153. Danis Welt - Daniel Loritz

And the time window plays a very important role in the learning process. It's not even necessarily that a glider nods to 90 degrees right now, but how fast it nods to 90 degrees. If it happens more slowly, the pilot simply has the opportunity to grasp, understand, follow, and correct the maneuver, as opposed to when a maneuver happens very quickly and the time window simply doesn't allow for any perception at all. And that is an experience I've had over the last 30, 40 years. The factor of time sometimes plays an almost bigger role than the roll and pitch moments in the dimension at all.

Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Daniel Loritz. And I am Lucian Haas.

When I invited Daniel Loritz to Podz-Glidz, I was faced with a difficult question. What should I talk to him about? Not because there was a lack of topics. On the contrary. Dani is one of those flying personalities who is so incredibly multifaceted that it's hard to do them justice in a single podcast episode. Dani is a pilot from the very early days and has since witnessed the entire development of paragliding and helped shape it in many areas—not only as a flight instructor and safety trainer, but also as a test pilot, a designer of paragliders and modern rescue canopies. The 54-year-old today, for example, adapted the concept of the cross-canopy for paragliding and invented the triangle canopies.

Dani is also known in the scene for occasionally "taking his pants down" on all sorts of aviation topics with as much expertise as he has strong opinions, as he calls it. Recently, he spread a kind of blanket criticism of ENC2 liners in the paraglider forum. How he justifies this is one of the topics in our conversation. The second part will mainly focus on Dani's expertise in the construction of reserve parachutes, the importance of the reserve size for its dominance over the main glider, and the unresolved problem of reserve inflation. Since you're listening to the podcast, why don't you become a supporter of Podz-Glidz? It's very easy to do, and you can find out how on the "Support" page of the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz.

Dani, you've done an enormous amount in your flying career, which has been going on for almost 40 years now. You were a flight instructor or are a flight instructor, you were once a test pilot, you've designed paragliders, you've designed rescue gliders, you're a safety trainer. Which of those is actually your favorite?

Yes, I think that's pretty self-explanatory. The topic of safety in our sport has always been extremely close to my heart, and I was able to work through the topic of paragliding or flight technique relatively early in my career. I got opportunities early on to establish myself in this area of flight technique. And it simply became clear that SIV training—passing on my flight technique know-how to people, the approach to how one deals with flight technique and flight safety—was what I cared about. And then, perhaps, it was also the fact that I come from a background in instruction, meaning I was a flight instructor, which in turn doesn't mean you can just explain it, but that you have the ability to convey it didactically and pedagogically.

But obviously, it's also shown that I'm not completely talentless in that area, because SIV training has accompanied me the whole time. Even during the time I was a test pilot, designing for various manufacturers, I always conducted and led my SIV training. And that is certainly the part of my career that lasted the longest, worked, became established, reached people, but also always gave me the most fun myself. I had a time during my training where I stood on the practice slope, stood on the high flights, took people down on the radio, where I said, "Yes, now I've explained for the three hundredth, for the thousandth time, how to take the brake in your hand."

And I never had that feeling with the SIV training. I never felt like I had to explain how a stall works again. Why not?

So what's different when you explain to someone how to land versus explaining how a stall flies? Basically, it's a maneuver, and certain things like hand positioning and other stuff—you could say it's somewhat similar. But why does one eventually become boring and the other doesn't?

Yes, you're right, that's an interesting question. When it comes to landing or explaining how to take the brake in your hand on the practice slope, it's always the brake and the pressure button has changed for a magnet, but there's no real dynamics behind it. But with maneuver flying or SIV training, there's an enormous amount of dynamics behind it. You can see and feel the development in the industry in terms of the products. You deal with the full spectrum of our sport, from the beginner who just finished their training to, specifically in my case, I train the Swiss League and a few international competition pilots. And there you really have the full spectrum. I'm responsible for the flight instructor training for a sub-sector of the Swiss Hang Gliding Association.

I train the Swiss League, I train or I certify Siku trainers, safety trainers in Switzerland, so you have the full range and, in parallel, you've witnessed the entire development over the whole time that there has been in this paragliding sport, live on the front lines, in the air, seen during SIV training, busy with it every single day. And that dynamic has simply kept the entire profession I practice there exciting, and it was never boring. And then there's also always the fact that at the practice slope, you have uninitiated, unaffected people. At SIV training, you have people who already bring their own experiences, both positive and negative experiences.

And then you also—I'll put this in pedagogical terms—you have really more complex subject areas where people have had incidents, had accidents. They come to you, asking for advice on how to regain their safety. You have people who want to become more efficient in the performance area. So the spectrum of topics is simply much, much larger, more voluminous. And you are challenged anew every day; the complexity is endless. From that perspective, I don't have SIV training where I go and think, "Now I have to explain how to do a B-stall again" or whatever. Instead, I go there every day and really say, "Wow, let's see what the day brings, where I'll be challenged, how I can move these people forward." And that has led to the fact that I've been offering SIV training for 25 years now and haven't regretted a single day.

And I find that

I'm already cool. Is being a safety trainer actually, what should I call it, an adrenaline job? Does it push you, sitting in the boat and seeing that I've got one who's about to fall off up there and I have to get them down safely? Is it something like aerobatics on the ground, but you still have similar sensations—or whatever "sensations" means—maybe similar adrenaline rushes because it's so exciting?

No, not anymore, not anymore, let's put it that way. At the beginning, I definitely did. And I have people, flight instructors who want to become safety trainers, who come to me for assistant days, and I try to pass the topic on to them a bit. And you notice right at the beginning that the people, the instructors, get tired, get tired quickly. After the third customer, they already say, you can take over, I'm mentally exhausted. And you can already tell that it's draining. But over time, once you've coughed so many people down, you notice that these are standard procedures that just run their course. It's not as demanding anymore. There are only very, very rare situations where I actually build up pressure.

That's where you're challenged. I'll say, a spiral dive and people don't react. Right then, maybe the pulse jumps for a moment. Glider collapses—thankfully we don't have those as intensely today. You're challenged by those. But I'd say, performing a stall with an Epsilon or an Alpha, or just a decent, proper glider—you could basically put a tape on for that. What's actually the case—I'm not allowed to say it that loudly—is at Lake Garda, where people are a thousand meters above the water and you see it at small points, I have it a bit bigger on the monitor now, but basically, I can do that; it's a chronological sequence where you just give the explanations in a standardized rhythm.

And it's actually amazing how well that works. But what is definitely the big challenge and what's exciting is picking up each individual pilot. On the same course, as I said, I have the beginner, the competition pilot, and the world champion who can still do a bit of training for himself, covering the whole spectrum. Then in the morning, you have people explaining, "I'm actually just coming from an accident, I'd rather stop flying paragliders, so how can you help me now?" And then you have this range of personalities that you're trying to pick up, shape, support, get back on their feet, three steps back, and then finally, "Let's try to take one step forward." That's the exciting part and that's the challenging part.

And I think that also demands something from you, and you get your adrenaline rushes there in a different form, where you have joy, positive experiences, where you can say in the evening, hey wow, did you see your silk collapse, how you handled it and worked through it completely relaxed. That generates the moments of happiness for me and, accordingly, the adrenaline rushes. You just get them in a different form.

I always say casually, it's a bit brutal to put it that way, but I'm not the type to jump into the water. But there are people who watch me and then say, hey, it's impressive how relaxed you are, just sitting there in your deckchair and rambling away. It doesn't help if I get excited and nervous somehow. It doesn't help the other person and I lose my perspective. I have to stay calm so that I can still provide people with the best information even in a tense situation.

Are there scenes or moments where you can't stay cool?

Yeah. What is that? Those are the moments where people look for excuses. If we're honest, training and further education are always a very brutal look at one's own image. It's looking at a reflection. And I have difficulty with people who build up a certain resistance to learning because they look for excuses. Everything else is someone else's fault. The glider, the working height, the radio, the air mass, the other participants of the SIV training. I, on the radio, am of course always a grateful victim, logically. Or as an instructor in general. Especially when your reputation is on the line or whatever. That's where I have my difficulties, because I can only help them in a difficult way there.

