167. Obsession - Daniela Freutsmiedl

My brain is just incredibly stupid with this kind of stuff. I mean, my first thought was, oh my god, what are the others going to think now if two rescuers land? I didn't think, oh god, I'm still alive. My first thought was, oh my god, listen, what are the others going to think if there are two people hanging on the rescuer? That was the very first thought. And then down there, when I landed, I first went, phew, took a breath, and was like, hey, does it really have to be this maneuver? Does it really have to be that I'm doing something so stupid?

Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of glacier flying. Today with

Daniela Freutzmiedl and

I'm Lucian Haas.

If you want to make it far up in the agro scene, you have to do one thing above all else. Fly, fly, fly, and practice, practice, practice. It's not just about mastering the different maneuvers safely, but also perfectly, elegantly, with fluid, playful-looking transitions, twists, and changes of direction. One run, then the same run again, and then back to the start. Agro training days consist of constant repetition until everything is burned deep into your muscle memory and just clicks.

So far, only men are in the top ten of the agro world. Maybe it's because they're more willing to commit themselves fully to this adrenaline-fueled form of flying, but that doesn't have to be the case and it doesn't have to stay that way.

Daniela Freutzmiedl from Chiemgau is on her way to breaking into the world elite. In 2024, she finished in 1st place in the women's category of the Agro-Welt Cup and in 2nd place in the synchro category, together with her partner Siegfried Heinrich. Currently, in August 2025, the 36-year-old is ranked 15th in the overall world ranking. And if it were up to her, she'll be at the top of the world ranking soon, mixing with all the men. What appeals to her and everything she does for it, Daniela tells us in this 167th episode of Podz-Glidz. Other topics include her talent, setbacks, fear, the simple art of the infinite, and the addiction of Agro-flying.

Since you're listening to the podcast, why not become a supporter of Podz-Glidz? You can find out how to do that on the Lu-Glidz Gleitschirm-Blog under the "Support" page.

Daniela, how much talent do you need to fly agro?

So, if you ask me, relatively little talent. I had zero talent at the start of my flying career. I always just say I have very little talent. I just fly an incredible amount and can compensate for it a bit that way. But for the first two years, I had absolutely no idea what the glider was doing. So, flying technically, active flying was...

So, it takes more commitment and more time than talent. Of course, talent is helpful. I mean, if you have talent, you naturally learn faster. Or if someone just flies as a kid, I think they get a bit of that talent passed down to them. But I only started flying at 27, with zero talent. And in the beginning, it was really, really hard for me.

If you had zero talent, why were you even interested? Yeah,

Good question.

The interest came more from seeing others do it. I saw that it somehow works. I watched others. Then I saw helicopters and infinite flight. And I thought to myself, it has to work somehow. The glider can do it somehow. And you can be relatively dumb and talentless. But you think, at some point, I have to be able to do it too. And I put in an incredible amount of time. Especially until the first heli. It took me a year until I actually tried a heli, until it worked reasonably well. But I just didn't give up. I just kept going, kept going. And I saw that it has to work. The others can do it, they can manage it.

Did you have the idea from the start—you said you were 27 when you started, and now you're 36—did you already have the idea that you wanted to try agro flying? So, did you get into paragliding with that idea?

No, well, at the beginning, I didn't even know that agro flying existed. At the time, I was still in university and I saw a video of a snowboarder going relatively fast. And suddenly, he had a small glider and jumped over the cliff and flew. And I was an incredibly bad snowboarder. I had no talent for that either. No talent at all. I don't think I have any talent for sports in general. I thought to myself, hey, that's great. Then, when I accelerate and get faster, I can always just take off where I usually had problems with snowboarding, where I mostly fell on my face. I thought, I'll just lift off there. That's so easy. And then I already looked on the internet and wanted to buy a glider. I was thinking about what size I would need.

I'm quite small. I probably needed an S or M. Then I saw a glider for about 300 euros on the classifieds. I thought, yeah. I wondered, how do you attach it? I had no clue. I figured there was probably a pair of pants where you tie it to. Then I met Sigi, my current partner. He had a paraglider license. I forgave him for that, since I really wanted to fly somehow because I'm a bad snowboarder.

And he then said that you need a bit more than just the glider. So I have to get a license. That's not exactly easy either. Really dangerous at the beginning. Then a friend of Sigi's took me out in a tandem. Arndt. And then Matthias one day. I did three tandem flights then. I felt incredibly sick in the front. I mean, I was hanging in the front and it was a thermal day in Kössen. And we almost couldn't get back down. And then I was on the ground and almost had to throw up. That's when I said, I have to do this myself.

But it didn't pay off right away. Not at all.

Rather the opposite. I mean, in the air

Did you enjoy it, until then it got bad and you said, okay, I have to take this into my own hands. It was scary.

I didn't really get it. It was scary. A bit of it was fascinating. And then I thought to myself, I have to do this myself. It's like being a passenger. I'm scared of that too. If I fly myself, maybe the fear will go away.

And during that time, my grandpa unfortunately passed away. But he earned me 3,000 euros. With those 3,000 euros, I paid for my paragliding training and bought my first equipment. It was a 24 square meter Gradient Bright. With

I learned with that one too, I think. So not with the one you flew with, but that was also a Gradient Bright, my first glider.

He scared me. He actually didn't know anything. I also learned with Papi. That was pretty good.

My flight instructor at the beginning kept pulling out and doing an infinite down. That was the first time I'd ever seen something like that. You think, okay, you can do more than just fly straight. You can do something like that. I already thought to myself, okay, that's cool, but I'll never be able to do it. First, I have to learn to fly straight.

After the training, I got a lot of crap at the beginning. But I had no idea. I just went to Kösten at noon and took off at noon. In full thermals? Yeah. I had zero clue about thermal flying or active flying. I got crap. I always came down. I flew over the landing field for hours with my ears pinned back.

But you still did it over and over again. So it seems like you weren't scared.

Yeah, it's in between. I was often scared, but it was still beautiful. It was so fascinating for me. I had a lot of respect for it afterwards. It shifted more from fear into respect. Most of the time, I was just scared of not being able to get down. I weighed 55 kilos and had a 24-square-meter wing.

I just often had this feeling that I wouldn't be able to get down anymore. I thought, that's impossible. They all land and I'm stuck up there with my ears pinned back. And I have nothing but some rolling kids. And then I saw it, how a few friends of mine—whom I got to know even better through paragliding—did some helis and high wings. And I always watched and thought, wow, that looks great. And they come down with them.

And that was the beginning. So, you got into agro because you actually wanted it as a way to descend? Among other things, yes.

A rare motivation, but apparently it worked. Yeah.

It looked cool from the outside. I never thought I'd learn it. I only wanted to learn wingover and heli. Wingover impressed me. I thought, wow, that looks incredibly cool. And with heli, I thought, if I can do heli, then I'm set. Then I can do everything.

Did you

did you really fly your first heli with that Bright too?

No, not at all. With

24 square meters?

No, I sold the Bright relatively quickly.

I got my license in 2016. And in 2017, I went to the dune for the first time and bought a dune glider because everyone said you can't do it with your normal glider. You need a dune glider. So I bought a Team 5 Blue in XS. And I flew that at the dune. And I learned an incredible amount from that. Like, generally from glider handling, inflating the glider, starting in strong wind. I bought it for 500 euros. And I liked it so much. I made some nice sand pits in the back so the sand would come out. But I liked it so much that I flew it at our place afterwards. And then I sold the Gradient.

Because I flew that one again, and I didn't enjoy it. And with the Blue, I then learned light rolls and wing-overs. Then I did an SIV training. I think that was in 2018. And by then, it was already clear to me that I like learning heli. And in the SIV training, I only wanted to learn stalls. I did three stalls with the glider because the weather was relatively poor. I think we only did four flights in the SIV training.

And I taught myself the rest with the glider. Did you...

with these Stolls, was there any talent involved? Or did that also go completely wrong at first?

