So the beauty of paragliding is that, unlike with a normal sport where physical performance is simply the deciding criterion, you're still in an ideal range at a slightly older age—at 40 or 50—where you can still deliver a good performance, and where you really have so much experience that you've gathered over the years, which can actually be an advantage, and where you can still really play a role at a more mature age.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Helmut Eichholzer. And I'm Guzjan Haas.
Helmut Heli Eichholzer has been paragliding for 30 years and has also been very successful in various competitions for almost as long. He was the Austrian national champion nine times and has been a member of the Austrian national team for decades. In 2015, he was at number 1 on the world ranking for some time. In addition, there are three X-Alps participations and several victories and podium finishes in Border Races, Cross-Alps, and World Cups. However, in this episode 149 of Podz-Glidz, it's less about these achievements than about what Heli envisions and wishes for the future. Because recently, in a sort of manifesto, he outlined three areas in which he is proposing changes and transformations in the world.
And in which he sees a need for leadership or improvement so that Austrian paragliding can fly successfully on the international stage again in the future. It's about the national team's ability to fly as a team and the call for an official manager or coach. The female form is meant here, who would take care of the strategic promotion of Austrian youth. As a third topic, Heli has thought about how important it would be to create a fairer competition regarding equipment, specifically glider sizes. And by doing so, also to increase the safety of light pilots. How that would work and what role a kind of pool noodle could play in that—that and more will be discussed here.
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Helmut, do you actually prefer to be called Helmut or Heli?
I am
I actually grew up with helicopters. And that still works. It still fits with my age. Speaking of age, I saw you're turning 49 soon. At what point do you actually count as an old hand in paragliding? The great thing about
paragliding is not like a normal sport where physical performance is simply the deciding criterion, where you're still in an ideal range to perform well even at a slightly older age, like 40 or 50. Where you can deliver a good performance and where you really have so much experience that you carry with you over the years. And that can already be an advantage, really playing a role even at a more settled age.
So, you've been doing this for 30 years, doing competition flying and stuff like that. Would you say that with experience, over the years, you've felt—maybe not from the results, but from what you're capable of—that you've actually always gotten better?
I would say I've evolved because, ultimately, the entire sport has evolved. If I had stayed at the same level, I'd probably be a better beginner now. And so much has happened in these 30 years that you have to develop just to still be able to fly at the front in any area.
Which developmental leaps were the decisive ones for you, where you'd say something really happened? Which ones?
What were the decisive developmental leaps for you, where you'd say, something really happened? In general, I've always developed in situations or during times when I actually suffered a defeat. Or where I realized I'd missed the pulse of the times, or I don't know anymore if I'm still right with my assumptions, with my behaviors in the air, how I fly and what I decide, or how I decide. And in these areas where I questioned myself, those were always the things where I had really good leaps in hindsight. And actually, the defeats were the important times for me as an athlete, to
to move forward. What would you say was such an important defeat you had that ultimately resulted in something positive?
So, after the first four or five years of competition flying—at the beginning, you're super excited, motivated, you think you can take on the world. And you notice a good progression over and over, you learn something with every competition, and then it stagnates at one point. And in my case, that was it; I just hadn't factored in how important the glider performance is, for example. I just bought some random glider and thought I could fly the curves with it. That was definitely not the case, but I didn't actually understand why. I started doubting myself and thought, I'm just not a good pilot. It just doesn't work. Until I realized it, with a small financial investment and a glider that was simply one of the best at the time.
After you bought your glider, I checked, and it's also about the glider performance. It's essential and decisive for being able to fly along at all. That was a milestone for me.
Well, regarding glider performance, or at least over these three decades, there have been enormous leaps and some truly groundbreaking developments. The open class arrived, the two-liners were introduced. And now, in recent years, the introduction of submarine harnesses and such. Would you say that everything there is oriented towards performance? Is it all actually heading in the right direction?
Yes, in principle, you have to say that development in the paragliding scene is a step-by-step process where, first of all, you try to achieve as much performance as possible, squeezing out power that might not have always been flyable. So, in other words, better performance sometimes led to the gliders becoming "hotter." And the next step was then to keep the same performance but make the whole thing easier again. And that sequence is still there. I have to say, the most extreme development was the two-liners, where everyone in the scene said, "No way, we're all going to die. That just won't work. How is that supposed to work?" And then people just had to work their way through it, like, okay, let's try this stuff out for once.
And then you go out and fly it, and at first it's weird with the two-liner controls, with the B-risers and all that, clumsy. But after a few flights, you just get it: okay, the guys who invented this thought of something that works, this is the future.
Do you like flying two-liners?
Yes, I love it. I just find the glider control much easier. The feedback is super pleasant. You're also just faster on the B in extreme situations and can change the profile differently. So overall, the flight feel and safety have simply developed in a positive way. And I think that carries over from competition glider development down into the lower classes.
Especially when you look at competition glider development, not much has really changed in recent years. I mean, has the Enzo 3 been on the market for five or already seven years now? In any case, it's been a long time for traditional ideas where people say that, in terms of performance, nothing much is moving forward anymore. And when you look at competitions, the actual performance leap that was still there recently came from these submarine-like harnesses themselves. Do you see anything there where you'd say, okay, they were introduced, but is there also development where you'd say, maybe at some point they'll also become more manageable, safer, or something else? The
That's my opinion, anyway. And the Enzo, for example, has been around for almost eight years now, I think. There's never been anything like that before in the history of paragliding, where a competition glider looks the same for eight years plus or minus. People fly it and there's no further development. So it's definitely super difficult to develop it further; maybe at some point something completely new has to come up, a new concept, so that the thinking changes again. But like you said, the harness is actually what expands the performance now. So the glider plus or minus from the different manufacturers has the same performance. And now it's pretty much all about the harness.
And then the Submarine, purely from a flying perspective, is very, very pleasant. It's built for the limit. That is, the protector is made in such a way that it passes certification. The handling is manageable, great. Once you're in it, it fits. The optics, meaning the view toward the instruments, is rather difficult. There has been development from year to year there as well, so that you can see the devices better again. So in the end, I believe everyone is moving in the direction of optimizing the harness. And it will take several more steps for that gear to be easier, and perhaps lighter and more manageable.
