That's where I see the problem with instruction again, because many people come into the course and then, after their experiences, say, "Oh fuck, hey, I'm completely terrified, I want to be an instructor." So, how do you get proper instruction in a flight school nowadays if the flight instructor himself has no idea what he's selling and how the gear behaves in extreme flight situations? That's why I'd like to really raise the requirements for flight instructors in practice.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Xandi Meschu. And I am Lucian Haas.
Xandi Meschu has been a safety instructor for over 20 years. During this time, he has often seen pilots who are coming to one of his SIV courses at Lake Ossiach for the first time be completely wide-eyed. This is because they have heard surprisingly little about what they experience in practice in the air at flight schools, let alone had it explained or shown to them during their initial training.
Xandi would like to change that. He has developed a smart simulator with which many canopy situations can, so to speak, be identified through dry runs and the correct reactions to them can be drilled in. How even the dustiest theory sessions can be effectively loosened up with it, the 50-year-old explains in this episode 183 of Xandi.
Other topics include the problem of sliding rescuers, snapping collapses, overstable harnesses, and the insufficient number of required flight instructors.
I can only present these special conversations to you in Podz-Glidz because there are supporters who financially support my work on the podcast and blog. Join in! You can find all the necessary information about it in the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz, specifically on the Fördern page.
Xandi, what is that? What does a safety instructor like you, who spends the whole summer hanging out by the lake and somehow praying people down from the sky, actually do in the winter?
Driving Porsches and counting money. That's what I thought. Not at all, not at all.
Summer time is, of course, SIV training time, and winter time is usually when, in the summer, so much stuff hangs over the lake at the spark—so autumn, winter, early spring is test time, development time. It's still about paraglider development. Last year I took the first break because the company Icaro is up for sale, but it's already in good hands now. I'm very happy that Edelweiß will continue to fly and, yeah, the last 23 years were basically the winters. As long as it's still possible for us somehow in October, we test here, otherwise we drive down to Bassan or have to go briefly to Tenerife, Lanzarote. So there are always test missions in the winter because the protos, they have to be finished. And finished yesterday is usually too late.
So, winter time is test pilot time for you? Winter time, as I said, for the last 23 years has been test pilot time, developing prototypes. And because things stopped briefly at Icaro, I had time this winter to really sit down at my workbench and get creative and just think. What could I do? And regarding training in general, how to get a bit more quality into paraglider training at flight schools. And that's how I came up with the idea for the second version of this paraglider simulator.
Second version of a paraglider simulator. So, when you say simulator, people always imagine something like a VR headset or something like that nowadays. But that's not what you mean, is it?
That's not what I mean, although there is already a prototype hanging up at my school or at the flight base. It was cobbled together by colleagues and it actually works virtually. When you pull the brake, the whole background moves. So it's a picture of a paraglider flying around the area. And you can really do wingovers, spirals, full style—you can really do everything virtually there. But that's music to the future. The simulators we're working on today don't have those VR goggles on yet. But it's just about teaching the students the correct movement sequences with the simulators. Because when it comes to flight practice, of course, you can talk a lot about it. But the important thing is the movement sequence you need to be able to fly a maneuver—whichever one it is—well in the end.
And the more of everything that can be practiced on the ground with a simulator like that, the more success there will be in the air. Because I can give a fifteen-minute lecture on a loop and then have the student do one. The first one probably won't be perfect. But the twentieth or thirtieth will be getting better and better. And that way, you can basically practice the movement sequences well on the ground, in safety. That
means, the simulator is now mainly a suspension that I sit in. Exactly, exactly. So, and only, you can simulate a bit more because you might not just be hanging in it, but you can also pull down an A-harness. And you can pull on the brakes and maybe also step on a speed bar or something.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, in principle, to practice the movement sequence, an A-stock with a connecting line and two rubber bands and two brake handles attached is enough. And you can already do something with that. In any case. So, to simulate a movement sequence, a very simple version is actually enough. Except for the part where you pull down the A-riser during a collapse, which is omitted in this simplest version. And until now, what do we see in the flight schools out there? There are usually just boards with some kind of mechanics, deflection pulleys, rubber bands, and lines attached. Everyone has come up with their own version over the last few years. And so, people are practicing and doing the work diligently. And I think that's damn good. Where I said earlier, that's my time. That's my second version of the simulator.
Twelve years ago, I started building my first simulator. There have been simulators for 15 years already. And they usually looked like this: the instructor sits inside his simulator and demonstrates his exercises. And the students sit at their desks, classic frontal teaching or maybe some new social forms, a circle of chairs, wonderful. But the instructor demonstrates and the student sits inside, watches it, and then usually tries it for the first time in the air. And I came at it with the approach: hey, this can't be. We need repetitions for all the exercises. That means every student sits in their own simulator and practices there under supervision. And that provides much more value. And about six or seven years ago, Karl Slesak from the DHV wrote to me because he had seen a Facebook picture of mine where all 14 of my students were sitting inside a simulator.
And he said, hey Xandi, that looks like the classroom of the future to me. I think it's really, really good that every student is inside their own training device. And it's been developing like that, to the point where the associations are now saying they'd like to make simulator training mandatory in flight schools.
I think with the DHV it's even at that point now, right? That they're now saying, for new instructor training or new training guidelines, that they're saying simulator training is somehow also prescribed as part of the program. Or it should be, it should definitely be.
I think, exactly. It should be. I think it's reached the point where it should be, I believe in Austria as well since this year. And I think this approach is really, really good. Because every exercise you can do down there will ultimately have more quality up in the air. Because you can simply rule out and correct faulty movements down there already.
Now you said you've developed a second version of your simulator.
Why do you need a second one, or what did you improve this time?
It's about the topic of visualization. As we both know, in flight schools, there's a straight wooden board with lines or rubber bands attached to it. And I just thought to myself, who comes to a flight school? Who wants to book a course? Well, those are, let's say, pedestrians who, 90 percent of the time, had nothing to do with aviation in their lives before. Of course, there are skydivers, sailplane pilots, model aircraft enthusiasts, or people like that who already understand the aerodynamic stuff. And they will take this course with a completely different approach than, say, a pedestrian who has never seen before how the whole thing behaves. And for me, it was about the topic of visualization, that the profile ribs in this simulator are fully movable. That when you press the speed bar, you see exactly how the angle of attack changes from large to small.
When you pull the brakes, you can see how the rear of the glider curves down and where the limits are. You can put the ears out on this simulator and see a huge amount of drag on the outermost rib. Meanwhile, when you put the ears out, the brakes also go up automatically. So it actually works, or when you fly at high speed, the brakes go up. It actually works just like on a real paraglider, and the whole thing, visualized and represented, can only be helpful for this pedestrian who is being confronted with the topic of aviation for the first time. Because we know, each of us has a slightly different approach to learning. One person is more of a knowledge-seeker. The other is the visual type, who has to see and grasp something in order to understand it. The other delves deeper into formulas and gets their understanding that way.
