After every landing, you have different emotions. At zero centimeters, you're happy, you put on a show, you know, you put your arms in the air, but at a 177, you run 500 meters away into the woods and analyze your video and get worked up until the next takeoff, and then—it varies totally and it's extremely exciting and funny too, the emotions. After I found out I was runner-up world champion, everything came out, the pressure dropped because, of course, you have enormous competition pressure until the very last flight to handle it at the launch site, so you walk back and forth for an hour and wait until you're finally allowed to start, and then you're so excited in the air, and then you're over the point, you're excited, shaking all over, and then you can sign a choreo because your hand is shaking so much, and it's just incredible what kind of emotions are at play. And when I found out, now I'm runner-up world champion, I screamed like a crazy person, I was so happy, I celebrated, and it was incredible.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Linus Schubert and I am Lucian Haas.
Accuracy is a type of paragliding that has been relatively unpopular in Germany and the Alpine countries until now. After a short flight, you land on a target-like landing zone so that ultimately a single centimeter can decide who wins. This idea doesn't seem to fit a flying community that normally measures and compares its achievements in flight hours and distance kilometers. However, it's also a cultural question. In Eastern Europe and Asia, the art of accurate landing is highly valued, and there are even professional pilots who can make a living from it and are celebrities of the scene in their respective countries. In this regard, things could now start moving here at home as well.
Because at the end of October 2023, the FAI World Championships in the Accuracy discipline took place in Sopot, Bulgaria. And at the end, the young German Linus Schubert stood on the podium as vice world champion.
Linus is 15 years old, but after numerous competition successes, he is currently ranked second in the Accuracy world ranking. With him as a role model for young pilots, target landing might experience a boost. In this 121st episode of Podz-Glidz, Linus Schubert talks about his passion. Among other things, how he got into paragliding and competition flying at such a young age, what fascinates him about Accuracy, what flight and material technical specifics there are, and why he dreams of one day being allowed to compete as an Accuracy pilot at the Olympic Games.
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Linus, first of all, congratulations on the title of Vice World Champion and Junior World Champion in the Accuracy discipline. Can you actually wrap your head around it yet, or are you still waking up a bit surprised?
So when I made my last landing and I realized I'd landed the result so well that I now know I'm the runner-up world champion and the U26 world champion, I could hardly believe it. And I landed the result so well that I now know I'm the runner-up world champion and the U26 world champion, I could hardly believe it. And I came home yesterday and it was definitely an incredible feeling, and to sleep on it for a few nights, think about it a lot, and I'm totally happy. Was there
Has there actually ever been a paraglider pilot who won such a title at such a young age? Do you know that? Well, not in the accuracy scene. In cross-country flying, I don't know. In
Not in Accuracy either.
Now there are certainly many listeners wondering, Linus is 15. Is he allowed to do it in Germany? Well, I can actually only officially get my paraglider license at 16. How is it that someone can already fly in a World Championship at 15? Yes,
I got my Austrian license, just like my brother. You can get your license at 15 there. And then I've always flown here at Wasserkultur with my father, who is also a flight instructor. But, I mean, with the FAI, that's not a problem. You just need your paraglider license, then you get your FAI license, your ID. And then you can participate in international competition as usual. And now, when I turn 16, I'll just have it converted to the German license and then it's not a problem at all.
Can you already fly freely in Germany with this Austrian license, or does German law apply, meaning actually only from the age of 16? Yes,
So I'm not allowed to fly freely in Germany. I can still go along with my father normally, under his instruction as a flight instructor and with the oversight of the flight school—basically from the respective flight instructors who are on the slope—I'm allowed to fly along as usual.
Since we're on the subject of your history, tell me, how did you actually get into paragliding? Or rather, that must have been through your father as a flight instructor, of course. But when did you actually do your first flights in your life?
Yeah, well, we used to go to Denmark a lot, to Møkken. And we were out there with small kitesurfing kites early on, with Speedmasters at age ten. And my brother and I started trading with the Speedmasters early on, always holding them up a bit on the dune. And then here at the Wasserkuppe, on the south slope—which is also a slope like the dune—we started early, kept working our way further up, and just grew up paragliding with my father, starting very early. And we also got an incredibly good feel for the glider over the years because we traded so much. Yeah, I did my first flights on the south slope, the first little hops, maybe starting at ten or eleven years old. Mhm. And the real flying.
That
real flying,
the high-altitude flights, but that was only at 14, when it became legal to fly down with the flight instructors for training.
Would you say that learning early, like when you did those first jumps at ten, contributes to you being so good at Mercuracy, or does age actually play no role?
I'd say it definitely contributes, because for security you need an extremely good feel for the stall point. So if you're ever too high. If
you're too high,
then you really have to be able to set the glider to lose altitude, bring it back in, and flare. And you don't just have to be able to do a slider and fly a ballon de volte, you have to have an incredibly good feel for the glider and have practiced a lot, a lot. And the best pilots are all professional pilots who are sponsored by the state. They do 400 to 500 flights a month. That's incredible. Just on this point landing disc. And we also started early with the Curious Yards. Because with these little jumps, we were always looking for a point we could jump on. And that's how it happened, that we started Curious Yards.
have. Most of the young pilots I know are more into, let's say, more dynamic flying. That's acro—you want to do tumbling or whatever. What appeals to you about a competition landing like this?
Yeah, so at the landing competition we've met many good friends. It's always fun to see them again. It's not the cross-country flying or the acro flying that appeals to me; it's simply the taking off and landing. I'm just drawn to this precision landing, finding my mistakes, and making improvements. And if I'm flying thermals on the west slope of the Wasserkuppe for two hours, I'll say, okay, that's enough. Now I have to fly down because I've had enough of the thermals. Now I have to land on this disc. I need that kind of action, which I also get at the landing site. That means landing on the spot is a real...
