So we have a relationship with our sewing machines. It's actually scary, but that's how it is. Yes. I don't want a workforce of ten people because I'm striving for growth. I'd rather make fewer products, but do what I do myself, rather than just developing products and having everything produced externally. Yes, so that the whole thing is still fun. If you don't sew, you can't go paragliding either. They go together.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Simon Bratschi and André Bernhard.
And I'm Lucian Haas.
In the paragliding scene, you constantly meet people for whom flying is more than just a hobby. It's a passion and a way of life. For Simon Bratschi and André Bernhard, that's amplified by a second passion: sewing. Both became enthusiastic about it in their youth, independently of one another. When they met years later while paragliding, the groundwork was already laid for an unusual joint project to grow.
Simon and André run Flugsau GmbH today. They develop harnesses, special backpacks, and accessories like camera mounts. And they are the go-to address in Switzerland when it comes to creating custom pieces for paragliding based on customer requests. They still sew everything themselves in an old pigsty converted into a workshop in Grafenort in the Engelberg Valley. For this episode 140 of Podz-Glidz, I visited Simon and André in their production rooms. Against a backdrop of a large laser cutter and over a dozen industrial sewing machines, they talk about the history of Flugsau, among other things.
How sewing and flying go hand in hand for them, their creative process, the search for perfection, and how you can make a living with Swiss craftsmanship in the rather price-sensitive paragliding scene.
If you like Podz-Glidz, then please support my work on it as a patron. You can find out how to do that very easily on the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz, specifically on the "Fördern" page.
André and Simon, who or what is Piggy?
Piggy is a harness series. The name comes from Flugsau. And a piggy is a little pig, and that's why we gave this harness category that name. And that's why we gave this harness category that name. And that's why we gave this harness category that name. Uh,
as if for nothing, he addressed 004 worldwide and
We called this name Piggy right away. Why Piggy? Because Piggy sounds warm, it's recognizable, and the whole series is... well, the whole series is the PiggyB for pilot harnesses, the PiggyPA for passenger harnesses, and so on.
And how else is this series referred to? Well, you have "Flugsau" as your company name, which is a very German name, and now you're using an English name for your seatbelts. How does that fit together? I don't think there's that much depth to...
that's not the case either. We chose the name and you have to have something. We found that it fits quite well. There's a kind of symbiosis. It also sounds good and friendly. "Sau" is often associated with something bad too. "Piggi" sounds casual, sounds good, but we didn't really overthink the deep meaning of why we call it that.
If "Sau" is associated with something bad, why did you choose "Flugsau" as a brand name?
It dates back to about 2009, during the search for a name. The name "Flugsau" consists of "Flug" and "SAU," which stands for Simon, André, and Urs, the founders of "Flugsau." We definitely didn't want to take a name that already exists by the thousands in this field, like "Flug" something; it had to stand out and be different. We're doing our own thing, after all. We also decided that we could generate our own name from our initials that is also cheeky and not standard.
What you also have to say, and what also fits us, is that people who knew us well in the past have often said the name suits you because you flew like pigs. It's associated in a bit of that way. And the other thing is that, at the beginning, people ask, "What's that? Flugschau? Flugsau?" But once people have it, they don't forget it anymore. Do you also have international customers? What do they say then? They often don't know how we pronounce it. But yeah, that's the company name. I don't think they go into it any deeper. That's the feeling I get. Especially with English or French speakers.
Customers. How does it happen for paragliders? When you say you were paragliders. You flew like pigs. In a certain way. You just said that. Exactly. I don't want to assume anything, but it seems like you're still involved somehow. But how does a paraglider get the idea: let's do a kind of, what's the word, a manufacture for paragliding accessories, I'd say mainly.
Yeah, I wouldn't say we sat down and said, "We want to do this." It just happened that way. Because we're from the aerobatics scene and... we wanted to record, film, and stuff like that. And there weren't many mounts, let's say. Or I wanted a specific brake handle because the ones on the market didn't suit me and so on. And so we started DIY-ing things for ourselves, let's say. And eventually, friends came along. "Hey crew, can you build me something like that too?" And that's how it...
actually developed the whole thing, let's say. But it's still a step from... saying, okay, I'm doing it for myself, I'm doing it for a few friends, and I'm making a business out of it. Or I'm making my living, somehow supporting myself with it. How did it come to this step where you said, okay, we're doing this professionally? It just happened. So we
Before the company Flugsau, we had the company Acrosound. And there, our goal was for one of the two of us to have half a day of paid work. That's how it started. And we never had the idea that we would get to the point where we are now. Where we don't... we make accessories, but we also make many other things. In Switzerland, we are certainly a brand for the professional tandem sector. But we never... we never made a business concept and said, now it has to be this and that. And the other thing is certainly the passion.
We started in our childhood and youth with the fact that we both have a high affinity for and enjoy sewing. And that it was never work for us, but always a passion, a joy. And that
has remained that way to this day. In your youth, did you already sew during your school years? Yes, both of us, yes. And what did you sew back then? I didn't sew harnesses or anything like that. No.
So, strangely enough, I already started knitting in kindergarten, and in Switzerland, they say you learn knitting. Actually, I wanted to learn that. No idea why, it just interested me. Then also sewing things in general or... I didn't have anything at home. I didn't have money to buy anything. But Mom's sewing machine was there and somewhere there was a broken backpack where you could use the padded straps. To sew a climbing harness out of it, to secure yourself when climbing trees. So I did it like that because the material was there. The interest in sewing, in creating or modifying something, was also there.
And so the whole thing actually just happened that way. How
How old were you when you say you sewed a harness for climbing trees? Ten maybe. Ten, twelve. Oh wow. And how do you come up with that at that age? To even have the idea of saying, I need a harness to climb trees?
Yeah, there are magazines where you see climbers who have always been interested in heights, in climbing. Then you see what's out there. And he didn't have the means or just wanted to build it himself, because you see it somewhere in a brochure or a magazine, these climbers, they're secured like that. And then you want to recreate something as comfortable as possible. Where you can say to yourself, yeah, it holds you, you won't fall out of the tree. Whether it would have actually held, I'd say, is doubtful with the cotton threads they used. But that's basically how it started for me. Also sewing kites myself and so on, that's what interested me.
Did you two already know each other as children? No. No, Simon and I were about 20 when we met, I'm a bit older. But when we started talking, we hit it off very quickly. Like Simon explained, how he did his stuff at 10, I also did static tests in the climbing area as a child. So the children's climbing frame served us as an anchor point to perform load tests and see how something breaks. And Simon has pretty much the same story.
And even though we only grew up about 20 kilometers apart, we didn't meet until much later.
met later. But then we realized that, at least when it comes to sewing, we might even be more like soulmates in a certain way.
