You really only get over 250 hours if you go flying every day when the conditions are good. That means you usually hardly work at all in the summer. And then I found out, wow, it's August and I have a complete flight burnout. So, in August, I just didn't feel like flying anymore. And then we were at the border, everyone was excited, and I was there like a ghost. I knew I had to perform now, I had to fly my 270, otherwise I'd be at the back of the rankings. But I wasn't having any fun anymore.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Maximilian Leutl, and I'm Lucian Haas.
How long do you actually have to be flying to participate in the extreme adventure race Red Bull X Alps across the Alps? Is three years after getting your B-license enough? For 29-year-old Maximilian Leutl from Chiemgau, it is. With some impressive successes in XC flying and hike-and-fly races like the Border Race in his repertoire, he successfully applied for the 2023 X Alps. Now, Maximilian is right in the middle of training. However, he doesn't see everything through rose-colored glasses, which is how he usually follows such activities from the upcoming X Alps around the world. But he also sees that the pilots are celebrated on social media. Max doesn't shy away from talking about the hardships and risks he is exposing himself to by doing this.
Max is a critical thinker who, over the six years of his flying career, has already dived remarkably deep into the performance-oriented side of the paragliding scene. In this episode number 104 of Podz-Glidz, he talks about the self-knowledge and insights into others that he gained along the way. It is an entertaining yet profound conversation. At times provocative, but also disarmingly honest, Max provides some food for thought regarding one's own approach to paragliding. If you enjoy Podz-Glidz, then support my work as a patron. You can find out how this is possible, easily and without any obligation, on the "Support" page of the website for my paragliding blog Lu-Glidz.
Max, you're 29 years old now. What's that? How much longer do you actually want to do paragliding?
Probably not for much longer, because I've realized that it can become a very dangerous hobby if you do it to the extreme. And I'm guessing for now, I'll go all out this year, and then I'll get a bit more relaxed. A bit more relaxed. What does that mean for you? Can you even do that? I can. I already figured out last year that I can shift gears. And that means I'll distance myself a bit from competition flying, from those extreme points of flying. And then maybe I'll do a few more sliders and alpine stuff—just hike up a mountain and then fly down without XC. You have
You wrote down a few things for me as preparation. And there you have what fits with that and what led to my question; you wrote "risk" to me. You're of the opinion that everything except glider soaring is basically dangerous in paragliding. Why?
From my brief experience, I've simply seen that a lot happens. I've already lost three friends to flying in the last five years. As soon as you take off from the mountain, you're simply exposing yourself to dangers, like lee situations that you can't calculate. And that's where the risk starts for me. And unfortunately, that has been confirmed.
Still, you're basically going all in with paragliding right now. And in the summer, you'll be participating in the Red Bull X-Alps. Is that, so to speak, your suicide mission? That
It's the ultimate paradox, yeah. I mean, I'm training in really weird conditions right now where I sometimes tell myself, oh my god, what are you doing? And at the same time, I was just at a friend's funeral. And that doesn't really fit together. And I definitely have a guilty conscience about that. But you're going to see it through. Definitely, yeah. The motivation is there. I'm not the type to do things halfway. So I'm going to see this all the way through.
And of course, you try to keep the risk as low as possible. Although we all know that's not that easy.
Is it possible to participate in such a competition and reduce the risk?
No, definitely not. I haven't talked to many people who were at X-Alps. And people always say, okay, they look out for safety and all that. But anyone who was involved in some way knows perfectly well that they fly at full throttle and the risk is just there. You factor the risk in.
I mean, you didn't just realize that high-altitude paragliding might be dangerous in the last two months, I assume. So how did you still come to the idea of committing to such a risky adventure and actually applying to participate in the Red Bull X-Alps?
Very good question. It's the challenge. I was looking for something where I could grow personally. And I thought to myself, okay, X-Alps, that's the ultimate goal in hike-and-fly paragliding. And my goal is to participate in that without any accidents.
And that was exactly... the idea behind it, that I grow personally and don't have an accident. That's how it is, yeah.
Couldn't you also grow and not have accidents without participating in such a competition? That
That's true, but I think I've found out that I'm the type of guy who needs challenges every now and then. That's just my character.
You've only had your B-license for about two years now, I think. If everyone hears or thinks that, how can someone with actually so little experience... well, experience... At least on paper, it seems like people would ask, how can someone with so little experience even manage to get selected? What did you do to make that happen?
Yeah, exactly, that's really true. I've had my B-license for two and a half years now. I got it from Michael Sommerauer. And I can still remember well, I even asked Somi once if he could install a soft checkle in my harness. And he laughed at me and just said he really wanted to save like 60 grams or something, because for him it was a different world. Yeah, and then he installed the soft checkle and then I did the Border Races. Then I joined the German League and fly XC. And then I had a lot of contact with Ferdinand Vogel. And I think he saw a bit that I fly quite safely.
and that I somehow did gain experience over the last two or three years. And that's how I dared. I dared to sign up. And I was accepted because people saw, okay, he's gotta have some skills. That's how it is.
...then ran, yeah. Do you have an athletic background? Like, the fact that you've already participated in the Border Races and won there too?
Yeah, that's a huge topic. For me, it's like I've been athletic my whole life. And what helped me is that I've been kitesurfing for over ten years. And there, you always have this kite over you. And you never look up, but you always know exactly where that kite is. And that's completely the same with paragliding. So, I just took a lot from all those other sports before. And that's why my progress in paragliding was relatively fast.