And I'm just trying to get a bit more understanding into those students who definitely fall into the "I have to see it, I have to be able to grasp it to understand it" category through the topic of visualization. That was the only approach where I said I want people to see the whole thing and be able to represent it visually. And then it's certainly easier to understand.
What people listening to this right now can't see, but I can, because I'm connected to you on screen. There's something hanging behind you. And it's not a straight beam anymore, but a curved beam, let's say, that looks a bit like a paraglider. And then, as you're saying, you can see the ribs there; they're also made of wood, like pre-shaped ribs. But they're also deformable again, you said?
These ribs are also fully movable over two axes. Yes, so when you pull the brakes, a kink point forms about a quarter of the way along the rear leading edge. This kink point usually occurs on a paraglider when you go into a full stall. At some point, the profile starts to bend backward, and that is illustrated with a joint and rubber, as well as at the front third of the profile rib. You can almost see that again with a joint and rubber that if you're flying at a very small angle of attack and are at full acceleration, you can already see how the front part of the rib moves slightly downward by one or two degrees. And if at that moment you briefly pull on the A and want to initiate a front collapse, for example, then these front profile ribs move and flip just like on a paraglider too, until the angle of attack drops below the limit and the thing collapses.
You can still do something with this version—this is just the first version—now there might be creative pilots or instructors out there who say, "Hey, I can still cover the whole thing with three spans of sailcloth," and then the whole thing can be tuned even more to be like a paraglider, let's say. So it's moving more and more in the direction that the thing should function and also look like a paraglider.
I mean, maybe the covering wouldn't be so great, because I think that as it is now, naked, and you can see the frame, you can probably see what's actually happening in terms of shape in the paraglider best. You probably see it best...
best. Those are just ideas that came up because I posted it on Facebook once and some people said, hey, we could also cover that with the sail cloth. So there are options; whoever wants to do that is welcome to. So this is the basic framework for now, and anyone can tinker with it however they like.
Are you that skilled with your hands, or how did you come up with the idea? I mean, I can imagine the crossbar, but how do you build a rib like that? I mean, it's made of wood, but it's great. It's still resistant to buckling, and you've put rubber bands in there and other stuff. Did you build 37 prototypes to get to the solution you have now?
I probably had 370 model airplanes from my early childhood until I was 20. Ah, an old model builder. An old-school model builder; there were no foam models back then, we used plywood, balsa wood, glue, and superglue only came later. So, the knack for craftsmanship, my dad put that in my cradle with model building, model aviation, and so on. And prototypes, there were 3 prototypes for this project. Other prototypes are already in the works here, where in the second version, you know it from paragliders with low tension, if you pull the brakes abruptly, the canopy starts to swing slightly.
Mhm. You've probably already seen that with paragliders. So the next version will probably add an arc as an update, where this paraglider—this arc where everything hangs—can also swing 5 to 10 degrees in on brake input. Mhm. Yeah. And the ideas just don't stop, but now... You can do that sort of
Full stall, it also kind of folds back so slowly, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And in the
at the exact same moment you reach the stall point, you suddenly drop 5 cm because you're holding a three-ring system in the upper part. Yes,
Exactly. And
then you can have that little jolt of falling downwards when the stall kicks in. So there are still many ideas and such. I don't think I'll be bored next winter, I believe.
Okay. That means Icaro is sold. Whether you'll do any more test flights for it is the question. But at least you have plenty to do with your simulators, which you can continue to develop.
Yes, in any case. Yes, yes. It's really motivating.
Now you're saying that if you look at these simulators, you could learn so much for practical use. Since you also mentioned that you started doing this in your SIV training stuff years ago, did you actually notice that by introducing these simulators, you basically achieved a quality gain or a real leap in understanding for the people? That you said, this is the way to go? I mean, I know in all
Cases like the version from Chris Geist, an old good colleague of mine, who says you learn to fly by flying. Of course, I can also emphasize that, it fits. For me in Gerlitzen, it's like this: I want to work as efficiently as possible. I don't want a single rescue deployment where something happens somewhere in the air while they're trying it out. I really want movement sequences, for people to learn the movement sequence here with me on the ground and then apply the correct movement sequence immediately in the air. And with the use of the simulators, especially with the accelerated maneuvers—accelerated side collapse, accelerated front collapse, or a held collapse with a collapse spiral and so on—I get so much compensated for in the simulator at the beginning.
You won't believe how difficult it often is for people to perform a sequence of movements like pulling the A-riser down, letting go, getting out of the speed bar with the weight on the collapsed side, while catching the outer wing with the weight on the collapsed side, staying there, and then releasing the brake and, if the collapse inside isn't open yet, opening the collapse inside with a brake input. So, that's a sequence of movements that happens in a timeframe of two to three seconds. Out of the gas, move with it, catch, release, open inside with a brake input. And this sequence of movements often takes at least 20 repetitions for some people, and I'd say that's normal, until that sequence is set.
Many people initiate the collapse. The collapse happens, and they move with the weight to the collapsed side, but unfortunately, they stay in the gas or are practically... You can see how the pilots then operate the collapse brake. What is the arm position like? Is the arm bent? Is the arm extended? Everyone has their own way of doing it, and I can correct all of that down in the simulators. And I know from experience, since I've been training with these simulators, I've had more success with the participants from the very beginning. This is the best maneuver.
Are there still things where you notice that can't be transferred from this dry run and a simulator that doesn't replicate all the movements of the paraglider—especially that jerky falling to the side or something like that, which is naturally still missing in a simulator that isn't built to be completely dynamic? Are there things where you notice the simulator just isn't enough, or do you say it provides so much that you actually always recognize progress?
Of course there are things. Especially now, for example, the steep spiral, where you were just talking about rail speeds and dynamics. In the simulator, I can really only explain the sequence—the movement sequence—of the steep spiral to people, but as soon as the rotation, the speed, and the G-forces come into play, it becomes difficult with the simulation in any case. But that's not so bad, because there's a GeForce trainer standing outside the house, and we can do the dry run of the steep spiral in the GeForce trainer, so we can simulate it in all directions, wherever it goes. So, we're well-positioned in the simulator.
Would you say that for future SIV training, for example, if someone books three days of SIV training with you, would you say that in the end it'll be enough if they spend two days completely in the simulator and only go into the air for one day?
No, no. In the air, it's still one-to-one, just as it is. But everything that was trained beforehand on the simulators is only an advantage once you're in the air. We still want to fly a lot and not just simulate. And well, in the future, I don't know what it'll be like with stable weather, but anything I can combine with simulator training on non-flying days or phases can only be helpful, I think.
Well, you said the DRV is also already... I mean, Karl Slezak approached you and said, "Ah, I think that's great, that might be the way of teaching in the future" and stuff like that. Do you see a simulator—I mean, you're using it now for SIV training, where you can actually say, "I can do these basic sequences for very specific maneuvers"—but does a simulator also really have a place in basic training? Does it actually offer any advantages there?
