I mean, ultimately, when you're working for someone, there's always that feeling of, do I dare to do this on my own, do I have what it takes to do it, and, and, and. Shortly before last winter, I... well, we all know each other, I've known Hannes for a very, very long time, we've always respected each other and actually know each other well. And then we sat down just before the winter and talked about the basics. And then Hannes and, at the time, Christian Gosner came to me with the idea of whether I wanted to start my own brands. Yeah, at first I was a bit skeptical, but the more I let it run through my head, the better I liked the idea. You can, you know, occasionally put your own stamp on things, and many things that were otherwise decided as a team, I can now implement in my own direction.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos. From the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Alex Höllward. And I am Lucian Haas.
The character of a paraglider is shaped primarily by two people. On one hand, by the designer, who determines the basic orientation of a glider. On the other, by the test pilot, who brings in their own ideas and preferences, especially during the fine-tuning of the handling. Alex Höllward from Zillertal fulfills both roles in one person. Since 2011, he has been the twenty-first paraglider pilot today. He was hired by Skywalk at the age of 45. There, he had a major influence on the glider range. Successful model series, from Mezcal to Tequila, Chili Cayenne, right up to the X-Alps series, with which Kriegel Maurer won the Red Bull X-Alps in 2017, have carried his signature until now.
At the beginning of 2023, a small news bomb dropped in the scene. Alex Höllward left Skywalk and joined Hannes Papisch's company FEE. However, not with the goal of designing gliders for FEE in the future, but to build another, completely independent brand under the FEE corporate umbrella. It is now also known that this brand will be called Zoom. It is supposed to be officially presented at this year's QPK in September in Saint-Hilaire. This story naturally raises many questions in advance, such as: Why does the paraglider world even need a new brand? What does it feel like for a designer to have a free hand and tailor their products from the ground up entirely according to their own preferences?
And what ultimately defines the character of a paraglider à la Höllward?
I'm talking to Alex Höllward about all of this and much more in this episode, number 115, of Podz-Glidz.
If you enjoy the podcast, please support my work as a patron. You can find out how to do that very easily on my paraglider blog Lu-Glidz, specifically on the Support page.
Alex, many professional chefs have a personal knife set or a favorite pan that they always take with them, no matter where they work. What kind of relationship do you have as a paraglider designer with your sewing machine?
Well, unfortunately not that much, because for me it's actually just a tool I use. I don't really have a personal relationship with it. As long as it works, I'm happy. Most of the time it doesn't work quite as you'd imagine, because you don't really sew with it that regularly, only when things get hectic, and then it can happen that it doesn't work that well. Have
have you ever sewn a complete glider yourself?
No, unfortunately not yet. But since I'm in production quite often, I'm constantly amazed at how they manage to do it, because it's really manual labor and craftsmanship. It's always fascinating to me how precisely they can sew.
Shouldn't a designer actually be able to sew just as well? I mean, isn't it a prerequisite to be able to say, I know how this works, I know the seams, and therefore I know what instructions I can give them on what they should do?
Definitely. That's why the connection or proximity to production is always important. But of course, there are different production styles, and that varies from one production to another. So it doesn't mean they're all the same. Systematically, it will always be pretty similar, but it's not always exactly the same in terms of how it's actually manufactured. That's why when you switch productions, you always have to look at how... I always say, you have to design the piece in a way that the production can actually execute it. It's useless to me if I imagine the most beautiful thing and no one can produce it. Does that make sense?
...happened before, where you have ideas and the production actually says, "I can't do that at all"?
That happens more often than you'd think. There are also technical possibilities. If they don't have certain sewing machines that can do it, it can happen that you either have to switch things up or get the production team to buy that specific sewing machine.
Well, the production team does most of the sewing. Even if you're still in the development phase. So they sew these protos. But how often do you still sit at the sewing machine yourself when developing a glider?
Quite often. But it's just sewing a line once, taking off tension or sewing off ballooning, or sewing in loops. But those aren't big things. I mean, you rarely sew on an outer wing. You can always do that, too. But those are... I mean, sewing a whole glider together. To be honest, I haven't done that yet.
Who taught you the technical sewing?
Well, in the end, my career somehow started at Skywalk. Back then, Jürgen Kraus, who actually became my mentor, taught me it to some extent, or rather forced me to learn it, because he always said that a test pilot can also sew lines. So everyone should be able to do that. You have
Started as a test pilot at Skywalk?
Around 2001, towards the end of 2001, I started there as a test pilot,
Yeah. And you had to be able to do a bit of sewing too?