I would have to get people to be willing to look at their own reflection first, and then also to respect that there might be a wrong approach, or perhaps a lack of honesty with themselves.

Starting the learning process, or undergoing it, means admitting to self-reflection. And if it fails there, then I have my difficulties.

How much do you have to be a psychologist as a safety trainer?

Wow. I think you can certainly run a training at a basic level in a pretty standardized way. I think that works quite well for most pilots anyway if you keep it standardized. People come and go. But I think the beauty of our profession is when people really open up and explain themselves during the introductions. When they just let their guard down and say, "This is my handicap, this is my problem, and I'd like to..." And that's where the big challenge comes in. And I think that's where you can find your job exciting over a longer period of time. And of course, it has a lot to do with your own authenticity.

How do I introduce myself? Who am I? Am I willing to open up and show my weaknesses? I'm not that confident right now, or whatever. Building mutual trust in the shortest amount of time. All the people, or the vast majority of them, who come to me are coming for the first time and don't know me. And then you just have to generate that trust quickly. And that's definitely what makes the profession exciting over a longer period. But I think that's also the success model of a good instructor: that he doesn't just follow a standardized process, but also builds personalities, personal connections. And the mutual trust and the joy of sharing success with each other. Also sharing failure with each other and offering a hand and saying, hey, I'm down to help you.

Let's generate and invest time so that you can progress. But that also always means that I progress along with you. And that's the beauty of it, and it's important. And it's anything but standard. It's new every day. Every person, every pilot carries their own baggage, as I always say, their own backpack. And they bring their story with them. And that's part of it, just as I bring my story too.

...bring along. Now, you probably already do SIV training, depending on what you count as that, including your own training, with which you trained yourself a lot at the beginning, for more than 30 years. In these 30 years, paraglider technology—the paragliders themselves—has evolved tremendously. How has that affected SIV training? Or how has your form of SIV training changed because paraglider technology has changed? I mean, do you have to approach it differently today? Or has the thing perhaps become easier? Or has it become more difficult?

Completely differently. We have certain areas, like for example pitch moments, which have become chronically less intense over the last few years. That has to do with the mass of the equipment. Our gliders are lighter nowadays than they used to be. While we have more power, more dynamics, etc., the mass of the glider is very, very important for pitch moments. Today, flying a stall with a standardized school glider or B-glider is significantly easier, simpler than it used to be. On the other hand, for example, initiating a full stall has become chronically a bit more complex because we have higher glide ratios. The higher glide ratio means that today, initiation sometimes has to be done in two stages if you go over the...

working in the lab, so initiating this classic standardized stall in straight flight. Today, you have to initiate it in two stages; you could just brake, down, to the ass, and then the thing stalled. It depends on the specific topic. All in all, it's not entirely easy to answer because, of course, your knowledge, your own skills, and your experience come into play, and you naturally become more confident with the understanding of the entire flight physics in the background. In the past, you just explained, I'm doing a silk collapse and then let's see what happens. Today, we actually know what happens during a silk collapse, how roll-pitch moments are generated, and what is responsible for these roll-pitch moments,

what the pilot's moment of inertia has on the entire maneuver process.

Of course, the dynamics from the beginning, when we were flying with just a few cells—so 9, 10, 15 cells—with an aspect ratio of 3.5 and 4, and today we have high-performance wings with 6 and more, 2-liners, that has already changed the whole thing, but I wouldn't say it's made it more complex across the board. Throughout the entire time, over the 30, 40 years I've been in this sport, we've always had individual moments that were noticeable, individual products where you knew, hey, you have to be careful, they have a very specific characteristic; you still have that today, but much, much less often than before. Let me put it this way: if you take a B-glider, we have much less often today individual products that stand out, where you have to say, hey, you have to be careful.

So, the construction standard has generally become higher, is that how you'd put it?

Yes, definitely. The manufacturers have also learned a tremendous amount,

probably also bear the responsibility,

perceived, are aware of it, not always and not everywhere, we're seeing that right now with the C2-Liners, they've somewhat proven that they might not be quite that fit yet, haven't generated that knowledge yet, at least not all of them, and on the other side, we're seeing right now with the C2-Liners that, I'm not entirely sure if the manufacturers really know what they've done with them, but yeah, you're right, the broad mass of all school gliders, the broad mass of all B-gliders, they are surprisingly homogeneous, they are surprisingly compliant with the certification, they are also surprisingly functional for the customers, for the people who fly these products. Yes, that has improved, definitely.

You just mentioned the ENC-2 liners, and that was also something—back in November, you wrote a very interesting, relatively critical post in the paraglider forum, and when I read it, I thought, I have to invite Dani to the podcast too and talk to him about it, because this post culminated in a sentence that says, from my point of view, the current C2 liners have flopped in unison. You have to explain that to me. Why flopped?

Critical, you mentioned the term critical, probably especially self-critical, because I'll be open and honest, I spoke out publicly in the lead-up when these C2 -Liners were announced—I don't know exactly who I spoke to, but I did speak out a bit publicly—and I actually assumed that our paragliding scene, including the industry, the manufacturers, sales, and distribution, was equipped for this topic and that we would establish it relatively smoothly and without any fuss. And I was wrong; looking back now, I'm surprised by how many problems have arisen, how many incidents we've had, emergency wing deployments, people who have specifically reported problems with the gear—I was surprised by that.

And the gear turned out to be more temperamental than I had anticipated.

And I was disappointed by the industry, by the manufacturers, because we have, for example, in the D range, in class D, IND, we have two-liners that have become extremely established, where people managed extremely well.

and showed no abnormalities. And now, in the C two-liner class, it has become clearly apparent that the industry has apparently failed to prove it can build sensible, functional devices from this D class.

could. But where exactly does the problem lie? I mean, what can an IND two-liner do better than an INC two-liner? Just like you're saying. Basically, a CO-Light or an Oxard, which you also mentioned as an example in your post, you say they're actually okay in their field; they've shown they're easy to handle and probably work in terms of safety. What's different with the INC two-liner?

That's not quite so easy to answer because on one hand, you have the clientele in the D-class; you have a different clientele than in the C-class. Then you have to know what has happened in the certification over the last decades in these classes. So the C-class wasn't addressed, wasn't corrected, for decades. In the B-class, we got corrections regarding roll and pitch moments, but that was always omitted in the C-class. That means the C-class is a class that hasn't experienced any dynamics in the certification for decades. And it's possible that the manufacturer didn't understand that they were addressing a different clientele there. And the combination of that might have generated this error. Specifically, I can say that the C-class two-liner generates much, much more roll and pitch moments in proportion to the D-class.

In the D-class, you can simply make the construction more stretched. And that is absolutely, completely decisive. The control travel in the D-class is shorter than in the C-class. That gives the manufacturer the possibility, or other options, to still get a certification with these shorter control travel lengths. The difficulty in the C-class is maintaining these long control travels while still managing, so to speak, reasonable handling, performance characteristics, and safety details. The combination, very specifically, with these gliders I just saw over the water, the roll-pitch moments are disproportionately high,

the pitch is very pronounced, they have very dynamic roll moments, with the result that the time factor of these sequences, of these roll-pitch moments, the time factor is extremely small; people, the pilots, are disproportionately surprised by how quickly such devices generate these maneuver sequences. Specifically, the class, as well as the pilots we are addressing, are simply chronically overwhelmed, and you have to know that high-aspect devices with long lines and high aspect ratios usually result in a larger maneuver time window, and the time window plays a very important role in understanding or the learning process.

It's not even necessarily that a glider nods to 90 degrees, but how fast it nods to 90 degrees. If it happens more slowly, the pilot simply has the opportunity to grasp, understand, follow, and correct the maneuver, whereas if a maneuver happens very quickly, the time window simply doesn't allow for any perception at all. That is an experience I've had over the last 30 to 40 years. The time factor sometimes plays an even bigger role than the roll and nod moments in this dimension.

