It starts with the fact that, in my view, the word it's titled with is completely wrong. It's this "supervised flying." There is supervised living, which old people do. There are many supervised things, but everything that is supervised is actually negatively charged. And that's why this word "supervised flying" is completely wrong in my view. There is no such thing as supervised soccer. I've never heard of it. But every soccer team has a coach. Every ice hockey team has a coach. Every skier has a coach. Everyone has a coach. Only in paragliding do people have far too few coaches, because that's "supervised flying" and that's bad.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with... Andi Frötscher. And I'm Lucian Haas.
Whenever the Red Bull X Alps start again, Andi Frötscher gets a certain fever. The 54-year-old from South Tyrol was already there for the legendary first edition of this hike-and-fly race across the Alps over 20 years ago. This was followed by five more participations until 2013. The X Alps have shaped more than a decade of his life.
The X Alps is a highly professionalized race today. In the beginning, it was a completely different kind of adventure. Pilots would trudge up the mountains with 20-kilogram bags, navigated using printed topo maps instead of smartphones, received rough weather info for the entire Alpine region via SMS, and simply slept in guesthouses on the way to Monaco. Andi talks about that time and the highs and lows he experienced around the X Alps. But the second part of this episode 110 of Podz-Glidz covers even more. Today, Andi Frötscher is a pilot who enjoys sharing his vast experience in XC flying through lectures and training sessions.
This includes, among other things, the mental side of flying and the power of positive thinking in aviation. Andi has some unconventional but very helpful tips on how to stay motivated for cross-country flying.
If you like Podz-Glidz, then why not support my work as a patron? You can find out how to do that very easily on the associated Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz, specifically on the Fördern page.
Andi, you started paragliding almost exactly 30 years ago. Do you see yourself as something of an old hand? No,
Actually, not really, because time flies so fast that you don't see yourself as old. But yeah, it has been a long time and I've experienced a lot. It was a different era. And I think I've seen a huge shift in paragliding. And I don't see myself as an old hand, but I guess, yeah, I have to admit, I am one.
Well, 30 years is 30 years of experience, an enormous amount of practical knowledge that has probably just developed into a sort of gut feeling overall. In which areas, would you say, can you still learn something today? Actually
in all areas. It's just that, for example, paragliders have completely changed. There's been so much development. In the past, we were doing more or less glide flights. You had to have really good weather to be able to gain some altitude and fly away. And today, it's completely different. Today's paragliding goes much further than the, let's say, training gliders from 30 years ago. And there's been a lot of progress in technology. But also regarding the weather, that's changed too. It's not the same as it used to be. I'm learning a lot there as well. New flight areas, also the technology through the internet, GPS, variometers—it's all different.
And there's always something happening, and you can always learn something new. And something I also find really exciting, which wasn't the case before, is that I think a lot about flight psychology too, and I try to learn more about that.
What was your last "aha" moment, where you thought, oh, I wish I'd known that sooner?
Oh, that's hard to say, I don't know right now.
Nothing comes to mind right now. Well,
Maybe he'll come back here later. Yeah. Are there any areas, now, in your 30-year flying career, where you'd say, hey, in that field, I was almost like a trendsetter?
Yes, definitely Hike and Fly. Everything to do with Hike and Fly today, the lightweight gear and all that. I believe that we—not just me, but all those who participated in the X-Alps back then, in the early ones—set a bit of a trend there. That didn't exist back then. There were no lightweight gliders, there was no lightweight gear. There were individual items, but it wasn't really market-ready. And I believe we already set a trend there. And yes, I still think that's an absolutely cool thing today. How
why did you participate in the Red Bull X-Alps so often?
I took part six times, between 2003 and 2013, for ten years. Why did you then stop?
stopped? You could be someone like Thomas Kokonea and say the Mr. X-Alps from South Tyrol would be Andy Fretcher. Why did you stop?
That would be really cool, but at the time, professionally speaking, I didn't have a permanent job; I always had a one-year contract. It was renewed repeatedly, of course. And to get a permanent position, I had to do some additional training, a one-year qualification at the university in Brixen. And that fell exactly in the year the X-Alps took place. And then I couldn't. I mean, attendance was mandatory, and it was simply impossible for me to participate. And I saw then that once you're out of that hamster wheel, you only realize how much effort you put in just to be able to participate in this competition.
As long as you're inside that bubble, you don't notice it. Or maybe I didn't notice it. Perhaps that's because I was there from the beginning and I experienced that shift toward everything becoming much more professional, so it wasn't that noticeable. But yeah, that was the reason. And then two years later, four years after 2013, I just wasn't in the right headspace to say I'd do it again.
All that preparation time just wasn't something I felt like doing anymore. You said
Hamster wheel. Why hamster wheel?
Yes, it's a hamster wheel because you actually, I mean, you get so excited for the X-Hubs, you prepare, you get to the competition. The competition is always full of ups and downs. And the longer the race lasts, towards the end, the more you think, what am I doing, what am I doing, what am I doing, I'm not doing that anymore. Because it's just such a huge ordeal. Of course, there are also some really, really great moments. But it's also very, very exhausting. And towards the end, you say, okay, I'm not doing that anymore. I mean, what you're doing there is just nonsense. Way too much effort, too much strain, no, I'm not doing that anymore. And as soon as the race is over, you sit down somewhere where the time has run out.
Unfortunately, I never made it to the finish line after Monaco, which was always my big dream. Then you sit down, and it lasts maybe five minutes. And after that, you're already thinking about what you could do better next time. And yeah, you drive home. And you just always have this thought in your head: what can I change? What should I do differently? Where did I make a mistake? Or simply, what wasn't so good? And you already start planning the next X-Alps. And that's why I say hamster wheel, because you basically can't get out of it anymore. Maybe if you only do it once, it's something different than when you've been at it for longer. Then you immediately think, yeah, next time this, that, and that.
It takes maybe two weeks to recover at home. And then the training starts all over again. And you're already thinking about the next X-Alps.
