Launching at over 6,000 meters, and doing so with a tandem, is already special—I mean, really, all the factors have to come together: the wind has to be right, the snow, the slope of the launch site, and so on, and of course, your head has to still function, because at 6,000 meters, your head functions completely differently than when you're at a launch site at 1,000 meters. It was a truly very interesting and major experience, yeah.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Franz Schilter from Peru. And I am Lucian Haas. Anyone who looks at the participant lists of paragliding world championships will notice that there are several pilots from South America competing for European countries. Sebastian Ospina, for example, flies for the British team, Ernesto Inestrosa scores for Germany. But there is also the opposite case. Under the Peruvian flag, a Swiss man, Franz Schilter, regularly competes at world championships, PWC competitions, and Superfinals. He has even achieved top-ten placements.
In this podcast, competition flying is only mentioned in passing. Franz Schilter has completely different stories to tell. As early as the beginning of the 1990s, he was drawn to Peru. There, he was one of the first to circle in the thin mountain air of the Andes on a paraglider and fly over such iconic sites as the Nazca Lines and the Inca stronghold of Machu Picchu. His paragliding school, Condor Adventures, became the breeding ground for the Peruvian paragliding scene, which remains quite small to this day. Franz also talks about the special challenges of paragliding in Peru. The 62-year-old has already launched from over 6,000 meters above sea level—and even did so in a tandem with his son Thomas.
When it comes to the history of paragliding, Franz Schilter's story also includes that of a social entrepreneur. Together with his wife Petimi Ribel, he runs a noble hotel near Urubamba in the Valle Sagrado, the sacred valley of the Incas. Noble in this context also refers to a special goal. A significant portion of the hotel's profits goes toward helping others, mostly financing a social project called Asociación Sol y Luna. This organization operates a primary school, a secondary school, a school for children with mental and physical disabilities, as well as a children's home for local children. Around 200 children, some of whom come from the poorest backgrounds, are cared for there. And sometimes, they are even allowed to go for a flight under a paraglider.
If you enjoy this podcast, please support my work as a patron. You can find out how to do that very easily on my Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz, specifically on the "Fördern" page.
Franz, were you actually the first Gleitschirm-Blog in Peru? The
first Gleitschirm-Blog, that could be, yeah.
Although you have to distinguish, of course, paragliding—that wasn't paragliding yet, it was probably just jumping off something back then. Yeah, that wasn't paragliding yet, it was probably just jumping off something back then. In the late 80s or 90s. But I think that I—maybe not the first, but maybe the second or third, yeah, that's possible.
When was that actually?
I took my first flight back when I was still living in Switzerland, in April 1988.
And your first flight in Peru?
My first flight in Peru was back in 1990.
What brought you to Peru in the first place back then? Peru,
I used to travel a lot out of a sense of adventure. I wanted to see the world and actually wanted to travel the whole world at first. And my first plan was to travel through South America with a backpack, trekking, a bit into the mountains, meeting the land and the people and so on. And then I... that was in 1986. That was my first trip. It was for a year in South America. And then I got a bit stuck there. I had to go back to Switzerland for various reasons and then returned to Peru in 1990. Because I had very good experiences there.
I met people there. And yeah, over time, you also start to put down roots a bit. And yeah, I then decided to go to Peru because I was offered a job there as well.
When you went to Peru for the second time in 1990, you actually just took your paraglider from Switzerland with you and said, now I want to fly in Peru too.
Yes, I took that with me. There were actually two of them. And also a delta harness. Although, I didn't take the delta with me. Because that was... it's pretty complicated to travel the world with a delta. I took my flight gear with me, exactly.
How adventurous was that back then? In Peru, where there's no infrastructure, no other paragliders and stuff like that? Launching yourself into the air there by yourself?
Of course, back then you practically had no information or didn't get any. The flying scene was very small everywhere. There weren't that many pilots yet. For the most part, they were still delta flyers back then and not paragliders. Yeah, you just had to go for it and apply what you had learned or picked up a bit in the paragliding school at the time. And yeah, you just tried it out. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it went better, sometimes not so much. And yeah, you just had to gain the experience first.
How was that seen by the Peruvians themselves back then? I mean, they probably didn't know any paragliders at all. When you then jump down from some mountains like that, how did they react to it?
Yes, of course, those were always very nice experiences. Mostly, of course. Or experiences that really stuck with you. Yes, of course, those were always very nice experiences. When you land in a field from the air, out of nowhere. And then the people were, of course, always very, very surprised. Because, well, that's something extraordinary, of course. And you always actually had nice experiences with the people. They were, of course, very, very surprised. Yes, where are you now? Where are you coming from? At first, of course, you think of a field. A skydiver and so on.
You don't think about running down a hill and flying. I've had many, many great and fun experiences with the locals.
You wrote to me that you also founded my paragliding school in Peru, I believe. Condor Adventures. Tell me about it. How did you get into that?
When I came to Peru the second time, I was working for a development aid organization. The focus there was building irrigation systems. In the provinces, mainly in the Andes. And at that time, the big problem in Peru was the Sendero Luminoso or MRTA—those were these guerrilla, left-wing guerrilla organizations. The country was very politically unstable. And... it was actually a civil war going on. Because our projects were mostly in the provinces, it was practically impossible to realize those projects even then.
