I would just wish for the scene to focus more on those who fly anyway. I mean, even though they are very old, even though they are overweight, even though they might not be able to walk properly or something like that. In the end, of course, people will take a look and then there's a discussion where there are actually people saying, "Yeah, why is someone like that still flying? That's dangerous." He just wants to fly and is trying to compensate for his handicap. And even if it doesn't always look very graceful, as long as it's safe, we should be happy that it's not just elite athletes who are able to have such a wonderful hobby.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Frank Weber and I am Lucian Haas. It
There are paragliders who carry so much weight that they have a hard time finding suitable equipment at all. Others are no longer as athletic for other reasons, whether it's age or a physical handicap. They all love flying. But in the flying community, they are often on the fringes and are sometimes even openly mocked.
Frank Weber knows all too well what that's like from personal experience. He has severe obesity and, as a paraglider, constantly experiences a certain form of discrimination. For example, in the form of comments that are well-intentioned on the surface but ultimately demeaning. But that doesn't stop Frank. In this Podz-Glidz episode 111, he bravely speaks up for all those female and male pilots who sometimes feel excluded because of physical limitations. He advocates for more tolerance for marginalized groups in the scene. Frank Weber's wish is that we should not only recognize and celebrate higher, faster, and further, but also specifically when someone is doing everything they can within the scope of their abilities to make their dream of flying a reality.
If you enjoy Podz-Glidz, why not support my work as a patron? You can find out how easy it is on the corresponding channel for Podz-Glidz episode 111, specifically on the "Support" page.
Frank, they always say that large gliders have better performance. Do you feel like you have an advantage with your glider?
Well, the question is always whether there are even gliders in the class or weight class I have to fly that are actually still at home, and which ones are there? I wouldn't say I feel at an advantage. Because it's always the question of which weight range of the glider you're moving in. And then whether it's large or rather small. What glider are you currently flying? I have a Gin Evora at the moment and I also have an Emotion 3, depending on which weight class I'm moving in right now.
And up to how many kilos do they go? I mean, what's their maximum weight limit?
135 kilos for the Evora and 145 kilos for the Podz-Glidz. And on
what weight do you get with all your gear? So between
135 and 145, 150 kilos. That's about it. It moves around in that range.
So, if you have an Evora at 135, would you really be at the upper limit now, or do you actually fly it overloaded sometimes?
Yeah, you could say that. That happens, of course. It happens to all paraglider pilots at some point, where they step on a scale and estimate their weight. And then there's also the question of how many half chickens you might have on the way to the launch site in between. And of course, if you pack a bottle of water or have a bit of equipment with you, you often run into people who are guaranteed not to be in the weight range they would estimate for themselves. But for me, it's actually always at the top of the glider. Yeah, that's how it is.
As most listeners are probably already thinking, you're a bit of a corpulent person. How does it feel to be, I'll say it frankly and openly, a fat guy in the paragliding scene? Well, it...
It's just that a lot within the paragliding scene is very heavily focused on performance, peak performance, and on higher, faster, further. And sometimes you find yourself somewhat in a marginalized group. Now, I'm not the type to be a bully. That's just not in my nature. But if you were a more sensitive soul, you could have some issues with that. You notice it, of course. It's often not spoken out loud. But when you're standing at the launch site, there are people who notice and are now waiting to see what he's going to do with his weight. You do stand out. You're a bit of a colorful character. A peacock in many ways.
And I'll just say, the equipment on the market is simply not particularly suitable in many areas for people who fall outside the norm. Especially when it comes to weight.
Does it get to the point where you sometimes notice, even at the launch site or wherever, that people are talking behind your back, that comments are being made? Like, why did he even start flying? So that people don't think you're up to it or think, "He's too much for the site"?
Yes, that does happen. So, if I think back to the beginning of my paragliding career, in quotation marks, then of course it's just that it takes you longer to physically execute things than people who are more athletic, better trained, and also thinner can manage. That's how it is. I had—maybe I should elaborate on that again—I had a severe illness and am in recovery. And in recovery, I even came to the conclusion myself to make a bucket list again. What do you still want to do in life? And one of those was flying. And I was married for almost 15 years to a doctor, an ophthalmologist, who always told me that your eye condition would disqualify you—so my vision would disqualify me—from flying a plane again or anything like that.