Yes, thanks a lot for that input. Germany and Austria, they have a syllabus. And the flight schools are required to fulfill that syllabus. I've taken the syllabus for basic training or for the normal pilot license training. So, and on the topic of flight practice and environmental aspects—I'm quoting the Austrian syllabus here—at point 2.8, for example, if the flight school wants to fulfill the syllabus, they have to go through canopy disturbances and extreme flight conditions with the students. So, what does it say in there? No, collapse, front collapse, stable front collapse, wing drop, stall, tumbling on approach, prolonged tumbling, deep stall, stable deep stall, correction methods and common errors, special landing procedures, slope landing, top landing, water landing, landing in power lines, cable cars, and so on.
I recognize it... But now this is
theoretical training, that's not
practical training. Yes, exactly, exactly, that's theoretical training. So, now we have the problem on one hand that if you want to become a flight instructor here in Austria, you don't have to perform all the maneuvers I just listed during the practical exam. In today's practical exam for flight instructors here, you have to perform a held collapse for over 3 seconds, faster 8, 21 seconds, roll, pitch, take off, land, and a descent aid, whether it's a spiral approach or a Pestold. So, a state-certified flight instructor must demonstrate these in practice so that they can then teach the maneuvers I just listed to fulfill the syllabus.
And if it's taught that way—let's take a flight instructor who basically meets these minimum requirements and is teaching these canopy malfunctions and is supposed to teach extreme flight conditions—then, in my opinion, dangerous half-knowledge is being plausibly conveyed. And nothing else. And that's why I thought, we should generally today in the year 2026 have requirements for a flight instructor that haven't changed in the last 25 years. The maneuvers, the paragliders, the performance of the paragliders, the different categories we have, hike-and-fly, cross-country flight, light cross-country flight, acrobatic flight, and normal paragliding. So, in terms of development,
a lot has been done in terms of development. The equipment has become more sophisticated; some of it has also become, well, some is safer, some probably not. But the flight instructor requirements are still the same as they were 20, 25, 26 years ago. Nothing has changed there. And as long as we have flight instructors out there who can show a lot of theoretical knowledge but no practical skills, I find it difficult that these instructors should be teaching canopy collapses in theory classes. Because what are they supposed to tell them? I don't find that instruction to be authentic. And that's why I've been thinking, I want to include this simulator for aviation law, for equipment knowledge, and for aerodynamics, and I've come up with a small suggestion—let's say a small suggestion for flight schools.
You
You're not a flight instructor yourself. Not in the sense that you own a flight school and train people from scratch. You're doing this now as a suggestion for flight schools that do that. It's based on my experience as a safety trainer and how I would convey things.
The association asked me once; they invited me to an experts' meeting. It was about the topic of avoiding accidents. That was the point. And they asked me, Xandi, what do you think, how could we avoid accidents? And regarding the topic of flight practice, what do we have prescribed? We have to teach four hours of flight practice in the flight schools. To go back to the question, yes, I am a flight instructor. No, I don't have a flight school. But I am invited to flight schools from time to time to teach on various topics, mostly it's flight practice.
And my approach would be that flight practice is a very important topic because, in the end, we're all up in the air. According to the statistics that the associations always release, most accidents happen during canopy malfunctions near the ground. This is because pilots basically react incorrectly to canopy malfunctions. If the pilot reacted correctly, you could definitely cover for a lot of things again. But because of the incorrect reaction, there are several more accidents. How do I manage this as a flight school, so that after my pilots get their license, when it comes to extreme flight conditions—as they should be taught according to the syllabus—my pilots become fitter in the future and actually have better background knowledge than before after maintaining their license?
That's how the whole thing would work. As I said, we have our four subject areas: flight practice, aviation law, aerodynamics, and aircraft systems and meteorology. And my suggestion for the flight school would be the following. Let's start with the topic of flight practice. What do we learn there? We learned about curved flight, how to correctly set the wings, we learn how to fly efficiently and safely in an accelerated flight state. And of course, we should also cover all the topics like wing collapse, nose collapse, spirals, autorotation on approach, and stalls—these should also be taught now.
Alright, I'll do that for the first four hours as prescribed. For flight practice, I'm going to try to discuss this topic with the students and then practice it in the simulator as well. That means, if a side collapse occurs, what is the correct sequence of movements for a side collapse without acceleration? The non-accelerated sequence for a side collapse: pull your legs in, look up, the direction of movement goes in—so let your weight fall into the collapsed side and then stabilize the outside wing with the outside brake. Alright, I'll do that for four hours. The next lesson will probably take place a week later, and that would be the topic of aviation law. On Saturday, I was in Salzburg at the Austrian flight instructor meeting and was allowed to give a small presentation there, and I asked the group, "Hey guys, flight instructors, what's the situation? Who of you does aviation law lessons via Zoom meeting?"
so that you don't have to travel as far, and who else is still classically in the classroom with all the students in a frontal teaching setup. During a Zoom meeting, one flight instructor pointed out that we are still really, truly old-school, that even for air law we're all still in that "back to school" vibe, everyone still sitting nicely in school, and I really liked that. And then I thought, okay, my people, then I'll give you a little incentive, maybe how could we have safer pilots, how could we make the air law topic over four hours—authority structure, insurance, etc.—how could we loosen up the lesson and also give this lesson a certain added value. So, the example looks like this now.
For example, last week we had flight practice where we went through all the maneuvers. So, I'm actually curious now what stuck after this week, and I'll check that in the aviation law class. For instance, we start the aviation law class with the topic of organizational structure. Organizational structure—oh, organizational structure—it's a tough topic; after ten minutes or fifteen, the first ones are already checking out because it's hard to listen to. So we say in the aviation law class, "Guys, pay attention, get into your harnesses," but we do it like this: please do it with your eyes closed, fasten your harness before we start the lesson. So, fastening the harness with your eyes closed means the student is already busy from the start just with tactile skills and has to try to find the buckle with their eyes closed and do it, so that they're properly hooked in at the end.
Alright, if that worked, then we say, folks, we're starting the topic of authority structure now; it's a tough topic, we want to get through it quickly, everyone get full on the speed bar now. So, I'll have everyone get full on the speed bar and then I'll see what stuck from last week and who's suddenly wrapped up in the brake with full throttle. Then you can already say, hey folks, what did we say last week? Full speed, release the brakes. Ah, yes exactly, release the brakes. So, now I'll let you zoom through the authority structure at full throttle for 10 minutes, and after 5 minutes, maybe a student's knees will start shaking because he notices that after 7 minutes of flying at full speed, maybe the harness isn't quite right in its adjustment, maybe the student notices he should maybe do a few laps to train his thighs so he doesn't get shaky legs when flying at full speed.
Because in practice, it often happens that you only have to stand on the speed bar for 10 minutes.
Quick side question, on your simulator, is there so much pressure on the speed bar when you step into it that you might actually get shaky knees after 10 minutes, or maybe 5? Not me, but maybe others. Yeah, okay.
And then, when I have you flying around like that accelerating and I go through the authority structure, I can already see it slowly—after 5 to 7 minutes, it gets exhausting communicating the authority structure, then my image on the overhead project changes. No, we're not at the overhead, we've already beamed to the wall. So, overhead...
is so 80s. Yeah, definitely.