I went to Lima. I actually couldn't continue my work anymore. I had the choice of going back to Switzerland or doing something else. Fortunately in 1902, the political situation changed relatively quickly because the government at the time actually cleaned up this chaos. And the country of Peru became politically stable. Economically, it went up quickly. And yeah, I had the idea, I have a few paragliders there. Yeah, why not try a paragliding school. I tried it out a bit at first.
And that worked out quite well. I then opened the Contra-Adventure school with a colleague, where we taught people the basics of paragliding. Back then, it was more on the coast, because Peru has a huge coastline and very many places where you can fly in dynamic wind. That made the training relatively easy. And yeah, that's basically how it started with Contra-Adventures.
But you don't run that anymore. But the school still exists, you just handed it over, or how does that work?
That was five or six years where I had Contra-Adventures. That was a very intense experience, a very interesting experience. I traveled around a lot. I had my base in Lima. Lima is the million-person capital on the coast. And I went a lot into the provinces to Huaraz, to Arequipa. Places where people had a bit of interest in paragliding. I spent a lot of time wandering around there as a nomad and then did other things too. I then started a bit with paragliding motors. That brought in a bit better money, let's say, in terms of publicity.
Also, I also organized paragliding trips for Europeans, especially from German-speaking countries. Yeah, that was for five or six years. And then, yeah, I suddenly realized I was getting a bit tired of this nomad lifestyle. I then met my wife. She's from France. She had a job in Lima for an international company. She was actually also fed up with her job. She'd already had a bit of a burnout and stuff. We met through paragliding. And yeah, she then said, I'm going to Cusco, Urubamba, and I want to do a bed and breakfast.
Something like that. I said, yeah, that's very interesting. And then we packed our things. And drove to Urubamba. Looked for land. Bought a bit of land. It wasn't as expensive back then as it is today. And then we started.
That small bed and breakfast has turned into a larger hotel project today. But we'll get back to that later. I'd like to talk about that with you again. Let's stick with paragliding in Peru for now. Is Peru actually a good paragliding destination? Would you say that?
I'd put it this way. Peru is a very adventurous country for flying. You have many different conditions. Or how do you say? Landscapes. We have the Amazon in Peru. We have high mountains. The Andes. The Sierra. The dry Sierra. Then the coast. Desert-like. So you can fly on the coast. You can soar. You can do very long, high flights in the Andes. A bit demanding. Generally, I wouldn't see Peru as a flight destination. You probably have to have quite a bit of time. Because the infrastructure here isn't very good.
You have to invest quite a bit of time traveling. Getting from one place to another. But if you have that, then you'll definitely get your money's worth. I also think you have to be a bit self-sufficient. You need to be able to judge for yourself where you want to fly. The weather conditions too. And then you can really do some very good flights. Interesting flights. Sporty flights at times. Because you can also fly very, very high in many places. Yes, so I think Peru is a destination worth going to. But maybe not just for flying. That would probably be a waste.
Because Peru is generally a very interesting country culturally. The gastronomy is very good, very interesting. You can experience a lot, see a lot. You can do many other things. I think a combination is very interesting. That also proved successful back when I had this paraglider trip. I didn't sell it just as a trip where you only fly. But as a combination. So, visiting Machu Picchu, local markets, and so on. And the people, they were super happy. It was always fully booked.
If you look at South America, for example, Colombia. There are destinations there that are now very trendy, even for people from Europe. Like Roldanillo, for instance. Could there be places in Peru, even if they don't exist yet, that would work just as well in terms of the natural landscape? Where you'd say, if you just built the right infrastructure, you could fly there excellently? Or is it already to the point where you'd say, away from the coasts where you can soar easily, the hinterland is already such rugged, high-alpine or high-Andean terrain that you've actually always—well, already landed there. That you need to know more precisely what you're actually doing there.
Yes, I think there are still many places to discover here in Peru. I traveled around a lot back then. But Peru is a huge country. It's eight or ten times as large as Germany. There are still many places to discover. I think the best places haven't even been flown much yet. There are places I know. Back when I had a bit more time, I flew there. And of course, with equipment that wasn't really flown with yet. And today, with modern, with modern equipment. I think you can do very interesting things there. For example, at the border with Brazil.
That's 500 for us, just under 500 kilometers. Yes. If you're coming from Sao Paulo, that's over 3,000 or 4,000. Brazil is a whole different story. And I went down there a few years ago. And we discovered a hill on the Brazilian side. It had been cleared. So, the Brazilian side of the Amazon was actually, shockingly, practically all deforested. So that was a really huge surprise. The Peruvian side is still a bit more covered in jungle. Well, for flying, of course, it's better if it doesn't have as much jungle.
