Every one of us knows exactly what we can't do, and that's our problem, because we limit ourselves in our own heads even though it's actually possible. I've proven to myself that it is possible, and I've also actually realized how I see myself. And if I generalize it again, it's about how you limit yourself because you just don't believe in yourself or your head says it's not possible, and once you've overcome that, a perspective opens up for you, because then nothing is impossible, you can do anything.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast,
Stories from
the cosmos of paragliding, today with Stefan Stiegler and I am Lucian Haas.
Imagine your doctor tells you that you actually need a new knee because the cartilage is gone, but you just don't listen to him. Instead, you start training and six years later, you cross the finish line as a finisher at the famous Ironman triathlon competition in Hawaii, and you're over 50 years old.
Maybe you're wondering what this story has to do with a paraglider podcast. It's the story of Stefan Stiegler. In 1995, at 26, Stefan became paraglider world champion. Later, he designed gliders for Yuppie, among others. In 2011, he founded the brand together with Martin Gostner. He built it into one of the global players in the market. Two years ago, he brought the first ENC2 liner to the market with the Volt 4.
What still drives him in his life is what this 158th episode of Podz-Glidz is all about. We're talking about topics like sporting ambition, competition, pushing personal boundaries, and how important it is to grow beyond yourself within the framework of your often underestimated own possibilities. And of course, it's also about the question of how these topics manifest in Stefan's everyday life as a paraglider designer. Stefan talks about how difficult it is to make today's gliders even better, how progress actually emerges from the constant working through of problems, and what it means that more and more paragliders have been carrying winglets on the outer wing lately.
Since you're listening to the podcast, why not become a supporter of Podz-Glidz? We'll explain how to do that in the next episode. How it's very easy to do is on the Lu-Glidz Gleitschirm-Blog, specifically on the "Fördern" page.
Stefan, we're almost the same age. You're 55, I'm 54, but you're one step ahead of me. You can now officially be called an Iron Man. Yeah, yeah, that's true. What drove you
what drove you to Hawaii at this age? Actually, nothing in the end. It just sort of happened that way. But it actually started about, let's say, five or six years ago. I was never really an unathletic person, like most of us. We go to the mountains or whatever. But you always have the feeling that it's so exhausting. I went up a mountain with a buddy of mine back then, and he was training with a coach for the X-Alps. I went along with him once and realized how bad I actually was at climbing. He just jumped up there like it was nothing. The coach, Flo, kept saying, "not so fast, not so fast." I was already like, "I can't anymore, I can't anymore." And then I just said to the coach, "Hey, can't we do something about that?"
That we just say, okay, let's do a performance diagnostic and start this a bit more seriously. And that's what we started. And in the end, you realize you've actually been doing everything wrong regarding training your whole life. Because you always have it in your head that if you want to get better, you have to train harder, more, and more intensely. But in the end, that's completely wrong. You train—you mainly train a lot of basics in the base zone. That's great for your health. Maybe we can come back to that later. And through the basics, your entire performance capacity increases, and that's what the intensive stuff is actually built on. That means 80 to 90 percent of your training you're actually only doing in the base zone. So, actually quite easy. And the last 10 to 20 percent is then like intervals or fast stuff, or really when you're actually huffing and puffing.
From that perspective. And yeah. It actually worked. But it was really just sort of in the background, so to speak. I'd say, okay, it's easier for me to hike up a mountain now and I have a base level of fitness so that all of this isn't so difficult for me anymore. And that already changed a lot back then, because I knew, okay, how this works. And then one day my trainer calls me and says, "Hey Stefan, I've now become a coach for Ironman triathlons. I could train you for a triathlon now. Don't you want to start?" Yeah, why not? The thing was, I couldn't run a kilometer. Because I had problems with my knees. I couldn't swim. And cycling didn't really work because of the knees either. My kneecap always got irritated because I just didn't have any more cartilage under it. I thought, yeah, that's a cool challenge.
Let's give it a try. And it started with the middle distance. You always have this goal in front of you and you think to yourself, you'll never manage that. It's not possible. And then you manage it anyway. And after that, it's actually always possible. And it becomes... it always gets easier. Of course, your fitness keeps getting better over the years. It always gets easier. And you push your limits. And that's when I did my first middle distance. Second, third. And then you notice, yeah, what are we doing now? This isn't a challenge anymore. Yeah, and then of course there's the king of disciplines, the Ironman, the long distance. So, just under four kilometers of swimming, 180 kilometers of cycling, and then a marathon. And on top of that, running. And then you're standing there again thinking, I'll never manage that.
Never. How is that supposed to work?
But you do the first one. That was obviously super hard. That was clear. In the marathon, I barely walked for the rest of the race after the halfway point. I said to myself, I'm going to finish this. I'm going to finish this. And then I said, yeah, I can't let it end like this. I have to do it again. I can do better. And that's basically how it started. And for decades now, I've actually kept getting better. And now, in my age group, I'm consistently right at the top. Top 10, always. Always in the thing. And this year, I still had some scores to settle with Langfurt, because I've been trying for the last three or four years. I never made the cut. And then I thought, okay, I'm doing it this year. But then the training in the spring went so well that I thought, hm, a good time could come out of that. Well, let's see where the results lists are and what the qualifying times for Kona turn out to be.
And then I did the math and said, okay, Stefan, if it's going to be like that, you really have to give it your all. Yeah, let's see. And you see, I actually got a slot. And then I thought, okay, then you just do it. And so I went to Kona, I flew there too. And in the end, it didn't work out that way for my goal, but you really notice when you're there—the people who actually qualify for Kona, their performance level is already top-notch, of course. And they all live for the spirit and so on. And you just soak it all in. And you can't imagine that if you haven't done it yourself. But you really soak it in. And you live it. And you will never, never forget it again. I always say, in our society today, if we're generalizing,
everyone knows exactly what they can't do. And that's our problem, because we limit ourselves in our own heads, even though it's actually possible. And I proved to myself that it is possible. And I also basically realized for myself, how do I actually see myself, if we're generalizing again. Because you just don't believe in yourself. Or your head says it's not possible. And once you've overcome that, a perspective opens up for you. And you think, yeah, it's all possible. You can do anything. And of course, you can't just apply that to sports, but you can transfer it to your whole life. It's really like an attitude toward life. And in that sense, I've taken a lot from my attitude over the last few years,
attitude towards life and so on, health and so on, I've gained a lot from that and said to myself, I just like this and I want to keep going on this path.
I want to take a step back for a moment, just to understand the timeline. You said about five or six years ago, with this training where you were racing up the mountain and realized you just couldn't keep up anymore. Did you really go from basically zero to Ironman in just six years?
Yes. Wow. And what's more, those were physical ailments that you get, like, yeah, you go to the doctor, he tells you your kneecap is broken, you have no lubrication, so no cartilage, it's rubbing, it's getting dry. He says we have to inject hyaluronic acid now, or he offered me a new knee as far back as 15 years ago. I would have been too young for that. And I probably, because I'm such a stubborn dog, said no, you definitely don't do that. And since then, it's been working again. So you can really see the influence of the body, of the head. Like, I want to do it now. If you turn it completely around, it's like, you go to the doctor, you're told a diagnosis, and that twists around in your head so much that the body ends up doing it too. Just imagine, you turn it completely around, you go to the doctor.