Yeah, well, that would be... having an interest in many of the same things. And being interested in actually doing something, not just buying some random stuff somewhere. It's also likely that we didn't have the means back then to just buy any kind of material. Instead, we, yeah, we DIYed it, built it ourselves. And yeah, it was actually a coincidence. We were here in the Engelberger Tal. It was actually in Engelberg, where we were flying. I was here with another colleague. Others were already here in the valley quite often. And that was 2005, I think.
And then we needed someone to drive my car down. And in the end, André drove down in the car. It turned out that he's at an alpine pasture up here from time to time. And he has a sewing machine there. And that's how we met. And went flying. And we also had two or three similar things when flying. Like, we had fun with the same things, I'd say. Just like how we got into battery-powered flying.
...ended up. Did you both do battery-powered flying? Or what was the connecting factor?
We didn't call it "Akku-Fliegen" for a long time. We just enjoyed trying out the maneuvers. There wasn't a YouTube channel or the internet back then either. We had to teach ourselves. And we did it in our own way, trying out our own things. There wasn't a "this is how it has to be." We just enjoyed doing this or that. It was only much later that we started calling it "Akku-Fliegen." Actually, only when it came to competing in our first international competitions.
Yeah, but even then, we actually still resisted calling it "acro-flying." And we hated it when someone said, "We're going to train." That wasn't our spirit. We wanted to fly. We wanted to have everything under control in as many situations as possible, let's say. But if someone said, "We want to train, on what?" we reacted almost allergically to that. Because we wanted to fly and have fun. Not train and only look at the competition. It was primarily about having fun and flying.
Going back to the "Flugsau" and the beginning, you mentioned they also said you flew like pigs. What was so "pig-like" about your flying?
Today, you'd call this learning to fly on battery power. Back then, it wasn't like that yet. It wasn't really well-known. And people mostly just flew straight, thermally, and on distance. And when people watched us trying things with a half-open glider, getting very low to the ground, we were just the crazies here in the valley. Until the point where we eventually brought home a medal. And then it was battery flying. And then we weren't just the eccentrics anymore, the tide turned a bit.
What kind of medal was that?
Swiss Championships we did. As a synchro team then? Or did you each bring home a medal individually? No, in synchro flying,
but funnily enough, not with each other. We had different partners. Because it also has to be fit. I don't think we... Synchro flying is fun, but not as a reliable show performance. We didn't click. Definitely not. Yeah, well, for me at least, the synchro competition flying was more of a coincidence. There were too few participants for it to have officially counted as a Swiss Championship. They said, "Don't you want to fly synchro too?" But in the beginning, if I remember correctly—that was 2006—
2007 in Villeneuve. They didn't have enough teams, so they put people together. Hey, wouldn't you make a team with Judith, for example? But it somehow didn't work out. And then there was another young pilot from Valais. And yeah, we'll join in anyway. We have nothing to lose. And that's basically how it started. And then there were other competitions with him. We flew synchro, but also with other synchro partners. But mostly just because it's fun and not really out of a competitive mindset.
When you look at the aerobatics scene today, which is very professionalized at least as far as the world elite is concerned, and where people basically arrive at 12 o'clock from 24 hours away, training during the day—at least that's the impression you get. They're always just flying around, then sitting in Organia or somewhere else, in the air all day, constantly practicing the same maneuvers. Would that be something that could still fascinate you, or would have fascinated you back then, if it had already been developed that far? Or is that something where you'd say, no, that's way beyond how we imagine flying?
I have to flip the question a bit. For us, back then, it was great, but definitely completely different from today. The vibe was already the main thing, and the international competitions they attended—there were people from home and abroad, and back then it was maybe, I don't know, not 100 or 200 people who flew Acro. And we never did it out of some deep competitive drive, but simply out of the joy of meeting people and flying. And we went to Iquique too and had a good time there.
Today, you'd say training. But I also think that what the kids do today is totally cool. And it still has that vibe; we just have a different pursuit now. And for me, that question doesn't even arise. How
a lot comes
...left to fly? Not much. Not because we can't anymore, but because we don't need to as often as we used to, let's say. In the past, we'd go up the mountain in all kinds of weather, and maybe the rain would stop for a bit and then we could fly down. And today, it's like, we could go out a lot more than we actually do.
Is it age? Do you get saturated at some point? You've actually experienced and seen everything in the air. Especially if you're a bit of a daredevil. If you really fly around and try out everything the glider has to offer. I'd say you've done everything.
surely never experienced. But it's like, when you fly a lot, or some people who have flown a lot, they're like... we once made jokes about an "acro burnout." That if you fly too much, you lose the fun of flying that you actually want. I think that's extremely individual. But I do think that if you've flown very intensely and a lot for a while, you eventually want to calm down a bit and rather pick out the nice flights or even take a break to be able to enjoy the flight again, instead of just going all the time.
What is a nice flight for you today? It could be when I do a hike and fly with my wife and then, in easy conditions, glide down comfortably after a coffee in the mountain hut. Or it could be Sohren in Denmark. Or it could be a relaxed valley tour here in the Engelberg Valley with a cross-country glider. So, nothing crazy anymore? Doesn't have to be. If I feel like flying a helicopter with my hike and fly glider, then I'll do it. But it doesn't have to be every flight. And what about you, André? What fascinates me at the moment is that we hired a young... that we hired a young person and we're right in the flight area. And that this young person is getting us to go flying over lunch again.
Spontaneous. The
still has that urge to fly and is infecting you with it again. Exactly,
You have to say that. She really got us hooked on the idea that if it's flying weather, you just go... Instead of having lunch, you go flying. Still in flight. We'll be there in five minutes, in ten minutes... In ten minutes we'll be on the mountain and can land in front of our shop. I find that really cool right now.
But is that then just a glide you do? Or is it also... does that playful flying-going come back again, and you say, wonderful, I'll do one acrobatic move down from the mountain during my lunch break.
I've always done a bit of tumbling, but in a completely different way. And it's like, yeah, you pull a bit more and then you're allowed to do the glider. Yeah, I can rip the glider off, but nowadays you have light gliders and I'm actually mindful of not breaking these in just a few weeks, but rather being a bit more careful with them.
A bit of a change of subject towards sewing. You just said there was something like with the Agro-Fliegen, where you said, yeah, it wasn't tedious, but at some point it was also sort of enough. Now you've been sewing since your childhood and now very intensively in your job too, because you deal with sewing every day. Are there also moments where you say, sometimes I'm tired of this machine?
I haven't had that. I'd say it can happen. There's also work that you like less than other things. I mean, if you have some tedious repair where you'd rather build something new or sew something together, there are certainly tasks that are more or less fun. I think pretty much everyone feels that while working. But it's not like I feel, "Okay, I've had enough, now I want to do something completely different." Because if I want to do something else, even in the field of sewing, I have the option; I can do something else. And from that perspective, I've never felt...
I want to do something completely different now. I want to do something else because it's fun and it's extremely versatile with all the different types of work we do.