With Stolls, the only thing that was okay, where I had no talent at all, was the deep stall. I thought, Stolls was... my Stolls looked different than others. I didn't look at the glider. I did it a bit differently for myself. I slowed the glider down. I braked it. Then I ripped it off. And then I always looked at the risers to see where my point was from the flyback. And I just looked straight ahead at the risers. And I made sure to hold on tight to the risers. And I hit the point from the flyback so well that I ripped the glider off. I didn't look up at the glider and just held on to the risers during the flyback. So it was talent-free. It worked.

Maybe there was at least enough feeling involved that you keep saying it was talentless, but maybe you did have some hidden talents there too. Apparently, you must have had them, because you've since built a pretty successful career in agro-flying. Yeah,

I think it's more about the time I spent on it. I did several stalls, and then I thought, for heli-flying and agro-flying, I need an agro-glider. And before I did the first helis, I made my first Emily. In 20 square meters. But everyone advised against it. So I couldn't do any nice wing-overs yet. It was still just rolling. I couldn't fly thermic. In hindsight, I wouldn't have lost much under the agro-glider. But I wanted to do agro-flying, and I thought I also need an agro-glider for that.

Did you already have an agro harness? Or not that either? No,

I just... what did I have? I think it was Advanced Access 2. So, at the beginning—it's not like that, I would never have told anyone now—I stalled with one rescuer at the start. But with an Agro glider. I then did all the stalls with one rescuer, with my Advanced.

And at some point, everyone started advising against it. They all said, don't buy an Agro glider. You'll kill yourself, you'll get hurt, you'll get caught in a sail, don't, don't buy an Agro glider, buy a B glider. I didn't listen to any of them. I thought to myself, I can handle that. I'm buying an Agro glider. And then a few months later, I bought an Agro harness with two reserves. Everyone said I'd kill myself. I never had a situation where I killed myself. Even while flying. I did get some scares, but it was never bad.

And then for a whole year, I went out flying in Kösten. Every free minute, I went out and practiced deep stall. And that year was exhausting. Mentally.

Practicing deep stall for a whole year?

A whole year, exactly.

We all said I'd kill myself. I'm not allowed to turn the heli on. I'm going into a spin because I can't manage the transition. They saw that I haven't been flying for very long. I think they were just worried about me. I didn't have any super agro pros around me saying, hey, it's easy, do it like this. And everyone said the basic is the deep stall. And then I was out flying for a year and always had a deep stall. I thought I was doing a deep stall. It turned out I was practicing minimal flight for a year.

In hindsight.

So, at some point, you were back with a safety instructor who knew a bit more and told you that what you were doing there wasn't a deep stall at all. Or how did you realize that what you were flying wasn't actually a real deep stall?

That was back in 2019, when I wanted to turn the first heli because you think, deep stall. I can do that well. But the heli only lets go of one hand now. Then I went over the water to Gerlitzen and slightly braked the glider to minimal speed, and then I let go of one hand at a time and wondered why the helis weren't turning well. I also never looked up at the glider. And back then, I met a friend of mine. He watched a video of me once and said, hey Dani, take a look up at the glider. How was that?

And he said, I'm not good at deep stall. Then I thought, okay, okay. And that's when the learning actually started. Then I really practiced nice deep stalls. The nicer the deep stalls were, the nicer the helis became.

I think I had finished my studies by then. I believe I had quite a bit of time to fly during my studies.

What did you study?

I studied math. I was also thinking about what I'm best at.

You weren't exempt from talent there, it's on top of that. There

I had talent, exactly. I think I picked that up from my dad as a child. He's a teacher himself, a math teacher. And he wanted me to be good at math. And as a child, I always had to do calculations with my dad everywhere. And he kind of instilled in me from a young age that I have a great talent for math. I trained as a nurse before that. Then I worked. Then I thought, wow, a 40-hour job as a nurse, I won't be doing that for long. It's shift work. Then you work twelve days in a row. Then you have no free time left at all. Then I thought, what can I do? What can I study? Math is easy. We'll do math.

But that beginning, at 27, with the flying, were you still a nurse then or were you already in university?

Let me think. I don't think I was fully in university yet. Back then, I met some stupid newspapers. I was in the 12th grade and I said I don't need my high school diploma. I'm dropping out. No, it was still the 13th. I thought I'd drop out. I don't need it. I'm training to be a nurse. Then I trained as a nurse. That's when I thought I should have just finished my high school diploma.

Then I went to the BOS and finished my Abitur. And that was when I started flying. I was still at the BOS then. And then, relatively at the same time, I started flying while I was studying math. And studying math was not easy.

But it at least gave you enough time to go flying a lot. And you finished the math degree, in the end.

Yeah, exactly. It took me longer. So, instead of the expected three years for a bachelor's degree, it took me four and a half years. Then I also wanted to do a master's. So in total, I studied for five and a half years. But I dropped out during the master's because I realized it's not for me. So the bachelor's is enough for me. Wherever I want to go, the bachelor's is enough. Then a master's—that often leads to a high-level position at a university. And I thought to myself, I don't want that in my life. I don't want to go all the way up in a company with a lot of responsibility.

Rather have more freedom.

Exactly, working a bit in the backend. I like that. Now I've got a good job in IT.

Everything in my life just sort of happened to me. I never really knew what kind of job I'd have. I just applied and thought, in the worst-case scenario, they'll take me.

The worst-case scenario is

started. Yes,

That was the first application I had. Then they told me what I had to do. I told them I already had some knowledge of IT, but I said I had no idea about exactly what I'm doing now. I just told them I can learn things quickly. That works well. But regarding the specific field of work I have to do, I said I had absolutely no idea. I didn't think they would take me. But they did.

And now I'm very happy there. I'm now working reduced to 230 hours. In the home office. And that gives me a lot of time to fly. I can organize it much more myself. And that's why I can spend so much time under the glider.

Did you also mention during the application that you do paragliding? That you fly aggro? That you need a lot of time for flying?

Yes, I also mentioned that. I didn't say I fly aggro. I said that I do paragliding. And that it's important for me to have time for flying. And that works. We can definitely manage that. I have a great employer. That's why I didn't think they would hire me. I wouldn't have applied.

Well, but now you're there. Apparently, he's happy with you because he hasn't let you go yet. And in between, you have plenty of time to go training. How much do you actually train? I mean, what does a typical week look like for you? You say you work mainly or completely from home?

Exactly, completely from the home office. That means I can get up in the morning. First, I check the weather—I actually check the weather the day before. If I know it's going to be proper rainy weather, like these last few days, then I work more. I'll work ten hours a day. But in return, if I see that there's going to be nice weather for a few days next week, I'll open my laptop in the morning, work for two hours, close it, and head to Kössen to go flying.

Kössen is like your home mountain, your main training mountain.

Exactly, exactly. It takes me a bit under half an hour to get there. And Kössen works in almost every wind direction. I have the leisure ticket,

So it's an annual pass, which also includes Kössen, making it affordable for me. I don't have to buy a day pass every day. That means I pay for this annual pass once and then I can just head over around noon often and still manage to do eight flights. That way, I can train relatively well alongside my job. If I actually had to be in the office from eight to five, I definitely wouldn't have the flight level I have now.

Explain to me, or tell me, how does an agro pilot—or an agro pilotess like you—train? Do you have a real training program that you set for yourself? Or is it just training by simply flying a lot and saying, "Now I'll do a heli turn," "Now I'll fly this or that," "Now I'll do a Misty Flip" and stuff like that? Does that come from you, saying that's training, just flying a lot, a lot? Or is there actually much more systematic structure behind it? I mean, as a mathematician, you're probably naturally systematic, but the question is whether you apply that to flying as well.

Well, it's chaos.

Doing it early, like in the spring, I really see them training—they have a training plan, they do this maneuver, that one, that one. But for me, having fun while flying is also important. So there are weeks where I train like before a competition, where I have my two competition runs, and then I only fly those two runs.

But I have to know what maneuver I'm flying before every flight; that's important to me. So, if I'm standing on the mountain and fly out and just start flying randomly, that doesn't work, because then I'd have to think about every maneuver myself, wondering what I'm doing next. For me, it has to be a nice agro flight.

consists of maneuvers that are all linked together. That means not a heli, then flying straight, then a misti, but I have to do a misti out of the momentum of the heli, or out of the set I have to do a twist and then keep going immediately. So there has to be a nice flow in it, and I only get that flow if I already know what I'm flying at the start.