But currently, you can really notice a difference between flying a Submarine or not. In terms of performance alone, you're at a disadvantage in competition.
That means if you really want to fly at the top, just like you noticed before that I have to have the better glider, I also have to have a corresponding submarine harness, otherwise I don't really stand a chance.
Yes. So, of course, I want to point out that we're talking about the top level here. If I'm flying a normal competition now, I think so many other factors come into play that the harness is only moderately important. If I'm flying a competition in Austria, a league competition, then it's not completely decisive for my placement. But ultimately, at the top level, in the top-tier range, that's exactly what makes the difference, yes.
You once did a TED Talk, I think, a video, I believe I saw it, where you actually aerodynamically optimized your own harness that you flew for a season to perform better with it. What did you do there?
Yes, that was an interesting story. I was very motivated over the winter and had the time. It was like... a level of harness. And that's just when the idea of aerodynamic shape and the notion that it might actually be important started to emerge. So, regarding that second one, which was between 2013 and 2015, opinions were still divided. Does a pod on the harness even do anything? Yes, theoretically a bit, but is it important? And we thought, okay, I know I have an S-glider, which is a tick slower than the larger ones. And now I have two options. I give up and say, okay, this won't work.
With that glider, I don't even have to start. I stay at home. Or I say, okay, I'll take on the challenge. I'll look into it. What can I optimize? And what can I use? In terms of shape, I'm a bit smaller in terms of body measurements, let's say 1.65, 1.68. And I thought I could use that and optimize the harness to fit my body dimensions with an additional pod on the back. And generate a bit more performance from that to keep up with the S-gliders by a hair. And that just worked. That was definitely the deciding factor why I ended up at the very top of the world ranking at the end of the year.
And... in hindsight, it paid off really well. But it wasn't about seeing that you fly the glider better; it was simply the lift that the harness provided—that lift performance. During the competition, you could notice that you were keeping up well with everyone. If I can still climb well, I can get into a position where I'm in control, where I'm above the guys, and then I can fly along with them perfectly, and fly tactically better and more easily.
You were at the top of the world for several months, meaning you were ranked number one on the world ranking with an S glider. Now, you recently wrote a longer post on Facebook where you touched on various topics regarding competition flying. And among other things, you wrote about glider sizes and such, and you mentioned that you're considering switching from an S glider to an M glider for the next season. Can you no longer win with an S glider?
It depends a bit on the area, I think. In the Alps, it makes no difference at all whether you fly with an S, because with strong thermals, it doesn't necessarily weigh that much. On the other hand, in the lowlands with large pulks, depending on where you're positioned in the pulk or what type of pilot you are—I'm more the type who tends to be too far forward or occasionally attacks—with this kind of flying, it's an advantage to have a bit more performance. And that's just my reasoning. Basically, I could manage to get into the weight range of an M, but I'd have to load up a ton of weight.
And I'm fully aware that a lot of weight means it gets dangerous. Especially during takeoff and landing, for sure. Because with a sack of cement on your back, it's not funny, running down a hill like that, maybe in low wind. From a safety perspective, that's a major issue. And those are my thoughts, where I say it makes sense to fly it just based on the performance and the result, but on the other hand, there's the risk. And that's the thing I'm currently weighing up. And I've also talked to Luc Armant about it. He's the designer of OZAN and he developed the SAT machine.
And he says his next step would be to implement something where all the glider sizes plus-minus work just as well, so that everyone gets the idea of, okay, I'm flying with light equipment. That means, in my case, I don't buy an M, I buy an S, I have the same performance, so there's no reason at all why I'd fly an M. And just take the risk on myself with ballast. And his idea is that the whole scene then suddenly develops and says, okay, we're now building lighter harnesses, lighter equipment. We push people to fly with less ballast, no more lead plates under the seat pan. And that leads to the whole sport becoming easier, safer, and more pleasant.
becomes. Let's talk more about that right away. I want to go back to you for a second before we get to Lückermann's ideas. How much ballast would you have to carry to switch from an S to an M? I mean, I'm calculating now...
I always take the total weight of the equipment into account. I have about 38 kilos now and would have to take another seven kilos with me. Seven, eight kilos. So I'd be somewhere around 45 kilos. Then I'd do it by hanging it on my weighted vest. So it's just like a jacket with lead inserts in it. I look like a terrorist. But it's the easiest way to have the weight on your body and then also do something with that weight. Because everything you have in the harness is extra weight, which is much harder to manage. The harness hangs on your shoulders and somehow hinders you when you're walking, like a bulky sack.
And during landing and everywhere else.
And those seven kilos, what extra power does that give you? Is it mainly power in the sense that you can fly a bit faster with it? Because you're saying I have seven kilos more and then I can manage one or two kilometers more of speed? Or does it offer you something else as well?
In terms of speed, there's no difference between flying an M or an S. Simply in terms of performance, it might give you 0.1 or 0.2 more glide ratio. This means that after a long glide, you arrive a bit higher. Maybe you don't arrive at the very bottom and have to search for the thermals yourself, but are a few meters higher where I can sit on it, which means less risk and being faster in a good tube to get a good cruise speed again.
Now there's a whole range of pilots who have to fly very high in the world, who are also basically very light. So an Honorin Armand from the French or a Maxime Pinot, they're basically lightweights just like you. Are lightweights actually the better pilots? Do they just have the worse gliders?
I don't think you can attribute that to body weight or size. There are brilliant guys who fly on L or I don't know, Juri Vidic flies a super light harness and flies on M, but ideally he'd also have the option to fly on M or L, but he just feels better that way. And those guys, the French ones, Maxime and Honorin, they're just brilliantly good, they're great guys, they fly on M, but they're also out there with a lot of ballast. And for them, I told one of them, quite clearly, yeah, that makes a difference. They used to fly S too, but realized, yeah, we fly on M, it works better, I'd rather take the weight and then have that extra bit of performance.
And it's going to be really cool to see how the guys fly and, yeah, well, you can really
learn a lot. And in terms of upgrading, you see them flying an M in my weight class, so I'll probably have to switch as well.