-Alps in sight. That almost sounds a bit like an addiction. So why do the X-Alps have such addictive potential? I
I don't know if it's an addiction for everyone. Maybe I'm just someone who loves competition in all areas. I started skiing at four years old and by seven, I was always competing. Here in South Tyrol, in races, state championships, and so on. Then I had to stop skiing because I just couldn't balance it with school. I played football for a very short time. That wasn't really my sport. But then I started cycling. Back then it was road bikes; only road bikes existed at the time. Nobody knew what a mountain bike was yet. And I started competing in that very quickly again too. And I competed at a very high level there as well.
And even there, that break happened pretty quickly again. I didn't have any more time for intensive training. And I saw that others were simply better than me, but only because I couldn't train as much. So I said, I'm not going to do that anymore. And then I started paragliding. And even there, I found my way into the competitive scene pretty quickly.
And there, I just wanted to keep learning something new. Not just doing something and then stopping, but taking the experience I gained and applying it to the next time. And doing it maybe better. That was actually always a bit of the motivation for me to do it. And because of how it was, I did it. Because it's something special for me. It's not competitive flying as it normally is, where you go to the competition, sit around and wait, and then the route is given and so on. Instead, you just start and do your thing. And I really enjoy that. And that's why I've actually always loved the X-Alps.
When this podcast comes out, the next X-Alps race is just starting. I met you at Grubigstein two years ago. We chatted for a bit. I already asked you back then if you might be available for a podcast somewhere. You said yes. That came up a bit in that conversation at the time. We also talked about the X-Alps. And you said, yeah, in two years, it'll be the 20th anniversary. So 2003 was the first. 2023 is 20 years later. And that, it might actually appeal to you to join in again. When the nominations came out, I was waiting for it. Yeah, when will Andi Frötz's name appear? Because I always thought, hey, I want to do a podcast with him, if he says, then I'll start again 20 years later.
But you weren't involved at all. Didn't you want to take part? I mean, how much did that appeal to you? And why didn't you apply? Or did you maybe apply and just didn't get picked? I don't know. Are you disappointed that I'm not involved?
were? Maybe a little.
No, I would have loved to join. And like I told you, I did have that idea before. But some things changed in my private life. And for me, there was a plan that I had to carry out. And it was very clear to me that I couldn't be at school—I'm a teacher at a secondary school—and that I could work there normally. Because the X-Hypes always start at the end of the school year, or even a bit before the end of school this year. And that was always absolute stress for me because during the last days of school, I also had to deal with grade conferences and so on. And then I had to go to the X-Hypes at the worst possible time in terms of training and preparation.
And I told myself that if I were to participate again, I'd want to take a sabbatical year so I could really prepare properly. I'm not the youngest anymore, either. That's another thing. You don't recover as quickly. And you have to prepare differently. That would have been my plan. But it just didn't work out. It wasn't possible. And that's why I didn't apply at all, because it wouldn't have made sense to participate. Going into the race without being well-prepared wouldn't have been sensible. But then Lukas Hofer called me. And he would have been there as Team Italy 4.
And he made me a great offer, because he said he'd love to participate. And I could maybe join him as a supporter, if I felt like it. And that would have been really exciting.
So you would have been able to make it work time-wise. It's not that much in terms of preparation that you have to do, it's actually just about being really present during the race. Lukas got injured, or rather he had surgery on his knee or something and can't participate now. Was that a big disappointment for you? Yes,
that was a big disappointment. Of course, the disappointment was surely much bigger for him than for me. I would have been incredibly stoked. And I would have had so much fun doing the whole thing from a different perspective for once. It would have been cool, after 20 years, after ten or six times—I'm saying after ten years—to be there as a supporter for once, as an athlete. Yeah, but it is what it is. With Lukas, it had already dragged on a bit throughout the whole winter season in biathlon, that it just wasn't working with his injury. And yeah, I also saw that it wasn't really getting any better. He always tried to cling to that straw,
but at some point I also saw that it was just becoming difficult. Even for him, although he is super fit. But yeah, time just ran out. And he really dragged it out and tried everything. And just like you said, another surgery. And then he got injured again. And then he and his doctor and the physiotherapist decided that it's not possible.
What would you say is the appeal of a supporter's role at the X-Alps in this specific task?
Well, that always depends a bit on what the supporter's job is. My job would have clearly been the aviation side and the tactics. That means I wouldn't necessarily have been responsible for driving around and cooking. Someone else would have been in charge of that. For me, it would have really been about the flying, the tactics, just those kinds of things. And that's something I have a lot of fun with—which I also do, how shall I put it, as a side job in the summer, going out with people. And that would have been a completely different level, a completely different stage, at which I could have done something like that.
If you're not participating, neither as a pilot nor as a supporter, do you still get X-Alps fever? Like, is it something where you'd say, I'm really going to be glued to the live tracking all the time? Or do you maybe even head out to the course somewhere just to say, I want to soak up some of that atmosphere?
Yeah, I definitely will. I'll definitely be there for the start in Kitzbühel. But then I have to work a bit. Otherwise, I would have been free during the time the X-Alps takes place. And of course, I'm not going to do that. But I'll see if I can get out to the course, visit a few people, and I'll also be watching the live tracking because I've made it a goal to look at the whole thing from my perspective as a supporter—what would I have decided, what could Luki have done, or what some athlete could have done. Just making my own decisions and then seeing what the athlete does or doesn't do, how it might have gone if I had flown there now or something.
Just to take a look at it a bit, to be able to analyze it. That's what I've set out to do, so I'll definitely be there. And I also want to drive to the finish line in Saal am See again to soak up the atmosphere once more after 20 years.
Nowadays, with live tracking, you can feel like you're very close to it on one hand. You can actually see them making their circles and stuff sometimes. On the other hand, you have no idea what the weather is like. You might be able to look at a webcam and see a general cloud picture, but you don't get a real sense of it. What is it like for you as an athlete when you follow it in live tracking? Is something missing, or do you say, "Ah, I can imagine that much better than some average pilot who's never been there could possibly convey"? Like, do you basically create a sort of supplementary image to the live tracking for yourself because you say, "I have this experience, from which I can basically generate this picture"?