What from the other sports? I mean, with kiting, you can imagine how much of that you can basically transfer in terms of knowledge or body awareness—or glider feel, as you call it. You know immediately where the glider actually is, even though you don't have it in your sights. What other sports did you do, and what did they contribute to your paragliding?
I enjoy sailing, and from that, I already had all this weather and meteorological knowledge. I always know how the wind moves here, where I live, in the Chiemgau. And it's just that for 15 years I've always been watching, how the wind moves, where. I learned a lot about the weather from that. As for athletics, I don't know, I've been doing athletics since primary school. That's where my running part comes from, all that motor skills. I practically learned that through skiing, I guess. I always did all these sports a bit in competition mode. And that creates the complete picture, and it helps me a lot with flying.
Now, here come the
X-Alps. How much do they dominate your life right now?
Yes, completely. I've taken time off from March 1st until July. The training was already pretty intense before that, but now it's going to be even more intense. And I've already noticed that I'm becoming a bit of a loner socially, because I go to work for a bit, then I come back, get on the bike, on the trainer, or go to the mountains. My social life is pretty... I'm actually a social guy. It's very unusual for me now that I hardly see anyone anymore. I was just in Bassano this weekend. That was the first time I saw people again. I'd say I'm about 95 percent focused on the X-Alps now. And the remaining 5 percent are maybe the moments where I still take a little time out for myself.
How do you train for that? What do you do? I've already tried quite a lot. I tried the whole standard program with running, cycling, and so on. But then we had some new approaches with hypoxia training. Someone approached me and asked, "So, Mr. Max, you'll probably be flying at 4,000 meters in Chamonix. What's your situation? Shouldn't we put you in the altitude cell sometime? Wouldn't you have some advantages when flying if your body is simply adjusted to the altitude?" And I actually tried that and stuck with it for a bit. That means you go into an altitude cell. There, the air pressure is lowered to about 3,000 meters. Then you get a control needle on your finger that measures the oxygen content in your blood.
And then you train in there. And you notice right away, it's much more strenuous than when you go for a normal run. And the body is supposed to then produce these hormones, erythropoietin, which then ensure that the oxygen is enriched in the blood. And that was my approach for now. It already comes from competitive sports. I thought maybe it would be worth trying for flying. But the cell is very cumbersome. That's why I don't do it that often now. I'm going for runs a lot again, just without the cell. That's my approach again now.
The altitude chamber is in the cell. But can you also do sports there? Are you on the bike on the roller in the altitude chamber too? Or is there a treadmill that you run on? Or do you just sit there and I'm at 3,000 meters?
Yes, exactly, you either practically use a breathing mask to create this oxygen deficiency, or you have a huge altitude cell. And all the ergometers are inside, like treadmills, and all that Stairmaster stuff. You can really push yourself to the limit there.
Do you have to finance that? So do you have to pay? How much does an hour in a altitude cell cost? Super interesting.
Question. I was contacted by this company and then tried it out, for free. But I'm a bit soft when it comes to sponsors. I really like being independent and I don't let anyone pay me. So I said I don't want anything sponsored. That's also kind of the theme with the gliders. I just want to be completely independent. And I never want to have a brand stuck on my glider that I don't stand behind 100%. That's why I finance myself. And you also build your own glider.
I'd love to. I'd like to do that, but I don't think I have the time for it.
Besides the altitude cell, do you have a proper training plan? Like, do you have a trained coach who tells you, "I'll put together exactly what you need to do with interval training and sprints and long distance and whatever else over the week?"
People have approached me and offered that to me too. I listened to all of it. But in the end, I found out—and I'm such my own person, or my own master, or whatever—that I put it all together myself. I've read a lot of literature and I have a training plan. However, it's my own. I hope that all my experience over the last 20 years, that I'm paying it off, that it works even without a professional trainer. Do you have any special nutrition program as well? Yes, I'm a vegetarian and I'm trying to shovel in as much as I can, because I currently weigh 62 kilos.
I definitely need to get a bit heavier. My nutritionist said that if I don't get up to 67 kilos, I'll break down easily during the X-Alps. I don't entirely believe that, but it could happen. I just eat as much as I can, putting together everything vegetarian.
Then you also need a supporter for the X-Alps who can provide for you just as well. Someone who can supply you with vegetarian food and actually knows how it works properly. Or do you prepare everything yourself, saying, "Here, I've already prepared some vegetarian food rations for 14 days that I know will get me to 5,000 calories a day."
Yeah, that's a really funny topic. My supporter, Simon Raffeiner, is such a total Vorarlberg local.
He's really traditional and eats all sorts of things. We were once at a mountain hut and he got really worked up, and then we realized, yeah, well, I'm a vegetarian. So there are a few things you have to keep in mind now. But we manage it well. We prep a bit in advance. I eat a lot of rice. And it works.
What about special diets like the ketogenic diet, so very high in fat or something? Or eating tons of nuts as a vegetarian?
I've heard of it, but I've never tried it. For me, for 10 years now, it's really been an issue that my metabolism is so high. I just have to make sure I eat as much as possible. Because we all know that the bigger the glider, the better you fly in the end. And at 62 kilos, you're always at the size limit. I'd love to weigh around 80 or something. Then I could fly a good glider in terms of size. You won't be able to manage that. What glider do you use for the X-Alps? And I have to admit, I've heard that question so many times. It's crazy. I was just at the Bazaar, and you meet a few people. And it's like, before you even hear a hello, you hear, "what do you fly?" And I noticed that people focus extremely on this question,
which glider you fly.