Yeah, this is just that phase, the decision-making phase, where I'm saying I'm still three or four kilos lighter than the guys and have to take on even more accordingly. And now it's about how I take the risk, how I commit to it. Basically, I'm going to approach it by flying normally with my S in the spring and see how it goes, if I enjoy it. And then the World Championships would be in August or September in Brazil. That would be the turning point for me where I say, okay, I'm competing there with an S or an M.
Are you going to be at the Superfinal in Colombia in February?
No, unfortunately not. I just don't have the vacation time for it. I'm normally employed at a company and it just doesn't work out.
It would be interesting, a great area, that's where the World Championships were a few years ago, 2015 or 16 I think. It was brilliant for flying, really cool. But yeah, not everything works out, so I'll focus back on the applicants in the summer or in Europe and on the World Championships.
But if I've understood you correctly, you'd be someone who would really welcome ideas like Luc Armant has, to somehow be able to equalize glider performance. You'd be very much in favor of that. But how could that even work?
Yes, in principle, I do have to have a focus. Or I would still say that the focus is placed on safety.
That would work like this: in the first step, with existing gliders, you could use a kind of foam tube. Like a pool noodle, right? A pool noodle, exactly something like that. Maybe not as thick in diameter, a bit less. But a pool noodle, on the left and right of a B. And that would actually minimize the performance or bring it down so much that with the length of the pool noodle and the diameter
could adjust the performance of the different gliders. That
means, are the lines simply artificially thickened? Exactly, yes. Well, you could imagine there being big discussions among the pilots. How long exactly does this noodle have to be? I mean, who calculates something like that or by what rules could something like that be determined?
It's relatively simple if everyone flies the same brands, for example, because there are calculations and you know how the gliders compare to each other, meaning the different sizes.
That's just a basic idea. Luc thought it through relatively well and also suggested it at the CIWL. In the end, of course, it's an exciting thing and a discussion, but I don't want to go in the direction of saying it's about me and my performance or whether I fly an M or an S, but in principle, it's actually about the safety of the whole scene. And if I imagine everyone flying one glider size smaller, it's easier when traveling, safer when taking off and landing, and purely from a long-term perspective, walking around with a 40-kilo pack quite often a year up a mountain, or at least from the lift to the car and back, that's just a pretty big strain on the body.
I think it would do the scene a lot of good to do something in that direction and use the safety aspect as the main focus. If you don't do that, if you only focus on performance, there just won't be any acceptance from the scene. Everyone who can fly an M or an L will just say, "Yeah kid, you just have to eat more dumplings or I don't know what, but I don't care, you do your thing." But if you steer it in the direction of saying it's also about everyone's safety, then that's a talking point you can work with.
But if you say it's about everyone's safety, ultimately from a safety perspective, it's not everyone who benefits, but basically the lightweight pilots who then say, okay, I don't have to pack on this extra weight. While the heavier guys can then say, I'm flying here, I'm buying an expensive glider and then I have to put a pool noodle on the lines so that I fly as poorly as you do in terms of performance. How is that even going to be discussed in the scene then?
So, strictly speaking in terms of safety, everyone says, yeah, great idea, lighter equipment makes sense, but I don't want to reduce my performance. So basically, we're talking about a few tenths of a glide ratio. But the big issue there is that people say,
how could we fix this so that in the future we push it so far that people say, I'm not buying an M at all, I'm buying an S because I have the same performance. The harness manufacturers develop a lighter harness, I save myself from carrying some extra weight. And then I'd say across the whole scene, including the M pilots who can then fly an S, and the L pilots who can fly an M, everyone would benefit. The only ones who wouldn't benefit are those who are already flying very heavily loaded on an S anyway. There are a few girls who just carry a lot of ballast. Elle Ecker is one of them, for example, she has, I don't know, 55 maximum.
So she weighs a lot and has to load up a lot just to actually get into the weight range for an S. And for exactly those people, the question is whether to start with an XS or an S. And ultimately, yes, that's a basis for discussion where we have to look at it and involve the pilots who actually weigh 45 kilos. Very light girls, maybe Asians. And where do we start there? And from what point does it still make decent sense? Because I already have the feeling that, despite everything, the difference in performance between S and L is still manageable.
But what I know for sure is that paragliders in XS or XXS are simply much more sensitive and less stable in terms of flight characteristics. So that becomes a range where it just doesn't work that well anymore. And I know relatively few people who, bracket open, fly XS for longer, bracket close, because it's certainly much, much more demanding than paragliders in size S or larger.
What about the really heavy guys who have to fly the large gliders so far? And who then have to say, okay, I need to put a noodle on there. My performance will be reduced by that. But I once read in a discussion by someone who wrote, hey, I don't actually want to do that at all, because I already have a disadvantage with my large glider size, because my glider's handling is significantly more sluggish than what the small gliders have. And if you now take away my, so to speak, my small performance advantage that I have there, I still have the handling that no one can take away from me. How do you balance that out? I mean, how would you argue with people like that?
That's definitely true, you can fly tighter radii with smaller gliders, they have better handling.
And an L or XL, you're harder to turn in a curve. And I think that makes a huge difference in the Alps, where it's tight, where it's narrow, and where you have to get close to the rocks. Less so in the flatlands.
Let's put it this way. I believe that the S has an advantage when carving, a light one, because the radius is simply tighter and I can steer it better. Or at least, I don't have a disadvantage there. What is definitely an issue with straight-line flying, for example, is that smaller gliders are more fickle and sensitive. So the stability isn't as great as with larger gliders. In the end, those are several points. So, on one hand, there's the minimization of performance, the handling, the stability. If you take all of that into account and say it crystallizes into the fact that it makes sense to fly a smaller glider, and people do that, you can frame it in terms of safety or safety issues.
and say it makes sense.
Is there ever going to be a competition where that's tested? That thing with the swimming noodles to level the playing field? There's at the beginning of the
Is there ever going to be a competition where this is tested? The thing with the swimming noodles to level the playing field? There's a Pre-World Cup in Colombia at the beginning of the year. So, before the Superfinal? Yes, exactly. Sometime during that period, somewhere in Colombia. I'm curious to see.