Yeah, I think it really is something different. I know that the decisions an athlete makes aren't always the ones someone watching from home would make. These decisions always have a reason behind them. I also remember from my time that many people wrote in the comments or said in conversations afterwards, like, "Yeah, but why did you sit up there so long?" or "Why didn't you start?" and so on. And it was often because I had a tailwind. But as you correctly said, you just can't see that from the outside. And I think that's how I can understand the athletes much better. I know, okay, if it were possible to start now, then he would be flying.
But there has to be something, like he can't fly or he's heading for a landing, and all those things. So much is interconnected. That includes the physical exertion, how you feel physically, how you're holding up. You can even get sick during the race. That happened to me too. I caught a cold and had a fever, and I was actually on the verge of giving up because I told myself, I had to get over the Großglockner, over the Großglockner High Alpine Road. It was snowing at the top. It was cold and I said, Robert, how am I supposed to get over that now? I have a fever, I have the chills. It just doesn't make sense. And the viewer at home just doesn't pick up on those things.
And yeah, I can relate to that a bit better. Okay, that must be the reason why something like that decides it.
The first edition of X-Alps is sort of legendary. Tell me a bit about what it was like back then. I mean, what was so different then compared to how X-Alps is today? People only see what's being done now. What was X-Alps like 20 years ago?
Yeah, X-Alps 20 years ago was an adventure, plain and simple. You can hardly imagine that we didn't have the internet back then. We had hardly any weather information. Our weather forecast came daily in three pages of SMS. Not everyone knows about that anymore.
Text message, weather from Dachstein to Monaco. And basically everything was in there. So from super thermals to rain and thunderstorms, it was all there. And we didn't always have the chance to check what the weather would be like along the way. Back then, you still watched a lot on TV. You'd just watch the weather forecast in the evening. We didn't have that. And we often just went up the mountain in the morning. And then we'd be surprised by a tailwind or something. That was one thing. The other was the attitude we had. So, I—I have to speak for myself here, because there were a few others who saw it differently.
For me, it was like a flying event and not a hiking competition. I didn't specifically prepare for it physically. I'd always had good fitness because I came from endurance sports like cycling. But for me, flying—the start of the first X-Hypes wasn't fixed on a specific day like it is today, but the start was simply done within a week. Specifically, when good flying weather was forecast. That was also the attitude of the organizers. And we were sitting in Ramsau am Dachstein and saw that the weather wasn't going to be that good. How do we start now?
And then there was a small flight window and that's when we took off. But we didn't set off with the idea that we'd just land and immediately start walking; no, you land and then you stay there. And if the weather is good next time, you fly further. And yeah, that wasn't the case. We had to walk. And for me, it was also like, nobody knew me. I was the little Andi from South Tyrol who was suddenly standing there at the start with the world champion Kaspar Hänni and met Hannes Arich. The race director back then was Steve Cooks. Apparently, he was also a world champion. Then Will Gett was there too.
He was the world record holder in cross-country soaring. So, everyone I knew from the magazines. And suddenly, I was standing there with them. It was something very special. But as I said, we were adventurers. We had maps. Today, no one has a map in their hand anymore. Today, everyone has the maps on their phone. And if we had flown far and didn't have a map of the new area, then we had to figure out how we were going to...
figured out how to get there. Did you also walk into shops and say, I need a topographic map of this area? Or how did that work? Yeah, that was also done.
Or we just asked people where we could fly. They didn't understand at all what we were doing. But yeah, either you quickly got a map or you called the supporter. It happened to me once while I was in the air and I was looking at the route. I have a photographic memory and I knew there had to be four valleys to go through. I come from one, and then there are three more. But suddenly, there were five valleys. I thought, this can't be right. The Austrians couldn't have just built another valley or something. Yeah, and then I had to call Florian first and ask him, saying, look, I'm here and there and I'm missing a valley, so where do I have to fly? Yeah, the whole thing was pretty adventurous.
What kind of gear did you have back then?
20 kilos on your back, yeah. That was the basic gear. But was that already a liege harness, or was it still a completely normal, open harness that people flew with back then?
No, that was one of the first liege harnesses back then, really liege, liege. Today, they're actually covered seat harnesses. Back then, it was a real liege harness, but I think the harness weighed only eight kilos, I believe, without the rescue. It was like a tank with protectors, so foam protectors, then another piece of Plexiglas inside, like a Plexiglas plate, and yeah, everything was just super heavy, my glider too. It was an AWACS from Gradient. It wasn't a light fabric, it was heavy too, and the backpacks—nobody goes anywhere with stuff like that anymore. They hung down to the back of the knees.
That was a bit of a different time,
Yeah. Did you have, for example, a bivy bag, a sleeping bag, or something like that with you back then, especially since you didn't have much contact with the supporters—live tracking didn't even exist in that form yet—in case you went down somewhere in the middle of nowhere, high up in the alpine area, and said, "Well, okay, I have to manage to survive here somehow"? No, that was...
it was actually never the idea for us to land somewhere up high and stay there; it was always the idea that we'd land in the valley. Landing up high and then maybe sleeping somewhere up there or staying there, that only came later. That's when you started to see, okay, flying into the valley all the time doesn't really do much. It was just different for us. We weren't really well-equipped in terms of the cars to sleep in them all the time or anything. We actually slept in guesthouses. We'd always walk to the next village in the evening, or I'd walk to the next village and sleep in a guesthouse there that Florian had organized beforehand.
That was just our philosophy for the whole thing, but then I saw that it wasn't exactly ideal.
With 20 kilos on your back, what was the longest distance you ever ran with that?
With the 20 kilos? In 2003, I can't really remember the exact mileage. I remember landing in St. Johann in Pongau on the first day and then walking to Zell am See, and I was already exhausted. So that was already a disaster. But I didn't do much walking in 2003 either, because I just wasn't physically prepared enough. So, long distances weren't really a thing back then. I did manage a very long flight, though, because I just focused on the flying. I don't know exactly if it was the longest one I did back then, but certainly one of the longest. And I also managed to do minus one kilometer.
Minus one? Yes, minus one. How do you manage...
to fly or to walk minus one kilometer?