What is it about sewing that's so fascinating for you? That you say you've been doing it since you were kids, almost four decades now.
For me, it's not explicitly the sewing, but playing with the material. Playing with the stability. I know how much something holds, the connection to the fabric. And sewing is just a small process in the bigger picture. That includes the cutting, designing new things. And that's what makes it so exciting, because it's so versatile. You're not just sitting at the sewing machine, you're thinking about how I can solve this or that. And for me, it was always clear: I want to reach a level where I have my own playground. I want to have the skills to design, build, sew, and test things with ease.
That's my motivation behind sewing. And you can't really... I can't imagine losing that drive in the slightest. Because it's such an extremely versatile... world that spans so many areas
...goes on. It doesn't stop. But that's also a connection where you say, okay, you have the fabric, you have the thread, you have whatever. And it emerges from you playfully when it's about, I need to find a solution for some problem or something like that.
When you have that certain know-how, then the fun factor kicks in. And then you can solve these problems without it meaning work for you or for me... It doesn't mean work for me, but rather I enjoy implementing it that way. Is it the same for you? Yes, so for me, it doesn't mean that I can immediately throw a solution on the table, let's say.
But also when a solution comes after one, two, or three weeks, or you forget about the problem and come up with a solution a year later. I think it's more about the fact that it's playful... or that it's fun to develop a solution, rather than me having a solution ready immediately. And over time, of course, you always get better solutions for different problems, and you also have the opportunity, if a customer comes to you with a problem and says, "Oh, I've had something similar before, we can solve that this way or that way." And that's also extremely fun. It's not that I say I have a solution for everything. Not at all. I don't think anyone does. But... yeah. Searching for the solution and finding it—that's what's fun, and it'll still be fun in ten years when you find a solution for a problem.
I think it's more that I can't say I have a solution for everything. And that's where we're definitely strong as a team, right? That we can discuss things together. I want to solve this. Do you have an idea? And together, you get much, much further. Sure. Sometimes you're... sometimes there's nothing at all. Yeah, that's part of it. But sometimes there are also tons of ideas. Exactly, that's how it goes, yeah.
But does that mean you develop everything together? So, for every product, if it's something new, you sit down together and... Is that a kind of brainstorming, or how does that work for you? Coffee breaks. Coffee breaks,
where we discuss pretty much everything together. And it can be like this: when we look at a harness project, for example, I do something. And once I've done that, we discuss it. And then a key idea that's missing comes along, and Simon has it right then. Yes, immediately. I think it's often the case that we don't say from the start, "Hey, we're sitting down together, we're doing this." That also happens when we want to develop some... a product. Mostly, it's like one of us takes the lead on the product because he's already deeper into it, out with a customer, or already more involved.
But when it comes to figuring out my product and solving problems, since we think quite differently about certain things, we naturally look at that together. And I go to others... and tell them, look, I have this and that, and he gives his two cents, so to speak. And that's usually how the finished product comes about. Where do you think differently? Phew. Hard, hard to say. I think we've been working together for a very long time and everyone has their own development in their life. And we notice that we have very many differences.
And we approach very different things,
think very differently as well and know that it's exactly what's needed to achieve a good result in the end. Or let's say, if you... the more different you are, the more creatively the ideas come from. Then you don't just have one way, but you have... the whole range.
Yeah. Then you have... Is there also arguing about things like that? Where someone says, how can you think of such nonsense? Or that's just a stupid solution.
I think there are certainly discussions where you don't understand the other person's certain approaches. But that's just part of it. Like in a good relationship, you sometimes have heated discussions. And sometimes you just don't say anything. Because... you don't have to agree on everything. And that's a good thing. And also what André said. If we thought exactly alike, we wouldn't need to be a duo.
Well, you have a whole range of products that you manufacture yourselves here and such. Are these products something like your babies to you, your children that you've produced together, in a way you've created?
That's a picture in my head right now.
We don't think that far ahead. We're a bit more simple-minded. For me, these aren't my children. A child is something finished. And what we do here is a constant striving for something we're trying to make even better. And that is our pursuit. Therefore, it's not a child. It's always a kind of something unborn. Because the whole scene and all the people working in this field are in a state of permanent change. And nothing is ever...
You have a product that's finished. But in your head, you're already working on something new. On the next model, let's say. If everything were finished, then there wouldn't be... new products, let's say. And you're always trying to improve something or build something in a way that more customers enjoy it, and so on.
Is there any product that you would say, in the form you have it now, is perfect? That there's actually nothing left to improve?
I wouldn't say that. For God's sake, no, because never... What is perfect?
What I consider perfect, others might think is shit. Okay, that's an exaggeration. For me, there is no such thing as a perfect product. A good product, to me, is one that many people enjoy and can use. That's a good product for me. But a perfect product... I don't think I'd ever say that
that we have a perfect product. Is there one that you're particularly proud of? Because of some special solution in there or something, where you say, hey, that's something only we as Flugsau can deliver?
I think those are,
when we... You mentioned the Piggy series at the beginning. And I think we're already a bit proud of that, because we built harnesses without copying anything, but really built our own models starting from the material itself. Anyone who flies a wingsuit harness might understand a bit of what I'm talking about. That has a big advantage. It has the wingsuit properties. And I'm a bit proud of that, that it's its own unique path. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be finished, but it's just built in the character of both of us.
Out of nothing. Yes, and we aimed for that from the very beginning—that we wouldn't take other projects or products and, to put it bluntly, derive the patterns from them, but that we would draw our patterns by hand, build prototype harnesses, sit in them, and see what we needed to change. Ultimately, some patterns look clearly similar to other products from other manufacturers. That happens automatically when you build a similar type of harness; I'd say certain parts look similar. That's normal. But what I think we can be proud of, regarding certain things we built differently than most manufacturers at that time,
that it became the standard. For example? Not using buckles, but putting the main leg suspension directly into the carabiner. That's one example. Either it was fixed with stitching, so you have to step into the light harnesses, or, or it had a buckle. I think what's special there is that at some point they said, for example, with the passenger harnesses, that we don't have the carabiners on the outside of the main suspension, but between the legs. And that definitely resulted in high safety and is actually a great idea that today is used by various...
how it's implemented. That's cool. That's also cool. And we ultimately arrived at this solution a bit through climbing. We had the approach of how can we make it so that you don't forget to close the leg loops on the passenger. And the idea there was that the carabiner you clip into the spreaders should hang down; you can't clip it in as long as the harness isn't closed. And then the idea came up, yeah, how do we make it easy to clip in? And then there was this saying, yeah, we turn the carabiner around. And we've been doing it that way ever since.
Yeah, since then we've noticed that's like a Simon special. If you don't know what else to do, just flip everything around. And that's a story that still haunts us today; when we're stuck on a technical solution and don't know what to do, we do the Simon special. Turn it 80 degrees and see if it could work that way. And sometimes
it works. The products you have, you only sell them through your shop or directly. Do you actually know all your customers personally in some way? Also because you say we produce here, we have a small range, we probably only have a small group of customers, so you say we're actually a very, very personal manufacturer.