But for actions like that, you need the acceptance of the scene. So I don't think it's a good idea to eventually force it and say, "We're just doing this now," because there's a real risk that the type of events—for example, if the World Cup does it, or independently of the FAI, if the World Cup does it—that the World Cup could very well be boycotted by some of the pilots. And ideally, the whole thing would go through the FAI, through our national association, where you'd say, okay, for certain competitions—I'd say the World Cup, the European Championship, the World Championship—it makes sense in those areas.
We can do that. You can introduce that. Whether that's feasible for a league competition in Austria, I doubt it. I mean, you can do it if you want to. But actually, yeah, the nuts are buried much deeper there. And that's probably not necessary right now. You just have to be a bit careful. It's not much effort to just click a swimming noodle onto the line. But it's more about the acceptance.
But you probably won't get 100% acceptance anyway. For example, when the open class ended, when the first two-liners were introduced and then a few too many fell out during a competition in Pietraita, it was decided: okay, from now on, only IND gliders are allowed. They have to have a certification. There was a whole range of competition pilots who then said, no, I'm not interested in that anymore, I'm out. And there were a lot of discussions. If something like this happens with swim noodles, it would probably happen the same way again, with a few people saying, I'm out. But on the other hand, maybe other people will say, hey, with this extra bit of safety, I'm happy to fly with it again. So it would just be a bit of a shift in weights in a way.
Yeah, that's exactly how I see it too. So it might be a convenient excuse to say, I'm ending my career now because I don't want to bear that responsibility. Yeah, you can do that. Or you can say you can just really commit to it and see what develops from it. And whether it actually achieves the effect of manufacturers building lighter harnesses, or customers—meaning the pilots—practically buying smaller gliders. Maybe that's the direction it develops in. Because I've already noticed, also with X-Alps and all those stories, with the high-can-fly stuff—meaning if you're making landings with competition gear, you need relatively many helicopters at the landing field.
Because I believe that the glider weight—meaning the total equipment weight—is essential in the hard landings that occur. Whether you shake them off, brush off the dust and stand up, or
stay down. I mean, if you're carrying another 30 kilos, your knees have to be able to handle that, and other things too. Do you train specifically for that? Like, do you do strength training or something to say, I need to be able to haul 45 kilos of gear?
It would be important, but I don't do it. I'm more the type who, when the sun is shining, takes my glider and hikes up a mountain. That's enough training, more or less? Yeah, exactly. But I notice that it would simply be important, especially before longer competitions where you really do a flight for 10 days in a row, to train beforehand so that the tension is less. It's all quite a strain. You wouldn't believe it. You think, "I'm just flying one flight, I'm sitting comfortably in the chair for three or four hours looking around a bit." But after a European Championship, like a 10-day, every-day flight, you actually need a vacation at the end.
...that nobody takes it, because they've already taken their vacation for this European Championship, so something like that. Exactly.
Yeah, well. In that post you wrote on Facebook about competition flying, you touched on several topics. Among others, I found it very interesting when you said, hey, the future, what we'd have to do a lot more of, would be team flying in competitions. So, that nations would fly together more as a team. And you complained a bit about how Austria hasn't really been doing that so far. What does team flying offer? I mean,
That's actually quite exciting. I believe that nations are connected to each other via radio, helping one another, so to speak, by exchanging information. This includes, among other things, having a ground person, a team leader, who passes on information. And in total, for the whole team, it brings something that everyone benefits from. We in Austria have already done this quite intensively this year. So, ELEK and I did intensive team radio. We also included one or two other pilots, in Jeremie, and in total, it actually worked very well.
Radio communication and team flying just have to be practiced. It doesn't work like you just buy a radio, go to a European Championship, and say, "Okay, I'm here, I'm turning the radio on and it works." It's very much about where the microphone is positioned, what the voice quality is like,
what kind of things they convey in the air. I have to think beforehand about what I'm going to say and then relay it over the radio briefly and concisely, not tell a story. These are so many points we've figured out now and have to say in the conclusion, for example, at the European Championship, it helps everyone who works together in the team, who exchange information.
Just to give a few examples, what do you broadcast? What kind of information do you pass on, and what would you say, "No, I'm not even pressing the radio button yet"?
It's about checking in, so on one hand, you have to make a basic agreement: what I give and take must balance out, more or less. It's not enough for me to think, "Yay, the weather is nice and I'm here," but I have to say, "Heli, climb three meters." Then the people around me, those nearby, know—we basically keep an eye on each other, okay, I can fly there now, it's a three-meter climb, and the other pilot is 100 meters further ahead longitudinally and has four meters, he communicates that too, then everyone in the team knows, okay, the left wing pulls better, that's one topic for example. Then it's about what position you're in during such a pass, so if you're far ahead, the information about what's happening behind you is essential, because we have a flight path, if you're flying straight, you can see roughly until 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock for example, and what's happening further back, you don't see that and you don't pick up on it either,
as a pilot or a heavy hitter, you don't notice which line is better when you're flying side-by-side. And if someone from the team happens to be a bit further back and says, "Hey, the right lane pulls better," then I don't have to analyze or think about it; I just fly right immediately. And then it's about the quality of the statement—it's super important. You can't just say something you're putting together in your head at that moment; you have to be careful, you can easily slip up there. But if it's consistent and the information is correct, you build trust with each other and then you trust each other blindly and say, "Bam, the right lane is better. I'm turning off and flying in."
a few degrees further to the right. Why can't you see at the same altitude whether the right side is climbing better than you or if that line is better than yours?
A line isn't just a line; it's always going up and down. So one person might gain a bit of height, and then the neighbor next to them picks it up again. But depending on how far apart you are and also being at the same altitude, you're sometimes distracted or focused on where I'm heading right now. You notice something, see a bird, something is rising somewhere, you spot some hint of the next thermal. You're not focused on just constantly looking at which line is pulling better. And that's where it helps if there's someone in the back who can see from a bird's-eye view or a neutral perspective, okay,
...pulls the line. And that has to be discussed within the team beforehand. Like, basically assigning roles or saying that the person flying in the back has to keep an eye on what the people in the front are doing—for example, who of the front ones currently has the better line.
Yeah, exactly. It's not always the case that the same people are always in the front and the same people are always in the back; it mixes up.
Accordingly, the one in front with the first ones who flies into a thermal somewhere, it just automatically goes through, okay, so much climbing, three meters of climbing. But the one in the back has the other one in sight, and there you can of course swap roles. So, in other words, if I'm in the back once and see that the left track is better, then I report that and pass it on to the team members.
