherever we want. We have our peace and quiet. No radio, no fumes, no engine. That is the most beautiful way of flying. And sitting directly in the wind, for me, that actually came closest to real flying. It couldn't be any more real. You were
used to be a jet pilot. So it's basically the absolute opposite of what you have with paragliding. Flying slowly, wind in your face and all that, instead, you're now streaking at some kind of supersonic speed in the Phantom over the landscape, and it's a completely different form of flying. Is there actually anything where you'd say that what I experienced as a jet pilot, some of it can be transferred to paragliding? Can you say in the same way about anything, yeah, that feels like flying too? Or emotionally?
That's a difficult question. Emotionally, I'd say I've flown everything in my life. Motor gliders, sailplanes, motor-sailplanes, whatever. So far, paragliding has actually been the most fun for me. But did you start with that later on? Unfortunately, I started too late; I regret that over and over again. Jet flying is something completely different. It's hard work. The moments where you can enjoy the flying, the actual flying, are relatively few because you usually don't have the time for it. You're simply engaged from the first to the last second. In procedures, you have to do things, you have to stay on top of them,
constantly calculating. That has little to do with fun. It's hard work. You're basically a cog in the machine, something like that. Nothing else. You're a cog in the machine and there's hardly any time left to enjoy moments. Individual moments are always there, in any case. But out of an hour of flight time, those are really, really few
minutes, if at all. One of the nice things about paragliding is that you can let everything go once, just lean back and say, I'm just going to enjoy the air and just drift around. Could you ever do that in a Phantom, say, for just 30 seconds, or would the thing completely fly out of control?
You can only let go of everything if you turn on the autopilot at a high altitude, otherwise not. That's different with modern jets nowadays. They're mostly controlled by the computer. So if the pilot lets go of everything, the computer knows, "Ah, don't move, we'll just keep going exactly like the last piece of information we had." And then the thing just keeps flying straight. No problem. But that wasn't possible in the past. So you can't just let go of everything.
Did you ever encounter any paragliders in the air back then as a jet pilot? How was that perceived from a jet's perspective? Point one, yes. I am paragliders
...encounter. Basically, jet pilots do the following, quite generally. On days when there are nice cloud streets, when sport aircraft will definitely be out, the military will definitely avoid those areas. That means exercises will simply be moved over the cumulus clouds. There, you know there are no sailplanes, no paragliders, or anything of the sort. Nevertheless, people have encountered them. Yes, of course, you look out when you're flying very low. The radar can't see a paraglider. Accordingly, you just have to keep your eyes outside. But you are trained in this type of flying to be able to recognize things very quickly and early enough.
So, in my entire life as a pilot, there was only one single time I had a dangerous encounter with a jet. I had overlooked a motor glider. Not a motor glider, an ultralight. The annoying thing is, the front windshield gets covered with grime very quickly from flying. Then you just break off your low-level flight. In that case, there was an ultralight aircraft. Three seconds later, it was already huge. We didn't collide. We flew very close to each other. You want to avoid that at all costs. You stay away from areas where you know there is a paraglider.
But
would that be the classic timeframe where you could say, based on the size of a paraglider, that I can only even notice it about three seconds beforehand? That I see a speck of color somewhere in the sky that doesn't belong there and now I have to somehow pull my machine the other way? Yes, it's a few seconds.
Overall, a paraglider might be visible for maybe five or six seconds until you reach it. But the pilot isn't just looking at that one point in front of him; he has to look left, right, up, and down. So he'll probably only stay on the spot where the paraglider is for a few seconds. That's where those three or maybe four seconds come from. And yes, there's enough time to react. It's not a problem. You're trained. You might not really believe that, but that's how it is. And it works. In all my flying, I've flown jets for 20 years, and I only know
There were two incidents where, let's say, an aerial encounter occurred. It ended harmlessly, but there was that split second of pure terror.
was big. I live here in Bonn, and we have the Eifel nearby, where there are two military airfields, Büchel and Spangdahlem. Because of that, there's always a bit of traffic in the air from time to time. And when there is something, I'd say the paragliders always flinch a little. Even if it's a bit further away, when you see, oh, there's something out there again. What would you recommend to paragliders, how should one react if you notice some military jets or other jets somewhere in the sky? Is there even a way to make yourself noticed, since you say we don't show up on the radar? They don't show up on the radar. There are
There are definitely ways to make yourself noticeable. First point is definitely colorful gliders. Bright colors—I've occasionally seen people with a black paraglider or a dark green paraglider. That would be less recommended. You should have colorful gliders, and if you see traffic in the air or it gets louder from somewhere, then movement helps. So rolling, nodding, rolling, a wingover, do something, move. As long as you're heading directly towards someone, they can practically only see the leading edge. If the paraglider moves and they're shown a large area of color, then they can pick that up much faster.