Anyone who knows their stuff a bit better knows that pretty much all X-Alp gliders perform the same in terms of performance. And then it just comes down to which one you actually prefer. And for me, it was like this: I'm not sponsored. This is voluntary. It's a very difficult decision. And I was lucky enough to be able to test every single glider out in my life, meaning all the X-Alp gliders. And they all perform really well. I like every glider. I'm not demanding at all. But it's really the case that the glider I've been flying the longest is simply the brand Ozone. And I just know instinctively that I need the least amount of brainpower to control it. It just runs completely in the background.
I've been flying Ozone for five years now. And from the looks of it, I'm going to fly the Zeolite. And I just know that it won't be overwhelmed by thermals even after five days of nonstop flying. That's my plan now.
X-Alps means, as we already said, flying under very extreme conditions. Do you also train for that beforehand?
Yeah, unfortunately. Unfortunately. I was taken to the X-Alps in October. And then, connections with other X-Alps participants somehow formed. And then you start hearing how they train. And then you get things from the Swiss colleagues, like, yeah, they go up the mountain and go exactly to the other side, into the lee. And that's where they train. And for me, that was a completely new world. I'd never done that before. I know I can fly in the lee, but that I have to deliberately expose myself to that danger, that was still new to me. And now it's just happened that, I mean, I don't even look at the weather report anymore.
And I just go flying when I decide to. And then you just stand on the mountain at 35 km/h to 40 km/h. And then you just launch. And it works. I've already had a few situations where I thought, oh my god, the numbers on the XC track don't really make sense anymore, because if it says over 100 km/h on the XC track, you think to yourself, oh my god, what are you doing right now? Meaning, flying with a tailwind.
I try to train as well as I can, to make it as safe as possible, but sometimes there's just not that much safety involved anymore.
One of the difficulties is also getting down safely, like finding a spot to land in the smallest of spaces if you get washed down into some valley or something. Do you train for that too? You just said, okay, extreme conditions, but like this top-landing training or tight-landing training, or whatever you want to call it?
Yeah, totally. My best friend, Marco Dörner, lives right by Lake Chiemsee, and sometimes there's this beautiful west wind - foehn convergence, and I always land in his garden. Every time I land there, he shakes his head because it's gotten pretty tight sometimes, and yeah, he's a bit worried about me, but so far I've had it under control. And yeah, of course, top landings, "Kriegel-Maurer" landings against slopes and stuff. I've been training all winter, nicely in the snow, so you don't break anything, because if I were to crash now, that would be, wow, that would be nasty. Yeah, I've already finished the complete program. And did you have any stupid incidents during that?
I haven't had a single major, stupid accident in my entire flying career, and that's something I'm a bit proud of. On the other hand, I do wonder how long that's going to last. I mean, I've never had a landing where I broke anything, or anything in general. I've never hurt myself while flying. Nothing has ever happened. And yeah, it's a creepy topic to talk about. You shouldn't tempt fate.
Okay, let's put the devil aside for a moment. X-Lives also costs a lot of money. Now you just said you don't want any sponsors. How do you finance that then? Ah, I work my tail off. I'm always
I'm the kind of guy who, in October or November, when it gets all foggy outside, just sits my ass down and works my tail off. And I have a few smaller ventures running, and I try to somehow...
to power through with my own money. I think it's a bit more authentic if I'm not representing some brand that has nothing to do with me. I'm also trying to save a bit on the team side. So Markus Anders, my neighbor here in Grassau, told me about costs of over €10,000, and you can really get away with that.
I have a pretty small team with two people. That just means my main supporter, Simon, and a physio, Franziska. I think we're all pretty down-to-earth and we'll manage to make sure we don't spend 10,000 €.
So I'm trying to do that. Work for myself, good time management, making sure that you're actually being effective with the work. That's my plan.
But if you're saying, okay, I don't have sponsors. I'm preparing now and I've basically taken from March to June, July for sure, completely off for that. You probably won't have much time left for work because of all the training. Actually, you have to factor in the lost income as a cost as well. Then you'll quickly be at 10,000 euros, I'd guess.
That's true. It's even to the point where I often wonder if a flight day is worth it, because every flight day costs so much money in lost work time. So for me, it's like, I can always choose when I work, and everyone says, "Yeah, that's such a luxury." You can fly in any weather you want every day and just pick out the amazing days. Yeah, sure. But every single day I'm not working for myself, I'm losing money. And that can happen in certain months, like June or May. Those are expensive months for me because the hobby then costs me my entire income. Yeah,
Paragliding isn't cheap anyway. Now, you also flew the entire German league last year. So you were at every competition there was. I think that's four or five, right? Exactly right, yeah. What did that cost you? Did you ever estimate that?
Yes, I've done the math. If you really fly from start to finish, that means you start by paying the entry fees, which are about 100 to 300 € per competition, then you pay for the catering there. Then you pay for the accommodation there, the travel. And for the German Open last year in Ager, Spain, of course, you also pay for the flight there and so on. And for a whole season, you're definitely looking at over 5,000 € just for the competitions. So yeah, it's not a cheap hobby, and if you look at what you get out of it—some trophy at the end—then unfortunately, our hobby isn't worth it financially.