Yeah, sure. You'd sit somewhere, if you're abroad, with a small sewing machine, and if I want to change something on the line or have to sew lines, as it often happened in Monaco, then you should be able to sew something, because otherwise you're just sitting there constantly turning things. That doesn't achieve anything.
If you're out there now—you just mentioned Monaco, but regardless, if you're flying in Tenerife as a test pilot or something, and you make changes to a glider, how does the designer actually find out what you've changed there in the end? Is the entire glider measured again at the end to say, okay, this is what came out as the ideal, and we're transferring that back into the design software? Or do you have to meticulously document every step you take and say, okay, line A2 shortened by two centimeters or whatever?
So in the end, every change is documented and then implemented again. So you have a basic prototype, and you change many or not so many things—line lengths, attachment points, tensions, ballooning—and of course, if you want to go into series production, you have to transfer all those changes back into the CAD model and into the 2D patterns, and then send them to production and write the instructions.
And this transfer into the CAD and so on, is that really based only on what you've documented, or is the glider measured again in the end, because it could be that a seam set during flight or something else?
Also, normally, before it's submitted for certification, everything is measured and documented again so that you have a final "as-built" status before the task, and then of course the test flights come and the procedure continues.
Tell me a bit more about the beginnings. You just said 2001, that was more as a test pilot at Skywalk itself. How did you eventually become a designer?
Yeah, I moved from Skywalk to Nova, and that's where I met my current boss, or rather my current mentor, Hannes Pappusch. Yeah, at the beginning, I was still working as a test pilot there. And over time, I naturally got a look at Hannes's design software and his way of working. Yeah, and that was actually the foundation for everything. I saw, yeah, I think I can do this. And then I actually switched companies again, came back to Skywalk, and basically started there as a designer.
Did you study anything related to aerospace, aerodynamics, or anything like that? Or is it really more of a learning by doing situation?
I also attended a technical school, a higher technical college in Austria for industrial engineering and mechanical engineering. But since I was already more interested in flying than the training back then, I eventually dropped out and went straight into being a test pilot. I started as a test pilot at Skywalk.
But if you haven't actually learned the theoretical basics of flying, the aerodynamics and all that, does that mean, basically, anyone could become a designer if they were guided a bit through it?
I always say that if you have the will, you can teach yourself anything these days—I've had that experience, you can teach yourself everything you've wanted to. Of course, you should look up certain basic things and really dive into the subject matter so that you understand the fundamentals. But I'm always of the opinion that if you want to achieve something, you can do it.
So, that means it can also be done as a sort of self-taught project?
In the end, it's always a bit of... well, of course you have resources, but it's always a bit of trial and error, flying, and seeing if it works. Yes. If
If I wanted to, let's say, go into an apprenticeship with you, how long would it take for you to teach me the basic skills so that I could build my first glider myself, which would actually fly in the end—meaning, fly safely? That
It's always hard to say, but it takes years. Building something that flies once—that's relatively easy—but for it to fly well and fly safely, that takes a lot of experience and, in my case, a lot of failed attempts where I eventually learn that if I do this and that, this and that happens, and that's the result. That takes quite some time.
Are there things where you've deliberately provoked errors just to see what happens, so that you can learn from them as well?
You always go, or often you find yourself, you find yourself at some point and then you go to other extremes to see if that actually bears fruit again, just to leave the dead end. Do you have an example? You always go to see how slowly I can adjust a glider, then you adjust it so slowly that it... Yes,
just before a deep stall, right?
That he just doesn't fly anymore. That's not very good. You're always trying to use profiles that aren't as stable anymore. The faster you fly, the sooner it eventually collapses and and and. You're actually always trying to push the limits. With
with this construction, if you just said that people take profiles that might be faster but then might also collapse faster or something like that. All paraglider companies have to work economically somehow. So how much can you actually still play around with in these extremes? Because you also have to say, this is a prototype that we'll probably scrap if it's just testing the boundary conditions, something like that. Yeah,
It always depends. Of course, everyone has to work economically. But fortunately, there are simulation methods nowadays where you can already filter out the major blunders. Sure, I still like to test it out again to see if the simulation actually correlates with reality. But you can minimize that quite a bit and work economically. So you need significantly fewer prototypes. You have
At the beginning of the year, I took a big step. And after eleven years of working as a designer at Skywalk, you switched to Vieh. Yes. However, not to design gliders for Vieh, but to build your own brand under the Vieh umbrella, if I see that correctly. Yes, exactly. It's going to be called Zoom. Tell me, how did it actually come to the point where you're saying, okay, I'm turning my back on Skywalk and I want my own brand now?