Normal. And then we found a hill, 150 meters high. And we flew 120 kilometers there. Very little wind, very soft thermals. We went up very slowly, but also very slowly down. We were always flying a bit along a road. Because if you were to do a bit of an off-field landing there, then... it gets difficult with the pickup, doesn't it? It gets difficult with the pickup, yeah. I do think there are many places here in Peru that are still to be discovered. That will surely happen in the coming years. There aren't many pilots here either, not many. There actually aren't many at all. But pilots, they're always out and about trying something new.
And there are places. Like Ayacucho, for example. Ayacucho is a few hours away from us. That would certainly be predestined for a competition, for instance. And it's still manageable. Here with us, it's a bit of a different story in Cusco. I can maybe tell you a bit more about that later. It's become a bit more difficult over the last few years.
You said earlier that one of the special features, but maybe also the reason for the difficulties in Peru, is that at least when you're flying in the mountains, the thermals often reach very high and you can really climb to great altitudes, or you will be, unless you probably exit the thermals. How high have you actually reached there yourself?
The highest altitude I've ever reached was over 7,000 meters. It was exactly 7,240 meters above me, precisely. Well, the launch sites are already quite high. So 3,700 meters, our starting mountain is too high here. The cloud base is normally around 6,500 or even more on a normal thermal day. It depends on where. You could maybe compare it a bit to the Karakoram. Because, well, we don't have quite as high mountains. We do have mountains, they're over 6,000, 6,500, 6,500 meters.
But the requirement is pretty much the same. You have to be very well-prepared. You have to know what you're getting yourself into. What are the conditions like? You have to do it right and you have to be prepared for a good flight. And then you can actually enjoy the flight. So, in any case.
When you fly at that altitude, do you use supplemental oxygen? Or do you say, I live at over 3,000 meters anyway, I'm used to the altitude, it doesn't affect me?
Sure, we do live at almost 3,000 meters here, almost 2,900. That helps, of course. The acclimatization is already there. I never flew with oxygen devices in the past. Not even on that flight over 7,000 meters. But that was actually the flight that was decisive as to why I then bought an oxygen system. Because that wasn't a pleasant experience. I really had hypoxia and I didn't feel well at all. And that's why I bought this oxygen. Because it is helpful.
Especially as you get older. I'm not the youngest anymore. That's another thing. How old are you now? I'm 62. Just turned today.
Free. Then, happy...
Congratulations on that too. A podcast for your birthday. Well, that's good.
Well, that doesn't always happen.
Thanks a lot. Yes, exactly 62. And when you're younger, you're also physically in better shape, of course. And you can assimilate it better. Yes, definitely.
Does that mean you always have oxygen with you on your flights now, at least when you're starting in the mountains? Or only if you're planning on going over 6,000 meters or something like that?
No, I just fly up to, let's say, 6,000. And then it's okay. Often, it's not even necessary to fly any higher when you're doing XC. Well, I think I can still handle that. The altitude, I mean. Like I said, the most important thing when flying here at high altitudes is actually nutrition. I've learned that from experience. If you prepare yourself properly a few days before a flight. So, culinarily speaking, you don't "light the fuse," let's put it that way. With alcohol, with fatty foods and so on.
Then that helps a lot. That's the basis. Because the energy comes from the stomach. And if the stomach works, then the rest of the body actually works quite well too. That's my experience. And sure, the oxygen system is of course excellent. It works well. It's just the stuff around it. You always have to take more gear with you. With all that extra stuff. That makes it a bit more complicated. But I've already had many instances where I took the oxygen system with me. And I was like an astronaut at the launch site. And then after five minutes, I had a bomb out.
And then, yeah, then... For me... I mostly did the best flights when I just went without oxygen. And then it actually felt almost better. But okay, it helps. The oxygen system helps. Definitely.
I did a bit of googling about Peru and paragliding and noticed that what usually comes up, or what's really in the spotlight, when people say Peru has become somewhat well-known in the international paragliding scene, is a film by Jin. It's from 2005, I think. Flying the Nazca Lines. Where they flew over the Nazca Lines back then. Were you actually involved in that? In that project?
No, I wasn't involved in that project. I wasn't even here, actually. I was somewhere else. I wasn't in Peru, if I remember correctly. Hans Bollinger or someone else—Matthias Rothen, exactly, who unfortunately is no longer with us. I got in touch with one of them, but it didn't work out for me to be in Urbamba or Cusco. I gave them the contact info of a colleague instead. He did a great job; he introduced them to the flight area around here. They were in Nazca on the coast.
And then up here in the Andes, in the Cusco area. And I actually still have the catalog somewhere back here. They took some very beautiful, great shots. You
Have you ever flown over the Nazca Lines yourself?
A few times, many times, yeah. Back when I was still living in Lima. That's relatively close to Lima. I flew over there a couple of times. So with the paraglider motor as well. A few times. And the first time with a homemade towing system. So with a winch system, exactly. That was a project with Americans. That was in the 90s. Mid-90s, I think. That was with Cary Castle, with Mitch McAleer. With American delta cracks, actually, back then. And that was a very interesting project.
Where we traveled through Peru for a month. And Nazca was also on the list. I had to think a bit about how to best fly over the lines there. There are small planes where you can fly over as a tourist. But that wasn't our idea. So I built a winch system in two weeks. With a friend. With a pickup. With a small pickup. We put a motor on the back. With a, how do you say, pulley. With Kevlar cable. The motor was an old cement mixer.