Thrill? Yes, for me it's incredibly cool. So let's talk a bit about the basics of accuracy flying. In Germany and the Alpine countries, it's, let's just say, not particularly popular, and many people might not really know how it actually works. Explain to me, what is the central task? I mean, what does a flight for an accuracy competition consist of? Yes, at the
In accuracy flying, it's about this. We have a digital target, the Pet-Pet, which some of you probably know. You basically land in the middle of the digital target, where there's a white marked dot. It's about the size of a 5-cent coin, and the goal is to land on that dot. Then you have 0 centimeters, and every centimeter of deviation from the 5-cent coin that you land next to with your foot is added to a result of 8 flights. For example, if I land 20 centimeters away. If I land 20 centimeters next to the 5-cent coin, I have 20 centimeters, and that's added plus 8 flights. So I have 8 flights, and I'm allowed to strike out the worst result, and that's how it works. And we have a total radius of 2 meters where you're allowed to land.
That means you're aiming to end up with zero points. It's like a penalty point system. So every deviation from the bullseye, roughly speaking, means you get a penalty point per centimeter.
Yeah, exactly. The more centimeters. The
fewer centimeters
the worse, the worse. And the one at the end with the fewest centimeters, they win the competition.
Now there's this landing point you mentioned, this pad you land on. If you land outside of it now, it's no longer electronic; it gets measured by hand there. So, are there people who come over with a tape measure and say, the foot landed exactly there, so I'll basically drive a nail in or something like that?
Yes, so we have the digital measuring lines, which have a radius of 16 centimeters. That's shown to you digitally, so you get 1.0 to 16 centimeters displayed on a screen. And for everything beyond that, we have four judges standing around the point who then measure it; if you land 2 meters or 1.50 meters away, they put in a small peg and then measure your result by hand with a tape measure. Then, after the flight, you go normally to the judge who records the results, you sign your result, and then you head back to the launch site.
But what does a dead stick mean? You might not even have to land fully on that point, but actually just put your foot down there once. Theoretically, you could almost glide over it, slam your foot down briefly and glide another 2 meters, but even if you hit that 5-cent coin, you'd still get 0 points.
Yeah, exactly, that's also possible. So you can hit the point with full energy in the middle of a flair and then fly another 3 meters; that's no problem as long as your foot hits the disc, or the grass, I mean the ground. But what's not allowed, for example, would be if the harness is on the ground, then you immediately get maximum points, so you're not allowed to, for instance, skim so close to the ground during a flair; as soon as your harness touches the ground, you get maximum points, so you have to let off. If the grass is higher, does it count if you graze the grass? Yeah, there are extra rules for that, that's determined in the local rules, that will be decided in the briefing before the competition starts—if the grass is really high, it doesn't count as skimming, right?
I watched a few videos beforehand of how it all goes down, and you can sometimes see that people fly in really well, then just before the landing they get pushed a bit to the side by a gust of wind or something like that, then they stretch their leg out really far to the left or right and still hit the point. Are pilots with long legs actually in...
Advantage? I'd say so, definitely. For me, I have long legs, I'm very tall, that's a big advantage compared to if I were smaller. But in the end, it doesn't matter that much because if you have your foot stretched out in front and you're under a lot of stress because the wind is pushing you away, then it's also difficult to get a good result. But if you do the approach against the wind properly from the very beginning, no matter where, then even as a smaller person, you can definitely do it really well. So, the world champion, I think he's about half a head shorter than me and a head shorter, of course he has a disadvantage, but he always flies so accurately that in the end it hardly matters.
Do you need special shoes for that? To hit the landing point as accurately as possible, like right on that 5-cent coin? Yes.
Exactly, so I'm wearing indoor gymnastics shoes right now that fit extremely tight on my foot, and I've stuck a small dot on the front. It's about one centimeter wide and eight millimeters high. It's measured exactly from the zero point, and it makes it easier for me to step on the zero again with my toe and basically make my result even more precise. Like, instead of pressing down on the point with my whole... foot sole.
Do all the people who participate in a World Championship have special shoes or specially prepared shoes? Every pilot, yes. Now explain, you fly normally too. How does the landing approach in Accuracy differ from a classic paraglider landing? Do you do something really different or is it basically a classic one with a special technique to land really only on this tiny point?
Is it different? Yes, the approach definitely differs from a classic landing. Most pilots always fly in with a bit more altitude because it's easier to bail out by pumping or by braking hard. That's definitely different from a normal landing; you wouldn't do it that way. But if I've done a small cross-country flight and I'm landing normally, we have a permanently installed point at every landing site in our flight area at Wasserkuppe, and I always land on that point with all other gear too. So, I don't really have a normal approach at all. I just always try to bring it onto the point with every glider. But what definitely differs is that you fly in with more altitude and more brake, and maybe you don't do such a nice, well-executed landing turn, but rather more like a freestyle approach—like a right turn, a left turn, especially in mountain winds, so that you stay close to the point because it can drop off quickly there.
That definitely makes a difference. If
When you watch the videos, it sometimes looks like they're coming down in a real deep stall. How often does it actually happen that someone really, like, loses control and tears their glider away?
Yeah, well, I've been at eight or ten competitions this year and it's already happened three times that a pilot actually tore the glider off uncontrollably and fell on their back, and there were also two injuries that were more serious. And because of that, we've talked a lot with the people who make the rules and we definitely want to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again in the future, to make it so that people in a category-3 competition start flying with an instructor and only when they really have a good feel for the glider and the instructor clears them, do they enter such competitions, because that stops the competition and it's always hard for every pilot to see other pilots crashing. It's not nice at all because, for example, in Kazakhstan, a pilot is out.
He ripped the glider off at 20 meters but kept his hands down. He didn't let go of the hands anymore. It's logical that the glider then stopped moving forward and he got seriously injured. Unfortunately. And that's exactly what we want to try to prevent by adding new variations and rules now, and we're talking a lot about that right now.