The time factor means how much time the pilot has to react just to assess what's happening.

Exactly, and we're talking tenths of a second or even less. I'm no neurobiologist, but humans—and this varies with age, talent, and ability—basically, having just a few more tenths of a second to process a maneuver generates a much faster learning process. You can try it out for yourself in a relatively simple way. Take a tandem glider—now I have to be careful because some aren't approved for solo use. In Switzerland, someone flies a tandem glider solo once, so very under-weight. Do these maneuvers there, fully supervised for water safety training to ensure everything stays within a safe framework, but do them with a glider flown at or even below the lower weight limit, and you'll be surprised at how much detail you can perceive during a maneuver. That is exactly this time window that allows for just a few tenths of a second more, and that window then supports the learning process, supports the understanding of the maneuver, and of course, then also in an emergency situation when you're out there,

in the flights, in the silk collapses, simply having two or three tenths of a second more time to grasp what's going on makes it amazingly easier to handle than when a maneuver happens faster and those few tenths aren't available to me and I suddenly lose the overview and no longer know what just happened. The factor of time is a very important detail in our sport.

But why does a two-liner, compared to—there are the ENC-3 liners, they've existed for a long time now, and there are now the ENC-2 liners—to what extent, and why are the ENC-2 liners basically faster in their reactions? I mean, why is it harder for pilots to deal with them?

The glider must not generate roll moments at 90 degrees, and that is generally, as a rule, rarely a limit in the construction, development, or testing of a paraglider. Even a D-glider or an open glider rarely goes much deeper than 90 degrees of roll moment. Roll moment is rarely the issue. So, in terms of depth, they are allowed to reach these 90 degrees and they will reach them, but much more is generally almost never included in our product range. You hardly get any more roll moments. So that is never the limiting factor. The issue is, you have—and that is probably the mistake from my perspective.

I don't look deep enough into any manufacturer's construction to say specifically that they've messed up there. But if I look at the products from the outside, these are mostly wings that have relatively short lines in relation to the span. That is a factor that determines whether it generates roll-pitch moments. They have relatively short lines. I assume that also has to do with them still managing to achieve decent handling. Short lines can generate a snappier, more compact handling feel. They have used profiles that are very performance-oriented. They can, they are allowed to install them, because the fold lines [mitigate] the side collapse.

it is surprisingly easy to get through the quality seal. The fold lines—you always think the fold lines are the solution to the problem with our gliders. That's the solution to the certification problem. But fold lines, you have to know, when I install a fold line on a paraglider, I am completely free. The manufacturer can define, position, and trim these fold lines however they want. And that leads to the fact that certification is surprisingly easy for side collapses. When you build a glider, you're always fighting between side collapses, pitching moments, and the disturbance path length. It used to be the deep stall. But those are the main factors that the designer and the test pilot struggle with.

side collapse, shooting roll-and-snick moments in the B-class, and the spanwise distance during a stall. Those are the key data points.

If the side flap is no longer the cornerstone when you can just easily trim it away using the fold line, other issues suddenly emerge as important. For example, the travel distance. That is definitely an issue in the C-class. And because the roll and snick moment is never an issue at 90 degrees anyway, that handicap didn't exist there either, and now if you asked about a 3-liner in the C-class, why are they so significantly

simpler? If you have a separately managed C-line, you can trim this exact factor relatively well. The C-line is responsible for various factors in development and construction, but sometimes also for the roll-and-snick moment. You can trim the C-line very precisely and sensitively so that roll-and-snick moments don't occur. Of course, there are other factors like the planform or line length, etc. That is specifically missing in the C-2-liner class. This leads to the fact that the line collapse is surprisingly human when you do it with a fold line, but roll-and-snick moments are fully exploited at these 90 degrees.

That results in exciting maneuvers or a lot of dynamics. The wings fly well, they perform well, they glide well. Whatever the case, it also means that the wings build up dynamics. Pilots are then surprised when they fly their maneuvers and suddenly see the wing at 90° in front of them with one half folded in, then tucking behind, and then simultaneously building up dynamics with that still-open surface. That comes from the performance of these gliders. It's not by chance, and I admit, I misjudged that too and had to correct it a bit over the last year or year and a half.

Who would you say, or to whom would you recommend an INC-2-Liner at all? That's the

Difficulty, and it's logical that then, I'd say, for the conventional classic progression, the pilot builds up, has done a lot of further training, from the school glider to the B-glider, from the low to the, in my opinion, mid- or high-B glider. At some point, the liegegurtzeug is also added, hopefully also accompanied by a good

Further training. From my perspective, the transition from a seat harness to a liege harness should be accompanied by instruction. But if you've followed a classic, good progression over a long period, acquired the knowledge and skills through further training, and then you're at a High-B at some point, the question arises: I'm moving into the C-class now. What do I do? Fortunately, some manufacturers have recognized—boldly recognized—that they still offer three-liners in the C-class. Specifically, AdWords or Niviuk have a good, or have a good, modern, classic C-three-liner on the market, and there I definitely recommend moving from the High-B to the C-three-liner; that is a huge leap.

Again, you have to keep in mind that the C-class hasn't seen any significant dynamics or major corrections over the last few decades, aside from these two-liners—meaning the addition of foldliners. From this perspective, I would exercise caution when moving from the High-B to the C-three-liner. You always have to factor in the pilot's individual circumstances with every recommendation you make. How old is the pilot, where do they come from, what is their career path, where do they want to go, and how much time and money do they have to invest in the supervision and these courses?

Sure, the training costs money and time, and you should never give blanket answers, but I'd tend to say that going from a High-B to a C-three-liner involves huge steps; you have to invest an enormous amount in terms of lake time, supervision, guidance, and the learning process, and that's certainly easier for a younger pilot than for someone who's 50, 55, or 60 and still wants to make those kinds of steps—those are massive steps. On the other hand, a C-three-liner pilot who has been flying one for a long time and then wants to switch to a C-three-liner, well, why not? Also, of course, under supervision—it's always recommended to have supervision, I don't want to do any advertising or

...to sign off that safety training is always the only way for this type of accompaniment, but it has become established over the last decades that it's certainly not wrong, and then you have these D-two-liner or even D-three-liner pilots,

who might downgrade to a C-2 liner, that works surprisingly well. Whether it's satisfying is always a question, but that doesn't matter; descending is always a question of how satisfying it is in the end, but yeah, descending is usually always easier than ascending, that's definitely the case.

One issue with the C-Two lines situation, which is also constantly being discussed now, is that you just can't train certain things as well with them. I mean, if you don't have fold lines mounted on them, you can't really pull decent collapses with them the way you would still do with a B glider in a safety training, because you never know how dynamically your glider will react the very first time you pull it, what you do accordingly, and so on. How do you deal with that?

Yes, that's a huge topic with these C-Two-Liners, or generally C-Two-Liners; we encountered that very early on with the open class, with competition gliders, with Ceno, Enzo, Zeolite class—that's a problem. Training silk collapses or deformations is one of the most important elements in advanced training; there's no getting around that. I've noticed now over these decades that it doesn't play such a huge role which piece of equipment I use to train the silk collapse. That means, theoretically, I can, hypothetically—and this is something I do with the Swiss League, for example—

For several years now, even though they might fly Ceno, Enzo, or high-performance gliders—I mean the top performance class—I've been recommending that they also attend our SIV training or our flight technique training with the Swiss League using classic gliders, so that they fly 3-liners and 4-liners. From my perspective, with an Alpha, that's really not the issue. It's simply about visually perceiving what a glider looks like when it collapses. What are the movement patterns in its maneuver? That already helps to generate the motor skills and the understanding of the maneuver, so that they can then draw parallels with their 2-liner afterwards and then fly it surprisingly correctly and confidently.

can fly in reality. That means you don't necessarily have to train with the two-liner, that's the first thing. The second thing is, yes, there are folding lines, you can order them or you can already get them delivered with the new equipment depending on the manufacturer. The question then is, how fast are they to assemble? And then in the end, the question arises again, how representative is that collapse you pull with these folding lines actually? For the Swiss League and of course also for people who want to fly this class with me sometime, I have bought products or gliders, older models, older Enzos and Zenos and Boomerangs that I bought and equipped myself with folding lines. I've basically trimmed them and I make them available to people if they want to let those kinds of gliders collapse sometime.