Do you write that down somehow, or is it just really like a choreography that you can just remember? I mean, at the start I think, I know I have 600 meters of altitude I can burn, and I also know roughly how much height I use with each maneuver, and then I put these five, six, or seven figures together somehow that I'll then use to fly down there.

Exactly. I do that at the launch site or while on the track, or while going up, or in the air when I'm on my way to the box. I always think about which direction—so if I've done a maneuver to the left once and the heli tilted left, then I have momentum to the left, which means I have to do something to the right.

I set that for myself at the launch site or while flying into the box. Except for the competition runs, the two I have, I have to write those down beforehand. Because there are many criteria—for example, if I do three left maneuvers and five right maneuvers, then I have more right maneuvers and there's a point deduction. That means I really write that down on the list, see how many lefts I have, how many rights I have. To get a lot of bonus points, you need several twisted maneuvers. You're only allowed three reverse maneuvers and there are many rules. And for that, I really take almost an hour and a half to try and write down two runs that give a lot of points, have a good flow, and where the lefts and rights are balanced.

That's the only thing I write down; the rest I just practice.

Now, there are certainly some people listening here who aren't that familiar with Arco. Maybe you could explain at least a few things, because for the Arco people, this just comes out naturally, it just flows out of their mouths, and the next person is like, I don't know what they mean. So let's just start. You said, yeah, I have to perform at least three Twisted maneuvers or something like that. What does that mean?

Twisted means you don't move straight ahead, but you grab the risers and trapeze yourself backward. So you do a 180-degree turn in the harness set. Then you look

backwards at the

flying. Exactly, I don't maintain the risers backwards, but in the front via X crossed.

I don't think there is any point to it. I'd have to think about what the point even is. I have no idea, it's just fun.

It's fun, and it probably just makes everything a bit more challenging because you probably have to think in mirror image when steering with one, right?

Exactly. The right brake is then at the top left and the left brake at the top right. In competition, there are more points. That's a good point. And some maneuvers seem easier to me in Twisted.

Aha, why?

You see the glider better. Take Infinite, for example. The glider always comes from behind and then shoots down in the front. And behind you, where you'd have to make a correction, you actually can't see the glider very well. But if you do it twisted, the glider always comes up in front of you and you can see the glider better. Okay.

That means, would it maybe even be easier to learn an Infinite by flying it Twisted? I don't think so, no. Yes, if you say you can see it better, then maybe it's easier, theoretically. Theoretically.

maybe, yeah. But you always have, I mean, at the beginning, the hardest part is holding the twist. It sounds so simple, you turn in and you pull here and there on the brake. The hardest part about twisted flying is simply holding the twist. Because if you do a turn twisted, maybe someone has already done it, you notice right away, oh, the pendulum, you are a pendulum, it twists you out immediately. And with twisted infinite, you have to do a good spiral beforehand before you initiate it. And if you twist out during the initiation, that's not good. It's okay, but it's not good.

How do you manage to hold a twist like that?

I don't really think about it at all. I do a lot of it subconsciously with my body weight. So when I twist, I don't twist 180 degrees, I always twist a bit more, like 220 degrees or a bit over 200 degrees. And that locks the twist in a bit.

It's not like you're holding onto the carrying pole with your elbow or anything like that, but...

No, not at all.

Okay. I also thought about

I've already thought about what holds the twist together for construction. But it's just stupid because you have to untwist again, China, then in the maneuver. Such a construction aid was nothing. A lot with body weight and working carefully with the brake. As soon as you pull the rear brake, which is away from the front, a little bit in the twist, it automatically untwists you. That's why in the maneuvers, when you're spinning to a heli, for example, some maneuver you're breaking out of, you always break the side off—the negative side, the one facing away from you—the riser. And at that moment, it untwists you.

Can you basically fly all maneuvers in a twist?

I think so.

Or are there maneuvers that actually don't work because they automatically always induce a twist from a flight dynamics perspective?

Normally, you should fly everything twisted, China.

Can you fly everything twisted? It

It sounds easy. Some people think you start with the Twisted Wingover. If anyone listening wants to do the Twisted Wingover, don't start with the Twisted Wingover.

That's ultra-difficult. That's exactly when you pull the brake on the left and right. And the Wingover is a really nice Wingover. I find it really difficult to fly. And you do so much with weight shift and with the brake. I haven't tried it yet, but I imagine

I find the Twisted Wingover incredibly difficult. Otherwise, let me think... I think I've tried almost everything except the Twisted Heli, and I've often tried it by accident, and it works. Otherwise, I can fly everything twisted. Except for the left Misty Heli. I don't do that.

What is a left Misty Heli? Just because such a great technical term is being used here again. For those who aren't very familiar with it.

I think everyone can imagine what a heli is. The glider twists over the ears. And a Misty is when you spin the glider. You take a bit of momentum, like with a pitch. And in the high climbs, in the high swings, you spin the glider on one side so that the glider rotates 360 degrees and then flies straight again. That means for the Misty heli, you spin the glider 360 degrees with one side and then you turn that into a heli.

So basically, in a heli, the glider is vertical above you, but in a misty, it hangs a bit behind or in front of you, depending on whether it's flying twisted or not, probably.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. He spins behind, so he starts spinning behind and the Misty shoots out in front at the end. Unless you turn it into a heli, then it spins towards the heli. And that's the only maneuver. It's a beginner maneuver,

but I just don't like it. I don't like it. I can fly everything, but I don't like a Misty Heli to the left. That's dangerous.

You don't do that. Earlier, there was another term you used. Reverse. What is that?

That's well explained. Reverse is when I do a Misty to the left now—so I take a swing in the pendulum and do a Misty to the left—then I spin the Misty to the left. That means the rotation movement of the glider is to the left. And if I don't do a left heli after that, but a right heli instead, then the change of direction of the heli is the reverse. That means a Misty to the left followed by a heli to the right is a reverse.

That means the rotation direction on the vertical axis is reversed. So, reversed. Just from left to right or from right to left. Exactly.

Almost everyone can do that, like a Sat. I think Sat is just a term most people use. You can also do a Sat. For example, you can do a Sat to the left. You can then pull it off very slowly, that Sat. And then keep it on the heli to the right. That would then be a Sat-Heli-Reverse.

A lot of things come together there. Yes. You said you hadn't flown any aerobatics at the beginning, but you were interested. Then you started by practicing these deep stalls, without actually going into a deep stall for a year and so on. How did it go from there, that you actually got to the point of saying, I'm flying in an aerobatics competition?

From the point where I actually started training and trying heli, it went relatively quickly. I can't remember who it was, but someone once asked me what I was flying. I said, "Yeah, I'm trying heli." And then he said to me, "Oh, if you're trying heli, then you can basically try almost everything now. Why don't you try Misti, or try a Sat?" Then he showed me a few maneuvers I should try. And I thought, okay, if he's saying that, then it must be true. And then I...

I don't have many videos from back then, but I probably should have put more thought into it. I just tried it out. Theo, the Blick, I think, is everyone. Every term is a very well-known French akro pilot who makes YouTube tutorials. I watched those. But not completely, because he always forgives so much. Oh, don't talk so much. And I just kept fast-forwarding and watching, what does he do then? Ah, he takes momentum and he circles there at the brake. And that's how I learned a lot of akro flying.

By watching others, sort of?

Exactly. Until I needed my first rescuer in Olydenis.

I should have maybe listened to what Theo said in his tutorial beforehand and not just...

Not just watch, but also look? Not just watch, yeah. Because sometimes he also says what mistakes you might make or something like that.

Exactly. He went into great detail there... He spent ten minutes thinking about what we should do. Ten minutes talking about maneuvers. Then he got to the point. He said some important things that I obviously didn't do. And then, in Olydenis, I met my savior for the first time. From then on, I thought, okay, I'm going to see what can go wrong and watch a few more tutorials.

And then... The first infinite was in 2020.