Of course, it's physical; you have the X-ray and whatever else.
But then you just don't accept that and say, no, I'm changing that now.
And apparently, this hasn't just happened to me once, but more often. With my back, for example, they already wanted to fuse it 20 years ago. I said no, definitely not. If I reflect on that now with all the experiences I've had and how the spirit—meaning the head and the body—actually work together,
And it seems that hasn't just happened to me once, but more often. With my back, for example, twenty years ago they already wanted to stiffen it. I said no, definitely not. If I reflect on that now with all the experience I've gained and how the spirit—meaning the head and the body—actually work together, then I basically come to the conclusion that we are extremely limiting ourselves in terms of health, or even making ourselves sick. And the thing is, if you were to basically flip that around, then you could make yourself healthy by doing exactly the opposite.
You should do that. It's worth thinking about.
That means the best doctor would be the one who comes and says, your knee is broken, so start training for a triathlon. In extreme cases, it doesn't have to be like that.
But it's really about having an image in your head and having to change that, ultimately. You have to say, okay, I want to work against this. I'll assume, okay, I know it's some disease or something in my body isn't working right anymore. But you have to accept that first, and then you change it. And you have to have the will to work on it and restore it. And then, funnily enough, it works. That's my experience. And I think we've completely moved away from that standpoint, especially in recent years. It's going completely in the wrong direction. People just jump to the doctor, to the pharmacy. For every little ache and pain, they get a medication. For the side effects, they get another medication or something.
But in the end, people completely forget the basis of health—that you have to look at your health first. And the last thing is, if it's no longer working, then of course medicine comes into play. But right now, it's exactly the opposite. Everyone goes somewhere immediately and gets some kind of solution because that would be the easy way. But working on yourself or changing things from the ground up, no one seems to do that anymore. And that's actually sad, because you can see that society is becoming increasingly sick. And it's not just about living longer; it's about having healthy years of life, right? You want to stay long and healthy, and not end up dependent on someone else or something like that at some point.
And I believe the solution is really just that you stay active. It doesn't have to be an Ironman. That's a completely different story, what they do like that. Because there, it's more about setting goals, reaching goals, and basically moving forward and just staying active. It's totally individual. Everyone can set their own goals. But the basis for my opinion, my thing, is simply movement and nutrition. Those are the two pillars of health. And only then can you look further if something were to happen. So, you should flip the whole thing around a bit. But I know what's been going on over the last few years with the fearmongering, the scare tactics, and so on and so forth.
So the entire healthcare system has completely flipped. And nothing else matters anymore. In my eyes, that's very sad, let's just say. And it would be absolutely life-saving if we could get the whole of society moving so much more, if we really looked at health fundamentally again. Things that are good for your health, like movement above all—not strenuous movement. That's what I learned at the very beginning about training to get better: don't train intensely. Train at a steady pace. That's why I say, for example, e-bikes are the best thing there is. Because then you're moving with less intensity. That's exactly what the body needs. And there are so many studies on that by now. And no matter whether they are health studies or high-performance studies, there
the results are the same everywhere. Low-intensity movement is good for health, good for sports, good for performance, for everything.
Then there's Hike and Fly, which you could probably call a health sport, because you hike up the mountains relatively comfortably and then get a nice flight down for the soul.
Exactly, that's the second aspect, that we actually absorb all the energy from nature. That's the calming part of the mountains, where you're standing up there, you get that feeling, and it really recharges you energetically. But maybe you don't quite hit that point. As I said, one person or another might not absorb or perceive it that way, but you still feel the effect. That's why you do it, really. Or as I said, for me, it's
it's almost like a meditation sometimes, especially when I'm out alone. So I really enjoy doing that, and then sitting up there, and also the hiking—I don't have many huge athletic goals, but a lot of it is just really taking in nature, enjoying it, getting out of my head, because I'm usually a very heady person, and then knowing, okay, I've basically switched off my head for two hours now.
And then there's the fact that you run through all the stress. You run through everything down in the valley. That means you really switch off; you leave all the anxiety, the stress, all your tasks—that all stays down in the valley. And you're up there.
Is that something you'd say you've rediscovered in recent years with your training and all that? Or did you have that before too? Or would you say, "Man, this thing I've just discovered for myself, also this physical, health-related stuff, I wish I'd had that as a kid too"? I...
I've always perceived that, but now I actually perceive it even more, much more intensely, because I actually feel more and I can do more with it. I had an ankle fracture about ten years ago. It was a really stupid story. After landing, a passenger fell onto my foot and the foot was then sticking out at a 90-degree angle downwards. So it's also stupid and it's a very severe injury. And I was then, well. And in Austria, we have the typical rehab, where the cast, so basically, is put on.
Oh, I'm not a fan. I don't think anyone really likes that. And I looked around a bit, internationally, because I have many friends and coincidentally many of them are physiotherapists, doctors, and so on from other countries. And they said, well, no way, a cast or whatever. And we have to do it this way and that way. Then I drew my own conclusions. After just a few short weeks, I cut my own cast off. And. And then I started my rehab right away. And I didn't do classic physiotherapy, but did it on an energetic basis, like osteopathy. And that's what worked, to get the shock out again, to change the image, the same thing. And to restore the energies, so that the self-healing powers are basically activated. Accompanied, of course, by physiotherapy with mechanical loading and so on.
But bottom line is, my recovery was almost a third to a half faster. I recovered and was able to walk again faster than anyone else. So it works. During that time, I learned an extreme amount about energetics—what actually surrounds us everywhere. And we've actually unlearned how to use it. I mean, everyone can actually do it. But because of all the external influences, we've just unlearned how to perceive it. And then, actually, if you can perceive it, you can use it too. And because of my accident—I'm telling you, it almost had to happen like that, because everything is actually built on that again. Back then, I was just before a burnout.
Yes, I worked at least 60 hours a week. I took everything with me into my sleep, day and night. At night, I even designed gliders in my dreams. That was the early period of
Air Design,
or? Yeah, that was the early days. If you say, 10 years ago
or something like that. Yeah,
Yeah, yeah. You took the construction into your dreams. And in the morning, you woke up and implemented it on the computer. You really hadn't switched off anymore. You had nothing. You were really on the verge of burnout. And then something like this happens. And then you're lying on the stretcher before the surgery. You still have your phone on the right and you still want to organize a few more things. We still have to do this and that, and this tomorrow. And then I turned the phone off. Then the door opened. Into the OR. And then I said, okay Stefan, now it's your time. And now the point has come where you have to change that. Yes. To catch up. You decided that in that moment, for yourself. Yeah, it's useless.
The foot has to heal again, right? No, that's clear. But that was
like the breaking point. That was such a
The breaking point where you really said, okay Stefan, this can't go on like this. And probably it had to happen that way, right? That it happened now. And many people then say, oh that's terrible, so much pain and such heavy things. And I say, no, actually this is the best thing that could have happened to me. Because if this hadn't happened now... I mean, who knows where I'd be now, right? I learned so much after that, took so much out of it for my entire life going forward. And I say, yeah, probably it had to happen that way, right? It was a painful path. But I still use so many things from that time that continue to really move my whole life forward now, right?