That reminded me of a friend of mine who told me, "I don't want to fly anymore." And he once told me many, many years ago, "Man, paragliding is ideal because you don't need anyone. You can do it all by yourself; you get into a lift, go up, open the paraglider, and fly down." That was something I could see myself doing. And then I actually called a large flight school and asked if it was possible with some of the chemotherapies I had just finished and with significant overweight, which is partly a result of that, if it was possible to learn paragliding. And they told me over the phone, "If you can take five or ten steps forward, then you can do paragliding."
That motivated me a lot and led me to actually take a beginner course. But in the basic course, you very quickly reach a point where you realize that you're not as physically perfectly suited for it as others are. I took a very, very long time and did very, very many exercises on the practice slope until I could coordinate myself. Because there's simply a difference between hiking up a practice slope and standing up there with a heart rate of 280, trying to coordinate something and develop a feel for the glider. Or whether you jog up there casually and then make the next attempt. It's just a difference. And body awareness is ultimately also a question of fitness and also of body weight.
And if you also take into account that, as a rule, everything around you is too tight, starting with the harness, then of course it's not quite that easy. But I don't want to blame the equipment. It also depends heavily on the individual. And ultimately, everyone is the blacksmith of their own weight, so to speak. But there are many factors that you just can't influence that easily. And that's why it was important for me to also talk about the fact that there are people who do sports like paragliding with handicaps, whether that's weight or other limitations. They still have fun and still want to be taken seriously in the scene.
Was the flight school actually set up to train a student with your weight? Or do you also rent the equipment first? So, was there even a suitable glider and the right harness for you? Yes, in the end...
always been in the upper range. They have that. You can also fly small tandems—I know people who fly small tandems—if you then go even higher in weight than I am. That exists too. But that was already there. What's missing is the personal support you might need if you fall outside the performance range. And there are, of course, many people like that. There are also things that have happened where one flight instructor or another told you, you're actually, this isn't a hobby for you at all, just give up. You're never going to learn to fly anyway and you're never going to get the coordination. You have no body awareness, no feel for it. It's never going to work out for you. That just made me more determined.
Others would have probably made me quit.
Where does that come from, that you're not the stubborn type, but the kind of guy who says, "Now I'm just getting started"? I don't know.
I don't know where that comes from. I think it's just kind of anchored in my character. But when you've done things where it's a matter of life and death... I mean, ultimately, if I talk about my illness, maybe you develop a different feeling for challenges. But that's just a guess. I don't know.
Do you still hear those kinds of comments sometimes today? I mean, not from flight instructors, but from fellow pilots? Or maybe more from strangers who say, "Hmm, is this really the right sport for you?"
It's just like, for example, if you go somewhere in Annecy from the parking lot to the launch site. That comes easily to many people, but for me, it's hard, even if it's just a short way, to hike up there with all the equipment. And then someone walks past you and says, "Man, it's great that you do such a sport and that the hike up is good for you." That's naturally already intrusive, if you want to put it that way. If you translate that to any other situation, to being addressed on physical characteristics, nobody actually wants that. And if someone, I don't know, were limping or had some other handicap, you wouldn't say, "Man, it's good for you that you're training your leg" or anything like that. You would actually refrain from saying it out of consideration.
And that actually happens. And beyond that, as long as everything is going great and you have a nice start, everything is top-notch. But as soon as you have a start cancellation, which happens to everyone else too, and it maybe doesn't look quite so elegant, then you naturally notice people talking about whether you even belong at that launch site. It's just like that.
How do you deal with situations like that? Do you just swallow it? Do you tune it out? Or do you actually bring it up at the launch site?
Oh, I've even told people, I'm actually the representative for the obese glider pilots. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Otherwise, it's not an issue right now. I don't actually have any reservations about interacting with people. And I don't mind if someone gets worked up about it. It's not extreme anyway. I also constantly meet so many people who see me as an equal and with whom there's no problem at all, even in the flight instructor field. And you notice, for example, that it's naturally also helpful if someone tells you, "Man, you just have to practice that more or more often," instead of the opposite of what's happening now, instead of always saying, "Man, you're doing great," even though you know it was a takeoff that was actually just before an accident.