Yes, but if this jet pilot only has about three seconds, I wouldn't have even initiated a wingover in those three seconds. So, if I hear some roaring from a jet or something, I should probably look around and, ideally, start wobbling a bit, something like that. Wobbling is always good. Sounds funny, but it'll work. Okay, let's put it like this. People, wobble around more in the air if there are any jets in the area. Yeah, many people wobble around anyway. I'm constantly wobbling around too.
Are there things you can translate from your experience as a jet pilot to paragliding in any way?
Yes, weather for sure.
So, as I said, I've been in aviation for many, many years. Weather is still a big mystery to me, I have to admit to my shame. I haven't understood everything by a long shot, but who has? I think I can use a lot of, yeah, a lot of the experience I've gained there in a meaningful way now. I'm probably more on the cautious side when it comes to the weather. So it's happened to me many times that I've said, oh, this is going to get really weird, something is building up, the weather is developing, a thunderstorm could form, then I make sure to get down and land, and then half an hour later, the thing moves off and it's gone.
Everyone else flew, great, wonderful, why did you land? Yeah, okay, I decided that for myself. I land, I don't want to have anything to do with thunderstorms under any circumstances, definitely not with the paraglider. And I think that's where my saying comes from, which applies to me, you've surely read it, I think I make my own decisions and if others decide differently, then they're either better than me or dumber than me, one of the two. In both cases, I've made the right decision for me, the absolutely right decision.
made and I stand by it. You wrote to me that you once flew into a thunderstorm in a Phantom—how was that, how did it happen, and what was it like?
The thing with the thunderstorm—it's like this: when you're in general civil aviation and a storm builds up, everyone sees it. Air traffic control sees it, we see it on the radar—so the military planes see it on the radar, but the civil planes do too. And now, passenger planes have a certain advantage at that moment; that is, they are immediately rerouted by air traffic control around the storm, and the military just has the lowest priority. They're more agile anyway, they can react faster to things, and nobody is spilling their coffee back there. That's why you're forced to stay on your flight path for as long as the rest of the air traffic is being rerouted, and in that case, it was just that we weren't next.
Then we had to fly into the middle of that thunderstorm together with our heads held high, and that's no fun. It's absolute—so many things happen. First of all, the radio connection breaks down, there are static discharges everywhere, it gets loud, it just crackles, you can't talk to anyone anymore. In my case, the plane starts glowing thoroughly on the outside—you have St. Elmo's Fire everywhere—and it tosses you around like on a really nasty gravel road with potholes. You might not believe it, but a Phantom weighs 25 tons and gets thrown through the air like a ball. Maybe that's why I have such great respect for thunderstorms.
You have no chance in there, not even with 25 tons. So we flew through it, it tossed us around quite a bit, and afterwards the realization was: if there's any way to avoid it, we don't want to.
have again. What would be the alternative? Couldn't you say in the Phantom, I'll just pull up and fly over the storm? I could do that, but for that I would have to
explain an emergency and then I might even be allowed to. The question is just, what kind of air traffic do you mess up from an air traffic control perspective if you barrel through right in the middle of it? We didn't want to take that risk, and we also, let's just say, slightly underestimated the impact of the storm right in the middle of it. We thought, you're fast, you're heavy, it can't get that bad.
Have you ever experienced anything similar, like shaking or moving, with a paraglider? Maybe not in a thunderstorm, but in some other form? Also
Turbulence—I've flown in weather conditions where it was so turbulent, where it was so rough one day that after an hour and a half I said, it's really not fun anymore today. I have to pay attention every second, so I'd rather go land. You always enjoy those phases during a longer flight where it's not turbulent, where it's calm between the clouds; you can quickly have a drink or something to eat, but if it's constantly super turbulent, I lose the fun and then I go
I'm getting off.