Based on the experience you gained there, would you say that this league season was a good investment?
Yeah, totally. It's a costly experience, but good advice is just expensive sometimes. I've learned so much that the hardships—and by that I mean parawaiting up at the launch site, because you wait a lot—have paid off, yeah, they have.
What does a pilot like you get out of group flying?
Yeah, well for me, it's like this: I always fly alone here in the Alps, and while you do learn a lot, you don't see how to fly effectively. And if you go to a competition now, where there are just 130 participants, there are also 50 free flyers, for example in Kössen, and then you just have 200 people flying across the sky. And when you just look to the right and left, you see, okay, he's climbing, I'll fly there too, and you would never see that alone. That means group flying is essentially important for
making progress, because then you can see where the rising lines are, and you wouldn't figure that out alone in 10 years.
Paragliding also means flying in a group, close together. If you're usually a lone wolf in the air, how did you deal with that?
That's a great point. I think anyone who has their glider reasonably under control doesn't need much mental bandwidth left to fly, so you mostly just keep an eye on the others. And I haven't had a collision, but I've seen many now, and yeah, it's not funny at all.
Now, you might have your glider under control, but there might be others flying around who, you said, there are free-flyers in Kössen or something, who might occasionally join in. You can't assume that everyone knows exactly what they're doing there or has everyone else in their sights the way you might have them in yours. The risk of somehow colliding with someone there might also depend on the other person. Does that fit into your own perception of risk?
That's the residual risk you accept. The story you're referring to is actually true—it was last year in Kössen, we had over 150 participants for the Alpencup and we flew out into the valley, then flew back toward the slope, and then there were these three A- or B-gliders. If 150 Enzo's are coming towards you and you're circling nicely on the slope, they got completely overwhelmed and couldn't escape because you just can't get out of a rotor like that. So there were some funny moments there. Once Markus told me that an A-glider flew into the middle of the rotor—so 150 people around the outside—and he kept shouting, "I want out of here, I want out of here!"
But he didn't get out because everyone blocked his path and he had to keep turning. And he was still in the center, where it might have even been best to go upwards.
Yeah, it went quite tragically, quite tragically.
Is paragliding cool?
Uh, no. No? Why do you do it then? So, first tell me, why isn't cross-country flying cool? And then tell me why you do it anyway.
Yeah, it's like, you're basically just waiting the whole time. I'm used to it; I go up the mountain, I start at 9:10, and then I just do my thing. With cross-country flying, you first drive up, you wait, then you wait for the briefing, then you wait there, then suddenly there's a small rain cloud, and then they don't launch. You're basically just waiting all day, and it's happened many times that we're sitting up there at the launch site for three hours, and then the task is cancelled or stopped, and then you don't have a flying day even though the conditions would have actually been nice, and then that's a wasted day, and for me as a free flyer, it just hurts to sit around all day like that, I can't stand it.
Are there at least cool people there?
That was the biggest shock for me. I basically came from such a small bubble here in Chiemgau. I have a few friends here and we're all very close, and then I get into competition flying in the German League and I noticed, oh, there are real characters here, everyone is different. The competition scene in Germany is extremely diverse, so you have the doctor-doctor, then you have the guy who lives somewhere in Tenerife and is just scraping by, and the problem is, everyone has something special about them and that's not necessarily the problem, it can be just fine, but there are people involved who are so ambitious that they don't talk for the rest of the day once they're on the ground seeing everything.
Or, for example, in the shuttle buses back. For me, it's like, when I land, I'm often just happy that I landed well, and then you sit in that shuttle bus and there's dead silence, or people are still swearing. The atmosphere is sometimes very heavy because people develop this kind of ambition, and that somehow ruins the mood a bit in the paragliding scene; if you weren't successful, then for them, the day is basically over.
When you've risen so quickly, like having your B-license now and all that, you have to be ambitious. How do you manage to be ambitious without getting grumpy when you don't perform?
Lucia, you've seen right through me already. I mean, you have to have ambition if you're participating and pulling your weight like that. I've had so many, many, many lonely conversations with myself, just in my own head. I also had that time two years ago where I just landed and then screamed, and that was the worst flight of my life because I only covered 210 kilometers, and I'd already had so many experiences with myself that I eventually realized, hey Max, even if you don't reach your goal sometimes, you have to make sure you're in a good headspace and you always learn something during the flight, and that's where this mindset comes into play.
I think when it comes to flying, the head is much, much, much more important than what you actually do with your hands. The mind is what matters most, and you have to train it—and it works, it worked for me, but it was a process. So, yeah, I used to be really bad at landing too.
How did you manage to make that switch? What did you change in your mindset to go from being a frustrated pilot to saying, "Oh, I just had another experience, it's good"?
That was a formative experience. I landed at the Weitseen in Ruhpolding. That's actually one of the most beautiful areas there is. It's like a little Norway. Everyone goes there for vacation. People come from the Netherlands for this lake plateau, and I landed there and I was frustrated to no end, and then my then-girlfriend picked me up there, and she also caught a bit of my frustration, and then at some point she said, look around you, you're in the most beautiful place in the world and you're healthy and you're getting upset. And that was such a formative experience for me that from that day on I said, okay, it can't be like this anymore.
And then I tried to change my mindset.