On one hand, we sell a large portion to tour operators, tandem companies, or flight schools that we know very well. We exchange ideas with them. That means, for example, we go to Interlaken, where there are many tandem pilots, and hold a meeting with them, do questionnaires where we explicitly ask what exactly is wanted. And if then the majority has an idea, we implement it. Just as the end customer would actually want it. But the sales already run a lot through, I'd say, friends or customers who have become friends.
And we don't have as many individuals here as we used to, I have to say, because we're a bit short on time for that. In the past, every customer who came here was an individual, and we would explicitly build or modify things for them, but today those are more...
corporate clients, like tandem companies or whatever. Tandem companies or also flight schools that already have some of our products, which can give the customers or students or whatever something to try out, to test fly, that has also become more and more, even though selling our products isn't as exciting for a flight school purely financially as selling other products, since we produce in Switzerland and that just costs more than somewhere abroad.
to produce. Speaking of producing in Switzerland, you basically sew everything here yourselves. But now you also have things where you say, we have a series—so you're not producing it in mass quantities, but at least a certain number of units. Wouldn't it be interesting for you to say, come on, let's just give that to a sewing factory in Asia or something. We'll free up capacity so that we can put our great, cross-functional, intelligent, imaginative thinking into new products. In terms of time. Last year we...
Last summer, we looked into this intensively; we teamed up with two other companies located in the same building as us and checked it out. For us, it's always clear that we don't want to just give it to some production in Asia or wherever, but rather want to keep something like that under control. We invested time and money to look into the whole story—how something like that could be feasible while we still remain "Flugsau" and the people have that feel for how we work—could we do something in a neighboring country?
We then went to a neighboring country, spent a few days looking at everything,
written down, and we came back and realized that it doesn't matter for us at these quantities, because if I want to produce fairly abroad and have good people, I have the problem that I need good people, and I have to hire them responsibly, but if I pay for all their insurance, provide proper care—meaning, create the same conditions we have here in Switzerland—we aren't that much cheaper at the quantities we produce.
We realized that production abroad can be complex if you have the standards of treating people very well, but we were lucky enough to be able to hire someone—she was already here as an intern, had finished school, and we were able to hire her, and we're very happy now that she actually does things for us so we have more time for other projects. So, those are always the thoughts we have and our approaches to finding solutions.
...have to be consistent with the ethics we have. We also tried producing certain products with other manufacturers at one point, we gave it a shot, and stopped pretty quickly because it's not like a vacuum cleaner; you're not flexible. You can't say, if someone wants a brake lever, there are the brake levers, they can't say I want a pink logo on it instead of brown, or that you're just not as flexible. And in the beginning, when we started developing and sewing these kinds of things, it was also a bit of our motto: whatever we develop, we want to sew ourselves. And we never actually aimed for growth,
...but we do what we can sew. And now we're somewhere in between, where we say we've hired someone for 50%, but we still want to sew the products here. Of course, there are workshops in our region that support us, to whom we give orders. There's one workshop for the disabled in Stans, to whom we've already given orders just to do partial production, so that we're relieved a bit of the time. And that has actually worked very well, and they're also happy when they have simple orders for their people.
Besides the series products you have, people also keep coming to you wanting some custom pieces or with an idea, saying maybe Flugsau can make this or something like that. What was the most exciting task for you in cases like that?
Lots of exciting tasks. Really good, great, super cool tasks from
dog harnesses for mine-detecting dogs over
Test applications for aircraft, yes, over
wedge pillows for therapies with children with disabilities, all very, very different and also exciting things where you say, you could help someone there. How do these people...
to you, when you say, for example, a mine-detection dog, a dog harness—how would I even imagine that? Is a dog being dropped from a glider over a minefield and then it's allowed to search, or what does that mean?
That's a nice idea. These requests clearly come from the paragliding scene, and certainly from our openness toward others. It was from a paraglider we met while cross-country flying, who works at a company and somehow—he knows what we do—went, "Hey, ask them, they might be able to do this." And what does such a harness look like? It's actually about having a mount on it with a camera and GPS and everything, so they know which areas have already been searched. That was mainly it.
You also have dog harnesses in your range generally. Was it the case that this other colleague approached you because he saw you already have dog harnesses, or did you make one for him and then it became, oh, actually an interesting product, maybe there are other people who would like to fly with their dog or something. We're adding that to our portfolio and making a flight harness series out of it.
So, these are of course super custom builds from larger companies in this case. He comes to us, and anyone who comes to us and sees the workshop and what kind of possibilities we have, naturally draws the conclusion pretty quickly, ah, they could also do this or that. But I don't think in this case it's that he came to us because we otherwise build dog harnesses for paragliding. We already had dog harnesses for flying. But not on the internet. Not on the internet, we've always built dog harnesses. I don't think that's the reason he came to us. He saw everything we do and actually came to us like this,
you have a small workshop, you can build it, you can
that we develop it together. Are there also other customers who don't come from the paragliding scene at all? Who come to you through whatever contacts they have?
Yes, there are
...some companies we sew things for. For example? It could be a safety belt for a roller coaster. That has something to do with agro-flights, almost. Yes, it has to hold up. And we're interested in how people find us, of course. And there's a friend of a worker who works there who knows us. So, he knows us, he's probably already ordered something from us before. And they were probably having an after-work beer and somehow, yeah, we need a new supplier for our safety belts or whatever the conversation was. And he probably said, yeah, ask them. Or a...
another customer for whom we sew certain things, a former schoolmate of André's works there, has worked there. Still works there. He knows what André does and always asks about it. Or always inquires if they can or want to do something like that. And that's how it always happened. I also think the thing is, when we
when we started sewing, we had items from our setup that weren't available in large quantities in Switzerland. Who had laser cutting in that size at that time? There wasn't really much of that yet. Yeah, we had certain machines here and I think we were open to different things. All of that was done abroad. Just a static seam for a repair. You have to send it back to the manufacturer and then it goes somewhere. There were some who did that, but there weren't many.
who do that. They didn't have that as their main business, let's just say. They did it on the side, but their core business was something else. And we, like with Dank, accepted such orders at the beginning, just to do something.
How often do people still come in today and say, "I have something to repair," and do you actually do it?
It's like, we do repairs. They're not as frequent anymore. But that's more because we need more and more space for production and we're buying, converting, and inventing more and more crazy machines, and we have less time for end customers. And about two years ago, when this Corona stuff hit, we had, more or less, only the shop open by appointment. Then we have such a ratio—when we started, we had two-thirds warehouse and one-third workshop.
And the workshop has taken up more and more space over the years. It's actually pushed the shop out. Yes, by now we... I have to put it this way, our building is an old pigsty, it's eight times 24 meters long, and of those 24 meters, 20 meters are actually production or have machines standing in them. Yes, that's how it's turned out. We're also moving away from trade or resale more and more, we're focusing on our own products or our own production.