Others fly
Anyway. It has to be fun, it's supposed to be fun, let's put it that way. It's supposed to be fun if it's possible somehow. What was your highest altitude so far with a paraglider? Did you fly right up to the airspace limit? No,
I once went up to three and a half thousand meters; I could have gone a bit higher, another 500 meters, of which I maybe should have only flown out about 350 near the Alps, but it was just under three and a half thousand meters, if I remember correctly, where I was. Beautiful up there. And with your military jet, how high did you get? Oh, the highest I ever wanted to see was Flight Level 600, which is 20,000 meters. I hope that's outdated and no one hears this. That was during the test flight. Even during the test flight, you weren't allowed to go above Flight Level 480, but the bird performed so well, it went over Mach 2.
So we reached a speed of 2.1 to 2.15 Mach, and air traffic control encouraged me by saying that, by the way, the airspace above you is clear. And I knew right then, and it was clear, we're going to blast up as high as it goes. And we ended up at 60,000 feet, so Flight Level 600. Back then, it was free flight above that again; now it's at Flight Level 660, and yes, you still have to fly smart there because we're still flying aerodynamically. But the air up there is so thin. We also have a combustion going back there that needs oxygen, but the air is so thin.
So you can only do that by flying something like a ballistic curve. A parabola, so to speak, that you make. A parabola—whenever you don't demand lift from your wing, it can't stall either. So we flew a parabola like that. You can't stay up there, but for, yeah, for a
For a while, that was enough. These parabolic flights are also done to simulate weightlessness. Did you feel weightless during it, like a half-astronaut up there?
Well, you're strapped in tight, but you do feel weightless; you feel that more often in this kind of aviation. Especially on training flights with two or three people, where you're going against each other
You feel weightless, yes, but you're buckled in tight. It's like being in a vise. Nothing really moves. You can't actually hover. You feel the whole rig is weightless. That's, yeah, a beautiful thing. Do you know any more jet pilots who became paraglider pilots? I know a few more who became paraglider pilots. Right, we're also in touch and we even meet up regularly. At the Thermik trade fair or other events. It's a funny thing. Then you reminisce
do you still rave about jet flying or do you rave about paragliding when you meet up? Both. We get all misty-eyed and tell each other stories about the old days. That's how it is. The old aviation geeks telling each other stories from back then. Exactly. From this... I mean, you said as a jet pilot you're like a cog in a machine. I want to circle back again to land on aviation law. I imagine jet flying is probably even more strictly regulated or follows absolute protocols that you have to stick to than general aviation. At least that's how I imagine it, that it's still much more about strict military rules over there. If you then switched to paragliding eight years ago and are now in a flying scene that, let's say, operates with this "fair, laissez-fly" vibe and doesn't follow so many...
Strictly oriented towards the legal side—did that scare you when you first saw it? From your old school of thought, I mean?
Yes.
The answer to your question is a clear yes. I only really realized how little priority is given to this whole topic, let's say. People just fly around and fly wherever it's fun because it's beautiful there. And I thought to myself, that can't be right, you have to be careful about what you're doing there. It actually shocked me. And that's how I got to this point where I told the flight school, look, you just have to show people more, tell them more, teach them more. Don't forget that. And yeah, sure, but the topic is so extensive, you can't possibly do it all, okay, let's try something. And that was actually the trigger for why I started doing these private pilot license lessons.
That people said, yeah, if you know your stuff, then just do it. And like everyone else, I had my interview with the DHV to see if I was even suitable to do it officially. That was quite exciting. But as I said, I've been doing it since then. It's been, I don't know, four years or so now that I've been conducting these B-license courses. We have a lot of fun every time, though.
Now that you've been paragliding for eight years and don't fly jets or anything like that anymore, do you notice a change in your own attitude, like maybe you've become a bit more relaxed legally? Or is once a jet pilot always a jet pilot in your head? Do you still stick to your flight routines accordingly?