I flew that at the Gerlitzen. Because I'd had a pretty stupid flight before. It was noon and at the Gerlitzen, which is a mountain in Carinthia, maybe some of you know it. There was a cloud hanging right over the launch site. But the cloud was very small. We drove up and waited a bit. And then I... the cloud made this tiny little hole. And I thought to myself, oh yeah, in that hole, I can see the water anyway. I'll take off now. I'll easily make it through. The cloud was a bit further away from the mountain. And that's when I took off. There were four of us taking off back then. And while flying, I realized, oh boy, this hole...

It's already closing up again.

It would be smaller and I won't be able to reach it at all from the glide angle.

Then I thought, the lake is a bit ahead to the right. So, just before the cloud, I steered slightly to the right and figured I'd just go right through it, through the cloud. And then I flew into the cloud. It only took about half a minute. That's impossible. The cloud was so small. And I still can't see anything. I looked down and was surprised by where I was looking. And suddenly it was dark down there. Dark, dark, dark. Dark is not good. Dark is bad. And then I saw the first fir tree pass by in my peripheral vision. I thought, oh boy. And then the cloud thinned out and I only saw fir trees in front of me. Okay, what did they teach you in training about picking the juiciest fir tree? I picked the juiciest double fir.

and then I flew in. I had no other choice. Of course, my phone and everything else in the harness were unreachable. And luckily, it was just a small hiking trail, and then I was hanging up in the tree and some married couples walked by down below. And I waved down at them, like, hey.

Three had a bit of help, whether they could call the mountain rescue. It's a long story in any case, and I definitely got the Carinthian mountain rescue out there.

Probably after a few hours, right? It took two

Took hours, yeah. That was a good fir tree.

And then I was down at the landing field, looked at my glider, and thought, I'm so stupid for just staring at it. The weather was beautiful, and on that day I thought, so much has already gone wrong.

I'll try another Infinite.

Exactly, I thought to myself, it can't go any more wrong, because one thing—well, it's always, so much can't go wrong in one day. Okay, so I didn't ask how to fly the Infinite. Before that, I think I flew rhythmically three or four times, which I didn't like at all because I just didn't enjoy it. Then I asked someone how to fly the Infinite. It was Christina, a Czech woman who was already flying aggro relatively well at the time, and she said, you just do a spiral to one side, wait until the glider is above you, and then you pull the Sat 3, hold it briefly, and let it go. Yeah, okay, now it's easier.

Then I went up, and that was my first infinite, and it was great. I really had a talent for it.

How many flips did you do right at the start, or was it just one and then it was over?

Well, I think five or six. So I did it really well. I was very shocked that I stayed inside for so long, because she said, hold on tight at the top and you'll wobble out, and I'm still in there. But you

did you know how to steer it out, so that you don't run the risk of falling into the sail or something?

Exactly, she said that if I just keep my hands up on the glider, the glider can do it. So I had a lot of trust in the glider. That helped me a lot. I knew the glider could do it. But if I only keep my hands up, you'll wobble out on one side again and then end up in a sat. It's actually idiot-proof if you don't touch the brake. She did say you're not allowed to touch the brake. Then initiate the sat, hold it briefly, and keep your hands up. And

that worked great. So, if he doesn't have enough momentum anymore, he automatically falls into the Sat?

Exactly, he has to have enough momentum at the start to go in and go over it twice. And then, if he gets off-axis, he automatically falls out into the Sat.

That means if you can fly a Sat and can lead it out properly, Infinite is actually a relatively safe maneuver, as long as you don't go on the brake.

Exactly. And you have to be able to spiral well. If you can still guide the spiral properly. Those are the two things you need to know for Infinite.

So, Infinite, which is always considered the ultimate maneuver, isn't actually the hardest thing in the end?

It's the simplest one. It's just the one with the most danger involved when you just go over the glider. It has the risk that my wing field is really there and present. But in terms of skill level, it's one of the easiest maneuvers. Because you just have to spiral, set up the spiral, let go of the seat. You need a lot of balls for that.

All you can say here is, don't do this at home. Watch a lot of tutorials by Theo de Blick with all the explanations, and probably five more tutorials from others too. And before you try any of that at home somehow. But otherwise, it's a very easy maneuver. But then you could eventually do this, or you did it, and then you said, ah, now I can do Infinite. And then you said, if I can do Infinite, can I also fly along in an agro competition?

Yeah, exactly. That was actually my opinion too. I saw the women who fly in the agro competitions—they fly okay, but they don't fly anything more than just Infinite. And then I thought, okay, so if I can do Infinite—I knew I wouldn't be super good—but I thought I could at least fly along. And I just wanted to land on one of those rafts. You can see that in the videos. There's a raft in the water, like a kind of air mattress in the water that you're supposed to land on. And I really wanted to do that. I watched the videos. There

I thought to myself,

It just looks so great. Even though I'm a bad pilot, I just love flying along with it. And the whole thing really pushed me. I then planned to

the competition, that was in 2020, I was a bit hyped. I thought to myself, I can fly Infinite now. I fly so well. And that then resulted in a serious accident for me in Turkey.

Did you overdo it? I am

I launched in conditions that weren't good for flying. So we were at the launch site and the wind was very strong. And it kept coming from the left and from the right side. There were very strong thermal gusts. But I was just in that state of courage. I said, nothing can happen to me. I control the glider so well. I launch out and thought to myself, if it collapses, it'll just open up again.

Then I waited for a calm phase. A calm phase came. And then I launched and I ran. And then I thought, I'm not taking off in this strong wind. And it was so weird. Tandems had already launched in front of me. They all got a collapse. That should have been a sign for me. Those are conditions where you don't launch. And tandems were being dragged across the launch site. And many people know the launch site in Lüdenis, I think. It's not made of soft grass. It's made of hard concrete blocks. And right after launching, I was jerked 15, 20 meters into the air. Like instantly pulled straight up. Then, I think I got an 80 percent collapse.

It opened up again. But in that pendulum motion, I hit the concrete down there very hard. I slammed into it. I mean, really

Was it ripped up about 15 meters and then set down just the same?

Yes, roughly. So the glider definitely cushioned something, I think. Because it was a bit of something above me. It definitely caught something. But the impact was very, very strong. I noticed right away, though, that something was broken.

And what was broken? I always

I always thought it was the twelfth thoracic vertebra. It was shattered. And that's not cool in Turkey.

I don't think it's cool in Germany either. But a shattered twelfth thoracic vertebra is nothing cool, I'd say.

And they don't have a helicopter there. So first, you go with the stretcher that was already on-site because the launch site is here. They were already there, which was great. Then you go down the 2,000 meters on a wooden stretcher. So they don't have one of those cool vacuums. You get strapped onto the wooden bed and then it takes about 50 minutes. Down the mountain and into the hospital. And that's when they determined it was shattered. And I didn't want to have surgery in Turkey. But after five days, I started to slightly lose feeling in my legs. Like, a tingling on the back. I could hardly feel the soles of my feet anymore. And the doctor said it had to be operated on. I can't fly to Germany.

I can't be transported. And then I had the surgery there. The canal

was basically pressed on it. Exactly.

He hadn't seen that at the beginning. After the surgery, he said it was worse than expected. I don't know exactly what they did there yet. He said he had to remove some bone material so that the spinal cord would have some space again because it was swollen.

And yeah, the time in Turkey was hard in the hospital. I mean, the hygiene there is very questionable. I mean, you

as a nurse, you can probably judge that even better. You see exactly what they're doing here. One...

didn't even have a call button. You have to get the food yourself. That means a food trolley comes through and it's beeping and honking.

Were you able to walk? Because you say, get it yourself? Exactly, for the first few days I wasn't allowed to get up because the fracture wasn't stable yet. And that was one day after the surgery, I wasn't supposed to get up alone then either. And then the food trolley screams and yells, and I scream in English that I can't get up. They should please bring it to me.

Nothing. I mean, in Turkey, they rely very much on family members. The family is there with every patient. Sigi was there with me; he was just there for a bit that day to organize something. But he was at the hospital every day. He supported me a lot there.

And since that day, I've become much more cautious. So that was a huge wake-up call for me, that no matter how well you fly, there are just certain conditions. You just have no business being in the air with your paraglider. You're just flat in the wind. And I think it protected me from something worse. I was just so hyped at the time because I learned so early, so fast. And if that hadn't happened, I believe something else would have happened at some point. Maybe something worse.