That means you don't expect a burnout anymore today. Do you also work significantly less? You said it was 60 hours back then.
Yeah, yeah.
Is that it? So now, today, you'd rather go running, cycling, swimming, training for a triathlon, and in the background while running, you think about your glider designs?
No, no, I've completely switched that off too. I really do separate it now when I have to do design work. Of course, you get ideas in between, but then you tell yourself, yeah, not now, I'll do that tomorrow. So you really separate it. It's a matter of time management with all the training and working. In the end, I'm working now—well, physically working, because in the end, I don't have office hours in that sense. If I have something in my head or a new idea or something, then it has to come out, right? But then I might write it down or something, and then, okay, I'll do that tomorrow, right? And that's the art of saying, okay, this is the point, it's five or three or whatever, and now I'll continue tomorrow.
So, in the end, my working hours have normalized, let's put it that way. But the funny thing is, I'm getting much further now than before, when I was just stressing myself out day and night. It means that with all that strain, you don't get any further anymore. And now, with, let's say, more effective working hours—fewer working hours—I'm moving much further than before. It's a very funny effect in the end. Switching off in between is also very important, right? That you don't always carry it with you. That you just say, okay, you separate it completely. And when I go for a run or something, or uphill, uh, no, I don't take that with me. Then, bam, it's something else.
What do you think about when you go for a run, for example? Do you think about something, or is it just a steady flow?
No, it's completely different, right? So when you're doing hike and fly, you're not thinking that much. Sometimes you just think, oh, isn't it beautiful there? Or then you think about bears or something, right? And then you think, oh, I'm not going to make it if I don't keep going. So in the end, those are just very banal things, right? And when you're going up, you're already looking forward to unpacking a snack at the top, right? Those are just very basic things, right? But none of the other stuff. During training, for example, when you're swimming, you're always thinking, okay, technique, oh, position yourself there, ah, I'm noticing that again. So you're actually more occupied with the technique and stuff like that. Or with running, it's the same, ah, your foot is overstriding again, ah, focus again. And then you have your training program, how exactly you wanted to execute it with your zones, performance zones, and so on.
So you're actually constantly busy, right? In that sense.
Were you actually, back in 1995, when you were a world champion and all that, were you also as well-organized back then during your very performance-oriented paragliding era, as I'd call it, as you are today with the triathlon? Is that part of your nature?
Yes, I'm actually a very structured and organized person. I mean, my office looks really terrible right now, but I know exactly where everything is, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. Creative chaos. You could call it creative chaos. I mean, I am organized and goal-oriented, you could say. So with paragliding, it came relatively easily to me from the start, and that's why it was actually always so logical for me. I didn't really go somewhere with the goal of absolutely having to win it, but for me it was just, okay, I'm doing this now and I like it, and I know that it's going pretty well, right? So the result, well, the outcome was actually a result that just sort of happened on its own, right? And I think that's what you shouldn't put yourself under so much pressure for, because, yeah.
Which one are you more proud of? Saying, hey, I managed to go from basically zero training to Ironman within five or six years and I was a finisher with many others in Hawaii and Kona, or this world championship title in '95. What does that make? Can you even compare them at all? Does one hang a bit higher and you say, I'm prouder of that? Oh,
Wow, that's brutally difficult because they are completely different things and completely different stages of life, right? Back then, everything happened so fast with paragliding, and that was obviously the ultimate goal. If you basically achieve the world title in paragliding, then you've actually achieved everything, right?
So, yeah, you reached your goal, and now, with the Ironman, it's like, I didn't become a world champion, right? But for myself, I more than exceeded my goals, right? And what actually matters much more to me now is simply that I, that you, have overcome yourself, pushed past your limits, and you just keep going, keep going. So, they are completely different things and you can't compare them, but if you say, okay, what would it be now, what am I more proud of? I can't really say right now, it's, yeah, at the moment, the whole experience with Hawaii is just much closer now and I'm still drawing from it, right? It was just a few weeks ago, but I'm still drawing energy from it, right?
I remember it so clearly, those last 10 kilometers where I was running on the highway above and the sun was setting in all its glory, and I was actually completely at my limit, you know? I was just focused on getting it finished. But it was all just wiped away because I simply enjoyed the sunset so much and soaked up the atmosphere, right? It's just, well, those are the kinds of experiences you can't capture with a camera or a phone; you just store them in your head and pull them out again and again, and, yeah, when things get rough or whatever, you pull them out again and suddenly you start smiling again, and I just think that's beautiful, you know? Those are things that have value, yeah, and I think that's actually what it's about, collecting those moments in life that you can pull out again whenever things aren't going well, right?
But you don't have to make a big deal out of it. Like I said, when I go up into the mountains and see a sunset, yeah, you try to save that, bring it back up, and get that feeling going again, right? And that's why you do it all the time. You don't just do it once, okay, I did it, I'm done, I don't need it anymore, right? No, you get a bit addicted to it, right? You want to experience the next sunrise too, and you know from before, oh, that was so beautiful, I'm going to do that again, right? And even though they're completely different things, if you're doing an Ironman or a hike and fly, it's basically the same thing, right? Even if they're completely different activities.
Since you say they're completely different things, are there aspects where you'd say a triathlon is in some way comparable to competition situations in paragliding? For example, in a triathlon, you swim. There are, I don't know, 100 or 150 or 300, I don't know how many actually participate in an Ironman. You all go into the water at the same time, you're basically bashing through the water, it's all cramped and stuff. Is that something similar to being in a very tight gaggle in a paragliding competition where you have to fight for your position? Do you feel similarly crowded there?
Yeah, yeah, I catch myself doing that every time, right? So if you're in the water or whatever, you're swimming, I don't know, how many hundred meters, and there's always the same guy next to you, and then you think, now I really have to crush him, but I can't. So not just looking, but actually swimming past him, you know? And it's the same thing with cycling, and with running, right? Then someone passes you again and you have to think, ah, I've still got him, right? Now I have to ride past him, I can't, right? So you constantly catch yourself, over and over again. There are definitely parallels there, just like in paragliding, where you just think, now I have to push harder there and fly faster or something. But,
Yeah, you learn with time, you gain experience, and with an Ironman it's actually like, you have to pace yourself the whole time, right? You have to stay within your performance range, otherwise you wouldn't have finished if you overexerted yourself, right? You'd burn too much energy or overheat and then you'd just stop at some point, right? So you always have to, in the end, keep an eye on your performance data and just say, okay, yeah, don't let yourself be too tempted if you're being pulled away by the group or something and you want to keep up with all your might, you always have to weigh it up again, right? Can I do this now? Should I? Or should I not? But you always adapt again, like you said, right? Yeah, you still push a bit harder anyway.