And usually, it's like this: they come down surprisingly sober and say, "Well, it's actually surprisingly human how you can collapse an Enzo and how well it works." And we're going to have this experience again and again over the next few years, where people equip their C2 lines with lines for SIV training, then go out and fly and practice the maneuvers, and then come down sober. "Yeah, it's surprisingly well-behaved." And of course, that can also be counterproductive, because people think, "Now I have a C2 line, it was super relaxed during SIV training with the lines, but now I'm flying a well-behaved glider." And then they go into their daily flying with this mindset and are surprised that a C2 line can actually react in a very exciting way.

And we have to be careful not to create the wrong impressions there. But Lucian Haas is a topic that has always occupied us. Whether it's 2-liners with fold lines or if I'm satisfied with a 50% collapse during an SIV training and then think that the collapse occupies the thermals in practice, it's exactly the same issue. Ideally, in training and further education, we should always orient ourselves toward the worst-case scenario, work through the issues in that direction, and take the time, the patience, and also the courage and the effort...

take, to work towards the worst-case scenario. That costs time, it costs money, it costs nerves and patience, to approach the maneuvers so gradually that we can eventually say, now I have really worked through and processed the worst-case scenario and I handled it surprisingly well, I was able to perceive the sequences, I could notice them, my reflex has adapted well to it, that would be the goal. Fold lines can help to achieve that goal, but they can under certain circumstances be counterproductive,

if you then basically treat the folding lines as some kind of holy grail and end up saying, "that was surprisingly well-behaved," then it's counterproductive.

Do these lines also somewhat take the dynamics out of the glider or out of the maneuver? Enormously. So that is

it's unbelievable how much more harmless those gliders react when they collapse with fold lines, or I mean, you can provoke it, you can build up momentum and then pull a collapse or, alternatively, just flutter through the counter-pressure in the empty space until you get a collapse, and then you'll see, there are worlds of difference between a real collapse in practice and a manually pulled collapse with the fold lines, and I know I'm contradicting myself to a large extent here, I've always said that the collapses we practice at SIV training have some relevance to collapses in practice, and I was also repeatedly...

criticized for making that statement. There are people who say that the collapses we do during SIV training have nothing to do with practice. I strongly disagree, and clearly, there is even a collapse with the C2 Liner that has parallels to practice. The collapses we see in practice today—and by the way, that's a statement that doesn't necessarily just come from me, but it's a topic we've processed and discussed in the Swiss League, and the experts, the performance-oriented pilots in the Swiss League, they agree: the range of collapses we experience in practice today is almost no longer to

classify, they are almost no longer definable. The range is enormous; you have partial collapses in the outer wing area, small and fast-moving, and you have huge total-destruction collapses that are almost impossible to grasp, you have huge shooting moments, pure vertical components that don't even happen with knitted lines, but the canopy simply shoots vertically down towards you, and you have fast-moving deformations, you have slow-moving slow-motion deformations, and you can't just say there's basically no longer this classic certification collapse with 70% span and a 45-degree collapse angle; that collapse practically doesn't exist anymore.

but we can't get around the fact that we need to practice, train, and simply learn to visually perceive the deformations and the sequences—trying to recognize and visualize the glider, training and practicing the visual perception of the glider at all, so that people can react as quickly as possible to the reaction the glider is showing right now.

Well, nowadays modern High-B constructions are also available as two-and-a-half-liners and such, offering enormous performance compared to what gliders used to have. When would you say one should still consider whether they need an ENC two-liner, or is it actually completely sufficient for 95% of pilots to fly a maximum High-B?

Yes, that's naturally a topic we've discussed repeatedly throughout the history of paragliding—what do you actually need? And of course, you're 100% right: the further we move forward in our sport, the more this question becomes relative. You're 100% right there, but on the other hand, Lucian, let's be honest, everyone has their ambition and the need to measure themselves. And whether he's only measuring himself against himself or against comrades in the club or whatever, it's also part of our sport that we...

to move in a performance-oriented way, to be interested, and that's this fever that perhaps also makes our sport exciting in part, and to dismiss that with a recommendation like, "Hey, you're all pilots who can't put in the time, the ambition, the ability, or the talent to experience this progress or to make it truly safe," to dismiss that from the outset, I find that so arrogant and it would probably not do our sport any good either. It is our duty, so from the industry, from the associations, from the instructors, from the experts, it is our duty to the pilot community

to provide the basis, to give the knowledge, to give the opportunity, yes, have fun with what you do. Fun sometimes also means looking forward, wanting more performance, being able to fly further. Just imagine, ten years ago, if you told someone, hey, fly 100, 150 kilometers in the next, in the first two or three years that you fly a paraglider, everyone would have shaken their head, would have said, no, that's not possible, today we are there. We have generated the knowledge, we have the products that allow for that, and we know how to actually train people so that they can even reach these goals, reach them safely, and to dismiss that from the outset, I find it too arrogant, too...

No, I don't think that's good. We should—we have a responsibility there, and you're also called upon, for example, you're an important spokesperson in our scene. We should support, we should help, we should provide our knowledge, make it available to people under reasonable conditions where they can say, yeah, you have to invest, it's great if you bring your life into it, but even if not, invest a bit more time and then you have the opportunity to reach such goals. And no, I'm always the one who has said that through further education, training, teaching people instruments, making them available, while keeping the joy in it, instead of just pulling the thumb down from the start and saying, hey, forget it, you're a loser, you won't achieve anything anyway, and imposing this depressive vibe on people with the result that afterwards, it just, simply generates this depressive vibe.

No, come on, that's the wrong way.

We just talked about the two-line gliders and the difficulties, so ENC two-liners and the difficulties you see in them. Now, in the B-class, there's a trend of more and more manufacturers making these two-and-a-half-liners, where at least the outer wing is already rigged as a pseudo two-liner, let's say. Do you see any parallels in this development, or do you recognize similar patterns in gliders that now come into your SIV training as two-and-a-half-liners, where you'd say, "That shows something already," or would you say, "No, they're actually still safe" or "they're still manageable in the usual way," let's say?

You have to know, these

hybrid technologies, where you have extremely cross-functional, or extreme

...elements connected to each other across technical boundaries, we've always had that. We have about two

half-lines, we have – I have to check – probably even had somewhere in a school glider. So the manufacturers have always tried,

...to explore the extremes, and that is also very, very important. That has moved us, has moved the industry forward. One considers the stretch goals we have sometimes pursued that were completely utopian. This single-skin technology, for example, is a very extreme, a very extreme technology, and it is very, very important that we work on them, whether they are ultimately successful or establish themselves, let's put that aside for a moment. But you have to know, we keep having these, these, these two-and-a-half-liners, that's a marketing gag currently. That has always existed; manufacturers have always experimented with that early on. And such intermediate steps, they are good, they are important, they belong to the development, and now very specifically with the, be it now the C-class or also the high-B-class, these hybrid stories,

they are helpful, they are usually surprisingly functional. The step to the pure two-liner also has to do with the fact that with the two-liner, whether it's the C two-liner or the D two-liner, it doesn't matter at all, you simply have to resort to the fold line. You're left with nothing else, and the moment you use a fold line, a completely different field of issues opens up by definition. And with the classic two-liner technology, these fields of issues simply open up entirely anew by definition, and with the two-and-a-half-liner technology

most of the time, work is done without folding lines, under which the devices function surprisingly conformantly. You also always have to say, even when looking at the Low-B class, these are devices that were actually originally built and developed to be considered unaccelerated school gliders. That was how the DAV used to handle it too, so you can train with the Low-B gliders as long as you don't, so to speak, accelerate them. If they are then accelerated, you basically have to be trained and have the license to be allowed to accelerate. That means they are an A when unaccelerated, and when accelerated, they have a B in them.