Is there actually something like different techniques or, in a sense, accuracy schools that are handled differently in different countries regarding how to best approach a point, or does everyone actually do it pretty similarly?
Yes, well, there are different paragliders, first and foremost the very well-known ones for security, like the BGD Atom. Some pilots are flying that at the World Championships now, probably 20 or 30 pilots are flying the Atom. And even the world champion flew the Atom, and the tactic there is to fly in very high and brake the glider a lot. And then do small flares, always do small flares, and then work your way toward the point so that at the end you're really standing two meters above the point and just brake through. And then slowly swing onto the point. And my tactic, for example, I have a glider with more power than the Atom. That means I fly in further from the point, brake the glider as I approach, let it come, do a big flare so that I have all the energy out at the end, and then stand over the point.
And in the end, it's the same, but they do smaller flares. So there are different tactics there. But actually, every pilot flies with an A-glider in an accuracy competition. There are also two or three pilots flying with a B-glider. But it's not really like that. It's not the solution.
Which weather or wind conditions are actually the best? Where does landing on the target work most controllably? And which conditions are the most difficult? Yes, that
That's a good question. So in Ananya, in Turkey, the conditions are always very simple. We have good, laminar wind like at the dune. And that's very easy. You can fly onto the point in slow motion. And after eight rounds, someone wins with a deviation of five centimeters. So they're really only making 0.0, 0.1, 1.0, 1. That's because it's very easy to land. Then it went to the World Championships in Bulgaria. That was also the hardest competition for us so far. We landed there like in a football stadium. And all around the outside were trees and lee-side turbulence. There, the winner won with, I believe, 15 centimeters.
And after that, it was already 30, 35. And then it kept going higher. But in Ananya, with 35 centimeters, you'd maybe be in 40th place or something. So the conditions make a huge difference. The easiest and best are always sea breeze conditions and simple laminar conditions. And the hardest, as I said, is on hot summer days—yeah, exactly, on hot summer days when you land at sites that aren't open, but are also surrounded by trees, where a lot of lift-offs come through. And you also have quick wind shifts and get pushed around. That's extremely difficult. We have zero-wind landings in the morning when we start early. Actually, almost all pilots handle that pretty well because you train for it; those are conditions where we say it's a gift, because we do a big flair and then have no energy left at the end and hop onto the point.
And that's actually quite simple for many pilots, and we always take that as a gift because we have advantages there; we can improve our results. And zero wind is actually never such a big problem.
But that means, in competitions, the flights aren't deliberately scheduled to be as far outside the thermal time as possible. It's not like we say, "We'll start every morning at six or whatever, because we'll have calm conditions," but rather the challenge is that you have to subject yourselves to these changing wind conditions.
Yeah, so for example at the World Championships, the start numbers were drawn normally, and the pilots who started first always had an advantage because they had easier conditions, and the rounds can last two to three hours, dragging on from the morning into the afternoon. And then it naturally gets harder for the last pilots. The FAI decided that we, the launch marshals, as the organizers, should cut the field now and basically start the second round, and then tomorrow morning start the next field from the middle so that we can fly the easy conditions again and that we should then fly in the heavy conditions again, and that always distributed itself and in the end it was completely mixed up. There's always a bit of luck involved too, but it always distributes evenly, and the judges make sure of that.
But somehow there's always a bit of a lottery involved too. So it also has something to do with luck, where you say, okay, I was drawn into the group at the beginning, the conditions were still easy there, and then the other person has the difficult conditions and maybe has to fly in somehow with changing, rotating winches and just has bad luck.
Yeah exactly, so at the beginning of the competition, we had it—well, in the family we already said, okay, this isn't really fair, because I was the first pilot, I always had it easier, and my family was always later. But we then noticed that it gets mixed up over the remaining six days, so it kind of balances out and in the end, that's not the deciding factor. In the end, what matters is that you land consistently on that point twelve times—now at the World Championships it was twelve rounds because it's an FAI -1 competition—that you really land consistently on that point twelve times in a row, and when you do that, it spreads out; you can't say I flew twelve times in the morning in calm conditions, it spreads out over the day, you also fly two or three rounds a day.
Let's talk briefly about gliders again. What types of gliders are particularly well-suited for this? Are there any specific designs, like long lines, short lines, or whatever, that show to work somehow better?
Yes, well, what's definitely well-known in Mercuracy are, for example, the DaVinci gliders. DaVinci sponsors the pilots, gives them the gliders for free so that they can basically participate in the competitions and the victory tours. That means, if they do an ad for DaVinci, it has spread very widely. And the DaVinci gliders are also very good to fly for some pilots. So I would say 30 percent of the participants at the World Championships now definitely flew DaVinci. And then, of course, there's also the BGD Adam, which very, very many pilots fly because it's just so stable and calm. And some pilots—well, he already docks a few pilots—we also fly our own brands, I fly Papillon, and we specifically designed a Mercuracy glider that has valves built-in, and we sat down to gather experience with one of the best pilots in the world from Slovenia using the Mercuracy.
Who is that? Matja Sluga, exactly. And we sat down for a long time to develop the glider and are still far along in its further development. And we're making a lot of progress there, just like in the cross-country scene, but only in the accuracy scene, because there are actually Chinese people who will buy 20 or 30 gliders from you just to test them out, to fly them and see which are the best gliders. Accuracy is a very widespread sport, especially in Asia. And there, we are definitely still in development.
You just said your glider has valves. Where are those valves located and what functions do they have? Yes.
So my valves are located in the bottom seal, pretty far forward on the canopy. And if I need a lot of brake, for example, because I'm too high and it's difficult to say, I'm braking the glider, then new pressure flows back into the glider through the valves and the glider basically falls, so I have more stability at my stall point and can hold the glider at the stall point longer and with much more brake than, for example, a glider without valves. Mhm. And that gives me a lot of stability at the end in the final approach of the glider.