Yeah, exactly. In the end, when you're working for someone, there's always that feeling of, do I dare to go out on my own, do I have what it takes to do it, and, and, and. And then, shortly before winter last year, I... well, we all know each other. I've known Hannes for a very, very long time. We've always respected each other and get along well. And then we sat down briefly just before winter and talked about the basics. And then Hannes and, at the time, the guest, Christian, came to me with the idea of whether I wanted to start my own brands. Yeah, at first I was a bit skeptical, but the more I let it sink in, the better I liked the idea.
because it's just, you can put your own stamp on TAP and build on that, and implement many things that were otherwise decided by the team, I can now implement in my own direction. At the beginning, I didn't quite understand why a second brand and the cattle. But Hannes and Chris actually conveyed it to me or explained it quite well, because Hannes has his stamp, I have my stamp. And why shouldn't you use that and actually make a separate brand out of the whole thing? Because in certain things, the companies then feel very different.
That means you can basically occupy different market segments or appeal to different types of pilots, and then ultimately say that together, we can cover a larger share of the market.
Basically, yes. But it's also because Hannes has it. So we are—I think we're all very individualistic, and every designer has their own way that they're reluctant to leave. And because of that, it can work better than if we stubbornly tried to work on a project together where no one really... how should I put it... where everyone wants to implement their own different taste. That's why.
If Zoom is your brand, it starts with the name. You probably chose the name too. Why Zoom?
I liked it from the very beginning. And with the logo at the back, you can play with the two Os—like, if you connect them nicely, you can see something infinite, and and and. That actually always appealed to me, right from the start, it just clicked. And that's why I came up with the name.
As a kid, I sometimes drew cars. And I always imagined, I'm going to make my own car brand, and I gave it a name. Back then it was Luas, L-U-A-A-S. And I don't know, I was six, seven, eight. I was already drawing cars and had this name. I'd say, this is my brand name if I ever use it someday. Is Zoom actually something you've also had in your head as a brand for a long time, or maybe even said earlier, like, I'm drawing my dragon and I'm writing Zoom on it or something?
In a way, yeah, because otherwise it wouldn't have come about so quickly. I actually really liked the name right from the start. So it became Zoom and the brand name was something like that. Something like that, yeah.
What's it like, or rather, what kind of challenge is it to build a brand from the ground up?
Yeah, that's... back when I was a designer, I didn't think about certain things that much. You always looked at making sure it harmonized with marketing, sales, and everything else. But now, like you already said, you have to think about the logo. How do you design the glider, and, and, and. I didn't have to think about those things before because others did them for me. And how do I design the products? How do I position them? And, and, and. Those are things where a lot hits you at the beginning, and it's always more. How do I make the backpack? Those are always things where you don't believe how much work it is.
Or by what gets done.
I can already imagine that the decision alone is difficult. I mean, you start by saying, I want to design a Zoom glider. But then you're faced with the decision, okay, what do I do first? Do I start with an A-glider or do a High-B or no, C suits me best or what? What do you decide based on what you do first? Or what did you decide based on? You probably already design all sorts of different things.
Yeah, I'm already making several products.
It's just easier for me to keep going with what I've already started. Because there, you know the little problems and, and, and. And then, of course, because I'm still thinking about the old stuff, I know that. Starting something new from the beginning, yeah.
And what was the old one? The last glider you designed for Skywalk was probably the Mint, right? The ENC-2 Liner. Yes, exactly. That means the first glider from Zoom is also an ENC-2 Liner?
Right now, it looks that way, yeah. Of course, we're building an A-glider, we're working on a single-screen, on a tandem. A B-glider is coming up soon. So it always depends on how satisfied I am with the product and what actually ends up coming out first in the end. For now, it currently looks like the ENC -2 Liner will be the first product.
You say you're into that. But basically, a glider is probably never fully designed because you can always say you could still optimize it or something.
What. Exactly. And when you've finished a product, you only know five things you want to improve. That's logical, of course, but you lack the time for it because at some point, it has to end. And my claim as a designer—well, for me, a thing is never finished because there's always something to improve. If you already know about a little problem, you just tackle that and try to improve it further.
That means the first Zoom glider, when it becomes this C-2 liner, is basically a Mint with five more screws turned.
No, you can't put it that way. I've already had several ideas that I've already implemented. Yes, those are the five extra screws. The five ideas that you
had, where you say, I could still improve something there.
The signature style I've built up over the last 11 years will, of course, be continued even then. Because the way you set up the handling is a certain signature that every test pilot-designer, or usually test pilot, has. And I've built that up over 11 years now. And of course, I can't deny that it will be similar, because I've imposed my signature on the whole thing again.