Well, there are also great instruments and software solutions today where you can say, I'll set up a group, say these four pilots are in my group, and please always show me where they are on the display, along with their climb rates or whatever else is there. Couldn't you use something like that too, so you don't always have to be radioing back and forth?
So, on one hand, you have a bit of a delay with the instruments. Live tracking has a two or three-minute delay. XContest is pretty much lag-free. But in a competition, it's very often the case that 50 pilots are in a cluster, and then you have relatively many points, and on one hand, it's very cluttered on the device, and on the other hand, the big issue is that you simply don't have some pilots on your glider and you might overlook them if they have a good board. So really, that...
that a pilot in the middle of the pack gives feedback makes much more sense and is probably also the future; that's what will benefit you the most in the future. What's different with Hike-and-Fly competitions is that you don't have such a mass of people in one spot, and then, I'd say, a small delay doesn't matter. But if you have, for example, someone, a team leader, sitting at the bottom, like with X-Alps, the people who are in the support team giving routes and explaining to a pilot, okay, the pilot flies in, they flew exactly there five minutes ago, they had a great stone. That helps in that direction, that's another thing again.
Very good. When it comes to team flying, would you say just this radio communication is already team flying, or would it also be about collaborating differently as a team, perhaps in the preparation, like discussing a task, but maybe even coordinating roles, saying, "Look, based on how we're set up here, also regarding our ranking or something, it's best if you're the rabbit today, running out front and trying to stretch the field out" or something like that. So, working tactically, team-tactically, and saying, "You don't really have much left to gain and nothing to lose. Maybe you can still win the task if you run out front as the rabbit, and maybe you'll make it through, and if you don't, you've at least shown us a lot and given us better chances."
So, for us, the two or three pilots who might then actually be able to fly into the top spots, something like, where you also say, we should work together even more in that direction?
Yes, that is exactly the goal and you've analyzed it perfectly. That's how the French national team flies, for example. They check out, okay, they cooperate great, they have roles, they do a briefing at the launch site right from the start, they figure out where the tricky points are, in which area they start thinking about the final approach, then they cooperate great in the air but they have very clear instructions from the team leader. Hey, you've crashed twice now, you're not going to be world champion anymore. It's not going to work out, but now you're flying for the team. Or we still have the chance to bring in the lady. You fly in front of the lady all day now. You support the lady. But you're somewhere nearby, and to see that, it's fascinating and really cool.
because it already requires a great team at its core, one that is truly a team and helps each other out. Because it's always dangerous, you know, when someone only looks out for their own interests within a team and doesn't care about anything else. That just doesn't work. And when you see how the French do it, for example, you can see they have a team. They do have a team leader who, of course, actually has to coordinate everything and all the...
...strong characters, but in the end, they've learned, hey, this is how it works and this is why we're the best.
the world. Now, with the French, it might be a bit different than in other countries. From what I've observed, many of the pilots flying up there—there's also a pilot development program from the French state, so they are supported as competitive athletes, and the French pilots probably rank best on average in terms of state funding. So they might say, hey, you're receiving this funding and we have a funded team manager and other things, then you're more inclined to subordinate yourself to that. Whereas if you say, I'm flying everything at my own expense, you naturally look out for yourself much more and less for the nation, the team, or whatever.
Yes, if you compare it that way, the French have 15 people who can fly at the very front during a World Championship or a World Cup. Austria, for example, doesn't have that, and in Austria, you have to ask and say thank you if someone joins you—ideally the good ones—if they take the time and sometimes pay for certain things themselves, so it's not all paid for. Consequently, you don't have the leverage to say as a team manager, "Hey, if you don't do this, I'm kicking you out," because they'd just say, "Well, then you're not doing anything good yourself." So, it's very important to note that the French...
can also do that and can choose who is in the team. So, it's about teamwork, it's about
the pilot's personality, for instance, how they fly—are they an aggressor, a tactician? And if you have different pilot skills in one team, I think you support each other even better.
Would you want something like that for Austria? Yes,
At the beginning, the idea was, well, I think we're too far along to say, in that direction, what makes sense, what benefits everyone, of course also in the Aero-Club, and the standing of the paragliding pilots in Austria will significantly increase if we have more good placements in World Championships and European Championships again.
Now you're just saying there's almost a problem with fielding the national team, that there are good pilots flying with them and all that. What's the reason for that?
Each of us has
a job that for most people is outside of the skiing scene, and there we have five or six weeks of vacation a year. On one hand, you have to qualify first just to have the chance to get into the national team, and for that, they always budget about two or three weeks that go toward a World Cup, maybe two World Cups and some open, and then you're left with exactly two weeks of vacation. Yeah, it just doesn't add up, and that's the reason why many of the good ones in Austria say, yeah, I ski occasionally and I prefer skiing because from the format and the effort involved, it's just much more pleasant. So, in other words, the Austrian competitions are always on the weekends.
Before that,
then maybe a competition works. So, from a financial perspective, it's not much of a hassle, and it's not much of a hassle in terms of vacation either, and that's the bulk of the community in Austria. That's how competitions are flown there.
But you yourself have been with the national team almost continuously for nearly 30 years now. What was it that appealed to you, even though you'd have the same difficulties with vacation and all that? I mean, what kept you so engaged? There were always these different phases.
...given, where I said, enough, I don't feel like it anymore while I'm there. And I've also skipped a few years at times. Also during the time I was doing the Hike-and-Fly competitions, like at X-Alps and stuff, that just didn't work out time-wise at all. And what is essential for me is the community we have in Austria or just internationally. By now, I know so, so many international pilots. It's always a blast, it's fun. Sure, we have a competition and we're focused on that. Everyone wants to deliver the best they can. No problem, but before or after the run, people will chat, there's a party, you see so many different perspectives.
in other nations. On one hand, in terms of flying, and on the other, maybe politically or how the community functions there. I think it's a bit of a lifestyle. That's led to me saying again and again, okay, now I'm back in the zone, now I'm flying again, even though being at the front in the World Cup is often harder, the title or a good placement at a World Championship or European Championship is generally held in higher regard.