That means, in a kind of deep stall, it doesn't just fill from the front through the opening, but also at the valves located on the undersurface. So it gets additional ventilation and maintains its internal pressure better. Exactly. You just mentioned DaVinci. DaVinci was, I believe, the first company to even build such a special accuracy glider, the Point. I looked into that, and they advertise it compared to the other A-glider they have, saying, "Yes, we have the lines with a five percent extension, so that you can control it better." And it also has trimmers on the riser. Is that useful or is it necessary? Does your glider have that too? Yes, actually
My glider also has trimmers. I don't really find them decisive, though. I hardly use the trimmers. I actually always keep them on the standard setting. I did have a situation in Kazakhstan, though, where I had so much wind that I actually opened the trimmers. During my other flight with the winches, I actually made it to the point. And it did help me there. But actually, the trimmers don't make the difference. And we also flew and tested the DaVinci Point. But our opinion on it is completely different from the manufacturers'. We think it's not the perfect accuracy glider, but there aren't actually many pilots flying the Point anymore.
I think there were three pilots who flew the DaVinci Point at the World Championships. They all fly the DaVinci Rhythm, it's called. Rhythm 2. And that one is definitely better for accuracy. And way, way more people fly that. The DaVinci Point used to be the good wing. Yeah, many people flew it, but many switched because that wing was definitely very dangerous. So you're in a deep stall and then you put your hands all the way up, but the wing doesn't accelerate anymore because of the speed system. And we saw really experienced pilots who were really uncomfortable with the DaVinci Point. That wasn't the solution for us. We always wanted to fly our own wing.
Do you also use the speed system during your approaches? There's like a new or expanded teaching from the DAV that says you can basically do something like trim flaps, where you brake and accelerate at the same time. The glider gets a hollow profile because of that, sinks more, but remains very stable. Do you use techniques like that—steering techniques, I mean—for your approaches in accuracy?
So I tried that for a while. I tried it for a month with this 100% speed system and putting a lot of pressure on the brake to get the glider much higher without a lot of turbulence, like wobbling. I tried it out and I wasn't satisfied with it at all, so I stopped. But I actually never use my speed system. Well, almost never. Only if I have to step back in the air because a pilot is getting too close to me, then I listen up and add the speed system. That's logical. But otherwise, in the final approaches, I hardly ever use the speed system, only if I know, okay, now I'm so high, now I have to go into a deep stall, and to get out of the deep stall immediately, I quickly add the speed system to flare. And I had that situation once in Bulgaria.
Otherwise, I hardly ever use the speed system, only when I know, okay, I have too much wind now, I have to use the speed system.
And when you rig a brake like that, is it different for an Accuracy glider? Or do you tweak it a bit to say, okay, it shouldn't go around the corner super fast or anything, but it should mainly handle the deep stall control very well, so I say, I'll just build the brake a bit differently in terms of brake geometry?
Yeah, that's a good question. So we've talked a lot about the brakes and about turning freedom. For us, it's important that there isn't much dynamic movement in the turn. So you don't fly a turn quickly, where the glider accelerates and then swings back up, but it's more of a flat turn, so to speak, where the glider profile stays pretty much above us and barely rotates, so we don't get any rocking in the final approach, so it doesn't get unstable. That is extremely important to us. And now I've forgotten, what was it again that wasn't?
Whether you'd say you need a specific brake geometry, especially for Accuracy. Or if someone buys a BGD Adam, do people say, "But I might shorten the brake a tiny bit because I know it's just better for Accuracy flying."
Yes, well for Accuracy flying, as I just said, the glider should turn pretty flat without much dynamics, especially in the final approach. Actually, for every glider, the brake lines are shortened quite a bit, so that we really don't have to brake much to be at the starting point. So, having a really good feel for the brake, meaning we know, okay, we can brake until there and then it'll jerk us off or it'll go into a deep stall. That's the case for every pilot, that they really shorten the brake lines again. And some pilots also do it so that they fly and then loop at the last moment, meaning wrapping around the brake one more time to bite the glider off completely. But that's not really the solution, which is why actually all pilots shorten their brake lines again. Unless the manufacturer already builds them in that way, so they're already shortened.
Do you fly with your hands in a sort of power grip, or do you wrap them, like having at least half a loop that you fly with all the time?
Yeah, well, I never take my brakes, I never loop them, I always just take them at the knot point, actually even above the knot point, basically already on the line, and I don't even loop them through my hand, they just flutter around freely and I only have them with my index finger and thumb in my hand, nothing else. Just with my index finger and thumb over the knot point, that's how I fly. That gives me the best feeling. And it's actually true that if I were to do a different flight, if I were a wing flyer and I were to brake fully on the lines, I would have a different feeling than if I brake at the knot points. That's definitely the case.
But do you still have a brake riser on there, or is it like with some of the acro people who say they have free-brakes that they can move completely freely and then also adjust something, like if they want to turn faster around the curve or just really brake the center and so on?
Yeah, so I still have steps, but it also varies among the pilots depending on how they like it. So some have these Akro lines, Akro brakes, where there are no steps in them at all, and some have also built in these pieces of wood—I don't know what they're called—over the brakes, over the knot points, so that you hold it almost like in akro flying. That's made of foam, I think, and ours is made of wood.
Most of the time, you say some kind of handles that are still over there. Yes, exactly, handles, yeah. Let's get to the actual World Championships, which were in Sopot for a week. How did that go for you, and what were the turning points, and from when could you say, hey, I'm on the right track?