That was a long time ago. At that time, the dead were probably even sicker. We're in the Beamer era, which means we have the authority structure at the top of the Beamer and the people are moving at full speed, and at the same moment, while I'm teaching, my teaching voice stops and at the same moment the image switches from the authority structure to an image where you can see a collapsed paraglider from the pilot's perspective. So, just as the pilot is sitting under the glider, suddenly an image appears on the Beamer and we have a collapsed canopy with 60% asymmetric collapse. So, and now I look at my students' reactions. One gets wide eyes, the other thinks to himself, why isn't the lesson continuing, the other might come to the conclusion of getting out of the harness, going with it, braking on the outside, staying on the inside side while braking.
That means I'm trying to actively pull my student out of the topic of aviation law and authority structure, and now he gets a flash image—basically, he gets a non-verbal impulse and has to react correctly to this image he's seeing. And I tell my group the following: the next three or four hours of aviation law instruction will look like this. We'll do five to seven minutes of aviation law, what's important, and then you'll always get a reaction image from me. So, this reaction image is either a side collapse, a front collapse, a tangled glider, or a rosette during the reopening of a front collapse. Let's take those four topic areas out for now. And every time such a non-verbal impulse in the form of an image appears on the video wall,
then the people have to perform the correct sequence of movements while simultaneously saying the corresponding phrase. And at the end of the entire lesson sequence, I imagine it best like this: I throw in the image of the collapse one more time and the whole group, like with one voice, goes full throttle, brakes out of the wing. A group dynamic is created. I manage to establish a connection between the image and the pilot's reaction. And the whole thing should be somewhat automated after the aviation law lesson, because we know we only learn things through repetition. And the more repetitions, the better each and every person will understand it. I don't want to try anything other than having the pilot react correctly immediately when they see such an image.
How did I come to this? In SIV training or also in my club, it happens from time to time—people get a collapse, and every now and then it happens that someone basically steps on the brake during a front collapse and ends up having real problems because of it. And then people always come to me wanting to talk. And I ask, what happened in the air? Yeah, I don't know, I don't understand it. What did you see? Yeah, the glider was just a ball once, and then it was there, and then it was there. I had no idea what was going on anymore. Can you briefly describe what you saw? No. No one can describe to me what they saw. Yeah, where would they get that from? They know it from the explanations of how they were taught it at the flight school.
That was ages ago. It was never properly trained. It was never properly reinforced. So how is the pilot supposed to handle his front collapse or mixed-form front collapse? There's everything now that can cause a gust to hit us. And all I'm trying to do in the school during pilot training is, for every canopy malfunction that I build up beforehand with these exercises, provide the correct reactions along with a saying, so that I train people so that in the future, if they hear a rustle up there and look up, they don't have to think anymore, but simply know immediately what to do now. And this form of teaching, I can incorporate that now at the beginning with aviation law. That means, as I said, during aviation law, I can give the people a picture every five to seven minutes until it really flows and it has sunk in.
Next week, for example, we have meteorology. Meteorology can run exactly the same way. So, I'll explain the cloud types to the people once, for example, and what they're all called with their Latin names—that's important. And then I'll have them sit nicely in the simulator again and give them a live image of a cloud next, which we can take as cross-country pilots or just record, showing that we're about 1,500 meters in the air and there's a large cumulonimbus a few kilometers ahead of us. And amidst all these cloud types, I'll suddenly put in a live image, have my students sitting in the simulator, and say, "Hey guys, look, you're flying right there, there's the cloud, what do you do now?" So, I don't think anyone will pull a full-throttle collapse from the last unit, but maybe one or two will get the idea to tuck their ears in, or maybe try a P-stall.
The other person might get the idea that they're flying full throttle towards the CP because they hear the good lift there. So, I'm basically using weather images to give people a picture of a cloud, and based on that cloud image, they should immediately know what to do in the next situation. And I also want everyone to unbuckle from their harness and say, "Today is not a flying day," as soon as I play in a few Föhn lenses.
But they're already in the air. Yeah, exactly. Unbuckling is a bad idea. Yeah, exactly.
And so I can basically work with the cloud images using the simulator as well. Even so, I still want to keep manifesting and repeating my accelerated side collapses, front collapses, front rosettes, and hanging images—repeat, repeat, repeat. Next, because we're not finished yet, next comes the topic of equipment knowledge, for example. So, with the topic of equipment knowledge, this simulator is quite nice because it can also nicely illustrate some of the topics we cover in equipment knowledge. And with the topic of equipment knowledge, I now want to switch from the images—that is, from the still images to moving images. That means I'm now getting
a small image, because if I work with images in the previous lessons, an image, a still image, gives me time to react, gives me time to interpret, and I can react to it comfortably, although it should get faster and faster with the repetitions. If I switch to moving images now, meaning the glider flies straight ahead, gets a collapse,
With the moving images, I also have the soundscape included now, because their collapse brings with it a certain rustling, a certain banging, so this whole soundscape is supposed to be added in the third lesson unit as well. People, pay attention, so we have weather theory, bam, and then I play a video, the glider flies straight ahead for five seconds so that the student can briefly put themselves back into the situation, and now the canopy collapse happens in real time, and in real time I try to train my pilots to master the whole thing in the right timing as well. And so I can include every lesson unit of my curriculum that I have to fulfill with these exercises, I can loosen up the lesson, because after four hours of air law, when they've flown their 20-30 collapses and all that,
during the break, he'll come out completely different; he won't be totally brain-dead and thinking "I need some fresh air, I'm just trying to focus." That means I can make the lessons more active, I can provide more value, and I can train my participants better.
and I can be a huge added value because I'm constantly repeating this complex movement sequence in every single lesson. And I think that makes for better teaching, and in the end, it will probably bring the accident numbers down.
There are two things I'm wondering about. One thing is, what remains of the theoretical part of the lesson—air law and all that—how much actually sticks if you have these "shock moments" in between? I mean, how much will you be distracted, and the brain, yeah, it goes into flight mode or whatever, and says, everything that involves understanding right now, I'm switching that off; I just have to react now to be able to survive. So, how much does that basically interfere with absorbing the rest of the material? Do you have any experience or an idea about that? I think,
if I take them out of the topic for a moment through these shock images—no, let's not say shock images, it's not supposed to be a shock—through these impulse images, and they have to do a few body movements and are out for a second, and then I continue with my lesson, I could view that as a break in the meantime, where the pilot now has to do something physically and has to move. And because we repeat all these procedures several times the first time, and honestly, in 2026, when air law is taught by an air law specialist who presents his perfectly prepared lesson with images, authority structures, this and that, it's fine, but the student who falls asleep after fifteen minutes will pick up just as little as if he just tuned out, and air law is a topic that you learn at home in the end, and I can also ask the AI at the end,
Let's say everything about Austrian aviation law, and you can just binge-read that. I have to put the right marks in the boxes for aviation law during the exam. If you have canopy malfunctions near the ground, you'd have to know the authority structure relatively little. That means I think that flight practice and these exercises I described should ultimately be given a bit more importance than the topic of aviation law itself, because you can learn that at home; it's not rocket science.