And is that working out better and better, or did it happen instantly, or did it take you a long time to slowly become a Zen master, so to speak, regarding the mindset of landing?
It took about two years, and by now I'm completely stress-free; if something doesn't work out, then it is what it is. It was two years of hard work for the mindset, but I think I also apply what I learned there to real life. I feel like what you learn in flying is also used in your everyday work or private life, and overall I've become a much more complete person and I have extreme self-control, and I benefit extremely from flying for real life.
In what form? I mean, what do you take away from flying where you'd say, maybe you have an example, where you say this can be really, really well transferred and I can see, I learned that while flying and it helps me now.
Yeah, and specifically during an Antarctic long-range flight, you probably make two or three decisions every minute, and these decisions have consequences—like, am I going to end up on the ground right now or not? So the consequence is pretty harsh, and over the course of ten or eleven hours, you make so many decisions that you practically learn how to make important decisions effectively. And for me, it's like that in my work: there's a decision to be made, and after 30 seconds, that decision is made, and then there's no "if" and no "but." I can really see how other people, who don't have to make decisions as often, spend a long time overthinking it, wondering "should I do this, should I not do this," and then they often make a compromise. And that compromise is usually shit, because in flying too, if you make a compromise, you fly the middle line and then you end up on the ground because it simply won't hold. I learned decision-making through flying, and it helps me extremely in real life now.
That means deciding quickly and basically sticking to the line you've chosen, saying, okay, I have to keep going here; there might be a few more obstacles ahead, but I'll manage those too.
Yeah, I stick to my decisions. It's very rare that I suddenly change my mind, because mostly
you end up landing involuntarily.
On your way to becoming the pilot you are now, you also moved onto increasingly demanding gliders relatively quickly. You wrote to me that you basically switched from the Messkal 4, which is an A-glider, directly to an Alpina, a C-glider, and then the Ceno followed, and then the Enzo 3 in relatively quick succession. Is that a path you would take again looking back?
I have
definitely taken a fast route. I skipped the B-glider
and I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. I had situations in the air that weren't very cool, and for some people, those are defining moments that make them say, okay, I'm quitting flying now, because that was just too intense.
I would choose the same path, but I have a new one—so with experience, I've learned something, and it's like this: I'm ready for the next glider when I can stall it. Like a full stall, preferably a dynamic stall, three times in a row on the same axis. Daniel Türkers taught me that, and if I can do that with my glider, then I can move up to the next category. And I have to be completely honest, I only started with full stalls with Xeno; I had never done a stall before that. That means I was a bit too daring. I survived, but there were some conditions—some situations—that I could have spared myself. So, yeah, from the A-glider to the C-glider,
So, when I flew it at the Speikboden for the first time, well, I was already scared, yeah.
You had a new C-glider, and you drove straight to the Speikboden and flew it there?
That's exactly how it was, and yeah, a lot of people were asking themselves, what is he doing there? I pushed through it; I'm the type of guy who doesn't give up, but in hindsight, I wonder, did it have to be? No, it actually didn't, but yeah, if you want something like that, then some guys just kind of stand for that kind of masochism.
Did you
were you also scared? Yes, I was scared a lot of the time, I'm one of the few who actually admit it, I often cried under the glider,
mostly during these first or second flights, so Zeno - first flight in Bassano, I was completely alone down there, and I cried so much under the wing because I didn't know something like that could actually work, and it was so emotional for me that I just had to cry, and of course, this crying came out of fear, and yeah, it was some pretty bad stuff, yeah.
But maybe it's also a reasonable outlet. I mean, some people might just freeze up with fear, but if you at least cry, crying usually makes the body a bit more relaxed. So maybe it's not such a bad strategy for releasing that stress in some way.
That's really good, that could be it, yeah. I never thought of it that way, but yeah, that's really beautifully said, yeah. Do you still cry sometimes now? Yeah, extremely, and it's like, many sports give me a good feeling, but with paragliding I get emotional, and there's a situation during almost every flight, a longer flight, a situation where I cry, and specifically out of joy. That really happens very often, for example, when I'm somewhere at the base and look into the mountains, I can't explain it, I get emotional, I'm happy, and then I just cry for 10 minutes under my Enzo.
It's just become normal for me by now and I've gotten used to it, and these are the most beautiful moments for me when I'm so emotionally moved by... sometimes I have such awe of flying and the whole situation, that I get so emotional that I cry, and then I know, okay, I've chosen the right sport. Can you still fly while crying?
can you still fly properly? Yeah, totally. Can you still see anything or is it...
the goggles too?
It's actually like this: when you're really going full throttle with the Enzo, you get your 60, 61, 62, and if it starts to tear up, then it hurts a bit, so I bought a full-face mask—well, a full-face helmet—and now I can cry undisturbed, yeah.
That means it just runs out from the bottom of the helmet again. Exactly. Do you also use a full visor for the X-Alps, or just the small shell on top of your head?
No, I'm actually a "shell" guy. People always laugh at me because I always have orange helmets; there's this Petzl Scirocco, that ultra-forbidden helmet, and people know, some guy with an orange helmet, that must be Max—it's like a trademark, an orange shell on your head, yeah.
Is it even approved for X-Alps, or do you have to wear a 966 helmet instead—you know, one that's officially approved for flying?
The Scirocco is definitely not approved; I've seen photos where it completely destroyed the helmet, so it really makes sense to fly with an approved helmet, and it's also required for the X-Alps. Now I have to follow the rules, yeah.