Two horsepower. Not very powerful. But it worked quite well. Surprisingly, actually. What didn't work so well was the Kevlar cable. It kept snapping over and over again.
Because we did have some technical problems after all. But I think out of 20 attempts, we got into the air ten times. That wasn't bad at all.
And also high enough to actually fly over the Nazca Lines looking for thermals there? If
if the cable didn't snap early, yeah, then you could hardly bail out at 300, 400, 500 meters. Thermally it's not that... there is some thermal activity there. But there's always a bit of a stronger wind there. And that makes the whole thing a bit more complicated. But it had... I mean, the Delta Cracks, the Americans, they did 20-minute flights. 30 minutes. That was included. And it was also great for some unusual aerial shots they actually wanted to get.
What about other iconic Peruvian cities? I mainly think of Machu Picchu as the classic Inca city, which is always that amazing structure you see up in the mountains in all the documentaries you see about Peru or something. Can you go paragliding there? Or is it actually such an exposed landscape that it's best not to start at all because you can't land anywhere?
Yes, Machu Picchu is the old Inca capital. It's, let's say, at the entrance to the jungle at 2,600 meters high. It's very lush and green there. It also rains a lot more than it does up here. Machu Picchu is very special. Geographically, it's really a place where you... It's a magnificent area. A super magnificent area. And Machu Picchu is also the tourism magnet in Peru. And the people, the tourists, they really do go to... well, when they come to Peru, they definitely go to... So most people go to Machu Picchu.
From a geographical standpoint, flying there is already very complicated. It's a narrow valley that winds down with the river. And Machu Picchu lies on a mountain ridge. So, for flying, it's... Today, it's practically impossible because you can no longer get a permit to fly there. The first times we flew there were in the early 90s. We were out there with machetes and practically had to clear our own path just to get up to a so-called launch site. But it was possible to take off.
We were able to launch there too. The Ministry of Culture didn't give us any problems back then because it was something new, something interesting. And... we even received help from them many times, for one thing at the launch site, and sometimes even with plastic to cover the vegetation a bit so that you could take off a bit better. But yes, it was possible back then. And personally, I did about three, 24 flights there. I also went in with a few paragliders. Trips where people wanted to go and fly.
It worked there, too. Some of the starts were very adventurous and had to be secured, of course. The flights were naturally early in the morning because the weather or wind conditions were, or are, relatively complicated. And you just had to take off when you could and do the flight if you could, because then you'd suddenly have a tailwind and so on. But the flights you did, they just... you keep them in your head your whole life, because it's something special to be able to fly over such a historical site, even if it's only for five or ten minutes.
That stays with you. I mean, really, those are experiences that stay with you for the rest of your life, yeah.
Let's do a bit of a topic jump. If I saw it correctly, you also started competing a little over ten or twelve years ago. And your name is appearing more and more in the international competition circuit, at PWCs, Superfinals, and even World Championships. And there, you're competing for Peru, not for Switzerland. Do you actually have Peruvian citizenship?
No, I don't have a Peruvian passport. But I have the Garnet de Estranqueria. That's a permanent residency permit here in Peru. Yeah, why Peru? I actually used to compete for Switzerland. I remember competing in the first competitions back then. But there are these regulations where the CWL asks, "Do you live in Peru or do you live in that country?"
Yeah, and I then switched to Peru because I live in Peru. I pay taxes in Peru. My family is Peruvian and so on. And it was obvious to start for Peru. And I think that's also the CWL's rule, that if you live in a country and spend the majority of your time there, then I believe you also have to start for that country.
How is that seen by the Peruvians? I was looking at the World Championships once, and you're basically the only competitor from Peru. And now a Swiss person is competing for Peru. Does that get viewed in any way, as far as they exist, in the Peruvian paragliding scene? How is that perceived there?
Yes, I don't think that's a question at all. I mean, I've lived here in Peru for 33 or 34 years now. Most, if not all, of the people who do paragliding here in Peru know me very well. Or I taught them how to do paragliding. There are these paragliding schools in Lima. I practically taught those instructors how to fly. And we're actually like a family. There's no question about where you're from or anything like that. Of course, I'm always a bit of the gringo. I don't look like Pachacutec.
Or Manco Capac. Or like an Inca.
Or as they say.
But that wasn't really a question at all, not an issue. I think many were very proud to see Peru somewhere on a ranking or in the conversation for once. There is also another small new generation of pilots who have started competitive flying. I think we are a good group. Unfortunately, I'm still traveling a bit alone, partly for competitions when they are a bit further away. Because that, of course, always has something to do with time and with the economy, that's clear.
And here in Peru, we get very little support from the Sports Ministry or the Airia Federation. We always have to cover all the expenses ourselves. And that is, of course, a main reason why there aren't more pilots out there in the competition scene. Because even here in Peru, we have very few competitions. When there are competitions, or when we organize one, it's a national championship. In Ayacucho or wherever. With, of course, not very many pilots. Maybe 20, 30, 40 pilots at best.