Well, that doesn't really help you either. In the end, it's somewhere along the line between encouraging and demanding that is the right medicine, especially when it comes to a flight school. But writing people off just because they don't fit the norm—I find that incredibly difficult.
Are there things where you say from the outset, "that's not for me, I can't do that," in relation to flying?
No, but of course, when I'm about to launch, I do make sure that I have a bit of wind. I wouldn't necessarily try to pull back in zero wind and believe that I'm going to set a sprint record with the glider; I just wait for the conditions to be such that I know I can launch safely and can safely pull back, or just do a forward launch. But then I do like to have a bit of wind from the front, because running with a higher weight is simply harder. It doesn't look that elegant and it's not that safe either.
Are there also days, like high-pressure days, with zero wind or very little wind, where you'd say, "Actually, this isn't a flying day for me"? So do you have to rethink things a bit from a flight meteorology perspective?
I don't know if you have to rethink the meteorology, but if I'm standing at the launch site and I feel like it's going to be strenuous for me or that it's not safe, then I don't want to launch and I'll just drive or walk back down. So for me, it's the better situation to be standing down there wishing you were maybe up there, rather than being up there and wishing you were down there. That's how it ends up. In the air, it's all pretty simple. Launching and landing is just a big challenge for someone who has less body awareness. It's just like that. I've been doing this for a while now, and because of that, I'm actually getting along quite well by now.
But the route is simply longer, and it would be nice to have a better understanding of that in this sport.
How was the Corona period for you, actually? I mean, in many places, for a while, trains weren't running or you weren't allowed to travel, and only Hike and Fly and stuff like that was possible. That was certainly something where you'd also say, climbing 600 meters of elevation now, that's not what my body likes to do. Exactly.
That's how it is. So, during the Corona period, I was lucky enough to be able to fly at times. I traveled abroad a lot where it was still possible at the time, like in Tenerife. At the beginning—and this wasn't as intense yet—I had been to South Africa. I was in Albania. I did a lot of flights where it was possible. And when you couldn't travel, of course, you couldn't fly in many places either, except maybe here near me in Central Germany at my home mountain. Somewhere there it worked, but just less often. But I'm not doing any hike and fly tours now,
where I hike up a mountain for three days straight. That's actually difficult for me to pull off.
And what about winch flying?
I also do winch flying sometimes, although the winch is already doing work when I'm hanging on it. It's like a tandem start
then. You can only set the winch to a maximum pulling force of 130 kilos, and it'll probably always be set that way for you. Exactly. But I mean, will you probably still get higher than the classic tandem, which then ascends?
That's how it is, yeah. So we have a wonderful stretch here, a wonderful route in my local club, where we fly up to one and a half kilometers. Where we can lay out the tow rope. So it's already a nice winch route and I fly there from time to time. That's relatively unproblematic for me. But even there, the start was difficult. So body coordination is also part of a winch start. The run-up, the balancing, the feeling when you're under stress, when your pulse goes up, developing the feeling of what the glider above me is doing. I mean, during my first winch flights, I landed on the ground quite often. So, that means with aborted starts and falling down, with scraped-up legs or something like that.
Well, that was the case. When I think back on it, it's going well now because eventually, the switch flips for me too. But it just takes longer because I don't have very good body coordination.
Have you ever experienced really dangerous situations that were related in some way to your larger body weight?
For sure, there were situations during takeoff where, if you can't maintain body tension, you'll naturally be pulled harder into the harness. That means you can't always prevent this falling into the harness during such a takeoff, or it's very difficult, because you can't manage that necessary body tension despite the forward motion at the moment; if there's a belly in the way that a strap is pressing against in a harness that's too tight, you get pulled into it and probably won't be able to get out quickly enough to be ready to run, depending on the circumstances. Now, of course, it depends on where that is and what the glider does when you fall into it like that. And ultimately, at the beginning, you have to get used to unlearning that braking reflex, so that your arms don't go down even further.
It's obvious that you don't just stall it immediately. So, before I managed to reduce the rebounding, I first had to reduce the bracing reflex to avoid causing any kind of situation right away. There have been several launches in my life where I think a few people held their breath at the launch site. That happened, but I'm very glad that, touch wood, nothing has happened in that regard—nothing serious, at least. I had a situation in Albania, for example, where I also rebounded into the harness and flew a bit, but then the ground came up again, and since I didn't manage to get out of the harness, I practically crashed right there.