Yeah, that was a pretty exciting competition. Because the conditions were so unpredictable—meaning, for us, even for the most experienced pilots in the sport, they were so difficult to handle—it was extremely exciting and the field got completely shaken up every round. For me, it was like this: I had a good start, I got good results in the first four, and then, because you're allowed to strike one result out of twelve rounds, I actually landed 1.74 meters off the point and got pushed way back. Then the strike result came, I crossed it off, but then I made another mistake—I landed a ten—so I basically already had over ten centimeters automatically, and I'm used to the fact that once you have over ten centimeters, it gets difficult to land any more. So, after the sixth round, I had to land really well and precisely for another six rounds to stay afloat at the top, and I got pushed back to 17th place, which was actually still good. Then I kept going and got good results in the seventh, eighth, and ninth flights, and then I actually wiggled back into the top ten. Then it continued with the ninth, tenth, and eleventh flights, and on the eleventh flight, I was actually back in third place; there was still an Indonesian ahead of me. Then, in the last flight, I got an incredibly strong result—two centimeters wasn't "incredibly strong," but for the conditions, because it wasn't that easy, I actually slipped ahead of the Aves from Indonesia at the end. I made a small mistake and landed in second place. Unbelievable, it was a goosebumps feeling when you knew, you're vice-world champion, you did it, and then you're still...
moved up 16 places, that was seriously strong, I'm totally satisfied.
I saw the video where you landed and then you're really screaming your joy out, but from watching it, it's almost an aggressive scream. How intense do you get in a competition like that?
A competition like this involves a lot of emotions for us, especially in our family. After every landing, you have different emotions; at zero centimeters, you're happy, you put on a show, you throw your arms in the air, but at 177, you run 500 meters away into the woods, analyze your video, and get angry until you're fed up. It varies totally, and it's extremely exciting and funny too, the emotions afterwards. Once I knew I was the runner-up world champion, of course, everything came out; the pressure dropped because, of course, you have enormous competition pressure until the very last flight to handle it at the launch site. So you walk back and forth for an hour waiting until you're finally allowed to start, and then you're so excited in the air, and then you're over the point, you're excited, shaking everywhere, and you can barely sign because your hand is shaking so much. It's just incredible what kind of emotions are involved, and when I knew, "Now I'm the runner-up world champion," I screamed like a crazy person, I was so happy, I celebrated, it was...
incredible. You basically do this as a family business, meaning your dad, Andreas Schubert, also flew with you or flew at the World Championships, and your brother Lennart flew there too. How is the competition between you guys? Do you just celebrate the good results, or are you also really like, "Hey, I was the better one this time" or whatever, and are you a bit mocking towards each other? Yes,
So up until the sixth round, we formed a team, the Germany team with Annalena, who also lives at the foot of the Wassergroup, and we were extremely happy about every result. Yeah, Anja got a one, awesome, that's good for the team, we're moving on, we're moving on. Until the last round, we really had the second spot in our hands, but in the last round we unfortunately made a mistake and slipped to fourth place, which is also extremely good. Of course, you're also extremely happy for the other person, and then in the seventh, eighth, ninth rounds, where we were all quite close to the top, especially us, there were naturally some tensions there. It's always like that in the family, even in training, so emotions just play a role, but in the end, we're of course happy for everyone who wins. So sometimes Dad is on the podium, sometimes my brother is on the podium, sometimes I'm on the podium, it always distributes like that, and of course you're happy for everyone, and then you know, yeah, next time it'll work out for me again or something.
We are a team, we are a family, and of course, we're happy for everyone when they get a good result. That
It means it's positive competition, you push each other too.
Yeah, we push each other, and of course there are some arguments too, like if someone makes a stupid comment or something, that happens too, but it's quickly put aside and then there's a new day and new results and we just keep going.
Lennart has been flying for a while now, and Accuracy has been around for a while too, and you're the younger of the two, but since this year, if I've seen it correctly, you've actually been the better one. Is it sort of a thing where you're like, "Wait, among brothers, my little brother is suddenly overtaking me?" Yeah,
so I
I'm maybe a bit more precise in terms of accuracy, so I might land a bit better in the end, that's how it is. In most competitions, I was already ahead of him, but that was never really a problem for him and he's always happy for me. And for us, there's actually an occasional argument because of paragliding, but not really fluctuations where we'd say, "Yeah, I'm not going to the competition with you anymore," something like that just doesn't happen. And it wasn't hard for him either to see that I'm sometimes ahead of him; that was never a problem at all. He's also ahead of me sometimes, and then the competition is over and a new one starts, so that was never an issue, yeah.
What's it like with your friends at school? I mean, normally you'd say that for teenagers like you, you might have a group, doing things together—like some are BMX riders or skateboarders, and you all practice together and push each other in that friend group, sharing the passion for it. Now, you have a very unusual hobby that certainly isn't something every one of your friends can just join in on. How do your buddies see it when you say, "Hey, I just became world champion," can they somehow relate to that? Are they happy for you, or is it like you're doing something out of touch for them?
Yeah, well, opinions vary among my classmates. My good friends, of course, say a lot of respect, it's really cool, and I've already taken two or three friends to the Wasserkuppe; they've already put up a glider, flown along a bit with the training, like those small practice wings at the Schnippert-Bus, and they were totally enthusiastic, want to keep going, and want to get a pilot's license—I've already convinced them to do that. But some of them just say, yeah, well, I don't know what he's doing there, he's just good at it and yeah, he's doing his thing. I'm also often away from school, I often have a week where I'm not in school at all because I'm at a competition. Some people find it extremely cool, some say, yeah, well, congratulations, and some are like, yeah, well, he just does his thing, he...
is in the Curiousy scene or doing his own thing with his glider, yeah. But I also have friends who fly, like from Gersfeld, right there next to the Wasserkuppe; I have a good friend who comes up often, we fly together, he also flies for Curiousy, we push each other, we help each other out, we film each other, one lands first, makes a video, the other does, and they give us tips, tips, and he's also going to the competitions next year and we're totally looking forward to it, and he also strengthens the German team. Now, a few of my friends from my class and from my village also want to get their glider licenses. So, of course, I hope that the younger generations will follow in my footsteps and that I can motivate a lot of young pilots to start now, because it's just extremely cool.
this sport, and yeah, that's how it is. And also in Accuracy, I think we had 16 juniors, which is actually quite a lot. And of course, after the competition, we went flying with 5 or 6 people who were also very young; it's a lot of fun to fly together after the competition.