And just to go back briefly to repairs. In recent times, over the last few years, I'd say more and more products have come onto the market. Everything has to be lighter now. More and more products have hit the market that we don't want to repair with a clear conscience. So we often say with repairs, we're staying away from those, because if we want to repair something, it has to hold up and it has to be good again. But there are many products that, well, you can somehow repair them. But on the next flight, the seam just rips because the material is so thin.
How often does it happen that you get repairs or materials from other manufacturers? You are the absolute experts now. And you look at it and think, oh, what kind of weird solution is this? No, I mean, weird solutions...
we don't think that way. We always enjoy it when other people—most of whom we can call our friends—do something. Regardless of whether it's good or bad, other solutions fascinate us, we think they're great, and we find it cool that such a dynamic exists. And because we're so small, we can also [talk to] every manufacturer
call and say, do you have this material or where did you get it or whatever. And that is a very, very open exchange with most of the company designers. And that allows us as a small company to at all to
get hold of this material. That means they don't see you as competitors in any way, but rather like, oh, that little overpriced—well, overpriced from an international perspective—Swiss manufacture, they won't be able to take anything big from us anyway. So it's a fact, it's simple. We can't do that, yeah. Is it true that such people, I mean, they probably also appreciate your know-how just as much and think it's great how you think, and so similar minds probably come together. Do manufacturers ever come to you and say, hey, can't you co-develop with us or we have a problem here, we're stuck. Do you maybe have a flight line solution or something for that? That happens again and again and
that's always exciting and it's something you discuss. But we're already very busy with what we do and we want to push our own projects forward, not build something for someone else. We've already been approached by various manufacturers asking if we could sew prototypes for them, if we wanted to develop harnesses for them—we were asked, but that's not what we want. We want to build our own story, whether that's good or bad, that's ultimately always a bit of a matter of opinion. But the great thing is, there are already many
designers from other manufacturers have also been to our house, and we are open to those kinds of visits and yes, they want to do their own thing too, and it's of course exciting that you can discuss or talk with people like that. You speak the same language. You talk about things where you wouldn't understand a word. And we are so deep into it and have so much joy when, from these, let's say, I don't know, 100 people who make paraglider harnesses in this world, when you naturally meet such people and can go deep into the details, that's just simply wonderful. It's just simply wonderful.
And everyone there has their own
approach, how he does it and so on and so forth. And we have our own there, too.
approach. We already have a very, very distinct approach, just because we are extremely, very small. We can't work the way most paraglider manufacturers do. That's just not possible.
Have you ever had to issue a safety notice for any of your products?
We had one once, but it wasn't ours—we didn't sew it. We had one back then.
Otherwise, the customers we have are so close to us that we can just message them directly. Since we don't know, I don't know how many hundreds of harnesses are built per series, we know how many harnesses there are and where the harnesses are.
You can actually get in touch with the customer directly. That's certainly also a small advantage when you're not that big and don't have the volume,
then you don't need that, because I know I've made this many and that many of these harnesses, they are there, there, and there, and then you inform people if there was anything where some material wasn't up to standard.
What surprises me sometimes, especially with safety notices for harnesses, is that there are three or four every year because of some seam opening here, there, or...
The rescue handle somehow doesn't work properly or comes apart, and other things like that. Can't this be handled in terms of development and quality control so that we could do without it? I mean, even well-known manufacturers have to release things like that and say, "Yeah, that seam didn't quite work right." Can't you really always sew it in a way where you can say the seams are okay?
It's hard to say, I think the others have already said the essentials in the preliminary discussion. We ourselves don't fly, but the companies that sew the products for the larger firms usually don't fly themselves, and yeah, it's like... if we're sitting at the sewing machine, we're flying, and if we make a static seam, we're in the air, and it's crystal clear that it has to hold. And you always have something on a machine that might not be good, and that can cause a problem, and if you do it from this perspective, the way we do it,
you're already pretty much ruling that out, including the checks and everything else we do. That's likely why we've probably never had a significant incident that endangered anyone; it comes very likely from that. And the big manufacturers, they have to approach it differently, but the bigger they are, the more these companies differ from us, and those are issues we look at for ourselves and not really on a large scale—we don't look at what's left and right, we go our own way. But we certainly understand why such safety notices exist here from a purely, let's say, material and sewing perspective.
Maybe go back a bit, you asked if it couldn't be prevented, that such safety notices are necessary? I think you could certainly minimize that with a certain amount of effort, but I also think it's important that these safety notices exist and that there are platforms where such safety notices are shared, because everything humans do, mistakes can happen, and to exclude that 100%, that's impossible. The question is only how much effort do you have to invest to minimize that to a small percentage? It's a bit of a balancing act, which effort is worth it and what has actually already happened?
And a lot has certainly happened with all the manufacturers; everyone is learning, we are still in a young sport. If we compare it to parachuting, for example, where they had much more time to learn and they implement things differently, and we are certainly on... or generally, the harness manufacturers are all improving, from my point of view, for the better, because they have more time to learn. The price development of the harness manufacturers also certainly plays a role. Prices have simply risen over the last ten years, and exactly that point you mentioned,
also has to do with the price. If we look at how much material a parachute harness needs and what it costs and how much time that takes, it's a different price level, and with paragliding we're also moving in a more professional direction, and I think that also plays a big role. I think these things are becoming less frequent because the items are also being approached more expensively in production, you have to say.
The parachute scene, I'd say, is pretty conservative. So, what has proven itself once, that's how it's built, and there are always the wide harness straps and other things, not much is changed there. But in the paragliding scene, there's still a lot of development involved, and even in terms of materials, new things are constantly being tried out. So, new fabrics come along, or you say, "Now let's build a lightweight harness," then we just do without the straps and instead use dynamic ropes or something like that. And of course, you always learn along the way, but there's still so much innovation in there that you actually have to say, a truly functioning standard can't really form. Are we a bit too adventurous in the paragliding scene?
No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think if you bring up this point, we have to say clearly that our materials and our developments are always closely linked to the outdoor industry. That is, a weaving mill that makes something for climbing, something new that is better and good, will then also be used for paragliding. That is something very close, and there are, of course, super cool new developments there, and I don't think that after 30, 34 years of paragliding, we are already at the point where we could say that. That's what makes it so exciting. Jumping, on the other hand, is 100 years old.
We
...talk about 30. Are there any current trends on the market, in terms of construction or something like that, where you say it's going in the wrong direction, from your perspective, in terms of quality? Not necessarily.
in terms of quality expectations, but it's not just in the paraglider sector; I see that generally, everything always has to be lighter. Carbon instead of nylon, for example. That's my personal opinion, and the problem is that people don't have deep, long-term experience with the light material; instead, they assume it's been tested like the heavy material used to be, and they assume it'll still be just as strong and just as good in 5 or 6 years. From my point of view, or rather, I have to say, customers treat the light material the same way, or similarly, as they used to treat the heavy material.