So you're working with Hannes Papesch now. At least, you said he's a mentor and so on. Exactly. He designs the gliders, he's also a major authority in the design scene. He has his own ideas again. He even co-developed his own design software, which he ports himself. Exactly. He programmed it and stuff like that. To what extent do you benefit from that now? Do you actually use it, or is it just him saying, you know, I'll do my glider, you can do yours? In the end, we just make a thing out of it from a marketing or billing perspective, because it's a company.
No, I benefit a lot from it. I also use Hannes's software, and that's why the new C2 Liner—those are the five screws—is possible. Because I'm allowed to use Hannes's software and his simulation methods, I've been able to develop further, and we—or I—benefit a lot from it because Hannes has years of experience.
In terms of simulation, Hannes is an expert in paragliders and I benefit a lot from that. And sure, I have other approaches where Hannes can definitely take some notes from me, whether he does it or not. But I do believe that it's not just a marketing tool, but that we can both benefit very much from it now.
If I remember correctly, I think you work with Gliderplan as construction software. Not always. I use Hannes's software as well now. Yeah, that was just the question. Is it actually possible to take things you do in Gliderplan, like those gliders, and just say, I'll transfer them into Hannes's software, or is it very complicated because it's just built a bit differently from the ground up programmatically? Can you just basically import those gliders or something?
It doesn't work that simply, no. There's a lot of manual work involved. But of course, if you want to do it, you can manage it.
And what simulations can you do with Hannes's software that aren't possible with Gliderplan? What you also had with Skywalk, where you say you didn't have these possibilities with Skywalk, for example. Yes,
Gliderplan is purely design software. So it doesn't have anything linked to it—nothing like CFD coupled with structural analysis afterwards. That doesn't work there. And with Hannes, although the input is a bit more complicated, the coupling at the bottom is very, very simple. That's where I can see relatively clearly whether the model works or not.
What did you learn from a simulation like that, for example, that you didn't know before?
Well, you learn a lot, but now you see it in black and white. For example, if the ballooning assumption isn't correct and the deformation is too high, you just take the step of deforming it. Then you improve the CAD model, run the whole thing again, and approach it step-by-step. I can now rule out what we used to do based on built prototypes right beforehand in the simulation.
Are there things where you'd say based on the simulation, "Hey, from my gut feeling, I already had all that, and now I see the simulation confirming what I said, like, actually something might be wrong with the ballooning or the stress distribution in the outer wing isn't quite right," and then the simulation confirms that for you? That happens quite often beforehand.
But you get there by trying a lot of things and weeding them out; you approach it that way. And if you were on the wrong track, you were heading in the wrong direction, but luckily I caught myself many times. And then, yeah, of course, the simulation confirms what you already suspected, which naturally feels good because you see that you weren't completely off the mark.
Construction software like Gliderplan handles a lot of things pretty much on its own. You make a lot of specifications for the gliders and the software calculates a lot of that automatically. And if you say, for example, I want to change the tension, then the software automatically calculates where I might need to add a bit of fabric or take something away, or something like that, and adjusts accordingly. What is still the most difficult thing for a designer today, where you really say, experience is purely what matters here? Where a designer who says, I've been doing this for 10, 15, or 20 years, I've already designed 50 different gliders—that kind of experience just can't be mapped out in Gliderplan.
Gliderplan, as I said, is pure design software and you can change many parameters, just like in Hannes's software. You can't just say, I need to make an assumption about the ballooning and it should happen with a certain amount of effort. Now, of course, you can change everything and the concept is very, very important because you can change so many things, from the profile to the tension, to the construction, to the cell width. So you do have to have some experience to get to the goal quickly. Now, of course, if you do that coupled with some kind of flow simulation at the end, I can acquire knowledge faster because I can see that it's not working.
And if I have to do it the way we used to do it, through trial and error and then making the right assumption, it just takes a very, very long time. That's why I believe that nowadays, as a designer, if you have the simulation techniques and all that, you can progress faster as a designer and be more successful than before. Mhm. Hannes used to do very, very, very good simulations and was always one step ahead of the others. That's why he always built very, very high-performance gliders where others struggled. Is increasingly powerful simulation the future of paraglider construction? It's certainly part of it, but the designer still has to bring in the direction in which you're heading.
And that's just a tool. I believe that the human behind it, who has the ideas and wants to implement them, still makes a much larger contribution to it.