If you want to progress a bit further in competition flying, then you simply have to go abroad.
Fortunately, in the nearby region, we have Colombia, Rondania, and so on; there are many events there. It's not far for us in Ecuador either.
Chile, Brazil, and so on.
You've been flying there for over 20 years now. Why did you even start with competition flying in the first place? Especially since there probably weren't any competitions offered in Peru at all. What appealed to you about getting into that?
I flew around the world alone for many, many years. Or was in the air alone. I'd fly to the launch site alone. Land, go home, and so on. Then suddenly, I was in Iquique, Chile, at a small competition with a few colleagues. That was a fun experience. I liked it. The social side too, and so on. The back and forth. There aren't many pilots here in Peru. And this club scene, it practically doesn't exist here. And then I'm in a competition, there again in a competition. I liked that, the social aspect.
And then I was also curious. Yeah, what can I do? I started with all the competition stuff at 51, 50, so relatively late. And yeah, where do I stand? What are the flying possibilities? Yeah, how far can I fly with the Quacks? That suddenly worked quite well. I saw that, yes, I can actually compete a bit in the international scene. Fly into the top ten here and there. Or win a task here and there. And yeah. Really, you get a bit of a taste for it.
And I really enjoyed that. And what's also added to it is traveling with a paraglider to foreign countries or countries that you don't know that well yet. With a paraglider. And that is a very, very interesting way to get to know a country and its people. And yes, that is really very, very interesting.
What did you learn for yourself through competition flying? Maybe also for flying in Peru?
When you get older and have been paragliding for a long time, you feel like, yeah, you already know pretty much everything. Or you're really at the point where, yeah, you don't really learn that much anymore. And you already know pretty much everything. That's probably already wrong. Because flying is a sport where you're always learning new things. And as a pilot, you have to always stay open. Even in old age. So I realized, yeah, that's not true at all. So yeah, you have to stay open. You always have to keep learning. You always have to stay open.
And to show that in order to assimilate new things. That's how you progress. That's how you can still improve in your old age. That's how you progress in competitions. I think that is especially important.
You're 62 today, as you just said. Would you say that you've actually gotten better at flying with age? Or is there a point where you notice age affecting you in some way, even if your experience is certainly still increasing?
As I said, I used to go out alone a lot on XC flights. You think, if you've done a 50-kilometer flight or an 80-kilometer flight, and you're out there alone, that was the maximum possible for that day. Because you had no point of comparison. With no one. Competition flying, on the other hand, is a way for you to measure yourself against others. Where you see the good and the bad, so to speak. So you're always learning. You learn a lot. You mostly learn from the better pilots. But you also learn from your own mistakes, from the worse pilots, whatever it is.
And that, I think, for the first three or four years, cost me quite a bit... I had some trouble adapting. Because I was always flying a bit as if I were, let's say, flying alone. If the Geigel mostly flew to the left, I'd say or think, okay, now I'm going right. Just out of defiance, maybe. And of course, that didn't work out. Competition flying, we know, is a great school. And you learn a lot there. You just have to adapt. Competition flying and XC flying are two completely different things.
And I think the one and the other complement each other very well once you adapt to the circumstances. I mean, in competition flying, the tactical side comes into play, which is very, very important. The mind game—that's very important. It always has to work very, very quickly and well. And those first years, that cost me a lot of adjustment difficulties. And then, yeah, suddenly you get a bit like,
you get the trick and you know how it works. And then I think a lot of things just happen on their own. Once you get a good result, it gives you motivation. It suddenly pushes you to do more. And yeah, I think that's the interesting thing about the whole thing.
In Peru, you also do cross-country flying. And I believe your record is 184 kilometers. Did you fly those 184 kilometers after you started with competition flying, to say, ah, before it was just those 80 and suddenly I saw it's possible to do much more and then 180 came out?
That was in the beginning. That was in the beginning. I actually flew that record with a Mentor back then. With a Mentor 3 or 4, not with a Top Gun or with a hot glider, let's put it that way. Because generally, flying with an Enzo or a Boomerang here in the Andes makes no sense at all, because the conditions we have here are really very demanding. They require quite a lot from the pilot. And if the pilot is then occupied with the glider for 50 percent of the time, it's simply too much and too complicated.
And too exhausting. It's not necessary at all. And the flight I did there, yeah, that was with a Mentor and it was very relaxed. And I don't think much more would have been possible with an Enzo, because with the Mentor, I still flew into corners and edges where I probably wouldn't have flown with the Enzo back then. How
do you actually do that in practice? If you go flying in Peru now, what kind of glider do you fly with? And when do you ever actually pull out your Enzo two-liner? The
The two-liner, I actually only take it out for competitions or for training, a bit for practice, for shorter flights, whatever. Like I said, it makes no sense at all to fly here with gliders that are too demanding, too demanding. I fly very little here in Cusco with my Enzo. It makes no sense at all. Like I said, you're too busy with the glider. And yeah, that's actually the reason.