And then comes the moderation again, right? I mean, the competitive thinking is always there, always there a little bit, right? So, yeah. But there's still a lot of camaraderie, and everyone wishes the other person well on their performance, and that's the nice thing, the beautiful thing, that you're not really fighting against each other, but actually doing it together. Of course, you're fighting for yourself, and sometimes against the other person again, right? But you don't know most of them when there are two and a half thousand people around you, right? You rarely have someone you know there, right? Although, it has happened to me before while running, right, my roommate shows up—I'd seen him twice while cycling first, he passed me, and then I already knew, okay, I'm the better cyclist, and then I knew when running he'd come around again, then he passed me again, and then we had another cycling shoe and I tried to keep up as long as possible, but that was really, really a great, really a bear, yeah.
This competitive mindset you have in sports, does that show up or do you live it in any way when designing paragliders? Do you measure yourself against competitors? Like, you say, I'm building an HW glider for AirDesign, I look at all the other competition too, and I want to be better than them?
So basically, regardless of whether it's a design sport, I think in sports specifically, it's about me delivering my performance. I'm not fundamentally competing against someone else; I'm trying to deliver my best performance, what I'm capable of, and then of course it depends on whether the other person is better or worse than me, and regarding that, whether I'm in front or not. It's very difficult to deliver more than you yourself are capable of. I think that's the problem where many then fail in sports, because they simply try to give more than they can. I think there's only a small handful who can really give that next percent or percentages more and it still works. Everyone else usually fails.
I always say, the typical example is ski jumping. First jump, second jump. The first jump goes quite well, then there's the interview at the halftime break, and he says, "Yeah, that jump was great and relaxed, and for the second one, I'm giving it my all and even more." We know it usually goes south, and very few people can actually jump over that thing and give even more. And in advertising competitions, yeah, that's just how it is. And I really assume, okay, I'm trying to deliver my performance. I know exactly what I can do, and I can't really influence anything more than that on my own. That depends on the others. Period.
But that's in the sporting realm. My question is aimed at how you do that when designing. I mean, how do you deal with the competition? I look at
I mainly focus on myself, right? I mean, in the end, people outside compare you more than I actually compare myself to the competition, you know? I try to forge my own path. If we take a typical example, a paraglider that's been running for 4 or 5 years, the time comes around to renew it and we basically already know, okay, what we're trying to improve and so on, right? So the process is actually quite logical and I don't have to compare myself that much because you know where you stand. And I think the comparisons actually come much more from the pilots themselves, from the outside, who compare all sorts of things and then see who handles better, who glides better and so on, right? So I'm not really at that standpoint at all. Do you fly other
gliders? Just for comparison. So, for you, where do they stand, like, okay, let's say I take an Ozone, a Nova, an Advance, and a Nivio Care and say, okay, these are maybe my main competitors. How do they fly? Just to get an impression.
In the high-performance range, of course, it's unavoidable that you look at where the benchmark is and then you just compare, because it's mainly about performance, right? So, I can't just say for myself, oh, that's good enough. No, you have to compare realistically to say, okay, that's where you stand, right? That's clear. But normally with all the other gliders or something, I actually do that quite rarely. Almost not at all, actually.
You just build your gliders,
from the ones you're talking about, I'm convinced of. I build my gliders and I'm convinced that they are the way I imagine them, right? And I think that works quite well, because the feedback from the pilots is actually good, if you put it like that. And the funny thing is, between the manufacturers or whatever, here in our Zillertal-Achensee region, there's Nova, Skywalk,
Fee, well, we're there, I mean, there are already many manufacturers around us, right? We don't really have that kind of competitive thinking between each other, right? Not how people might think, right? So, you just tell each other, how are you doing? And then you say, well, yeah, right? And sometimes you don't let everything out regarding the new gliders, right? But it's not that competitive thinking you'd expect, right? Or that one person doesn't want the other to succeed, right?
How far do you look into other gliders? I mean, not just "I'm going for a flight," but for you as a designer, it's probably much more interesting: what are the detailed solutions? How did they perhaps solve certain suspension elements inside the glider or something like that? So, as a designer, do you sometimes literally get inside other gliders or even cut them open to say, "Hey, this interests me. What did they do technically there?" or something like that?
Yeah, you're right. That's the thing, the magic happens inside the glider now, doesn't it? There's so much know-how packed into the interior of the glider now with all the tensions, tapes, and distributions and so on. It's really such brutal fine-tuning happening inside the glider. And you do look at certain other gliders too, out of interest. I see a lot of my ideas in other gliders, for example, right? Just visually, I think, oh, he followed the same solution there as I did, right? Or you look at something like, oh, that's an interesting feature. He might have done something completely different, but I would see it totally differently, right? So sometimes it's just ideas—unlined—and sometimes you see how certain things go around from manufacturer to manufacturer, you know?
Yeah, I'd say it's almost like in the fashion lines, sometimes, right? I mean, I can do it, yeah, that's a bit modest, but there are certain designers who look very closely at others, and some then come up with a trick and do their own thing. So, yeah, it's all different, let's just say. But I tend to stick to my own line. I do observe certain other things, but I usually don't let myself be tempted to copy anything from them, to put it bluntly.
Are there any design elements or internal construction elements, or whatever, where you'd say, "That's Stiegler's," and I've basically left a mark that I now find in other companies as well, who might have copied it from me? It doesn't necessarily have to be copying, but they were inspired by it, where you'd say I've basically left a stamp on the world of construction.
Wow, well, over the last ten years, that would have been quite a few things. I think we were maybe the first to start, more or less, generating our own high-performance class of paragliders, which initially didn't have any certification at all, and then we started getting the gliders certified. So we were the first to actually put a certification on these mini-wings, if you can call them that, which are now almost in an area that was unthinkable before. And I think we were pioneers in that sense. And all the detailed solutions and so on,
Yeah, I can't think of anything specific right now, but you constantly see things from other companies where you think, "Ah, that looks very familiar," like how they make a pulley, how they place the reinforcements, or where they put the wires. I was one of the first at UP to put plastic wires into the nose instead of using the old style, so I was one of the very first there, and you just have to forge your own path, and yeah, sometimes you have to be a bit ahead of the curve and a
take a risk, right? Did it occur to you to say, I'll take some grass trimmer wire and stiffen it with that? Or did you see it somewhere else and say, I'll try that out?
I have no idea where that came from. I probably saw it somewhere else and thought, oh, I could build that into the nose. So it was definitely there before, that there were gliders with nose wires, but no one really put it into series production or something, or it was some old prototype by someone or what, and then we maybe—I can't say for sure now, but I'd say—I'd say, okay, I'm going to see this a lot more on a production glider now. I don't want to claim I invented it, though. I think there were even patents or prototypes or something back then. I know that about previous ones, too. So some things aren't new at all. They actually existed 20 or 30 years ago. They just weren't technically mature, and now it works because the connections are different or the requirements are different, or you can actually work it out now so that it works, right.