A second question that occurred to me: people don't have that much flight experience yet, they might be real beginners, and some of them might have just stood on the practice slope and are now starting with theory and getting shown all sorts of stuff like collapses and other things first. How much of a deterrent is that for these people in the end? I mean, is that even in the interest of the flight schools at all, or will they say we actually want to lead them into it much more gently and that collapses should only be a topic starting from flight hour 24?
Very good point, Lucian, I've thought about that too. If the pilot, for example, gets what we'd call a shock image right from the start and the student is scared, thinking, "I imagined paragliding completely differently, it can't be that I'm being served the worst canopy images right from the beginning." I can then tell the student just as clearly, "Look, a collapse isn't anything wild; a front or side collapse is nothing wild at all, it's part of normal paragliding," and to resolve the whole thing, you can do it exactly like this: if they get their shock image of a side collapse at the beginning, I immediately play the resolution in a short video right after. That means you have this image first, then this image becomes a moving image and you see the glider collapse, the pilot makes the right move, and after a 30-degree change in direction from the original flight path, with the correct support from the outer wing, the inner wing opens, it's harmonious, and the flight continues as normal, my dears.
So I can use the image in a way that probably scares one or another, but if I play the resolution video immediately after and say, hey guys, look, with the right reaction, the thing opens harmoniously and smoothly and the flight can continue normally. It's only if you intervene incorrectly and react wrong that it can lead to stupid situations, and that's why we want you to intervene correctly and always be able to continue the flight calmly after a collapse. And flight schools, of course, that don't do that, like you mentioned earlier, they really want to accompany them through gentle, beautiful flights for a lifetime and want to sell and convey it that way, yeah, they'll end up sitting in my SIV training with wide eyes and saying, wow, I was advised pretty wrongly regarding the equipment, I didn't even know that this and that device functions like this and that.
and I'm the one in the safety training who has to give the pilots or participants the straight truth for the first time. And for some, that's a huge "aha" moment. And those are exactly the flight students who come to me—the ones who, in the flight schools, were basically just shown the rosy side of the sky.
I'd go back to that right away, let's stay on that for a moment, stay with the simulator for a bit longer. One thing that also occurred to me is what's actually missing: you keep saying collapse, so sort of collapse training or how to react to it? A huge part of flying is actually the active flying beforehand, so that it doesn't collapse at all. But that active flying can't be trained with a simulator. Or I assume, with almost all simulators that are still relatively stiff and don't have a simulated movement in them, where the canopy tilts just a little bit to the right, and as soon as you move your hips or your weight, the weight is immediately back on both sides accordingly.
Then the thing doesn't work at all, but makes a mini-turn and then continues flying. But if you don't react to it, it might just throw the wing off. And specifically this active flying—I mean, when I see people in our club who have just finished their training, when I see them for the first time really heading out into thermals or something like that, how little active flying there is and where you're like, yeah, how can you actually train people to do that on their own? That doesn't work with a simulator yet. Or do you have an idea for that too? With this
Simulator, no, of course it doesn't work. In my research on simulators, I found on the internet—I think there's a provider in Holland—who built a really complex piece. The
I even had that in the podcast here, so he's already told it, but go ahead. So
From what I've seen, I think that's one direction where this provider can probably simulate the active flying part quite well using all that equipment and mechanics. No, my simulator can't do that. It's just a wooden bow with rubber bands on it, and often it's a bit of a catch-22 because the flight schools want to train in calm conditions. Training in thermal conditions is difficult, difficult. We usually don't want to cause any stress in calm conditions. And of course, after maintaining progress, our student who has flown in calm conditions flies through the thermals for the first time, and you can see that with paraglider pilots too, when the canopy pitches forward, there's hardly any braking impulse or anything like that.
Thank God, the gliders are pretty much safe today as far as pitching through the front is concerned. I always imagine the big front collapse coming when someone flies through the air inactively, but thank God the gliders can handle quite a lot. And that, yeah, okay, this active flying will probably continue to be a big topic at all the thermals technology seminars that the flight schools are still offering; it'll probably become a major theme again because at these seminars, you're not just flying through calm air anymore, it's getting a bit more turbulent.
If the flight schools are also being pushed by the DRV or something like that to offer simulator training now, you're going to be flooded with requests saying, "Xandi, send me 20 pieces, I need them." I have a few on Facebook...
-Just throwing out some pictures and I have 100 pre-orders now, but some are also going to Japan, Korea, Australia, America, so one or two are coming from there, people who just like this model because you can visualize it well. It's not rocket science what I've done, but they find the concept cool and there are 100 in pre-order now. I'm getting them next week; I had special boxes made so they can be shipped nicely. The boxes arrive next week and then I'll start shipping them out. I've set a promotional price of 220 euros per piece at the start, so nobody is making any profit; the whole thing benefits my club, which is still dealing with the aftermath of that stupid flood disaster. We still have some renovation work to do, and I just did the first 100 pieces for my club.
And in the future, it's going to be 100 euros more expensive for the flight schools; it costs 320 euros per piece. Many say, "Xandi, it's still way too cheap," but for me, it's not about making a lot of money right now. It's about a good product and maybe with this manual, how can I somehow get this thing integrated into all the other theory subjects, so that maybe through visualization and some more specific exercises, we can prevent some accidents in the future.
Let's change the subject a bit. You just mentioned SIV training and these students who come to you from some flight schools who are wide-eyed, saying they have the wrong equipment or whatever—how often does it happen that people come to you for SIV training for the first time and you'd say, hey, they're actually missing things from their training, they're just missing really important basics and I have to start filling in the gaps now?
Well, things have changed over the last 23 years that I've been doing SIV training; quite a bit has changed. On the positive side? Yes and no. I'll tell you the negatives now, if you want them. Both, yes, gladly. So, what has changed, generally? Let's say 20 years ago versus today, or 15 years ago versus today. What has changed? Well, what's nice is that people are arriving with their gliders 50 to 200 meters higher above the lake than before. What might not be so good is simply the better
glider performance.
But we still have more and more hang-ups with the gliders after initiating a maneuver, which is understandable given all the rods inside nowadays that, of course, promise performance—they just also like to hang up a bit more readily. Then there's the issue of the snap collapse, which has become a major topic now. So, 20 years ago, with a full-acceleration side collapse, if the pilot didn't necessarily put their weight on the collapsed side but just stayed sitting straight in it, the collapse would also open, but without such a nasty snapping effect—basically a snap collapse, as they call it. Then it's also a huge topic with the rescue gliders; 20 years ago, people were flying into the lake with light oscillations, in a straight downward motion.