Now, with this C2-Liner, you have many ideas and say, okay, I was involved in that project, I took it on, or I had it in my head like that, and from that I thought about what else I can improve and so on. What is the approach or methodology for a construction if you were to say, okay, I'm starting a High-B at some point? I haven't worked on something like that for a while now. I'd say for Zoom I'm starting somewhere, maybe not from scratch, but I'm putting together a new glider. How do you even come to the point of saying, how do I lay it out? Like, what stretch should it get? Why do I give it 59, 60, 66, or however many it counts as? So, what goes on in a designer's head that makes them say, this is the direction I want to go?
Yeah, since I still test and fly things myself, I just like to look at things for myself. I always like to fly them myself, so I'll see what the competition, the rivals out there are doing, I always fly them, write down for myself what the positive and negative things are, and then I decide from my gut which direction I actually want to go.
When you say you also fly the competition, is that just a test flight you do, or do you actually borrow a glider and say, I'm going to fly this for several days, several hours at least, in different types of flights and various weather conditions, just to really see how this glider performs at different times?
Sure, I always try to fly in a way that gives me the full picture, sometimes even doing tests, just to get an idea of how everything works or why the customers out there like it. I just try to understand that, because there are always certain quirks that everyone has, and those will appeal to the customer base one way or another—we'll find that out. I talk a lot with flight schools about what they're selling well right now, why they like it or don't, and then I try to incorporate that into my development.
So, I mean, that's what the customers want, but what's your idea of an ideal glider? Let's stay in the mass market for now, so an ideal B-glider—what should it be able to do or what makes it a typical Höllward glider? What defines the Höllward handling and so on? Yes,
For me, it's always important that braking impulses are translated and that you should take on more bank with more pull, but still relatively efficiently, so that I can climb very, very well. That's always what I like, because in the past I've always had to fly very large gliders and was also a very light pilot with water weight; I'd tend to fly larger gliders, and if they didn't turn around the corner or didn't let me re-center in some stronger thermals, that was always what I didn't like, and that's what I'm always trying to achieve. That's important for me.
If you look at the Skywalk gliders, and probably the Zoom gliders in the future, and compare them to other brands, they do indeed often have a bit more surface area. Yes. Does that have to do with you being that light pilot who says, "I've always found relatively large gliders," so I build the larger sizes accordingly so that they work in a way where they have a bit more surface area, but still have the handling that I've basically already bred into the smaller sizes as a lighter test pilot?
Yes, because the most important thing is, if I want to do something, that I can also spiral, and of course, a larger surface area always helps, and if it handles very well even with the larger surface area, then nothing stands in their way. Sure, you lose out somewhere in the accelerated glide, but if I'm not at the top and I can't spiral, it doesn't help me very much at all. So I always make sure that the gliders aren't too small, that they also climb very well.
Are there sometimes things where you notice that if you fly in a competing product, you think, "Oh, I like something about that," but then you have a hard time figuring out why that glider does that? Or do you have so much experience that you say, "Actually, I just need to take a quick look at a glider like that, and it's actually clear to me why it handles so well or what it's doing accordingly?"
It's usually always an interplay of several factors, and it's not always very quickly recognizable at first glance. So you do have to take a longer look from time to time to recognize the connection and then be able to implement that for your own gliders. But it's often, as you can see so well in Formula 1, a change of concept isn't always that simple. I mean, you can see things from other manufacturers that would be good for you, but the implementation would take a very, very long time, which is why you're reluctant to leave your proven concept.
Does it go that far, if you're test-flying other gliders, that you sort of get inside the glider, maybe even take it apart a bit, to say, "Ah, I need to look at the back to see how they solved certain things technically with the stitching," or something else? That's what interests me now.
So I do look at other competitors. I don't necessarily take them apart, but I do look at everything I can visually identify without much effort, of course I do.
Is it also measured afterwards like that and checked to see what's there? Yes,
The thing with measuring and copying always sounds very easy, but usually, when you want to implement it yourself with your own ideas, it works faster. If you try to copy something, it fails already at the processing stage because they are different productions. So I've seen for myself that copying doesn't work for me. You can take inspiration and then incorporate that into your own ideas, but otherwise, it doesn't really work. You see it again and again in competition—that's a good example—people have tried to copy the Enzel for years. Obviously, there are some now that work well, with a bidding function,
but I don't think anyone has really pulled it off yet.
Have you ever taken an Enzo out to see what's so great about it? I have. And what's so great about the Enzo?
It's very, very easy to fly for the performance it delivers. That's the thing—you can argue about the handling, but it glides so well, and it's so easy to fly. And
how did Ozone manage that, from your perspective, I mean from a designer's point of view, what's the secret? Yes, they
they've spent years developing it and have optimized their processing methods and everything.