What would have to happen in Austria to bring more young pilots to these top-level competitions again, or to get them excited about them? With
this Newcomer Challenge in Germany,
...who are motivated, who obviously have a talent, and also the ones who...
all-around skills to really take the next step and head towards becoming a pro or a professional pilot; they are then supported in a different way. You have to bring them together, just like the French do in school, and teach them a lot of tactics. And many other things that are considered important in competition flying, like meteorology, weather,
Debriefings, understanding of tactical
processes, which you have to teach them separately again. And I think, in our time, it was like everyone just sort of threw something together somewhere and it takes forever. And I believe that within a very short time, with a coach or a trainer, young people can become very good very quickly and find their way to the top very quickly. And that was what was missing a bit in Austria, but we are in the process of something happening there.
developed in that direction. So a coach, a manager, someone who handles this youth development and basically leads a corresponding program. Exactly.
Regarding the Newcomer class, it works like this: established pilots make themselves available to work with the guys on the weekends and do briefings and debriefings every now and then. It's a great thing, a good basis, but the next step would really be working with a coach. Would you be the type to be a coach like that?
I could probably cover certain areas. Of course not everything, but I've already mentioned or expressed interest in doing this or that.
For example? Where do you see your strengths? What could you contribute as a partial coach for such a program?
Because I have many years of experience and a basic understanding of what's going on in a competition pilot or in flying in general, I think I can provide a lot of input relatively quickly. And also the tactical stuff—what's important right now, for example, going through it once during briefings at the launch site with the guys or with the group of boys and girls, of course, what would be important, where the decision points are during the run, where the difficult points might be. And working out a bit of structure beforehand, an idea, a planned flight, and then analyzing it afterwards—okay, what was good, what was bad, what worked, and what do we learn from it.
So this loop, I think I'm relatively good at that, and I could contribute something in that direction.
Would you have wanted that in your younger years? Yes. Or were you the kind of young rebel back then who'd say, "I'm doing my own thing and I'll pull it off somehow, I don't need someone telling me all this stuff"?
No, no, it was really important for me to talk to the established pilots and they gave me input again and again, but you have to say quite clearly: if an established pilot is competing themselves and is doing all the preparation and debriefing themselves, they can't deal with a junior as intensively as someone who does it professionally, or perhaps gets paid for it and has a specific, concrete assignment.
Looking at it that way, is it actually the case that we're at the stage where, based on your findings, you say the French are already there—they have a professional, paid coach doing this. I think his name is Julian Garcia. Other nations should have something like that too, especially Austria, so they can be more successful again. Are we experiencing a kind of forced professionalization of the competition scene?
Yes.
To be at the front, you have to move away from the idea of just going somewhere, flying comfortably, getting a great result, and then heading home. That doesn't work anymore in that form, and many nations are moving in the direction the French are taking, because you can see very clearly that they are having success with it or have had a success with it; they have huge potential in terms of good pilots. So Germany itself is also doing great with the horse and the whole team. I think the youth development in Germany is developing faster and better than in Austria because they actually have someone who specifically takes care of it, who holds the position of team manager and
that, I believe, is getting around, and every nation that has motivated pilots who strive to be at the front—and that's the drive of the competition pilot, not just to be there, but to be at the front—they know then that's the direction I have to develop in, and the nation has to develop in.
The conversation isn't over at this point yet. But unfortunately, for reasons unknown, the recording on Helis Rekorde cut off at exactly this spot. I had the conversation with Heli via Zoom and, fortunately, recorded it there as well. For the rest of the podcast, you will hear Heli in the slightly audio-processed original Zoom recording. Please excuse the somewhat poorer sound quality that follows. And now, back to the conversation.
In another area of your life, you're already a kind of manager, let's say, a team manager. You're a local station leader for the mountain rescue in Gollingen. How did you get into mountain rescue in the first place? It actually resulted from...
I was once, I was there at the accident, the paraglider accident. That was in Mexico, the 2009 World Championships or something, where a friend of mine, Stefan Schmucker, a Swiss guy, crashed and I was able to land with him. That was quite an action already.
I think he came down into completely rocky terrain there. Exactly, yeah.
It was in Valle de Bravo in Mexico and he hit the rocks really hard. I just said to myself, okay, the boy needs me now. I'm going to take a risk, make an interesting landing, and make sure that I get there as...
I did everything possible, but he unfortunately passed away. That weighed on me quite heavily for many years, and it was the initial spark that made me say that if every one of us—and I, for example, in the form of joining the mountain rescue—can make a contribution and offer something to society on a voluntary basis,
...is. But the other aspect is, why mountain rescue? Because there's just so much first aid training to complete and things to do in that direction. And when you arrive at an accident and already have an idea, you feel much safer and more comfortable than if you think, "I hope I never have to do this," but I'm not training in that direction. For me, it was essential that I said I want to do something in that direction so that I can gain the confidence of knowing when what is, that I know...
...about what it's about, that I know what I'm doing and have to. Did you already have a first aid course back then in 2009 during that accident, and did you know what to do? Or did you just say, "Stefan needs me," because of how I saw him hit, and I have to get over there now?
I had taken a first aid course, and that was more or less around the time I really started getting involved with mountain rescue. It's always like that—when someone dies, you find yourself asking what you could have done differently so it wouldn't have ended like that, or if you did something wrong. That question haunted me for years. Looking back, I just never really processed the whole thing. That was a particularly thing where I'd say, if you deal with it, if you...
trained or are being trained in that direction, really
prevent the whole thing from happening like that, from feeling helpless and thinking that maybe I did something wrong, otherwise he might not have died.
He died, but he can really only talk about luck, as far as one can say, that anyone even tried to get there so quickly, and you probably risked quite a bit with the landing in such difficult terrain to make it there.
Yes, it was kind of a necessity or I intuitively said, this has to happen now, because the crash just didn't look good and it was like, he took a huge hit and fell out of a bug and then relatively quickly—or relatively, he was relatively low and then hit relatively hard, like on rocks.
Did this accident change you in any way, like, aviation-wise? Did it leave a mark? Do you fly differently now, or were you different after it? I mean, I...