And if you look there, for example, you logically also have the extreme ends of the spectrum in some cases.

split up. C and D were combined and so on. These are also hybrid stories. They established themselves functionally very well. Whether it's an Epsilon or an Ion, let's be honest, regardless of which generation of these gliders, they always worked. They never showed any essential flaws. And yet, we've also repeatedly had products in this class that were noticeable. We had them in the B-class, we had them in the C-class. There were always individual products that became specifically noticeable. But they usually didn't establish themselves in the market. They became noticeable relatively quickly; people, the market, understood they were toxic, they were aggressive, they were demanding.

And then word spread very quickly, and they weren't sold as intensively anymore. I think one of the most typical examples you could mention—and I believe the brand even stands by that now—is if you look at the Sigma 10; it never really, it was never really established broadly because it was just really demanding. And if you look at the successor products, you'd say the Sigma 11 or now hopefully the Sigma 12, I think those are devices you can offer broadly and people deal with them really well; they'll get a lot of joy out of the products. But let's be honest, the Sigma 10 was the flop par excellence. And that's because it was demanding. And those kinds of individual cases, every manufacturer has had one at some point. You don't have to highlight any specific atmosphere; every manufacturer has generated a flop at some point.

And funnily enough, the market understood pretty quickly and said, "Come on, this device isn't for me, it's too demanding, or whatever."

Alright. Dani, I'm going to switch topics with you in a moment. I just have to quickly go to the bathroom myself. You can take a sip of coffee, and then we'll continue with the rescue topic, just so you know what it's going to be about. I

I'll be right back. No problem, wonderful. I'm basically about to give you a monologue now. Without specific questions, I could tell you something now. That would be unfair, of course. Nevertheless, I want to insert a small ad break here. Inform yourselves about Lu-Glidz and everything he does there. He has great contributions and, very specifically, I have to say, this podcast goes through how great personalities in our sport, who have a lot to tell and have generated extreme knowledge, come to the forefront here. So, exactly this "taking off the pants" that I already mentioned is very prominent here, and Lucian really does that now without me having to

to flatter or anything like that. These podcasts are extremely valuable. Go through them and try to listen a bit to what these people, these podcasters, have to say. Lucian, I've put in a short ad break.

For your podcast. You can cut it out later, but no, I did a bit of a monologue and made a commercial break for your podcast.

Yeah, let's see. I'll listen to it and enjoy it. All right. Okay, let's just keep going. Retta, you've built a Retta yourself. How did you get into that?

That's an exciting story. I came at it like a total novice. At that time, I was still working at the company Team 5 in Austria. I built, developed, and designed gliders there. And then, at Team 5, we had the opportunity to take over a manufacturing plant for rescue equipment. He had basically developed, designed, and built products—rescue equipment—over decades and wanted to keep the product line on the market for old age. He basically offered us his product. Then the question arose in our team: what do we do with it now? Actually, we were all busy enough. It wasn't exactly something that came up out of pure boredom.

But our investor said every now and then, "We're doing this, we're taking this on. We're doing it." Then the question arose in the team: who's going to do it? It was clear that I was the only one who had looked into the technical side of things a bit. So I said, okay, I'll do it. It was absolute uncharted territory for me, purely from a technical standpoint. I really was like a fish out of water. I had no idea what it was about regarding all the aerodynamics. At that point, I also got some help. I hired a designer who works in the field of

recovery systems, military parachutes, and rescue devices at home. He was an engineer, an aerodynamics engineer, and also very proficient in the technical side, the entire production, and all the testing procedures. I got in touch with this man, and he then taught me the basic topics.

Then I saw relatively quickly that his statements didn't align with the situation we had in paragliding. That was exactly the time when we were getting this first hike and fly equipment onto the market. It was about the issue of lightness. The gear had to be small and compact. Not just the glider, but also the harness. And logically, the rescue devices too. At that time, the reserve parachute manufacturers, the rescue device manufacturers in particular, reduced the weight and pack volume by simply taking away surface area. So they always built smaller rescue devices. That was a time when we increasingly saw people coming down with rescue devices and then at the

...injured on the ground, seriously injured. That made me suspicious. At the same time, I was essentially tasked with taking care of the rescue device topic in our product portfolio. So I basically started reading, studying, and comparing the technical data and construction of such established rescue devices on the market. And I just realized, okay, the surface area is crucial. That matched the statement from my senior partner, who had trained in thermals. And I noticed that surface area is the deciding factor. At the same time, I felt the need to not just build classic round canopy devices again, but to see if there are other possibilities,

to look outside the box in rescue equipment manufacturing? And then it was clear that the shape also plays a role. So I made the first attempts with cross canopies and we realized relatively quickly that cross canopies have decisive advantages over the classic round canopy. We then dove very intensively into the cross canopy area, launched the first products onto the market, and it happened relatively quickly that I gained a foothold there and obviously also won the market's trust, with people saying, "A different shape is coming." It was seen relatively quickly that cross canopies actually have advantages, and so I unexpectedly gained market advantages and was able to maintain that a bit, and of course, I'm not entirely unhappy.

about that. These cross canopies already existed in the military sector. So it's not an invention you made. No. Is that something your senior partner, who you say also came from this military background, told you to look at these cross canopies, or did you come across it through your research—oh, there's the US military, all the soldiers jumping out of planes with cross canopies from the gliders. That might also be something for paragliding.

No, it was actually like this: I came up with the idea, and I've repeatedly come into contact with development and design companies or environments—I even worked on a topic like this in the automotive industry—and I was always surprised by how surprisingly slow, conventional, and very conservative development and design are in classical industry. And when I spoke with this rescue equipment—or recovery system—designer, I was always surprised by how conservatively he approaches such topics. And then I came across these canopies from the military sector, and I also researched the topic of

The expansion ratio, i.e., the cross-wreath aspect ratio, became a topic for me relatively quickly in the field of rescue equipment. And I understood there that the expansion ratio plays a role. It wasn't even necessarily about pendulum stability, dominance, or anything like that, but effectively just performance—how can I generate as much air resistance as possible from the smallest possible area? And the expansion ratio plays a relatively important role there. A cross-canopy, a square, has a higher expansion ratio than a circle. And that's how I came up with the idea that a cross-canopy could be your idea. And you're right, the cross-canopy has existed for many decades, even in the non-military sector, for example, drogue parachutes for jets, for airplanes, or also drogue parachutes for

Airspace capsules, some of which are built using cross-canopy technology. So, that certainly wasn't my invention. What I did was the cross-canopy with a center line; that is definitely where, to my knowledge, I worked in that field. This refers, of course, very specifically to our area of focus. In the paraglider sector, we also have the need for fast opening times and so on. That isn't so incredibly important with a space capsule, nor is it so important with a drag parachute. It doesn't play much of a role in the military either. They don't jump 30 meters above the ground out of a plane. But for us, it plays a role. And there, the center line is incredibly important for fast opening times. And there I probably—I'm saying this now without being able to confirm or prove it—generated the first cross-canopies with center lines, and I was definitely the one who then basically

presented and established the cross-canopy as the first in the paraglider market.