The glider then overtook me, landed in front of me, and the whole thing happened next to a flock of sheep. My only thought at that moment was, "I hope the sheep don't run into the paraglider." Because I was hanging in it, what I didn't account for was that the Albanian sheepdogs didn't find it funny. They came straight at me, and at some point I thought, "Well, the dogs aren't funny either," and there was no shepherd there to whistle them back. They just thought a huge animal was coming to attack their sheep from the air, and ultimately, it was my flying colleagues and the flight instructor who dealt with it by scaring the dogs—the flight instructor actually threw a radio at the dog, which finally drove it away.
But it would have been quite funny in the DAV and in the statistics to be eaten by a dog while paragliding. That probably doesn't happen very often.
Let's talk a bit about the technical side. You've mentioned several times, it always came up, that the harness is either very tight or too tight. How easy or difficult is that? How hard is it to find suitable equipment for people like you? It's incredibly hard.
Generally, it starts with the fact that the harness usually says 125 kilos. Maximum load. Yes, exactly, maximum load. Now, you might weigh 120 or 125 kilos yourself, and then you have a bit of gear with you and, of course, you're wearing clothes, because we're usually talking about weight without clothing. And because of that, you're automatically already over the maximum permitted weight for the harness. It won't matter to the harness, but from a feeling and a safety aspect that you keep in the back of your mind, it all plays a role, of course, when you know you're at the limit. I also can't understand why all the manufacturers set this magic limit of 125 kilos.
Probably, if you were to test these things with 145 kilos, they wouldn't perform any differently. I'm firmly convinced of that. But you've just set a line for yourself somewhere where you say, okay, that's where it stops. Just like some fashion designers simply say, my collection ends at size 54, because I don't want to see anyone wider in my clothes. And obviously, it's a similar situation with the manufacturers of paraglider harnesses. Then, of course, for everyone who has a belly—meaning if you're wider in the front—these waist belts are usually very, very tight. You can get into them, but the effect as soon as the harness—meaning the glider—pulls upward, the waist belt naturally tightens, which leads to you being pressed into the harness.
That means this springing forward, which you generally already get from taking off, is naturally intensified by the fact that the waist belt feels slightly tight towards the back. If you simply had 10 cm more length in the waist belt that you could adjust, the harness probably wouldn't drift apart as much. I mean, of course it always depends on what the carabiner distance is. You
You could also do it like this: okay, for the start, I know I have this abdominal volume, so I'll open it up another 10 cm. And after the start? Yeah. No, no, the
it's always completely open, that's how you have to imagine it.
Yeah, I mean, but it's completely open and you're saying it's too narrow there. And if you were to say, I'll just give it another 10 cm, which I can then tighten a bit later to get the carabiner distance into reasonable ranges...
to have.
But for that, you'd need 10
...cm more harness. That definitely, yes. And you don't have that. Okay. You can't just detach the waist belt and put a new one on, then you wouldn't have the certification anymore. It's a component of the harness. You can't just swap something out. So the waist belt is attached,
fixed. Are there even harnesses on the market where you can see that some manufacturer has actually thought about this? Or do you just have to say, with my handicap, I simply have to accept this minus fundamentally?
So, I have a SkyWall Cruise now. That's pretty much the harness I get along with best given my size. But that has to do with the fact—it's also a trick—that you inflate it. So there's an Air Protector inside that you can pump up. And if you don't pump it up fully, you automatically have more range. Of course, if the protector isn't completely inflated, that eventually affects safety to some extent if something happens and you need the protector. But in exchange, you simply have more room forward because it cinches less. But I still haven't seen a harness. They're supposed to offer custom-made ones, but I haven't seen that yet.
I haven't taken that step yet. But I haven't seen a harness where you can say there's still enough room to adjust it a bit further. Like, where there's still something left of the strap when you set it, you know, to where I want to get out. They're all just at the limit.
You just mentioned the protector, where you said, yeah, with my Cruise, I can let out a bit of air or not fill it quite so much, then there's a bit more room. The problem is that it doesn't fill up completely. Yeah, that's a big safety factor. Now, basically, all these protectors that get approved are tested with a standardized test body, where about 50 kilos are sitting inside. And that's how it hits the bottom and gets its approval. Actually, you'd have to say, probably if you go over 120 kilos or something, you'd actually need 20 centimeters of foam instead of 15 centimeters to maybe achieve a similar safety ratio. Do you have those kinds of considerations when buying a harness, where you say, I looked into whether I could get something like that? Or do you automatically take on the higher risk and just say, I have to accept that?