If you look at the participants in these Accuracy competitions, it's a lot of Eastern Europe and a lot of Asia basically, also unusual countries or unusual in the sense that you don't normally see them as the typical paraglider countries from a European perspective. Then you have Indonesia, Indians, Pakistanis, and all sorts of other things. Why is Accuracy so popular there and not with us?
Yeah, well, in Thailand for example, it's extremely popular; they have their own league just for Accuracy. They have so many pilots there that they hold entire league competitions just for Accuracy, and they're sponsored by people like Toyota, for example—they have extremely large sponsors. And there are many professional pilots in Accuracy, but in Germany and also in the Alps, it's never really promoted like that because in the Alps, there aren't any Accuracy pilots from Austria, for example. I mean, it doesn't make any sense; I mean, you don't take the train for 20 minutes up the mountain just to quickly put your ears on and then go back down and land. Agro-flying or cross-country flying is much more accessible there, but in Thailand and the Asian countries, it's much more popular.
I don't really know why exactly. It just never gets properly pushed here in Europe, especially now when I look at the X ads, this cross-country and also this Hike and Fly racing is being extremely pushed through social media. Many people see that, many people like the videos, but with accuracy, there aren't really pilots who do social media, who say, "Here is the competition and this is what we do," and I know for sure, in Europe we don't have much to do with this on social media, with this accuracy, and it has never really become a scene, I think, and many people don't even know this sport at all. And our goal, my brother's and our family's and also the Slovenians', the Europeans', will be to try and all try together to motivate many people, because it's actually really totally exciting and totally fun.
If you say you're already getting your first friends from school involved, and maybe the Wasserkuppe will eventually become the big Accuracy center, where the big Wasserkuppe school also breeds the country's elite landing zone pilots.
Yeah, well, I hope that we become an Accuracy center here. We had our first German championship last month, and we were really able to motivate pilots from Wasserkuppe, from the club, to fly along, and now they really want to keep flying, to go to smaller competitions in the Czech Republic, for example. It's not far, that's 5-6 hours by car, and you can fly a cool competition and enjoy the time. Of course, I hope that we can push this Accuracy at Wasserkuppe now, that would be optimal for us. That will probably also do Papillon very well, because we are in production with gliders, we're trying to build the perfect Accuracy glider and bring it to the market. If we have more pilots here who fly it and show success, then the Chinese or the Thais will see, "Ah, look, he's flying that glider, let's test it out."
That's what we hope, we're doing our best to push Accuracy even further into the future.
So in a way, do you also see yourself a bit as a brand ambassador for Accuracy?
Yeah, well, in Kazakhstan, where I tested our new Accuracy glider, we actually got quite a few inquiries about the glider and the production, and when we'll be finished. I think a lot of pilots see me landing with the glider, they make videos, and of course, my father and my brother and the pilots who fly Papillon now, they push it. And because of that, we only do advertising by flying the gliders ourselves. So, real advertising in social media or something for a glider like that doesn't really exist, but that's enough for us too, because there are many pilots—the Thais, for example, they have a whole league, they would buy many gliders, the Chinese and so on. And we do that in our Accuracy scene too; there are enough buyers for it to be worth it.
Now, this World Championship in Sopot falls during your autumn break, and you already mentioned earlier that you occasionally had to get out of school to fly other competitions. Now you said you've already flown eight or eight to ten competitions alone this year. How much school did you miss for that?
Yeah, well, for us, it's pretty easy with school, luckily, because we're an iPad class. We have everything digital; we only work with iPads in school now. We have the books on the iPad, we have our notebooks on the iPad, and if I, for example, were in Kazakhstan for a full week this summer, I didn't miss a week of school. I just caught up in the afternoons while the competition was going on and I was at the landing field; that actually wasn't a problem. I do fall behind sometimes, for example, when I fly to Alanya to go to a competition, but those are always competitions over the weekends, which means I need Thursday and Friday off from school, and it's often the case that I have Thursday and Friday off from school.
need to fly out for the competitions, but I just catch up on the work afterwards and send it to the teachers. We're lucky that we're an iPad class; I'm really happy about that.
The principal also says, yeah, of course, for a competition like that, you always get the time off.
Yeah, well, I've shown results, I've shown achievements, and I don't go there just to have fun, but also to really fly and take it seriously. So that's not a problem, but if we need more than three days, we also have to go to the school board—I mean, we don't have to write to the principal, but to the school board, and that's never a problem either. We just attach the press articles, they see them, and it's actually not that dramatic.
You just have to send along a whole press kit. Exactly. Where have you been all this year, just through your Curiousy competitions? How many
Countries and where? Yes, well, we started at the beginning with a small league competition in the Czech Republic, that was like a Czech Open. Just this year, we've gone to the Czech Republic three times because it's just so close. Then we were in Bulgaria last weekend for the World Championships, then we were in Kazakhstan, in Asia, then we were in Turkey, we flew to Alanya, we were in Albania in Vlorë and
Yeah, a few other countries, I can't think of them exactly right now. But we've traveled around quite a bit, and I'm also really grateful for the opportunities I'm given to fly along with them. It's not something to take for granted. And yeah.
How are you received as a youngster in this international Curiosity community? There probably aren't that many young people flying with you.