If you were to summarize very briefly, what are the main advantages of a canopy over a round canopy? Roughly speaking, oscillation,

Dominance, so not roll moment, but the pendulum behavior of a Nord-glider with a good, large cross-canopy, and you have to be careful there—good and large, I emphasize that specifically. Nowadays, similar to paragliding, there are hybrid stories, so basically, whether it's a 5- or 7-sided canopy rescue device or round canopies with 4 slots in them, that doesn't have much to do with a cross-canopy. A good large one, so also large enough in terms of surface area, has the advantage of being more pendulum-stable, of being more dominant. Those are the main criteria. I might have to explain the term dominance, because it's a term I use for this topic and it's not entirely unambiguous in rescue equipment manufacturing.

is present in all of them. I use dominance as an explanation of how much external influence is needed to disturb the glider or significantly knock it out of its equilibrium, or to build up significant forward speed. That means you imagine yourself hanging from the glider, the main canopy is still connected to the pilot, and we have an interaction from the main canopy to the glider. The main canopy can open, it can pull, it can exert an effect on the glider, and how much, how quickly can this glider be knocked out of its equilibrium, how quickly does it begin to build up forward speed, how strongly does the sink rate change?

through the influence of the main glider or, to put it extremely, I'm hanging from the north glider, I want to deform the main glider, so I pull on some line or on the risers of the main glider to deform it, and this pull on these risers or lines causes the pilot to be pulled out from under the center of the north glider. And this pulling out from the aerodynamic center of the north glider can cause the north glider to then build forward speed, build a pendulum, build increased sink. And how dominant is the north glider, how much is needed to...

To build forward speed, how much force is needed to increase the sink rate on a north glider—I call that dominance. A dominant north glider stays extremely small in terms of sink and forward speed, even though I'm trying to deform the main glider from below or the main glider is pulling me out of the center of the north glider by reopening. That is a dominant north glider. And in that case, cross canopies usually have good advantages over the round canopy. And is the surface area also decisive for this dominance? Sometimes, yes. Surface area is sometimes decisive, but also the shape and the construction height. A high north glider with a large surface area—meaning construction height, which is the canopy volume—leads to you generally having more dominance.

Cross canopies have advantages over round canopies, and triangle canopies have advantages over cross canopies. So you could roughly say, the dependence on dominance depends on the shape of the Nordschirm, the planform of the Nordschirm, and the canopy volume.

You just mentioned the triangle canopy. That was another development step you took, bringing these triangle canopies to the market. Steerable as a Triangle, not steerable as an X2. Would you say that the triangle canopy is fundamentally the better cross canopy? I mean, better than cross canopies? Would you always choose or recommend a triangle canopy? Yes, I have to, logically. No, I mean,

Your company Xtremefly still offers both. You can buy X-canopies and triangle canopies from you. But would you always say that, in every respect, the triangle canopy is the better one? Yes, roughly

Yes. There are several reasons for that. One is this dominance, and the other is that the elongation factor for the triangle canopy is higher than for the cross canopy. I mentioned it earlier, elongation also plays a role in rescue equipment. A high-reaching—I'll put it bluntly—a high-reaching rescuer has a higher drag coefficient than a round canopy. One,

how do you say that, in Switzerland we call it a gable.

The, what do you call it? The finish on the roof where the rain collects. The gutter? The gutter, the gutter. Yes, German language, High German, difficult language. So, the gutter, with concave flow—meaning flow from the open side—is infinitely long and has the highest drag coefficient. That's somewhere around 1.9 and a few decimals. Theoretically, in terms of the drag coefficient, from the possible force, it would slow down a weight, aerodynamically slow it down without generating aerodynamic lift, without a profile, without a wing profile, that would be the ideal emergency glider. That means we get closer to the ideal with a triangular canopy in terms of the aspect ratio,

which already has advantages over the cross canopy and also has advantages over the round canopy. That's the first thing. The triangle canopy has a few difficulties, a few handicaps; namely, a triangle canopy usually has more seam meters, which leads to increased weight, and it has a bit more pack volume in proportion—that's the disadvantage—but purely aerodynamically speaking, the triangle canopy primarily has advantages. In other words, it is more difficult to build super-light triangle canopies than super-light cross canopies. You have to be a bit imaginative in the design development, and that is, for example,

With the X2, which is still one of the lightest 22 D-Tex devices in proportion to its surface area, you simply have very high spacing between the lines, for example; we try to reduce the seam meters as much as possible, and we succeeded quite well there. Like everywhere else, if you build gliders or harnesses or whatever you build, you need imagination, and I'll just say it bluntly now: building rescue equipment is not an art, and that might be the reason why I established myself there, because I approached the subject relatively naively and without prejudice, with little prior knowledge or competence. I went into it being super naive and was surprised by how simply I was able to move forward.

But let's be honest, it's not an art form and anyone else could have done it too. You need a bit of courage and a bit of imagination and you're already in. Anyone can do it, if you want to put it that way. I just happened to get the chance and did it, and maybe it didn't go in the wrong direction at all. If

the triangular canopy has those advantages, except maybe in terms of pack size compared to the cross canopy and all that, but otherwise you're saying it's actually the even better angular canopy in some ways. Why hasn't any other manufacturer besides Independence adopted the concept as well?

Yeah, that's still difficult to answer, Lucian. You might have to ask the manufacturers who make the five and seven-sided ones, or the round canopies with four slits. You'd have to ask them. But generally speaking, it's like this—you don't just see it with the emergency canopy, but every manufacturer tries to generate a unique selling point for themselves. Especially in rescue equipment manufacturing, it's difficult to generate products that actually establish themselves on the market. Where the market accepts them. One possibility is effectively pack size and weight. So, 100 grams, 50 grams lighter on the emergency canopy, and the thing runs like a charm. And then you can try to say, simply by having a unique selling point, that I can appeal to the market.

You never really have to prove your credibility with rescue equipment. A glider is very rarely used, and where it is used, everyone is basically just happy to come out of it healthy. It's so unpretentious—building good emergency gliders or good gliders in general is done without any star allure. Everyone knows which glider the world champion flew, but nobody knows what kind of emergency glider Krigel Maurer has in his. And that's why it's such a market segment; it's very selective, very niche, and financially it's not great either—you don't get rich from building or selling emergency gliders—and that's why you can with relatively simple

approaches to manage a market segment and, in some cases, even successfully.

And that, of course, I'll put it quite cheekily, that you say, "Now Aleni has already invented the canopy, we don't want to give him the satisfaction of also doing the canopy, we don't want to admit that now, it's enough if he basically for himself

can proclaim that he has essentially presented the cross canopy to the market.

I have no idea, I don't know either, I can't tell you that, but purely aerodynamically speaking, I can prove it, it's also aerodynamically defined in itself. Physics doesn't lie, and that's why it was clear to me: if I notice that from a circle, i.e., from the round canopy, which geometrically defines an infinite number of corners, that fewer corners—meaning four corners—are better, then it's clear to me that maybe three corners could be even better because there are even fewer corners. And maybe two corners are even better in certain areas. But to then, with the realization that four corners are better than infinite corners, go back towards infinite corners, so basically

Combining a round canopy and a cross canopy. Or making a round canopy with four corners, with four slots, or a seven-corner, or a nine-corner, or a fifteen-corner. From my point of view, that makes no sense; rather, it's the logical consequence that fewer corners might even be better. And that's what we have, so, I'm not saying that Nojimbau is doing some great science here, but it's common sense to say three corners are better than four corners, let's try it out, and lo and behold, it actually has advantages.

Now you're also saying, you've emphasized time and again, that the surface area basically makes the difference between landing somewhat safely or hitting the ground pretty hard. How much surface area should an emergency glider actually have? Is there a minimum amount where you'd say, I wouldn't want to go below that at least? Yes,

I mentioned this topic before, these tiny reserves we had 12, 13, 14 years ago, they became established. These first Hike & Fly rescue devices, if you want to call them that, became established back then, and they were partly noticed negatively specifically because of these areas that were too small. This development ended quite abruptly the moment we introduced the canopy. We were basically able to put back in a lot of area without the market reacting sensitively to the fact that this rescue glider was perhaps another 150 to 200 grams heavier than the smallest light round canopy gliders. Because simply the product as such brought technological advantages. Today, after 12, 13, 14 years of the canopy,

slowly but surely, this trend is creeping back in where we have canopy with extremely small areas. We have rescue devices with 25 square meters trying to tell the market that you can let 100-110 kilos of load sink towards the ground at 5-5.5 meters per second without forward speed. And that is, of course, naive. Physics proves it. That's not possible at all. It's physically impossible. That would require drag coefficients of 3 and more

...produce. And I explained earlier, the maximum possible coefficient is somewhere around 1.9. And the manufacturer wants to convince us that we're operating with a drag coefficient of 3. That simply doesn't work. But a 25-square-meter rescue device is definitely too small for 100 kilos. We have a rough guideline that I try to explain to our customers, or that I explain in my SIV training. And that's basically: make sure you stay under 3 kilos per square meter. That's a relatively good figure that can also be proven through pure calculation. Under 3 kilos per square meter for the main glider. And then you're usually in pretty good shape. But now you also have to put it into perspective a bit.