Could you imagine Zoom building a CCC glider at some point, or would something like that not be your goal at all?
Yeah, because I think every designer wants to build something like that, to build some kind of thing. But nowadays, if you produce something that isn't, let's say, better than an Enzo, you can just kick it into the woods if it's not better. If it's just as good, it's too poor.
That means you'd have to build a lot of prototypes first until you can say, "Now I'm really better." And before that, you don't need to go public with it at all, something like that.
Exactly. Until you're sure that it's better, releasing something doesn't achieve anything in my eyes.
Speaking of going public, when do you actually want to launch Zoom on the market? Will you be presenting QPK at Saint Hilaire?
It's planned for Saint Hilaire. We're currently seeing the last prototypes during testing. Approval should happen sometime this month, and then we'll hopefully present the whole thing at the trade fair in Saint Hilaire.
But first, just with the C-glider, or will other gliders also be finished by then? We have other
projects as well, and it's possible that several projects will be finished by then. From this C-glider,
What's special about the one you're building now, where would you say you've actually realized a new idea?
He flies it very easily for the C-side line, but whether it's a new idea or not, I can't really say right now. For me, regardless of whether it's new or not, what matters is that it's easy to fly, honestly easy to fly, and fits a broader audience. That is very, very important to me.
How do you do that when you say you're a very light pilot? You test your gliders accordingly, so how do you handle the large sizes to ensure they still have my signature? Do you fly with a lead vest or something else to make them work, or how does that work?
No, Benni Hörburger and Franz Josef Ecker—they are my test pilots, or they help me with the testing in development—they fly them too, but basically, I always make sure to verify the handling myself. And of course, I fly with a weighted vest and make sure I reach the target weight. With a harness and packing two wheels and gear these days, I usually hit a good takeoff weight anyway, and I've also put on a few kilos over the years, which helps of course.
Benni, Benni Hörburger, he's also been flying now, or for the last two years, he's always worked as a test pilot for Vieh as well. Now, Hannes, as you said yourself, has a slightly different philosophy on how the gliders might work there; how well can a test pilot then separate what Hannes told you about how the glider is supposed to work or what you should pay attention to, put that aside for a moment. Now I'm coming in with my Zoom ideas, how can that be transferred?
Benni grew up in a flight school, so he can filter out the differences relatively well, and when I explain my philosophy, he can implement that very, very well. So he can separate those things very well; from that perspective, it's not a problem. From that perspective.
Now, let's say I'm a test pilot and I'm coming to you for the first time to test one of your gliders. You explain your philosophy to me—what should I feel when I'm on your gliders? How would you explain that to me?
Usually, I'll have you launch from somewhere where you can spin nicely under different conditions, then you land on the top and switch to my glider, and then you'll notice the difference. That's my philosophy. As I mentioned before, the philosophy I like is that I always prefer honest gliders; my gliders always give very, very much feedback regarding the air, and the handling, regarding the spin tendency, that should always be very, very good.
What's decisive for a glider's turn willingness? Well, there's a lot. The brake setting, right?
Brake emphasis, radius, profiles—it's always an interplay of several factors. There are also gliders where you can't get much more out of the handling, and in those cases, you have to start playing with the brake geometry from a construction standpoint.
When you're designing a glider in your design software, considering your experience, how much post-trimming, post-cutting, post-knitting, and stuff like that is ultimately necessary? If you were to say you have time X for it, how much of that time X you put into a glider is spent designing on the computer, and how much is basically post-designing, refining by hand, with a sewing machine, and all that?
It always depends. The person who enjoys doing a lot on the computer will spend more time on the computer. I like being out in nature and I really enjoy flying there, so I actually spend a lot of time outdoors. But those are more like the finishing touches, which are often cosmetic in nature. Of course, if it's a completely new project that you've never done before, it'll be rougher at first, but otherwise, yeah.
Do you think that one day AI, that is artificial intelligence, will play a role in paragliding? Or do you already use it for some things nowadays? I
not yet, but I can imagine that in the future, based on how everything sounds now—like when I read the reports—if all of this really works and then gets pushed even further, yeah, who knows what it will all lead to. I just hope that AI doesn't get so advanced, because then it would eventually replace us, of course. So, from that perspective.
Yeah, then you input into a language model, please build me a B-glider with 66 cells, it should fly like a Zoom, have the handling of a Vieh, and be able to climb like the Rush 6 from Ozone or something else, and then the AI puts it all together accordingly.
If that ever works, then I'm redundant.