On your Red Bull athlete page, there's a quote from you—you know, those short interviews—where you say, "I'm a lone wolf." You like to do your own thing in the air and prefer to stand out from the crowd. Why is that? Don't you enjoy flying with others in a group?
I love my freedom and I've been like that since I was 15 or so. I don't like being told what to do, so I've always done my own thing. I'm a bit of a loner and that has its negative sides too. So, if you want to go flying with me now, it's sometimes very complicated because I usually say yes, I keep my options open, and then in the morning I see, okay, the weather has other plans, and then I'm just not at the launch site. I've always done my own thing, and the good thing is that I grow through it too. I've learned a lot from flying alone; I'm very good at it without a variometer, of course.
but as I said, it's not necessarily all positive. I mean, lone wolf, that's all well and good, but it also has its downsides.
That sounds a bit selfish now, but how much selfishness does a good pilot need?
Yes, you've recognized that correctly, I'm an absolute egoist when it comes to flying and it's just really how it is. When I'm standing somewhere at the launch site and everyone asks, "Yeah, what are you planning today? Which triangle are you flying today?" I'm never going to say anything. That's completely my thing, my world. I don't want any pressure from the outside. And if I'm flying in a group and I see that the right route suits me better, then I fly there—even alone—and my best friend, who used to complain, used to say, "Hey Max, why did you take off again?" And now he understands mentally; I just need that. I just fly my route where I feel comfortable and I'm not a group flyer.
No. Are you a "gut feeling" pilot when you say the route where you feel comfortable, or do you actually prepare a lot of things very meticulously?
Many people say, well, many people fly 250 plus and then say in public, "Yeah, I got lucky, it just worked out well" and stuff like that. I'm of the opinion that flying isn't luck at all. Nature can be calculated, and I'm an extreme theorist, which means I plan my routes all winter, usually fly them in the simulator, and then in the summer I fly the route following that, but I still have this margin from the cloud picture—so my intuition has matured to the point where I actually
from an intuitive standpoint, I know the route now; I don't need to plan as much as I used to, but this extreme planning over the winter taught me a lot, I learned a lot from it.
What simulator do you use for that?
I fly Condor 2, it's a glider simulator, it's a bit nerdy because you're just sitting there alone at home in the winter in front of your computer and feel like a 15-year-old, but somehow it's a real 3D map, practically Google Earth, and the thermals are modeled pretty well, so you can just fly your 300s FAIs already and then you'll know your way around in real life, even though you've never been there.
Great. And even though it's a soaring simulator, can you still get a lot out of it for paragliding?
Yes, extremely much. The German League also has a group on WhatsApp where they actually arrange to train together, and they all fly together and do competitions. Soaring is more or less the same, just faster.
Are you also part of this group, or are you saying you're a lonely wolf, sitting alone in front of your Condor, flying your 300er solo like some 15-year-old nerd?
I'm in, and the first races have already been organized; the Swiss league does it too, so quite a lot of people swear by it.
Yeah, yeah, that's good. And in what are you better, paragliding or flying the Condor simulator?
I've had a few crashes on Condor, so in real life I'm better, definitely. How many flight hours do you actually get a year? Yeah, well, I'm one of the few pilots who tries to fly less. That sounds totally weird, most people always want to fly more, fly more. Last year I really made an effort not to go flying. Because I found out that anything over 250 hours is unhealthy. So it was just that in 2021 I somehow had 250, 270 hours.
and that's when I realized, you don't have any more time for your family, you don't have any more time for work, and you only hit over 250 hours if you go flying every day when the weather is good, and that's for a really long time. That means you usually hardly work at all in the summer, and then I found out, wow, it's August and I have a complete flight burnout. So in August, I didn't feel like flying anymore and we were at the limit, and everyone was happy about it but I was like a ghost. I knew I had to perform, I had to fly my 270, otherwise I'd be at the back of the rankings. But I wasn't having any fun and I had a complete burnout, so I stopped flying for two months, three months.
Then I went to the Bazaar for a bit and thought to myself, no, I need to take another break. That really lasted the whole winter, and then last year I only flew 200 hours, and I think 200 hours is like the magic number where you say, okay, you have glider control, but it's still to the point where you can live your life a bit on the side and maybe even go to work sometimes in the summer.
In an email here beforehand, you wrote to me that anyone who flies more than 200 hours a year gets a stroke.
Yeah, that sounds really bad. How many people
with a bang, how many people are there in the scene?
So, many people who fly along at the front in XC have over 250 hours. I'm starting to know everyone, and over 250 hours—those are very specific people who truly live for the sport, and the problem there is that they live for flying. So flying is the most important thing, it's their center of life, and if they don't fly, they're unhappy. And I've also totally—I've really figured out that everyone who flies over 250 hours has some kind of problem, I dare say. They're escaping from something, because I don't believe that passion gets better the more you fly. So over 250 hours, that is
somehow unhealthy. That
it's like a junkie who just needs more and more, but doesn't get the next hit anymore, something like that.
It's just like that.
You also wrote that you don't know of any sports community as weird as the pilots. And you wrote to me that you do almost every sport there is. That's an interesting perspective on flying. I mean, you're also someone who flies a lot and all that. What is so weird about pilots?