Or maybe it wasn't needed before and now it is for certain things, right? For example, winglets are a typical example. Until now, it was basically only Advance that had it as a brand feature, more or less, and it was put out there—does it do anything, does it do nothing? And back then at UP, over 20 years ago—oh, how long has it been? I just had an H-glider with winglets in the middle, right, and that was more or less, yeah, maybe not quite accepted, right, because it was a bit too much of a mainstream thing, and now Ozono has started with it too, and yeah, now it's socially acceptable, right. And that really fundamentally solves a problem in paraglider construction, that we simply with increased performance and dynamics just,
bring a lot more control into the spiral behavior, right? And that's now being brought into all
paraglider categories a benefit, right, so you'll be seeing that much more often, right. And in the past, you just kind of built around it to improve it, right. And the time wasn't right back then, right, but now suddenly, now it works and we're all doing it, right. But it's nothing new, I wanted to say, it's always been there in the end, right. Someone just has to step up, grab it, make it socially acceptable, and suddenly it's something completely new, even though it's not new, but then everyone does it.
But especially with the winglets, I wondered—I mean, Advance has had that for 20 years or even longer, probably; I think we've had that almost from the beginning.
As a designer, you might avoid such a feature for a while because you'd only be seen as a copycat of Advance, so you design around it, and then at some point Ozone comes along as a major brand and says, "No, we dare to do it now, we have the first motor glider and then the first A-glider or whatever with it," and then suddenly it's like, okay, it's socially acceptable, we can do it, and then you're no longer considered the copycats of Advance, but it's just a feature now and maybe we can even use it better than Advance because we've thought it through a bit better in terms of where to place them best, and not just on the outer wing. That's probably how it goes, yeah.
Yeah, that's definitely true. Some people have less of a sense of shame about just shamelessly copying certain things, right, and then basically advertising it with a new acronym. Yeah, so the Winglet is certainly a typical example, right, where it was really Advance's feature and many companies probably didn't do it because of that, just to avoid being seen as imitators, as you say, right. And, yeah, Ozone has really made that socially acceptable for everything now, right.
But there are other things too, right, like the Sharknose for example, which Ozone was the first to use, is now in all gliders, right. There are actually many things like that, right.
When you're designing gliders, when do you decide the glider is finished? What makes it? Basically, you could probably keep designing forever and say I can still get something out of it and still improve something. Based on what, yeah, how do you go about saying this glider is finished for me now?
Yes, you're right. I mean, you could technically never stop improving a glider, right. But at some point, you have to reach a point.
No, you have a certain set of requirements for what the new glider or the new product can do better. And then you work towards it, you work it off, and many things are often a compromise, right? You say, okay, I could make it better now, but then this change has an impact on another flight behavior that isn't so good anymore. So you balance it out more or less so that you end up with a package that works well as a whole, right? You're very rarely going to be at 100% of everything you actually want to do, right. Of course, something will always still be off, right. But you work it out, so the basics with safety and so on, and the flight behavior, and what else comes into it—we also have to practically...
...add one more on top, so to speak, for every glider. We don't just meet the basic certification requirements; for things like high-performance gliders, we actually have to do maneuvers for Tamis, where we even simulate pilot errors to see, okay, does the glider still hold up? Would it catch itself? Where is the green zone? How much can the pilot actually put the glider through, practically, right? Or really stable things right after takeoff—what happens to the glider if, with the brakes in hand, the pilot pushes the board forward under the voucher and stuff like that, right? So those are really banal things, but then of course all the development work comes on top of that, right. And you really have to look at that very, very meticulously to make sure it works.
Yes, when is a glider finished? I'd say when you've worked through all of that somehow and then say, okay, everything actually works now, then it's basically finished. And yes, then you go for the certification.
And then you get the approval, the glider is on the market for two years, and then at some point the marketing head comes along and says we're not selling as many of those anymore, we need a new one, and then it starts all over again. Or how do you work in cycles like that?
No, it works a bit differently for us, because if marketing tells me we need a new glider, I should actually have been working on it for a year already, right. By then, it's way too late. I already have the entire product line in my head; I know how long it's been running and roughly when I need to start building the successor. Development takes, on average, you could say, a year per glider. For some gliders it takes even longer, and for others it sometimes goes faster, right. That's hard to estimate, right. But the thing is, I'm not working on my glider, but mostly on three to four projects simultaneously that always interlock, right.
And every innovation from my glider is often taken into another project or fed back in again, and then it improves that one too; everything just jumps between the projects somehow, the whole development process, you know. So you can't say, okay, now you're developing a two-liner glider or a three-liner high-end model, and then a glider comes out, and it's often the case that the experience you gained with a three-liner or a two-liner, for example, flows into an A-glider as well, you know. For example, the winglet design is a typical story; that really flows into everything now, you know. And then you actually already know, okay, I can do the next project with the feature, for example, if I optimize that, then I can design and optimize the other things differently again, and that gives me something back in the overall picture, you know.
And now, looking at it the other way around, we've even taken some things we worked out during development for an A-glider and applied them to a high-performance glider, and it worked, right? It's really about tension distribution, you see, from ballooning. That's a huge topic in paragliding because the glider inflates and there are a brutal amount of influences that affect the ballooning. And through ballooning, you can also control a lot of the glider's character, performance, and flight characteristics, right? And we've even taken things like that from the A-glider into the high-performance glider, right? And it worked exactly the same way. I don't mean exactly 1 to 1, but in terms of the idea, right, of how you handle that newly or how you...
set up in the end, right? And everything evolves like that, right? And it's not just the development itself, but the software also evolves accordingly to be able to handle new things again.
to adjust, to adapt. That means if I were to take the same glider that I basically built with the software four or five years ago and process or build it again now with the new, latest updates, a new glider would come out. In the end. Without changing the parameters, but purely from the know-how you're putting into the software now, it would already be a new glider, for example. So it all goes from one to the other and from others into one, and it all flows crisscross and everywhere, right.
Well, every detail you change on a glider changes the entire glider in some way. Yes, even if you say, okay, I'm putting a winglet on it, the behavior in a steep spiral will change, but somehow that also affects other things. Or if you say, I used to have to basically design around the winglet, I didn't want a winglet, so I had to construct the glider a bit differently so that it still came out of the steep spiral well. Then every new element you bring in might also give you new freedoms on another side. If you say now that winglets are going into almost all gliders, into all classes, what freedoms do you gain by saying, okay, I don't have to design around it anymore to make it come out of the steep spiral well.
So in which other areas do the gliders then perhaps become "better" as a result?
I can certainly build the gliders a bit more stably now and stiffen certain areas where we previously just tried to—I think "weak points" is the wrong word, but you have defined various flexible areas in the profile to achieve a deformation during certain maneuvers. That doesn't mean the glider is unstable or anything, but it's controlled so that in a spiral, from a certain G-force, it actually collapses and then deflects. That was a common way to fix the problem. If the winglet does that now, I can make it more stable by default, which brings more advantages in full-gas flight because I simply have a more solid, stiffer canopy and can focus on other aspects again.
How much of a performance gain does something like a winglet provide, where you say we have it on now, but in the end, it also brings performance because you can configure those other parameters of the glider a bit differently?