If you look at the gliders you've already designed, I mean in your history, and that are all already on the market, was there or was there ever something like a favorite glider of yours? Like where you'd say, that was the Höllwart glider, where it comes out best, what makes it special for you? Because
there are several, so back in the Nova days, as a test pilot, I also set the handling there, Factor 1, because with the mass out there, the Nova gliders aren't exactly willing in terms of handling, and then there's the factor, and then it was a handling miracle, somehow with the mass, and that was already something, a defining experience. Where you could say,
that was me, more or less. Yeah, exactly. That's my signature; I didn't design the glider, but I made the handling like that.
Exactly. And that was always the thing—even as a test pilot, setting up the handling was something I always enjoyed, and I think I understood and was able to execute that well. And then with Skywalk. There's a lot with Skywalk. The KN4 was also very well received because there was a time when the handling wasn't so good, and that was a lot—the KN4, Mezcal 4, Tequila, all of that was very well received and very successful during that time. Of course, that was sort of a breakthrough for me too, where I told myself, "Yeah, I can do this," because I'm always plagued by a bit of self-doubt and try to improve. There are many things, because what I'm also very proud of,
We won Red Bull X-Alps in 2017 with the glider I designed, with Gretel Maurer; that was already, yeah, successful in 2017 anyway, because we took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th places with the X-Alps 3 back then, so those are already... and sure, of course, from a sporting perspective, I was always the great rental guy, so that was my pet project, and we also had many winners on the Tanka 2, back then still on the Tanka, I participated myself often, so there are many things I'm proud of that come to mind quickly. There are
Were there also gliders that you were completely convinced by yourself, but that didn't perform very well on the market?
The ones that didn't land so well, there were always certain doubts, and we usually discussed them, and most of the time those doubts became reality and then, well, it turned out the way it did.
What kind of doubts do you have, for example, in those situations? Yes,
Stability, handling, or let's just say, you change the concept from one series to the next, and then it's always been a question of whether that's good—and of course, because I don't know how to explain it best, but if you want to turn a Golf into a Porsche, it just doesn't fit conceptually anymore.
When a concept like that gets changed in a company like that, how many people actually speak up or stir the pot, or do you as a designer actually have the main influence? Or was it more like someone comes along and says, "Hmm, Alex, build something different there; we're not getting anywhere on the track we've had so far, why don't you try going in this direction?"
I mean, as a designer, you have a lot of influence, but the larger the team in the company, the more people weigh in, and at some point, there has to be a fundamental decision on whether to take one path or another. You just make that call, implement it, and you see the consequences afterwards anyway.
And how often does it happen that you say, "Oh, I saw something there," where you're saying, "Yeah, there were some doubts"? Are those things where you also say, "Actually, the glider isn't fully developed yet," and then a company tells you, "But we still have to bring it to market"?
It's usually finished, but as I said before, for me as a designer, it's never finished because there are always things. It's more like conceptual things—if you say, for example, you're trying to make it damped and the handling doesn't have to be that agile, and you accept that, then of course it can happen that if the predecessor was agile and not so damped, it might miss the mark with the established target group and therefore not be received as well.
Take a Tequila 4 and then a Tequila 5, where a Tequila 4 was significantly more agile than the 5.
For example. You hit the nail on the head. That was a conceptual change; we decided we wanted the Tequila 4 to be agile, fun, and sporty, and we often got feedback from outside the flight schools that it was too much. That's why we did a concept shift with the Tequila 5, which didn't land that well at first. But as it turned out in the end, once people got used to it, it started working again. But of course, you annoy your regular customers with moves like that.
They don't switch from Tequila 4 to Tequila 5; instead, you get new people who like the 5, and if you build the 6 like the 4 again, the 5 people will say, "Hey, that's too much for me now."
Something like that, yeah.
Hannes has an enormous number of gliders in his company, even within a single class. Are you planning to do the same with Zoom, where you differentiate a lot, or do you actually want to say, no, I want to run a very narrow portfolio where you say I have an A-glider, a B-glider, a C-glider, or something like that?
Hannes explains that it's always very nice with shoes. Not every shoe fits everyone. So, of course, you want to keep the portfolio narrow, but in the end, it becomes very, very difficult to keep it narrow because, just like with shoes, there are too many different ones that are supposed to fit many different people.
So I have wide shoes, wide feet, I need a wide-cut foot, and one person says I need a very cushioned glider, and the next says I need the sporty one. But you could also differentiate by saying, hey, Vieh provides one shoe size or one shoe width, and Zoom then does the other accordingly.