You can load a Rogallo canopy a bit more because it generates aerodynamic lift through forward motion. And then it depends a bit on how sporty the pilot is. Do I have a young, sporty, dynamic pilot who puts together a high-camp flyer rig before letting the rescue glider down? Hey, just take the smallest one possible, yeah? Or is there some 70-year-old pilot who really wants maximum safety and says, hey, come on, try to take some actual square meters with you. He's not exactly a super high-camp flyer anymore; he goes up by cable car or by car. Those 150 grams don't matter. I do scale that down a bit based on the expected customer. But roughly, three kilos per square meter is certainly not a bad rule of thumb.

That means, put simply, if I take off with my gear weighing a total of 100 kilos, I should have at least one rescue canopy that has 30 square meters.

Exactly. But now you have to be careful, Alucia. Better, even more so. Exactly. And that's where this well-known 20% rule from the DAV comes in, which they launched at some point. Just to explain it briefly: we have a rescue device, and we understand that these rescue devices are tested and certified at sea level, at atmospheric sea level. That means these sink rates of 5.5 meters per second are calculated down to sea level. In other words, 13.2 hectopascals, 15 degrees, simply the standard atmosphere. If I want to land the Nordschirm at 2,000 meters altitude, and that's usually the case—that I don't hit sea level, but also not at valley floor height, 400, 500, 600 meters, but usually somewhere on the alpine pasture, because that's where the thermals are, where it's turbulent, where it's gusty, where I have the siren collapse and the spiral collapse.

And then I land at 1,500 meters or even at 2,000 meters altitude. And for every 1,000 meters above standard atmosphere, meaning above sea level, I lose about 10 kilos of certification. These are just very rough guidelines. That means at 2,000 meters, a rescue glider with a 100-kilo certification no longer has a 100-kilo certification, but theoretically only 80 kilos of certification to generate that 5.5-meter sink rate. And if it's not a standard atmospheric 15 degrees at those 2,000 meters, but 25—which happens on a hot summer day with good warmth, so it's 25 degrees at those 2,000 meters in high summer—then I lose another 5 degrees for every 10 degrees of temperature.

That means in our application, where we usually need our rescue devices, we often have to achieve higher sink rates by default because we aren't operating in standard atmospheric conditions, which is how they are actually tested during certification.

So it's better to go with the larger choice. You just said there's a trend back towards these smaller rescuers. Even with cross rescuers, there's been this new design for a few years now, where they use what they call flares—these sewn-in fabric flaps—where the dome is basically flattened to supposedly produce more surface area than the projected area. What's your experience with that? Does this design actually work properly? Can you really say that with these rescuers you can do without a few square meters of ground area because they function slightly better aerodynamically? Or is it just marketing?

Yes, basically

you can explain it relatively simply. We are moving between an absolutely flat disc and a hemisphere with concave flow. A hemisphere with concave flow has a drag coefficient in the range of 1.3, 1.4, somewhere in that range. A disc, a round disc, has a drag coefficient of 1.1 and a few squeezed ones. That means somewhere between the flat disc—that is, the flat disc represents the absolutely flat-trimmed emergency glider. That's obviously not possible. It doesn't work with fabric. But you can approach it there. And you do that by basically using more center lines

...tensions. You do that by tensioning or sewing in these flares. You can also achieve or reach that in other ways. For example, I'm talking about sail pretension and so on. So there are different possibilities. The glider can be built as flat as possible, meaning with as little volume as possible, retro volume. And you then always approach the theoretical disc. But the disc itself has a worse drag coefficient than a hemisphere. And that's why it doesn't make any sense to make the rescue glider as flat as possible. That's aerodynamic nonsense. That means there's an ideal value somewhere in between the absolute disc and the hemisphere. But you also have to know, the flatter the glider—the further we move away from the hemisphere—the bigger other issues become, such as

forward speed or pendulum behavior. That means it's not necessarily the goal to make the emergency glider as flat as possible. Yes, you can reduce the sink rate to a limited extent under certain circumstances, but you can also always say that the smaller the sink rate in relation to the surface area, the more pendulum motion it leads to, the more forward speed it leads to. That is a direct linear parallel. Not linear, but it is a direct parallel that can be drawn.

Are there things you've observed in your SIV training where people definitely have to deploy the reserve canopy intentionally or forcedly because the glider has gotten into a configuration they can no longer control, where you'd say these new flat-drawn cross-canopies, while they have less surface area and work, do they also have their problematic sides somewhere?

Yeah, yeah,

100 percent. That

is immediate. And if we're honest, everyone who regularly sees these kinds of compositions should see themselves as a trainer. I'll say it once: with a docile Schulschirm, the reserve glider is thrown out, and if possible, loaded a bit heavily, basically over those 3 kilos per square meter. And then it pulls in such a flat, small reserve glider that acts more like an anti-G, while the pilot is still hanging onto the reopened Schulschirm and dragging the reserve glider behind them. Yes, that exists, that's definitely the case. I have dozens of videos that prove this repetitively, and of course, that's already concerning, where you have to ask, what's the reason for this? Then you go and look at the reserve glider, what kind of product is it, what's the load per square meter, and then usually also in combination with docile Schulschirme that simply offer more of themselves, more dominance, more safety, the glider reopens again and so on, and then it brings its aerodynamic effect back onto the Schulschirm, and the reserve glider itself just can't bring that dominance onto the Schulschirm, onto the main glider, and we already have some kind of

Downplane, or basically the pilot literally drags the reserve as a drag chute behind them while still flying on the glider, yeah.

Well, there is a trend—I'd even say a really dangerous one—not in paragliding, but in, let's say, harness construction, where more and more lightweight harnesses are being built, and these lightweight harnesses are mostly designed so that the reserve compartments are rather small. This forces the pilots to use small reserves, or at least small-packable reserves, which often results in—well, the trend is going towards—okay, now there are these small, flat-profile cross canopies that only have 29 or 27 square meters of area, others that have 32, 34, and then I just buy something like that because it fits in my harness and is correspondingly light as well, which is of course interesting.

But basically, the harnesses are forcing pilots to perhaps take rescues that are too small. Do you see this trend? Yes,

That's, that goes a bit in that direction, but I don't find it to be endlessly dramatic yet because there are enough rescue devices that are built surprisingly compactly—meaning compactly built in terms of pack size—so the harness manufacturers have still provided enough reserve in the pack volume of the outer container. I won't say it's a glaring problem, but it's something that can and should be addressed, and we should also urge the industry not to overdo it, because I do find selective rescue purchase to be tricky if we are pushed towards, let's say, Elfdetex fabrics—so it's about emergency gliders or devices that can be made with Elfdetex fabric, which is a very, very thin, fine fabric.

Detex is a measure for the yarn thickness, roughly, that it's woven from. Exactly, exactly, absolutely, you're right. And there are just super-light fabrics, 11 Detex fabrics, which are even more compact to pack, but they have the disadvantage of not being quite as robust or durable, or have other drawbacks, depending on the case, like maybe not handling water very well, so you might not necessarily be able to safely go into the water for training, for example; you have to be a bit careful there. And being practically forced to resort to such products for those harnesses, I think that's the wrong approach. Especially the harness manufacturer should take responsibility there and let the customer, the pilot, have the chance to freely choose a good, safe product in rescue equipment manufacturing.