I'd say performance is, well, what you measure purely in terms of glide is actually only part of the performance. I always say there's practical performance: how the glider flies, how neutral it is, does it stall or what, or does it take away the boldness, the valence, and so on, or does it pull more, and so on, how it's balanced—that has a pretty big influence on practical performance when you're flying in moving air, or how it takes it, how it climbs with it, and so on. The winglet, well, basically we've asked the question ourselves: does it cost performance or does it provide performance? So practically speaking, yes, it has positive effects because the glider might also roll less, especially in thermals, which means every time you roll, you lose altitude again, so the more track-true the glider is in the thermals, i.e., it's practical, then it's another benefit, and
Basically, we thought, okay, if you slap a huge winglet onto the glider, that's more drag, so it should actually cost performance. So we did an experiment: we put it on one side but not the other, and it actually turned out that the side with the winglet flew even better. So, what's going on there, purely logically?
How does it show that it flies better? It turns
then, right? It then turns to the other side, right? Okay. So the better side overtakes the other, then pulls in that direction, right? That's how it is, that's generally how it is, many things, when we change something on the glider, we often only do it on one side to see the effect, what does it do compared to the other side, right? Sometimes it's brutally hard to figure out what it actually brings. Because it's such a brutal feeling thing, and we make the changes so minimal just to really see, okay, and then we just look, we do it on one side, and then you can already see, okay, does it pull on that side, or does that side now threaten less or more than the other, right? And then you try that out with the winglet, and then you just ask, yeah, what's actually happening there, why is that side suddenly doing better than the other, right? And why?
Yeah, you might not know that exactly right now, but it could definitely be that the wing is generating more lift because of what's on it, and that basically, in the end, in the sum of all properties, well, yeah, because there's a bit more lift, normally there's also drag, but in that sense, the improved lift provides more performance, right? So that would be one theory, right? I mean, we don't know exactly yet, but we'll find out, right?
But couldn't it also be that, okay, if I don't put this winglet in this spot where I've just put it, but I put it 30 centimeters further toward the glider center, so that it might influence the wingtip vortices a bit differently, or whatever those partial compensation flows are, it could already be the case that you'd say it does something at that spot, and 30 centimeters next to it I'd rather have a negative effect. With the same winglet.
We're only at the beginning, I'd say, of all these things. Like where you place the winglet, what size it is, its position in terms of wingspan or front to back—we've tried out so many different placements, and you can see the effects it has every time. As you say, it could have an influence on the lift distribution, like it simply doesn't block the tip vortices outward, and so on. And that brings a performance aspect to it. For now, these are all just suppositions. We've also stuck wind vanes on them and everything. It's not all that obvious.
But I always say, I'm a practitioner, and I try to explain and test everything practically so that I can understand it. And if I manage to understand it, then I can use that to develop it further. But as I said, there are still so many ideas on how you can use the winglets now. It's not just about the position; you can also modify the angle itself and so on. So there are infinite possibilities for how you can use the winglets.
Well, if you look at the different paraglider companies and designers, everyone has their own approach and also their own way of, how should I put it, handling the production chain. There are some—at least I have the impression—like Nova or BGD, for example, that do a lot of simulation, meaning they work with simulation software to really say upfront, we're doing aerodynamic simulations, how does the glider behave, what does a winglet do, where do you position it, and a lot of their construction is then done based on this preliminary simulation. Do you do something like that, or do you say, no, I'm a practitioner, I come up with something, I have an image in my head of what it's supposed to do, then I have a prototype made and I tape off the little ear or the winglet on one side but not the other, and then I'll see.
Well, CFD does provide some nice pictures for marketing, let's put it that way.
And no, I've tried to simulate that too, but it's a huge amount of work in terms of time, and the question is, is it worth it? Do I get enough usable information out of it for CFD simulation?
Difficult. Whether it's a success or not, I'm telling you, the quality of the simulation also depends on how good the data you put in is. A typical example is Formula 1: how much do they simulate? And then they have the best car, they go out on the track, and nothing works. In the end, they have very few flexible parts, except maybe the front spoilers or something hidden there, and at the same time, it's a completely flexible construct, so deriving something from it is very difficult. I see it more as a decision-making tool when I'm between two...
...approaches are there, or what, and I need a decision-making tool—what would actually help or solve a problem for me? Then a simulation shows me, or tries to give me an understanding of, what's happening there. For me, those are more like decision-making aids. In the end, I'm more of a practitioner who looks at reality and says, okay, what works or what can I feed back into the construction? Because ultimately, the better the construction is, or the closer the construction is to reality—if it's really transferable one-to-one—then it's much better to transfer, and I can then better transfer every change back into practice and back into the design, because that's what's happening all the time.
You design something, get the prototype, and then you change something, and you have to transfer that back into the design every time to transfer the next prototype back into reality. It's always this constant back-and-forth transferring. That means if you've designed your basis well, then you have a good basis for reality where you can then develop further, and you can also draw better conclusions when you make a change—how that change behaves, what it changes, or which direction it goes. But then there's design, this completely opposite behavior. You make a change that actually
... beforehand... So you think, okay, I'm making this change, and this should be the result, because that's basically how we've done it for the last 30 years. But the result is 100% different. It does the exact opposite. You think, what the hell is wrong now? Why is it doing that? And that's the tedious part about paraglider development: finding out why the paraglider is doing that? Or why is the change doing that? Or why does it have that problem and how is it supposed to solve it? So 90% of the time in development, we're just solving problems or trying to find solutions to solve something, just so that it works.
Does something like that annoy you, when a glider behaves completely differently than you expected? Or is it something that actually intrigues you? Where you say, hey, there's a problem here again that I can solve. User Difficulty, you have to figure out somehow why this piece of shit didn't do exactly what I thought it would this time? And just saying, okay, life is throwing a new challenge at me.
Yeah, it can go either way. I'd say if you're building a standard design and it doesn't work, then it's super annoying. Because then you have to go back a few steps in the construction to figure out, okay, what happened there? Super annoying. On the other hand, if you're building something experimental or just taking a shot in the dark where you don't have such high expectations, and then you get something like that, it's more of a challenge, and then you think, aha, interesting, that's the effect it has, and then we do the exact opposite, more or less. But it's not said that the same conclusion doesn't work the other way around.
How often does that actually happen? I've wondered about that before—you design something, you have a prototype, you test it through, and you say, "Ah, I need to make changes X and Y," based on your gut feeling or whatever, and you have a new prototype made. But every prototype is also a handmade product. So it could also be that in the improved new prototype, a mistake might be sewn in somewhere that you don't even notice. So how often does that happen, where you might improve something, but basically you can't feel the improvement at all because the prototype as such is worse, because maybe it's sewn a bit differently than the other one, in terms of the tension ratios or something else.
That hasn't happened in the last 10 or 11 years. We have a super good production team that works very accurately, and we work very well together. So, I haven't really had that in the last 10 years. The gliders are really very reliable. Do you still check them, though?
Do you always re-measure the protos when they come to you? Is every single one measured very precisely? Or do you just say, "That's a proto, I trust them, I'm taking it up the mountain now, I'll pull it up, see if it stands, so I can go fly with it"?