The awareness of lighter materials might not hold up as well or as long. From my point of view, some pilots lack this. They want the lightest harness with paper-thin fabric for the leg loop, but then they step into it with crampon-compatible boots and feel like it's supposed to hold the same as the old harness they had before, which weighed 3 to 4 kilos. And a bit of the understanding regarding lightweight material is still missing for many pilots, in my view. And the great thing is, as a small company, we can always decide for ourselves which materials
we want to use, how light we want to build something, and for what purpose. Even if an end customer calls us, we don't say we have the product and it would be good; instead, it looks like this: first, how big and heavy are you, are you a mountaineer, what do you do, what do you like, and then we can say this fabric and this weight class is necessary, or this, this, or this. For example, if you bring it up just like that, the X-Alps certainly had a huge impact on this lightweight thing; we also had, over 10 years ago, a harness, in 2009, 2013, it was 2013.
Did you develop the harness for Kriegel? We built a harness there that weighed 850 grams, a liege harness with 850 grams; I don't think there was ever anything else in that weight class with cabins and interactions. That
was a
integrated reserve glider compartment. Yes. And the goal was very clear: if Kriegel lands on the river in Zell am See, the harness—uh, in Monaco, sorry, other direction. Back then. Exactly. Then the harness should be shredded. Only the static straps should hold, otherwise we built it too heavy. A year later, he did the X-Pyrénée with the same harness, but that's a completely different approach. There, you look at how light I can build it, because it's specifically for this application. Or we built harnesses that didn't exist decades ago, where, for example, Ueli Steck wanted to go to Mount Everest and take off from there.
And then we built a training harness with heavy material, and the effective material that he then carried up—he unfortunately couldn't fly down, it was super light. And it was only for this purpose. And with that, you can already do some cool stuff, you can handle completely different weights. You really push the limits there. And the training harness, he had to bring that back to us so that it doesn't go into circulation, so it won't be flown again. And then, of course, you can experiment.
How often, or not how often, but do you actually test all your products yourselves? So, are you basically your own tandem pilots, test pilots, who say, "You sit comfortably in there"? Or do you work together with the customers, they provide the feedback, and then you just make the adjustments?
So we've had people testing for us now, or rather, we've always had them. Especially in the tandem area, we're talking about pilots who do 1,500, 1,600 flights a year. You can give them a harness for three months and they'll test as much in such a short time as would be completely impossible for us as normal pilots. Of course, you go flying yourself, because we can also go flying right out the front door. We can fly from the sewing machine to the mountain, try things out, we can mark things out in the air with a marker, we can come down, land, make changes, and half an hour later we're back on the mountain.
So we already do that. But with tandem pilots, there are people with a lot of experience. But there are also specific things you can explicitly test, and we have various people who test those for us as well. So, yeah. I think it's also important that we have people who test things for us because we're very uncomplicated and, to put it bluntly, we're happy if we can sit in an IKEA bag and fly down. It flies, it fits. We're not picky about that, I'd say. And the best test pilots are actually the slightly picky pilots.
The worst test pilots are the ones you give something to test and they say, "Hey, great." Because, yeah, you need the people who say, "Yeah, it might have pressed a bit here, and it wasn't quite good, so something still needs to be changed." People who just think the products are great—those are actually the good test pilots, I'd say, the ones who move you forward.
When you get feedback or criticism like that, do you always take it positively and say, "Oh, great, I need to think about that again"? Or is it also frustrating, thinking, "I thought I had a great solution"? For me, it's frustrating when
I don't know, it's more like, when I hear "everything's great." Yeah, exactly, if a colleague says, "Hey, go fly that, give us some feedback," and he comes back and says, "Hey, great." That's actually like, I don't want to hear that; I want to hear how we can improve it, not that everything is great. And for me, we definitely differ there—it's always about getting better. It can't be that something is finished. But you also have to, you have to learn that over the years, if someone says something and it's good, that it's also fine for you to use it like that. Exactly, it doesn't always have to be good for us, but ultimately the customer has to be satisfied. I'm saying now, if we make a custom build, we don't have to be satisfied; we have to be able to stand behind it.
But the customer has to be satisfied, the one who ultimately pays for it. And that's something you sometimes have to learn—that other people might find something good that we don't. When it comes to technical details and so on, that's a different story. But I'd say, in terms of convenience or handling, it doesn't mean that just because we don't like something or like something, the customer sees it right away. We're talking explicitly about custom builds for, for example, flight schools, tandem companies. We have many customers who have their own aircraft from us, and we stand behind those too. Maybe a detail isn't exactly how we would do it, but they are aircraft components.
You usually find them, funnily enough, we've been doing them for years but never really published them or anything. Advertised. Or advertised or something. There are some products we've never advertised, but have actually been building for a long time. And with our own products, we stand by the fact that it can always be a little bit better. And if it's just a very small idea, application, that a customer brought us because they aren't happy with it, we've improved it and that's how we keep going, and going, and going. But we wouldn't, I'd say, change a detail on our series product that a customer doesn't like and we don't think it's good, I'd say, or we don't think it's perfect.
Then we wouldn't change that in the series. If nine out of ten customers say, "Hey, I want a different buckle on the chest strap. I want a steel buckle so the passengers hear a click and it's closed," even if it doesn't have any static benefits, if nine out of ten say it, then of course we do it. Even if we know a plastic buckle would be sufficient. And otherwise, sure, we try to respond to the feedback from our test pilots as best as we can. We also know a bit about which people we need to give the material to for testing. It doesn't help if we give it to a tandem rookie, let's say...
give a harness for testing. He does about three tandem flights a year, but it's supposed to be a harness for 1,000 wings a year. That doesn't achieve anything, of course.
Now, you come from paragliding, you make products for paragliders, but you also make a few products for others. What if this other market were to grow? Would that perhaps be less fun for you? Does paragliding and this feeling of flight—and you say when sewing, it's like flying, or when I'm sewing, I'm flying, and stuff like that—does that have anything to do with this fascination? Does flying contribute to the work, and would there be less passion involved with other products when sewing? There are already projects that
don't trigger the same feeling. For me, for example, it's when I'm planning something. If
I mean one
designers have to do, who specify exactly how I want it, how many pieces of it I need, then that can be a lot of work for me. But when it goes into development for other things, then it's exciting because you have so many synergies, also again for paragliding, that it's cool and that it's becoming more and other things, that is decided from year to year. For us, it's important that we're not just at home in paragliding, as our history has always been that we want to have a sustainable company.
That is, if we look at the Corona crisis, it's clear that no one was flying tandem, no one was ordering chariots, and for us, for example, it was important that we...