So, an accident like that was like a wake-up call for you, where you say, okay, I still want to keep flying, but only at a safe level.

Exactly. The doctor still had to talk me out of it. For the first three days I was lying in the hospital, I thought I'd never fly again. I just had no desire for it anymore. I had a nice hospital room with a view of the mountain, a view of Babadag. I watched them fly by. And then after the surgery, when I knew it was healing again, I was allowed to get up. And then I asked a doctor when I could fly again. And he looked at me like I was crazy. Earliest in a year. Oh my god. Okay.

How long did it take then? Eight weeks.

You had a shattered thoracic vertebra. They had to remove bone and do other things so that it could heal. You might have almost had some noise, paralysis, or something like that. But eight weeks later, you were back in the air.

So, I wasn't cleared. I got examined in Germany. And at some point, I got the okay to carry nine kilos. Then I thought, wait a minute, nine kilos.

Then I had my paraglider, my light harness, my rescue harness, and everything on it. And that weighed 8.5 kilos. Okay.

I have the medical clearance. I can go flying again. Exactly. So, I was just...

very carefully at the beginning. Right after the accident, I trained a lot. Well, "trained" in quotation marks. I said I'd be mobile very quickly. Just four weeks later, I was already back on the mountain, climbing up high falls near us. Although it was painful. I mean, it hurt like hell.

The worst thing was that I always had to hike down because it caused so much jarring in my back. And once I got the okay to carry nine kilos, I thought to myself that it actually makes more sense to fly down carefully than to hike down.

And then I, well, at the beginning I only flew with the light glider. Then I also, I think, weighed Emily. Then I thought, okay, I'm only getting to nine kilos, a bit over nine. And then I did hike in acro, well, not acro, but I just, I flew out and did helis. So I was really careful.

Practiced deep stall again.

Exactly. Did a bit of minimal flight.

And until I actually got the okay from the doctors—well, they never really gave the okay. I just asked them when it would be okay for me to, I like bouldering and climbing too. I asked them when it would be okay to jump onto a bouldering mat from about two or three meters. And once I got the okay for that, I started acro-flying again. Because for me, if I can fall from three meters onto a mat, I can roughly compare that to a rescue rappel. I have a very good, large rescue rope. And with that, I'm basically getting on, so to speak, as if I were falling while bouldering—actually, even better than falling while bouldering. And when that was okay again with the doctors, I said, then I'll fly again. But I was very careful. It took quite a few months until I, well, until I had general trust again; it took two years.

So I was out of the air for two years and was always afraid that after starting in thermals, this thing would just give out.

But the fear wasn't about the thermals at all. You weren't afraid during the maneuvers themselves, it was the turbulent air that kept ripping you back up. It just kept getting stuck in your system.

Exactly, it's very long-lasting. It's still there. So now, if there are great thermal conditions, I don't go out. The flight isn't worth it to me. So that really left a mark. But during the maneuvers, it was okay. Nothing happened there. I mean, maneuvers are, well, they're a designated space. I have my own box. I know that at a certain altitude, I stop. I have a rescuer I can pull. That's relatively safe for me. Even safer than in thermal conditions in the States.

Because it's predictable for you.

Exactly, I can manage the risk myself. So I can say, I'm flying in this box, where there's a cost, a good field below, there I'll take care of my reserve nicely. I'll stop at this height, I won't do anything anymore. If I'm not feeling so good, I'll do easier maneuvers, if I want to push a bit. So it's in my hands what I do. And not in the hands of, like, a rotor or thermals, that I'll get into trouble. It's just up to me. And if I trust myself and I can do it, it's safe for me.

Are there still moments, maneuvers, or anything else during agro-flying where you feel something like fear?

Yeah.

I mentioned that Misti earlier. You can make the Misti a bit more difficult now by doing it twisted. So, Misti was the one where you swung and spun the glider during the upward pendulum movement. You can do that twisted. That's called a Twisty Twist. That means you do the twist and at the moment the glider spins, you twist yourself into the other direction, the opposite side. Okay. It sounds very simple, and then you have to stop this shooting storm. This maneuver only cost me four knights last year. Okay. Because it's just difficult for me, or for many others, to twist from one side to the other during that maneuver and catch the glider's shooting motion.

That's the trick—making sure the glider doesn't keep shooting forward, that it doesn't get a front collapse. If you stop it just a bit too much, it ends up in a flyback. Then you're in a twisted flyback. If you then have just one hand a bit too low, it twists you in, you let go of one hand, and the glider shoots out again. That's the maneuver I still have a lot of respect for, because I fell into the canopy.

And how did you get out of it again? Was that through luck too?

Too. There must have been a lot of luck involved. It was a beautiful summer day in Kösten. It was very, very thermal. And I have a 14-square-meter glider. Back then, with my Sigi, my friend, we were bickering a bit. I went up alone, did a flight, already did that twisty-twist maneuver, and wanted to land. And at the landing field, there was so much thermals that I made a big circle and was almost back at launch site height. And then I don't land. Then I pulled back, did another edge, and noticed so many gusts and thermals going through down below. And then, I always do that too, when the air says I shouldn't land, then I don't land. Then it went up again. Then I thought, okay, if it goes up again, then I just won't land.

Then I flew towards the mountain and in that time my friend, Sigi, flew out. Then I watched him during his turn and he messed up a maneuver and ended up hanging in the rescue parachute. And then, we were arguing and acting like idiots. I saw he had it under control with the rescue parachute right away. We have a steerable rescue parachute, a Beamer from High Adventure. And I saw he had it totally under control and it must look... Then I flew out and thought, now I have to help someone with the rescue parachute. And it went up very high. So I had good altitude, Kösten, thank God. Then I tried the maneuver again and landed in the flyback. I braked a bit too much and then I went up a bit with the brake and that, combined with my small battery glider and the thermals, caused the glider to shoot up so, so strongly.

I just saw it shooting out and the canopy just below me. And at that moment I thought, please no. And then I fell right into the middle of the canopy.

and that's a pretty brutal feeling. I mean, you hear that crack right away, and in that moment, time slowed down so much. I looked down to the right and saw a small patch of meadow. I thought, great, my reserve is over there to the right. Then I pushed all the lines off the reserve, as if I had all the time in the world. I think it went relatively fast. For me, it was like, there, we've cleared the lines, then I pulled the reserve out, threw it through the hole, and just saw the lines stretch, the container fly away, and then it was out of sight. In the first moment, I thought, yeah, it's opening well. And in the second moment, I thought, oh, I'm in freefall.

And then I braced myself and tensed up. In that moment, I was afraid my neck would break because I fell so fast. Yeah. But it wasn't really like that. It opened with a real snap, and then I was hanging on the glider for about fifteen minutes because of the thermals. Fifteen minutes? Fifteen minutes, yeah. But I hit the landing field better than some people probably do on a glider. I had a long time.

What goes through your head when you're basically, you could almost say, escaping death or jumping off the glider, something like that. And then you're hanging there for fifteen minutes until you actually have solid ground under your feet. So, what kind of thoughts are going through your head then?

My brain is incredibly stupid when it comes to stuff like that. Stupid? Yes, incredibly. In the first moment, I thought, oh my god, what are the others going to think when two rescuers land there? I didn't think, oh my god, I'm still alive. I first thought, oh my god, what are the others going to think when two people are on the rescuer. That was the first thought.

And I didn't think much at all, not during the time I was on the glider. I already had my glider with me. I was able to steer. Then I flew towards Kössen into the village, a bit against the wind because there was a lot of wind. Then I flew back, faced into the wind, and basically just checked that I was coming down well.

So you were busy, actually.

Yeah. And when I landed, first thing was, phew,

taken a breath and thought, hey, does it really have to be this maneuver? Does it really have to be that I do something so stupid? I do like having fun while flying. It's not about who can put themselves in the funniest position, but I like having fun with it. And then I also stopped doing the maneuver for a bit. For two weeks. For two? Yeah, okay. That's the inner ambition.

Unfortunately, there's no video of it, otherwise I would have watched to see what mistakes I was making. If I know which mistake I'm making, then it's good for me because I won't make that mistake again and it won't happen anymore. And I didn't have a video, but I had a rough idea of what I did wrong.