So, first of all, it's already checked during production itself. I get all the checksheets too. Whether it's a production glider or a prototype, they have the same checksheets where certain things are simply measured during the production process, things are always checked in the production flow and so on. And when I get the glider, it's checked again on a sampling basis, and ultimately, if anything is noticeable in the flight behavior, then it's looked at anyway. That's clear. Then they start measuring the leading edge, trailing edge, internal parts, the lines, and so on. So, it's usually the lines,
but normally there's nothing, and when the glider goes for certification, once it's finished, it's measured again anyway to record the status of everything. Because the glider is then stored as a reference model at the certification body, so I can't go back and check anything later. Unless I say, please take it out again and I want to check something, but that would be way too much of a hassle. That means before the glider leaves, it's really checked and measured again very meticulously.
and recorded to ensure that all production gliders are the same as the prototype, i.e., the certification glider. That's why it's called type certification. A prototype is certified and all production gliders should then be identical to it.
When you design these different types of gliders, is there a sort of favorite class for you, where you say, "the real performance gliders, that's the challenging or appealing part," or could it also be that you say, "actually, the ENA is almost more fun because I can go wild more there," or whatever?
So let's flip it around, there are such things as hate gliders.
Hate gliders? What is a hate glider to you? Not hate gliders, but they're relatively bumpy, let's just say. That's the classic, that's a tandem, because it's just very demanding because you always need two people to fly. You already have double the manpower going into it and double the power and the maneuvers, of course you need much more safety
provide for, that you test over water and so on. And the maneuvers, the testing isn't really fun anymore, you're just physically completely exhausted after two or three test flights because it requires so much strength and the thing, even if it's not bad, it's just so brutally exhausting and nobody really likes it. Do you test all your gliders too? Yes. Okay. And I say, nice with you, what I like to do, those are maybe more like special gliders, because then it's actually more about the fun factor and sometimes you look at, okay, what else can really be done. So Susi is already quite funny, because they are really just simple in terms of safety anyway,
like a heavy-duty glider for example, but you just load up whatever goes up from the payload. So these are ultimately gliders that are sometimes overloaded by 50 kilograms over the target weight. And they still work. And then with a speed that is insane, like with the smallest size, full throttle, you hit it and it goes 70, and you know you have to pull it down, then it's maybe not so much fun anymore.
Do you do it? Yeah, yeah, we do. And then it happens, like it happens so suddenly—a crash happens in a fraction of a second, nothing happens, but it's just so energetic, like, you always have that "Aha" moment, "Aha, yeah, that's not working," but it happens so fast you can't even intervene. It doesn't happen that fast. And it's still fun because those things are just so cool and they're really fun to fly.
How do you actually come up with the idea of a design like the Loco, meaning building a Susi as a two-liner?
Yeah, the idea was actually, we had the C-glider in wood as a two-seater, a two-seater, and I think the Susi wasn't in the design process at that time, let's say. And then I thought to myself,
couldn't we make a two-liner Susi? And then I said, I'll just try it out now to see if it works. Because in the end, yeah, let's see, I'm interested in what comes out. And it actually worked quite well right away. And then the question was, does anyone need that? No, not really. No, not really. What is the glider there now? But we still have it anyway
brought to market. Yes,
because we said, okay, we're doing this now because we can. And the goal was already to build the fastest glider, the one with certification, so it really goes. That's why we even went down one size again, to a 16 instead of an 18. And then we really looked, okay, is something like this certifiable? And then we said, yes, it's certifiable, it works, so we're just doing it. But we thought, we really asked ourselves for a long time, what is this glider good for? And in the end, you actually already cover everything else with the Susi and so on. But what am I building this glider for? Well, I'm taking it myself, I'm taking it myself for hike and fly. So I'm actually taking it instead of the Susi. It's interesting if I just have more speed and the glider is one step above, it's just, it is a bit heavier,
It's always a compromise, but I actually like it even more than the Susi. Yeah, and we just really went for it, like, shit, we're doing this now just because we can. So we just took one size down and saw what was possible regarding top speed, and since it's doable, we just went for it.
Does something like that also stroke a designer's ego, to say, I have the fastest approved glider now?
I don't think it's about what becomes the fastest, but I think it's more about doing something that no one else has actually done.
Yeah, you just do things that maybe others haven't even thought about. So, thinking a bit outside the box. We just do something completely different.
Is the Loco even being bought at all? Because you're saying, does anyone actually need it? So are there a lot of people who say, I don't need the glider, but I'm buying it anyway?
Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, it's not a mega best-seller, but it actually sells quite well. And it has its advantages, thanks to its stability and speed. So many people are using it now for things like thin-air flying. Or I use it for hike-and-fly.
This mindset of saying, okay, we'll do it too because we can. Was that also part of why you said with the Volt 4, I know I can build an ENC two-liner, so I'll just build the first one that hits the market?
Yeah, with the Volt, it was a bit different. But I think that's a fundamental E-Design attitude. It's where we started and why Martin and I actually started the company. Because we just saw that at the company where we worked before, where we were a bit set in our ways, you couldn't really move things much anymore. And it was all so run-of-the-mill. But we had so many more ideas. Yet we weren't able to implement them anymore. And that's why we actually started our own company. And that's why I think E-Design works quite well, because we already think a bit outside the standard, outside the box, and just do things that others don't even think about. Or say, is that profitable yet? Or does it make sense?
And we just say, yeah, okay. But it works. And I'm saying, we've done things that we simply built for ourselves right from the start. I built the Susi for myself at the beginning because I wanted something small and light that we could handle well. And not just something I'd quickly fly down. We did that with the Ronin and the Ufo too. But the Susi, that was actually an idea for personal use; I wanted to make something like that. And I knew, okay, I'm a designer, so I'll build myself something like that. And then it worked well, and then you bring it to market and it develops. And I think that's a good approach. You don't always have to do everything by the book. You also do B-Shop-City and so on.
And that was my job. There's still much more to do. And I think that's the approach we've taken from the very beginning. With the Volt, the first two-liner, the N-change with the falcon lines in the C-class had already been decided a long time ago. It was just a matter of when it would be published. And then it was only a matter of time until the first one came out. It actually really surprised me that we were the first ones for a whole year. That was actually what surprised me the most.
And I wasn't entirely sure about the question of whether the new Volt successor should be a two-liner or a three-liner. I mean, we were working on a three-liner and a two-liner simultaneously. The thing was, the two-liner worked before the three-liner. We wouldn't have been that far along with the three-liner. But the two-liner actually worked well from the start. And that's why we basically released it, because we said, okay, it's finished. It works. So, is it a risk or whatever? For us, it was actually a logical thing. But the question was just, how long will it actually take? I mean, a two-liner comes out in the C-class, and how long does it take until it's accepted by the pilots? And I think,
it actually went relatively quickly. But I was actually surprised that the competition took so long in the end and didn't follow suit.
There was also the consideration of saying, we can at least be the first, right? So from a marketing perspective or something, like, okay, for the Stubai Cup, we'll just present the thing. And we know from what we're hearing right now, we'll almost certainly have a world premiere in this way to generate a lot of attention. That we push it a bit in that direction? That
was definitely in the background, yeah. That you say, okay, let's see how quickly we can get moving. Because I know once he's finished, okay, let's make sure no one else gets their hands on it on their own. That we can say that, that's clear.