Earlier you said that the beauty of flying is that you're always still learning and there are always new projects you can take on there and stuff like that. You—I don't know exactly when it was, but let's say recently—started a very special project with your son. And there, you both climbed one of the highest mountains in Peru, Osangate, 6,384 meters. And then you flew down together in a tandem. How do you come up with an idea like that?
The idea actually came from my son. He's also a paraglider. He's 20 now. He flies paragliders himself, but back then he didn't have much practice flying on his own yet. Thomas is actually a mountaineer. He started mountaineering at a young age. It fascinated him. Well, we live here in the mountains too, in the Andes. We have the mountains right outside our front door. It grabbed him early on. We were also lucky. A friend of ours is an American citizen. He lives here in Peru and is a mountaineer, a mountain guide. He took Tommy into the mountains early on and they really climbed mountains that caused my wife and me many sleepless nights.
One mountain, for example, was Jula Grande in the Cordillera Blanca, in northern Peru. There's that famous film, Touching the Void. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's a mountain where two Englishmen climbed up, and at the summit, one fell down one side and the other down the other, and they were just hanging on the rope. The weather was bad. To survive, one of them had to take out a pocketknife and cut the rope. One of them had broken legs and so on. The other was okay. They reunited a few days later in a base camp.
So, it's a bit of a short story. That was this mountain. They did a new route there. He was 16 at the time and was the youngest person to ever stand on that mountain. There were probably 20 of them on the mountain. They then got into this Piolet-Door ranking. That's like the Oscar of mountaineering. They then made it into the final ranking.
As a side note.
Thomas then founded WindSummits. WindSummits is like a small club. With friends, with colleagues. High-level stuff. You can go to the hills, to the mountains, to the less difficult ones, and then fly down. So, basically Climb or Hike and Fly. Aus Angatte was able to talk me into it, because he had to talk me into it, because I have some problems with my foot. I had an accident a few years ago and my ankle doesn't work anymore. I can't move it anymore. It's full of iron. I'm a bit handicapped, let's say, when jumping or anyway when climbing.
I have to use a lot of medication to help so it doesn't hurt too much. But oh well, that's part of it. Ausangate is the highest mountain here in Cusco. He started this project, organized everything. I couldn't back out anymore and then I trained a bit physically for this goal too. And we really did it, we managed to get up there at all. It wasn't easy for me; it was easier for him to get up. But still, we made it up. And then came the second part, of course, flying down.
So, hiking or climbing down. You had to do that anyway if you couldn't fly. But the wind and the launch were fantastic. Everything worked. A huge experience. It was really a huge experience and a massive relief for me because I didn't have to climb down, but because you could fly down. And launching at over 6,000 meters, and with a tandem to boot, it's quite special. I mean, really, all the factors have to come together. The wind has to be right.
The snow was really very compact. The slope of the launch site and so on. And of course, my head was still functioning. Because at 6,000 meters, your head works completely differently than when you're at a launch site at 1,000 meters. It was a really interesting and huge experience, yeah.
How did you prepare for it, like, from an aviation perspective? I mean, you have to hike up there, and with the approach and everything, that's not going to be something you can do in one afternoon. How do you know, okay, we'll make it, or how do you know there's a weather window where we can get up to A, but B also has a chance of being able to take off from up there?
We naturally studied the weather forecasts, well in advance. And there are certain weeks or days in the year where the weather is really, really good. The snow or the ice, the ascent, everything actually worked out. We planned it like that, and the ascent was, of course, primarily a challenge for me because I wasn't used to it as much. I'm not a mountaineer, so technically I've never been very good at mountaineering.
But I could always find my way around in the mountains. I could adapt. It always worked out somehow, that wasn't a problem. And, but physically, it was the absolute limit for me, because it was actually three days—so the base camp, the middle camp, and then the high camp. And from the high camp, yeah, I think when was it? We set off at midnight and then arrived at the summit around nine in the morning, eight or nine in the morning. And, everything worked out then. Everything went relatively quickly there.
We knew the launch site quickly. Yes, that's where we start. The wind was right. There was a lift of just under 10, 15 kilometers per hour. And it went fantastically. It went super fast and efficiently, yeah.
And did you carry all that tandem gear up there, or did you have any porters? Because you mentioned your foot isn't very mobile anymore, so did you have other helpers to assist you with hauling that 20 kilos of equipment—just the flight gear alone—up there?
No, we had help. We had colleagues who helped us haul up the gear. I just had a small backpack; there wasn't much else in it. And the gear, the tandem equipment, that was normal equipment, not light equipment. And with the seats, the reserve glider, and all that stuff, you're well over 20 kilos, of course. And at that altitude, that's a lot. We were a group of five, if I remember correctly, five or six, yeah. The
but not all of them, and did you all fly down at the end or how did you do it?
We were two, we were two tandems. A colleague from here in Cusco,
did the second flight as well. And yeah, we were two tandems in that project, exactly.
That means two were basically left at the top in the end and had to descend for a long time, while you were already, already in the valley for quite a while, more or less.
Yes, they still had to do the hard work, yeah, exactly.