I really asked myself the question of purpose for a long time and didn't know, okay, does it mean that you have to take on such risks in life, because I'd say playing chess is less risky than paragliding. In any case. And then, the next day was of course a rest day and we
I somehow wanted to get Stefan to... I mean, I made sure that things would calm down with the competition scene for a bit, so it was just a rest day afterwards, and the day after that I went flying again anyway because I thought, yeah, let's see what happens. I can't say for sure, maybe I landed after five minutes and just stared into space—I still remember it like it was today—I just felt comfortable again, felt safe, and it was okay for me. So, purely in terms of flying, I didn't feel like much had changed, but the approach and the issue of taking on the risk, I questioned that much, much more, because such a...
story, it's just
...is very formative and intense. And among other things, that's why you went into mountain rescue. Are there things from that work in mountain rescue where you'd say, things I experience there, where a lot of teamwork is probably involved and it only works if you work accordingly as a team and stuff like that, where you say, I can take something from that for aviation too? Yes, ultimately...
how a team works is actually the same everywhere. You have different personalities. You have to give people the opportunity to develop, for a certain culture of making mistakes to
...forms a certain culture of mistakes. For example, during all the training sessions, everyone helps each other out, and everyone knows that when it comes to something, my life might depend on the other person's actions—because they're lowering me down on the rope, and if they don't know exactly what they're doing or do something stupid, it could end badly for me. So, it's like you support and help each other, but on a level where you say, there isn't some master teacher who manages everything while the rest are kept in check; instead, every individual is an important person who actually works out the skills themselves and...
have to have. Are there things where you would say, based on your experience with paragliding and maybe also competition flying, that you bring something with you or have taken something over that helps you again in your work with mountain rescue?
On one hand, the basic understanding of meteorology is really useful. So, when we communicate with helicopters and such, I can assess things much better during a Föhn storm because, for example, pilots already share a bit of information, like, "Hey, it looks like this and that." I mean, they're all naturally good on their own, but I can already provide some information in advance, and even though we almost never have cases where we actually have to rescue paragliders—we don't have a huge flight area nearby either—but if there were something in that direction, all the people who have ever had anything to do with paragliding or are pilots themselves, like me,
are well-versed in the subject and know what it's all about.
Towards the end, I want to do a little change of subject with you. You've also been at the Red Bull X Alps several times. 2005, I think, 2009, 2011—that's quite a while ago now. Would something like that appeal to you again?
So the event itself is brilliant, but I just don't have the motivation anymore—the time commitment, the risk of doing it all again. I've done it three times and by the third time I said, I've seen it, that was it.
but I still participate in Hike-and-Fly competitions every now and then, and I find formats like Paul Kuschelbauer's Thunderbird very interesting because you can do relatively safe Hike-and-Fly competitions in a demarcated area, where it doesn't matter how much risk I'm taking or whether I'm still flying in adverse conditions—you can limit that a bit with this format. It's simply about providing a route and being able to estimate it relatively well—for example, the route moves through the Stubaital, so you can assess whether the day is great with no problems, or if we have these turning conditions and there's just no turning point or I make it bigger; so, I find it in that direction.
That's fun, and I'd love to join in again every now and then, but X-Alps is just too big of a thing for me now.
That means, from what I can hear, the issue of safety actually plays an increasingly larger role for you?
Yes, well, I think the most important thing is that as a pilot, you get older, you fly for a long time, you have fun, you still have fun, and
If you want to be part of X-Alps and are motivated, I believe you should approach the limit very differently than a normal pilot would.
In 2011, during your last X-Alps participation, you were actually one of the people who, I believe, from an outside perspective, took the biggest risk, because at that time, I think you were the first pilot to ever fly along with a two-liner in such a competition. Why did you do that back then? If I were to give a lecture...
about my biggest mistakes, that would be the hook. Aha. So the glider, that was the R11, the two-liner, so the further development of the R10 from 2011, R11 size XXS, had great performance. So at that time, it was simply noticeably better in terms of performance. I'm talking about an Alpenbiss here, a glide ratio, where for example my glider was better than Kriegel Maurer's glider. And then I thought, yeah,
I'll work with the event, now we're organizing the glider. And it was like, even the guys from OZAN were super excited and said, "That's the best glider, you need it, and it works." Then we were at his Border Race, Kriegel and I, and I glided with it, was three fields ahead, only at the landing it went slightly downhill and at the end of the field I just lost height, so I was still
...showered a tree, and I thought, yeah, great performance, fits perfectly, but I just can't utilize the top landing qualities because the glider, it doesn't let you sink, it's super complicated, super fiddly, and that was simply the first moment I said, oh, maybe a mistake, and that turned out to be true—that the glider was actually not flyable for this type of competition. So, it was
a total disaster. When did you even have this glider available? I mean, why didn't you notice before that you also—or you say, at the Border Race you actually noticed it, but why did you still start with such a glider if you say it's actually maybe not suitable for this kind of competition? I got the glider relatively late before
got for the competition, so I'm talking about three or four weeks. Oh, that's so close, okay. And that was just way too short for anything.
...compared to if I had taken a normal EN-T or T. I actually would have performed much better and had it much less often and more pleasantly than in your case. That's where you know or understand why Kriegel Mauer is so meticulous about getting his glider, the one he uses for himself, as early as possible. He really sets himself a deadline and says, I want the glider half a year in advance so I can test it. I just learned that it didn't work out that way for my form.
Did you have any hairy situations because of the glider during the competition, where you'd say the landing only just worked out or something? The Two-Liner
were completely different to launch. That was, we had become the three-liners, you'd pull one of yours out, the glider would somehow go up, easy. With the two-liner, you'd pull one of yours out and then you had to jump towards the canopy to avoid overshooting it completely. Only on the day of the start, Dach, there was a 30 or 35 in the HW. Thermik Küng launched one next to me because he can do that well anyway, but it looked super easy and I came in with the two-liner. First, he completely overshot me, then it threw me off. So that was also a case where the glider simply wasn't advanced enough to be suitable for me, and besides, from us
everyone had to learn how to handle the two-liner in situations like that. Nowadays, everyone knows, okay, then we do a Kubastart, this, that, but at the time that wasn't so common, and with the normal glider it always worked, but with that, it was suddenly a super difficult story.
Did you experience that as a defeat at the time, in a way? No, not really.