That we can make helicopter accessories, or this or that, or that we do a lot of things we already do—these are developments that go in completely different directions. So, to some extent, we are also trying to develop technologies, and whether those are needed for paragliding or for something else doesn't really matter. But it matters that we can operate as a business.
Regardless of whether, for example, the economy collapses and we don't actually do anything for the economy anymore, having paragliding, yes, having different customers is important. Yes, to be as broadly positioned as possible and still have fun and be able to develop new things, like for example the one project we had or still have... Yes, that was also an idea from old paragliding acro colleagues: how can I still use a decommissioned paraglider rescue [harness] meaningfully, how can I use it with an old paraglider rescue [harness] and supplies to throw something out of a small plane so that the whole thing works safely.
We did most of the development there. With tests and so on, so that you can safely drop relief supplies from various different old paraglider rescues onto the plane.
Yes, that's the Humanitarian Pilots Initiative. Exactly, yeah. I've had Fabio Zragen on the podcast before, he talked about it then. And I believe you simply developed the bag that hangs under the glider, which is built in such a way that whatever is inside stays relatively intact. That was one thing. The other...
was definitely the whole system of how the rescue glider is packed, how the lines are gathered, the packing method—how the rescue glider or the round canopy, or usually the cross canopy, is packed, so that you don't need a specialist packer, but that someone who's been shown how to do it twice can pack it and it works. So the whole system there, where the rescue glider goes in, the bag where the relief supplies are, with the outer container attached—basically the whole system. We also had the opportunity to test that here, and of course, we had a lot of fun with it. So we were able to develop it, and we still produce the key components here in Switzerland.
Everything that is sensitive, we still do here in Switzerland.
Let's slowly come to an end. I just have one question. We're sitting here with you. In the workshop, there are a dozen sewing machines just standing around. Why do you need so many? These are
Industrial sewing machines. They can do one thing. For example, they can sew in a straight line. And only in a straight line. They can only sew in a straight line, but they can do it for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, over a long period of time. And they can also be fast. That's why we have so many machines here.
And as sewing nerds, let's just say, do you have like a personal relationship with every machine? I'd say a little bit, I'd say.
to say. Yeah, I think everyone has their favorite machine to some extent.
What makes it that? What makes a machine a favorite? That's hard to say.
Often it's like this: you prefer sitting at one. You might have three machines that can actually do the same thing. But if you have a choice, you always pick this one. Because it sounds different or because it's so
sews so cleanly?
It sounds different. It has a different feel.
The gas pedal, I'd say, reacts a bit differently. The settings are such small things. You can sew with any of them, no problem. But when they're all free and I can choose, then I think about it. I don't, I sit at this one. So we have relationships with our sewing machines. Actually scary, but that's how it is. We already had a sewing machine. No, we don't talk to it, but mentally we do. Now go ahead or us,
and we what? Well, mentally
you have connections, clearly. Yes, definitely. We also had one of the first sewing machines, a triple transport sewing machine for slightly heavier fabrics. I bought it in Riccardo. I tinkered with it for a long time until it eventually ran on its own. And that was one of the first sewing machines we had. Back at our place in the shared apartment, in a small cell, we sewed the first things. And we once said that if we no longer had this sewing machine, we could stop. Then we could go back to working on the construction site. Then it wouldn't be fun anymore. And now it isn't. It even has a name. It's a Singer sewing machine, but it only says Inge on it anymore.
That's Inge.
Do all of your machines have a name?
Yes, more technical, actually. So they're called D.D.L. or... So they're not the Inge we had.
and Susanne, she was the Inge.
But are the sewing machines always feminine?
No, I wouldn't put it that way. Most of the names we have have more to do with what they can do. And maybe not how they look, but the binding or the triple zigzag or the gathering machine, the regulator, or the sewing field. So even in Swiss German, we talk like that, it sounds like... Simon, you said on the D.D.L., you know, the bobbin tension is weird, can't you quickly check that? And then Simon says, hey, but just quickly go to the gathering regulator, you know, it runs better then. Yeah, exactly, it sounds roughly like that. And
when you have these machines here, is there also something like—to speak in sewing nerd terms—where you say there's a machine that you absolutely want to have at some point? Like, you buy a new one every year and say you're expanding the range, you want to be able to produce something else. Do you say there's one, like a dream machine, the Edelroboter or whatever it is?
We like to dream, that's definitely true. But ultimately, whatever we buy or acquire in terms of new machines, there's always a reason—that it makes a work step easier, more pleasant to sew, or at least faster. And ideally, one machine goes out and a new one comes in. Yes. Because we've had many, we still have the Inge. But during that Inge era, we've already had many sewing machines and made sure that they also... Or they go away because we simply have new machines.
They weren't broken, but you're saying something better is coming into the house now. No, or something else. Exactly. We don't need this one,
...but we need these specifically, and therefore, ideally, they stay in the house, moving down a bit. They're still needed there.
Where do you see Flugsau in five or ten years? Do you have a vision of how you want to evolve, or do you only ever work in the moment? I always have quite a few...
visions. I'm one of those people who really likes to think about the future, ten or fifteen years out. And there you come in as a different part.
I'm basically more of a here and now person. And sure, you think about where you want to be in five years, and I want to still be enjoying what I do in five years. I don't want a workforce of ten people because I'm aiming for growth. I'd rather do fewer products. Yes, I do fewer, but what I do, I do myself, rather than just developing products and having everything produced externally. That's what I actually want, or what I enjoy. And not just... I only want to set up two production lines that produce the things for me, and yeah, so that the whole thing still remains fun.
And as I said, for example, I also enjoy making 200 safety belts for roller coasters; that work itself is something that gives me extreme pleasure, and not just the process of the work, but how can I simplify it with template building and
...and so on. How can I simplify it by building templates and so on. That means you're developing your own assembly line work, in a way. So you're not just the assembly line worker, but in some ways, you're also the assembly line developer. Yes,
I really enjoy that. How can I build or tinker with something that makes mass production easier for me? So that sewing those 200 pieces is also fun. And developing these setups or contraptions—that's something I find extremely fun, for example. I'd call that Simon's fetish, and it's wonderful to watch. It's just lovely to watch. Do you have a fetish too? Uh, many.
Simon, tell us your fetish.
What is
the nerdiest thing about André? The nerdiest thing,
that he can practically bother me every morning of the week over coffee with some new idea. And one of... or one idea out of the thousands, is then really cool.
So for me, it's like, he dreams and has visions and ideas, and he's also the brutally creative type. Sometimes in the morning it's a bit much when he texts me about everything he dreamed or everything he's thinking. But he always comes up with actually great inputs where, ah, that's really cool. A lot, too. I also have to switch off a bit, turn on some selective hearing, because otherwise it would just be too much for me. But it comes, so extremely creative and mostly not thought through at all, just the idea. Somehow an idea is out there. And Simon, the poor guy, he really has to listen to what's going through my head every single morning.