Yeah, I went up to the launch site in DeSantis in the morning. I mean, always official launch sites, because it wasn't like that. You just go somewhere to an alpine pasture and a meadow and take off from there. And down in DeSantis, they said, yeah, go up to the launch site tomorrow. And then you fly from there. So I hiked up and it was tailwind, tailwind, tailwind. And at some point in the afternoon, not quite late, early afternoon, it was time to take off. I launched and just miserably sank. And back then, I didn't have this thought yet, yeah, I'll just keep flying as far as I can, then go up somewhere and fly again. And I searched and searched.
It's not like I couldn't find any thermals there. And then I landed right back down at the valley station. Of course, I had a massive sore throat, I was totally pissed off. Florian came over and I said, screw you, I'm going back up again. It can't be that I can't get away from there. And then I hiked up to that launch site again. But it was already relatively late by then. The wind was good there, but rather strong. The valley wind was already coming over the Oberalppass. And I took off. It was just wind, wind, wind, wind, wind. And I was flying backwards at times and then landed a kilometer behind the valley station. Yeah, and I was so grumpy and said, I'm not doing anything else today.
I hiked up to the launch site twice, but it was pointless, so we just slept there. And then we slept about a kilometer behind the previous night's overnight stay. Yeah, and then we continued the next day. But I did a lot of walking then because the weather was getting worse.
You said you've participated in the X-Alps six times. Participation actually means investing a lot of time, but also a fair amount of money. Do you have an overview of what you've actually spent out of your own pocket for your six X-Alps participations, financially?
No,
I always had a few sponsors for the race. And I never really counted the time spent on preparation as a financial investment. Of course, you have to buy sneakers, eat, I don't know what. But I'd have to do that anyway. I'd do sports otherwise too. And with the X-Alps, I usually broke even. I mean, I think once we were left with 1,000 euros. Then there was another year where I put in 1,000 euros. But roughly, it was always a zero-sum game. And yeah, that actually always worked out. So for me, it was just a matter of saying, if I'm not really paying much out of pocket, I don't want to earn anything.
When I'm involved, it's fun. And that's the most important thing.
Now you're in South Tyrol. The Alps are basically right on your doorstep there. But there are also X-Alps participants coming from New Zealand, Brazil, or somewhere else. They have to pay for the flight first. They have to rent a big bus here—well, it doesn't have to be huge, but somehow rent a car or something. That quickly adds up to a few thousand. Isn't that a bit unfair, actually?
I've discussed this with Hannes Aich quite often. And I've laid out my opinion and my standpoint to him. I think it's absolutely unfair. And I've always found it a bit of a shame from the organization's side that they don't look for some kind of balance. I've always said, for me, it doesn't matter. I can get in the car. I'm at Dachstein relatively quickly. I'm in Monaco relatively quickly. But I know of athletes. One from Brazil flew here, bought a car with the money for his return flight, and did the X-Alps. Afterwards, he couldn't sell the car for as much as he wanted to, and then he had no money left to fly home.
Those are the kinds of things where I say it really shouldn't be like that. The organization could have definitely handled that a bit better. They didn't have to pay for everything for those people coming from far away. But maybe they could have just helped them with sponsorship. With affordable stuff. That would have been quite good. It might have made the whole scene a bit more professional too. But it just isn't, and it wasn't.
It's the thing where the pilots, with their performance and sometimes even with their money, are basically feeding a marketing machine. Is that discussed among the pilots? Like, do they say, "Is this what we want?" Or is it just accepted in silence? Does it mean that if you want to participate in this Red Bull, as it's called, X-Alps, you just accept that? Or do you just say that you're becoming part of this machine?
Yes, you accept that you're part of this machinery. But there have been times when we've pushed back on certain things. Of course, not everyone was involved. But some people didn't quite feel comfortable with certain aspects. And yes, there were discussions, disagreements, I'd say, a bit of trench warfare. But we always tried to resolve things in a way that was okay for everyone. But of course, you can't always have everything. The organizers look out for their interests, and the athletes have to look out for theirs. It's very important not to get lost in some kind of bickering or anything like that.
So, you have to focus on what you yourself need to do. And then you have to see for yourself how to make the best of it. And that's different for everyone. One person says, I just enjoy participating. And even if I have to chip in, that's just how it is. And the other person says, yeah, it's a shame that I have to pay for everything myself. Or like you just said, for the people coming from further away, it really is a financial burden. But they know that beforehand. And yeah, they just have to deal with that in advance and see how they...
...solve. Out of all your X-Lives experiences, there's always some kind of highlight where you say, "I definitely want to tell my grandchildren about that later, or whoever." I don't know if you'll have grandchildren someday, but it's that point where you say, "I want to pass this on later." That's a story that's just burned into my life.
There are so many stories. If someone attends one of my lectures and actually listens, they'll realize I could basically never stop talking, because there are so many striking experiences that stay with you. It's not just one. And you can't say this is the best one, either—in a positive or negative sense. It's a huge amount, and I couldn't single anything out right now. Certainly, the things that happened just a few years ago, towards the end of my X-Lives time, are a bit more present than the ones from the beginning. But for me, it's always been that I've linked so many things to images. And when I see those images, I actually remember everything again.
I was there and that happened and so on. I can't say what the best part was. From the beginnings, I'm sure it was the award ceremony in 2003 with the current Prince of Monaco, Albert. That was already a highlight. It was absolutely cool because normally not many people meet him like that. That was already a highlight—that the athlete, that he comes by, shakes your hand, and actually shows interest. He watched the videos they had already edited together and he was deeply impressed. He's an athlete himself, after all. He was a pole vaulter at the Olympics and such. And he knows what goes into it. And that was... that was already one of the highlights, I have to say.
But there were also so many funny stories on the track where I competed against the Japanese. There are tons of things I can tell about that. To my grandchildren and anyone who likes to
...listens. You just said that during my lectures, people get that feeling too. That means you're also someone who enjoys sharing your knowledge. Which topics are particularly close to your heart?
It's actually about cross-country flying. And about safe cross-country flying. I'm someone who realized during my time that you can learn a lot from other people. It wasn't like that in the past. Back then, knowledge wasn't really shared. Everyone made sure they didn't explain anything to the other person. But today it's different. And it's very much about passing on knowledge, about helping others so they don't have to have the same bad experiences we had to go through ourselves. I think that's actually the most important thing for me.