...to get. That's thinking about it in the wrong place, saving weight in the wrong place. But of course, there are also, as mentioned, small or good classic cross canopies, triangle canopies in 22 Detex fabric, which are durable, robust, and still have surprisingly compact pack sizes. In tendency, you're right, but I don't see it as a glaring problem that we urgently need to fix, but rather the market, the industry, should be urged to be there, offer something reasonable, do justice to the customer, and not try to do some hackery at the expense of safety, that makes no sense.

You definitely can, that's legitimate.

One problem with rescues is always the keyword "rescue-greed," especially with those types of crashes. Is there anything you can do about that?

do? It's a huge topic, you've caught me on my merciless left leg there, Lucian. It's actually like this: when you've practically seen and experienced everything at some point after 40 years of paragliding, you can really say I can explain almost any topic with enough patience and time, and I can find a solution for every topic. Today, in our sport, I can say how you have to train so that you fly safely. Paragliding isn't some insane art and is relatively simple to explain: look, don't stall, don't fly into an obstacle, and don't get a collapse, and then you're safe out there. Very, very casually put. So paragliding isn't really such an art. But then there are points where even I don't have an answer yet.

And parachute entanglement is definitely a point where I don't have a patent solution. That was also one of the reasons why I came up with the cross canopy and worked on it. Because, of course, even back then during SIV training, I saw that parachute entanglement would happen or had already happened. And I basically promised myself that we could prevent this parachute entanglement more effectively with the cross canopy. We've made countless attempts where we intentionally threw the rescue device to cause a parachute entanglement and tried to analyze how to build, pack, or throw the device so that it doesn't get caught there. I don't have a patent solution, I'll be honest about that. We are currently working on rebuilding the topic in cooperation with the Swiss Hang Gliding Association.

We have an ongoing project where we are definitely working on it for next year, so 2025, for this year, trying to analyze the issue more precisely and in more detail and trying to find solutions. It is one of the few topics in our paraglider industry where I don't have a patent solution. There would be one, hypothetically, but it's obviously not applicable everywhere and all the time, and that would be the aerodynamic stall, the stall. Hypothetically, if I stall the glider before the rescue device, I have most likely largely eliminated or prevented the rescue device entanglement. But you can't stall everywhere and all the time,

the time, the strength, the courage, the ability to sort your thoughts so that you pull the stall before the rescuer deployment and so on. I admit, it's all a bit out of thin air, but theoretically, it would be a possible solution to stall first before we throw the rescuer.

We also talked at the beginning about the issue with ENC two-liners, and in that post you wrote in the paraglider forum, you also mentioned that these modern ENC two-liners are also more prone to collapses. Which also means that a collapse could then more frequently lead to drifting into a saddle-like spiral dive if you don't counter it and do nothing about it. Would you also see that this basically also means a bigger problem for rescue parachute deployment with such gliders? That you're taking a double risk with them? Yes, definitely. It's a development,

that we've seen over the last 15, 20 years, that this problem has been building up. And not just with C-gliders, but the C-two-liner proves once again, quite clearly, that it's heading in that direction. But throughout the entire history of paraglider development, we've consistently achieved higher stretch factors, line drag has been reduced, the number of line attachment points on the aircraft has been reduced, and partly the reinforcements—though I wouldn't want to get too specific about that right now. But we've moved in a technological direction where we definitely have to realize that the technology

was was never conducive to hang-ups. But—and I always have a "but," you see, I always have a "but"—even there, we've seen that there are individual manufacturers who surprisingly understood, or rather grasped, how to prevent hang-ups early on. I'll just say it quite bluntly now: we have a manufacturer—I don't necessarily want to name names right now, even though it would actually be legitimate to name names here—but there were manufacturers who understood very early on that they could build C-gliders and Hi-B-gliders where the hang-ups basically peeled themselves off. And you could also say, hey, that was because they had fewer rods in them or something. There was some reason why they managed to do it. I don't know it either.

what they did. I've never been able to look into the development teams to be able to explain that here. And at the same time, there were manufacturers who struggled more with the issue of collapses. But it's actually like this: collapses lead more to collapse spiral descents, sat-position, and the third mess—that's always a connected unit, whether we want it to be or not. And yes, the higher aspect ratio, more performance, fewer line effects—those are all topics that don't help prevent us from getting into that situation. But on the other hand, we've generated more knowledge in our scene; maybe we've also been able to better sensitize people that it can be addressed again through further training.

It's always a push forward of technology, a push forward of the industry, and then the market, the scene, and the athletes reacting to it. It's a constant journey, a steady walk on a very thin line, and you hope you can keep up with the technology. And yes, on one hand, that's what makes it exciting, but it also involves dangers. We have to make sure that as those responsible—you, the instructors—

associations stay on top of this permanently, recognize early on where the problem lies, and try to orient, train, and sensitize people as quickly and promptly as possible. But yes, we won't be...

I definitely didn't get bored. Not bored at all. Dani, I'll take that as a nice closing word from you, but I'd like to add one small question—maybe you can just answer it very briefly, or maybe you can just say there's nothing behind it. What job would you like to take on again in this paraglider industry? I had a

a huge amount of fun, that's brilliant how fast I'm firing off the goods here, so I had a huge amount of fun, we set up a production in Croatia, starting from scratch, and setting up this production in Croatia, a paraglider production, where we ended up building gliders with 35 employees, that was brilliant, that was sensational, I really let loose there, I had a solvent investor who gave me an opportunity, I'm still grateful to him today and it was a huge amount of fun, training people, working with people, letting my imagination run wild, and I'd love to do that again, it was fun. And I actually believe that I was quite good at it, I'm going to be completely

honestly, I don't think I did anything wrong with the production, of course I had some help along the way and all that, but it was fun.

I'll just leave that there, a little application from Dani Loritz to whoever wants to set up a new paraglider production; you'd have a potential expert here who has done it before and could perhaps do it again. Dani, thank you for your very, as always very knowledgeable, balanced, and nuanced remarks, which contain many "buts" and other things, from which one can learn an enormous amount. You have almost 40 years of experience in this entire industry, having followed the whole story, that's evident from everything you say. Thank you for these remarks, and I'd certainly love to come back on another podcast, because there are still many other topics I'd like to talk about with you, but today it would simply be too much, so I'll gladly come back to that then.

Thank you.

Alright Lucien, thank you so much, and I definitely want to thank you here as well. Let's always keep in mind the responsibility that you, I, and all of us have for our sport, if we want to lead it into the future well and happily. Be conscious of your responsibility too; you might not be fully aware of how important you are, but you also carry the responsibility in that context, and I'm happy if you continue to make your time, your money, your commitment, and your authenticity available to us, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you again. Thank you very much, Lucien, for your work.

In the show notes for this episode, you'll find several more links. Among them is the series Retterwissen on the paraglider blog Lu-Glidz. Although it's already eight years old, the extensive basic knowledge it conveys regarding emergency gliders is largely timeless. You can subscribe to Podz-Glidz on all the usual podcast platforms. I upload a new episode every 14 days. If you don't want to wait that long, feel free to browse the archive. You'll already find well over 150 hours of interesting conversations about the cosmos of paragliding in there. As a freelance journalist, I invest a lot of time, work, and also costs into Podz-Glidz and Lu-Glidz. In order for me to continue doing this in such a professional, independent, and ad-free way, I need your support.

On my homepage www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com, there is a Support page. There you will find all the necessary information and links to support me financially. You can choose whatever amount you'd like to give as a supporter. If you're unsure, my non-binding suggestion is 60 euros a year. That's only 5 euros a month. I think that's a very fair offer for so much up-to-date, in-depth information and entertainment regarding the most beautiful hobby in the world. I want to thank all my supporters. See you soon. Stay healthy, get up in the air, and enjoy the freedom. Ciao.