Is that—quick question in between—is it really true that if you see your mistake once in the video, then you don't make it again? Is it really that kind of learning where you say, okay, once I've seen it right in front of me, that was it, then I can program it in? Don't do that anymore. So if

was a really bad mistake, like, "how do I fix this?" Yeah. But if it's just a mistake where the hand is a bit too low, then I know the hand is too low, I fix it, and I do it again and the hand is too low again. What's going on? I do that so many times until I actually manage to stop making the mistake. But with something like that, where it happened,

both hands were simply too deep and I just let go of the flyback a bit, and I will never do that again in my life—if I'm twisted in the flyback, I will never let the glider fly again. I'd rather throw a reserve, I'd rather get twisted ten times and throw a reserve, than just try to somehow fiddle with it and let it fly; I'm never doing that again.

Mhm. You said that two weeks later you tried the maneuver again. Yeah. What drives you to basically keep pushing that limit, or to say, no, I want to be able to do this maneuver, even though I might actually be putting my life at risk in a way?

Yeah. I know there's something deep inside me, it's connected to a bit of ambition. So, if I've set my mind on something and I see it's doable because others are doing it, and I want to be able to do it, then something subconscious drives me and says, do it—but do it more carefully, don't do it like before, just do it. I don't know what it is, whether it's ambition or ego. When I see someone doing it and see that it's possible, I want to try it too and see if I can do it as well.

And when you do it, if you can even gauge that at all, do you do it mainly for yourself or also because of the ego and all that, mainly for others too? Like, just like when you're hanging on the rope and you've said, oh shit, the ones below, what are they thinking now? There are two of them hanging on the rope now. Like, how stupid are they actually? They can't do it or whatever.

Exactly. So

how much of your motivation is actually not intrinsic, meaning it comes from within you, but also extrinsic from the outside—that there's someone you've caught, that you want to please or impress or something like that?

I've also thought about it myself, who you actually do it for and why. I couldn't come to any conclusion. I once imagined what would happen if there were absolutely no people in the world. Like, none at all. Would I still be allowed to go paragliding and do ten flights a day? I don't know. I mean, of course I do it because it's fun, but man, would I only do it alone if no one were watching? I'd probably still do it because I'd be doing something new. But the question is whether you

...then would you be testing your limits, or would you rather say, especially after an experience like that, where you're like, "Actually, that was already at the limit"—well, for me at that moment, it was at the limit. It really could have gone wrong. Do I want to test that limit, or do I just not want to fundamentally keep having fun? But then I'd be taking that part of the fun out. There are still 99 other maneuvers that I could probably still fly. I

I think for me, it's a bit about the fun, because if I had mastered everything perfectly—if I had flown everything perfectly from the first year—I think I would have stopped aerobatics, because then you could do everything. I think it's that interplay between learning something new, the adrenaline, and then actually being able to do it; it all works together. And once I've mastered it all, I'd do it again, because I think it would be boring. It's like if I'm allowed to go up and down the same mountain ten times. At some point, you've seen the mountain and the path, you know it by heart, and then you need something new. I think that's very strong for me.

What role do competitions play in your motivation? I mean, you train a lot, you go flying a lot. You mainly fly for yourself because you want to master the skills. But in competitions, you have to show your skills, but you also have to compare yourself directly to others in terms of points, or you get compared. How much of your motivation to say, "I really want to train this much," is directly related to these competitions?

So competition flying taught me to fly cleanly. A clean turn, no "ear" can come in. They judge the cleanliness of the maneuver. As soon as an ear rolls in or the heli doesn't do a clean roll, there's a deduction. And I never used to place any value on that before. That was for things like Misty Heli connections. If the Misty stops and then moves toward the heli, it's not a nice Misty Heli. And I never paid attention to that until I flew in competition. And then I told myself, that's not a nice Misty Heli you're flying. And that led me to fly the maneuvers I could do more beautifully.

So competition is like the incentive for perfection?

Yes. At the beginning. Now it's general because I just like to fly beautifully. But at the beginning, competition flying was what drove me to fly really perfectly. And now there are a few maneuvers that I only do for competition flying. But those are mainly smaller maneuvers. So there are some maneuvers, like the Twisted Infinite at the moment. I don't fly that in competition. I just fly it for myself because it's fun. And there are a few maneuvers that I've only learned for a competition now, which give a lot of points. For example? Which I also enjoy now. Sounds stupid, but the Opposite McTwist.

Opposite McTwist, what's that?

Exactly. So a McTwist is something similar to a Misty, only you pull it off more aggressively. So you take some momentum. That was the maneuver my first rescuer did. You take momentum. And exactly when you're at the lowest point under the glider, you pull the glider into a one-sided negative turn with quite a lot of force. And then the glider doesn't spin 360 degrees, but it spins 720 degrees ultra-fast. And normally you always take momentum on the side where you're going to pull it. That means, for example, I take a quarter, quarter, or half turn of momentum to the right and then pull to the right so that the glider goes to the right.

And you can of course also do it if you take momentum to the left. Then you have to level the glider and can then spin to the right.

And those are maneuvers that are easy for everyone. I don't know why not for me. I mean, I really messed up that maneuver. That wasn't what annoyed me the most for the next competition,

because I just couldn't pull it off. And it's actually super easy

is. If a maneuver is easy for many people. You just said it's a maneuver that brings in a lot of points. Why does it bring in so many points if it's actually easy for most people?

doesn't directly bring in many points. It's about that left-right equality again. So I need left and right maneuvers, and I have a left swing, and I need right maneuvers on top of that, which... so it's a combination. The maneuver doesn't need much height. It's relatively easy to learn. There's a Twisted bonus because I fly the Twisted. And it has this change of direction. I need something in the run that does a right heli inside. I could just do a Twister. A Twister is a left heli to a right heli. But it gives me fewer points than this Opposite Twisted Mech Twist. And that's how I build my runs. And that's just a minor detail. But what looks nicer in the overall flow, I might do a Twister now.

From the way you're describing it here, I almost get the impression that as a mathematician, you have an advantage in this competition business. You can calculate the points. Yeah. You can put them together relatively logically. What works how? And what do I need to do to the right and to the left? And the symmetry? Everything has to line up somehow.

It has to add up, yeah. Maybe it really is easier for me. I actually calculate the bonus points I'll get at the end. And I calculate roughly how many points I'll get on my run. I don't think many people do that. But you don't have to. I just do it.

Now you flew your first real competition in 2021, as far as I know. Last year, in 2024, you then won the women's category at the Acro World Cup. Yeah, that was great. It was

one

A goal for you, where you say, I want to be the best woman?

Of course, it's a sub-goal. I started with it because I saw women flying it. But my main goal isn't to be number one among the women. My main goal is to mix in with the men at the top. Because I believe that in paragliding—well, in aerobatics it's different, but in aerobatics, a woman has no disadvantage compared to a man. The gliders can be chosen to be so small, so purpose-built for spinning; it's not about that. And my goal simply wasn't, like for many women, to fly along in the women's rankings, but I just want to fly along with the men at the top. Maybe that pushed me a bit more, maybe that's exactly why I got better, because I didn't set my goal on being the best woman; I simply set my goal on the best men.

Then I said, I don't care about where the best woman was, I want to be way, way beyond that.

And I think that, among other things, earned me a good spot last year. So I got first place in the women's category, and there's an AWQ and an AWT ranking.

AWQ stands for Qualifier, I think.

Exactly, exactly. And the AWT, those are the ten best pilots. Currently, those are only the men.

Are only men allowed to fly with them then?

Or could you move up from the AWQualifier? Could you, if you're good enough as a woman, be allowed to fly with the AWT as well?

Exactly, he's not allowed to fly with them. But the top two from the AWQ always move up. And normally, the bottom two from the AWT would be relegated. But so far with the AWT, you don't fly competition your whole life. That's going to get boring for me eventually too, because it takes up a lot of time. So I don't know how long I'll be flying competition. I'll do it as long as I enjoy it. And if I'm not having fun anymore, then I'll stop. And because of that, people keep stopping in the AWT as well. And the top two from the AWQ always move up. But the level in the AWQ is enormously high. So even this year, when I see who's all flying with them, it's very

difficult to get into the top three.