That you can really tell people, look, don't go flying in this weather because it's not worth it, it achieves nothing. I'm one of those people who is actually against this Föhn flying for most pilots. It's already being downplayed a bit by now. Föhn has different facets and you can do this, and there Föhn is protected, and so on. But I always say, what's the point, does it have to be? And you can pass on a lot of information there. But also with route planning for cross-country flights and so on. So people can benefit a lot from experienced pilots today. And a bit of the psychological attitude.
That's always been a topic for me too. That a lot of people don't go on cross-country flights because they're mentally blocked by certain things. And I try to help with that a bit, and I also keep trying new things for myself. I look at what I could do to make it more fun, so it doesn't become monotonous. But also to stay motivated to keep flying and what...
More fun, not monotonous, you said. Now, you've been flying for 30 years. Has it ever become monotonous for you, even after 30 years of paragliding?
Yeah, not necessarily. I'm not the type of person who, for example, has to fly the FAI triangle at the border 20 times every year.
It would get boring for me, and that's why I don't do it. I'd rather fly some kind of route or stretch that no one has ever done before. Or if the weather isn't actually that good, I'll try something out. Or if someone says it's completely impossible, then I try it. And it usually takes longer to get away and achieve something. It doesn't happen all at once. And for me, those are a bit more of the challenges, so it doesn't get boring. But I also enjoy these very relaxed flights now. Even if it's just a glide flight in the autumn, I look at all the colors you can see there and the light. I really like taking photos in the air.
I don't actually get bored, no. And I can't recall ever saying that it's boring now. Not really, no.
Were you someone who used to fly for XC points, or rather, aimed for them? Like, at the end of the day, I want to stand there as a day winner or at least with more points than the other club members here in South Tyrol or something like that. So, were you a competitive pilot in that sense, and only later became someone who said, "Yeah, I'll just fly my special route." I know I'm having fun. Maybe the XC points aren't that important in the end, or there aren't that many of them being accumulated. But you know that you've done a great flight for yourself. But was it different back then? Actually, no.
Because I've been a teacher for quite a long time now, and many people say, "Well, teachers always have time." But I don't have time when the weather is good; I have time on the weekends. If Wednesday is a super good cross-country flight day, I can't go flying. I can't just tell the school, "I'm not coming in." And I've seen that maybe if it's a good flight day on the weekend, I can be at the top of the daily standings. Yeah, that's nice and all. And if it happens, it's okay. But I never have a chance in the overall standings because others can simply take a day off. And I can't do that. And that's why it was never really the point for me where I said, "I want to be at the top."
It's just not possible. And if it's not possible, then I don't need to get myself worked up about it. Like I said, being at the top of the daily standings is all well and good. But that's always difficult too, because you don't know what the others are flying or how far they're flying. It's usually a bit of a product of chance. The others fly well too, they fly far too. And yeah, I have respect for anyone who flies further than I do.
In one of your lectures—you gave a talk right away with the Wassergruppe, which can also be accessed as a video. And there's a really nice thing you told there. You said that for cross-country flying, you give the waypoints you fly to female names. Why?
Yeah, that just occurred to me because usually in competitions and just always, wherever there are waypoints, they're called Turnpoint 1, Turnpoint 2, Turnpoint 5, and whatever. And that seemed totally boring to me. It doesn't motivate you at all. And you also get confused, you mix them up. And then we took part in the Dolomiti Superfly in Levico, Robert, my buddy and I. And I said to Robert, you Robert, I'm going to try something out. This thing with these Turnpoints doesn't work for me. I'm giving the waypoints women's names now. And then he says, Andi, you're completely crazy now. And I say, no, no, I'm not completely crazy, I just think it's funny.
Either we take the name of someone we know there, or some athlete I really like, or something like that. Let's just try it. And then he says, if you think so, let's do it. And in Veltri, I know Martina Centa, who also flies. And then there was this connection. We're flying to Martina. And so that first waypoint, that was Martina. And yeah, it was really funny to see how you suddenly had a completely different motivation to fly to that waypoint. Generally. Because it had always been, yeah, how do we get there now? If we go up there, we have to visit Martina today, so tomorrow won't work and so on.
In the conversation, it was really, really funny and not just always this turnpoint. And even in the follow-up, it was always like, yeah, it was actually fun. And I saw that it motivated me. Robert enjoyed it. He laughed. And yeah, for me, it was actually a very, very good experience. It doesn't have to be a woman's name. It can also be, like, I said it back then too, if people say they want to fly to this and that, you can say that you're getting a reward there, a beer or something or ice cream. And nowadays, for example, during my cross-country flight weeks, the Eisdiele in Sand in Taufers is very often just, yeah, I'm flying to the Eisdiele, something like that.
And then we know, turning point Eisdiele or destination Eisdiele, we know it's Sand in Taufers. And people look forward to that because they don't say, I'm flying to Sand in Taufers, but I'm flying to the ice cream parlor, and then there's a good ice cream when I get there. So that's also that reward. And yeah, you can do a bit of that kind of playfulness. For me, back then, it was those "Frauen" names that I tried it with once.
When you say you do these cross-country flight weeks, how can you provide good input to such a large group of pilots? Because you might have very different levels of people—those who can already fly thermals and cross-country relatively well and have their experience, and maybe some who say, "Well, you'd better first properly teach them how to center, that it's even possible." How do you get such a group together?
Yes, you're right. So the level of experience became very, very different over the years. We had people with us who flew really slowly, who were just at the beginning of cross-country flying, and others who had already flown very well. We've split that up a bit now. We've made sure to group pilots with similar levels together. And for me, the task is simply to keep an overview as best as I can. I have to make sure I'm flying back and forth between the people a lot, I have to fly very fast, and then I can tell the ones in front again that they can fly there, do this and that, and so on. So we've always pre-defined a basic route where we said this and that would be possible today, we can do that, so that we all stay on roughly the same line and not have one person flying left and the other right, because then it wouldn't work.
And I often choose the routes so that I have a leg where the people fly out and back, so I meet them again; then the good ones can fly ahead for a bit, have a turning point somewhere, and come back. And the ones who aren't as good can just turn around when they come back and fly with them for a bit again, and so on. And like I said, I just have to make sure that I spend a certain amount of time with the less skilled ones. At some point, when I see that it's just not possible to go any further, I have to tell them, "Now just see for yourself if you can make any more progress." It also depends on the time, they don't fly for that long anyway. Often I'll say, "I think that's enough for you now, listen to your gut, see if you can still manage it."