I think that from this kind of flying you've done for 20 years, something definitely remains. For me, for example—and the other jet pilots are probably the same, generally speaking—if something happens that I don't understand, I definitely want to find out what happened. Why did something happen to me? I wrote that to you too. I don't rest until I've figured out what happened. Because as long as I haven't understood it, I have a bad feeling while flying. Because I can't accept that things happen that aren't explainable. I want to know, did I do something wrong? Did I make the wrong decisions?
What happened there? And until that's resolved, I can't rest. That's what I've learned in 20 years of flying. Of course, I approach the field a bit more relaxed than it might have been in the past. We only have very, very few rules, after all. If you look at this aviation law book, it's not particularly thick. Well, if you're traveling in all airspaces, it gets significantly thicker very quickly. Many more rules, especially when it comes to military matters. But in paragliding, we have it so nice. There are only a few rules we need to know. But the rest has to do with my upbringing.
That's how I grew up. And yeah, things do happen sometimes. Like that scene last year. The people I interviewed all definitely know what I mean. But something happened to me that I just didn't understand. Mentally. I figured out all sorts of things at home, aerodynamically. I couldn't come up with a solution until someone explained to me, hey, don't forget you're hanging from a pendulum. Ah, and then it suddenly clicked. That's when I found out that it is indeed possible to fully stall a glider with both hands or brake toggles on the carabiner. That was
wasn't clear to me. Like, where you thought you'd only pulled about half the brake travel and then the thing was already gone.
A third. I did full stalls with the glider. Constantly. But it wasn't clear to me. I got into the habit from glider flying, when I'm doing cross-country. I fly with a lot of acceleration. If possible, I spend the first half hour kind of thinking about how good the thermals can be today. And if I find out every second thermal is giving three meters or more, then I don't take a thermal that gives less at all. I just fly through there with time delay to catch the straight-ahead lift. In that case, it was like this: I hit a thermal, I let go of the speed bar—meaning, I let it snap out—and I applied the brake.
And these three factors are beautiful. And already you're in the middle of a full stall. I didn't realize it for the first few seconds, which is why my recovery also took a bit longer. But afterwards I wanted to know what happened. Why can this thing full stall, until someone told me: don't forget, you're hanging there on the pendulum. That means you fly into the thermals, you're pendulating forward. You let the speed bar snap out. The angle of attack is increased. And if you also brake now, then you get a three-fold increase in the angle of attack and the thing stalls. The glider didn't do anything wrong. I wasn't 100 percent mentally present. And that was the trigger. It reassures me to know that.
That's why I can continue flying completely relaxed, knowing that this can
...happen to me anymore. What lesson did you take from that? To slowly come off the speed bar? Oh, definitely slowly.
Taking your foot off the speed bar and not staying in the same spot while simultaneously applying the brake properly. So, always leave a little time, let a few seconds pass, and everything will be fine.
Hans, thank you for your very colorful stories about both aviation law, which is actually a dry topic, but I think you conveyed it very well. Guys, if you want to learn more, buy this book by Hans. It still contains a lot of information that might actually be useful to read through again, maybe two years after completing all the A-license and B-license training, where you'd say, oh yeah, that was there. Maybe there was something useful there too, and hmm, I'd heard it before but never noticed it, and those three checkmarks I had to make in the DHV Q&A session, I somehow memorized them all, but after that, it was gone. Hans, thanks a lot and have many more great flights from which you can still learn a lot and always explain everything that was going on up there in the end.
Yes, Lucian, thanks to you too. Yes, my pleasure. Generally, I believe that aviation involves lifelong learning. We never stop learning. The full professionals learn just as much as I do. You learn something from every flight. Otherwise, I hope people enjoy my book too. I tried to loosen it up a bit so that it's relatively easy to read.
That was episode 103 of Podz-Glidz, the aviation law expert with Hans Lang. If you're interested in learning more about aviation law for paraglider pilots, I've put together some further links in the show notes for this episode on the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz. My name is Lucian Haas. I am the producer of Podz-Glidz and the publisher of Lu-Glidz. Are you among those who already support my work on the podcast and blog? Thank you. Otherwise, I can recommend it to you once again. There won't be another offer like Lu-Glidz and Podz-Glidz in the paragliding scene. Help ensure that both projects can continue to be operated and developed for your enjoyment. All the necessary information on how you can easily become a supporter without any obligation can be found at www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com on the Fördern page.
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Until next time. Ciao.