Today, people are deploying the small square rescue glider, which is super small and with more
Cross-lake flights are sometimes done. So the rescuers have started flying, but that's stupid because there are many fast-flying rescuers that you can't control. So I don't really see that as much of a progress. 15 to 17 years ago, 80 percent of the participants sat inside a normal seat harness, with a proper protector and the rescue suspension on the shoulders. Today, let's say I have a course of 14 people, I have two or three of those harness models sitting in the simulator. Where the wave was not two, for example. A completely classic harness, nice protector, rescue wonderfully suspended on the shoulders. They are rather the exception today. The rest sit inside the streckengurtzeug.
Either the super light cross-country harness, which has no buckles at all. The rest sit inside the small High-Camp-Fly harness. Completely minimalist over the protector, and we don't want to talk about its effect right now. But what I find terrible about it is that because it's become a fashion trend and is completely normal, people hook the rescue glider to the main carabiner. That's not good. But nowadays, performance and weight reduction are huge topics. That means the lighter, the better. And there, the manufacturer saves another five grams to create a connection from the rescue device to the shoulders. You just hook it into the main carabiner. What the rescue releases look like, I can tell you later. But just briefly, what else has changed. Light is in, every gram has to be saved.
What's being added nowadays, you've probably seen it. Or well, I could ask my pilots once. Put down your new iPhone, the Insta360, and the power bank you carry every time because you always need to have batteries. Put that on the scale and it probably weighs 1.13 kg. The electronic equipment has increased. The gear is supposed to compensate for this weight gain. The equipment is getting lighter, but the lighter it gets, the more compromises you have to make in terms of safety. What else has changed in the last 20 years? That's funny. 20 years ago, I advertised a course, checked my two or three weather sites, listened to the weather on the radio, and then advertised the course, and there were 14 people sitting in the classroom and we started the course.
Today, it's like this: I have 14 people on the list and only 10 are sitting in the classroom, because four of them asked their personal weather app, Weather App Pro Plus, and it said the weather wasn't going to be that great, so the pilot decided not to come. But he gets his deposit back, all good. So that means electronic equipment, weather apps in every direction, every weather app is the best and tells you the lift and this and that and that, it brings the people in, so everyone is their own weather specialist and if someone thinks the weather doesn't suit them for the course, then they just won't go at all. And what else has changed? Nowadays, there are even providers for paraglider SIV training who even recommend staying inside the gas during a full-speed collapse.
Oof, that's a very, very sensitive topic, but that's basically what I've noticed in broad strokes. The gear hasn't changed, it's just gotten better, it's gotten lighter—whether it's gotten safer is up for debate. And people are more connected than ever, they're their own weather specialists, and while electronic equipment is important, the weather has to be perfect and the gear has to be too.
That covers a few good points. Just to follow up. You said this tendency for collapse has increased. Mhm.
What does that depend on? I mean, what is that related to? Why are modern gliders more prone to collapse?
And how heavy are some of them? Well, it's about performance. How do I get performance out of the paraglider? I get performance by building my nice performance profile into a glider, and I want to introduce as little tension as possible into this profile or this paraglider. Tension means I pull the leading edge and the trailing edge together by a few millimeters per cell so that I achieve a geometric washout, and by pulling the canopy together like this, I create a stable canopy that is quite resistant to collapsing. The only problem is, the more tension I put in, the more my performance takes a hit.
Now, as a manufacturer, I try to keep the tension as low as possible and I want to compensate for this tension with internal pressure. That means the more internal pressure I can achieve in my canopy—the Sharknose is, for example, a big topic because this circulation flow creates good pressure, allowing me to build in less leading-edge tension. This means that for high-performance gliders, it should be reduced to the geometric taper with the tensioning of the canopy, and everything else is handled via internal pressure. So, now let's get to the topic of the snap collapse. How does it work? Imagine we fly straight into an accelerated turn and we get our 60% side collapse. At that moment, we should...
get out of the gas and, if possible, put the entire weight on the collapsed side. If—and the snap collapse happens now—if we don't have the full weight on the collapsed side, but put parts of our weight on the side that's still flying, physics teaches us that a paraglider with very, very little loading behaves very calmly, doesn't overshoot much, and a paraglider with very high loading reacts very, very dynamically. If I have a side still flying during an accelerated side collapse, and at that moment I'm not on the collapsed side with my weight, but on the side that's still flying, then this half wing that's still in the air, when it gets loaded with weight now,
it naturally has the motivation, I'm getting load on it, I want to fly faster now. At the moment it wants to fly faster, this half wing begins to accelerate. Because one side is still hanging during the collapse, this acceleration phase of the still-flying wing begins with a sort of diving phase; the half wing starts to dive. While it begins to dive, it gets filled with air from the front. If the half side is still flying now and wants to dive, it wants to dive because the pilot is hanging with the weight on the still-flying side. If the still-flying side wants to dive now, the pilot has to go into the brakes so that the canopy doesn't overshoot. So, what happens? What happens now inside the canopy? Air comes in from the front because the glider wants to dive.
And if I pull the brake at the back now, all the pressure that's at the very rear of the paraglider is pushed forward by the brake line pull. That means the glider gets air in the front. The brake input pushes the air from back to front. Where is the air supposed to divert now? Into the collapsed side. Into the closed side. And this quick exchange, so to speak—the glider is now promptly filled with air. On one hand, the air coming in the front, and on the other hand, the air I'm putting into the canopy via the brake input, the air has no other option but to flow into the collapsed side and the collapsed side snaps. It crashes open now.
So the collapse snaps open. The more internal pressure the manufacturers build into the canopies, the more important it is during this maneuver to put as little weight as possible on the still flying side. All the weight should hang on the collapsed side so that the outer wing behaves calmly, doesn't want to shoot forward, and if it doesn't shoot, it doesn't have to provide any brake input, which gives us a nice, harmonious opening.
You can see that in the interior too—you rarely look inside, but if you take a closer look at the interior of today's paragliders, especially many of the light gliders, they are incredibly hollowed out with many large holes, so theoretically, at least for starters, air could flow through them faster because there are simply fewer obstacles in there and so on. Is that something you'd say can support the fact that these modern canopies allow so much more crossflow in the wing, so that it can then flow much faster from the still-open outer wing into the collapsed inner wing because of that brake impulse you apply, so that it simply pushes it up much faster?
That's actually good for the manufacturer if he clears out as much as possible from inside the canopy, because then he has less material cost and also less weight.
Well, the ribs are just being cut out more; I don't know if he has less material cost, because that's all stuff he's basically just throwing away. Yeah, that's true.
but it gets easier, so even if it's only about a few grams that I can save there, keyword DLS for example from a manufacturer that really tries to minimize where possible, which is good too, but also, like you say, if during the certification tests—and the certification tests for the devices, they happen in such a way that the test pilot at the certification body puts their full weight into the collapsed side during a full-acceleration collapse—and then the glider passes the certification, if we deviate from this test method and the test pilot goes back and forth with their weight on the outside, then every glider nowadays won't pass this test anymore. Every glider, you say? Um, would you put it almost like that?
I'd almost say that. So in the training area for the A-class, the truly good training gliders, probably not, but anything High A or with B, High B, and C then definitely—so we definitely have this problem included there.
And are "snaps" as such just frightening for the pilot, or are they also dangerous?