Yeah, well, what happens for sure during the first competitions, like in Alanya—that was a World Cup—is that people find it extremely cool that you're so young. They're always calling you "Champion" and always want to push you. They actually expect more from you than if you were, I think, just some 40-year-old who just happens to fly along. People already have higher expectations for you, so there's already pressure. But they also find it extremely cool, no matter what. It's great that we're flying along so young. They definitely admire us, push us, make videos, and send them to us. And we talk to the people a lot, and it's not taken for granted by them that someone so young is flying; they find it extremely cool and everyone wants more young people to join.
and they want the sport to become more popular, and for us to help push that. Everyone thinks that's great. So no one says, "No, come on, he's so young, that's stupid" or anything like that. Everyone thinks it's totally cool.
No one has a problem with it, like some jealousy issue where they say, hey, I wish I could have done that at such a young age too.
Yeah, that too, of course. That always comes up. Yeah, I would have liked to start so young too, and some pilots who have kids are already starting with them at a young age, starting with the kids young. Two or three pilots showed us at the World Championships how their kids handle things, also with Speedmasters. And we think that's extremely cool, of course. And then we say, push, push, push, and keep going, and then they come here. And there are even younger ones than I am. In fact, there was one in the raster group here. He was 13 years old, from Spain. He flew well too, made some really cool landings, and of course, we hope that continues.
I think there were some approaches to making Accuracy an Olympic discipline at some point. Do you dream of maybe participating in an Olympics one day?
Yeah, well, my dream is definitely that. My dream was also to fly at the front at the World Championships. Yeah, we're currently working on making Accuracy an Olympic sport. We've created new rules and they're pushing it extremely hard, which makes Accuracy incredibly exciting. And we have good approaches to making it Olympic. Good conditions, and we hope we can pull it off; we're currently getting in touch with the Olympic Committee. Especially the professional pilots too. Like Matja Sluga from Slovenia, he's made a pretty big name for himself in the Accuracy scene and he's currently working on pushing it. And that's every pilot's dream at some point, for it to become Olympic, and we're just trying to push it as far into the future as possible. And of course, it would be a dream to pick up an Olympic medal there sometime.
Accuracy is also extremely exciting because you have all the landings in the same spot and it goes pretty fast, and you see quite a lot. I think with Cross Country, everyone starts at once, so you see a cool starting podium, yeah, and then everyone flies off. Then they're all, I don't know, out for two or three hours, hundreds of kilometers, and then they come back at the end. And that's maybe not as exciting as Accuracy, because there you really have action and at the end of the competition, the field of participants is minimized to the best 20 pilots. So in the last round, only the best 20 pilots are flying. Then we have extremely good action. Then you see on the live table, yeah, he landed it, he's on the field now, and he has so many
centimeters. And then you have a commentator commenting on it, like, "here he comes." And if he lands this and that, he's on the field. And I think you can bring an extreme amount of tension into that. There was
Was there a really big crowd in Sopot, always standing around your landing field?
Unfortunately, no. So we told the organizers in Sopot that we were sorry that we arrived at a World Championship with such little professionalism. I wouldn't say it was bad in terms of accuracy, but it wasn't done professionally. We told them that it has to be professional for the future if we also want to go Olympic with it. Because some pilots need nice pictures, too. And there was really nothing there. We didn't even have infrastructure, not even tents at the landing field where we could have some shade, so we ended up hiding under the trees. And that wasn't exactly very exciting in Bulgaria. And although we did have a really cool board, a large board that displayed the live results and what place you were in, what was also missing was a commentator.
We had that in Albania, and it was totally cool. There are definitely improvements there. And for the FAI 1 competition, many pilots said—they all agree—that it has to get better in the future, that we need infrastructure, sponsor walls, so that photos can be taken, because many people also make a living from Accuracy and they need those pictures for the sponsors. Like, what's going on there? Who's watching? And what kind of TV stuff is there, like for reporters? For example, I also got a 5-minute segment on Bulgarian television. They did an interview. And you need something like that. But the fact that nothing is pretty to film with—that's just a bit of a lack of infrastructure. But in the future, we definitely want to expand it and have already made some really cool plans for the future.
What are your personal plans for the future? Do you want to become an Accuracy pro at some point, like your Asian role models, maybe not, but your fellow pilots?
Yeah, well, it would definitely be a dream to become a commercial pilot. But I don't know if that would really be my thing. I mean, Matjas Luga from Slovenia is a commercial pilot. He's been a commercial pilot for 20 years now, and I don't know if that would be for me, really spending your whole life just flying and just staring at the screen to see where the mistakes are. I think having a sponsorship is definitely extremely good for having support at competitions. But I think I also want to have a real job, like being a flight instructor or something where I do something, where I'm in contact with people, not just doing a single flight as a professional commercial pilot for 20 years or doing several flights every day; I really want to go to a proper job, and that is also going to work, but I want to work differently, maybe. And having sponsors, like Papillon for example, who are supporting me on the trips now, is definitely extremely good, and we'll see, let's see if we might look for sponsors now.
But
you see yourself, no matter what, as doing something professional with paragliding
do. Yes, I would definitely like to stay professional with paragliding and push to make it more professional in the future. Like, pushing for something like the Olympics, pushing for great organization at every competition, and having clear rules. For example, we tried out new systems at the World Championships where we have three cameras and it's automatically measured how far the pilot is from the zero point, so that basically no judges are needed anymore, because judges are also expensive. So, if we do the World Cup here at the Wasserkuppe, before last month, we really had to pay the judges to come here, and that's also expensive, and stuff like that can be measured digitally through three-dimensional, so through three cameras around the disc, and we tried out new systems for that.
Did it work? Yes, they worked. It will probably be like that next year, where we'll use cameras and then need fewer judges. That will definitely help us a lot because even judges make mistakes, like landing with the wrong foot first and everyone measuring it incorrectly, and that won't happen with cameras.