So among pilots, you only find weird people. And I mean that in a positive way. I mean, weird doesn't mean negative. Every pilot is an absolute individualist. This isn't a sport you just do like some run-of-the-mill hobby. That means just by considering going flying, you're somehow freedom-loving, individualistic, and often selfish, because it's not a team sport. And I've found that, for example, a surfing community or a sailing community, those are much chiller people. And I'd say the "agro-pilots" have a bit of a good standing.
They're normal people. But as soon as you head into the XC direction, you notice that every person is an absolute original. That makes the whole thing interesting again. But sometimes it's not that easy to get along with this community. Everyone has such a strongly held opinion. I mean, just look at the comments on Facebook about paraglider topics. There are some wild people in there. So sometimes it surprises me, yeah.
And that's not the case with other sports. I mean, on social media, you get hit with all sorts of things. And everyone dares to write things they probably wouldn't say in a normal conversation. Not everyone, but unfortunately, there are quite a few characters who sometimes tend to go in that direction when they're allowed to just write into a social bubble. Would you say, but still, for example, surfers—I'll take you as a surfer, I assume you mean the wave riders who do that? Yes. They are basically individualists too, because everyone rides their own wave. And you don't ride a wave side-by-side in a group of three; it's always clear, okay, you wait for the waves and the one who manages to get on the board best takes it, and the others turn away because they say, okay, that's his wave now, you don't want to get in each other's way or anything like that.
But even so, everyone is kind of "surfer-minded" and in their own space. You'd still say that pilots are something else entirely.
Yeah, because with surfing, after your session, you sit down on the beach, crack open your beer, and just chill. We flyers, we land at a quarter past 8, after 8 PM, somewhere in some dark valley, and then we have to hike back for three hours. Those people, they have to be something special for to like that, and that's why the flyer community is definitely special, and that has its own appeal, yeah.
On this, so if you want to put it that way, open-ended Richter scale of the "pilot madness," where would you place yourself? At 50 percent, at 90 percent?
Well, I definitely have a bit of a kick myself, I've admitted that, that I always like to do my own thing a bit. But I feel like I'm still relatively normal, so I'm exactly at 50 percent, that's the golden mean, that's my life motto, nothing too extreme, not too little, I'm exactly at 50 percent and I live quite well like that and I get along very well with other people too.
From your perspective, is it even possible to do intensive paragliding in any way that's socially compatible?
No, you can't. If you want to go all-in and compete in the XC rankings, you have to push through your own thing, and there's just not much room for chatting with people. Maybe those five minutes at the launch site, but anyone who's taking it somewhat seriously would rather check the weather again than talk to other people. You have to go all-in if you want to be part of it, yeah.
And if you still have people as friends, they're people who also fly, with whom you know they're in the same mindset as I am. They understand that I don't have much to say. You might drive to the launch site together, or from Munich to Bassano or whatever, and say, you have a few hours where you can chat a bit. But that's it. Then in the air, paths diverge, and maybe you meet up again at the end to drive back.
That's exactly how it is. I don't have many people I fly with, but for example, Markus Anders, Team Germany 1 from the X-Alps, is very similar to me in terms of attitude. He just goes out and flies, doesn't talk much, does his thing, flies his own routes. Yeah, so that's a common thread among the people I fly with. It's just like that.
Do you see a difference between men and women there too? I mean, do male pilots have a bigger impact than female pilots?
Women are a bit more special in paragliding, I think, because, I mean, a man who takes that on, doing XT flying, it's not always fun. And there are things involved where you have to push yourself. And if you find a woman who flies like that, she must be very special.
And, yeah, well, there are very specific ones, yeah. Do you have female friends who fly? I really had two female friends who flew. And that's this big topic in the locker room, I don't even listen to it anymore, like, wow, I'd love to have a girlfriend who flies and stuff. And everyone always imagines it so beautifully, like it's the dream to do the glide together. I had that, and I'm extremely grateful for all those experiences you have there. They are extremely beautiful experiences. The problem is, you ruin your own sport. It works like this: you go flying together, it's an XC day,
then you just want to take off at 9 o'clock, and then your friend isn't ready yet, or she's still getting ready and she doesn't want to be stressed because, of course, you want to stay calm. And then you just head out there, and that's not a nice experience. And the problem is, then you go flying together and you have this protective instinct. And you're always looking with your right eye somewhere, okay, is she sinking into the lee or somewhere that's unlandable. And you can't switch off that protective instinct. And because of that, whenever I went flying with my ex-friends, it just wasn't fun for me.
I've thought about this for two people—I wasn't 100% on my glider and I felt like you're ruining the sport. I fly much better when I say, okay, I'm going flying alone and leaving everyone at home, and then I really focus 100% on myself and I fly more safely too. That's my experience.
We were just talking about mindset. You could also change your mindset and say, okay, at least on the days when I fly with my friends—if you had one who also flies—then I'll do it as, see it as a shared experience. And then I basically put my athletic ambition aside and say, the nice thing is maybe helping them get up in the thermals or something. And then, instead of playing the "Loneliness, Only Wolf" a bit, you play the "Light Wolf" who can then lead the others somewhere.
That sounds really romantic, but then you're not the type of guy who joins in on the X-Halbs. It's that simple. I think you have to look out for yourself and push yourself forward, and I believe that egoism is too strong for that—I probably sound super unsympathetic right now, but if you want to get to the top, then you have to take care of yourself, and yeah, that's just how it is.