I think you were in fifth place at the AWQ last year, I believe, right?

Exactly. That means the two are

promoted. If the others don't get relegated, you could now—if you fly just as well and everything, so if you were to take it mathematically like that, everyone stays just as good—then you came in third place this year. And maybe then, if two more get promoted and others don't fly on anymore, then in two years you're definitely in a position where you can move up to the AWT.

Exactly, if everything goes well. But it's not like that at all. I don't even know if it's my goal to get promoted. I mean, to get promoted, yes. But whether I'll fly with them, I don't know. Because they only have more competition. That means the competitions start as early as June. And then I'd be on the road for competitions all summer. And I think I'd just lack the private time for myself to fly. So I think the AWT has three or four more competitions than we do in the AWQ.

And they're mostly in France.

I'm not there yet, so I don't have to decide at all. But once I am there, I wouldn't know if I'd fly along with all the competitions in the AWT. Probably not.

But I'm not that far yet.

That's a bit of a contradiction. You're saying you'd actually prefer to be among the men in first place. But it's more like you'd say you just want to reach the level where I'd say you might be able to make it, but then you don't really need it anymore.

Exactly. So I would certainly fly into competitions if I were ever there. But not all of them. That's too much effort for me. It's also associated with money. That means I'd have to pay the travel costs, the competition costs—I know, they cost a lot of money. One competition costs about 250 euros. You have to pay that as...

participants pay. Or participants, in that case.

Exactly, the participants have to pay. Just the travel costs and the accommodation. And that's also why I won't do more than four competitions a year. Because it's just not financially proportionate. Maybe a big sponsor will come along and say, Dani, take this. Then it's something else again. But if you do seven competitions now, you have to improve seven competitions. And I'd have to pay over 200 euros seven times just for the competition fee. That was simply too much for me.

Maybe some sponsor will hear this podcast and say, this talentless woman,

who wants to reach the top,

we definitely want to support them. We're taking them, exactly. What I also saw was, you were fifth overall in AWQ, first in the women's. But you also took second place in Synchro-Fliegen. Oh

Yeah. I almost forgot about that. Yeah, exactly.

What fascinates you about synchronized flying?

It's simply aesthetic. So it's a bit more difficult than just flying. Because in synchronized flying, you have to watch your partner. So I have to, all the time, either my partner looks at me or I look at him. Mostly I look at him. And then I see when he initiates a maneuver. And then I initiate the maneuver too. Why

are you looking at him and he's not looking at you? Because it's just easy. So

you're flying with Siegfried. Exactly, yes. Well, mostly. So he also looks during some maneuvers. It depends on which direction. If we have a maneuver now where he's to my left and we're both looking to initiate by leaning slightly to the left with our bodies, then I pull him. Then I have to wait, like with the infinite, for when he pulls into the infinite. And for it to be synchronous, I have to, I have to make sure that my glider rises exactly the same as his. And if he initiates the infinite, I have to initiate too. But if the glider isn't perfect for me yet. And that's the difficult part, because I don't just have to look at my glider, but I'm mentally more with the partner. So that makes the whole thing so,

so much harder.

Now you're flying in sync with a partner who is also your partner in normal life. Yes. Does that make it easier or does it make it harder?

Sometimes, sometimes. On one hand, it makes it easier because I know exactly how he flies. I mean, we always fly together and I know how he flies. That means, for the synchronized flying itself,

it's easier when you know your partner, when you know how he flies, when you know his strengths and his weaknesses, it's easier.

But we

just in our private lives, I'm not going to say that we argue during synchronized flying, but there are simply differences of opinion. There are maneuvers, for example, that he flies well, but I don't. And it's like the Left Infinite. I never fly it, I can do it, but I don't like it. And those are things in competition, which is the only day of the year when I then have to fly the Left Infinite.

And yeah, it also makes it funny. That's just how synchronized flying is. You have to adapt a bit to your partner's strengths.

Well, now you'd have to be ambitious together when it comes to synchronized flying to be able to win something. Yeah. Does that kind of ambition ever happen, like do you argue about it? Like you messed something up or he messed something up? No, not at all. Or is it ultimately just for fun?

It's a lot of fun. I mean, we actually laugh about it when we look back at what we flew. There was that one run last year. Yeah. We actually wanted to make that disappear from the history. I don't think we've ever flown such bad synchro. And we land, and it was just funny again because we flew so poorly.

But you still ended up in second place, right?

Yeah, the rest wasn't bad. I mean, that one run was really bad. And thank God it's not on video. Otherwise, there's no proof of that run left. But the rest, we flew really okay.

Is there actually a rule like that in aerobatics, or what is the rule? In cross-country flight competitions, for example, if there are ten tasks, you can sometimes drop two of them because you stood there beforehand and said, "I didn't manage it today." But they don't end up counting in the final ranking or only count partially. Is there something like that in aerobatics, where you can say you're allowed to have a bad day, but it doesn't flow into the ranking?

No, unfortunately not. Is the worst result dropped? No, that's what makes it exciting. That means if we—in 2023, in the competition in Brienz, the weather was quite bad and we were only able to fly a single run. And that counts. So if you were bad or had a bad day, that's just bad luck. That makes acro flying or the competitions quite exciting because you never have the same level. Sometimes you have days where everything goes great. And then there are always days where you can't do anything at all. And depending on which day it is, you're lucky or unlucky. Or you just perform at the same level every time.

But nobody does that. I think everyone has fluctuations. And that's what makes the akro competition so exciting, because you can't say, "Hey, I was bad there, let's strike that." Instead, every single effort, every single decision, every centimeter of brake you have flows into the scoring.

That also means you really have to train an enormous amount to actually build up that kind of muscle memory and everything else, so that you can say, I can fly this one figure ten times and 9.5 of those times it's actually perfect. Yes,

That's exactly how I do it too. I can't even count how many times I've flown the maneuvers I do in the competition, the way I've flown them. They have to be solid. They have to be solid for me mentally too, because if I know that only 9 out of 10 work, then that's bad. I wouldn't fly it in the competition. Because then I'm so nervous at the launch site because I know only 9 out of 10 work, and that one that doesn't work is definitely going to be the one that fails. That means my maneuvers, I don't know, they have to be, of course, I mess them up again and again, I mean everyone does, but mentally, mentally it has to be like 10 out of 10. It never is. Everyone messes something up, but mentally I have to know that the maneuver is 100 percent solid.

That sounds a bit like an obsession too. Yeah. An addiction.

Yeah. You could definitely describe it as an addiction. If I don't fly for a week, I start feeling something. I get nervous.

Then you get real withdrawal symptoms.

Yeah, yeah, I'm there, you eventually get used to it. So if it's just a few weeks, it rarely happens, it's rare that I go a week without being under the glider. It's doable, even if it's just a light glider for a glide, so a small wing always works out, but if the mountain lifts are closed and I can't fly any paragliders in April and November. Hard. That's not good, yeah.

Tragic life, yeah.

A truly tragic life. Is there also a counter-movement or, what do you mean by counter-movement, the opposite of being addicted to flying, like you're addicted, where you're sometimes fed up with being addicted, and you say, hey, why do I have to, why does it pull me there so much, that it annoys you, that you miss flying, something like that?

Actually, never, no. I mean, through flying, I've met so many new people and made so many friends. It's not just the flying, it's not just being up in the air, it's the whole package—all the places we go while flying, all the people I have around me. And it's not just, oh, I need this one maneuver right now. It's simply the place, the people I do it with, the whole package. And that's what I miss.

You're also a tandem pilot and you offer them, Sigi does too, you offer tandem flights. So what is tandem flying for you? I mean, this isn't some agile 14-square-meter glider or something, but then you have 41 or 39 or whatever square meters above you. Like a tractor. How does that feel for you? Is it maybe just a form of work for you, where you just fly some stuff? Or do you also enjoy tandem flying?

When I fly a few tandems, it's fun for me. But from five tandems upwards, it's work for the day. I rarely do that.