But yeah, we probably stressed ourselves out a bit unnecessarily, because we wanted to be the only ones for a year. But there are probably advantages to being the only one, right? Yeah, we sold very well in that year. I mean, the number of Volts we sold was truly insane.
And now you've released the new Volt, Volt 5, after only two years. If you look at it, from Rise 4 to Rise 5, I think there were almost four or five years in between. And now from Volt 4 to Volt 5, only two years. Why only two? Is that something where you say, okay, now everyone else has a two-liner too, and then we put one on top and are ahead again? Or what's the idea there?
Yeah, there were already a lot of things they've been throwing in there. Basically, it's like saying, okay, the flight times of the gliders are now tending to get longer because, in the production range, there's not that much happening in terms of performance anymore. We're now working more on general behavior and practical performance, as we talked about before. And with the Volt, we were basically the only ones for a year, and then everyone else caught up. And then all the comparisons started. The Volt was certainly still comparable in terms of performance even after a year, even if the others were out there. But at the same time, we've been developing a D-glider for a year already, and even before that. And there, we've again...
With the Hero
Is that the 2, right? With the Hero 2, yes. And we discovered so many things there that
...brought back some things in terms of performance, especially in the top speed range. And then that actually became relatively logical for us. I'm trying that out with the Volt now as well. And that worked on the Anibar, and then we said, okay, now we're bringing out a successor, and then we know, okay, now we're really top-level for several years. And what did you change there? A lot of it was about voltage curves in the glider. So the magic inside, like? The magic inside kicked in again, yeah.
And there, you can say you're not simulating those stress distributions very much. You can't even do that now...
not simulate so much, because the question is whether you'd even notice that much of a difference in the CFD. But these are practical effects. The glider behaves differently in practice; it has a different response. So if you were flying in calm air, doing glide comparisons, you can barely test anything. There's no difference. But as soon as the air starts moving, one thing flies and suddenly the other pulls away. That's it. But
If you say, okay, I noticed this with the Hero 2 during development, and the other stress distribution in the glider improves it so much. Now, the Volt 5 is constructed differently than the Hero. So maybe the number of cells and other things. Can you really say that this stress distribution—if you don't simulate it that way or whatever—can I really transfer that from one glider concept to another concept? And how do you transfer that? Is it a gut feeling where you say, "Now I know where I need to put a stress band" or whatever specific thing you did there?
Yes, certain things can be really well transferred to other things. And then it pulls through all the gliders like a common thread in the end. And that's then the next revolution. And depending on what comes into the new pipeline now, it then sucks everything back in again.
You just said that in terms of performance, not much is happening anymore. You can still do things, like in terms of handling and so on, where things are still happening. And what is it like as a designer when you notice that we're actually slowly reaching a plateau with the paraglider? Do you even see it that way?
Yes and no. Because you keep asking yourself: how do I make this even better now? And then somehow, you do make it better again. You keep squeezing something out of it over and over. So, until now, everything has still somehow gone better. That's just how it is. You think, okay, you have the body, it has resistance, you have the lines, the resistance, I can't get rid of anything else. How am I supposed to achieve it so that, purely from the technical data, how is it supposed to go better? That's always the basic question. But nevertheless, you keep optimizing, and yes, every generation is still, after all, an improvement over the current generation.
Even if the leaps might not be as big as they used to be, they're still there. How do you stay creative? I think it's always about flow, and like I said, I believe the progress in development is simply driven by problems, because you're always looking for solutions to certain problems or processes.
And every solution moves you forward a bit. So, that's what actually challenges me. So let's come up with an idea ourselves. For example, our special features, like right now,
...are completely different things, but most things actually come out as solutions to problems. And those then have a benefit that influences other things in a positive way. And then you have progress again. But you really have to be very creative to keep solving things all the time.
Have you ever gotten tired of constantly having to develop something new? Like, saying, come on, this High-B glider actually flies well, it works. People, there's really nothing more to it. That's enough now.
Yes, if you basically look at most gliders on the market, you have to say, okay, what more do you want? The gliders all perform well, they work well, they have good passive and active safety depending on the class. What more do you actually want? But still, the market always expects something new. You can have a glider for four years and it's still super good, but it won't sell properly anymore. You have to... our time always lives on renewal in the end. That's... at some point, it's going to get really difficult, I'd say.
But is that a motivator for you, or is it also sometimes a burden, having to say, I have to bring something new?
It can be both. Sometimes the glider is really annoying when you know, okay, no matter what you change, it doesn't change anything. You sometimes have such stubborn prototypes where you think, I really don't like this anymore. I'm throwing the whole thing out. I don't know what I'm doing. It just won't cooperate. That can definitely happen.
But it's all the more wonderful when you really
continuously optimize things and solutions
it solves it in the end and you see, okay, you're moving something. When you then move forward, keep going, and then you have the final product at the end, the finished glider, and then you know, wow, it really turned out... awesome, I really like it myself. That's what you experience as a designer and test pilot, and it's what draws your energy out. Those are the last 5%, so to speak.
What has paragliding and designing taught you about life, or for life?
Yeah, you can't really take anything for granted or assume that
if you've done something and you assume that the next thing will work the same way. You have to do it every single time again... I mean, it's not starting over from scratch, but you can't take anything for granted. You have to constantly work at it. Just like you work at yourself. It's a constant
process that never ends. You always have to look ahead. Always look ahead, never stop. As soon as you stop and stand still, you don't really go backwards.
What would you like to design sometime?
Do you mean a paraglider or something completely different? The question is open.
Nothing comes to mind right now.
So direct. Well, there are a lot of things coming up soon. Let's call it standard work. Also some really interesting things, but we're really well-served when it comes to things that are completely outside our current scope. I'd say. But who knows what's coming tomorrow. It depends on us again. It's a crazy idea or something. And then you think to yourself, yeah, why not? Let's just try it. Where do you find your peace?
At
Whether on the mountain or during training, yeah.
Now I just let the peace stand. I noticed it.
Stefan, thank you for the very in-depth conversation about all sorts of things, from life attitudes and training for Hawaii to a lot of background information on paraglider construction. I really enjoyed talking with you. I hope the people who listened or are still listening also enjoyed it, and I think it's great how much effort you put into optimizing yourself, but also into optimizing your gliders. Thanks for that.
Thanks for the interview. I hope you enjoyed it.
That was Podz-Glidz episode 148 with Stefan Stiegler. Further links can be found in the show notes on the Gleitschirm-Blog Looglights. Podz-Glidz is the podcast by Looglights. You can subscribe to it on all the usual podcast platforms. There is a new episode every 14 days. And if you don't want to wait that long, feel free to browse the archive. You can already find over 150 hours of interesting conversations about the cosmos of paragliding in there. As a freelance journalist, I invest a lot of time and work into Podz-Glidz and Looglights. However, that's only possible if my listeners and readers support me financially. Are you already on board? You can choose whatever amount you'd like to give as a supporter.
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