Well, at the end of the day, it's like this: with the Cruise, I could inflate it more, up to the maximum limit. Then it would probably provide more protection than if it were less inflated. But then I'd be paying a different price for it, and it would be tighter. And if I were to retrofit a harness from the market with a thicker foam protector or something, I'd have the problem of the body not fitting again. So everything always has to be in some kind of proportion. And just by retrofitting something, it's still far from being tested. So you have to see it that way. That's also the case with, let's take a carabiner, for example; it says 120 kilos on every single one.
That is... Now you could say you have two carabiners, but each individual one should also be able to hold. And with gliders, there's a point I can't wrap my head around at all. Almost all gliders, I know of exactly two exceptions, stop at 135 kilos in the largest class. Now, of course, you could say, well, obviously there aren't that many obese pilots for whom a larger glider would actually make sense. Or it becomes too expensive for the manufacturers. But the question is, would it actually be worth the much greater effort to just add 10 or 15 kilos during the testing of the largest size, just to ensure at least the safety for those who are operating near the limit?
That would be very helpful for me and for several others I know.
So, I looked at Paraphil on Finder.at beforehand and just typed in, I'm looking for an AB glider, an AB class glider, that should go up to 140 kilos. So you can enter what your body weight is, and they always somehow add 15 kilos to it. So I entered 125 kilograms, and it says it goes up to 140. A bit different from what you're saying now, but at least 16 different gliders were shown to me. I'd take two of them out again because they're really only like highlighters, AB gliders with overload calculations, so that they're correspondingly loaded like that. But as classic gliders, there were already several included. But those were almost all not performance-oriented gliders, but actually all A gliders or really only low-B.
Yes, A-gliders or gliders that have that in the extended range. You can see that you're still within the extended range, but recommended starting weight is just the recommended starting weight. But recommended
Recommended weight is just the recommended weight.
If I'm over that, then from my point of view, I haven't really achieved what I'm trying to get out of the paraglider to some extent. So I would be happy if there were ever one with a recommended starting weight of 145 or 140 kilos, so that you're a few percent below the upper limit, just to get a bit more margin of safety.
But 16 gliders, it depends—I don't know which manufacturers were included there, but let's take the example of what I flew before; that was a Skywalk Mescal. The Mescal 6 had a range of 95 to 135 kilos in the L because there was no XL anymore. That means at some point you had the XL—the Mescal 5 still had an XL, that's my guess, I don't want to make any claims, if we listen to the podcast now and a huge Skywalk discussion starts, then maybe we shouldn't do it—but now there's only the L. So that means the glider stops at L and suddenly it has a range that is 40 kilos wide.
So it should be possible, if they simply took out the XL and removed a size, namely the 115 to 135 that was still available with the Mescal 5. Then it should also be possible to just load a glider from the other manufacturers beyond 135 kilos in a test and see if it actually loses its properties as an A, B, or whatever glider.
Although the difficulty probably isn't whether it loses its classification, I could imagine that the difficulty might even be the load test itself, because they would have to design the lines completely differently, possibly, to be able to carry those significantly higher loads as well. So, you could use some slightly thinner lines, and maybe cheaper lines too, compared to if you have a large glider size that would then have to have correspondingly thicker lines.
But Lucian, we're not talking about an additional glider size. We're simply talking about looking at whether the existing XL glider—if you look at the gliders, they have between 28 and 32 square meters in the largest size. And in terms of area, the projected area, there are fewer differences there. And probably in the A and Low-B range, regarding the lines, I don't know if you're going to contradict me now, but I can't imagine that the S or XS glider uses so many different lines than the XL glider from the same manufacturer.
So it's just a matter of saying, why can't I take a glider that I've currently certified up to 135, and just see if I'd also certify the same glider up to 145? Because if it's the case with Mezcal that they suddenly allow the L size up to 135 kilos, then the glider is probably the old Mezcal 5L, just in the higher weight class.
So basically, it's just loaded up. Yeah, it should probably work.