You could differentiate, yes. Maybe you'd also do it so that what Zoom doesn't offer—or Hannes basically does everything anyway—but maybe the gaps that Vieh doesn't have, I would naturally offer those. So the Dolomitenmann thing, that's close to my heart, I want to get back into that in the future too. Someone probably knows I've worked a lot on it, I like it too. If I keep working on it, then I'll surely have more in the future, and, and, and. But as I said, you can't say that blanketly, because Hannes has his own philosophy, his own signature, and I have mine. And of course, there will always be overlaps, because I want to build a B-glider and Hannes will build a B-glider or a High B, so there would already be overlaps there. I also want to build a school glider, so you can't say that the other person built what the other person doesn't have.
Do you think that can work in the long run? There are two of you, so both are very distinct people, let's say, with your own ideas of what a glider is like. In a way, you're competing with each other with both brands within one company. Yeah, sure. How do you imagine that? Is it eventually going to be like, "Only 800 gliders were sold from your Maestro 2, but 1,000 were sold from my B-glider XY, whatever it's called." Hey, mine is better, or something like that. How do you deal with that, or how do you imagine that?
That's... well, I think it'll take some time before that happens, or maybe it never will. That's why I haven't really thought about it. But the basic approach is always to have two different brands, which separates things so that everyone gets to realize their own unique style and signature, and I see that as a positive because then you have fewer problems and friction. And as you can see very clearly with car manufacturers, in the end, the multi-brand principle works relatively well.
Now, towards the end, explain to me again, why does the paraglider market actually need a new brand? Isn't it full enough? There are
there are always enough brands; I mean, everyone has their own ideas, so why shouldn't there be their own brand that implements those ideas? And it's not like, sure, fundamentally they're all paragliders, but everyone has their own signature, everyone has their own design, everyone has their own tastes, so why shouldn't there be another brand, or more, on the global market? It's not supposed to be a monopoly and, in the end, it's good, it enriches the whole thing, creates space for more ideas, creates space for more possibilities, so why not?
But is
not from a development perspective,
where paragliders are becoming increasingly complex nowadays, which in some ways also makes them more expensive to manufacture, maybe a bit more difficult to maintain, so to speak, and so on, that it wouldn't be more sensible to say you have a few large brands where you can say they are clearly able to provide the corresponding quality assurance in service and all that.
Just because there are four big ones now doesn't mean that quality assurance and everything else has to be better. Sure, in production they can produce cheaper because they have higher volumes, which means a larger margin for them, but all in all, that doesn't mean it becomes better. If you're one of the four big ones, they dictate the market; if you're not, they dictate the whole market situation, and I find that rather counterproductive.
Have you set any goals for Zoom as to by when you want to become a "Big" player?
So big, big in quotation marks, I want to be able to make a good living from it and have fun for as long as possible, and the bigger it gets, the more heads it takes to run the whole thing, whether it's personnel and, and, and, you can't handle many things yourself anymore and you need staff. As much as it takes, I really like a small head. Small but fine. Small but fine, short decision-making paths. What would be a measurable success for Zoom for you? What do you mean by measurable? Quantitatively, right? Yes,
So, it can also be qualitative, where you say, yeah, that's actually the direction I want to go in, and if I achieve that, then I'd say my idea of Zoom has really been implemented.
If I can make a good living from it and people out there enjoy it, and I see that people are satisfied with it out there, qualitatively as well, and, and, and, yeah, then I'm happy. I'm actually relatively easy to please. I don't always want to sell more units, because I'd rather it works well out there qualitatively, like, that the whole thing hits right, lands well with the masses, then I'm happy with that.
Alex, I wish for exactly that to happen—that you sell enough gliders, that you can make a living from them, and that the masses like them so much that you feel appreciated for it. I wish you much success with Zoom and thank you for the conversation. Thank you very much for the conversation. That
was the Podz-Glidz episode Zoom with Alex Hölbert. Now we can wait and see how quickly and well the new brand establishes itself in the paraglider scene. Anyone who wants to find out more about Zoom can find further links in the show notes.
I'm Lucian Haas, the producer of Podz-Glidz and Looglides. The podcast and blog are passion projects for me. However, as a freelance journalist, I also make a living from these offerings. That said, I deliberately avoid compromises, competing advertisements, annoying paywalls, or subscription models when it comes to funding. Instead, I rely on the fact that just as nature gives me lift while flying, you as an enthusiastic listener and reader give me financial lift. As a supporter, you can give as much as you want, or decide for yourself what such an offering is worth to you. A frequently chosen contribution is 60 euros a year, or about 5 euros a month. But no matter what you pay, every amount contributes to the sum that allows Podz-Glidz and Looglides to continue operating and developing in the service of the paraglider scene in the future.
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