Will there be more projects like this? So, have you tasted blood now or caught a whiff of high-altitude air, to the point where you're saying you want more? Do you want to turn more Wind Summits into reality with your son, or will he just keep going on his own? And you're saying, I've done it once now, I know what it's like, and Sangatte was my big success, and that's it for now.
He will definitely keep going. My part—well, I always say as always, yeah, that was really the last time and the last time, but maybe there will be a next time. So I'm sure, there will definitely be a next time. Probably not at the same level as Sangatte. A bit easier mountains, that's for sure, so definitely. I also don't want to disappoint my son, so that's a bit of it too, and as long as I can still do a bit, then I'll still join in. So the difficult mountains, I'll leave those to them or him, and the easier ones, I'll definitely still go along with.
And there are still some ideas we have, and yeah, definitely.
Then let's talk about another project of yours to wrap things up. You mentioned at the beginning, or relatively early on, that you and your wife once thought about starting a small Bed & Breakfast together, which over time became a hotel, Soliluna. But it's also a social project, which is the underlying principle and is very closely linked to it. That means the hotel finances a local school and more. Tell us the story behind that.
As I mentioned at the beginning, after my paragliding activities in Lima or generally here in Peru, we came here to Urubamba, Cusco, in the Sacred Valley, the Valle Sagrado. My wife had never been to the place before. She said, I'm going there. She's very spontaneous. I'm going there and, yeah, I want to do a Bed & Breakfast. And then I told her, but you don't know Urubamba at all and have never been there. And, and, and. And then she said, okay, are you coming with me or not? I said, okay, vamos.
And she's, by nature, actually quite different from me. She's very spontaneous, she makes decisions quickly for herself and so on. I'm perhaps still the typical Swiss person. I still analyze things a bit more and sleep on them and so on. But we always meet at a good place, good points, good locations. We came here to Urubamba, bought a piece of land, and yeah, we then started with this Bed & Breakfast, with the construction. I did the architecture, everything myself at the beginning. We used adobe bricks, these fired bricks, local construction style, mud bricks, exactly.
And well, after a few months, we suddenly saw, yeah, the money isn't going to stretch that far anymore and so on. We then got help from many relatives; my sister gave me a bit of money so that we could get a bit further and so on. Or even from the bank here, with a very high interest rate, unfortunately, at the time. And well, the Bed & Breakfast, it actually never really moved forward that much. We built and built. I did a lot myself. And then my wife suddenly got a phone call from one day to the next from her ex-boss in Lima.
From abroad, to be more precise. And he asked, Marilene, where are you? What are you doing? And so on. Then she said, okay, I'll present the project. Maybe my ex-boss will be interested. He really was interested then and got on board. Our financial problems were pretty much solved then. And yes, we actually finished building the hotel, although you have to say we had three phases of development. The first phase was, we had 14 Casitas, 14 small bungalows, a restaurant and so on, and the operational zone and so on.
We opened it after three years, right around 2000. And we welcomed our first guests. And at the same time, or even before that, my wife, she always wanted a project
to create or work in. That was with children, with teenagers, and so on. And then, of course, the question was, well, you had to see first that the hotel got up and running, that some money started coming in first, and so on. And on the other side, there was this social project. The social project was very, very small back then. There were only a few children that we had there. The hotel then grew bigger and bigger. The income was always better. That also gave us the opportunity to,
to move the social project forward. That means we had more money for good teachers. We had more money for a more decent infrastructure and so on. Yes, it just kept going and going. And what I maybe haven't explained enough yet, yes, the social project is a project that actually has over 200 students today. The students who are at the primary and secondary school level—the education here in Peru in general is very, very poor. And many don't go to school or can't go to school at all.
And the project is actually that people or families who don't have the money for the school fees for the children—the hotel actually finances the students or the project. They don't have to pay anything at all. Of course, there are students who have a financial background where the parents can pay the normal school fees. They just pay the normal school fees. But in 90 percent of cases, the hotel is actually responsible for the finances in the association. Then we also have children with intellectual disabilities.
These are about 12 or 13 people with physical disabilities. That is also part of it. Thirdly, there is the children's home. There are 15 or 16 children accommodated in that children's home now. They either have no parents or only one parent. Or they come from precarious family situations, like alcohol problems and so on. And yes, that is essentially this social project. The hotel today is, of course, as I said, we had three expansion phases, always getting bigger. The Bed & Breakfast, this Bed & Breakfast dream from back then, that happened relatively quickly.
So it has changed a lot compared to back then. Today, we are a luxury hotel. We've been lucky; we are now a GmbH. We gained financial possibilities along the way, and that has helped us very, very much. And yeah, today it's not like before Covid; before Covid, if I remember correctly, we had almost 100 employees in the hotel. Today, there are a few less. But we hope that it will slowly grow again, that it will get better again. Yes, exactly.
If you look at it this way now, this Soliluna project, a large hotel, at the same time with a great social project next to it. That actually wasn't planned as something like that, but rather grew out of itself somehow. And also with the energy your wife put into it and all that. Is that something you once dreamed of, or did it actually just grow on you over time?