Well, probably. I don't know. I'm not... I'm not a paraglider designer.
How does it actually work with the rescue systems?
Rescue... Are there problems with the selection there too? Or would you say no, because there are also motor gliders and other things that go up to 160 kilos, so the selection is actually large enough?
I've never had a problem with the selection for the rescue, but they are naturally larger too. That means they're bigger, so they have more weight and change the pendulum on the other side. So if your rescue weighs more, you're back at the point where you're already... if you're set up so tightly, ultimately you're again quickly carrying a few hundred grams or maybe even a kilo that you wouldn't have with the smaller rescue under certain circumstances. And another point in favor of just being able to add 10 kilos at the back.
What would then probably just be one square meter more of the rescue area, maybe.
No, I don't mean from the rescue area, not the larger rescue. The large one is big enough, but it's heavier than the small one. And that's, of course, in your harness. And if you beforehand... So if your equipment now probably weighs 10 kilos, what do you say?
Overall? No, I'm already getting... I mean, with everything I have in my pack, I usually end up at around 15 kilos.
Okay, if you have 15, I have 18, you know? And that makes my range smaller on the upper end, even though I don't have as much air left. Mhm. That's always... that's what many people can't wrap their heads around. When I discuss whether I take an M or an L glider and there's still a size left over, then that's a comfortable discussion. If you actually start looking at a manufacturer, they generally have one in my weight class, and then you have to consider, okay, what clothes do I have with me, what equipment do I have, what does the rescue gear weigh, and so on, to end up with a starting weight that is in this... size range covered by the glider, or just slightly above, so that you don't risk losing your entire coverage.
Well, as long as nothing happens, it's not an issue.
Have you ever thought about what that means from an insurance perspective? For example, if you fly with a harness where you're over the weight limit, or you fly with a glider where you might already be slightly overloaded, what happens in that specific insurance situation? Have you ever talked to the DRV about that?
No, I haven't. I'm also a bit afraid of the answer I'd get. I mean, we're doing a podcast now, and in the end, I'll be sent away from every launch site because they all heard on the podcast that I'm too fat for my glider and shouldn't be launching here. That would be very annoying if that were the case, so we have to be careful about what we say. Okay. In the end, it's obviously a gray area.
Although, nobody has a scale there anywhere. Well,
but in the end, if an accident were to happen—I mean, when do you need the insurance? If any kind of incident occurred, you'd first look at the pilot and see what they were flying, and if every piece of equipment has a different number on it than what's on the pilot's scale, that's already a problem.
Yeah. Yeah, though the most likely thing is that you probably can't make any claims against the manufacturer. They'll just say, yeah, why? The harness was only approved up to 120, and now you weigh 130 or with the total weight, whatever. There was such a load on it that this seam burst, that has nothing to do with us, but it has something to do with your weight. So you probably can't argue with that.
That probably won't happen either. I mean, I don't have... so I have to... Yes. To be fair, with the harnesses, I don't get the feeling that they can't carry my weight; it's more a question of size, actually. So it's a marginal thing that it says 125 kilos and it would probably also handle 135. But rather the problem is that the waist belt is too tight or that these things can't be opened any further than for the size of a person corresponding to the standard. Or rather, corresponding to the standards.
Let's broaden the focus a bit. You said it yourself, you're sometimes like the representative for obese pilots at launch sites. But there are other marginalized groups among pilots who might also have their difficulties. For example, very light female pilots who have trouble finding suitable gliders because they just get blown away by everything and can't make any forward progress. Or pilots with disabilities who, for example, sit in wheelchairs and still want to go flying. Compared to them, do you think the heavy pilots stand a bit differently in the spotlight?
I wouldn't presume to judge that. Of course, I know the problems I have, but I can't judge what kind of problems other people with various handicaps—whether being too light or having physical disabilities—might face. I would just wish that the scene would focus more on those who fly anyway. Like, despite being very old, despite being overweight, despite maybe not being able to walk properly or something similar. I remember well, we stood at the launch site once at the Embargo and watched a pilot together, and some of them...
were terribly excited because he was always braking so one-sidedly during the climb. And down at the campsite, I then saw that he obviously had paralysis in his arm and couldn't move it properly. And the end result, of course, is that people first take a look and then there's a discussion where there are actually people who say, why is someone like that still flying, that's dangerous. He just wants to fly and is trying to compensate for his handicap. Even if it doesn't always look that great, as long as it's safe, you should be happy that it's not just elite athletes who manage to have such a wonderful hobby.