How much, I just thought of another question, how much altitude difference do you actually need for a flight so that you can say in a competition like that, "this is a valid flight"? Is a very small training hill enough, where you say you start 30 meters above the landing point and that would already work, or does it have to be at least 100 meters of altitude so that you can do a proper approach? Is it prescribed for
For an FAI competition, I believe it's 100 meters, and a small practice hill is out of the question; that's not allowed, it's not permitted. But I think from 50 meters in a Category 2 competition, 50 meters is already okay, but most pilots also find that's not the solution, it's not good, so it's very rare that people fly on such small hills. Now, in Bulgaria, we had 600 meters of difference, which was of course a bit unnecessary again, because with 600 meters, we just glide down forever and then have to stagger because one glider has more power than the other and then the one flies underneath it, and that was already annoying, but 150 to 200 meters is optimal for security. There are winches, and flying on winches is actually optimal for security.
That
does that mean many competitions also take place in completely flat water and you just start right out of the winch?
Exactly, so the next European Championship will be at the winch in the flatlands. Where? It's going to be in Albania and
I've got it right away. Well, whatever, Albania anyway, and that's probably next year? Yes, next year in Albania, in Vjesica I think. And you'll be taking part again? I'll be taking part too, yes. To become European champion? I'll do my best. How much longer will it take until you're in 1st place in the world ranking? I think you've already moved up to 3rd place by now.
Yeah, I'm currently in 3rd place and tomorrow I'll be in 2nd in the world ranking, and it's exciting because the Chinese guy, Pilot, is performing incredibly well; he's just a bit ahead of me in every competition, like always 1-2 places ahead, and then he gets 2-3 more points than I do. It's going to be extremely difficult to catch up, and the chance would have been the World Championships, but he was ahead of me again. That means I'm second now and he's first, and it's hard to catch him because we don't have any more high-ranking competitions for the next few weeks where you can get points, and the next opportunities would be next year at competitions like the European Championships.
So you'd have to train even more to eventually knock the Chinese guy off his throne?
Yeah, exactly. So knocking the Chinese guy off his throne is incredibly hard. We've talked to him a bit now. He does 400 to 500 jumps a month just on the disc, and it's a long way, but it's not impossible because the Chinese guy makes mistakes too. So, in Bulgaria, he really put up some insane results, but he also did 200 once, and if he lands just a meter off again, he's out. Of course, that doesn't happen, well, hardly ever, but it can happen, and it's going to get harder in the future. It's going to be a task to train that much to fly at his level, but it's not impossible.
How much do you train? How many flights per month do you get on the wing?
That's a good question. Well, partly, when we're on the south slope, we're already out a lot; we can do about 60 flights a day. That's because we can just move up, like at the Dynos, but I'd say on average I do 100 to 120 flights a month. At least. But there are also months in the winter where you hardly do anything, so it varies. The average number is maybe 100 to 120.
Does that make a difference in terms of the air? Winter is much colder, the air is much denser, so does that change the way you do those kinds of approaches? Is it maybe even easier to fly in the winter than in the summer? In the winter...
It's easier to fly than in the summer, definitely, but it doesn't make a huge difference. So in winter, we just don't have real thermals that take off, or we don't have a landing field or something. It's easier to land than in the summer, but in terms of the air mass or my approach, it doesn't actually change anything. I just do my normal style and I hit the mark in the end.
Let's get to the conclusion, you can do a bit of promotion again. Why should I, as an average pilot, be interested in Accuracy?
Yes, so Accuracy is exciting. You can definitely learn a lot about how to feel the glider and stand in it, and you always meet new people at competitions; there's a totally cool atmosphere there, you're in a lot of social contact, and Accuracy is very exciting, especially when you land. You have to be able to do everything and bring all the knowledge you have down to the centimeter at the end, and that's what creates that thrill. You look forward to it every time you go up, yes, you get to fly on the point again right away—at least I do—and it gives me an incredible amount of fun just to fly on the point all day. I would definitely recommend it to everyone, especially beginners, just to learn, yes, how to land exactly on your own target, how hard that is, and that can of course help you too. For example, we just landed in the middle of the city in Sopot on a small meadow; that was totally exciting, it was totally cool, and we wouldn't be able to do that at all without Accuracy. Of course, you don't have to be able to do that, but if you ever have an emergency landing, Accuracy helps you too. We naturally hope that many pilots will come to Accuracy, and maybe some new pilots will sign up and get to know it and
just give Accuracy a try and just have some fun.
With skills like that, you'd have an advantage at the Red Bull X-Alps too, at least when it comes to landing in the smallest landing zones. Would that be interesting for you, or would you say that kind of flying and that level of effort isn't for you—that you really only want those short hops to the point? Yeah.
So, regarding the X-Alps, I find it exciting; I definitely have a lot of fun following it on Instagram, watching the reports on YouTube and everything. I think what the people do there is extremely cool, but for me, it's like, I want to fly safely. So when I see the conditions they're throwing themselves into and how they handle them in the Alps, the turbulence and all that stuff, I don't think that's for me. But as a supporter, I'd definitely be all in, and I'd also definitely be down to fly along as a supporter. But as for participating myself, I'd rather watch the other pilots and keep flying my own curiosity stuff.
Linus, thanks for the great talk about Accuracy. I think the people who have listened this far will have learned a lot of new things they didn't know before, and maybe there really will be a new movement at some point where suddenly many German pilots say, I want to fly in an Accuracy competition too, and that will then really become a somewhat better-known type of sport here in the country. Thank you very much for your story. Thank you.
That was Podz-Glidz episode number 121 with Linus Schubert. In the show notes for this episode on the same blog, Lou Gleits, you'll find some further links regarding the topic of Accuracy. If you enjoyed the episode, then please subscribe to Podz-Glidz. You can do that anywhere podcasts are available. If you also leave a positive rating there, you're helping to make Podz-Glidz even better known. Or simply tell your flying friends about it. Podz-Glidz and Lou Gleits are completely free of paid advertising. I do this out of conviction and in the interest of independence. Nevertheless, professional work and, of course, costs are involved in these products. To finance these, I rely on the concept of voluntary support.
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