Snap-buckling, I have the prototype—the prototype usually doesn't work the way you want it to—I've had several snap-bucklers that buckled terribly; I've had sails tear all the way to the trailing edge, we see gallery lines have snapped, so there are snap-bucklers especially in the prototype stage where the lines and material can't handle the whole thing due to this strong opening shock. But I've also seen it in SIV training in the High B class, for example, after a snap-buckle, two or three snapped gallery lines—it can also happen in the production series. So, on one hand, it puts a lot of stress on the material because when it buckles, you really get one-sided, point-source, very heavy loads, and at the moment the glider, where the inside buckles, that snap-buckle transfers to the riser,
from the riser, this energy is transmitted to the pilot sitting in the harness, and as soon as the glider snaps open, they get an input from the closed side. This input is so strong that there's already a major risk of twisting, because that snap on the inside doesn't naturally move with the motion as you'd want it to. With legs extended in a lie-down harness, a snap-open usually results in, perhaps, a broken gallery line, but the pilot is then twisted with their legs extended, and you really have to be careful there.
And if he stays in the gas, for example, with his legs extended, but falls properly onto the right side—meaning the collapsed side—
does that prevent the snap-back? So, if you do it right, do the gliders not snap back then? You mean if you stay in the gas? Yes, regardless of—I'd say at least in the first moment of shock, you're definitely going to stay in the gas, you'll tip over onto the collapsed side, you do everything, well, now, except maybe getting out of the gas, depending on which theory you take, but I'd say you stay in it at first out of shock, but you tip over onto the right side, which means onto the collapsed side, to load it first, to maybe prevent this snap-back effect a bit. If you really do it that way, does it prevent the snap-back, or are there gliders that actually snap back even if you do it right, roughly?
With
various harness combinations, mine is actually that, it often depends on the glider harness combination and nowadays there are harnesses on the market,
they promise that with this harness you can fly for five to six hours without getting tired because it's just extremely dampened and extremely tight. Harnesses that hardly allow for any weight shift. And there are combinations where you really have to try to avoid a snap-collapse with such harnesses. Yes, with the right technique it has still worked until now, but the pilot has to really, really push himself with this passive harness to move the weight to the collapsed side in order to actually have a harmonious opening and not a snap. So, with standard harnesses it's all easy, no problem. The gliders all do that too, because they all have a quality sail, they've been tested after that. They are tested with an acro harness, with a normal harness with a seat board, probably also every now and then with a competition harness, but with these extreme, relaxed hammock-style ones, it then becomes a problem.
And the pilot has to work really, really hard to get a harmonious opening. It's possible, but it's extremely difficult for the pilot to manage with the weight on the collapsed side.
So, that's not a very positive development in that regard. That's what you called one of the negative developments.
Regarding glider harness combinations, there was once a great report by Ertug Hus, but that was surely ten years ago. They took a standard glider model with five different harnesses, and out of those five harnesses, this glider passed the certification test with two of them, but completely failed with three. And back then, the topic of glider harness combinations had already come up. And that's where I see the problem with the advice again. Because many people come into the course and then say after their experiences, oh fuck, I was completely misadvised. So how do I get proper advice in a flight school nowadays if the flight instructor himself has no idea what he's selling and how the thing behaves in extreme flight situations.
And that's why I'd like to really raise the requirements for flight instructors in practice. So that flight instructors who are out there today teaching and who also have the right to advise and sell actually know exactly how the gear they're selling works. I have to think back to Chris again, he was a former friend in acro flying and was a test pilot for a long time. And Chris says, hey, the certification is just a snapshot in time. And the way we know Chris, he tries everything out for himself and can then decide for himself: this is good for my students, I'll sell this, and this combination isn't really good, so I'd rather leave that out. So, really good, honest, transparent advice. But those are a few guys out there as flight instructors with their flight schools, as former colleagues from the testing world and from the
competition, who really understand the craft properly and can also give really good advice and provide great, super training. But if I go back to the requirements of what a flight instructor has to do nowadays, in practice, to pass their flight instructor exam, I can't imagine them offering serious advice. But if I were to steer flight instructor training in a direction where I say, hey guys, you have to understand your craft to become a state-certified flight instructor, then you should please include everything you teach—what we just talked about regarding these extreme flight conditions, collapse, side collapse, full style, spiral, hang-gliding—that, that, that, that should please be part of the
Flight instructor exam, if someone is actually going for the flight instructor exam, they should master these maneuvers perfectly in practice with three different pieces of equipment. Namely, with a training setup, with a High-Can-Fly setup, and with a High-B setup with a liegegurtzeug. So. This aspiring flight instructor should do their exam flight through all the maneuvers with these three types of equipment, and then, once they have that, they will teach better, the instruction will be more authentic, and it will become significantly better in the consultation. Because I can't imagine a flight instructor who works through the High-Can-Fly combo through the collapse and through the side collapse, through the spin and so on, and then says, hey, that's a dangerous combo, I think I'd rather not sell that.
And I believe that one could change quite a bit by raising the requirements for flight instructors, especially regarding practical training or the practical exam. If the flight instructors simply master their craft perfectly—because they are masters, state-certified flight instructors—then I believe things will improve in training, consulting, and sales. I think that theory wouldn't be entirely wrong.
That's a nice thought, well said, nice thought. The question is always, does it pay off for the people? I mean, who wants to become a flight instructor then? Basically, with what you've said, you already need three sets of gear now, and you have to be able to fly them, and as a flight instructor, you then have to say, yes, I have three different harnesses and three different gliders, and I test everything with them or fly them through somewhat regularly, because you have to stay in practice with that.
But we're not talking about a flight instructor assistant here; we are state-certified flight instructors. Look at what someone who wants to become a ski instructor has to do today. A state-certified ski instructor. Do you think they can show up for the exam with giant slalom and pizza? Well, pizza is like plowing. Paragliding feels similar to me. So I do think so, because it says state-certified on there, and it's 2026, not '95, when freestyle and stuff like that was still a bogeyman. In '95, if we did a cross-country flight and could talk about flying, you got a flight instructor. But hey, it's 2026, so much has changed with the equipment, yet the flight instructors still have to fly the same boots as 25 years ago, and you can't really manage with that anymore, because I see the big faces, the big surprised eyes in the SIV training, "I was advised incorrectly," "I didn't know any of that."
Yeah, because the flight instructor didn't know either. And to get back to that topic—and it did come up, or you mentioned it too—yeah, if we do it this way, we won't have any flight instructors left in the future. Yeah, let's bet on it. Let's see. I know so many good, young people out there now who are into flight technique, into fullstyle, especially from the akro scene, who are dealing with all that; for them, a flight instructor exam won't be a problem at all. Because they've been dealing with this topic properly, really well, from the very beginning. I'm not afraid that we'll have fewer flight instructors in the future; I just hope that those we let through in the future with the new requirements can offer better, more authentic instruction, and that we can get the accident numbers down a bit at the start.