From your perspective, what could manufacturers, flight schools, the DRV, or the entire scene do to somehow mitigate this sometimes hidden form of discrimination or to find new ways forward?
I don't even know if we're hitting the mark with the term "discrimination" regarding what I'm talking about. I would just wish that during the discussions and debates at the manufacturers, someone would simply say, "Look, there are people who fall outside the weight range we're currently covering, either above or below." And is it completely ruled out that we could label our gliders differently—meaning, at least test them differently—to ensure that's covered on one side? And on the other side, there would be reporting on people who have this hobby... someone once told me it doesn't matter at all whether you run fast or slow.
Anyone who gets off their butt from the sofa on the weekend and goes out for a run is a runner. And not just the one who can run a marathon, and not just the one who clocks some time over 100 meters or 400 meters, but anyone who moves. A runner, period. Even if they're running in slow motion. And why can't we say that anyone who can set up a paraglider out there and take off, no matter what it looks like or how long it takes or how many attempts it takes, is someone who belongs to this flying scene? And that would simply be a desirable effect. But my point was, and that's why I approached you—and I really appreciate your podcast and I listen to it regularly—that I've noticed it's always about something, or at least at that point in time, it's already something different.
Nowadays, it's also a lot about technology and other stories. For example, I found that rescue story last week regarding the refugee rescue in the Mediterranean very interesting; I thought that was great. But ultimately, it's always just about the question of who climbed all the high mountains and who flew the longest distances and the best triangles. And similar things. Of course, that's part of any sport. And of course, you're happy when there are such successes. But maybe there are also people who define themselves differently and who have dedicated themselves to this aviation sport without being capable of peak performance.
That means, for example, you'd like to see an article in the DHV-Info about how people like you deal with their flying hobby. How do they have fun? What problems do they have? And what could be done better by the scene or by the manufacturers?
I'm not even sure if there's a demand for it. I talk to people quite often, and of course, you get into conversations. And when you talk to people who fall outside the norm—especially in terms of weight—and you bring it up, they just say, "Well, you have to learn to live with it." Like, "Take it with a grain of salt." So many people notice it, they accept it, but I don't know if there's anyone besides me who feels a need for it to be addressed. But I did find it actually worth mentioning. You obviously did too, otherwise we wouldn't have made the podcast.
Yes, I think it's very brave of you. And it's actually a shame that it requires courage, so to speak. But I can imagine that many people who might be overweight or have other handicaps in some way wouldn't want to present those handicaps in public. Because they might always experience being excluded in some way or having people whisper behind their backs or something like that. And then they think, "Yeah, I'm exposing myself by doing this. Do I really want to do that again? Or do I just want to enjoy my quiet flying hobby and stay way off to the side of the launch site because not many people see me?" And in a quiet moment, I'll take off, even if, like your example earlier, I have a slightly paralyzed arm or something, and then I just wait for there to be space for me, so that I don't obstruct anyone else and no one notices that I might be having some difficulties.
Yes, that exists. I'm convinced of that. And if you observe it—if you look at it with that perspective—it might also lead to the fact that one or another person looks around at the launch site and notices these different behaviors. But I am convinced that there are people who simply don't want to go into the public eye. I have the advantage that, based on my professional background and what I've already done in my life, I don't really present myself as a bullying victim. And because of that, it might not even be such a question of courage for me to do it. Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe I can take it better than others. But maybe it's also a duty to say, okay, I'm facing the issue and I also admit, I'm heavier than others and have my problems in this sport because of it.
Let's talk about some of the beautiful things towards the end. What is it about flying that fascinates you so much that you said you really wanted to do it, even though you probably had to assume that, given your physical condition, you weren't the most suitable candidate for it?
Yes.
That's a quote from an X-Alps pilot who,
who, in response to the question, said—and unfortunately that's not from me, so I don't want to claim it—who, in response to the question of how he got into flying, said, "the one who doesn't like flying is just fine et al."