So I had some other hairy situations during this X-Alps. Among others, I ended up in Martigny—Martigny is the windiest corner of the Alps, that's the valley jump from Valais towards Chamonix—and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe a bad decision, I couldn't get back into the air and got blown out into the valley from the valley turn, landing backwards. I think that was about 20, 30 km of backward travel. That was also the point where I was sitting down there unharmed among the grapevines, where I said, well,
now that's enough, we're just not doing that anymore. So, I was able to wrap up the Red Bull X-Alps event relatively well. That means I never felt like I'd missed out on anything or that I hadn't achieved something yet. In the end, fourth place is fine, and I'm not going to try five more times to achieve something. Generally, the scene says that the first time at X-Alps is always the best time. As it was on the Mau, that's true for some pilots, or many pilots. But the experiences the first time are super intense. You learn a lot and you're also very neutral and level-headed because you probably don't expect much. And the next times, the demands are probably higher.
Consequently, you have more pressure and, yeah. Where
When I just asked about defeat, I didn't mean whether you experienced this launch as a defeat—meaning this launch at the Dachstein as a defeat—but more this point that you actually realized, I made the wrong decision, I chose the wrong glider, and you experienced that as a defeat. Where you have to say, I can actually only attribute that to myself. Yeah, no, I
I'm not really the type to feel like that's a defeat; rather, I learned something. I simply learned that performance isn't everything in paragliding. Or for myself, yes, you make the best decision possible, and if the decision is wrong, there's nothing you can do about it afterwards, and wrong decisions happen. The only thing I can do is maybe adjust my decision-making criteria a bit in the future when I'm considering which glider, for example, to use for certain events.
So you don't push out any frustration after such or other defeats? Not really. I mean, I immediately ask myself, okay, what am I learning?
from that? What can I take away from it, or what has the situation shown me now, or what is the learning for me so that I can develop further?
Do you have to experience repeated defeats in your paragliding career in order to move forward? I
I think defeats have the most important moments in paragliding or in life in general, because when everything is going great, I don't really need to think about it; it just works. And in situations where you now, for example, experience a defeat, or have to learn from a defeat, you deal with the whole thing intensively and think, okay, what led to this? What can I change? And what other path do I describe with that? You can actually apply that process to your whole life, and I think that simply keeps moving you forward, time and again.
Looking at your flying career personally, what do you see as your greatest success?
When I think about it, I have to say, the
biggest success. Or what are you particularly proud of? Well, I'm not the type,
the guy who's hoarding trophies in his living room now. I have fun, I'm happy that a competition went well, for example, I don't know, last year's State Championship. It went well, I won, I'm happy about it, and it's just a small part of what defines me. To be honest, I have no idea what else defines me. What makes you tick? I can live relatively well in the here and now.
I enjoy what I do. I don't think I'm driven by the need to achieve success in some way; rather, I have fun on the way there. So, I set a goal, look at it and think, okay, what can I do, how can I implement this, how can I train, and what do I want to improve? And then at the end of the day, I might have a success or it might not work out and I learn something from it. So, the journey itself is what fascinates me and why I still do the whole thing, because ultimately, I've certainly suffered many more defeats than victories, and if I only look at victory or defeat, the time in between somehow just...
dissolve into thin air, and I think to myself, I learned something every day, I trained, I did something, I just had a successful day at the end of the day, and that is much more important, I think, than us only being focused on successes and
that's what I think gives me my Gauss. Now let's close the circle a bit to the beginning. You're entering your fourth decade of flying, you could just say. What goals do you still have? Well, I've been doing it for
for years now, I haven't set any big goals, so my next milestone is that we get a lot of snow
with my skis and then see in the spring how motivated I am to ramp the whole thing up again and commit to training and putting myself out there for many applicants. So, I have the World Championships next year in the back of my mind as a goal; I want to be fit for that in August and September, but I've noticed that the more I focus and almost fixate on, for example, the main goal for the next few years, the faster the time in between flies by, and I end up leaving a lot of other things behind. I actually find that to be such an ideal way for me, so I'd say, let's see what happens.
The thought of the World Championships is constantly on my mind, and I want to place as well as possible, no matter what happens. I'm sure it'll be fun at the end of the day, and if I'm at the very top, of course I'll be extremely happy, but if I'm right in the middle of it, I hope I've been part of a good team and have
The thought of the World Cup is buzzing in the back of my mind and I want to place myself as best as I can, no matter what happens. I'm sure it'll be fun in the end, and if I'm at the very top, of course I'll be extremely happy, but if I'm in the middle of it, I hope I was with a good team and had... Where do you want to get better in terms of flying—not in terms of ranking, but where do you say, "I still have something to learn there, I can get better"?
I think, like,
the whole scene or the whole world of flying keeps evolving, and then someone comes up with a good idea and does something with the handling, the turning, or whatever.
What would be interesting is for the acro pilots to take a peek, because I left that field many years ago—I mean, I was involved with the acro pilots a bit back in the late 2000s, and that was nowhere near what those guys are doing now. So, what they do with their gliders fascinates me, and I'm so far away from that; it would interest me to go out on the lake every now and then and try a few things. That would still be something that would appeal to me because it's something new and I'd be a total beginner and a chick. The challenge there is many times greater than where I stand now at the World Cup on the
Start. Alright Heli, then I wish you lots of fun becoming a chick again in your fourth decade of flying, maybe returning to acro. Otherwise, good luck with a possible World Championship participation. Then maybe with an M-glider or S-glider. Let's see what you decide on, and I'm also curious to see how this whole topic of the swimming noodle on some of the rear lines develops, and how the competition scene might shift, and who knows, how you might regain the desire to be in that competition scene again in the future, maybe to say, hey, if the performance field is even, and I can get out there again with lighter equipment,
let's see how I manage to navigate that. Yeah, it remains exciting. We'll see how it turns out. Thanks, Heli, for the conversation. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed it.
That was Podz-Glidz episode 149 with Heli Eichholzer. You can find some further links in the shownotes on the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz. Podz-Glidz is the podcast by Lu-Glidz. You can subscribe to it on all the usual podcast platforms. There is a new episode every 14 days. 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 effort into Podz-Glidz and Lu-Glidz. 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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