No. It was, like so many things in my life or my wife's life, never actually planned. I never imagined myself living in Peru in my younger years, having a business there, and so on. I think that's just how life is. It happens as it happens. Everyone probably has their... every life has a destination somewhere.
And I think, yeah, life sometimes just happens. So I believe it's written somewhere, I guess. But now a small detail comes to mind. A few years ago, we visited my mother's place at Christmas with my family. My kids were still small, three, four, five years old. And they were looking at these family photo albums with their grandmother. And then my grandmother pointed to a photo. And I was in that photo, either reading or sitting at a table.
And I looked at a, how should I put it, a Revista, a magazine. And it had this big poster in the middle. And if you look really closely, Machu Picchu was in that picture. I was probably two or three or four years old and I looked at this photo. And you could see it in that album. And I really thought, yeah, that's a funny detail. Yeah. And my kids saw it and said, Dad, look at that. You looked at Machu Picchu there, the little chicken.
That shaped you, and then you had to go look for the chicken at some point. Yeah, exactly. Could be.
Could be, yeah. How does your paragliding benefit the Soli Luna project today?
Look, probably not very much directly, because nowadays paragliding is actually my hobby and my way to unwind. And I also travel a bit more than before. I have more time than before. Directly paragliding, maybe less. What we do a lot is with the kids, we often do a tandem Sunday, for example, where we do small tandem flights with the kids. And that's a huge amount of fun, so they can feel what it's like to lose their feet off the ground. Actually not much directly, no. But yeah, there are always people, of course, who come here as guests at the hotel.
or also as paragliders and so on. I invite the guests or the visitors, or we invite them, to visit our project and see how it's going in the school, how it's going in this children's home. They can take a little look, yeah, at how we do it. And if there is interest, they can also participate actively or financially. That means, for example, they can take over one school year for a child, or they can provide certain materials,
...school supplies and so on. Everything helps, everything helps. And fortunately, there are always many people who are very interested in our project, and we are, of course, very, very grateful for that because they can see directly into our project. And the results we can already show are also quite interesting. This year, for the first time, we have students who have completed the international bachelor's degree and are studying in Lima. Two are studying medicine and two are studying law and architecture. So that means we have done a lot of things right these years, when you think that these kids came from very, very precarious or simple families and today are able to do something like this.
So there's also a very great sense of satisfaction.
When you say you sometimes take kids along on tandem flights, were there any who said, "I want to learn that too"? And when you say, like how we got people to university, have we basically also gotten local kids to dream of becoming a Gleitschirm-Blog themselves?
Of course, exactly. There are some who already do tandem flights, so they've learned paragliding themselves and then took a bit of a harder path, went to Lima or wherever, and just tried it for themselves. They had to learn how it works the hard way, through bad landings or sometimes even crashes. I then told them, that's not how it works, do it properly. But well, some of them are even assistants, as I said, assistants to tandem operators or fly tandems themselves or are in tourism, that also has to do with tourism,
into the tourism sector, through paragliding, through tandem flying. Even if they don't do much paragliding themselves, but as guides for trekking and so on, in that sense too, yeah.
How do you see your future with paragliding in Peru? What else can come of it?
Future? How should I put it? The paragliding scene here in Peru is very, very small. The finances are very, very difficult. So for many Peruvians, they can't buy new paragliding equipment or anything like that. That naturally prevents the paragliding scene from growing, from having more pilots. I compare Peru a bit like this: it has very many surfers, wave riders, who are world-class because of the waves—we have over 2,000 kilometers of coast and excellent, large, long waves, and that's why there are also very many surfers. And they are practically right on the doorstep.
You can't compare a surfboard to a paraglider. It also costs a lot less. That's why we have relatively few paragliders here. Most of them, those are tandem pilots here, and those are mainly commercial ones here in the Andes or in Lima, where it's a bit easier or more financially attractive.
Generally, there will surely be a few young people who come out a bit. So there are a few young acrobatic flyers, a few young guys who want to do XC flying, start competing with flying. And yes, you have to be positive. I hope that Peru figures a bit more on the world map, on the paragliding map, in the coming years. Then
I'll keep my fingers crossed for that. Whether it happens or not, you've laid a foundation for it, even if it grows slowly. Just like your Soliluna project grew slowly and then became a very prosperous, also social enterprise, maybe the paragliding scene in Peru will also get even bigger with your input. Thanks, Franz, for your great stories and all the best for everything else coming up for you in the near future, whether it's projects, travels, or whatever else.
Thanks from me. A very warm thanks, Lucian. It was a pleasure to share some stories. I hope it worked out. And thank you very much, and see you soon, somewhere and sometime.
That was episode number 124 of Podz-Glidz with Franz Schilter from Peru. In the show notes for this episode on the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz, you will find further information, including the possibility to donate to the social project Sol y Luna. If you enjoyed the episode, then please subscribe to Podz-Glidz. You can do that anywhere there are podcasts. If you also leave a positive rating there, you help make Podz-Glidz even better known. Or simply tell your pilot friends about it. Podz-Glidz and bluglite are free of paid advertising. I do this out of conviction and in the interest of independence. Nevertheless, a lot of profit, professional work, and of course costs are involved in these offerings.
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