And there's something to that. So, flying is a dream of humanity. And for me, moving through the air, doing this wonderful sport without any additional technical aids, just merging with the elements, is an incredibly uplifting, uplifting feeling. It's simply indescribably beautiful; it brings me an incredible amount. And yes, it fascinates me endlessly. I used to go diving a lot, I have to say. If you could examine that psychologically now, you could also say, yeah, back then he also had a weight problem every now and then. I haven't had it my whole life, though. I have a sort of sine wave weight development, and it goes up 40, 50 kilos and down 40, 50 kilos.
I've also had many phases in my life where I was within the completely normal weight range, and yet there were always phases where my weight was simply exorbitantly high. And if you were to examine this from a depth psychology perspective, you'd say, okay, diving also has to do with weightlessness. Ultimately, when you fly and when you dive, you naturally free yourself from this terrible human who invented gravity. Newton was that guy, I think. He cursed us to stay on the ground. And the heavier you are, the more you notice those forces, of course. So flying is simply a dream of humanity.
Since you're bringing up Newton like that, do you feel lighter when you're flying? Is it even more pleasant for the body?
Yes, of course. I mean, you feel almost weightless when you're flying. That's just how it is. It's like that with diving, it's like that with flying. Whether it's good for the body, that's always a question of how well the harness fits and if it pinches or anything like that. But at the end of the day, it's a great feeling. You can't just attribute it to the lack of weight, but simply everything that goes along with it. It's just the Lilienthal dream. In particular perfection with the paraglider.
And is there a specific, or what do you mean by specific, type of flight that comes closest to your idea of flying, or your dream, or the feeling of flight that you enjoy most? Is it more soaring, or are you a super thermals flyer who says, hey, when it really goes up, that gives me a real high?
Well, I have to say, I tend to always look for the distance and go down to land whenever it gets really good lift, because I don't feel comfortable in a high orbit. For example, I'm going to Lake Garda this week. If you take off there, that's already the limit. I mean, when you fly over the lake, you're already really high, at least in my opinion. And that's a point where it's a mixed feeling. I find soaring very, very nice because you have a stronger connection to the terrain, simply because you're closer; it feels safer, even though it's only supposedly safer. Height is actually safety.
But someone who looks down and is afraid will tell you—it's always difficult. But any way of getting into the air is fun for me. And the moment it stops being fun, I just go land. That's up to everyone. I'm not the type who wants to be in the air for five hours. Before that, it starts to feel like too much, and I'll land at some point. But I'm never going to win a cross-country flight world championship.
And Lake Garda, are you doing a...
SIV training? No, I've actually done SIV training there before. Two of them. But I go there with my mother and my partner and we spend more or less a family vacation there. And I go, by the way, a bit of flying. Just for fun.
Alright, Frank. Well, I wish you good flying weather, a good launch wind, and a great time at Lake Garda for this flight week—or I don't know, maybe it's longer, but in any case, for this period. I hope you have some great flights that you can then say, "That's what I've always dreamed of." Yes, thank you very much.
This episode on the topic of tolerance is very close to my heart personally. Podz-Glidz carries the subtitle Stories from the Cosmos of Paragliding. And it is exactly stories like Frank Weber's that open up different perspectives on our beautiful hobby. The fact that he was willing to speak so openly and honestly about various handicaps and the associated difficulties is brave and deserves special recognition. Perhaps some manufacturers will even take this as inspiration to rethink, at least certain weight limits, when certifying paragliders and harnesses.
If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a positive review on Spotify, iTunes, or whatever audio platform you use for listening to podcasts. This helps make Podz-Glidz better known in the paragliding scene. Or you can recommend the podcast right away in a personal conversation with your flying friends.
I'm Lucian Haas and the producer of Podz-Glidz and Logleitz. As a freelance journalist, I also make a living from these offerings. However, when it comes to funding, I deliberately forgo ads, paywalls, or subscription models. Just as nature gives me the lift while flying, I count on you as an enthusiastic listener and reader to give me financial lift. As a supporter, you can give as much as you want, or decide for yourself what such an offer is worth to you. If you're unsure what amount would be appropriate, here's a little help. A frequently chosen support amount is about 5 euros per month. But no matter what you pay, every amount contributes an important part to the sum that allows me to continue operating and developing Podz-Glidz and Logleitz for the paraglider scene in the future.
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Until next time. Don't fall from the sky. Ciao.