And often they want to land themselves if they get stubborn or something. If they fly out into the valley and maybe start to struggle, then I know, okay, now I can follow the others. And it works. I mean, I usually see the people and it's not easy, but I manage it more or less.
...pretty well together, I think. So, do you fly back and forth, have a radio, and talk to the people on it, or do you spiral down to them and then circle around with them, pulling them in and saying, "Okay, we'll do it like this, a bit tighter," or whatever?
Yeah, exactly. So, it depends on everything. If it's rather difficult, I don't always circle or spiral down, because I have to make sure I don't crash too, so I might help more over the radio. I already know where the thermals are and where the thermal sources are, so I can send the people in pretty accurately and know, okay, now it should work. And then it usually does. Or I really fly down and help them circle and turn, or I just fly a certain distance, a certain route with them, take a shortcut, especially with those who have slightly worse gliders. I also have people with me who fly with A-gliders. Two years ago, we were out on the main ridge at over 4,000 meters,
just with an A-glider. So there's no limit set, which is what a lot of people always believe. You have to have a high-class glider to do something like that, and that's absolutely not the case. But with people like that, I have to look for shortcuts so that we can keep up with the better ones. But yeah, I have to use every skill I've got. But that's probably really fun for you too. I have a total blast. But it's also very exhausting. So at the end of the day, I'm pretty wiped out because I'm basically flying for eight people—that's seven participants and myself.
And keep them all in sight. Do you use any technology for that nowadays, like some kind of live tracking where you can see your group together in a live feed, and you can look at it and see who's flying ahead and who's lagging behind? Or is it really all kept in sight, literally with your own eyes?
I try to keep an eye on them whenever I can. If there comes a point where I really don't know where people are anymore, especially towards the end of the day, then I do check where they're heading. I can also take a look at the live tracking. But it's very often the case that it doesn't work properly—that someone has switched it off and doesn't even notice it's not running, and so on. It doesn't always work perfectly. I try to really keep an eye on the people and see where they are whenever possible. They often just give me feedback too. I'm doing this wingsuit jump now, and then I see them again right away. Then I know again, oh yeah, there he is. And then I can help out again.
In the preparation for this talk, I also asked you what topic you'd like to share with the community. And you answered: the power of positive thinking in aviation. What is the power of positive thinking, and how great is this power?
Yes, I believe that makes a big difference. In every other sport, there are sports psychologists who help the athletes with that. And in paragliding, very little is done in this area. From my point of view, that's not enough. Especially in terms of removing fears. That you simply have fun flying and don't block yourself because you have certain fears. Or as I just said, setting goals. Where do I want to fly to? Especially with this cross-country flying. People don't fly out because they're always thinking about the car.
That's just this blockade. The car is sitting there, and if I fly away now, I won't be able to get back to the car. And for me, it's always really interesting when you flip the story around. If, for example, regarding the car, you don't take the car to the cable car and the cable car to the launch site and then don't fly away because the car is at the cable car, but instead leave the car somewhere and the car suddenly becomes the motivation. Because I want to get back to the car. I drive there in the morning, leave it, take public transport to the cable car, ride the cable car up, and then it's a motivation to get back to the car. And that's how you flip the whole thing around. And suddenly, you have a positive thought instead of this brake.
Or rewarding yourself—that's also something I've learned that a lot of people, I told you earlier, I just heard Maximilian's podcast, that a lot of people, when things don't go well and if they have to, in their opinion, land too early, then they get grumpy and curse around and do and make and scold. And I'm someone who doesn't like that at all because that's absolutely negative. Because the very first thing is that you're glad to have landed safely, because that's not a given. I had to learn that too. In the past, it was also like that for me, that it was completely logical and that I was grumpy if I crashed. Today it's not like that anymore. Today I know it could have gone wrong. Or I might not have crashed?
Maybe it would have gone wrong. That's also a thought you can have, because you don't know what would have happened. And then you just say, like, that went well. I then briefly analyze for myself what I did wrong, that I'm standing here and didn't manage that valley jump or whatever. That takes five minutes. I give myself that. I can be grumpy with myself during that time. But after that, it's fine. And then I say, did I do well? Yeah, actually I did. That's it now. So can I reward myself? And then I go have a nice drink that I like, or eat an ice cream as a reward for myself, like that. But I'm also someone who punishes themselves when I know it was really bad. Then I say, okay, no ice cream today.
Done. And if you're sweating now, it doesn't matter. Next time you'll push yourself harder. I don't have to do that all the time, luckily, but I do. And I learned that with the X-Libs too. I learned to just have these positive thoughts. And if things go badly, if you have to land somewhere, like with the X-Libs for example, just say, "Okay, because it didn't go so well because you made a mistake, you're going to run up the mountain even faster." And then you can turn the negative into a positive. And then it's actually fun to dash up the mountain quickly and say, "I'll get that one yet," and stuff like that. From my perspective, there are so many connection points there that are really interesting.
Do you have an example of a time where you really benefited from positive thinking? Where you'd say, I only managed that because I had those positive thoughts, or because I managed to turn something negative into something positive?
Let's put it this way, the euphoria is also something positive. And with the X-Libs 2005, things went really well for me on the first day. I got off great, and then—well, we started at the Dachstein back then, and I'm still around Fieberbrunn, I landed somewhere in the evening and already noticed, like, that was really good. I think the others are behind me and it should actually go quite well. And then I saw that Urs Lötscher had still flown over me in Talmitte. He used the reverse ambil beautifully there and flew all the way to Kitzbühel.