How much self-mortification is involved then? What does self-mortification mean? Ah, that's an old religious term where monks used to mortify themselves. They basically beat themselves, or punish themselves, or make things especially hard for themselves. They want to feel physical pain and other things to get in touch with the higher power. So, in the context of sports, it would be, okay, you have to invest an enormous amount and maybe even inflict physical pain on yourself during training, or whatever, just to achieve those higher levels of performance. Really nice.
Concept, Lucian, cool. There's a lot involved in that. And I'm noticing it in myself now—people ask me, "Hey Max, it's my birthday tomorrow, come party and stuff." And I'd really love to go to the party, but you just don't give 100%. I've caught myself many times now saying no to the best events because I'm sitting at home on the roller. I have to admit, I spent Christmas with my family in the afternoon and then spent three hours on the roller at night, indoor training. And I think that's this self-punishment you have to do to really get to the top.
What do you think when you're sitting on the roller for three hours and actually know you could be at a party right now?
I have the goal in front of me. Crystal clear. The goal is what drives you, and if you think, no, I'm missing out on something right now, then you're simply not disciplined enough. No, I mean, I've learned this self-discipline, and I wonder—when I signed up for X-Alps, that was the decision, and since then there's been no turning back and I'm seeing it through. You have to be disciplined. What's your goal for X-Alps? Earlier, interesting, my supporter said he'd really like to land on the raft. But in the end, that was his goal, that's not my goal at all.
I've had bad experiences with races before. I've been doing competitions my whole life, and I've had some really awful ones where I gained nothing from them, where I just had a bad time. That means my absolute goal for the X-Alps is to have a great time, so that in three or four years I can say, okay, back then, that was cool.
I want to have a great race, and for me, that also includes doing something like a "magic move" or something like that. You're not really supposed to announce stuff like that, but I'd like to do something a bit special that highlights my character. Like, "Okay, he took some other route that the others wouldn't actually fly." Those are the best races for me—competitions where someone's character really shines through.
From your paragliding career so far, are there moments where you've said, oh, that was a magic move that you basically already pulled off?
Yeah, totally funny. So, just last year in May, there was the first edition of a Hike & Fly race called X-Ray Salzkammergut, and all the locals who have lived there for 30 years were there, and the organizer is right there on-site and flies really well. And yeah, I hiked up the mountain and the people did it quickly, quickly, and adjusted the flight route to the road. So the people flew in a way that they always had that road in mind for landing. Well, and I flew there for the first time and, as I said, intuition, and I looked at the cloud formation. Yeah, then I flew way out into the middle of nowhere,
I flew the wildest route around the back over the mountains and it carried perfectly. I wasn't even thinking about landing, it was just all great. And then I landed at the first turnpoint and couldn't find the board to sign, and I thought, oh my god, I've memorized the wrong turnpoint. That was the loser, I think, right? The first turnpoint. Exactly, the turnpoint loser. Then I thought, shit, now I'm really wrong. Well, and then I was wandering around and suddenly a car sped up and two people got out. Hey, you're way too fast. We haven't even set up the board yet.
And there practically wasn't a refreshment station, nothing at all, because people never thought you could get there that fast. And the rest of the entire competition—no joke, every single other person landed on this road, on the road, and the locals even told me, "Where you flew, I'd never fly in there because you'd end up out there for like three days on foot." And that's the advantage when, first of all, you're not a local and, second, when you just have a bit of your own head and don't follow what other people do.
How do you do it for the X-Alps? Do you prepare intensively, even in the coming months, saying that once the route is known, you'll fly it all out? Or are you more the type who says, no, I don't want to know it that precisely—maybe like Kriegel, who says he doesn't want to know it in advance so he doesn't have any preconceived notions, so that he can really make free decisions in the actual racing situation?
Yeah, it's really a disadvantage when you're a local. For example, in Kössen, I know every corner. And in the Comp, everyone was asking me, "Hey Max, where are you going to fly there?" And I'd say, "The north side, you don't fly that if you live here, it's never done." And then I flew south. Well, and then about 80 people just overtook me because everyone flew north. Yeah, it's an absolute disadvantage. I won't be flying around much there, no.
Okay.
Max, thanks for your wonderful stories. I think some people might have felt a bit offended by them in between. But that's also a good thing, because then things get shaken up and new ideas start crawling out of some hidden corners of the brain again. A refreshing perspective on our paragliding scene and how we tick, including what it comes to performance, selfishness, and stuff like that. I definitely wish you lots of success at the X-Alps. Success for your style, so you can say, I'm getting out what I want to get out of it there. And if in the end it even leads to a landing on the raft, then your supporter will be happy with that too. That would be great as well. I'll definitely be following it with great enthusiasm to see which specific routes you might choose and which magic move you might actually pull out of your hat.
Mega cool. Hey, thanks for letting me speak here, Lucian. Yeah,
Great, my pleasure.
That was Podz-Glidz episode 104 with Maximilian Leudl. As always, there are some additional links in the shownotes 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 one of those who already support my work on the podcast and blog? Thank you. Otherwise, I can strongly recommend to you once again that there won't be a second chance for an offer like Lu-Glidz and Podz-Glidz in the paraglider scene. Help me so that I can continue to run and develop both projects for your enjoyment as well. All the necessary information on how you can easily become a supporter without any obligation can be found on www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com on the Fördern page.
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