When I fly tandem, I make sure to do two or three tandems a day. Then, for me, it's just fun. It's the "tank" then. It's relaxation, it's airtime that I have where I can just relax, where I can just show other people who don't fly how beautiful it is in the air, how great it is. And for me, mentally, depending on the conditions of course, there are also passengers where I think to myself,

Yes, but thank God we rarely have those. Most of the passengers we have are really eager to fly and are looking forward to it. And that's completely different from acro flying. You're showing someone your hobby. It's a unique experience for them, and it's really beautiful too.

And what about thermals? You said earlier that thermals still scare you sometimes today. Does that happen to you during tandem flying as well?

Strangely enough, no. I only did the first commercial tandems. I wasn't afraid, but I had respect. Because you have a person in front of you whom you simply don't want to hurt. And even if they just stumble and sprain their ankle, I couldn't forgive myself. Because flying is something unique. And since those first commercial flights are still... well, I have a lot of respect for that.

But I probably don't have any fear there either, because I never start in conditions that are critical. So when I do tandem, I really only start in conditions where I know 100 percent that it's okay. And I'm not afraid of thermals either. I'm not afraid of thermals anymore because I can get down now.

Now you know how it works. You can always just glide down somehow.

Now I can do it.

How much of your "agro" skills do you actually show people during tandem flights? How many of them say, "Yeah, do it"?

About half. I mean, of course you can't fly as aggressively in a tandem as you can with a 14m agro glider. That just doesn't work. But I always ask them beforehand if they're in the mood for a rollercoaster. And about half of them are. Then you do a wing-over or maybe a sat or a spiral. And most of them are just like, "Whoa," during the wing-over.

And I'm always happy when someone says, "Yeah, I'd like to do that." Because they can only fly straight. And you're just sitting there in your seat bag flying straight. It's nice, but boring in the long run. And they just see that you can do other things with a paraglider too. So the classic tandem flight with me is taking off, then catching some thermals, flying around the mountain a bit. Then I steer a bit with the passenger so he gets the feeling of the paraglider, just the brake handles, so he has that for once. And then, if he's up for it, a bit of action. But there's also just enjoying the scenery. Just enjoying it. Then we just fly straight and enjoy it.

And are there days where you switch within a single day between solo, so with your own glider, with the Agro glider? For example, you fly, you drive to Kösten early in the morning, and you say, I don't have any yet, my first passenger is there at 1 p.m. So I can still do three runs early in the morning, then switch to the tandem glider, fly three tandems, and from 4 p.m. until the end of the day—the end of the lift from the mountain—I can do another five runs or something. Yeah, sure.

That's the whole point of it.

And how easy is it for you to switch from one glider to the other? Because it's, it's a completely different handling characteristic and a huge sheet, or rather 14 square meters. That's really something else.

Strangely enough, it's just easy. So switching back from tandem to the Agro-glider is easier because I just know the Agro-glider, the glider. But a tandem is also just so simply built. So the switch is really, strangely enough, easy. It's not hard for me.

That's obviously ideal, if you can also say it's a day where I can earn a bit of money and at the same time still have my own fun.

Yeah, exactly. That's how I often do it. I get up that early, then I see that the first tandem is at 11:00, so I can only do two flights beforehand. I do two flights, then a tandem, maybe one more in between, more flights, and then maybe another tandem. But it's mentally exhausting because you just have to mentally switch between "I have to take care of the passenger, I have to take off well, I have to talk a lot, then focus again on which maneuvers I'm doing." So it's more mentally taxing for me because I have to chat so much with the passenger in between and then focus back on my own tasks. That's the mentally difficult part.

But it's also fun.

Now the competition season is coming up again.

At the same time, the weather over the last few weeks hasn't exactly been the most flight-friendly, let's put it that way. It's rained quite a bit and as far as I know, you've also been driving back and forth a lot to find something flyable, a window, and stuff like that. How annoying is that as an agro pilot, when you know you can't really train properly and there's a competition coming up?

Depending, so if I can already do everything and the competition is coming up, it's okay.

Sometimes, when it's been beautiful weather for weeks and I see it's raining one day, I think to myself, yeah, finally it's raining for a day and I can do my taxes. Then I do all that paperwork, all the organizational stuff that I never do, I do it all bundled on the day it rains. The employer is happy too, because of course I work more when it rains. I have my whole summer vacation in the summer. That means... I'm relatively free then, but now these last few days, we have the first competition, which we had cancelled because of the weather.

That was in Brienz in Switzerland, right?

Exactly. And at first I was so annoyed because with this one maneuver, it's there, but it's just not 100 percent mental, which is what I meant before. What

is your "knack" maneuver currently, where you say it's not quite there mentally yet?

This opposite mag twist.

So I do really difficult maneuvers in my lines that are much more demanding, but they're just easier for me than these silly little maneuvers. Everyone just has their weaknesses, and that's mine. And because it's not 100 percent settled mentally yet, I thought that if it's just a week of good weather, then it's okay, I can do it, I'll do my 30 lines and then it'll work out. But then you see, it's bad weather, it's bad weather again. But inside, I'm happy when I think, I can do this, I can do this, I'll get back home. My Miezi is also happy when I'm not out all day. It balances out. But now it's allowed to be good weather again.

You're 36 now, and from what I can see, there's a whole range of Agro-Pilots who eventually give up World Cup flying around that age. So, very good people and that sort of thing. At what point are you too old for Agro?

I think, of course, there's an age where you're too old. Like, if I'm 90, my brain probably won't be as fast as it is now. But there are some people who are role models for me. That's Micha and Manu. They're a married couple. They're a bit over 50. They just started with Aero-Pilots. Well, not just now, they started with Aero-Pilots a few years ago.

Micha is finished with his work. He's retired now and has free time. He started with Agro-Piloten and flies really well. And his wife, Manu, they have an adult child who is over 30. And you think, cool, if I can do that. I just think you get slower as you get older. But those two aren't old to me. In their heads, in their spirits, they're just young. And as long as you're young at heart and physically active, there's no direct limit. We have an acquaintance who isn't 20 anymore. He's starting out with Agro-Piloten, and they're doing it really well, actually.

Well, for me there's no... Of course, I think it gets harder as you get older. Just learning something new. I notice it myself already. But I don't think there's a direct limitation. If your mind and your body are able and willing, then why not?

Would it be a dream of yours to fly with Sigi again at 50, or what was it again, to still be flying in sync?

I think we'll do it, hopefully.

I can't imagine what would have to happen for me to stop aerobatic flying. Maybe it would get boring at some point. Maybe you'd see everything eventually. Maybe I'll only start cross-country flying later. I have no idea.

There are some agro-flyers who eventually switch over and are then very successful at cross-country flying too, because in terms of their agro-skills, they are simply in conditions,

where they

to push through where others are already having difficulties and then they say, no, no, no, I'm going to fly through this at full speed, I'll just get further.

If you're ambitious, that might be another possibility.

There are cross-country flight competitions too, I've heard. Exactly. Maybe that's something, yeah.

But you haven't done that yet. Not just yet.

No, not yet. I have a distance glider, but I only fly it a few times a year, just wandering around here. It's nice, but it doesn't give me what agroflying does yet. But maybe it will someday. It's also a great sport. But right now, I just enjoy agroflying more than distance flying.

Then, Dani, I wish you a lot of success with your agro flying, that you might reach that goal of mixing it up with the guys way up there, and eventually climbing up to that level at the AWT, and then maybe not actually flying with them—I mean, I could have done it, so not that either. Exactly. To celebrate that success, that's what I wish for you. Thanks for telling your story. I really enjoyed it, and I think many of the listeners did too, because they got a little insight into the thought world of a mathematically gifted but otherwise talentless agro flyer. Exactly. That's what you said. I'm just quoting you until they get it. I enjoyed it too. Thank you so much.

Thanks too.

That was Daniela Freud's -Miedel. If you enjoyed the episode and want to hear even more interesting stories from the cosmos of paragliding, then why not become a supporter of Podz-Glidz and the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz. On www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com, there is a Support page. There you will find all the necessary information and links to give me a financial hand. Because as a freelance journalist, I put a lot of time, work, and also costs into these projects, and in order for me to continue doing this so professionally, ad-free, and independently, I need your support. You can choose whatever amount you want to give as a supporter. If you're unsure and need a suggestion, my non-binding proposal is 60 euros a year.

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