And yeah, of course it hurts at first, but then I thought, okay, he just flew past me. He's actually the only one I saw. That means I should be in second place. Then I called Florian and the guys who were still there to check. Well, you're in second. And yeah, even though he flew past me, it became the motivation for me to really give it my all and see if I could catch up to him. And I benefited from that for the days afterwards, though I know today that it over-motivated me. I did too much and then at the end, after three days, I'd blown my powder and that wasn't good. But yeah, it motivated me just to be at the front, to see Urs fly past, to know he's ahead of me, but I wanted to catch him.
always catch up. And that was with him back then, but it was also at the last X-Alps—I don't remember what the Japanese guy's name was, but he overtook me at the Zugspitze. We were sitting in the fog and he was actually behind us and already slower, but then he took off at the top in the sunshine. I didn't see him for a long time, but for me, he was always the motivation: I want to catch him, I want to catch him. Many others would say, yeah, that's all stupid and so on. But for me, it was simply the motivation. He overtook me, bad experience, but I want to catch him again.
Did you teach yourself this kind of positive thinking, or did you do some kind of mental training where you said, as a paraglider, I want to get some psychological help? Or is it just your life experience, or your life wisdom, that shines through now?
Basically, I did that with the X-Alps. At the beginning, there was nobody who had done anything like that.
And in the beginning, it was really like you'd take in the negative and get into this kind of downward spiral. The weather was bad. I was physically just completely exhausted. I couldn't fly properly anymore because I couldn't concentrate. And then I didn't feel like doing it at all anymore. And then it was just constant complaining. And then at some point I thought, okay, but complaining doesn't help either. You're in this, you want to be in this, and you have to push through. That's just how it is. And back then, I hadn't really figured it out yet, or hadn't noticed yet, that you can turn it around. But that developed over time. And when the first ones came,
who said, yeah, you can do that in paragliding too, and just offered something there. Then I read through my book and saw, yeah, I actually do exactly that now. And yeah, the psychologists who offer this for paragliding don't say anything other than what I actually do. There are still a few little things that come into play where I say, yeah, I didn't really think of that or anything. But overall, it just developed through, mainly through the X-Hype, so. Just basically learning by doing. Yeah, exactly. We did that back then too. It was a lot. I got my pilot's license the normal way at the flight school back then, but we didn't really learn that much.
We took off and landed. That's what the flight instructor taught us. But cross-country flying or stuff like that, that wasn't a thing back then. Nobody taught you that. You always tried it out for yourself. And just like with flying, those were the psychological things that eventually came into play.
Are there things where you would say, or if you ever look back at the young Andi when he started flying and was making his first attempts and maybe even broke his first wing a bit or something like that—are there things where you would say, I'd actually like to give that to him today? From your experience now, where you say, hey, this could make something incredibly easier for you in your flying career. And maybe that's also for listeners who say, I'm at the beginning of my flying career. So what can an Andi give me, where I say, hey, that could be a real relief for me?
So for myself, for me as the type of guy I was, I think the best thing I would say to myself would be, Andi, you're not immortal. That was a bit of a problem at the beginning. I always thought nothing could happen, and I can do this and that, and it's no problem at all. Then it almost went wrong once. I was very, very lucky there. Yes, I did exactly the right thing at every moment. I fell into the fabric back then and had a 700-meter freefall. I didn't count the seconds. It was somehow an insanely long time when I think about it. It really took a long time, but it was just a few seconds.
And I managed to get out of the fabric because back then I had a rescue system, the cutaway, which only triggers if the main glider flies away. And if you're lying inside the glider, it just won't trigger. That's why it would actually only have been permitted with a canopy. But as a South Tyrolean, you don't need a second rescue, I thought back then. And yeah, everything went well. I landed completely normally with my rescue parachute. But that was actually the point where I realized, okay, you can't do everything. Yeah, you just can't do everything. We just tried every bit of nonsense. I'd definitely pass that on and say, leave it, just be careful.
You can achieve a lot, you can try a lot, but always be conscious of the things you're doing. Don't just think, "I'll fly into the lee now," but consciously fly into the lee. If you know what you're doing and what to expect, or at least have an idea, then you're prepared for a lot of things. And then it doesn't happen that you're suddenly stuck in the glider. It can still happen. But yeah, you're just more prepared for these things.
Yeah, that
would be something.
But for that, you actually have to know first what a lee is. Where might it form? And to be able to say, "Now I'm either flying into it deliberately or I'm deliberately avoiding it." But many pilots, especially at the beginning when you don't know much yet, can't really assess a lot of things properly. And you're basically putting yourself out there—seen that way, every flight is a flight into the unknown, more or less. You often don't even know yourself what you might be doing to yourself.
Yes, you're right. That first part was about me. And I think, regarding the general public, I feel that people today have many opportunities to somehow hook up with experienced pilots who can help them. I had a bit of a discussion with the DHV about that half a year ago, and I deliberately said that in my presentation as well. Among paragliders, having a trainer is rather frowned upon—the idea of people getting a trainer, a coach. It starts with the word,
from my point of view is completely wrong. It's this "supervised flying." There is supervised living—old people do that. There are many supervised things, but everything that is supervised is actually negatively charged. And that's why this term "supervised flying" is completely wrong in my view. There is no such thing as supervised football. I've never heard of it. But every football team has a coach. Every ice hockey team has a coach. Every skier has a coach. Everyone has a coach. Only in paragliding do people have far too few coaches, because that's "supervised flying." And that's bad. And I just think people should realize that they can learn from those who have been flying for a long time, who have a lot of experience and who can also pass that experience on, because that's another point—not everyone can do that.
Not everyone can do that either. You can frame it in a way that benefits the other person. But people should benefit from it, and they have the opportunity. They shouldn't be deterred because then it goes, "Oh, you're still going to a flight school or something, supervised flight." No, that's a coach. I'll get one. It doesn't have to be a week; it can be a weekend. Doesn't matter. Somewhere in a flight area, someone calls me and says, "Look, I'd like to learn something from you."
What does it all cost? Because other sports cost money too. But there, it's seen positively. Yes, I'm paying something, but then I'm getting something for it. But with paragliding, you try a lot of things yourself. Yes, then a few buddies are there. The buddies say, "Oh yeah, yeah, you can just fly straight in, that's no problem." And "Yes, yes, that's doable." Yes, then someone ends up hanging in a tree or something and then it just didn't work. But if you turn to people who do this professionally and know what they're doing and what they're telling you, then I believe very many people could benefit from that.