It's probably a pretty radical approach now, but a flight instructor has to understand their craft. And with different tools. Not just with the hammer from Einhehl, but with all the equipment. So that they really know where the differences are and what they can trust their flight student to do, or what they can't.
Well, for flight instructors, it's not just about the craft, but also a lot of psychology.
Do you see that there too?
Things where you'd say, "That's really bad"? Or would you say there are flight instructors who are actually quite good at pedagogy, but they're just missing the practical knowledge?
So, what I was criticizing earlier—nothing has changed in the practical requirements for the flight instructor exam. As for the theoretical requirements, like learning the folders or the SD card with the B on it, that gets thicker and bigger every year. That means, regarding the theoretical requirements, the guys or the training team are very much thinking about which aspects I can still include in flight instructor training now—like you said, the psychological aspect, or also pedagogy with didactics and methodology, and all the things needed to become a good teacher personality. Those are definitely being conveyed more in flight instructor training nowadays. Something has definitely changed there.
I think there are also additional modules now, even in Austria, that you can still book this year, but next year they will also become mandatory, specifically regarding the topics of psychology and communication. I think that's a great approach, although I still have to say,
You can learn some parts of being a teacher, but you have to bring a lot with you from the start to become a truly good teaching personality. I know this from my own experience; I spent four years at the Pedagogical Academy for primary school teacher training and saw several colleagues who became teachers because they enjoy working with children, but they didn't bring much with them. They passed the exams perfectly, but today they work in an office, as an accountant, or somewhere else, because they tried to learn "being a teacher" at the academy, but how you actually handle the kids in the classroom and all that—I think you have to bring a lot of that with you. Because those who didn't bring it with them aren't in their teaching jobs anymore; they're somewhere else. And those who brought it with them from the start are still motivated teachers today, really trying to teach that crowd something, and it's the same with flight instructors.
While it might not have the same impact as in primary school, it still does.
I think we need a bit more of those great teacher personalities out there, time and again. I've had bad teachers my whole life; I was also bad at school, but not because of the teachers, but because I was a lazy dog, now we're only interested in flying. Still, there were these two teachers who were really, truly good educators, and honestly, when I walked out of their lessons, the sentences, everything was still ringing in my head because that teaching had so much dynamic, it swept the whole class along with it; I can still remember those lessons today, and they were really great teacher personalities, and that's how I'd imagine my dream world—from kindergarten through primary school to the highest university, that we only have such great teacher personalities in there.
And also such great
Flight instructor. Yes, that's a big wishful thinking, but we're all working in that direction, so I definitely see the development positively. We still have room for improvement, but the development as it's happening now, I find it very positive and there's always something to do.
You're 50 now and have been flying for over 30 years. Was there ever a phase during that time when you were burnt out or when you hated flying and said to yourself, "Why did I ever take this job?" Or what does "take" mean, in a way, "make it my own"? Now, tell me...
you're making a point, but I'm going to be completely honest with you. This test flying and competition flying and all that, that was always exactly the right thing for me and that's exactly where I want to go and exactly what I want to do. And my dear Dad, he put flying in my cradle and without my Dad, nothing would have happened and the relationship, the bond between my Dad and me, he was the best dad in the world, we were also best friends, we flew competitions, so it was really, really the most beautiful father-son relationship you can imagine. Did he also fly Agro-competitions? He was there watching, but Dad gave me all the model flying and how it then led to paragliding, we were together in the field, we didn't go to any school, but we figured it out ourselves, we know what we're doing, obviously.
And at the moment when my dad was dying and I'm hanging under the cloud, supposed to be flying full-throttle collapses and side collapses, at that moment I knew it didn't fit anymore. I should actually be somewhere else at that moment, namely taking even better care of my dad instead of doing the job now, because I just don't have the headspace for it. And that's when I noticed it for the first time, when my dad was saying goodbye in those last weeks; I wasn't really able to test anymore, my head wasn't in the game, and if your head isn't there—if you take private matters with you into the air, whether it's during testing or just private pleasure flying, anything that affects you personally and you can't switch off while flying, it will also affect the flight. And testing isn't anything pretty; after a test day, you don't go home and say, "Wow, what a great flying day." After a test day, you go home and say, "I flew past the wing three times, had four hang-glides out, flew past the wing three times, fished out three times, all over frozen ground," because it's now common to test over ground and not just nicely with water and a life jacket. Everything has to be
faster and everything has to go faster today, which is why you put yourself in dangerous situations. And yeah, what's also come into play is that in my younger years, I loved my job and the prototype or the Akros glider, whatever it was, and I—we were one, we were a unit. And what did I have to lose back then? Yeah, my health and my life. Now, in the shop upstairs, I have eleven employees in good times during the summer.
A sense of responsibility suddenly hits you at 50. Ah, I can't do it like that anymore; a minor injury would take me out of the gym and affect all my employees. So, with these 50-year-olds, I don't know, no, it's actually two or three years before that, this thought kind of crept in: hey, I have more to lose with age, and that's why I approach things with more respect. So I'm a cliché. You get a bit calmer and more sensible, but even with the massive amount of experience you've gathered, you can still work professionally, in any case.
Very nice. Let's slowly head towards the end, but I have one last thing, and you can be a bit visionary or whatever for this one. Just imagine you meet a fairy godmother and she tells you that you have three wishes, but not for yourself, but something that could change the entire aviation scene. What three wishes would you make to the fairy?
So, the first thing, which I've already mentioned, the big wish would be to adjust the practical exam for flight instructors by 2026. The second wish would be to have wonderfully stable, beautiful high-pressure phases from May to September with little wind and only small cold fronts for a day or two, then beautiful flying weather again for a week. Second wish, third wish—no one is following me on that one. If the first two were already fulfilled, I'd be huge happy with the fairy godmother.
I assume you see wish number two as unrealistic. Yes, but that's exactly what a good fairy would do.
Alright, so there's only the evil fairy. Yeah, okay, okay, then it's just as unrealistic to get future glider and harness combinations into the licensing office, because you'll never finish testing and combining them, or well, it's pretty unrealistic too. I just wish for more flight instructor competence. Please, don't let everyone take this the wrong way and think the envoy means all the flight instructors out there can't fly. No, please don't take it the wrong way. I'm only talking about the requirements, the minimum requirements, we could turn those up a bit.
I'll just leave that at the end. Writing requirements for flight instructors. From that, the whole flight -practical,
practical ones
practical requirements
during the exam.
The entire aviation scene can benefit from that, because they'll be taught much more fundamentals that are also important in the real world. Xandi, thank you so much for sharing.
Thanks so much for having me on, Lucian.
Thank you very much.
You can find further links to this episode in the corresponding show notes. On the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz. Did you enjoy the episode? Then tell your flying friends about it. Give it five stars on the podcast platform you use or write a corresponding comment on the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz. Also, please become a supporter of my work. On the Gleitschirm-Blog www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com, you can find all the necessary information and links under the "Support" section on how you can continue to provide a basis for this project with a freely chosen large or small financial contribution. I thank all supporters. Start early, land late, fly far. See you soon, your Lucian.