Exciting. We laugh too. Yeah, totally. We don't take it too seriously. No, you're not allowed to. And we sometimes feel sorry for each other when we have to listen to our trains of thought like that. But I think that's what makes us as Flugsau. Yeah, I mean, if we weren't like that, we wouldn't be at the point,
where we are now. Every morning, do you dream about sewing? Do you dream about products like that too? No, but I've almost...
a new idea every day. I think you could put it that way. And if not, then Simon is on vacation. That means you have an idea when he's there, so that you can help him out with it.
What was the last one, where you say, a really cool idea out of the thousand he mentioned? Most of the time, it's...
how should I put it, I can't just say "this is the idea," but usually it stems from a whim—to put it a bit harshly—it results in a great solution for a problem. Where we actually... Usually or often, it's like there's some idea there, but it's not for a problem or anything at all. That means you have
the idea and think, what kind of problem is this a solution for, more or less?
That can happen, yeah. And then you're just standing there thinking, hm, ah, hey André, you had an idea about that. And then, it's usually just the initial spark for something to eventually come out of it. If you can put it like that,
I think so. Yes.
Where do all these ideas come from?
It's just in my nature to want to approach things differently. I'm a fan,
when I can create something myself, no matter how complex it is. I always prefer... I'd rather do something new that works for me,
instead of taking something that already exists. And you just... you have ideas, but they are also our... We have such cool clients. Yeah. We have such great clients. And you talk to them on the phone. So you have a client every day who is somehow... And that naturally gives us... or gives me... that to think about, and then I try to have solutions, and that manifests as... Yeah, and if you study a problem or think about how to solve it, then maybe the solution comes, or the next one. And that's how the whole thing develops. Sometimes it happens pretty quickly, and there are several ideas out there.
Or also solutions. If you talk to your client in the evening, like, yeah, I'd like to have this and that... and then in the morning he tells me three or four different solution approaches, and then we briefly discuss them and usually you have a solution or also
only a week later. Regarding the distribution of roles, if you're the source of ideas in so many things, what do you, Simon, say is where I play to my strengths here?
So it's not that I'm the only one bringing the ideas, I just provide the quantity of ideas. But Simon is exactly the same, so I wouldn't say I'm the... That means you have the
quantity and maybe he has the quality? No, a bit... No, no, he's maybe a qualitative filter.
Yes, clearly. That hits pretty close to the mark, yeah. But then you also need, I mean, you can't do it without ideas.
How should I put it? In some... in some things, I'm more of a theorist than others. Where, of course, the problem or the solution is right there, but I also think much further ahead about what the consequences are, even economically—how it works, how we have to do it with the offsetting, and so on. I do most of the bookkeeping, let's just say. The other guy always feels guilty when I'm sitting at the PC calculating and checking; I feel sorry for him, Simon. I still enjoy doing it. And I could have hired someone for that a long time ago. Then he just sits there in the office and I feel sorry for him, but he still enjoys doing it and that's also good.
It's nice when those kinds of complementary qualities are definitely there. You can actually say that in general...
...say that because of how different we are, we complement each other very well. And it's only through that difference, and still getting along or finding solutions, that we are where we are today. Because, as I said, if we all had the same opinions about everything... No, that's just not possible. Yeah, then you wouldn't need two people.
Could you imagine continuing if one of us said, I don't want to do this anymore?
Yes, that day will come. At some point, I'll be fascinated. Yes, I think so too. Then I'll be fascinated. Then I'll be fascinated. Then maybe I'll still walk around here. Then I will
fascinated. Then there are
yeah, another 20
Years to go, about that. Then there are about 20 years to go. But would you say that this passion you have, you have it mainly because you do it as a team? Or is this passion also from within yourselves, such that you'd say, okay, if one of you wasn't there, I would still have become such a visionary? I
I don't know if I... I don't know if I... I mean, if my... I mean, if my life would have developed this way if I hadn't met other people. Fundamentally, we both have that in us, because from our childhood, what we did and we didn't know anything about each other, whether we would have done something in this direction, you can't say.
He asked... He asked if we would keep doing this. If we would continue. For us, there was once a clear rule that anyone can say at any time if they don't want to anymore, and then we'll see. But everyone should be able to develop personally, because we are actually self-employed, work relatively a lot, and we never wanted the other person to have to do something they didn't want to do. By now, of course, we are already deeply involved in stories that don't just run for two or three years, but can run for, exaggeratedly speaking, decades.
And we have a certain responsibility that I think we'd like to take on for our customers. I think that fits quite well, definitely. But day X will come. So if I head off on the scooter from Graz to Dobel tomorrow, driving straight down the mountain, then you have to see. Yes, then we'll see. And we're already... So yes, I don't really make these thoughts myself, because if someone ever drops out, it will somehow continue, maybe in a completely different way.
But let me just say, if I say I'd like to work on-site again after ten years, then we factor that in, and the company will continue in its own way. I don't think it will just stop existing tomorrow. What we are looking at very clearly, though, is because we... we want to do something that is sustainable. And for us, that means, for example, we have two servers running. One is grid-independent, the other isn't. We document our work processes. We store them. We have other people whom we train.
We talk to each other. Look, like, like, like... that basically everyone could do everything. In case, for example, something happens to one of them. But that takes a lot of time and you have to find your way. And that's where young people like our worker come in; they show us how we can do it so that it works.
Now for the last question: paragliding and sewing—which is your passion? Which one could you do without more easily? Tough question.
Yeah, I think you don't have to...
I wouldn't want to give up anything.
That's not possible at all. The question doesn't hold up. The two belong together a bit. If you don't sew, you can't go paragliding. They go together. You can't do without sewing, because then you wouldn't have a paraglider.
That's why I can only put it this way. You need both. One doesn't work without the other. You can spin it however you want, but yeah, I couldn't answer that question either, because there's no reason why I wouldn't be able to do one of them anymore.
Should I just leave it at that? You'll keep flying, you'll keep sewing, and you'll probably make many more great products for the paraglider scene. Thanks for the conversation. Thanks for all the interesting background and insights you've provided. And yes, have fun with your continued work with Flugsau. Thanks a lot.
Podz-Glidz is the podcast of the paraglider blog Loglites. Both are produced by me, Lucian Haas, and, although very different from Flugsau, are also the result of a lot of passion and manual work. If you like what I offer here and would like to receive even more of it, then I would appreciate your support in the form of a financial contribution. Thank you in advance for that.
Podz-Glidz and Blueglides are available ad-free and without a paywall. However, there is a lot of time, work, and some costs behind them. As a supporter, you can help ensure that I can continue to offer and develop both projects for the paraglider scene. You decide how much you want to give. My non-binding suggestion is 60 euros a year, or about 5 euros a month. All the information on how your contribution reaches me can be found on the website www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com. There is a menu item called Support. Blueglides is spelled Lu-Glidz.
Until next time. Don't fall from the sky. Ciao.