Sometimes I get the impression that there are all sorts of different types of paragliders. There are those who are completely obsessed with it, and once they start flying, they're just flying all the time or something like that. And then there are the people who say, yeah, you're supposed to be able to do it relatively easily, and then they do it, take a two-week course, and maybe they finish their A-license. Then they fly a bit, but where I live, I can't really fly that regularly, and after a short time, it actually ends with them maybe going on guided flights for two weeks a year, but doing almost nothing in between. So between those two vacations they might have, they actually almost unlearn everything they learned. They just don't make any real progress.
Shouldn't we actually emphasize much more strongly that, hey, if you want to do paragliding, it's a sport that's actually quite life-threatening in certain ways. You have to be prepared to put in the corresponding time and training. If you're not actually ready for that, then maybe it's better to just leave it.
Well, that
I don't see it that way. I mean, I think it's very important that people do general sports.
Unfortunately, too many paragliders are not athletes. They often haven't done anything else. They might not be as motorically skilled. But paragliding is for everyone. And that often becomes a bit problematic. I wouldn't say it's generally life-threatening, though. I always think it depends on what someone wants to do. There are people—I'm in the flight school every now and then and talk to the flight instructors. And they say, Andi, look, you have to imagine that for these people, this flight of 10, 15 minutes, where they just take off in the morning and fly down to the landing field, is a time where they can switch off.
Where they don't think about anything other than flying. And I think that we, who fly a lot, often can't imagine that at all. When I'm out with my people, I do everything except just flying. I don't think about the flying. I watch where they are. I check the weather. I look at the wind data. If someone has already landed, I'm already on the internet looking up the bus connections for how they get out of the valley. I have all sorts of things to do. I take photos. So yeah, I don't think about the flying at all. And that's the difference. These people who head out to fly, they forget everything. They have no worries. They don't think about work; they are really 100% focused on this flight. And that's valid too.
But then
the term "supervised flying" actually fits people like that, it really does. Because you say, okay, we'll set it up so that you can feel comfortable. You can glide for your 15 minutes. You feel great. And I'll take care of making sure the weather is right. So, that I can tell you, you can take off clean now and you'll probably, as long as you don't do anything completely stupid, you'll land safely at the bottom. And have your fun. Exactly. But that can also be...
the term trainer. I don't have to say that it's supervised flying. Because like I said. But trainer always sounds so
...as development. At least for me. And these people, maybe sometimes they just want to hang out a bit, glide down a little, but not necessarily improve. They might dream of developing their skills, but they don't have the willingness to invest the time for it.
I agree with you there. But there are also small developments. I think development also happens, for example, during takeoff and landing. That people don't just sort of throw themselves out there, but instead perfect the takeoff. That's also a development. And that's what an instructor does when they explain to you, "Look, pull the glider up slower, or do this, or do that." You don't always have to be flying. If the wind isn't quite as good anymore, you can just go out to the field and do some ground handling. All these things are already a form of development from my point of view. If you look at how people take off during the first few days—even after, I don't know, half a year of not flying—and how they take off towards the end of the week.
You could also say, we're doing some kind of small point landing competition or something. So you always have to make sure that people don't tear the glider off. But I think there are already very many things where you can move people forward a bit without overwhelming them. You don't have to say, you all have to become super cross-country pilots. And if there is an interest there, then you can also say, you did that very well, now fly over there. I'm just a bit against that term. Because, as I said, this term usually has to do with older people. And there, it's "supervised." And in the aviation sector, it's always seen very negatively when people say, I go supervised flying.
Yes, yes, yes, you're just "supervised." And that's why I'd maybe say "trainer" instead. Period. End of story. That's just a different term. And anyone can learn, regardless of whether they go flying twice a year for two weeks or one week, or if they live in the Alps and fly all the time. Everyone can learn. Always in their own way.
You just said one thing that I'd like to wrap up with. You said that when you have these, your supervised—I'm putting supervised in quotation marks—supervised groups, where you say you're zipping back and forth between them and watching where the bus is going and whatnot. You're doing everything except flying. But you're still in the air. How does that work? And then the second question, you can answer that too: when you're flying alone, are there also moments where you're flying and suddenly realize, am I actually flying? So, what's going on in your head then?
Yeah, so when it gets really intense, I'm working, I'm focused, then I really have to fly. The same goes for when I'm low; I have to keep an eye on myself to make sure I get back up, so I have to fly. And otherwise, I'm someone who has always tried a lot of things.
Yeah, I don't think you can always tell everything. But no, for example, imagining thermals—that's quite difficult. How do people imagine thermals? And I've often tried, in my flight area at Ritenhorn where I'm the only one flying, to just close my eyes once and center the thermals with my eyes closed. And that way, I have a picture in my head of what the thermals look like. And I benefit from that today because I just fly into the thermals and automatically already know, okay, it goes like this and that. And I don't have to think about it anymore. The same applies to the fact that I very often use my left hand for the right brake and vice versa. That means I actually have to think cross-wise about how I'm doing circles now.
I often try things like that so that I don't always have to think about the flying. A lot of things just happen automatically. Even if I'm looking for something on my phone and suddenly have to turn right, while I'm still looking for something on my phone, I'll just take the right brake with my left hand and then turn. So it all just becomes much more normal. And when I'm out alone or with friends or something, I also take photos often. For me, the fun is always the main focus, not necessarily the flying and, as we said earlier, this "I have to do many kilometers, I have to be fast" thing.
That can also happen—if it's a good day, I'll tell myself, today I want to go full throttle, and then I do it, and I enjoy that too. But it's not something I always have to do. And yeah, I benefit from that and can then use it for the benefit of others when I'm out with people. Do you have any other aviation dreams?
Maybe do some X-rays again
And otherwise, no, just stay healthy and enjoy the beautiful, beautiful flights. And they don't have to be long-distance. That doesn't matter at all. I just enjoy being in the air. It's always fun for me.
That's a nice way to end it. Andi, I wish you many more great moments in the air. Maybe even at the X-Alps sometime, whether as a pilot again or perhaps even more as a supporter, because you say you want to experience that role too. I look forward to following you there in some other way. Thank you for this conversation. And all the best. Thank you, and thanks to the people who listened.
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Until next time. Don't fall from the sky. Ciao.